Entries in the 'Dissemination' Category

Unity Is The Guarantee Of Victory, Part 2

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What kind of a schism was happening among the people of Israel in the time of the Maccabees, to which the holiday of Chanukah is connected?

Answer: This was a very difficult period. Our ego was growing all the time and we were compelled to overcome it. At the same time and in several stages, we didn’t succeed in overcoming our ego, and so the Greek sensation arrived. This was the sensation that it was not worthwhile to always manage this inner struggle and connect with the upper force, but rather it was possible to live a simple materialistic life, which is convenient for the body and is what is done by all the rest of the nations.

This is called the Greek approach. The Greek within a person says to him: “The main thing is physical life! We build nice houses, celebrate and enjoy life. Join us!”

The Greeks didn’t intend to enslave the people of Israel, they only wanted this formerly great and strong people to become like the rest of humanity. The Greeks were the whole of humanity in those times, its most advanced part.

But the moment that the Jews broke their connection, they caused all kinds of troubles for themselves, also including those that came from the Greeks. If we belong to the people of Israel, we cannot tear the connection between us and the connection with the higher power and begin to live like the Greeks. This is not possible for us and inevitably something will happen.

The world suddenly will feel that its inner energy, its inner Light, has become exhausted. This feeling will appear in all the nations of the world, not just in the people of Israel for everyone will stop receiving the unique power through it. So all kinds of problems and troubles will come, and the nations of the world will blame them on the people of Israel.

This will obligate the people of Israel to connect and unite again, to join together like sheep that are surrounded by wolves. The moment that we unite, the Upper Light will again begin to stream through us into the world and everything will calm down.

Everything will be calm, the pressure on Israel will disappear, the tension within Israel will decrease, and once again, controversies will again return. We will again stop being concerned about our connection and unity, will separate and invite a new wave of troubles.

That is how these waves come one after the other. We are united and connected for a particular period, we do good things for ourselves and the whole world. But after that, we drift apart from each other again, which will be bad both for us and for the rest of the world. And so the disgruntled world comes to us and adds to our suffering, forcing us once again to connect.

We complain that history has repeated itself for the entire length of our way, for all of these thousands of years and throughout the generations. But, the reason for this lies hidden within ourselves. War flares up because of a clash between the two approaches: the former approach of the people of Israel and the approach of the rest of the peoples represented by the Greeks in the story of Chanukah.

When this Greek approach penetrates the people of Israel, it creates a schism. This is the same situation we are found in today! Apparently the people of Israel are in the land of Israel, but they are not a nation because if connection doesn’t exist between us, we are simply a bunch of exiles, an ingathering of exiles.

So it is not just that we cannot bring the Light to ourselves, which is the inner energy, the security, the health, the Light, through which everything in our lives is determined. Rather, we also don’t move this Light through us to the world in order to illuminate the rest of humanity.

Today we don’t have power because there is no unity between us. And so we cannot attract the Light to ourselves or disseminate it to the whole world through us. That Light that we must distribute to other peoples is not within us, so they blame us for all their troubles and disasters.

All the sufferings that they experience are derived from that same feeling that they must get something good from the people of Israel but are not receiving it. It is necessary to hear what they are saying. There are no people in the world that will not come with accusations against the people of Israel, from the nations in Latin America to Japan, from Australia to Iceland. And we see how forcefully they make this demand. And the worse it gets in the world, the stronger these demands will be towards Israel.
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From the program “A New Life” 12/11/14

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Back To Our Roots

laitman_229Just as healthy people can be infected by others, so can each of us be infected by another person and use his ego incorrectly instead of correcting and healing it.

We see how this happens every day when the media are manipulating people and bombarding us with different viruses and we swallow the bait and then infect one another by it.

Every paper is owned by a tycoon who is linked to a political movement. Everyone is under the supervision of higher officials and it is the same all the way to the top while we have no idea who is behind presidents, banks, etc. People may not really understand that they are doing something wrong, but they have no choice. There is nothing we can do about it. This system operates like leprosy and infects the whole world.

Question: Can it be healed?

Answer: Of course! Eventually everything will reach the end of correction and perfect harmony, but we want it to happen quickly and smoothly. Swallow a pill and get well! It is the same in spirituality. You join a healthy society and get the right treatment from them and get well!

The problem is that all the people in the world and especially those who are at the top have realized that there is no other way and that this is the only way. They are already very close to realizing that there are ways to learn how to advance along this path.

There is nothing but that. A step to the left, a step to the right and we sink into great afflictions, both generally and privately. Even the reduction of the world population from seven or eight billion people to one billion people will not solve the problem. It would be useless because new problems will arise. It will also be useless to keep on working in order to increase the number of zeros in the bank because we print money and understand how useless it is.

Therefore the ideology of our leaders should gradually change internally. This has already started. Today everything is advancing very quickly since we are all in a closed space, in one system. What happens to the masses will eventually happen to the top. There is nowhere to hide! The only problem is the lack of cooperation between people, the lack of mutual bestowal and balance.

We should attain the correction not by a dramatic act of healing but in a light and quick matter, by understanding that we have to reach one thing: finding the best way to develop in the right direction with the revelation of our freewill.

We are already developing, implementing, and disseminating this method to the masses so that it will reach them gradually. In the meantime it is very difficult to offer it directly because we are speaking about a spiritual way in which everyone is equal; each one is different and everyone is equal. How can this be done? We have to expose the masses to integral education. The rebuilding of a person is the rebuilding of the whole society.

It is said: “Be gentle with the sons of poor people since the Torah will come from them.” If a person is poor, which means that he feels that he has nothing and he has to discover the meaning of life, he will succeed. We have to disseminate the idea of integral education here in Israel. We may need to reach those at the top somehow and convince the leaders that this should actually be the internal political direction and the internal ideology of the people. In fact we are returning to our roots.

This doesn’t contradict Zionism and socialism! In fact we can unite all the policies and all the streams around our ideology and no one will object to it. Of course, anyone can say that is just like what he has to offer since everyone wants to show off with mutual love, bestowal, and connection. But where are they all? Does anyone have a clear method and a way to implement it? We don’t see it despite all the nice promises our leaders make. They reach the government and they have the means, but what’s next? Eventually they also sink into the same swamp.

Therefore, we have to present our method in actions and then people will see that these aren’t just promises like all the other leaders make when they speak nicely but do not keep their promises.

The difference is that we present the way to implement the method by an example of a certain city, and say that the same can be done throughout the country. See our statistics compared to other areas in the country. These are not just empty declarations of those running for the government positions.

I believe in setting a personal example, which is the proof of what can be done in our country. Then the people will vote correctly, meaning for an ideology of correction and connection between people. This will really correct, connect, protect, and raise us to the next level in which we will have to be a light unto the nations. Just as a small town in Israel can be an example for the whole country, and our country should become an example for the whole world.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/19/14

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We Cannot Lie Down On The Ground

laitman_750_03Question: Does the world need to know that the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about the mission of the people of Israel?

Answer: Certainly. We must tell everyone that we have discovered our essential role according to which we must attain the same unity that once was among us. Only this time we don’t apply this role to ourselves but in order to become the Light for the whole world and to give it as an example.

We understand those who hate us because of our “invalid operation.” Because they feel that they depend on us for everything. And so we truly begin to organize ourselves like that, to serve them faithfully. Now we understand why we have returned to the land of Israel.

We understand what our role is: we must establish a nation here as an example that demonstrates how to live together not according to the laws of the capitalists of the West, but according to the laws of the wisdom of Kabbalah, as one person with one heart, in equality, in reciprocity, in unity and love.

This is what we must show to and tell everyone. Humanity requires this already and it is suffering from not having this method of connection and unity.

And so the world will say to our Middle Eastern neighbors: “Be quiet! Let them do what they want. After all, they are doing this for all of us.”

If we behave like this, it will cause no opposition. After all, the people have been expecting this from us throughout all of history. For thousands of years they have said to us that we are the cause of evil for the whole world, in other words, that we have not carried out our mission. We have supposedly hidden away the key for happiness or we are sitting on the faucet of the pipe of abundance and are not opening it. So it follows that the world suffers because of us.

Question: Doesn’t this seem like arrogance on our part?

Answer: They acknowledge their dependence upon us themselves. What arrogance is this talking about? Apparently, according to our nature, we wanted to “bury” ourselves as deeply as possible among the nations, “to lie down on the ground,” to disappear from view. But again and again they focus their attention on us and elevate us so that we will show them the good life, provide them with a good example, and teach them how to live.

Even before the establishment of the nation of Israel we should have proclaimed openly: “We are going to the land of Israel to build a nation here according to the laws of the wisdom of Kabbalah, according to the inner laws of nature. We are going to show everyone how a nation that lives according to the laws of mutual unity and love should look. This is so all of the nations will ultimately unite with each other.”

This is what should have been done, then we would not have encountered any resistance, not even the smallest, from any side. For the force of nature, the law of nature is acting here. If we activate it, yearn for correction, the goal of creation, there are no obstacles on the way.

Question: And what is this law?

Answer: It says that all of us must be a single whole as one person with one heart. This applies to the whole world. It is written: “…for My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isaiah 56:7), “…and all nations shall flow unto it” (Isaiah 2:2). The people of Israel must be “…a Light of the nations” (Isaiah 49:6), because in itself it is a “…kingdom of priests, and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). This means that we must be teachers, an example.

This role has been incumbent upon us since the days of ancient Babylon and the global crisis that erupted at that time. Today we have reached its next and final round. That’s it; there will no longer be any more delays and setbacks. If we unite now and provide humanity with an example, we will solve all of the problems in the world and our own.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 11/25/14

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The Order Of Development

laitman_947 Question: In the external public we work with, does the ego grow? Do they feel this growth or is their ego poured into us?

Answer: The main thing is what we get. Certainly the ego of the masses also increases, but it changes its form; it becomes organized on a higher level. It could be that some of them reach a state in which the point in the heart breaks out, for there are still many people in the external world in whom the point in the heart is working internally and in the meantime hasn’t been revealed externally.

And there are also those in whom it is not revealed; they connect with us as an additional part of us and suddenly they get everything that we have gained through our continuous effort. That is how the order of development is revealed.
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From the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14, Lesson 3

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Learning To Live In An Integral World, Part 2

laitman_254_01Baal HaSulam, Article “The Freedom”: It turns out that when humankind achieves its goal, with respect to the success of the bodies, by bringing them to the degree of complete love of others, all the bodies in the world will unite into a single body and a single heart, as written in the article, “The Peace.” Only then will all the happiness intended for humanity become revealed in all its glory.

Humanity needs to reach a state in which everyone attains spirituality and the complete revelation of the Creator.

Baal HaSulam, The Study of The Ten Sefirot, Volume 3, Ohr Pnimi, Item 88: All our dealings with the prayers and the practical Mitzvot are in order to clarify time and time again and to raise all the souls that dropped from the First Man and fell to the shells, until they are brought back to their initial root, as they were before the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, which means that before the sin of the Tree of Knowledge First Man was already in his ultimate wholeness.

No more, no less. We must correct the whole shattering that the First Man (Adam HaRishon) underwent and to restore him to the corrected state. All the people in the world should reach the complete revelation of the Creator.

Baal HaSulam: In our generation when every individual needs the help of every state in the world to attain his own happiness (since we are living in a global integral world), the individual must be enslaved to the whole world like a cogwheel in a machine.

We are all like cogwheels in the same mechanism, totally dependent on one another to such an extent that no one can reach correction unless everyone else is corrected. At the moment it doesn’t concern us since we are only on the first level of correction, before the revelation of the Creator. There are 125 other levels of the spiritual ladder before us and the higher we ascend this ladder, the more we will have to expand and the more people we will have to include in the process of correction in order to reveal the upper world. This is especially true today when our world has become integral.

Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”: Therefore, the possibility of making good, happy, and peaceful conducts in one state is inconceivable when it is not so in all the countries in the world, and vice versa.

It is impossible to reach a good life in one country only. Today everyone understands this point. On the contrary, if it is bad in a certain place, it will be bad for everyone. It is a pity that politicians don’t understand this.

So how can we attract people to correction? We can succeed with quantity and we can succeed with quality. There can be a very small but strong group of Kabbalists, but sometimes it is the other way around, when the average is low but the size of the group compensates for that by the number of members, 30, 49, or 70 people.

There is a hero in quantity and a hero in quality just like in our life. If I have to move a load from one place to another, I can do it with the help of several “heroes,” but if I don’t have any “heroes,” I can do the same job with a much greater number of ordinary people.

The same is true with regard to the wisdom of Kabbalah. It is clear that we should yearn for quality, but we shouldn’t underestimate quantity, since it is also very helpful. Even if we are small, we can manage if there is a quantity and we might do the job even faster.

There is a great advantage to a large number of participants. If one of them falls, another rises. Everyone helps one another, and the fact that they are all on different levels and in different states makes it easier to carry out the work. Therefore, we have to make sure that the group expands, grows, and “gets fat.”

Baal HaSulam, “The Last Generation,” Part 2: The inclination of life is to carefully attain adhesion for the sake of the Creator alone, or to award the masses with adhesion with the Creator.

This means that we have to reach adhesion with the Creator while still alive. This is precisely the reason we were born in a corporeal body, which means that we have received an extra ego called a body. Now we have to rise above the ego and to adhere to the Creator and connect to Him.

Baal HaSulam says that this is everyman’s goal. But if you cannot attain it, you will be able to do so by disseminating the wisdom of Kabbalah to others. As it says: …Thus you can learn that the inclination of life is to carefully attain adhesion for the sake of the Creator alone, or to award the masses with adhesion with the Creator. Baal HaSulam, “The Last Generation,” Part 2.

Every person has his own work style. There are those who engage in dissemination and others study, which means that they engage either in an external or an internal correction, each according to his abilities.
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From the Congress In Verona “Day Two” 11/22/14, Lesson 4

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Kabbalah For Everyone

laitman_262Comment: I was introduced to a new book, Why Ones Are Loved, and Others – Not, And How to Make Oneself to Be Loved. It addresses issues of what a man and woman need from each other in order to maintain peace and harmony in their relationship for a long time, whether they should marry, what, in fact, love between them is?

The book says all that will be clarified if they observe each other a little and reflect on what is happening, using the ancient knowledge of the science of Kabbalah.

Answer: Kabbalah is a very high science. It is close to me like biocybernetics, which studies the management of biological systems. But in principle, it is impossible to talk to an average person from this height.

However, when you begin to explain to people those fragments of life that they cannot balance, the relationship between themselves, for example, men and women, parents and children, an employee and employer, roommates, or neighbors, etc., it turns out that Kabbalah can be explained in simple terms.

Therefore, we publish such manuals and books that are popular precisely because people feel that it could be useful for them. They do not understand lofty matters.

These books are written in simple language and although it seems that they are very far from Kabbalah, they are based on its ideas because it studies the homeostasis of the control systems between us: balance of the human internal system and relationships between people.

In principle, the wisdom of Kabbalah can be defined as a system of knowledge that helps to balance our relationships so that harmony between reception and bestowal of everyone to everyone else is manifested so that we become connected like cogwheels in a single mechanism. After all, we represent a complete closed integral system.

Uniting in such a system, people start to feel inner harmony within it, which manifests itself in a person and gives him a sense of the next level of existence.
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From KabTV’s “A Special Opinion” 8/17/14

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The Whole World Is Ancient Babylon

laitman_944Question: Recently, you gave a series of lectures in the United States. Who was your audience?

Answer: My audience is ancient Babylon from where Abraham wanted to take all the people and bring them to the next level of existence.

We do not divide anyone by their skin color nor on any other grounds; we relate to all of humanity exactly in the same manner. After all, who are the Jews? They are those who in their desire try to find the meaning of life followed by Abraham. There are millions of such people today.

Question: Do you believe that the Jewish people are chosen?

Answer: By the Jewish people, I mean those who are descendants of the Babylonians who followed Abraham and created the people on the basis of the rule of “love thy neighbor as thyself,” i.e., connected to each other, and those who today aspire to attain the upper existence as once did the disciples of Abraham. And it does not depend on skin color.
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From KabTV’s “A Special Opinion” 8/17/14

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The Article In The Newspaper Menorah, Georgia


The Georgian language newspaper Menorah published the article “Who Are You, People of Israel?” with a photo and a foreword about the author and a note that the original article was published in The New York Times and has been translated and published into six languages. Links to our websites were included.

The newspaper is published in Georgia and intended for Jews; it is circulated through Jewish communities in Georgia and 30 other countries.

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Through A Loudspeaker

laitman_575Question: It says that “everything is in the hands of Heaven except for the fear of Heaven.” But if the fear of Heaven is not in my hands, how can I attain it?

Answer: You can attain the fear only from Above. No one says that you have to be a complete righteous, God’s servant. What you feel at the moment is what you are. The question is how you draw the Light that Reforms unto yourself so that it will correct you.

All the changes take place only in the egoistic Reshimot (spiritual genes), which are constantly awakened in us according to the plan of creation and lead us along the path of in its time. But if we draw the Light from Above, which is called I will hasten it, we will hasten our development and receive both the powers and the fear from Above.

First, a person is filled with corporeal fear, that he should feel good in this world. Then he worries about the next world and asks what is the point in his life and thus arrives at the wisdom of Kabbalah with this question. Eventually he reaches the fear that he doesn’t have a desire to bestow unto the Creator.

He has to be incorporated in the right environment and draw the Light that Reforms so that it will give him spiritual fear, the fear of not attaining bestowal. This is already a problem since he has no natural desire for bestowal.

This is why we need an environment that will convince us that bestowal is a good thing. If I see that everyone values bestowal, I will also begin to value it and will acquire the desire for something that I never wanted, a desire for the spiritual world, for bestowal.

This is called making an effort, asking for something I have no natural deficiency for. After all, a deficiency for bestowal belongs to the essence of the Creator. We turn to every person with this idea since they all have to reach the state “and my home will be called a house of prayer for all the nations.”

Therefore, we have to publicize the wisdom of Kabbalah so that everyone will hear the message of connection. According to Baal HaSulam, only this is called genuine “religion,” connecting man with the Creator. All the religions in the world were invented by people and are therefore not truly universal and have no real connection to the spiritual world.

Everyone already understands that the world is in a state of crisis, which will only get worse until we begin to correct ourselves. But we have to explain that this situation is predetermined for us by the plan of creation in order to force us all to connect.

Everyone has a chance to be impressed by the right environment and to receive the deficiency for a mutual connection from it. Our reality forces us to do so. If we don’t agree, nature will teach us to do so by blows and wars. We only need to understand that we must reach connection. If we want to, we will receive all the powers to connect the forces of nature.

Since the wisdom of Kabbalah was established starting with Adam and Abraham, it is aimed only at the connection between people. But it was impossible to publicize this to the world before because the world wasn’t developed enough. Kabbalists turned to those who followed Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to people who were ready internally, who were refined and developed spiritually and thus heard that call. But others didn’t hear it, and it was necessary to perform many other actions so that humanity would be sensitive enough to accept the message of the general connection.

Today, however, it is possible to shout it out all over the world through one great loudspeaker. It is necessary for our groups to do this all over the world appealing to all. If we don’t want to advance by the blows, then this is the only method.

Nature obliges us to develop by force, so let’s want to advance so we won’t have to run away from the blows but to find the good force by ourselves, which will draw us towards connection in the quick and easy way. This is the whole wisdom and the whole Torah.

The only problem is that a person is immersed inside himself and adhered to his own heart. He cannot distinguish himself from it in order to manage his heart and his desire, but is inside his egoistic heart and follows it.

Therefore he needs an environment, an environment that will enable him to look at himself from the outside and start working on himself like on a stranger that is external to his desire. Therefore, the more a person is adhered to the environment, the more he can draw the Light that Reforms and thus advance.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/17/14, Writings of Rabash

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Who Will Tip The Scales: Our Ego Or Us?

Laitman_115_05Sanhedrin, 98:1: Rabbi Yochanan said that if you see a generation that is afflicted by many troubles like a river, wait for him (the Messiah)!

There is another state besides the signs of the coming of the Messiah described in this chapter, which the Messiah’s quick coming depends on: The more people there are who yearn for the Creator, the greater the Creator’s revelation in that society will be.

Therefore, our group opposes the negative state of humanity by trying to summon the flow of the Upper Light unto us and the whole world. At the moment, however, we don’t see any real and clear signs of the affect of our actions. We must admit that despite our attempts and perhaps thanks to them, we see that the world is in a state of an accelerated decling.

Question: Can we say that in humanity there is a feeling that “it is afflicted with many troubles like a river?”

Answer: I don’t think that we are afflicted by many troubles like a river compared to the generation that underwent the Holocaust of the Jewish people and other troubles, including WWII when many people experienced an inner personal holocaust. It isn’t the same situation yet.

At the moment we are not ripe in either direction (for better or for worse) and we don’t see where this can take us. But we are already at a turning point where we can decide which direction humanity will follow, which depends on our spiritual center, on our state, on our powers.

However, we too, are neither in a state of detachment, unable to do anything, nor in a state of a sharp rise, a counter attack against our ego in order to free the Messiah from his prison,

What will tip the scales? Our ego or us? This will have to be solved in the near future.
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From KabTV’s “Will the Messiah Come?” 11/14/14

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