Question: Not long ago there was an earthquake in Haiti. More than 2,000 people died, 40,000 houses were damaged and destroyed. Another 15-20,000 people were injured.

This news disappeared after a day. It was immediately replaced by news about fires, earthquakes, and hurricanes.

Is it possible to develop empathy toward another person?

Answer: It depends on education. Education should be such that we all have to get closer if we want a better future for ourselves. Egoistically. If you want there to be no earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and deaths, then you have to get closer to others.

Because nature is one and we humans, are at the top of its chain, if we create correct relationships between us, help, care, and so on, then all nature under us will calm down.

Question: Does Kabbalah talk about this?

Answer: Yes. We can certainly influence nature in this way.

Question: And then the word “empathy” will not sound strange?

Answer: It is a normal human condition when we understand that we depend on others and others depend on us. I am talking about the egoistic attitude toward each other. When we are like one family, there is no other way. Nature forces us to understand in the end that we depend on each other. And it will lead us to it, but gradually with such blows that it will not seem enough.

That is when mutual support will become a natural concept. We have nowhere to go. We do the same in the family whether we love each other or not it does not matter. We understand that we are interdependent.

Just as we go to fight for our country because we depend on others, they depend on us, and we cannot escape anywhere. Same here. If humanity does not unite in order to act not against nature but like nature as a united front, then nature will teach us.

Question: Finally teach us?

Answer: It will teach us! That is certain. But the whole earth will be like Haiti after the earthquake.

Comment: It is better to do it ourselves.

My Response: I think so. Because nature is preparing very unpleasant surprises for us.

Question: So you still believe, as the great Kabbalist Baal HaSulam said, that the whole world, one way or another, will be one family, it will not escape from this?

Answer: We will have to come to this either as a result of a world nuclear war or by good means and understanding.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/28/21

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My new article on Linkedin “To Reduce Air Pollution, Work from Home”

A recent article by Steve Cohen from the Earth Institute at Columbia University elaborates on the benefits of preferring electric cars to cars powered by internal combustion engines. Cohen acknowledges that “Decarbonization will take decades, and … some of the opposition will be justified because these installations will have a negative impact on a community.” Nevertheless, he insists, “The argument that electric vehicles pollute too much is not persuasive. They pollute less than vehicles powered by the internal combustion engine,” and “that is the only comparison that matters.”

In my opinion, we are looking at the whole situation backwards. Even Cohen, an avid supporter of electric vehicles, admits that “We will see progress as we make the problem less bad, but we will not solve the problem.” So, instead of searching for ways to minimize the damage while maintaining our harmful lifestyle, I think we should change our way of life so that we don’t create the problem in the first place.

The current Western lifestyle encourages working many hours with often long drives to and from work. In recent years, things have begun to change, but I think we shouldn’t wait, we must shift to working from home as soon as possible and make this form of work as pervasive as we can.

In Asia, where long workdays and a long workweek were regarded as the norm until recently, there are already winds of change. “Panasonic Corp has joined a small, but growing, number of Japanese companies to offer staff a four-day workweek to encourage better work-life balance,” writes the media company HRM Asia. Panasonic is not alone; it is “part of a global trend,” the article continues, adding that in Japan, “a group of lawmakers is discussing a proposal to grant employees a day off in addition to the two break days a week, to ensure their well-being.”

Forbes magazine, too, writes that “the four-day workweek is gaining big momentum,” and other media outlets have been writing more and more about it.

In my opinion, we should go beyond the four-day workweek. I think that even the work we do should be done primarily from home. It will create less congestion on the roads, give people more free time, and flexible hours even on the days when they do work, and it will drastically reduce the environmental impact of the auto industry, whether it is powered by electric or internal combustion engines.

The automotive industry is only one example. In almost every area of human engagement, we are busying ourselves more than we should, and everyone is paying the price: we, our families, the society, and the planet. Excessive production and excessive work help no one and do not make us happier.

Think about how we would feel if we had two more hours of free time each day—roughly the time we spend commuting to work and back. Now imagine if we worked only four days a week, and from home.

In short, I think we should slow down, dedicate more time for the things we love to do and for the people we care about. It will make us happy; it will make society more peaceful; it will help the environment; and it will help the world. In these troubled times, we could all use some peace of mind.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Will the United States ever go to war with China?“

While the media reports on the Asia-Pacific region as turning into a powder keg, we should remember that the media is primarily interested in its ratings, and neither America nor China are interested in serious warfare with each other. There is no point in trying to conquer other countries and regions in a world where an all-encompassing global crisis sweeps over us.

The real tension today is between us and nature. Nature is starting to work on us and our goal, which is of utmost importance, is to establish a dialog with it.

Nature will not leave us alone until we change ourselves, and it will change to the extent that we do. There are inanimate, vegetative, animate and human natures. Human nature is at the peak of all the levels of nature, and as such, the other levels depend on it.

If we can become more balanced among each other on our human level, then we can also bring calm to nature’s other levels. Kabbalistic books very clearly state in several places that only the good force exists in nature, and a human being can change everything. Humans cause imbalance in nature, and humans are also capable of bringing about balance.

Based on the video “War Between America and China? A Kabbalist’s Response” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Medium published my new article “The War — the Spiritual War”

To the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, wars “are the necessary grounds of all coming to be,” writes Abraham Schoener of the University of Toronto. “War is not only a principle in the world of mortal affairs; it governs all things, both every being in the cosmos and the cosmos itself as a whole,” Schoener adds about the philosopher’s views. Indeed, all of nature consists of contradictory elements that join together. On the subatomic level, between light and darkness, cold and heat, attraction and rejection, everything stems from positives and negatives joining together to create balance.

On the human level, the two opposites are expressed as egoism, with all its negative expressions, and altruism, with its positive expressions. The problem is that there is very little of the latter, hardly any. On every level of nature, the negative and positive forces are in equilibrium, maintaining harmony and homeostasis. It is only at the human level that the negative force far outweighs the positive and throws the entire world off balance.

The war that is currently raging in Ukraine is therefore not a local dispute, but a clash of spiritual significance; this is why the whole world is at least emotionally involved in it, and I hope it does not become military involvement. If we want to eliminate war, we must change our spirits from predominantly negative and abusive of others to a balanced harmony between the negative and the positive, in accord with the rest of nature.

There is an old Cherokee tale about an elderly warrior who told his grandson about the battle within us. He said that within each of us there is a struggle between two wolves: one is mean, greedy, and abusive, and the other is kind, generous, and compassionate. The grandson thought about it for a while and finally asked, “Which of them wins?” to which his grandfather replied, “The one you feed.”

Humans are social beings. We think that our thoughts are independent, but in reality, we are a product of our society. The mean wolf is winning because our entire society is leaning toward meanness, violence, and exploitation. Feeding the kind wolf means elevating the value of peace and caring.

Human nature will not let us feed only the kind wolf; it is inherently evil, as it is written, “The inclination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen. 8:21). Nevertheless, if we, as a society, place the value of peace above all else in life, then we ourselves will change.

Normally, we think of peace as absence of active fighting. In fact, there is much more to peace than that. The Hebrew word for peace is shalom, from the word hashlama, which means complementation, and shlemut, meaning wholeness. Peace, therefore, does not mean absence of egoism, but rather complementing it with altruism and creating a complete whole.

We must not deny or suppress our basic nature. If we try, we are certain to fail. Instead, we must complement it with its opposite. If we balance egoism with an equal amount of altruism, we will advance in harmony and peace, just like all of nature.

Since our egoism grows continually, we must never stop increasing the importance of peace. In this way, we will create a dynamic equilibrium, just as our body maintains it through homeostasis.

The current war, like all wars, is a call for humanity to complement our wickedness with kindness. We cannot avoid doing what we need to do on the battlefield, but if we think that winning a battle gives us peace, we will soon find ourselves embroiled in more wars, probably more devastating than the current one.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “A War Without, and a War Within”

Shortly after World War II ended with tragic explosions of nuclear bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, my teacher’s father, the great thinker and foremost kabbalist of the 20th century, Baal HaSulam, wrote what later became known as “The Writings of the Last Generation.” He did not intend to say that the end of the world was approaching, but rather that the world as we know it was dying, and a new one was being born. Yet, labor pangs can be very painful, or not so painful, and we, human beings, can determine how we go through it. Baal HaSulam called these two options “the path of light” and “the path of suffering.”

In these writings, Baal HaSulam stresses that with technology, humanity has “invented the atom and the hydrogen bombs,” and “if the total ruin that they are destined to bring upon the world is still not evident to the world, they can wait for a third world war, or a fourth one. The bombs will do their thing, and the relics who remain after the ruin will have no other choice but to take upon themselves this work where both individuals and nations do not work for themselves more than is necessary for their sustenance, while everything else they do will be for the good of others.”

The war in Ukraine is not between Russia and Ukraine; it is a clash between two halves of the world. It is reshaping international relations and alliances between East and West, between countries and nations. This war is transforming our view of creation and of life. We have not gone down to the very bottom, but when we come up from the nadir, we will find that the world has changed dramatically. It will never return to the world it was before.

Because today, everything is global, wars are global, too. Therefore, the foreboding prediction of Baal HaSulam seems very real today. In fact, on the current trajectory, I see no other result but the fulfillment of his words. The only way we can avert a nuclear world war is to take his advice and think of the good of others rather than our own, as much as we may dislike the idea.

Indeed, the war without is a reflection of the war within us. Every war, from domestic disputes to world wars, is a clash of egos. The ego wants control and superiority. Accordingly, the book Fitting In and Getting Happy: How Conformity to Societal Norms Affects cites a study by Solnick & Hemenway where more than half of the participants preferred to live in a society where they earn $50,000 per year while others earn $25,000, over a society where they earn $100,000 while others earn 200,000. The book’s author, Professor of Social Psychology at Tilburg University (Netherlands) Olga Stavrova concluded, “People do not desire to have a lot of a certain good as much as they desire to have more of this good than others.”

However painful the current situation in Ukraine may be, and it is very painful indeed, it is still a clash of egos. We need to understand that in order to solve this crisis, and every other crisis, for that matter, we must look at ourselves from aside and disconnect for a moment from our great personal pain, with which I wholly sympathize.

If we focus only on being right, then we will never end the wars. No one will ever agree and say, “I am wrong and you are right”; our egos will not let us do it. This is why looking for objective justice is inherently hopeless; it is choosing the path of suffering.

If, however, we put our grievances aside for a minute, and agree to take a break from trying to settle old scores, it will be possible to start building a positive future. In that state, we will be able to focus on nurturing mutual respect, and perhaps even mutual understanding above the numerous profound differences. If we persist with these efforts, this will be the beginning of the path of light.

At the moment, I would not expect more than that, but in the end, humanity will have no choice but to return to the words of Baal HaSulam, and agree that the best way for all of us is the path of mutual concern and mutual responsibility. If we do not want a third world war, then we must learn to care for one another. This is why the real war is within us, and the war without is only a reflection of our raging hate for others.
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Medium published my new article “Why the Great Resignation”

In the 2nd half of 2021 alone, more than 25 million Americans had quit their jobs. This wave, dubbed “The Great Resignation” or “The Big Quit,” is the largest wave of resignations since recording of data began at the turn of the century. Right now, this phenomenon is most prevalent in low-income occupations or in particularly hard and often unrewarding jobs such as healthcare workers. However, I anticipate that it will capture all the professions, and not only less popular or poorly paying jobs, and to spread not only in America, but around the world.

I can understand people who quit. What’s the point of slaving for a job that takes you an hour to get there, an hour to return, and leaves you no time for yourself or to be with your family? Besides, it is better if fewer people work; there will be less plastic waste, less air pollution, and less of everything else that is poisoning the planet.

In the past, fewer people worked, mainly because women did not work, but men also worked fewer hours and spent less time commuting. What has modernity given us besides exhaustion and poor health? We thought that this lifestyle would satisfy us, but we have found that beyond a certain point, the pursuit of a career and wealth mainly spoils our lives.

Therefore, I think it is good that we are becoming less materialistic and more indifferent and lazy. When people stop working, they find that they can get by with less money and still get the basic things they need. In return, they get freedom!

I believe we are witnessing a natural process, and not necessarily a negative one. It may be inconvenient for business owners or the government, but I do not think it is negative or that we need to “treat” it. Technology can take care of our needs, and if people find it necessary to work, they will work.

The current state of overconsumption is a distortion of society, a burden on the planet, and does not benefit anyone other than the shareholders of the corporations that sell us what we do not need, which is most everything that they produce.

Particularly now, when people are beginning to ask serious questions about life, they do not want to be burdened with material needs more than is necessary. They need the time to reflect and question life, to explore within them what they want from life and from relationships.

We are in the midst of a formidable transformation. It requires time, energy, and patience, and it takes people’s minds away from the mundane.

The more people embrace this new mindset, the better it will be for everyone. On the other end of the reflections lies a new worldview that incorporates all the people and shuns brutality and narcissism. So let people lay in the sun and think; it is better for all of us.
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Question: In ancient times in Israel, people who inadvertently harmed someone were placed in cities of refuge until the special jubilee year (Shmita Yovel). What happened if a person did not correct himself by that year? Was he still forgiven?

Answer: No. In the society where he lived, they would work on him. Punishment, of course, existed, but not in the form of imprisonment.

A person must be in an environment that not directly, but indirectly explains to him how to be a different element of society. And so, after some time, he receives a certain influence.

Give that criminal an opportunity to work and study philosophy, psychology, and other sciences; place him in a different environment so that he is in close contact with the others. This is the only way to influence a person.

And we, on the contrary, throw him into an environment of even greater criminals for whom perpetrating a crime is a brave deed. As a result, he comes out ready for new criminal actions.

Is this called punishment? This is called isolating him from society! You prepare him for more crimes. This is what we see.

We ourselves created such a society and systems of punishment. And according to Kabbalah, there should be a system not of punishment, but of correction.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Presumption of innocence” 3/10/10

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The situation in the world is becoming more explosive every day. The entire world is rigorously following the rapid development of events in Ukraine. Kabbalists, however, do not deal with politics and geographical boundaries.

Kabbalists want only one thing: to add love or at least to decrease hatred wherever possible and reduce the confrontation between people, and we must help to do that.

Therefore, the main tool is prayer. If with its help we manage to cause greater connection among people, it will be for the benefit of humanity and to delight the Creator. The Creator had to create creatures to be opposite to Him, broken, so that humanity would ask for connection above hatred and rejection. Then we will understand, feel, and discover what unity means.

The main thing is to reveal the force of connection. There cannot be one without the other. Therefore, the Creator suffers more than everyone, but He has no choice, He had to create nature in this form. Our task is to try with our prayer, desire, and plea to force Him to correct everything. He is waiting for our request for correction and He will do everything right away. He needs nothing but our desire.

The only thing that is initially missing in creation is our desire to be equivalent to the good force of the Creator. The Creator needs the desire of the created beings, so He created the entire creation in deficiency. And we need to reveal this deficiency.

Therefore, until we ask for peace, fulfillment, perfection, love, and connection, it will not happen. We need to want connection at all levels to the full measure. By this, all of nature, all the worlds, will return to the completely corrected state where we are all connected and all of us will reveal the force of connection, which is eternal and complete.

The Messiah is not a person, but a force, a spirit that appears and disappears according to our desire. When we want to come closer to each other, it comes, and when we do not want to, it leaves. Messiah is a force that pulls (Moshech) us from our egoism to bestowal, love, and connection.

Therefore, if we understand that we need this force that will pull us from the bad into a good state, from separation to connection, from hatred to love, then we are calling on the Messiah. Let’s do it together.

The main problem is the indifference inherent in our nature. Sometimes a specific incident or a wounded animal touches our heart more than a war between countries. In the meantime, we exist in egoistic qualities that are not corrected.

This is why we care about things that are close to our hearts. A small breakdown in your own home worries everyone more than world events, supernova star explosions, or a hurricane on the other side of Earth. This is how our egoism depicts reality to us.

However, if we together with all our might ask the Creator to let us feel in the tens what it means to exit ourselves and feel the force that operates between us, then we will begin to reveal the upper force that resides among us. Then we will begin to notice things in the world that are more important to the Creator and not to our individual egoism.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/22/22, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: I have a feeling that the world is heading toward Armageddon. In a bit of time, just another year or two, something will happen that will make the virus that has spread all over the planet seem to us as just a toy. What is happening in the world? What does Kabbalah say about this?

Answer: I speak only from the perspective of Kabbalah as I have been studying it for almost 50 years.

The world is moving toward its correction. It has a certain developmental program, and the program is carried out whether it is wanted or not, either with a little bloodshed or with a lot, but it is still being carried out.

Now we face a big task: to make everyone understand that in the modern world we can exist only if we have goodwill in bringing people closer together. Unfortunately, this is not happening yet. Therefore, we see opposite results.

But I know that the program will still lead us forward, either by blows or carrots, to the understanding that we can exist only with the mutual support of all people around the world. We will have to come to that.
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From KabTV’s “Meetings with Kabbalah” 1/5/22

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My new article on Linkedin “Between Despair and Hope”

Tens of thousands of civilians cross Ukraine’s borders every hour, a mass of people laden with bags on their backs and children on their shoulders, with suitcases and memories dragging behind them.

I have many students and friends in cities all over Ukraine, from Kiev to Kharkiv, from Odessa to Lviv. I receive reports from them and follow their situation with concern. They tell me how they sought shelter in cold basements or fled to nearby villages, others sped westward in their cars for hours, praying that they would not run out of fuel and manage to escape.

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates that more than 500,000 Ukrainians have fled their homes as a result of the conflict, crossing the borders into neighboring countries such as Poland, Hungary, Moldova and Romania.

I have no doubt that the refugees will receive support and a warm embrace in Western European countries. I also believe that they will eventually return home and not stay permanently in host countries. Canada among others may open its doors to permanent immigration.

Israel, too, will surely act in accordance with the Law of Return, which gives Jews the right to relocate to Israel, and open its arms to welcome them. Israel has a place not only for the thousands of Jews who will emigrate from Eastern Europe, but for all Jews of the Diaspora.

Meanwhile, the world, including Israel, is helping with humanitarian aid to those affected by the conflict. But besides meeting people’s basic needs, the most important help is inner support. We must ask that the spirit of love, bestowal and positive connection will soon prevail.

Disagreements and wars come so that we can unite above them. Only the unity of hearts, when each cares for the well-being of the other, will save humanity.
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