Rosh HaShanah is the beginning of a new period, and we need to try to renew all our forces and most importantly the ones that are aimed at our connection so that it will be worthy of becoming a new chapter, the beginning of a new time.

The entire work of a person is to rise above the egoistic reason in which we found ourselves as the result of the sin of Adam HaRishon, that is, because of the evil inclination, which is ruling within us. It is necessary to try by all means to remain in faith above reason, as much as possible, in order for all of us to be together as one man in one heart directed to the Creator.

We need to connect with each other, grasp the Creator and not let go of Him by our prayers, requests, appeals, and hopes until we feel that we are really together with Him and we are all as one man connected with the Creator. This will be called the beginning of the year, the beginning of renewal, Rosh HaShanah.

The sin of Adam allows a person to feel the distance separating him from the Creator, which means that it gives him the opportunity to take steps toward the Creator. A person is like a baby who is just learning to walk, and therefore, adults support him, help him take the first, small, uncertain steps so a person with the help of the group can move forward and take steps toward the Creator.

A person relies on the group, each time discovering that he is not able to do anything by himself and immediately falls as soon as he is left alone. Then he rises again, as it is written: “A thousand times the righteous will fall and rise again.” This is how a person learns to go to the Creator and get closer to Him with each step.

Faith is the light that allows a person to work in order to come closer to the Creator by becoming similar to Him.

The Rosh Hashanah holiday is a renewal that applies to all created beings that are entering a new period, with new conditions in their relationship with the Creator, and therefore they can mark a new stage of the path for themselves.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/15/23, “Rosh Hashana“

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During Rosh HaShanah there is a new revelation of the distance separating us from the Creator. Any event begins by revealing a new property that separates us from the Creator. And during the Rosh HaShanah holiday, we reach adhesion with the Creator in this property.

Therefore, Rosh HaShanah is the head of our entire development, and all the properties that are manifested in this holiday, later are revealed even more and more fully during all other holidays and special dates.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/15/23, “Rosh Hashana“

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What Holidays Are Celebrated During the Month of Tishrei?”
Before overviewing the holiday cycle during the month of Tishrei, it is important to understand that the Jewish holidays are not a celebration of specific historic events that an isolated group of people experienced, which is irrelevant to humanity and its further evolutionary development.

What are the Jewish holidays? They are spiritual states, i.e., omnipresent varying levels of our equivalence of form with nature’s form of love and bestowal, which we attain through our spiritual progress toward greater and greater states of unity among each other and with nature.

With that in mind, we can discuss the Tishrei holiday cycle as a series of spiritual states, i.e., introspections, conclusions, decisions and inner actions that we perform as we progress from the sensation of our reality locked within our egoistic desires—where we wish to enjoy ourselves for self-benefit alone—to the spiritual reality—where we wish to benefit others and nature, immensely expanding our sensation of reality.

Leading up to the Tishrei holidays is the month of Elul, which ends with the period of repentance, Selichot, where we reach the conclusion that our egoistic approach to life drives us to a state of helplessness and despair.

The introspection from the states of Selichot leads us to the first day of Tishrei, Rosh Hashanah, which means the beginning (“Rosh”) of change (“Shana” [year] from the word “Shinui” [change]). That is, we reach the decision that we want to change our egoistic attitude to life with a new attitude that does not oppose and resist nature—as we do when we remain in our inborn egoistic desires—but which is in balance with nature, i.e., in balance with an attitude of love, bestowal and connection.

After making the decision to change our egoism into altruism that characterizes Rosh Hashanah, we soon arrive at the realization that we cannot make that change on our own. This state is called “Yom Kippur” (“The Day of Atonement”).

The self-examination that takes place during the state of Yom Kippur, which reveals to us the true extent of our egoistic and altruistic intentions, brings us to a new discernment: that there is a single solution to this problem: to raise the importance of benefiting others and nature over the importance in doing so for ourselves. At such a juncture, we then proceed to activate our intention to benefit others and disengage from our egoistic desires. This shift in importance—bestowal over reception; altruism over egoism; unity over division—is the essence of Sukkot.

The Tishrei holiday cycle draws to its conclusion with Simchat Torah, the eighth and last day of Sukkot. On this holiday, we rejoice in the unified state that we acquire, which nature’s force of love and bestowal reveals to us. In other words, on Simchat Torah, we rejoice in correctly realizing the method of connection, called “Torah,” from the word “Hora’a” (“instruction”), and that we corrected our opposition to nature’s altruistic form into equivalence and balance with nature.

The attainment of equivalence of form with nature—a unified state among each other and with nature through an intention to love and bestow that is similar to the force of nature itself—is the final destination to which humanity evolves. Accordingly, the Tishrei holiday cycle represents the various states of spiritual progress from our current egoistic state, through to the opposite altruistic state of love and bestowal that is similar to nature’s force of love and bestowal, the force that created and sustains reality.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What is a Shana Tova?”
A good year (Shana Tova) comes about first from understanding the previous year’s shortcomings.

We then go through a time of introspection. In general, human society is starting to realize that a good life is further and further out of reach. When we start seeing that our egoistic form of development—where we each try making a better life for ourselves at the expense of others and nature—leads to a growing entanglement of troubles and crises, then we reach a state called the “realization of evil.” Thanks to such a realization, we come to see that the egoistic way we live our lives is false, which is a very important step toward the truth.

We then have to find a solution. If we discern our egoistic modus operandi as the problem we need to fix, then the solution is in rising above our egoistic approach to life: that we shift from prioritizing self-benefit over benefiting others to its opposite—the benefit of others over self-benefit.

Therefore, in order to experience a good year, we should set as our goal a positive connection among each other, with mutual support, encouragement and care in our ties.

The more we develop an understanding and feeling of our true state as a single, global, interconnected and interdependent system, with us as the system’s key parts, then similar to how cells and organs function to uphold an organism’s health and well-being, we too would start thinking more and more about the benefit of others and the whole system of humanity and nature we live in.

The more we understand that our egoistic approach to each other and to nature destroys us, then the readier we become to rise above our egoistic goals, and place a higher goal of a harmonious and peaceful connection among all people and nature before us.

We will then start feeling the need for help from a power that is beyond our human powers, since our human powers are all self-aimed. We will find how we cannot “fight fire with fire,” so to speak, and that without the help from a higher power, intelligence and consciousness, we are doomed.

A good year is thus one in which we will invite the positive force dwelling in nature to come out from its concealment, due to our need and request for its help, and then feel that force fill the space between us. When we genuinely desire to reach positive connections of mutual support, encouragement and care among us together with feeling the impossibility to achieve it with the egoistic powers at our disposal, then we develop what is called a “vessel” for the reception of the positive loving and bestowing force of nature to enter into and upgrade our connections. Such an upgrade from egoistic to altruistic connections that are balanced with nature’s force of love and bestowal will then grant us access to a whole new harmonious and peaceful life.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What Is Tisha B’Av?”
Tisha B’Av is a very important and prominent state in the development of creation.
According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, Tisha B’Av commemorates the ruin of the Holy Temple, i.e. the shattering of the vessels, the state when we lost consciousness (i.e. the shattering or ruin) of our connection as a single entity (i.e. the Holy Temple).

In the wisdom of Kabbalah, we learn extensively about this state of shattering and how important it is, because there cannot be correction and connection without corruption and shattering. Therefore, on one hand, there is great joy in the opportunity for correction that the shattering brings us, and on the other hand, there is sorrow and crying from foreseeing the oncoming shattering, knowing that we needed to resist it, i.e., to maintain our connection as a single entity despite the forces emerging to shatter this connection. This coincides with the spiritual principle that, in spirituality, we always encounter two opposites in the same place.

Therefore, together with the joy at the opportunity for correction that the shattering brings us, we need to simultaneously be sorry about all the ruins that have taken place, out of necessity, due to their spiritual root. However, what is the destruction that we need to be sorry about today? It is that today, after the 16th century, the time of the great Kabbalist, the Ari (Rav Isaac Luria), which marked the beginning of the opening of the process of correction to humanity as a whole, then all we need to be sorry about is our negligence to willfully engage in this process of correction. That is, we shouldn’t be sorry about ruined Holy Temples from 1,000s of years ago, but that each day we fail to actively engage in the process of correction, we fail to build the new Holy Temple—a correction of the shattering in our connections. That is what is truly considered the ruin of the Temples.

Therefore, what do we need to take into consideration during Tisha B’Av? It’s why we cause the ruin and shattering of the Temple today. We shouldn’t cry about what happened 2,000 years ago. We don’t really know what happened back then. By crying about it, it’s as if we position ourselves as great righteous people and think poorly of the people back then, and that they lost the rule of the Temples. What we need to understand is that this ruin played out according to a necessity for a certain order to unfold. However, since the time of the Ari, the 16th century, when we position ourselves against the process and the method of correction—the wisdom of Kabbalah—then the ruin is the shattering of human relations, the division that is spreading worldwide among humanity. We thus don’t relate to Tisha B’Av as a historical occasion, but as a state that is playing out in our daily lives.
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It is written: “Anyone who mourns for Jerusalem is rewarded with seeing its joy.”

That is, to the extent that we recognize the full scale of the destruction that happened to us, to the entire people of Israel and to the whole world, to the Creator’s program of creation, and to the extent that it touches our heart, to this extent we are able to understand and feel all this sorrow, understand the reason for the destruction, understand how to get out of it, and how to rebuild Jerusalem, that is, the “Perfect City” (Ira Shlema). In this way, from sorrow we come to joy.

There is no darker and more mournful day than the 9th of Av. This is the source of all judgments and all troubles. It was on this day that the Temple was ruined in Jerusalem. And we still grieve about it after thousands of years. Today we must also worry and grieve about it as if it happened yesterday, and this is everyone’s personal grief.

After all, those who do not mourn the ruin of the Temple will not be able to be present at its restoration. Therefore, we need to feel in the depths of our hearts what shattering is and what correction we should expect, in what form and with what result.

There was a terrible shattering—the Kli, that is, the connection between the created beings and the Creator was broken. And now, who knows when and how and by what actions it will be possible to correct it. That is why it is really a very sad day.
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From the Daily Kabbalah lesson on the topic of “Tishaa BeAv (Ninth of Av)”, 7/27/23

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The three weeks preceding the 9^th of Av called the days between the straits have begun. Everything that happens in this world is a consequence of the upper system.

Actions and states in the upper world descend from the upper root to the corporeal branch and are embodied in this world in branches: in inanimate matter, plants, animals, people, and in times and periods. We need to study the roots by analyzing their branches.

Until today, all the upper branches have already been manifested in our world except for the final correction (Gmar Tikkun). Everything that should have been revealed has already been revealed, and only the final correction remains. Therefore, Baal HaSulam says that we are in the last generation that will have to correct the shattering that has already been fully revealed. Now we just have to make an effort to ascend.

But the ascent is impossible without understanding the evil that exists in the system and without the correct attitude to it as a necessary condition. In fact, it is not a vice, the creation of the evil inclination was necessary. Both heaven and earth are necessary because “the Creator created one against the other,” putting an allegedly evil force against a good one.

In fact, it only emphasizes the good. After all, as it will be revealed in the future, evil does not exist; there is only the lack of good. The good will be revealed to a multiplied extent due to the fact that evil has been acting against it and played its role. There is no evil, but there is revelation of good in the opposite form.

We should take into account that there is a connection between the root and the branch. This means that in our time, as well as throughout history, the root is manifested in a branch on certain dates, repeating at the same time such as the 17^th of Tamuz and 9^th of Av. These dates have always brought troubles for the people of Israel. Whereas the time around Purim was usually joyful and kind.

Therefore during these days we must be especially careful even in corporeal matters and refrain from risky actions until the end of the day of the 9^th of Av. Immediately after that, we already begin to feel that we are coming out of the mourning period and can rejoice and aim for final correction.

The 17^th of Tamuz is the beginning of the days between the straits associated with the destruction of Jerusalem, the Temple Wall, and the ruin of the Temple itself, which symbolizes the connection that exists in the people of Israel after they have entered the land of Israel. It became possible through receiving the Torah that was prepared during 40 years of wandering in the desert and correcting Malchut with the help of Bina. Bina is the letter “Mem”—40.

After they built the First Temple, they immediately began to descend. A second Temple was built already lower than the first, but it was also ruined. This was already the final destruction. All these destructions took place on the day of the 9^th of Av.

And we need to restore all holiness in our days. That is, the correction should happen at exactly the same time: where hatred and shattering have been revealed, connection and love should also be revealed there.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/1/18, “Days ‘Between the straits’”

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Question: One of the biggest celebrations for Jews is the holiday of Shavuot when the people received the Torah at Mount Sinai.

In general, it is a great event for the world because it can be said that everything began with this. How do you define this celebration for the world?

Answer: For the world I cannot define it in any way because the world does not know anything about it, has not taken it, and does not take any part in it to this day. People of Israel, also, I would not say that they especially celebrate this holiday. It is just a celebration of the giving of the Torah.

But receiving the Torah is a completely different matter. It comes individually to everyone when each one, if they understand what it is, agrees to take upon themselves the instructions and the advice that the Torah gives to a person. Then, indeed, a person gradually begins to organize an inner understanding of what the Torah is and what it gives him. And then he can celebrate it.

Comment: It turns out that I was wrong when I said “receiving.” You corrected me. It is the giving of the Torah. Receiving is a whole process that will continue.

My Response: This is from below up. The giving is from the top down. Meaning, giving is something that the Creator does, so to say. And receiving is what I have to come to, to get it.

Question: Then tell me how to do it. I know the sources say that the people stood as one man with one heart, this was their state, and at that moment they received the instruction of life, so to say.

Do we have to get to this state in order to start revealing something?

Answer: Of course. All this is said not about the past, but about the future.

Question: Can today’s shattered, scattered world not even imagine what is there at all?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Your constant phrase that we should come to these good ties, to connect with each other, is this precisely so that we can begin this process of receiving the Torah, by and large?

Answer: Yes.

Question: What will we get then? The set of laws is clear to me.

Answer: This is not just a set of laws. We will get a completely new attitude toward relationships between people and the relationship of each person toward the world. This is love. “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Everything that is placed there consists only of this.

Comment: It turns out that you reduce the Torah to one thing practically. You said: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

My Response: Yes. This means coming to a state where we are completely connected by love, care, and mutual complicity with each other, all the people together.

The Torah represents the upper force, the upper light, which, to the extent of our efforts and our diligence to get closer and unite, affects us and helps us to achieve such a state of connection.

All that is required of us is effort and diligence, i.e., striving for it. Then we will be able to attract this upper light, the upper force. And it will correct us and connect us with others, with all the people of the world.

Question: Does it depend on us, on me? Or is my effort a gift from above?

Answer: From above is an offer: if you want, you will get it. But it depends on us to accept it and implement it.

Question: What do you think is the current stage of the Jewish people and the world in this process of receiving the Torah?

Answer: I would say not so far away because we have passed the path of the revelation of evil, which is the extent of our nature being opposite of the nature of the Torah, love, connection, mutual assistance, and so on. That is why we do not have much left to do. We just need to draw a conclusion from what we have gone through and with the revelation of the evil of our nature, take upon ourselves the law of mutual love.

Question: We approach, as they say, this mountain, Mount Sinai.

What is Mount Sinai?

Answer: Mount Sinai, the mountain, this is clear, and “Sinai” is from the word “hate,” a mountain of hate that we must rise above.

Humanity must approach this huge mountain of hatred and rise above it. Then they will be able to connect with each other in one single system, in one single nation, and achieve absolute happiness.

Question: Are you saying the whole of humanity into one nation?

Answer: Yes, because the Torah generally speaks about all the people on Earth.

Question: When you say Torah, does everyone imagine a book?

Answer: No. The Torah is a system of correction of all people, up to their complete connection with each other.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 5/18/23

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Comment: We are used to the phrase “Israel’s Independence Day.” We are used to this holiday, and we celebrate it. In today’s world, the word “independence” is heard everywhere: independent countries, independent republics, independent press, independent experts… All sides of conflicts, all parties, speak about it, the rights, the lefts, individuals, everyone!

Besides, it is not just a word, but a very important concept in Kabbalah.

My Response: In Kabbalah, this concept is absolutely the opposite of what people, the world, society, countries, and nations understand.

What does independence mean? Independence from what?

Comment: This is the independence of my borders, independence from someone else. I want to live by myself, with my national independence, republican, state, and so on. If no one gets to me, this means that I am independent; I will build my own world. This is called independence.

My Response: But this is impossible because, in today’s world, everyone depends on each other. So how can we be independent? If you are going to be independent, you should go into the woods and provide yourself with what you can. You are condemning yourself to terrible conditions.

Question: You can say it in another way: “So that no one dictates to me how to live.” Is it also impossible?

Answer: This is the same thing. No one will dictate anything to you, but how will you provide for yourself? How will you create and preserve this independence? It is completely unclear how this is possible.

Today, a developing country in the world should be connected to all the countries by good mutual ties. Only in this case, can it feel comfortable for everyone; otherwise, it will feel crushed, limited, humiliated, and so on.

Question: If it will be on its own?

Answer: Yes, but no one will give it such an opportunity. After all, all countries surround each other and want, like wolves in the forest, to snatch from others as much as they can. This is our normal, egoistic world. It cannot be any different. It was always like that, only we covered ourselves up a little. We did not reveal it enough in our egoism.

Question: Do you think there is no point in demanding independence in this world? It does not exist and will not exist?

Answer: We can demand, but at the same time, we must demand from ourselves! This is the most important thing. If we observe such conditions then there are good neighborly relations, peace, and mutual assistance between us, which are contrary to our inherent, natural quality to receive, conquer, and force peace.

Comment: If we have a connection, then it is against someone. All this is vicious.

My Response: Of course. Therefore, everything we create is only supposedly for the benefit of ourselves and to the detriment of others. There cannot be one instead of the other.

Kabbalah speaks of independence where we rise above our egoism. Independence from our personal egoism. This is what real independence is, and then I only think about others. It is among the others, in good relations with others, which I create with all my capabilities, there I feel independent.

Question: Are you saying, “only about others”? Do I not think about myself at all?

Answer: I do not, I am a consequence. I exist even today as a consequence of the attitude of everyone else toward me.

Question: Does it mean that I can only think about others, and then the consequence will be how they treat me, how I am, and so on?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Should my first thought not be: “Will they treat me well if I treat others well?”

Answer: I do not think this is the nature of a person and our society. Therefore, to say such beautiful phrases as: “Do not hit others, and they will not hit you,” and so on does not work.

Question: Does what you say work? How is it possible in our world that I do not think about myself, but think about others? Publicly, for example.

Answer: The fact is that, of course, it does not work anyway. If I treat others well, I will only give them an additional reason to grab me and bite off all sorts of pieces of me. Thus, the whole problem in human society is for it to transform itself from a pack of predators into an organized, mutual, voluntary, and kind community.

Question: Do you believe in this fiction?

Answer: No, I do not believe it by any means, but I say it because in principle this is the only solution. Exactly when we realize that this is the only solution, albeit a fantastic and impossible one, then we suddenly can implement it.

Question: From where?

Answer: From above. We will be able to receive such a force from nature that will lift us above our egoism, and then it will be implemented. I will be above my nature, I will be above my thoughts, I will be above my decisions. How will it work out? It will work out because the second force of nature will be revealed—the quality of bestowal, connection, and love.

Question: Can you guarantee this to me? For example, I am a politician or an ordinary person, and I hear you. Can you guarantee me that?

Answer: I can only tell you again in more detail so that you understand that there is no other way. Or we are going to perish and die in every generation. And in the future generation, the same fate is prepared for our descendants. Nothing is changing, except that the sufferings are becoming greater, and the possibility of solving them with the help of wars and deaths is becoming more and more terrible.

Question: Will I come to what you say through understanding this and feeling this?

Answer: Yes, in the end, we will understand. Moreover, this is a very scary decision because we will feel like we are being skinned. Because this is the opposite of me.

But there is an opportunity to resolve this issue in a kind, peaceful way. It means to study our nature and study the force of nature that can help us change ourselves. Then we will be able to place ourselves under the influence of this good force of nature, and it will change us from little evil predators to big kind creatures.

Question: Do you think we are getting closer to this understanding that we are little evil predators?

Answer: We are getting closer. However, so far we are also approaching it in a bad way.

But according to the way all kinds of positive and negative forces are being revealed more and more, especially in our generation, and we are given the opportunity to talk about it and somehow implement them; that is, there is hope that we will be able to formalize for ourselves, for our understanding, and for our knowledge of this system of nature’s forces, and to understand how we can balance it and express the good force from it.

I think we can do it. Otherwise, we will still come to this, but in a very long way, a terrible way of suffering.

Question: It is said that the Messiah will come when the face of humanity will be like the muzzle of a dog. Does this apply to us, to our time?

Answer: Yes, it is people’s awareness of their terrible, bestial nature. We are getting closer to this now. But we can see it from afar, and that is enough. We do not necessarily have to get right into the dog’s den. It is enough just to see it and be scared.

Comment: God grant that it will be so.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 5/3/22

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Question: Why does Passover last seven days?

Answer: Seven days are seven Sefirot, all levels of our soul. On the first day of Passover, a person leaves the intention “for his own sake” and continues to get rid of his egoistic intentions on the second, the third day, and so on until he completely breaks away from them.

In this way he approaches the state called Yam Suf—the final sea. He is ready to throw himself into it in order to completely break away from Egypt, i.e., from egoism.

Question: Leaving Egypt is the last border of the corporeal, egoistic world, beyond which there is a notional line called the Machsom. After passing it, a person begins to feel love, bestowal, and the spiritual world. What happens to him? What is the transformation behind this line?

Answer: Beyond this line, a person thinks only about how through others he can more and more implement the quality of bestowal and love within himself. As a result, he begins to feel in this quality that he is being filled with the upper light—the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 3/26/21

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