New Life 830 – The Reason For Hatred In The World
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

The basic matter of creation is the desire to receive, which develops the levels of nature: still, vegetative, animate, and speaking.

The human ego develops since there is a spark of light in it, which means the force of bestowal that drives it. In the past, Abraham explored the hatred that erupted among the people of ancient Babylon and discovered the method of reaching love. Then he taught a group of people who wanted to attain how to ascend above the ego. Those who joined Abraham later became the nation of Israel and were internally different from everyone else.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 830 – The Reason For Hatred In The World,” 2/28/17

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From “The Crisis and Its Solution” (Arosa Forum 2006)

How does humanity realize the need to become similar to nature? They will come to it from hopelessness and from the realization of egoism as evil! One can advance toward the realization of evil by choosing the path of suffering or the short path of correction.

However, the path of suffering is not the path; this is just an amount of time that is needed for the realization of all the horrible consequences of one’s stubbornness and egoism.

Nevertheless, one can choose a short and easy path of correction: if a person receives knowledge about the world’s structure, causality, and purpose, he accelerates his realization of evil and does not need to realize egoism as evil under the influence of sufferings.

Humanity is gradually advancing to the understanding that it is necessary to adhere to the middle line. Today, it is clearly evident from the clashes that occur between the left and the right in human society. An example of this is the United States after the recent elections. In Europe, too, will soon begin a ruthless struggle between the ultra-right (Nazi) parties and the ultra-left liberals.

We won’t reach peace this way because each one wants to defeat the other. Both don’t understand that there must be a middle line between them that is based on their connection and common goal. The world doesn’t have this method yet, and therefore, it will lead either to war or to continuous struggle.

The struggle won’t end until both sides realize that throughout the general structure of creation, there have to be the right and the left sides and the middle line between them. And it is necessary to know how to build it.

Until this happens, they will continue to fight with each other. This struggle between the right and the left resembles the period of formation of the planet Earth. At first, the forces of fire were winning and everything was burning, then the forces of cooling were winning, and the glaciation began.

So the periods of warming and cooling alternated every thirty million years until the Earth finally stabilized and reached the middle line, or the middle state.

Today, we still live on the volcano because inside the Earth, everything is burning, there is tremendous energy. Yet, we live on the thin layer of the Earth’s crust that covers all of it from above. The same thing happens everywhere; any life appears as a result of the interaction between these two opposite forces.

Therefore, we need the recognition of evil and its correction through balancing it with the good forces. However, the good and evil must be balanced and equal, and must complete each other because this is the only way to reach the middle line. After all, only in the middle line is it possible to advance from one degree to another, from the beginning to the end of the spiritual path.

In essence, the difference between all the degrees is in the greater and greater revelation of our egoism, the desire to enjoy, which obliges us to build the right line against it in order to reach the middle line.

The long way is when we learn from our own mistakes, without the help of the wisdom of Kabbalah and without knowing how to build the middle line and how to organize society in advance so we would learn, as in the laboratory, how to create a correct mutual connection between all.

If we try to do so, we can take a short, perfect, comfortable, and kind path with the wise leader ahead. If we don’t, we face a path of great sufferings. Baal HaSulam said that we’ve entered the era of Mashiach.

Now we discover that humanity is seeking its path and doesn’t know where to advance further. These are the clear signs of the era of the Mashiach (the Messiah) that will become more and more clear.
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Question: The crisis of 2008 showed that people don’t learn from weak blows. Could a global ecological catastrophe or even a nuclear winter already be embedded in the program of nature? And if they can’t be avoided anyway, is it best not to think about them?

Answer: If we are facing some kind of terrible catastrophe—biological, ecological, financial, climate problems or a nuclear war—it doesn’t relieve us from the need to act in order to avoid the blow. We cannot just wait calmly until it happens.

We have no right to think so, because we understand that it doesn’t end there. In his short-sightedness, a person thinks, “Well, if I die, then I’ll die.” But it isn’t as simple as that. We can’t die and disappear because we are in an eternal process inside the cycles of life, living and being born again and again.

All these births and deaths are, in effect, the renewal of our small animal desire to enjoy that gradually grows and develops, taking on new forms.

This circle can end only when we begin to build our soul from two opposite forces, egoism on the one hand, the negative force, and nature on the other hand, the positive force that we need to acquire and add to our egoism.

Midway between these two forces, we will be able to advance, and we must do it with understanding and awareness. There is a way of natural development—the path of suffering by which nature urges us forward.

There is also a way of hastening time (Achishena), to which we must move. After all, we need to rise to the degree of a man (Adam), meaning similar (Dome) to the upper force of nature, the Creator, who understands, feels, and realizes according to His desire and free choice the entire purpose of creation.

Therefore, we won’t be able to just bury our heads in the sand and say, “Well, in the worst case, we will die, but for now we’ll just live and have fun.” This is a childish approach to live, not suitable for an adult.
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New Life 829 – Religions And The Development Of Man
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

What does the return to religion today indicate? How did Abraham discover the upper force? What was the impact of this revelation on humanity and why did popular religion emerge?

There is a trend of returning to religion today as a result of the growing egoism. People are looking for meaning of life. Religion tells us that there is a force that manages us above nature, that we should believe in it and obey its commandments. We don’t need to “believe” in order to reveal the Creator; we need to work and to acquire the attribute of love of others.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 829 – Religions And The Development Of Man,” 2/14/17

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New Life 828 – Between Religions And The Wisdom Of Kabbalah
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

What does religion provide us with? How does the wisdom of Kabbalah teach us to get to know the upper force and what is the goal that people of all religions have to reach according to this wisdom?

We don’t know what we are living for, and religions offer a person something that is beyond this life. The wisdom of Kabbalah is the internality of Judaism. It is the method of revealing the Creator to man while still in this world.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 828 –  Between Religions And The Wisdom Of Kabbalah,” 2/14/17

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We live in a special time when the entire world is going through very big and rapid changes. What used to happen in a decade some fifty or a hundred years ago now happens in a year. Each person feels as if caught in a cycle of constantly changing and moving events.

Today here are almost no people in the world who would not be affected by the ongoing changes. They have reached even the most remote areas and small villages. As Kabbalists explain, this is a sign that the world is approaching the general correction.

This is why we organize international Kabbalah conventions that symbolize the entire world wishing to unite. Thousands of people of various nationalities and cultures come from all over the world in order to connect together.

The only remaining obstacle is language. If we do not speak the same language, it is difficult to communicate because we are still in Babylon. The ancient Babylonians started with one language, then began to speak different languages, and as a result, ceased to understand each other. We, accordingly, have to come from many languages to one.

It is when I sit with unfamiliar people with different mentality, the shattering, which occurred in the ancient Babylon and is being revealed only today, manifests even more clearly. This will further push us to unite. After all, we have to return to Babylon so that the entire world becomes one village.

At the convention, we feel as if the former Babylonians gathered from all over the world in order to unite back into one people, one humanity. Now we need to do the very same work that Abraham wanted to do in ancient Babylon. He did not succeed back then because the evil still had to be revealed.

But three and a half thousand years have passed since, and during this time the evil has gradually become revealed more and more. As a result, it reached such a scale that the whole world began to realize what slough of despond it finds itself in. Therefore, now it is ready to begin to unite.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/17

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Question: A few weeks ago, a father in the village of Migdal near the Kinneret killed his wife, their small children and the neighbors’ son. This is the third incident since the beginning of the year in which parents murdered their children. In Jerusalem, a mother killed her four daughters and in Acre a mother killed her five-year-old son. How can we explain the fact that a parent who is supposed to protect his child becomes his murder?

Answer: People find themselves under such pressure, such circumstances that pressure them on all sides, until they begin to think that it is actually their children who are the main liability in their life, and thus they sentence them to death. They believe that if they had no children, they wouldn’t be under such pressure and would not have to care for anyone and would be relieved.

These are exceptional tragic incidents. I believe that the cause for such incidents is the fact that life has become too stressful for people and there are those who cannot take it and are willing to free themselves from it at any cost.

Question: How does that happen, because we always use parental love as the closest example of true, unselfish love?

Answer: Love of parents for their children is a natural emotion that is typical of both humans and animals, but when parents find themselves under pressure and don’t know what to do, they lose their mind. If someone had stopped them at that moment, and then told them what they had intended to do, they would of course have been shocked. This is a situation of temporary insanity.

Question: So who is insane, humanity?

Answer: Today, people undergo very strong pressures and so, unfortunately, such cases will reoccur.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 1/30/17

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New Life 825 – Democracy, Law And Education
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Why does it seem that the rule of law does not protect us anymore? How can we adjust to the laws of the system of nature of which we are part, and why is it essential that we undergo a process of re-education in order to achieve that?

Only laws that stem from our understanding of nature and its goal with regard to mankind will be able to establish a good society. As long as we don’t accept the law as our internal law, we need a system of rules.

In the ideal state, everyone needs to receive all his basic necessities from society and to contribute to society as much as he can. We will ascend to a state of connection only through education, only when we feel equal, and no laws will help us do that.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 825 – Democracy, Law And Education,” 2/7/17

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In the News (BBC): “British Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday will deliver a speech in support of the official definition of anti-Semitism, which, in its view, makes it easier to prosecute the perpetrators of crimes motivated by hatred of Jews.

“A clear definition of what should be considered anti-Semitism will help the police, municipalities, universities and other organizations, according to the government.

“International Alliance Memory of the Holocaust (IHRA) hopes that this official definition, agreed only in this year, it will be taken at the international level.

“In this formulation, anti-Semitism is called ‘a certain attitude toward the Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews’.

“Further, the text states that ‘Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews or non-Jews, and (or) their property against the Jewish community institutions and religious buildings.’”

My Comment: It could be that an accepted official definition for anti-Semitism will make it possible to denounce people more concretely for relevant activities or statements, but it will not “cure” them of anti-Semitism!

The origin of anti-Semitism is in the appearance of the “point in the heart” in Jews, which is the budding of the altruistic characteristic that appeared in them at the time of Abraham until the destruction of the Second Temple, meaning for the 1,500 years in which the Jews existed within the framework of the principle, “And you shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) or fought for the sake of realizing this principle. The destruction of the Temple was the moment the Jews fell from the level of altruism.

Human nature is opposed to the principle of altruism, so when they feel that it exists in a particular group, they hate that group of people subconsciously. In the Torah it is said that this hatred was born in humanity when the Torah was received. It is a method for correcting human nature from egoistic (all deeds intended for oneself) to altruistic (all deeds intended for the sake of others).

Human nature will certainly not change due to the adoption of an official definition for the term “anti-Semitism.” The (special) natural negative attitude of anti-Semites toward Jews will not disappear. In the Introduction to The Book of Zohar it is said that hatred toward the Jews will exist in all generations, until the period when all the nations of the world will begin to change their egoistic nature to an altruistic nature. The crisis in development that is beginning to be revealed in our times will force them to this more and more.

So the wisdom of Kabbalah, the method for changing human nature, is being revealed in our time. The Jews are required to be the first to learn the method. Their role will then be to reveal it to the entire world. In that way, mutual relationships in the world will begin to improve. Without accepting this method from the Jews, the world will achieve this change as a result of world wars.

From the introduction to The Book of Zohar, it is absolutely clear that the appearance of anti-Semitism among the nations of the world is a natural phenomenon, a law, whereas the uprooting of anti-Semitism from the nations of the world is possible only if the Jews will adapt themselves to the correction of their nature and give an example to all the nations of the world this way, becoming a “Light for the nations” (Isaiah 49:6).
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New Life 824 – Democracy And The Rule Of The People
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Human nature is egoistic and everyone has his own interests, so there is no chance that we will ever reach the state in which the people rule.

States were established because strong individuals wanted to build a mechanism to help them control the people. In the past, the elite ruled directly; today they rule through the media. Everything is managed as a fixed game.

It is only by ascending above egoism that the people can become sovereign and replace its leaders and advance toward connection. In the connected state, there is no minority or majority, there are no interests, and everyone aspires to greater connection and mutual love.

Society will make sure that every individual receives all that he needs according to the rule of “love thy friends as thyself,” and everyone will contribute his share to society.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 824 – Democracy And The Rule Of The People,” 2/7/17

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