Question: China has defined the minimum size of a bribe for which the death penalty is given: 3 million Yuan or 463,000 US dollars. In accordance with their gradation of the amount of money, defined as “large,” “huge,” and “enormous,” the court sentences various terms of imprisonment or the death penalty.
Does the Torah permit the death penalty?

Answer: Yes. There are four types of death penalties mentioned in the Torah: burning, strangling, stoning, and decapitation. These all stem from spiritual roots. In ancient times, death sentences were so rare that it was considered an unusual event. We can count very few cases in which Jewish people were sentenced to death during the thousand years before the nation of Israel received the Torah. During the 70 years there was one death sentence and this period was considered barbaric.

In those days the Sanhedrin made the final decision regarding a punishment. But the case was heard over many years, discussed so thoroughly for so long that individuals would die, and then the case was closed. However, these laws are hardly suitable for other nations because the Jewish nation is based on spiritual principles.

I don’t know if the world needs a death sentence today, but I have no doubt that there is a need for compulsory education all over the world. Humanity is affected by egoism that develops like a virus and infects everyone, from small children to the elderly. We are not aware of the many layers of the egoistic membrane that are wrapped around each of us. We don’t feel one another and treat each other according to values that are totally incompatible with the right desirable communication between people. The world is deteriorating, and if we don’t start some kind of spiritual human social educational, it will become totally barbaric. The whole problem is us.

Question: How can we reeducate all of humanity that is now 7-8 billion people? It sounds like a fantasy.

Answer: It is impossible to educate seven billion people, but it is possible to reeducate the 3-4 million people living in Israel. If the Jews really understood that the fate of the world depended on them and that they are facing the threat of annihilation, the threat of another Holocaust, all our problems would be solved. I have been saying that for many years, but lately global problems are increasingly manifesting: problems in UNESCO, in the UN, the elections in the US, problems in the EU common market, in Russia, in Syria, and everywhere.

We need to finally open our eyes and see that we are responsible for all these terrible egoistic revelations. We have to explain this to the Jewish people because the whole world will turn to us and demand an answer, demand compensation for the centuries they have suffered as a result of our lack of understanding and our reluctance to fulfill our mission.

As for the death sentence in China, it is also related to us. All the evil in the world on the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature, and the human level results from the behavior of the Jewish people, and so the world is beginning to turn to us through its subconscious hatred toward us, demanding that we reexamine our conduct. We should take things seriously, and then things will be better for us and for the whole world! There is no other way.
[182371]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/19/16

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In the News (LeMonde): “At a time when Europe is disintegrating, hanging in the air is a scent of nostalgia, the twilight remembrance of a time we thought immutable. The announced death of Europe, like the end of empires, fell without being beware. The old continent is found in the world of Austrian Jewish writer Stefan Zweig, haunted by the Austro-Hungarian grandeur before 1914. ‘It was the golden age of safety,’ Zweig wrote in Le Monde yesterday. … ‘Everything in our Austrian monarchy, almost a millennia, seemed based on that duration and the state itself seemed the supreme guarantor of this continuity … Nobody believed in wars, revolutions and upheavals. Any extreme event, violence, seemed almost impossible because of an era.’

“A century later, safety flew. Unreason prevails. The European Golden Age is over. Its promise of prosperity, embodied by the euro, the gold standard of the twenty-first century, is belied by the ongoing crises and mass unemployment; its political ambition, to forge a ‘union ever closer between European peoples’, as stipulated in the Treaty of Rome in 1957, smashes the rise of populism and the threat of [Britain’s exit from the EU] and extension of the French ‘no’ in the 2005 referendum; Its message of peace is belied by the return of foreign war (Syria, Russia) and interior, with Islamist terrorism.”

My Comment: I don’t have a malicious joy at seeing the predictions I made more than a decade ago, which were even published in this blog, coming true. I translate what the wisdom of Kabbalah says about what is happening, and the wisdom says there is a different path of development. But it depends on the unity of the Jews in Israel, Europe, and the world.

Because only by the unity of the Jews, as required by Kabbalah, is the unifying force revealed in the world and it enables us to integrate! The more the Jews reject the idea of unity, the world will show a growing hatred toward them, up to a new Holocaust.
[181966]

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New Life #650 – The Relations Between Israel And The Nations Of The World
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

What is our nation founded on and to what extent does the attitude of every person in Israel to his surroundings affect the whole world, and why do we all have to do our best to reveal the positive force that connects us?

Summary

The wisdom of Kabbalah tells us about the general system of reality, about the still, vegetative, and speaking levels, a system in which all its parts are connected. Humanity has evolved to a level in which it can manage the whole system and reach the level of the Creator. The first step toward that was done by Adam, a man who lived 5,776 years ago who was the first Kabbalist.

Hatred broke out in ancient Babylon. Abraham our patriarch taught people to connect and to manage reality. There were those who joined Abraham and there were those who opposed him. Eventually he left and moved with his people to Canaan. Abraham’s group developed and grew in the connection between them, and then disputes broke out between them and they fell to unfounded hatred. The hate between us brings about hate throughout the world, which means that the development of the nations of the world depends on the relations between us.

There are two paths we can follow toward the same predetermined goal: the path of suffering or the path of the Light.

The quality of the connection between us determines the quality of the relations between all the people and the nations of the world.

We are naturally managed by the evil inclination, the force of the ego, the negative force, and the connection adds the positive force. Every Jew is measured by his attitude to other Jews. It makes no difference whether one is on the right or on the left side of the political map, we are all one family. If we are aware of the relations between us, we will bring peace to the whole world and will all ascend to the next dimension.

We are facing a new level of consciousness called the soul, the human level, the level of perfection and eternity. Hatred between the right and the left sides of the political map has been around for years, but we will not be able to connect without the positive upper force. The positive force will connect us, raise us above the gaps between us, and show us that the differences between us are natural.

We all know that a system needs to be built from different parts that operate in harmony.
[170294]
From KabTV’s “New Life #650 – The Relations Between Israel And The Nations Of The World,” 11/12/15

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Question: In 2015 there were a record number of death sentences enforced: more than 1,600. Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia are the leading nations in the number of executions; they carry out close to 90% of them. What is happening with us? Have we become less sensitive than before?

Answer: The world is advancing toward more brutal times, and soon even Europe will begin executions. The “Golden Age” has already passed, and we will see how everywhere in the world the death sentence will become a routine punishment.

The tolerance that existed for ten or twenty years has gone. The bourgeoisie that has come to power again seeks control through money and power, and is only concealed by what is called tolerance. What was no longer is.

There are no democratic elections, everywhere stands dictators who only reach agreements between themselves and decide who will replace whom. Everything is bought and sold for money, and if not, then for more money. Europe that could once declare that it was democratic and tolerant has long gone.

Question: What is your personal attitude toward the death penalty?

Answer: According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, a death sentence is permissible, but only enforced every ten years.

In the Talmud it is said that if a death sentence is decreed in a particular court more than once in seventy years, then it is considered cruel.

Let us hope that we can achieve times like these in which not only the need for capital punishment will be cancelled, but also other penalties, prisons in particular! Prison is a product of the ego. According to the Torah, prisons are unnecessary. They don’t correct a person; on the contrary, they harden him and direct him toward even greater sins. In the period of the Kabbalists in Israel, there were no prisons.

Question: Thinking about our present uncorrected situation in the world, would you introduce capital punishment into Israeli law?

Answer: In principle we are left with no choice. In ancient times, education and information preceded the behavior of people.

Today there is no education at all among the population; so talking about a need for the immediate cancellation of punishment is impossible. It could be that the laws that are in force now can rein in the population from performing violent actions and outbursts to some degree.

But in general it is up to us to think about this, so that we will reach a situation where there will not be any need for capital punishment.
[182148]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/14/16

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In the News (New York Times , “I Love the U.N., but It Is Failing,” by Anthony Banbury): “I care deeply for the principles the United Nations is designed to uphold.

“And that’s why I have decided to leave. …

“Six years ago, I became an assistant secretary general, posted to the headquarters in New York. I was no stranger to red tape, but I was unprepared for the blur of Orwellian admonitions and Carrollian logic that govern the place. If you locked a team of evil geniuses in a laboratory, they could not design a bureaucracy so maddeningly complex, requiring so much effort but in the end incapable of delivering the intended result. The system is a black hole into which disappear countless tax dollars and human aspirations, never to be seen again. …

“I am hardly the first to warn that the United Nations bureaucracy is getting in the way of its peacekeeping efforts. But too often, these criticisms come from people who think the United Nations is doomed to fail. I come at it from a different angle: I believe that for the world’s sake we must make the United Nations succeed.”

Answer: This organization should not be an organization of united nations, but a supra-organization nations. It should be an organization comprised of representatives from every country and religion but which is not divided into separate countries and peoples of the world.

Such an organization should work for one goal, which is uniting humanity more and more, every second, day by day, month, and year. This should be its major role, and it shouldn’t deal with any other problem.

The UN would deal only in rallying above all differences in uniting in itself not as representatives of countries, but as strong representatives of all of mankind, who would be engaged in only one thing —the union of the whole of humanity into a single unit, in a single homogeneous society.

Question: Can a representative of a certain country ascend above his concern for his own nation this way?

Answer: There wouldn’t even be representatives of countries, instead, those who gather there would be people who care about the unity of mankind.

I am sure that such an organization will be founded and will exist, and when that happens it will begin to manage the world as one system, one umbrella organization, for everyone. This will be a global government.
[180302]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 3/20/16

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Opinion (liberation.fr): “Imagine the head of the European Central Bank hovering in a helicopter above the major cities and throwing money! Such a step would indicate how strong the doubts are about the effectiveness of the monetary policy that is designed to boost economic growth and prevent deflation.

“The interest rate of the European Central Bank according to which it lends money has gradually been reduced to 0%. The interest rates in France have even become negative. 40% of the debts of the European nations (2.86 trillion Euros) are now traded at a value less than 0%. To prevent the investment of money in bank accounts, they have decided to impose a tax on them hoping that the banks will begin to give loans. But this monetary policy of the European Central Bank has not yielded results.

“The direct distribution of money among the inhabitants is something that must engender a rise in consumption. If money is given to each citizen, he will spend it immediately, but the mass of commodities will remain as before. As a result of this, the money that is distributed will automatically lead to an increase in consumption and a rise in prices. Many economists consider this suggestion to be absurd.

“The proposal for the direct transfer of money to the accounts of the citizens of Europe raises questions of a democratic character, like: Who has the right to make a decision regarding the money? Is it the democratically chosen parliament and not the independent Central Bank who should alone decide without any oversight by the citizens? To whom and how should this money be distributed?

Everything depends on the question of the creation of a true European budget. Companies and families don’t want credit because of uncertainty about the future. The Central Banks are transferring tons of money into the economic conduits in vain, because all of them are missing the target, meaning that they are not influencing the volume consumption.”

My Comment: The era of money is over. We must look for another incentive— the spiritual opposite of money. It seems impossible to replace the distinct egoistic incentive with an indistinct altruistic incentive, but the world is coming to this, and its internal program is required to implement it.

“Kesef” (money) comes from the word “Kisuf” (yearning), meaning a “Masach” (screen) that covers (Mekaseh) the ego, and it speaks precisely about not needing to receive but to distribute, just as the distinguished economists have said themselves.
[181960]

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Question: The Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted the heartbreaking news about more mass suicide attempts among the Native American population.

Answer: The Native Americans in Canada and South America feel isolated from the modern world and feel that they don’t belong to it. They find our world threatening, feel that they don’t understand it and cannot be part of it. Very few manage to overcome this barrier and adapt to the modern world to some extent.

Today, it is even hard for us to adapt to it, although we are the ones who actually have created it. It is not easy to live in today’s world.

Canada provides the First Nation’s population with everything that they need. They live in large and rich reservations where the cost of living is low. They pay no taxes and can do whatever they want. But they still feel emptiness and cannot fill their natural desire to merge with nature by living a modern life.

The invasion of this strange lifestyle has detached them from nature and destroyed the relationships between parents and children and with the land. They don’t feel the wide-open spaces, they don’t hunt. They no longer have the mutual relationships they had in order to communicate in times of war, peace, or truce. They cannot overcome this loss.

This is what happens when people lose their spiritual root. We can provide them with everything they want on the material level, but it is impossible to replace their yearning for their spiritual root. This stops the natural development, which should occur in this nation.

This is the reason that Baal HaSulam wrote that civilized nations bring huge misfortune to indigenous tribes since they destroy their relationship to the land. What can be done? I believe that it would be possible to start working among them to unite, if we have the strength and resources. Internal union would begin to lift them, to nourish them, and to reconnect them.

That’s what I talked to the Indians during my trip to South America.

I had a chance to speak about that to Indians in South America during my visit there. And they understood me, approved, and they agreed that this is what should be done. However, in order to do this, we must be near them and show them how to unite, not in the lodge or a fire, but in a more sublime and spiritual way. They understand and feel it, but this requires extensive work.
[181768]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/13/16

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When I speak about the laws of nature in my lectures, people don’t like to hear what I say and ignore the information I have to convey to humanity. The laws of nature are fixed and tough laws and we have to obey them or at least listen to the wisdom of Kabbalah, which is based on the wisdom of generations that is 6,000 years old.

We need to implement these laws since they operate all of nature. If we don’t keep them, we will summon tough suppressing forces instead. The plan of the laws of nature and their fulfillment will force us to adapt ourselves harmoniously to the general mechanism of nature. The motion of all of humanity and nature that surrounds us depends on our efforts to ascend to the next level, to the next dimension, to a totally different system. Only now do physicists begin to discover the new options of transcending to a different reality, but the wisdom of Kabbalah has been speaking about that for 6,000 years.

Kabbalists experience the process of transition. They see, feel, and enter new dimensions and, at the same time, also live in our world. Although they cannot show that, they simply call us to behave more wisely for our own sake.

Kabbalists call for humanity to unite not just for the sake of world peace, this is not enough in the general framework of our general development. We must unite in order to exit the present level of our existence and reach the next level because we are ready for it and the transition is essential for all of nature.

This is the reason that nature is putting pressure on us, first on the Jews and then on the other peoples of the world. The world has completed its evolution along the positive way and this will not last much longer. We will soon witness the gradual destruction of the ties between states and nations, between different entrepreneurs etc., and so we have nowhere to escape, and we will have to act according to the laws of nature.

I take the liberty to say the most unpleasant things because it is the truth. I want to warn you about it. And don’t compare me to social and political actors, each of whom pursues what is beneficial to him, and thus promotes himself. I am not interested in self-promotion and it is even better if you don’t mention my name at all. The main thing is that you understand the goal of nature that doesn’t change its course and how it crushes all of us like a steam roller. Therefore, if we want our children and grandchildren to go through this path of development in a correct, good, and easy manner and to understand it, I appeal to you.

I look at the people who attack me and interestingly they are all sure that they know what the wisdom of Kabbalah is, but since the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about what is against their desires, they claim that I don’t understand and that the information I convey is unreliable. The wisdom of Kabbalah is the science nature, the laws of nature and how it develops, and we have to relate to it more seriously! When I turn to the masses they believe that I am “pushing” my policy. It is not the policy of political figures from different countries who think we have to act in one way or another. I don’t think anything.

I simply convey the program of nature, the information about its laws, its method, and its trends and present it in an easy and accessible manner, so that we can undergo the situations nature will force us to undergo by its pressure anyway in a simple free and positive way. It isn’t about my personal opinion, although these things are attributed to me personally. I am simply the “translator” who conveys the secrets of nature. There is nothing that I want in what I say, and those who think that I express my own opinions in my lectures are very wrong. These aren’t my opinions but the laws of nature!

Open the original Kabbalistic books, read them and see what they say. I convey to you what the authentic primary Kabbalistic sources that were written during 6,000 years say. These sources have exonerated themselves and have been fulfilled throughout history. I am simply telling you about what is happening today and about what is going to happen tomorrow or maybe the day after tomorrow so that it will be easier for us to encounter tomorrow! You should try to relate more consciously and responsibly to what the wisdom of Kabbalah says. It is only for our sake. I am merely doing my job and don’t ask for any pay or recognition in return.

Question: What do you expect from someone who hears you?

Answer: First of all to refrain from condemning me, because a person cuts himself off from the correct understanding of what is happening in the world from the Kabbalistic interpretation of the events.

I am like a litmus test in which his relation to me determines a person’s attitude to nature. The main thing is that you see that everything that I say is absolutely not my own idea. It was written in Kabbalistic books starting from the days of Abraham, including The Book of Zohar, the writings of the Ari, Ramchal, Baal HaSulam, Rabash, Rav Kook, and others. Their main idea is a call for unity, to connect and to unite despite our impulses to be separate, to compete, and to push each other. Our role is to unite above the separation; this is the goal.

Question: What should a person who hears this call do?

Answer: There is a method of unity for the masses that is basically fulfilled by sitting in a circle and discussing different issues according to the wisdom of Kabbalah. People suddenly feel close in a circle, and when they get closer a special force is revealed between them, a feeling of elation about our world.

There is a method of unity for the masses, which is implemented mainly in the circle. By sitting down in a circle and starting to discuss what Kabbalah advises, people suddenly feel closer to each other, and this convergence evokes some kind of special power and warmth. They feel like they are raised above our world.

So I would very much like to see in a circle people who seriously perceive my words, instead of vilifying me. We will all be better off if we go through this period in history so that at least something will be left of us.
[181763]

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Opinion (Le Figaro): “Now, all indicators of the global economy economy do not confirm the advance of globalization, but rather its sharp decline on all fronts. Despite the austerity programs implemented in its name, it is however not at the rendezvous. Rather, it seems to move away to disappoint its supporters, while the other national control levers, monetary and fiscal, formerly repudiated in its name again become topical implicitly. In this current year, the global economy is cornered again on the brink of an even deeper abyss that could jeopardize all the political temptation to date. …

“The fundamental drivers of  globalization – (a) direct investment across borders, (b) international trade, (c) international financial stability – already seem ineffective, especially since 2010, to ensure the necessary stability and cohesion of the global economic system. International direct investment, assumed the first pillar of globalization continues to contract in 2015 to go below 2% of GDP of the main countries investing abroad. …

“However, the stock of debt, both public and private, continues to accumulate impetuously and much faster than the growth of GDP of indebted countries. …

“This is not the ‘too much debt’ that blocks the growth, as claimed by creditors, but rather it is ‘not enough’ growth, because of the focus on austerity measures and precipitation of alleged ‘reforms’ to recessionary effects, making the country the world less and less able to service their debts. …

“On the other hand, the engine of international trade, also fundamental pillar of globalization, is also being abruptly slow down even more strongly than world GDP. …The decline in international trade, falling commodity prices (commodities) and even non-oil is even more significant. These prices collapse first, pulling down all the others. As Daniel Gros, director of the European Policy Studies Centre in Brussels, as the economies growth rates exceed those of international trade in raw materials, it would conclude necessarily the emergence of new raw materials substitution domestic origin that no longer pass through international trade. This would indicate that at least the savings models ‘learned’ by exports continue increasingly to recipe and that domestic markets would be trying to replace at least in part, to external demand that is becoming increasingly failing. Obviously, if this is the case, it would be a necessary rebalancing of the exterior to the interior, which in any case would result in loosening of the ties of globalization for the benefit of more coherent national or regional economic entities and self-centered, less dependent on the outside. Besides, if this turning savings into their inner space is confirmed, also more easily understand the parallel swelling debts, since these correspond to higher deficits and higher public expenditures to stabilization period crisis, of course discrepancy compared to the directives of the globalist orthodoxy. If in all the crises in history, the role of the state has always emerged stronger, if only to offset the devastating effects of each crisis, why should it be the same with the latter? It is hard not to see in the new global crisis looming, the change of economic model. Including the assumption of the virtues of extraversion may be among the key issues of this crisis.

“As globalization remains entrusted to international finance, the impact on the real economy prove devastating for everyone, including for its promoters. Finance should not control the economy, but to follow it and to his service. But now, with the order of things upside down, instead of a new world order announced globalization with finance to commands only brings a deep global disorder referring to the darkest periods of the history.”

My Comment: If all the calculations to come are senseless, and not a flexible rationality, then nothing will stop the world and it will continue to roll down to the bottom.
[181656]

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Question: As a result of the series of earthquakes in southwestern Japan, close to 40 people were killed and more than 2,000 were injured. The same thing also happened in Ecuador; there the number killed reached 233 people, and more than 1,500 injured.

Why in these peaceful and harmless nations do terrible tragedies like these occur?

Answer: It is very difficult to explain this because everything depends on the general distribution of humanity on the surface of the Earth. Why does a disaster like this suddenly happen specifically to these people and not others? What is the connection to Ecuador?

If we seek a reason for what is happening, soon everyone will say and write that the Jews are to blame for all the disasters. For every problem that appears in the world they will only blame the Jews. Through their incorrect behavior, the lack of union among them, such behavior is aroused both in nature and in the nations of the world.

Nature begins to become unbalanced, which is expressed in climate change, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and additional disasters. We arouse the lack of balance in nature and human society in all its forms. So we are to blame for everything!

Question: But the direct connection is not visible to the eye and a person doesn’t feel guilty. So why does the upper force behave with us like that?

Answer: To see a direct connection, you must reveal the upper system of management. Otherwise it is impossible because you would then behave because you were coerced, trying to avoid blows. But it is up to you to behave differently; it is up to you to carry things out independently, without the goading of the main law of nature, the Creator, the law of unity between all of its parts.

This is in your hands. It is up to you to move toward this by yourself, through wanting to elevate yourself to the level of Adam (Man) and not remain on the level of a “beast.”

Question: And for this purpose thousands of people are killed?

Answer: Billions of people innocent of crime! Imagine what kind of guilt rests on your shoulders.

There is nothing else. Read what is written in the books of Kabbalah. All the great representatives of our people have talked about this, beginning from Abraham and on.

We are responsible for all the problems of the world and also for all of its happiness, if we behave appropriately.

I believe that it is up to us to think seriously about what is happening and about what the wisdom of Kabbalah says. Otherwise, we will be taught through even more terrible bloody methods than we witnessed 70-80 years ago.
[182140]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/18/16

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