Everywhere, as soon as there is a problem, we can enter the ark, the degree of Bina, and hide there. And then nothing can harm us because the degree of Bina is like a baby in its mother’s womb, protected from all sides. This is the safest place.

And after acquiring the qualities of Bina, we can add our desire to receive and start growing there. And then the ark gradually turns into a house in which there is also the light of Hochma.

But the safest thing to do when you are in a difficult situation is to enter the ark. In any flood that happens in our life, big or small, we need to join such a group that gives us the feeling of an ark, that is, the light of Hassadim, where everything is for the sake of bestowal. And then it is impossible to harm us in any way. The flood may be raging outside, but we are in a safe place, in the mother’s womb, inside the ark, inside the upper.

If we take refuge in the waters of Bina, we are protected by the upper degree. And there we begin to grow, getting bigger, and the ark grows with the embryo. And then it is time to be born, that is, to get out of the ark and continue to grow outside of it. It is written about Noah that when the time of the flood ended, he was able to get out of the ark and start building life anew.

But all this will happen later, now we are flooded by the flood waters, and all of humanity must enter the ark built from the good connection between us and the forces of mutual bestowal. Such an ark will protect us from all misfortunes.

Unfortunately, humanity will not enter the ark and will not feel the need for it without the flood, but only due to blows, problems, the fear of drowning in the waters of the flood. The flood is Gevura that opens in Bina leaving us no choice but to hide from the stormy waters. And this is possible only by connecting because this creates the true quality of the Bina.

The flood is not the real Bina, but Gevura revealed within Bina. And we create the reverse form, that is, Bina built upon the power of unity.

So, in the ten, we want to take shelter from the raging flood around us. And if we build the ten correctly, we will feel that no enemy will be able to near us. And if an unpleasant event does occur in the group, it means that we neglected to build the ark, which we had to strengthen more and more all the time. After all, we will have to spend many days in the waters of the flood until we can get out of the ark.

In the ark, we can hide together with all our egoistic desires: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human, and close ourselves inside the ark to be in common unity. Even though each would like to swallow the other, the ark acts on us with its power of bestowal.

All of humanity must now enter the ark, that is, cancel their egoism and want to unite. This is the very first correction, which means that we are building an ark where all the qualities that exist in humanity can exist together. And the flood, the stormy waters, is the revelation of the power of evil in the water. From all our desires, qualities, and thoughts, we must build a state where everyone wants to get closer to each other, that is, agree to live on this planet without any hostility.

The coronavirus is the flood that encourages us to build the ark on Earth, that is, a relationship that wraps us and protects us. Everyone treats others kindly without trying to eat them. Everyone enters the same ark and understands that they must not harm each other. And so, we all safely pass this stage, which is called the “flood” or the coronavirus.

If we had listened to the Creator’s warning in advance and started building good relations, we would not have had to reach such critical states as the coronavirus pandemic. And the blows will get stronger and stronger until we start to correct.

If we do not understand that we need to build the right relationships, then the upper governance will continue to destroy all ties between us, all our businesses. Many will have to drown in the waters of the flood, and only those who want to build the ark and take shelter in it will remain, that is, within the group where at least they do not harm each other.

The flood washes away everything we had before leaving us in despair and fear of the forces of nature. It leaves us with the only way out: to build the ark and nothing else. It pulls the ground from under our feet, all our foundation, deprives us of the opportunity to exist without either material or spiritual food. The upper force, which usually brings kindness and goodness, suddenly brings the flood down on us because we are opposite to its goodness. So it wants to drown us.

Therefore, we all enter the ark and must remain there for a while, like a fetus in the mother’s waters, until we grow up there enough so that we can exist outside the ark.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/4/20, “Noah”

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Remark: You say that we humans, by our attitude, affect the lower parts of nature.

My Comment: It is always like that. Inanimate nature is most affected by the vegetative, both levels interact most actively with each other.

On the vegetative and animate levels, they feed each other.

On the animate – human, although man, in general does not differ from animals, except perhaps only in his ability to conquer nature, and yet, the unreasonable conquest.

Ultimately, all parts of nature must interact with each other in such a way as to complement each other.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 8/21/20

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There is just one opportunity: to reveal the upper force, which will connect the two camps together. Revelation of the upper force and everyone’s unity—this is our work, as Kabbalists. This will soon be clear and we have to be ready for it. The world will want it, will come and ask for it.

The whole world will divide into the right and left. “Israel” will be responsible for billions on one side and billions on the other side not being able to connect with each other. We have to learn the middle line, which is established by the upper force: “He who makes peace in the heavens will make peace between us.”

There is no middle line—it will come from above. That is how the world and nature are built. Kabbalistic groups that work on coming closer to the upper force, to the goal of creation—Israel, those aimed “straight at the Creator,” will be in the center of the world and of everyone’s attention. They must provide a connection between the left and right lines.

Nature does not help people to unite, but on the contrary, it will divide them into two equal camps, as we are now seeing in the USA. Society has split down the middle, with millions of people on one side, and millions on the other.
A handful of people tip the scale to decide who becomes the American President.

The ego grows in the course of its development—the discrepancy between the right and left does not get smoothed out. They grow further apart from each other, the conflict and arguments between them increase. This is clearly expressed in America the left and right parties cannot come to a common denominator. This breakage exists even within families.
From Twitter, 11/8/20

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My article in Newsmax: “Any President of Half the Nation Is Illegitimate”

America is split between two halves that hate each other to death. Whatever one says, the other instinctively counters, regardless of the content. When one candidate represents half the nation and the other represents the other half, then neither represents the country. It’s a stalemate that will either lead to a civil war or to union on a completely new level. Currently, the former is far more plausible.

Both sides have great arguments. They present them clearly and convincingly, but no one is persuaded. No one is even listening. In fact, both arguments are valid, yet both are wrong. Why are they wrong? Because if you think your way will make the country better, but all it really does is increase division and enmity, then whatever your argument may be, it’s wrong.

Moreover, when a society reaches such levels of intolerance, it is no longer a democracy. Even if you win the election, still, almost half the country opposes everything you do and feels that you, the winner, are imposing your view on the other half against its will. The basis of democracy lies in accepting that the majority leads while considering the views and needs of the minority. When you have no trust, no feeling of mutual consideration, you have no democracy.

What you have instead is tyranny of one half over the other. This is an explosive situation and it is currently the situation in America. Unless Americans overcome the impasse in the near future, a civil war is bound to erupt.

To change the situation in America, Americans first need to understand that they will never convince the other side. No one will agree with anyone—not now, not ever. We have come to such a level of self-absorption that we cannot listen to each other, so persuasion is off the table. Next, Americans must accept that disagreements are not a problem, but a given situation that they must deal with or kill each other until only one is left.

Assuming the American people do not opt for mutual extermination, they must find a way to live together. Indeed, there is such a way. All of reality is built on complementing opposites that live side by side and only their mutual existence creates harmony, balance and life!

Opposites never agree. If they did, the agreement would cancel them and they would cease to exist. In fact, the existence of one enables the existence of the other. Would there be day without night, birth without death, spring without fall or heads without tails? There wouldn’t be anything; the universe would not exist.

Only once you realize that you need both sides you can begin to resolve anything. In fact, when you unite above the dispute, you discover that the dispute no longer exists, that its only purpose was to impel you to unite against your will. This is true of personal relationships as it is true of international relationships. It may be hard to fathom right now, but if America unites its ranks, none of the foreign policy issues it is dealing with right now would remain.

When you go hand in hand with reality, reality goes hand in hand with you. When you go against reality and try to impose your view on half the nation that does not agree with you or accepts your leadership, you will fail in home affairs as well as in international affairs. The only thing that’s required in today’s divided world is unity. Those who miss it will stay behind and fall, either through war or through social disassembly. Those who grasp it will lead the world into the future.
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is your opinion about the 2020 USA election?“

Today, we bear witness to increasing social division and polarization all around the world, in all of the developed nations of the so-called free world, and the more developed the nation, the greater the polarization.

Why are we becoming increasingly polarized the more that we develop?

It is because behind our evolution are growing human desires. Human development began with us fulfilling our base individual desires for food, sex, family and shelter, and over time, new desires appeared in us—social desires for money, honor, control and knowledge—and we lived and worked in order to fulfill them.

Our current era is characterized by the emergence of a new desire that we have yet to fully grasp, one urging our increasing interdependence and interconnectedness, and it requires us to realize our growing connection harmoniously. However, in this transitional process, we feel increasing connection and our constantly-inflating desires as burdens that pit us up against each other more and more.

We have never experienced such a strong opposition in opinions and relations, where one opinion is convinced that things should go one way, and the other opinion is convinced that things should go the other way.

The more we have developed our intellects and gained experience from our time on this planet, then you would think that by now we should know how to bridge our divides. Instead, however, we see that the more sophisticated we become, the more divided we also become.

How, then, can it ever be possible to get along?

Today’s intensely polarizing society will not be able to be connected at the same level of understanding and emotion that currently resides in people. On the contrary, the more we develop, the more division, hatred, rejection, and lack of readiness to reach any kind of common understanding will ensue.

Nature awakens this division among us precisely in order for us to reach a state of helplessness, where we all raise our hands with a sincere desire for help, because otherwise we will see that we are all doomed.

However, nature has no intention to divide us. Rather, it is urging us to realize balance and a perfect connection with each other. Also, it does so in a way where we could realize that connection on our own, as adults, and not that we would unconsciously and involuntarily “click” into place without any awareness on our behalf.

What is happening right now with the US elections is a clear example of how nature is encouraging us to wake up to the helplessness of our current situation, as well as to the need for help from a higher force—that it reveal itself and organize our connections positively—otherwise we remain stuck.

In America, we see an example of how a roughly equal amount of people are split between two opposite sides. How can a successful leadership emerge in such a situation, where two halves of the population are respectively for and against an elected leader? Simply put, there can be no successful leadership in such a situation, and everybody will increasingly feel dissatisfied with whatever leader arises.

This division is happening because a higher force of connection needs to become revealed throughout humanity. This force—call it nature, the laws of nature, God or the Creator—holds the key to organize our connections harmoniously, and any positive progress from this point onward requires this force to surface among us. The positive aspect of our current polarization is that it becomes clear that we cannot solve our division on our own accord, and that if we fail to realize the need to invite a higher force to organize us, then we will end up battling each other uncompromisingly, and can find ourselves in states of great conflict and suffering, which have already started unraveling.

I discussed this topic and answered questions about it yesterday in a meeting with a team of writers. Watch the video here: Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on the US Elections. [1:09:40]

Image: Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

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The Times of Israel published my new article “It’s a Draw! Hash It Out!”

Whether Trump or Biden end up in the White House, neither will be the president of the United States. He will be the president of only the Americans who elected him. A president who is one hundred percent accepted by half the country, and one hundred percent rejected by the other half, cannot be regarded as POTUS. It leaves the American people with two options: hash it out or fight it out. I hope they choose the former.

America is a highly developed country, especially when it comes to politics. As with any developed nation, its people are very opinionated. And the more opinionated they become, the harder it is for them to budge from their opinions. They become less tolerant and more arrogant, less attentive and more assertive, until finally, the whole country explodes in riots, violence, and civil war ensues.

This is the natural way, and countries should watch carefully what is happening in America because it will also happen to them. It’s the natural evolution of human nature.

Despite the morose prognosis, humans have more than human nature going for them; they’ve got intellect. When a situation becomes an evident impasse, look for a bypass. There is no reason things should end in violence if we already see that this is where we’re going; we can reroute.

There is a lot of truth in Albert Einstein’s famous adage, “The problems we are dealing with cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.” But there is more to it than that; we, that is our nature, created them so as to rise to a higher level.

Consider this: If everything had been alright while we were living in caves, would we ever have come out of them? If everything we did then succeeded, would we ever develop new tactics or tools to improve our lives and make them easier? Life keeps posing problems now as it always has, and always for the same purpose—to drive us forward, impel us to evolve. And today, evolution centers mainly on society.

Indeed, our society is lame. Human relations everywhere are plagued with suspicion, animosity, alienation, and hatred. Do we like feeling this way toward each other? If we did, we wouldn’t see the rates of depression, substance abuse, violence, homicide and suicide that we are seeing. We have become a society of sad, depressed, scared, and mainly hopeless people, and it’s all because there is a demon inside of us that makes us hate each other.

But it’s not a demon; it is human nature, the same engine that has developed us throughout the ages. Previously, it made us feel uncomfortable physically so we would develop easier and ways to live. Now it makes us feel uncomfortable emotionally so we will develop easier ways to live with one another.

This is why the Left and Right will never agree. Republicans will always think that Democrats are dead wrong, and Democrats will think the same about Republicans. But without the tension, there will be no impetus for growth, no realization that we must somehow establish unity or we will kill each other.

There is a funny thing about unsolvable conflicts. When you finally manage to reconcile, you often feel closer than before the conflict broke out. Moreover, you often realize that the problem doesn’t exist anymore even though you never touched it, but only focused on connecting with the other party. If it ever happened to you that you fought with your partner and after you made up you couldn’t remember what you fought about, then you know what I mean.

But it isn’t only on the personal level. The same idea is true for social, national, and international conflicts. When you work on unity, the problems aren’t solved, they disappear since they were only there as catalysts for connection.

America has been the leader of the free world since pretty much the end of World War II. Now it’s in a crisis that can send it soaring or sink it down. If Americans want, they can be the trailblazers they have always been and lead the whole world to a new era, where problems are promoters of connection, and conflicts are opportunities for deep concord. It’s been a political draw in America since 2016; it’s time to hash it out and rise together to a new level of solidarity and cohesion, and pave the trail away from friction and toward real and lasting peace.
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The Times of Israel published my new article “The Lesson Still to Be Learned from Kristallnacht”

Dozens of Jews were murdered, many more were publicly humiliated and sent to concentration camps; homes and businesses were destroyed and more than a thousand synagogues across Germany and Austria were torched—That was the tale of destruction left behind by the Nazis on Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass,” on November 9, 1938. On the 82nd anniversary of the day, it is crystal clear that history could repeat itself as the shadow of antisemitism and radicalism expands around the world.

A new series of Islamic fundamentalist terrorist attacks have shaken Europe in the last few days. The UK elevated its terror alert level to “severe” after the deadly attacks in France, in Paris and Nice days ago and most recently, in Vienna, Austria where four people were killed and 22 injured in shootings perpetrated in an area near several synagogues. Even if one believes that Jews were not specifically targeted in that attack, the peace and quiet the city offered to the Jewish community is over. In a rare statement, European Jewish leaders called for more “control and transparency” of the mosques across the continent—over what is being preached and where they get financing that could promote incitement to commit such acts of violence.

But radicalization is only one of the threats, albeit not a minor one. Antisemitism is generally on the rise in Europe and has been for a while as record-breaking cases of physical attacks and harassment are reported in major European cities. Anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli sentiments created by extremist groups are nowadays not items of historical reference but a very current reality worldwide.

However, Jews predictably think everything will pass by. They are convinced that letters of condemnation to organizations or to governments will do the job. Wake up! It has not worked so far and never will. We still haven’t learned the lesson from the entire history of persecution toward Jews. The Jewish people resist accepting the fact that they are unwanted in Europe. As terrorism intensifies and social and economic problems worsen, Jews will be held to blame, as always happens. Many will want to conclude what Germany and Austria started more than eight decades ago, claiming “why must they live among us; we really suffer from all these people; we are in trouble and we have no choice but to finish them off.”

Great pressures upon European Jewry and the Jewish communities of the entire world are in store until Jews realize that they are at the epicenter of hatred for a reason. We need to learn that the world does not change, so we must. We must show humanity as a whole how to repair the breakage in the world—this is what is expected of Jews.

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains that Jews have a special role in the great human puzzle: “Israel’s purpose is to unite the entire world into one family,” writes Rav Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of Israel. The mission of the people of Israel, according to the most renowned Kabbalist of the 20th Century, Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), is to serve as a conduit to transfer the system of positive connection to humanity so that it can recover balance and ease its pains. He wrote, “And when they do that, it is plain to see that with His work, all envy and hatred will be abolished from humanity” (“The Peace”).

However, in order for that to happen first Jews must unite. As long as this role is delayed, suffering on the personal and global scale will continue to intensify as a hard reminder of the role Jews need to fulfill. So let’s not forget that our lives depend on our good connection, as simple as that. As long as we present the impenetrable armor of unity to the world, no enemy will rise against us. Only then will we be able to relegate our painful past to the annals of history and turn over a new leaf to begin writing a sunny present and future.
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The next stage of the pandemic is the revelation of evil that the coronavirus is leading us toward. We will understand that we must keep our distance from each other in accordance with our internal separation. Gradually, the connection between the material and spiritual world will begin to manifest.

Therefore, I don’t think the pandemic will end. Medicines will appear, but they will not help, and if they help for one virus, it will only be to reveal another, even more dangerous one.

The coronavirus shows us our internal relationship to each other in external parameters: I hate someone “by two meters,” and someone “by twenty.” The quarantine distance reflects the hatred that exists between us. I’m forbidden to approach someone if I don’t treat them well. Maybe they’ll even invent a detector that starts buzzing if you get too close to someone.

This is called the revelation of evil because I see how badly I treat people and that I must correct my attitude. This will be the cure for the coronavirus.

In spiritual space, our closeness is determined by the law of similarity of qualities. And that is why such events happen to us in this world. We gain a new perception of reality because I can get closer to you or further away depending on how I think about you: good or bad. If I really want what’s best for you, I can get closer and closer. But only up to a certain limit, no more than that! I feel the border between us.

We are like charged particles in a spiritual field that cannot arbitrarily approach or move away, but always maintain a balance between them. So we begin to feel ourselves floating relative to each other to the extent of equality of our qualities or their difference. The distance will change as the attitude changes, and everything will become so obvious that it will allow us to quickly correct ourselves and become like one man with one heart.

There will be no difference between us—only one common desire. There will be no diseases and viruses. The virus will turn out to be useful since it has brought us to this state, to a common embrace.

The main thing is to find out that we need the help of the upper force hidden in nature. This force is the source of life, and therefore, it created all the particles of creation and develops them until they reach the sense of life. Therefore, we need this force that can connect plus with minus at all levels, so that it can help us at our human level.

On the human level, this power will not come by itself without our call; it leaves us free choice. It only awakens us by appearing to us as a negative force so that we ask it to act positively between us, as it is said: “Husband and wife—Shechina between them.” This is what we must ask, demand, and pray for together.

We have only one way out: to correct ourselves, and then the good connection between us will not allow the virus to manifest itself. Until we understand this, the coronavirus will not disappear. It will be reborn in various modifications and poison our lives until we realize that only by improving our relations with each other will we neutralize the virus.

Otherwise, the virus will pass from humans to animals, and from animals to insects, to such tiny ones that it is impossible to fight at all. The virus will be everywhere! It will be carried by beetles, flies, and birds and force us to be afraid of every mosquito. And most importantly, products will be infected with it.

I can lock myself in a house and turn it into a fortress, but I need supplies inside this fortress. And all the products will be contagious, in any tomato, cucumber, or water bottle there may be viruses, everywhere. After all, everyone has egoism, which means we will all suffer. I may not leave the house, but I need to breathe, and I will inhale viruses along with the air.

How else can we be pushed to say: “Enough! We are ready to do anything for the sake of correction.”
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From KabTV’s “Writer’s Meetings” 10/22/20

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My new article on Linkedin “When Old Values Die, New Ones Are Born”

Nothing was more important to us than stuff. By “stuff,” I don’t necessarily mean objects or accessories, but everything that distinguishes us from others, that makes us special, unique. When Covid came, it locked us up in our homes, made us virtually invisible, or rather, visible only virtually, and rendered almost all our “stuff” meaningless. But since we can’t live without values, because then we’re no different from animals, we’ve started to develop new ones. Now, gradually, as we are compelled to give up on the pleasure of getting respect and admiration as we learn to enjoy positive, reciprocal connections with others.

The atmosphere in the streets and in the media may be the complete opposite, but there are undercurrents paving the way to a new reality. The war on the outside marks the final breaths of the old world, where each one was for oneself.
The atmosphere in the streets and in the media may be the complete opposite, but there are undercurrents paving the way to a new reality. The war on the outside marks the final breaths of the old world, where each one was for oneself.

No beginning is easy, and certainly not the beginning of a new reality. But the sooner we realize that we cannot go back, not now and not ever, the quicker and easier will be the transition. The old values have brought us competition, corruption, exploitation, and pollution. They caused depression, obsession, alienation, and isolation. They also brought us the coronavirus, which is finally killing them one by one.

Suddenly, we must think of other people, and they of us. In the process, we are discovering how good it is to communicate rather than to compete, to give and receive rather than to take and give up, and to connect rather than to alienate.

Those who are currently fighting for their own rights will lose. Those who are fighting to unite everyone above all the differences and all the hardships will triumph. Perhaps not in person, but the way of connection will defeat the way of separation; it is simply that the time for it has come.

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Question: Over the past centuries, the US dollar has been the most stable currency used by the entire world. But lately the situation in the United States is characterized by a huge domestic debt, unrest in the country, trade wars waged by the United States, etc. What is your advice on whether to invest in the American currency?

Answer: 🙂 I didn’t expect that you would turn to me with such a question. This is not my area at all. But since everything in the world falls, then one thing falls relative to the other, of course.

What would I invest in? In education. If you would give me a lot of money, I would invest it in education. After all, nothing else remains. Just this! Eternal improvement of a person.

Question: That is, regardless of what currency it is (virtual, bitcoins, dollars), everything that a person has should be invested in education?

Answer: The most profitable investment is in the growth of a person’s educational level.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 9/1/20

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