Rosh HaShanah is the beginning of the new year according to the Jewish calendar. Like any other nation celebrating the new year, we hope that it will bring us a good renewal.

The Rosh HaShanah holiday is preceded by a period called Selichot (Repentance), when we make a critical analysis of everything we have done over the past year, checking how well or how badly we treated people.

Judaism is built on the principle of loving one’s neighbor as oneself, so a person is obliged to calculate whether he really behaved kindly toward all people in the world. And then he sees that he did not always comply with this principle, and therefore repents and asks for forgiveness for offending people, committing a crime, or an unintentional oversight. After such repentance, we come to a special day from which the new year begins: Rosh HaShanah. After all, according to the Torah, the world was created five days before Rosh HaShanah. And on the sixth day, a man was created, Adam, who, as is known, sinned and was banished from paradise. Therefore, we are obliged to correct Adam’s transgressions because we are all parts of his soul.

In fact, there are four beginnings of the year. The year really begins with the exit from Egypt, about which it is said: “Now you have become My people.” Therefore, the new year, the new period should be counted from the moment of leaving Egypt, that is, in Pesach.

The second beginning of the year is Rosh HaShanah, which we are celebrating now. And then there will be a celebration of the beginning of the year for trees, Tu BiShvat. And there is another beginning of the year to commemorate the giving of the Torah.

It turns out that we celebrate all four beginnings of the year, but the most traditional holiday of the beginning of the Jewish year is Rosh HaShanah.

The traditional symbols of Rosh HaShanah celebrations are apples with honey and round challah. They express our hope for a good new year. It is also customary to eat pomegranate on the holiday, symbolizing with its seeds a large number of good deeds that we commit to doing in the new year.

It is customary to eat round challah on the holiday since the circle is a symbol of perfection. The apples and challah are dipped in honey to commemorate a good, sweet year.

It is also customary to eat the head of a fish and wish each other to be the head and not to stay in the tail. Fish represent a creature living in water, and water symbolizes mercy, Hesed. The child at birth comes out of the maternal waters in which he grew.

All these symbols indicate that we are entering a new period, a new life.
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From KabTV’s “The World” 9/5/21

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The holidays that come with the beginning of the Jewish New Year symbolize the entrance of a person into spiritual work. In fact, this entrance begins much earlier, during the preparation period. This is why the month of Elul means “I am for my Beloved and my Beloved is for me.” That is, a person begins to reveal that he has a connection with the Creator.

A few years after beginning to study Kabbalah, a person discovers that he experiences ascents and descents in mood, in understanding, and in perception of texts. Then, after some time, he realizes that spirituality can really be reached only through connection, that is, he begins to believe in what he has read and he connects with the material.

He understands that there is no choice, it is necessary to join the group for practical work. After all, beautiful conversations are not enough, one needs to feel with the heart and awaken one’s feelings. This is necessary for spiritual attainment and sensation, and the realization of one’s life. He does not want life to pass between the dates of birth and death and end without a trace. He wants to rise above it and continue further.

Then he understands that he needs to correct himself, to gain the force of bestowal above the force of reception. The recognition of the need for internal change is the beginning of the month of Elul.

Elul is a month of introspection: What can I do with my soul to start coming closer to the first contact with the Creator? I am waiting for the revelation of the upper force, not to enjoy it, but to bow before it.

Let my egoism bend down and allow me to become a slave of the Creator. I will be happy to put myself under the power of the upper light and feel its perfection, eternity, and greatness. My will to receive is ready to bow down before such revelation, to reduce itself, and to give itself to the control of the upper force.

This is how we come to the New Year, Rosh HaShanah, the essence of which is to proclaim the Creator as the king of the whole world. The upper force stands at the beginning, at the end, and in the middle of everything, controlling everything without exception. All we need is to feel ourselves under the influence of upper force, as slaves of the Creator, His faithful subjects, to receive faith above reason, the force of bestowal above reception, and to begin using it to work on our desire.

All this work relates to the holiday of Rosh HaShanah, the first stage on the way to the correction of creation.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/21/18 “Rosh HaShanah“

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The beginning of the year (Rosh HaShanah) is called terrible days because we go through very drastic changes. We are working against the great, terrible, genuine egoistic desire with the help of the great and terrible force of the Creator.

This is the beginning of correction at its initial point where the will to receive and the will to bestow meet, and these two opposite poles begin to unite in their oppositeness.

During Rosh HaShanah, a person examines himself and sees that he is full of sins, and he has to correct himself in order to come closer to the Creator. Therefore, he decides that he must take steps toward the Creator. But he understands that he can come closer to the Creator only when he corrects his heart and builds the structure of Malchut in it, which will be similar to the quality of the Creator, Keter, bestowal, and love.

He can do that only through connection with friends; otherwise, he will not be able to change his heart. He has to connect his heart to his friends and move with their hearts to such an extent that they all become one heart. Then in this one heart, he will be able to feel the Creator’s attitude toward them.

It is preferable that there should be ten people, no more and no less, in accordance with the general structure originally created by the Creator. After all, the forms of relations between the Creator and the created beings undergo ten metamorphoses until they reach the quality of the created being from the quality of the Creator.

The stronger we connect our hearts into one heart, the more we give the Creator a place to rule. We ask the Creator to be King over us in this holy house we have built for Him, in the temple of His greatness. We want it to become a place of bestowal, where the Creator will dwell and fill the connections between us with Himself. We will try to improve and increase this connection all the time so that the Creator is revealed more and more within us.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/21/22,“Rosh HaShanah“

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 9/25/22

Almost every culture celebrates the beginning of the year. Each tradition has its own customs, meals, gifts, and inner meaning. For Jews, celebrating Rosh Hashanah (the beginning of the year) comes with symbolic foods and a day of judgment. This judgment is the heart of Rosh Hashanah.

We can think of the spiritual significance of Rosh Hashanah as an operating system, like Microsoft Windows or Apple IOS. The human race did not come out of nowhere. Evolution has a purpose, and the operating system leads it toward it.

The operating system runs throughout nature, and all creations but humanity follow it instinctively. We, on the other hand, can study it and manipulate parts of it for our benefit.

On Rosh Hashanah, before we taste from the fish’s head, we say a blessing: “May we be the head and not the tail.” These words express our wish not to remain oblivious to the operating system and governed by it unconsciously, but to become aware of it and able to steer our development in a positive direction.

The operating system invariably leads toward a state of harmony and balance among all the elements in reality. It is aiming to bring all of humanity into a state of unity and closeness as though we are all a single warm and loving family. The system does not strive for sameness, to make us all the same, but for complementarity, to make us complement each other so that each of us contributes our unique skills and talents for the common good, and enjoys the contributions of everyone else, just like a loving family where everyone helps everyone else because they care about them.

As we study the system, we gradually realize how opposite we are from the state of closeness and care. These realizations precede Rosh Hashanah, and they are called Selichot (asking forgiveness). Selichot are prayers we say when we feel how opposite we are from the state of balance and mutual care.

The Hebrew word for “prayer,” by the way, is Tefilla, which comes from the word Haflala, namely criminalization. During a prayer, we “criminalize” ourselves, namely discover that we are criminals, and therefore ask for forgiveness. The crime we realize we have committed pertains to the operating system, namely that we have been selfish, thinking of ourselves and loving only ourselves rather than embracing all of creation and working for its favor. In spirituality, selfishness is always the only sin, since every wrong we do comes from thinking only of ourselves.

The physical Rosh Hashanah happens once a year. However, the process of reflection, regret, asking forgiveness, and praying to become more loving is not limited by anything. It can, and should be a constant cycle that we do internally. Each time we complete a cycle of requests for forgiveness, we reach another Rosh Hashanah, until the next realization of selfishness emerges in us through our efforts to correct our egoism and become more caring.

When the cycle of Selichot is over and we reach Rosh Hashanah, we not only wish to be the head and not the tail, we also celebrate the correction of our corrupt qualities. We symbolize this by dipping an apple in honey. The apple represents the heart, and the honey stands for sweetening (correcting) it from selfishness to caring for others.

Another custom is to eat a Rimon (pomegranate). A pomegranate has many seeds in it. Each of them stands for one selfish desire. Eating them stands for correcting them from selfishness to giving, which gives us a feeling of Romemut (elation, note the similarity to the word Rimon).

Finally, on Rosh Hashanah, we blow the Shofar—a festive horn. The blowing of the horn stands for our yearning for correction from carelessness and hatred of others into being loving, connected, and united as one with all the people in the world. The word shofar comes from the Aramaic word Shufra (the best of the best). This is the state we achieve once all our desires have been corrected and we become united as one loving, global family.

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Question: Is there any similarity between the Tu B’Av holiday and Purim?

Answer: Yes, of course. Both holidays speak of the highest possible condition.

Question: Could you give a short formula of love?

Answer: The formula of love? Don’t know. I think it’s H_₂O.

Question: Just like that?

Answer: Yes. The most important thing in love is the justification of the other. Permanently! Give in to the other all the time, justify him or her all the time, and tell him or her more compliments.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 8/5/22

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Question: What is the difference between what the science of Kabbalah offers humanity and what ordinary education teaches about loving each other and being good children? What is our know-how?

Answer: Our know-how is that we need to create groups in which people would communicate with each other and begin to feel that by getting closer they really enter into a completely different sense of the world, and that it is in the closeness, and not children, but adults, they should rise above their egoism, above the force that separates them from each other.

People should understand that by coming closer despite opposing egoistic forces, they will be able to feel a completely different state of themselves, others, and the connection between themselves and others.

They should begin to feel the new state of society, which is based on friendship, love, and mutual support. This is what we need to teach them.

In principle, this is the basis of the holiday Tu B’Av (Day of Love) that follows the 9th of Av, which represents shattering, separation. The 15th of Av (Tu B’Av) means, on the contrary, unification, closeness.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 8/5/22

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Question: In the chain of Jewish holidays, Tu B’Av (Day of Love) occupies a rather modest place although, judging by the name, it is a very high holiday.

What is the essence of this holiday that is hidden at the moment?

Answer: Tu B’Av (Day of Love) is a celebration of rebirth, birth, unity, and I would even say coupling of all parts of nature.

Question: We see what is happening in the world today. On one hand, throughout the development of mankind love is something important for a person. People write about love, talk about it, strive for it in some form, think that they love each other—relatives, close ones, friends, etc. On the other hand, they destroy each other and hate each other.

There is such a difference of potentials. Why does this happen?

Answer: Love and hate are two poles that cement any society. One is impossible without the other. Love toward people is established from the attitude of parents toward a child, especially the mother toward the child. That is why we welcome love so much, we are grateful for it, and we develop through it.

But the fact is that we need to develop a completely different love, love between all people, not because a mother’s love for a child exists, or a child for a mother, or between a man and a woman, and so on.

Meaning, there should be an absolutely different foundation that would establish bonds of affection, friendship, love, mutual assistance, and mutual support between us, such bonds that would connect all of humanity regardless of any external signs: black, white, yellow, red, no matter what kind of a person. This is what nature requires of us.

I hope we realize that this is the approach to the world we need and we will come to it.

Question: Does nature give us the tools to come closer to this approach?

Answer: Yes, we have enough for that. A lot is said about this in the science of Kabbalah because it is all based on creating love between people.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah express” 8/5/22

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Question: There is always some kind of struggle and mutual rejection between us. How can people introduce mutual complementing between them and begin to actually coexist together, really together? What role does the concept of true love, which you always talk about, play in this?

Answer: People need to be taught. They need to be constantly taught how important it is to be connected with each other, how much they need support from each other. The most important thing is the purpose.

They should unite and constantly feel that from day to day they are getting closer and closer to each other. This getting closer to each other raises them increasingly higher to the Creator, to the one single force of nature. They should feel their future in this.

Practically, this is what we exist for, in order to take several steps toward the Creator during our life. And we will continue further. It does not matter how or when.

This is what we need to take into account. Therefore, we must further develop those basics that we can receive from our mother and from school.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 8/5/22

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Comment: Rabash has an article about Tu B’shevat (the new year of trees) in which he tells how to care for trees, prepare the soil, fertilize, do something with the roots, remove dry branches. It is clear that we are talking about a tree inside a person, i.e., about his inner work.

My Response: Indeed, in order to get good fruits from trees, a lot of work must be done around them. Citing trees as an example, Rabash as if addresses a person who must grow himself to become a fruitful tree.

For example: to prepare the ground means to prepare the right environment around you. To fertilize the soil means to bring good, nice books and games to a person with the help of which he could develop correctly.
Removing dry branches means removing what will not bring any good fruit so that it does not interfere with progress.

Question: Could it have been described in another way?

Answer: No. Rabash gives such a beautiful and complete example, which is amazing.

Question: There is a book The Tree of Life, which was written by the greatest Kabbalist of the 16th century, the Ari. What is it about?

Answer: It is about the Creator’s governance of creations through all the worlds to our lowest world so that we can rise from this low state through all the worlds to the level of the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 6/14/22

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Question: The world today resembles people that are in Egyptian exile. And what is happening today is similar to the Egyptian plagues. Because the Torah is the source of all religions and all spiritual practices, please comment on a very universal quote from the Torah that refers to the world as a nation.

It is written: The Torah, Exodus, 3:17 “And I said, ‘I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt, to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivvites, and the Jebusites, to a land flowing with milk and honey.’”

The word “you” implies the world. What does this mean?

Answer: That the Creator will lead us out from under the control of our common egoism, which, in principle, He created and supports in order to show us the real exit to a kind, mutual, correct existence. This is our immediate good future.

Question: It means that we are under the control of egoism. Is this the Egyptian slavery?

Answer: Yes, all of humanity is in it.

Question: Is it only the Creator who can bring us out of this state?

Answer: The same force that created the negative force inverts itself and turns into a positive one. That is, the force that drove us there will also lead us out.

Question: Further, it is written about the process: The Torah, Exodus, 3:19: “However, I know that the king of Egypt will not permit you to go, except through a mighty hand.”

What does it mean for our world today?

Answer: If we do not put pressure on the egoism that the Creator created and supports in us, if we do not apply even greater force to it that will force egoism to begin to change, to retreat, then this will never happen. The Creator holds it. It means that the Creator must defeat and overcome Himself. This is how we get out from under the control of egoism.

The fact that we are suffering now, that the world is suffering, is the natural state of the world that it must go through in order to clearly assess what is good and what is bad.

Question: Is this what the Creator is doing to us?

Answer: Yes. We should read the story “The Little Son Came to His Father” in our childhood and actualize this study within ourselves.

At the moment, he feels that he is a tiny toddler and that he has to figure out how to live. Therefore, he asks his father: “What is good and what is bad? I do not know where I am. I take every step and it seems to me that it is good, but it turns out to be bad.” And he receives an explanation.

Question: And his father explains to him that the king of Egypt will not let him leave. But I will make him do it with a mighty hand.

Who is the mighty hand aimed at: the king of Egypt or me?

Answer: The mighty hand is aimed at the king of Egypt that is within you, at the egoism that is within you so that you want the good force of nature to conquer the evil force of nature. All of this is only within us.

Comment: Then there is this sentence: The Torah, Exodus, 3:20: “And I will stretch forth My hand and smite the Egyptians with all My miracles that I will wreak in their midst, and afterwards he will send you out.”

My Response: All the evil that exists in egoism should be revealed and a person should see it, sense it, feel it, in the present and in the possible future. Then he will see how the Creator changes it all to the opposite, and by this a person praises the Creator.

We are talking about the ten plagues that tear a person away from his egoism. These are the ten qualities we call Sefirot, from which we break away.

Question: Can we break away without plagues?

Answer: If you yourself will want to break away without them, then you can.

Question: Will I be able to want it?

Answer: To do this, you need to engage in self-education; that is, convince yourself that even the little evil that is now revealed in you is revealed in you relative to others, and you must do everything in order to hate these qualities in you. Then you will gradually distance yourself from them, up to complete separation.

Question: Who are Moses and his brother Aaron to the world? What is this?

Answer: These are two forces that lead us out of the state of egoism into the quality of connection and love between us and between us and the Creator.

Question: How do they appear in a person? At what point?

Answer: A person begins to extract them out of himself. They exist within him. In general, everything exists within a person. A person is a small world. The only problem is that we need to tune in so as to find these forces in ourselves, extract them, start working with them, and treat everything around us in this way through these two qualities.

Then the world changes. If I look at the world through them, it becomes different.

Question: Moses and Aaron come to Pharaoh. The Creator told them: “Go,” and they went. They say: “Let my people go.” And Pharaoh said: “Who is the Lord that I should heed His voice to let Israel out?” What is this?

Answer: People is a person with all his qualities. A person should get out from under the control of egoism under another control. This is called “let my people go.”

And the Pharaoh answers: “And who is this God?” because Pharaoh as if does not know that for certain. Pharaoh’s task is to trick a person so that he does not understand at all where he is. So that later he could clearly determine what is the Pharaoh, the Creator, Egypt, and outside of Egypt.

Pharaoh is our egoism that says: “I do not want to know any Creator. I do not know Him.” Because “to know” means to understand and obey.

Question: Will egoism always resist nature, the Creator?

Answer: Absolutely! We can never exit our nature while remaining in it. One contradicts the other.

Question: Pharaoh’s reaction to the request of Moses and Aaron to let the people go was simple. Pharaoh said, Exodus, 5:9: “Let the labor fall heavy upon the men”—upon the ones they want to lead out of egoism, upon these desires—“and let them work at it, and let them not talk about false matters.”

All this is empty speech for the Pharaoh. He is as if taking revenge; he says: “Do you want to lead the people out? We are going to burden them with work now.”

Can we compare this with the fact that in our world we are currently overwhelmed with work?

Answer: What does it matter whether they want or do not want? They only prolong their suffering by this. What else can be done? Piling even more work on them is what the Pharaoh does. Lock them up in some petty worries. Lock them up in such social, family, and other states that they will be just like little bugs.

Question: So these worries and problems that exist in the world now, the crazy amount of news, is this the empty work that is piled on us? Will all our actions at the level of this earth lead to nothing?

Answer: I think people already understand this. And in addition to this, there are wars, sufferings, fears, and anxieties.

Question: Is it in order to take us away from all this useless work?

Answer: Yes. It is such a state that a person is just like a bunny sitting under a burdock and shaking. This is such a pitiful state for such a great, potential being as human.

Question: Do you think a person is already beginning to understand this?

Answer: He already hears it in some things. He does not know how to exit this state, but he understands that “yes, this is me, this is us.” And what is next? He cannot see what is next.

If he had at least a tiny bit, a little bit of some small vision ahead, if he were able to see through a crack that there is still an opportunity, then, of course, he would have strength. Not in himself alone but in the unity between them. This is what needs to be revealed here! After all, people are right: “Where did we come from, what are we, and where are we going? Nothing. Everyone is for himself.”

Question: Yet, you are saying that the whole secret is in connection. Can you reveal this to us?

Answer: It is impossible to get out of this state we are in now. We will continue to turn sour in it until it as if cements us in the pyramids of Pharaoh.

This is what Pharaoh wants from us. So that we voluntarily agree to enter together with him into this huge tomb and lie down there nicely, the way they lie there. And so continues our eternal path in egoism. Without changing—like those mummies.

But if we go on the path of connection and unification, then we will be able to break this strong egoistic cloak that covers us, encloses us, shuts all our senses, and we will be able to rush out of there and escape.

Question: Is this what humanity is now facing? Are we, as if, under this “cloak”?

Answer: Yes, and we will definitely come out of it. We will definitely come out.

Comment: Then it is written: The Torah, Exodus, 5:22-5:23: “So Moses returned to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord! Why have You harmed this people? Why have You sent me? Since I have come to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has harmed this people, and You have not saved Your people’”

My Response: A person does not understand what else he needs to do in order to exit the egoistic state. But for Pharaoh, this desire of a person to exit egoism is not enough. He needs an extra, additional great desire. So that a person will turn to him. And not with reproach but with a plea that the Creator would go ahead of them and lead them all out of Egypt by hand. This is what is still missing.

Therefore, the Creator sends Moses back. He says: “You go and ask.” And ten times back and forth in this way until Moses already feels that this is it, all forces, all intentions, and all possibilities have dried out and only then do they succeed in escaping Egypt.

Question: Is it when the last, tenth plague comes that Pharaoh says: “You can exit”?

Answer: Yes.

Question: The last plague is the death of the firstborn. What is it from the Kabbalistic point of view?

Answer: It is the condition that man had when he existed in the world even before all these revelations. That I exist in an egoistic world, I am in it, I am under the control of the upper force. This is how I develop and live.

The death of the firstborn means that I tear off all my original, primary egoistic foundations and break away from everything that connected me with the past.

Question: Why is it so scary for Pharaoh?

Answer: Because the connection with him, with Pharaoh, is really getting torn. That is it, a person refuses to be under his control and to be connected with him. A person is ready to rise above himself no matter what! Whatever happens, just not to be under the control of Pharaoh!

Only then Pharaoh lets the person go. This is what he exists for, to bring a person to such a state.

At the moment when this thought, this desire, “Come what may, no matter what, just not with Pharaoh, not under him,” appears in a person, then everything happens. This is called the “death of the firstborn,” i.e., of the entire basis of a person’s egoistic existence.

Question: Does humanity need to reach such a cry, such a scream, such a state? Is it only possible then to escape from the control of egoism?

Answer: Of course.

Question: Is it possible for every person to come to such a state?

Answer: For every person, according to his measure. It will happen.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/18/22

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