In the News (The Telegraph): “The oil-rich home of glitz, the United Arab Emirates, has appointed new ministers of ‘tolerance’ and ‘happiness’ as part of a cabinet reshuffle, as it attempts to cement its position as the Arab world’s most eye-catching nation. …

“The prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, who is also the ruler of Dubai, had said he wanted a ‘council of youth’ with its own minister who would him – or her – self be no older than 25. …

“‘A new post, minister of state for happiness, will align and drive government policy to create social good and satisfaction,’ he said. ‘The post of minister of state for tolerance has been created to promote tolerance as a fundamental value in UAE society.'”

Answer: After the ongoing violation of human rights by the government in a society that limits freedom of speech and afflicts torture on its people, they now appoint a minister of happiness who will preach and convince the people that they are happy and pet and tame them like animals. He will not act against the other government offices, of course. What is more, the United Emirates are going to face great problems in the future because the Americans have replaced them with the Iranians, leading to a decline in prices of oil and more. Generally speaking, they are going to face serious problems compared to the last decade.

Question: What is happiness from a Kabbalistic perspective?

Answer: Happiness is being in complete harmony with the general force of nature, with everything that surrounds you, above time, motion, and space. Despite your ego, that tears you to pieces from inside, you are only united with nature and its eternal serenity. This doesn’t mean that a person becomes passive. But on the contrary, his nature constantly changes, pushing him in different directions, and it rises above everything to constant peace and thus comes into balance with nature.

After all, nature is in a state of absolute rest, and every change that we seem to feel is only in our sensations.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 2/9/16

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Comment: The media covered events related to the migration of refugees from the Arab nations who have flooded Europe. But there are also environmental refugees.

In South Africa, nearly 14 million people are starving. The predictions are most terrible. Desertification is rapidly coming to the continent, claiming an additional 10.6 kilometers per year.

In addition, there is the effect of “El Niño”; the significant raising of temperatures of the Pacific Ocean west of Peru and Ecuador in South America leads to not only warmer climates in extensive areas in the world and hurricanes, but also conflicts and wars.

Answer: This is all part of a single, reciprocally connected system. It seems to us that we are separate from nature, that we can hide, warm up or cool down, invent greenhouses and the like. But nothing will solve the climate problem. For example, the Indian Ocean is now undergoing enormous changes and is beginning to dry up. This is affecting all of Asia whose population numbers around 4 billion people.

The media are hiding many facts regarding the changes in nature that are threatening to destroy the planet. We need to reveal them gradually, to understand their interrelationships, their integrality, and our influence on them through our opinions, community, and mutual connections. Humanity, as the highest level of all of nature, influences nature through thoughts and emotions much more than all the “El Niño” phenomena and the “desertification.” If we were to begin to be involved with a correct connection between us and bring ourselves to the form and likeness of the general system of nature, to mutual guarantee (Arvut), we would calm everything down. If we create balance on the level of Adam (Man), this will automatically pass to the levels of the animate, vegetative, and still, and obligate them to become balanced.

Question: What must we do to begin to become balanced?

Answer: Education is required and nothing else.

Comment: But this is a long, drawn out process.

Answer: No. If humanity needs this balance, it will work out very quickly; humanity will immediately stand poised, ready for action, like a rabbit that stands on its hind legs when it is faced by a mortal danger.

Question: So he needs to feel that he is facing a mortal danger first?

Answer: If we don’t, then we wait until we get serious blows, through which we will reach this necessity anyway.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 2/8/16

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Question: Masses of residents in China went out to celebrate in front of a special clock that was set up in Beijing that presents the constantly growing American debt to China. To date, the debt stands at 19 trillion dollars. What is this? Isn’t this an absurd economy?

Answer: Our world cannot exist otherwise, it works by logging debts, and if we stop producing useless things, the world would stop. Factories would stop working, unemployment would increase, we would have nothing to pay, and we could not print money and things like that. So we would need to distribute money in some other way so that the world would continue to turn.

Question: Do you mean that people would not earn money but simply receive it?

Answer: That doesn’t matter, people must have money so that they can buy something with it, and everything turns on that basis, including the treasury departments, various advertising agencies, and so forth. It is as if everything is evolving and striving to go forward, even though this is long gone. It is an absolute bluff.

The Chinese are celebrating because without them things would collapse. They agree to register a debt that will grow to another 10 trillion, the main thing being that everything will continue to turn, since if you stop the modern “machine,” which requires us to work to get money and buy again and again, there will be a collapse, an immediate halt to the entire world. So no matter what we do, the main thing is that this will not stop.

But we are not really in a world in which people supposedly determine the laws; rather, we are in a world in which there are particular internal natural laws that we don’t know. The wisdom of Kabbalah reveals them by explaining that we are approaching the date for submitting the bill, and accordingly we will need to pay.

Question: What would happen if we didn’t buy and sell anymore?

Answer: Everything would begin to stop. We would hope that this stop would be gradual, and that during this holding action we could explain to the world the nature of the holding action and how to overcome it. Only one way exists, which is to change the characteristics of a person, his nature, and through this, the mutual relationships between people and our entire financial system.

This means it is necessary to change the connections between people based first and foremost on “give and take.” Nevertheless, the basis of “give and take” remains, but its purpose changes. Instead of self-interest, it will be for the sake of our common unity so that we will all be connected into a single whole as in nature.

In this case, you can act like you want according to the principle of “give and take,” but the intention, the direction, the purpose, will be changed. Then we will work differently; each one will invest all his energy and receive the necessities of life according to his needs and no more than this, while all of his energy, his movement, his goal, will be directed toward transforming the world to become round, mutually dependent. This does not mean the bad form of mutual dependence as it exists today in which we want to tear this dependence apart; on the contrary, we would want to make mutual dependence for the good, through mutual guarantee (Arvut).

We will reach this, but it will not happen immediately. Development happens under the influence of the system in which we connect between us constantly and discover more and more in the depth of our connection. The world is gradually beginning to subconsciously feel grasping through whatever fibers of the soul that there are, that the only network to be discovered is the correct and good mutual connection that can save everyone.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 2/8/16

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New Life #637 – The Power Of The Media In Shaping Reality
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Summary

For generations, communication between people continued to develop. Today the young generation is fed by what they have in their smart phones, so we have lost contact with them. The media controls everything today, and those who control the media control the world, period.

Money runs the media, which runs the world. The anti-Israeli world media coverage stems from the natural inclination to hate the Jews in addition to money. It is impossible to stop what is happening on the Internet since the Internet today is the real means of communication between people.

If the Jews were investors who felt responsibility for the PR on the Internet, we could cope with what is happening there; if we connected around the PR on the net, the connections between us could greatly contribute to our success.

We have to reveal the truth through PR instead of the lies that are spread about Israel. What is more, we have to show everyone how connected we are and thus bring goodwill into the net. We should show that true Islam speaks about “love thy friend as thyself” and that we want to connect with them; we should show the world that the Israelis are connected and that this is where our power lies, and if they learn from us, everyone will benefit from that.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #637 – The Power of the Media in Shaping Reality”

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New Life #640 – Israel and the Storm
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Summary

We have taken the balance out of nature, thus from time to time some natural catastrophe occurs. It’s not always possible to identify what is coming, neither the intensity nor the kind of catastrophe.

The correction of human relationships will balance all of nature’s systems because man is at the highest level. Man has the strongest influence on nature, and also is the most delicate and vulnerable.

The conflict in the Israeli electric company demonstrates decay in the general society of Israel. We see bad relations everywhere. It’s senseless to blame the electric company workers, since actually the entire Israel society needs correction.

What we need is a general educational process for society in the way of consideration and mutual help, mutual responsibility, and that’s what we do here in our organization.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #640 – Israel and the Storm”

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New Life #633 – Governance By International Corporations
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Summary

Today corporations are stronger than governments; they actually run the world. The dominance of corporations helps in seeing that the entire world is connected, and they are all like a single nation.

Negative mutual guarantee (Arvut)  is the nature of the connection between people today: connected, dependent, but alienated. The corporations are actually a type of international government that runs the world forward and back.
Even if there would be economic benefit for the Europeans from these agreements, the United States will begin to control them. Europe is ultimately heading toward chaos; the United States has organized flooding it with migrants. The Americans want chaos.

Europe will feel that their culture is being erased, and that’s the main thing. Europe will stand in front of the point of truth; we are collapsing and must learn how to connect with each other. Europe is the modern Babylon. Israel will teach them how to connect above all differences. “And you shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) above all, between everyone, the people of all nations, religions, and cultures.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #633 – Governance By International Corporations,” 10/12/15

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New Life 631 – Israel Is The Strongest Country In The World
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

How do you define a strong country? What determines its stability, and under what conditions can Israel become the strongest country in the world?

Time, just like an internal engine, develops the human race. In the 21^st century, we have become dependent on one another. It is impossible to know what will happen the next moment. Whoever is strong today may be weak tomorrow. Uncertainty rules every aspect of life.

Russia has grown weaker. Europe thought about unity and today everything is falling apart there. The world is constantly changing. Any connection between countries doesn’t hold for long. And this is also true on the individual level where families break up, etc.

A person doesn’t care about anything. He is full of doubts and absorbed in his cell phone. If a person were given a couple of thousands of dollars in order to manage abroad, many would leave this place.

In this chaos it is very difficult to say which country is strong, not to speak of stability. Israel today is very weak since there are many factors that can instantly undermine our stability. But we can make this country the strongest in the world if we learn to use our special force. Our world is operated by a network of forces and only we Jews have the power to affect this network.

It depends on whether we connect and become as one man in one heart. This is how strength can be measured. No other country but Israel can be strong. All the countries in the world depend on us. If we connect, we will ensure our safety, since we will thus oblige everyone to connect to us willingly. Only Israel has freewill. The rest of the world depends on the quality of the connection between us Israelis.

Being connected means being responsible for one another, like brothers in a good family. The good relations between us will lead to the equivalence of form with the system of leadership and providence in nature. Nature is made of the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature and man, all connected into one system, like parts of one body. Today we discover that the world is globally connected, that everyone affects everyone else, and that everyone depends on everyone else. Building the good mutual connection between us makes us compatible with the network of the leadership of reality, and then we gain the protective force.

The nations of the world feel that the key to the future of the world is in our hands and so they blame us for everything. In the past, a nation that had nuclear weapons was considered to be strong, but today it is less meaningful since many countries have nuclear weapons. Israel will become the strongest country in the world when we become compatible with the upper force that sustains all of nature.

The wisdom of Kabbalah explores the system of Providence and the exact laws it operates by. From where does someone get the thought of getting up and attacking? It comes from the upper system. Only we have the possibility to control the thoughts and desires that will awaken in all of humanity through this network.

What will a strong Israel be like? It will be a country that knows only one thing: that we must be connected in a good way. Then no terrorists will rise against us and all the countries in the world will like and support us in every way.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 631 – Israel Is The Strongest Country In The World,” 10/8/15

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From the News (Huffington Post): “Food stamp enrollment is expected to fall by 1 million next year thanks to harsher rules, according to a new report by a liberal Washington, D.C., think tank. …

“After this year, states will have to reimpose requirements that able-bodied childless adults enroll in job training or work 20 hours per week if they want more than three months of food stamps. …

“‘The loss of benefits will likely increase hardship for these 1 million unemployed Americans who rely upon SNAP to meet their basic nutritional needs,’ Bolen wrote on the CBPP’s website. ‘With Congress unlikely to act, states need to begin planning for the reduction to ensure that clients and the many organizations and SNAP stakeholders that work with them are aware of the upcoming change and its effects.’

(Wisconsin State Journal): “Nearly 15,000 people lost access to food stamps in the first three months of a new law that requires some recipients to seek employment, new state data show. …

“The 2013-15 [Wisconsin] state budget created a rule for some recipients of the state’s food stamp program known as FoodShare: If you’re an able-bodied adult without children living at home, you must work at least 80 hours a month or look for work to stay in the program.

“That rule went into effect in April, and between July and September, about 25 percent of the 60,000 recipients eligible to work were dropped from the program when the penalty took effect, according to DHS data. …

“DHS responded on Nov. 17 saying based on anecdotal information from U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the federal food stamp program, roughly 60 percent of eligible recipients lost access to food stamps under rules similar to Wisconsin’s, and 10 to 30 percent found jobs.

My Comment: The wisdom of Kabbalah tells us in the “The Last Generation” by Baal HaSulam how to build a society that resembles nature in which everyone works as much as needed in order to provide the basic necessities for himself and for society, and everything is divided in a relatively equal manner between everyone, and all the extra free time is dedicated to educating humanity and teaching the method of resembling nature.
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Opinion (Warwick Mark Harrison): “Now when we look at suicide terrorism, it is clearly not a cry for help. It is a determined attempt to destroy oneself and others. So it has to be understood in those terms. But the thing that I think it has in common is the need first will to understand the self. This is something that economists are probably not always very good at. Economists talk very freely about self-interest. It is commonplace in economic textbooks to find the idea that human behavior is driven by the desire to maximize one’s self-interest or one’s personal utility. What’s not commonly asked is who is the self whose interest is being maximized. …

“So one way that social psychologists understand suicide is that the person who commits suicide has a determined attempt, has reached the point where they can no longer protect the identity they have by staying alive and protecting the identity they have requires an active self-destruction. …

“When we look at people who commit acts of suicide terrorism, what we see is people who have gone on a journey that’s invested them with the self that requires self-destruction, because the identity that is required is that of the martyr, the witness to religious truth that can only be validated through death. And in the one of the things that we see when we look at the organization of suicide terrorism is that it’s not committed, acts of suicide terrorism are not committed by people who are desperate; it is not committed by people who are in any way particularly unusual psychologically. It is committed by young people who’ve been trained to see themselves as martyrs to a faith. …

“In the process of being recruited they don’t actually learn a lot about global politics, they don’t learn a lot about the demands of the organization, they don’t learn a lot about political strategy. In fact, these things are not very important to them.

“What they are looking for is some form of social solidarity.

“And you can get social solidarity in many ways: you can get it from working together in a firm, you can get it from joining a choir or a cycling club or a sports club, but you can also get it – we know this from a lot of examples – you can get it by joining together to commit acts of violence. Sometimes that’s football hooliganism, sometimes it’s terrorism. …

“So Abraham’s point is that to understand what people are looking for when they join the organizations it’s important to understand the lure of powerful social ties.

My Comment: Solidarity, a sense of unity, can be realized only through egoistic self-sacrifice or by rising above the ego; it is leading humanity forward.
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Question: The Swiss government is about to vote on monthly payments to the citizens of the nation in the sum of 2,500 Swiss Francs, which is about 2,500 Euros. If the proposal is approved, Switzerland will be the first nation in the world to provide its citizens with a monthly income without any conditions. Furthermore, there is an intention to allocate 625 Francs to every child.

This nation has the opportunity to ensure the well-being of its citizenry. Now they can work, not work, or work less. Is this a good decision?

Answer: The decision is good when everyone without exception has an identical income, and everyone will work according to their ability without concern about their position, investing maximally in the development of the society and nation. For example,it is possible to work, let’s say, for half an hour in the morning in their workplace if they are not needed there anymore, and then they can volunteer somewhere for another two hours. The idea is not about how to occupy a person but his aspiration to give what he can to society.

After instituting monthly payments, the Swiss will not have such aspirations like. They will profit from banking securities and interest. Their banks have accumulated a fortune since the days of the Second World War and all of those investments have never been opened or returned to anyone. The nation became fabulously wealthy and that is how it has existed, in the best image in the world of egoistic existence.

Comment: But nevertheless they will distribute money to their residents; they are concerned about the welfare of the citizens.

Answer: I cannot say that this is bad, but in our world today such a situation in a nation like Switzerland cannot be used as an example because they have something to distribute whereas others don’t. So there is nothing to talk about; we must strive for all people on the face of the Earth to have the same normal level of well-being. and to educate people so that every person in the world will understand that he must give maximally to society.

Question: Nevertheless, everyone has different needs. What does equal to the level needed mean?

Answer: There are no different levels of needs. Suppose that they chose a standard of 2,500 Francs in Switzerland, making it possible for a person to be engaged in a normal and relaxed manner with home economics, himself, his family, children, and so forth. But along with this, the main thing is what he gives to society. The main thing is not just to receive minimally but to give maximally as well.

Comment: But one can be involved with giving for 12-14 hours per day; they would have no energy after that.

Answer: Everything depends on education. Each one will want to give maximally because when he is paid for maximal giving, he will feel his connection with eternity, with wholeness. Then the world will truly become different.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 2/2/16

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