Remark: There are several models of behavior in society that were described thousands of years ago. For example, some societies live by the law of “what is mine is mine, what is yours is yours.” This is peculiar to the American dream.

My Comment: This is considered the worst trait—the Sodomite rule. There is nothing worse than this.

This path is vicious, and the Creator (nature) does not agree with it and destroys this movement. If Americans remain at the level of “what is mine is mine, what is yours is yours,” they will simply drive themselves to a dead end.

Even the state of “what is mine is mine and what is yours is mine,” which is considered the condition of a criminal, is much better than this because it does not cancel communication between people: I take from you, you take from me, we are still in some kind of connection.

There is also the state of “what is mine is yours and what is yours is yours,” which is the law of complete bestowal. This is the state of an absolute righteous who does everything for others. He is ready to be a member of a right society and sets a good example for others.

This is what human society should come to in the future.
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 8/21/20

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Remark: According to Baal HaSulam, the specificity of the law of bestowal to society is such that, unlike the law of receiving, negative feedback not only does not come immediately, and does not affect us directly, but indirectly.

My Comment: In the material world, I see that the more I get, the better it is for me. But it is absolutely not clear if it will be better for me if I would give more. On the contrary, it seems to me that it will be worse. That is why, in our world, the law works only one way, toward receiving.

Remark: If I think about society, bestow to people, care about them, then I do not see any benefit from this for myself and, obviously, no encouragement from society. Therefore, as Baal HaSulam writes, as a result of the violation of these two laws, humanity is subject to destruction, both from the inside and outside: hunger, cataclysms, crises, viruses, etc.

My Comment: The thing is, we humans are above all other levels of nature and our negative intentions influence biological, physical, and other phenomena.

In such a way, we affect nature and it becomes aggressive in all its parts, elements, laws, and manifestations. This is what we see in our life, in our world.

But we do not understand our connection with nature, and thus prompt it to such rough, incorrect interactions. We break good ties in nature and instead force it to act incorrectly, not in integral correspondence between its parts, in wrong communication.
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 8/21/20

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Medium published my new article “The Tie between Work and Pay Is Crumbling”

Among various economists, there is a growing conviction that we are nearing the end of capitalism. Personally, I think it’s too soon to proclaim the end of capitalism, but what we are seeing is a growing disconnect between work and pay. That raises important questions that we will have to answer in the near future.

Our meaning in life will not be found in work, but in meaningful and enriching connections with others. Only when we grow through our interactions with others, and when we help others grow through their interactions with us, do we feel satisfied that we have contributed something meaningful and lasting.

First, people have to eat whether or not they work. They have to live somewhere, too, buy clothes, and in a modern country, they have to get medical insurance and education. While it’s true that even today not everyone has these basic needs, it is also true that this state doesn’t reflect a healthy society, hence the growing prevalence of depression and the soaring numbers of premature deaths due to substance abuse, homicide, and suicide. So the first question is how to make sure that everyone gets the basic things that every person needs.

Second, if people don’t work, what will they do all day? If Covid-19 has taught us anything, it is that sitting idle at home is a bad idea. Over time, it makes people agitated, aggressive, depressed (if they weren’t already), and, worst of all, hopeless, since they don’t see an end in sight. In other words, people need a sense of purpose, a reason to get out of bed. If it isn’t work and the need to earn a living, what can it be?

First, people must be informed. They have to know that although they have money in the bank, if they do, it doesn’t mean that they are independent from others. The production and supply chains that provide us with the products we buy at supermarkets and gadget stores entail millions of people. If you break just one link, the whole chain might stop working. This chain affects not only what we can buy, but also our jobs, our possibility to provide for ourselves and our families, national and international politics, and in the end, it can even determine life or death for many people. This is the true meaning of globalization: We have come to depend on each other even for our very lives.

Once people comprehend our interdependence, it is easier to explain that if this is the case, it makes sense that better connections enable better lives. It also makes sense that the current system, which endorses individualism and self-absorption, is the opposite of what we need today, and is in fact the main reason that our society is in such a sorry state.

At the moment, we are indoctrinated to value ourselves by two things: what we do (our job, title at work, etc.) and how much money we make. In the absence of connection between work and income, these gauges for self-esteem will become irrelevant and we will have to find new ways to appreciate ourselves, or we will all feel worthless. In fact, this is already happening to millions of people who are unable to find meaningful engagements.

The new criteria that will determine our self-esteem will be social criteria, since, as we just said, the quality of the connections between us determines the quality of our lives. Therefore, gradually, we will come to appreciate such values as solidarity, mutual responsibility, and contribution to the community.

As we grow into the new paradigm, we will discover that contrary to what we have been taught, man was not created to toil so many hours each day until he or she cannot but want to escape from life. No, we were made to enjoy one another, socialize, challenge one another, and support one another. We were made to help each other be the best individuals we can be and realize our full personal potential, not to be individualistic, isolated, and suspicious of each other.

The physical part of our lives is only here to support the spiritual part of our existence. It’s the spiritual part that makes us human, but we are so exhausted tending to the physical that we have no energy left in us to nurture our spiritual selves. Is it any wonder that we feel frustrated?

Our meaning in life will not be found in work, but in meaningful and enriching connections with others. Only when we grow through our interactions with others, and when we help others grow through their interactions with us, do we feel satisfied that we have contributed something meaningful and lasting.

As the tie between work and pay crumbles, we must hurry and introduce these new values. It will spare us much unnecessary agony and lead us quickly and easily into the new era, where satisfactions are spiritual and lasting rather than material and fleeting.
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Question: In times of war, there is always cooperation because there is a common goal of surviving and ending the war. What common goal can there be among all sectors of society in peacetime?

Answer: I don’t see much difference between wartime and peacetime because today we are at war with each other and with nature, which is worse than a nuclear war.

We do not see how to break free of contradictions or mutual hatred. These contradictions are present everywhere, from the highest levels of our society and governments to families and individuals.

Our egoism dominates at all levels and reaches a state where we are incapable of listening to each other at all. Therefore, we need a method of connection.

Question: Can a common goal be to conquer nature, which is constantly putting pressure on us?

Answer: It is possible that this goal will organize us and guide us correctly toward each other. We will start taking the right steps to unite in order to avoid perishing in the cataclysms that nature is preparing for us.
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 9/25/20

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The Times of Israel published my new article “The True Meaning of Tolerance”

Which does this world resemble more, a peaceful garden or a jungle with wild predators devouring each other? Most likely the latter. At the same time clashes and division are rampant in the United States as well as the rest of the planet, the UN’s International Day for Tolerance is commemorated. But unless we explore what tolerance truly means there will be no implementation. Understanding and mastering the art of listening to and embracing one another is what will give us the tools to flip polarization into balance.

“Tolerance is respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world’s cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human,” states the UN Declaration of Principles on Tolerance. The ideals of those words are important, but marking a special day for tolerance on the calendar is meaningless if we do not educate humanity first about the essence of what this premise means and how to put it in practice in our daily lives. Otherwise, “tolerance” becomes an empty word.

Similar situations exist with other commemorations such as the International Women’s Day. Have we ever heard people receiving lessons during their early upbringing—in kindergarten or in school—on how to respect women or even the most basic principles of how to respect and love their mother? I have no such recollection. Therefore, our education is lacking as we fail to engrave core values into the social fabric.

The word for “tolerance” in Hebrew is sovlanut, from the verb “lisbol,” (to suffer), as if we need to endure or suffer the opinions of others. However, in that sense, there is no need to tolerate but instead to embrace one another. The suffering we experience stems from the fact that our vision is self-centered and is unable to feel others, particularly those who are different from us. We should rather accept and feel the other as ourselves, his opinions and feelings, even if they are contrary to ours.

We should base our human relationships on the principle that everyone has a place in society, and should recognize that difference and diversity create a colorful and wonderful mosaic. Nature created us this way so we would come to realize how the richness of opinions from diverse minds empowers everyone. If only we knew how to properly integrate the myriad pieces of the human cogwheels, then we would see how each one is indispensable for the synchronized and well-oiled mechanism called creation.

But why have we become increasingly reticent over the years to even look each other in the eye, let alone to properly communicate and connect? The reason is tied to our constantly growing ego that nature develops within us—our insatiable drive to fulfill our own desires to the detriment of others. The more the ego grows, the less calm we become.

Aggravation, intolerance, and mutual rejection are all states that nature compels us to feel in order to enable us to recognize our human egoistic approach as the cause of the turbulence in our lives, and by reaching a dead end in our ability to get along with others, to develop a sincere new desire to rise above the ego.

The evolutionary process moves humanity from deeper levels of conflict to higher states of balance and cooperation. Human society is coming to a point where extreme social polarization will inevitably bring about a higher level of social organization. There is no escape from learning how to unite above opposing sides, not by eliminating the opposites, but rather by balancing them to create a higher understanding.

Therefore, in order to avoid social catastrophe we will have to foster a new mindset and establish an entirely new model of socio-political order, one that can accommodate opposite views to achieve social stability rather than perpetuate and deepen social division.

In nature, the foundational urge operating within all living organisms is to find the coexistence and interplay between two opposite forces, creating a higher level of order and prosperity. Evolution brings opposites together through dynamic equilibrium. Knowledge about how this principle of the inner system of nature works—the force that operates and controls everything in reality—is our only anchor in the changing world.

Bringing people of different views closer to each other in order to reach new levels of mutual understanding should be the ultimate goal of today’s societies. When this takes place, our differences will remain, but in a complementary way, for collective benefit. Then real tolerance will occur, understood as comprehension, acceptance, and brotherhood. As Kabbalist Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) wrote in his essay The Freedom:

“Each individual should maintain the integrity of their inheritance, and the contradiction and oppositeness between them will remain forever, to secure the criticism and progress of wisdom, which is the major advantage of humanity.”
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Inanimate nature, plants, and animals live according to their natural instincts. If there are good external conditions, they multiply, and if conditions worsen, they wither.

Man, however, adjusts the environment to his needs, changes it to make it more comfortable. If conditions are bad, man improves them: brings water to places where there is no water, lights a fire to make himself warmer, and even invents the refrigerator. He creates good conditions for himself.

If man did not create a favorable environment to live in, there would not be eight billion people on Earth today. Over the past hundred years, the world’s population has quadrupled.

There is no such rapid population growth in nature. But people strive to change nature—the inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature that surrounds them—in order to build a comfortable environment according to their egoistic interests.

There are no other such species in nature. Animals make their lives comfortable to some extent, they dig holes for themselves and even store food for the winter. But unlike people, they do not build power plants, gas stations, etc, but use only those forces they have received from nature without intending to improve and refine them in order to use them to build a more perfect world. Only man is capable of such a thing.

If humanity would advance correctly using all the resources given to us by nature, we will be able to rid ourselves of all problems. Through the correct connection between people, it is possible to correct our nature and come to a beautiful life.

Humanity is trying instinctively to use four qualities for building a society: mercy, justice, truth, and peace, but we see that the current state of society is the result of the incorrect use of these four principles.

If we learn how to use these principles—mercy, justice, truth, and peace—correctly, we will be able to receive all the benefits. These are the four foundations that distinguish man from beast, and with their help we build human society.

In the inanimate, vegetative, and animate world, there is no such concept as “society.” Although there are such communities as a close-knit anthill or a flock, everything works on the basis of instinct, controlled by nature.

But if a person wants a good life, then this is impossible without a properly organized society. Therefore, we must implement the four principles: mercy, justice, truth, and peace.

Truth is the most certain principle, but the problem is that we do not know it. Truth is the name of the Creator (Emet): the letters “Aleph-Mem-Tav” (א-מ-ת). “Aleph” (א) is the first letter of the alphabet, in the middle “Mem” (מ) is the quality of Bina, and the ending “Tav” (ת) is the last letter of the alphabet. This is how we receive the truth, the name of the Creator. With this word, these letters, the upper force created all the creation.

But we cannot govern human society by the quality of truth. So instead of truth, we use mercy, justice, and peace to somehow get closer to the truth.

Truth is complete bestowal, the nature of the Creator. Yet, since we are not able to act according to the quality of bestowal, called truth, we try in some way to get closer to it in order not to eat each other. These auxiliary principles are called mercy, justice, and peace.

These are not perfect principles, but in the absence of choice, we have to follow them in order to maintain a more or less normal relationship between us.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/10/20, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”

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Question: According to Baal HaSulam, the particularity of recognizing negative feedback is such that the blow is perceived and delivered exactly in accordance to the level of development of humanity and a person himself. Are the impacts felt more today than thousands of years ago?

Answer: No. Thousands of years ago there were other kinds of blows. For example, if it rained, it destroyed the harvest or something else. And today it is wars, enormous suffering in accordance with the forces that a person has.

Question: Do you think that people are suffering more today than a few thousand years ago?

Answer: Physically, maybe less. But nature has another rule: to bring man to awareness, to understanding, to bring him to his senses.

Remark: This means that as mankind develops, nature begins to put more pressure on us. If a thousand years ago it affected us by, say, X kilograms, today it affects us by X+10.

On the other hand, we see that there was much more suffering before. Wars were constantly going on, and one simply could not go out to the street. Today, laws are much more humane.

My Comment: But people felt that suffering on a different level. We are unable to withstand physical suffering today, but we could then. However, now our higher-level suffering is moral. It is very difficult for me to explain this because nature, at different times and at different levels, relates to people from the point of view of integrity.

Nevertheless, nature’s task is to lead man to the realization that he must work integrally, in correct communication between all parts of humanity and with herself.

Question: Baal HaSulam writes that if humanity does not take into account the threat hanging over it and does not draw the right conclusions, then nature will defeat us, and then we will be forced to comply with the laws of bestowal. So it turns out that only punishment and suffering can help us and without them we will not be able to move?

Answer: Exactly. Only the carrot and the stick. But thanks to this, a person grows smarter, begins to properly handle the carrot and the stick, rises above his nature, and he himself becomes a man, he himself controls his nature with the stick and the carrot.
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 8/21/20

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Truth, justice, and mercy‚—everyone selects which principle to act according to in this world. It is clear that we cannot be guided by truth because we do not know it; therefore, we choose something else. That is why we create different systems to help those who are weaker: pay benefits, help single mothers and young families, etc.

It is as if we want to compensate for what the Creator did incorrectly and unjustly. The Creator allegedly arranged injustice in the world and we see that the world is initially corrupted, but we do not understand what is involved with the correction. We try to perform a correction outside of a person instead of correcting him inside. This is the whole problem.

If we want to be guided by the truth, we must correct everyone. Instead, we correct the external connections between us, and therefore we do not see success.

It is very difficult to establish the truth because we do not know the internal reserves of a person, but only see his external efforts. However, one is stronger and more energetic by nature and the other is lazy and weak, and it is impossible to assess what efforts this work really takes for everyone.

We must take into account the internal forces of a person in order to demand from everyone equal effort in the work. The strong one can do twice as much work as the weak, but we will be considered as equal.

It is written that “Truth shall spring forth from the earth,” meaning from the desire. If we use our desire correctly, we will find the criterion of truth there and will be able to use it correctly.

It should become clear to everyone how much each person has received from nature, from the Creator, and how much each one has supplemented, and then everyone will be evaluated equally.

We can achieve the criterion of truth only if we all feel each other internally. We need to come to such a connection between us and the Creator and to reveal such a force of connection that everyone is ready to bestow upon the other with all their heart and soul. Then we will reach the degree of truth. We will no longer count who has done more and who has done less—everyone will give one hundred percent and the truth will reign.

This does not mean equalizing everyone, it means that we unite in such a form where everything starts to work out. There are two conditions: everyone gives everything they have and uses all their abilities for a common connection. Then we complement each other like ants in an anthill.

The revelation of truth turns the entire universe into a sphere: everyone is integrated into each other so that the quality of the Creator, the upper force of bestowal, is revealed within them. And in this way, we achieve perfection.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/9/20, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Peace in the World”

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Human behavior in our world cannot be explained by clear-cut laws, unlike animals where everything is clear, obey rigid instincts.

A person does not have a clear division between good and evil; there is always something in the middle, which leaves some uncertainty. Therefore, we can never be sure that our decision is correct; we are always in doubt, questions, and ambiguity.

If the result were evident right on the spot you would take a bite of poisoned food and choke, you would do a good deed and immediately become famous. But we cannot distinguish good from evil in advance, and therefore we do not know what to do.

A person does not act like a plant or an animal that knows what to get closer to and what to run away from. Animals do not need laboratories to check the quality of food, they just need to smell it or lick it to understand everything.

Plants know what is harmful to them and what is useful, when to open and when to close. A person, however, does not know anything, he is born helpless and lives without knowing or understanding anything. Therefore, he needs the support of the environment, and even as an adult, he is always tormented by doubts.

An animal never makes mistakes if it is healthy. A person makes mistakes all the time, and even if they learn from them, they make mistakes again at the next step. He constantly falls and rises and makes corrections in this way. How can billions of people, each of whom make mistakes every now and then, connect with each other into a perfect system? It is obvious that this is not within our power.

It is impossible to govern the world by truth because we do not have it. Everyone has their own truth, and it contradicts all other truths. Yet, nature is pressing on us, forcing us to unite and complete each other, and even love each other so that each serves the other.

How can we build such a system? It will not appear by itself from nature; on the contrary, we will become more and more separated, and perceive others as enemies. When we start working on our correction, we realize how great this task is.

Truth is an instinct. Inanimate nature, plants, and animals exist according to their instincts, and therefore they do not make mistakes. A person does not have an instinct, i.e., a clear internal desire that directs one’s actions. That is why he is always asking questions.

For animals, instinct replaces truth by correctly orienting them. But a human has no instinct, and therefore he acts at his own risk or relies on what others say, and therefore constantly makes mistakes.

The country is splitting in two, arguing about who is best suited to be president and receive the reins of the country. But in the future, the people will rule the country because they will feel that only the upper force can rule, which they will attract into the population. In other words, the Creator will rule, but only if the people invite Him to reign.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/8/20, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Peace in the World”

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New Life 456 – The European Union
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Europe is tired and falling apart. It was good for business and the tycoons, but nothing was done there to unite people. Each of the states has to concede its egoism for the sake of connection in order to rise above past disputes. The problem is that the heads of the states are the most egoistic. The education of the public should start from the bottom up rather than the top down. The only ones who can eventually unite Europe and the whole world is the nation of Israel.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 456 – The European Union,” 11/16/14

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