Comment: Look at what is happening in the world now. If we sort of rise above the planet and look at what is occurring, it is awful—floods, fires, disasters!

People do not want to believe that the very actions of people are beginning to destroy us. Some people think that this is some kind of punishment. The Turkish President believes that the fires in Turkey are the result of arson, etc.

But all the terrible consequences of the elements, for example, floods, are the result of the fact that a person settles in places where, in principle, he should not live. Even if he settles there, then the conditions of protection are not created because it costs money: “What if it just works out”?

That is, people themselves are often the cause of these disasters!

My Response: Logically, you may be partly right. But I would say that nature punishes us for not wanting to be organically integrated into its general background. That is why it happens.

All the problems that we stir up today, from the coronavirus to the rest of the Egyptian plagues, occur because nature pushes us out of itself. Internally it has a mind hidden from us and is no longer able to bear such an attitude toward itself.

It can only be accepted. But I think that in the end we will realize and understand this. People who are closer to nature feel that nature is intelligent and therefore it treats us this way.
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From KabTV’s “Algorithms Instead of People” 8/4/21

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Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World“: We must know that the above-mentioned law of development, which is spread over the whole of reality, is certain to reform all evil to good and useful, and acts through the power of the government of heaven above, meaning without asking permission from the people, dwellers of the earth. However, the Creator placed knowledge and authority in the hands of man and permitted him to accept the above-mentioned law of development under his own authority and government, and handed him the ability to hasten the process of development as he wishes, freely and completely independent of the boundaries of time.

There is an active inevitable law of nature in time. Everything is arranged according to a timetable and there is time for each and every event. We cannot change anything and we act according to this timetable with the same developing force that tirelessly leads us through all the phases of our development.

It is a rigid system of nature. This is how it operates and we cannot escape it; we are bound to it, like tiny insects that must act according to it. Yet, although this development is necessary and takes place accurately and on time, there is a way to hasten and to improve it, and this depends on us.

We develop according to the plan in any case, like a train that moves from one point to another and must reach its destination. We can hasten our arrival at the last station and feel much better during our journey than if we participate in the process unconsciously and move and change not knowingly. Of course, we would perceive the final phase differently.

We would attain it and reach the same outcome anyway, but we would go through all kinds of conflicts along the way, we would fall and rise, quarrel and undergo disasters in every aspect of our lives. But it can also be the opposite way, by acting comfortably and feeling that we are led through this whole way like in a dining car.

On the whole, the wisdom of Kabbalah provides us with only one solution. If you want to advance no matter how, you can leave everything and not hear anything, return to your life and carry on together with everyone else, in unity with the whole globe, as long as it revolves.

But if you want to change your life for the better, while advancing toward the attainment of the goal of creation in which your place has already been determined, where everything has already been determined, and advance toward it consciously, wisely and quickly, you can do it with the help of the wisdom of Kabbalah.

That makes all the difference! This is our choice.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 7/14/19

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Question: Today, people go out to all kinds of demonstrations without yet realizing that they are fighting not against injustice, uneven incomes, poor education, but against their own uselessness.

Now it is not only individual professions that are disappearing, but entire layers of the economy upon which countries were based. Not only high-tech, but also the most ordinary industries are letting people go.

Soon there will be no cashiers, there will be no people who distribute and receive. All this will be done by machines and algorithms.

Now we come to what we were talking about 15 years ago: how to occupy people. You have to pay them a basic income to keep them busy.

Today, they are already starting to talk about it: “Yes, we will pay people money. They should come and study history, culture, anything, water trees, plant new parks for 2 to 3 hours a day.” But they should treat it not as work but as some kind of action.

Do you see in this the first steps toward a society that you have been talking about all the time?

Answer: In general, this can be seen as a kind of a first step. But how are we going to raise a new person, someone who will have, not only the property of reception, but also the property of bestowal? And here, of course, people need to be educated.

This is why we say that they will be able to study a few hours a day, learn the mechanism of bestowal, listen to lectures, and discuss them among themselves.

Question: But until Israel realizes this, the rest of the world will not? Or can it run in parallel?

Answer: No, I do not think it can be done in parallel. It still has to come from here. The inner root of changing the world, whatever it may be and wherever it goes, still comes from the Jewish people.
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From KabTV’s “Algorithms Instead of People” 8/4/21

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Question: How can we express the law of gradual development according to the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: The law of gradual development is a law of the negation of negativity. It is in fact a Marxist law and a law of nature, and it is indeed true.

The wisdom of Kabbalah also claims that every initial state determines the future state. The next state determines the previous state and is seemingly inside it, although not in a revealed way for the time being. We don’t need to distort or disrupt nature.

We don’t need to change anything other than ourselves. In ourselves we also don’t need to change anything other than our good mutual cooperation. That’s all.

So by changing one small parameter in nature, by getting closer to each other through good deeds, we can already change all of nature and we will see how good it will be. Suddenly all the tsunamis, hurricanes, solar flares, earthquakes, forest fires, etc. will stop. All of nature will begin to calm down.

It depends only on people, on the degree we get closer to each other correctly.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 7/7/19

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In the News (ipso.com): “Ipsos’ What Worries the World survey tracks public opinion on the most important social and political issues across 28 countries today, drawing on 10 years of data to place the latest scores in context. This global summary report presents the top concerns around the world… .

“At a global level, over one third (36%) on average say that Covid-19 is one of the top issues facing their country, level with June, which saw a 6-point decrease vs. the month before. Unemployment is the second biggest issue across all countries at 32%, followed by Poverty & social inequality (31%), Financial/political corruption (30%) and Crime & violence (26%).”

Question: Education is not the main problem. Why do you keep saying that this is a problem?

Answer: It is the most important and only problem. People don’t understand that our upbringing will change the world. Change in the world is in the change of a person.

Question: But people have children, they see what is happening around them. Why does it not enter their consciousness?

Answer: Because it is against our egoism.

Question: For our egoism, the pandemic, poverty, and social inequality are the problem? Something that concerns only me?

Answer: Only me and I don’t care about anything else, just my own skin.

Question: How do you want to lead humanity to some kind of change?

Answer: It’s very simple, on one hand we just need to show that this is the only problem that separates us from happiness. That’s all. If we change, the world will change and everything will change: this virus will go away, and all other problems. Everything will go away.

Otherwise, there will be a long path of suffering, which will still teach us that we need to change ourselves. Changing a person is the key to changing the world. There is no escape. This is a long way of suffering until we realize it.

Question: And what will happen to a person as a result of suffering on this long journey?

Answer: He begins to realize exactly the cause of his bad state. He realizes that his egoism, his bad attitude toward others is the cause of all the problems of the world.

Question: Are you sure that as a result of suffering, a person will understand this? As a result of great suffering.

Answer: Yes, but it’s a long way.

Question: Do you think that a person will not hear now, on his own?

Answer: Some part will hear. It seems to me that today it is already possible to create such societies, such circles that would live by the fact that changing a person is the basis for changing the world.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/1/21

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Zohar for All, Lech Lecha, item 22: You should know what is the power of Nimrod over Abraham to throw him into the furnace, which is Ur [Aramaic: light, flame] of the Chaldees, and how he was saved from the furnace.

The king of Babylon, Nimrod, represents a great egoistic force.

If you gather together all modern leaders and politicians who are controlled from above as puppets, you will see Nimrod. This is egoism, which does not know exactly how to perform. It sees that everything is falling apart before it, as our current so-called leaders see.

The world is falling apart. Neither money, which disappears who knows where, nor the army will help. What should we do? Start a nuclear war? That’s pointless!

Today, world leaders are practically deprived of their power. They have nothing to lead with. The police are also very limited. What can be done with people?

The world is becoming unmanageable. This is Nimrod who feels that everything is slipping out of his hands. Abraham is revealed as the radical who seems to be organizing all this. As the saying goes: “These Jews again.” After all, Abraham is considered the first Jew.

Here we can draw a parallel between today’s Israel and everyone else in the world that will very soon treat us like this: “This is it, we have found who is to blame! We will destroy them and everything will be fine.”

Therefore, Nimrod throws Abraham into a furnace. The same will happen to us. However, we will overcome it, and because of that we rise even higher.

Question: Is it necessary to go through this stage historically? After all, we have already been through the gas chambers.

Answer: The fact is that we can go through this furnace internally and not externally. Externally, it is a very long way, decades of all sorts of problems. It is enough for us to go through some difficult state internally and to be born as a new person through it.

This is preferable to us as representatives of Abraham, to the entire world, and even to the haters from the side of Nimrod because they will feel bad themselves. Thus, you can go through everything in a quick, easy, pleasant way of the recognition of evil when you understand that there is evil in you, but at the same time you are already holding a cure for it in your hand.

Comment: The problem is that people want to live peacefully and not to worry.

My Response: They cannot continue like this. The crisis has only shown itself a little. It stuck out its head like a snake and then hid it. Now it will not only stick out its head, but also open its mouth.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #17

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Question: Will the way to rise above one’s nature take place through political reorganization or through some kind of ethical and moral one?

What should be first here, what should be the second? Or will ethical and moral awareness entail a change in political instruments and the appearance in the politics of people who will understand this and will move toward it?

Answer: I think that modern politicians, scientists, and leaders will not even be able to understand this, let alone realize it. They will not be able to take part even in the change of society. These are the wrong people, the wrong generation. A new one must come. It is already slowly growing out of the children of these same people.
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From KabTV’s “Algorithms Instead of People” 8/4/21

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My new article on Linkedin “An Army Can’t Defeat Guerilla Fighters”

The United States’ chaotic retreat from Afghanistan is not the first time that the Afghans have pushed an army of a superpower out of their country. The one before them was that of Russia. It is also not the first time that the US has been forced out of a country by a militia. Vietnam, Iraq, and Korea were also among America’s military botched attempts to instate a pro-American government.

Guerilla warfare is the hardest to win for an organized army. It roars in with tanks and fighter jets but it can’t do anything if no tanks or fighter jets meet it, but partisans, guerilla fighters, or simply, terrorists. The only way to defeat partisans is with other partisans.

This brings up the question of motivation. Militias consist of amateur fighters, adolescents, semi-trained individuals whose only advantage is their zeal to protect their country and their faith. They know they have to win since they are fighting for the only land they’ve got. The enemy’s soldiers, on the other hand, are fighting because they are paid to do so. They have superior weaponry, superior logistics, superior training, but no motivation to risk their lives. Fighting for the principle of freedom? No one really fights for it. No one even thinks about it!

The pullout from Afghanistan will not end America’s woes there. Along with its European allies, America will have to pay heavily for the Taliban to let them out. In the coming months, we will see more and more bodies being flown out of there until America pays the Taliban what they want, and they will want a lot.

Anyone can see that the future of today’s established countries is grim. Countries such as the US, France, Russia, the UK, and Germany are already paying hefty sums to keep themselves intact, but they are disintegrating from within.

It is no one’s fault; it is the recurring historic process by which countries are born, live, and die. Once countries reach a certain peak, they dim and step down from history’s spotlight. The same will happen to China, though it is not there yet.

Nevertheless, in some countries decay has begun even though they have only recently begun to shine. Look at what is happening in Brazil, Argentina, and other countries in Latin America and you will see.

In the end, the factions within countries will either collide and multiple wars will break out, or they will realize that there are no winners in these wars, and they will agree on mutual disarmament. However, such agreements can still come after very perilous situations since these fragments can be very powerful and in possession of very powerful, including nuclear weapons.

In conclusion, we are living through a historic tipping point. Either we realize that we are interdependent even if we hate each other and decide to unite above our hatred, or we will let hatred win and destroy the vast majority of humanity and life on Earth.
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My new article on Linkedin “The Permafrost Is Defrosting (and it is bad news)”

The permafrost, the frozen layer of soil that has underlain the arctic tundra for millennia, is accelerating its thaw. Several years ago, scientists noticed that ice they thought would never melt was thinning fast. In 2017, the BBC published an article by Jasmin Fox-Skelly. “We have had antibiotics for almost a century,” she wrote. “However, what would happen if we were suddenly exposed to deadly bacteria and viruses that have been absent for thousands of years, or that we have never met before? We may be about to find out,” she concluded. “Climate change is melting permafrost soils that have been frozen for thousands of years, and as the soils melt they are releasing ancient viruses and bacteria that, having lain dormant, are springing back to life.”

We may be unaware of it, but the destructive potential of these germs can dwarf the harm that the current bug is causing. They can truly jeopardize humanity since we have zero immunity against these microorganisms as there is nothing like them currently in existence that could prepare us for their arrival.

Moreover, while scientists are fearful of viruses and bacteria reawakening, I think that there can even be more complex life-forms that might spring back from extinction to existence. Fish, frogs, and even birds might suddenly appear. We have no idea what lies dormant underneath the ice, and which global warming is gradually reviving.

We must realize that nature is a single, closed system. Nothing ends in it, and nothing begins. When the time is ripe, things manifest; when the time is ripe, they vanish. But nothing stops existing; it only waits until it is time for it to reappear.

The changes we inflict on nature make things happen faster and in ways we cannot understand. Therefore, the only certainty is that the unexpected will transpire, though we cannot anticipate how it will unfold, what form it will take, how fast it will appear, and what consequences it will have. All we can say for certain is that we will not be prepared for it since one cannot prepare for the unknown and unforeseeable.

While we may not be able to prepare for the unpredictable, we can prevent its arrival. Since climate change is melting the arctic permafrost, and we, according to most scientists, are causing it, we can undo the damage we are doing to the climate by eliminating its cause.

Scientists attribute climate change to gas emissions and other manmade factors. However, this view ignores one key fact: Nature is a complete, closed, and interdependent system, not a heap of separate elements. Since everything affects everything else, one malfunctioning element in the system disrupts all of nature and throws the entire system off balance. Mend that element, and you have restored Earth’s balance.

When you look at the world, there is evidently only one dysfunctional element in all of it: humankind. We are so corrupt that we cannot even admit that we are the reason for the disasters befalling us. My teacher’s father, the great kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (aka Baal HaSulam), compared human nature to the angel of death: It impels us to drink a deadly nectar. Even though that drop is placed on the tip of a sword, we are too weak to resist it. We open our mouths, bring the tip of the sword to our mouths, and let that deadly drop into our throats.

We are not there yet, but we are approaching it fast. Our only weapon is awareness of our nature and mutual support in facilitating change. If we help each other rise above our self-destructive nature, which kills us precisely by focusing only on ourselves instead of on the system where we live, then we can save ourselves. If we insist on thinking only of ourselves at such a time, we will perish.

We are the only being that has a deliberate will, an intention to do harm, possess, dominate, humiliate, and immortalize ourselves. This intention is the root of all the cataclysms affecting our planet and humanity. If we help each other build a balanced and harmonious society, we will balance all of nature, as it will mend the only broken element in reality. If we shun the task and stick to our egos, no remedy will save us from disaster.
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What needs to be changed in humans?“

A Global Trends Report by the US National Intelligence Council predicted the pandemic back in 2017. They warned that the next 20 years will be chaotic and turbulent: the slowdown of population growth, major aging of the populace, and climate change; storms, hurricanes, floods and heat waves will lead to an increase in migration. International relations will become unpredictable; ties will not be established and potentially break apart. There will also be an increase in famine. The pandemic will have a long-term impact. There will be growing distrust of medicine, science, authorities and politics, and eruptions of protests and riots. In short, according to the report, we face a bleak future.

We see that many reasons are emerging for us to change.

Give humanity a good future and it will go completely wild. In the Soviet Union, we were told that things would get better, that in ten years we would arrive at communism and capitalism with the promised slogan: “Don’t worry, business will grow, and everything will get better.” Seemingly the promise of a better future is not a very good idea today after all. Those who propagated this ideology tell us “Let us lead and everything will be great for you in the future. In the meantime, go on as you were, and be content.” However, having clear hope and faith that everything will be better is no solution.

If nature’s course and our course are unaligned, then nature must force us to correct ourselves, to change. It is a process, and we initially need to see a bleak picture of the future in the event that we fail to change. We need to see a clear dependence and connection between the person’s internal state and nature’s external state. In other words, if we change, everything around us also changes. Nature influences us this way, through an opposite, negative connection. It will force us to change through all sorts of problems, and by doing so, we discover this dependence.

We will come to the realization that we have no other way out and that the only way to break out of this rotting corporeal existence is to become a self-changing being. A human being is one who strives to be like the Creator. This is expressed in Hebrew, where the word “Adam” (“human being”) stems from the words “Domeh le Elyon” (“similar to the most high”). The Creator is the immense unified force of nature, the giving force, which births everything emanating from itself. We need to become like that force. We need to reach a state where we treat everything outside of us with total love, and then everything will fall into place.

Indeed, we must change and reach a state of likeness to the Creator, where we emanate love, kindness and warmth. One day, we will desire this state more than life itself. Moreover, we need nothing but such an alignment. Also, we should think beyond mere self-transformation and consider global transformation—that the whole world will acquire the quality of love and bestowal. Through the human level, the animate, vegetative and inanimate levels will also change. In the end, absolutely everything—the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels—will be at the degree of mutual, eternal and boundless love. Then, in this huge desire, which will be common on all four levels, the upper force will manifest and envelop everything within itself, and the world will take on a singular form.

The foundations for this transformation are being laid and we must give the optimal shape to this act of nature and our personal aspiration, to aim it correctly through our appeal to humanity. Since we are sentient beings, then it will happen. We can be intimidated, brought to our knees, coerced, and we can thus be taught. At the moment, nature is relating to us more and more like a misbehaving youth, giving us blows in order for us to wake up to the change we need to make. While we can train an animal to the point of becoming a well-behaved animal, we can change a human being in a way where he rises above his nature.

The report from current-day experts is very acceptable and realistic, to put it mildly. There will be various waves from different sides, and they will batter us. We will be unable to keep up and to react with effective remedies unless we get smarter. We will gradually reach an agreement with the upper force that coerces us. The current pandemic will subside and give way to the next wave. And we will try to cope with the next wave too through our own efforts, trying to do something about it. We will come to see how selectively these waves of all kinds of suffering will affect us, forcing us to change.

Our first and most important realization is that pain will be the source of wisdom. Nature will continue battering us, and through the relatively continuous blows we will receive from nature, we will grow in our understanding of where nature guides us. These waves will depend on the extent of our intelligence. Here, we can already engage another higher and more connected level of consciousness, and the people in touch with that consciousness should pass it on to the best of their abilities.

Based on a talk with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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