Thrive Global published my new article: “Women Can Repair the World”

If women express a desire for humanity’s unity above all of its divisions and if they unite as a major force with this desire, they will urge men in the direction of unity.

Casey Cawthon, 32, Public Relations Director for Well Done Marketing, is shown working from the home office space she has created during the COVID-19 pandemic, Friday, Oct. 23, 2020. Cawthon, a single mom and diabetic, is considered high risk and has been working from home since mid-March.Casey Cawthon, Public Relations Director for Well Done Marketing

Whether our global home stands or falls apart in complete destruction depends on women. The celebrations of the International Women’s Day this year should be a reminder of the fact that the female force is a unifying power and is the kind of leadership so needed in these critical times as the world slowly tries to get back on its feet from a long bout of COVID-19. Women have been at the epicenter of the pandemic, in the frontlines of healthcare services and particularly hit hard by job losses. But this could be used as an opportunity for a new start to shape a more balanced society.

When men receive such a strong impetus to unite from women, they will work to fulfill those demands and will strive to unite and balance with the unified form of nature that functions with altruistic connections between all of its parts. Therefore, women’s strengths should be directed to female unity so they could contribute to society’s prosperity and happiness through unifying their efforts into building a new, comfortable and welcoming home for human society.

Studies on the socio-economic impact of the pandemic show that women have been nearly twice as likely as men to lose their jobs as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. As a palliative solution, the UN recommends a Temporary Basic Income for six months, the amount would vary depending on each country’s standard of living. We have reached a critical point where these measures should already be implemented and considered for a longer period of time.

On one hand, help should be provided to both men and women in a way that allows them to live with dignity, without excess but covering their basic needs. On the other hand, we need to make sure that every woman also has the opportunity to continue her work from home. If we thus use the time when we are bound to our homes in order to upgrade our awareness of nature’s unifying principle and to implement it in our relationships, we will then see far-reaching positive impacts of the COVID-19 crisis—a shift into a completely new and harmonious state among humanity, the likes of which we have never experienced before.

Through the pandemic, nature is trying to wake us to our need to make a further step in our evolution: to exercise positive, supportive, encouraging and considerate relations. Our selfish makeup is what led us to create a society that functions with each one trying to profit off everyone else; operating this way throws us all off balance. Essentially, we now need to reach a state where we care about others to the same extent we care about ourselves.

If we know the right place for men, women, parents, and children as components in society that complement each other, we will progress nicely in support and in mutual strengthening. According to nature’s structure, the female represents the desire to receive while the male represents the intention to give. Therefore, if women express a desire for humanity’s unity above all of its divisions and if they unite as a major force with this desire, they will urge men in the direction of unity.

Then, when men receive such a strong impetus to unite from women, they will work to fulfill those demands and will strive to unite and balance with the unified form of nature that functions with altruistic connections between all of its parts. Therefore, women’s strengths should be directed to female unity so they could contribute to society’s prosperity and happiness through unifying their efforts into building a new, comfortable and welcoming home for human society.

We will all feel as if we share a common home, like we live among a giant loving family in a completely new and upgraded kind of awareness of the laws of nature and the world we exist in. Now is the time to repair the world as only women know how to do.

I wish you success!!
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— Published on March 8, 2021

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My new article on Linkedin “The Purim Holiday: The Emergence of a Renewed World”

Every new state is born only under the condition that the former state completely exhausts itself. The holiday of Purim symbolizes the turning point the world is immersed in now as a result of the pandemic. Thus, this year’s celebration is particularly meaningful, not only to the Jewish people, but to all of humanity.

The events described in the Purim story are hints at the corrections the world needs to go through. The global virus outbreak has marked a deep transformation in all levels of our lives; it makes evident how interdependent we are and the pressing need to change our selfish attitudes and more considerate behavior toward others, that is, a shift from our egoistic approach to a more altruistic outlook. It will help us close the gaps between us and will unleash a positive common field, a unified and integral reality. And in order to achieve this goal, the people of Israel can play a pivotal role.

Haman represents today’s divisive mindset we need to tackle, the social division caused by the desire to seek money, honor, control or power in spite of everyone and everything. This shuts us off from each other, separates and harms us. Today’s tumultuous social atmosphere is a calling for us to seek our common voice as a humanity that shares common values and purpose. If we use this calling to connect, we can create a much more peaceful and friendly society for us all.

The traditional reading of the Megilat Esther (Scroll of Esther) during this celebration describes a time in ancient Persia when Jews found themselves under existential threat. The leader who inspired these persecutions was the personal assistant of King Ahasuerus, Haman.

Haman knew that the Jews were in a state of division and that this weakness would enable him to eradicate them, as it is written “There are certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples” (Esther 3:8). Haman said that in his view, the Jews could be destroyed because they were separated from one another.

However, Mordechai, the hero of the Purim tale, worked to bridge the Jews’ division, which is what eventually saved their lives. “The Jews gathered themselves together to stand for their life” (Esther 8:11). The moment they began to get closer to each other, a great force appeared among them. They began to feel their upper goal; they became confident, had power, and managed to destroy their enemies and rid themselves of all their troubles.

Haman represents today’s divisive mindset we need to tackle, the social division caused by the desire to seek money, honor, control or power in spite of everyone and everything. This shuts us off from each other, separates and harms us. Today’s tumultuous social atmosphere is a calling for us to seek our common voice as a humanity that shares common values and purpose. If we use this calling to connect, we can create a much more peaceful and friendly society for us all.

Whenever the Jewish people were at risk of ruin, unity proved to be the only possible means to be saved. We can use the example of the Purim story as an eternal reminder that our cohesion can extricate us from the worst situations, and that by uniting, we set a constructive and positive example for the rest of humanity.

The Jewish nation has an innate commitment to set the standard for choosing unity over separation, but this call is for humanity as a whole to make the same strides toward unification before heading into greater turmoil and crises. Our good destiny depends on us, on the choice we make.

Happy Purim to all!

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Tu BiShvat (15th of Shevat) is a holiday called “The New year of the trees.” On this day, trees begin to awaken to life in anticipation of summer, of the New Year.

It is written that man is like a tree in a field. Therefore, Tu BiShvat symbolizes the beginning of the blossoming of man, of his spiritual development.

There are four New Year celebrations during the year on four levels: still, vegetative, animate, and human. The New Year of trees refers to the vegetative level, which is not still but grows and develops, and therefore, it relates to man.

On this day, a person should realize that he himself determines his path, the process of development, and the goal. There is no coercion from above, but here at this place in the connection between us, we determine and execute our development. Therefore, we need to check whether our goal and our every step are correct. If all this is aimed at connection, then we will certainly succeed.

New Year is the time of judgment, so we need to judge ourselves and the world to determine the direct path to the chosen goal. In fact, we should judge ourselves every day, but especially today, in the New Year of trees. After all, this is no longer an inanimate but a vegetative state, that is, a living state that wants to achieve something. Therefore, today we will try to think again about how to grow more and more toward the goal.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/28/21, “Tu Bishvat (15th of Shevat)”

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New years appear four times in the Jewish calendar. The calendar begins with Jewish new year that is around September. Then there is the new year of the trees, Tu BiShvat, the new year of the spring, and the new year of the summer, and they all symbolize the beginning of the correlating spiritual levels.

The egoistic desire is also made of four levels: the levels of the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking.

A desire on the level of the inanimate nature correlates with the Jewish new year, which is agreed upon and accepted by everyone. The desire on the level of the vegetative correlates with the new year of the trees, Tu BiShvat, which is on the 15th day of the month of Shvat. This is when the birth of nature begins and trees are planted in Israel. Then comes the new year on the animate level, and then the new year on the human level, the speaking level.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 12/30/18

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 28/1/21

Today is the fifteen of the Hebrew month of Shevat. The Hebrew calendar consists of twelve months, which represent different states in a person’s spiritual development. The month of Shevat is regarded as the beginning of the year for the trees because on this month, the trees begin to awaken toward the end of the winter and the beginning of the spring.

It is written that man is as the tree of the field. Therefore, we celebrate this time of the year as the beginning of man’s spiritual budding. My teacher, RABASH, wrote an elaborate letter about the spiritual meaning of Tu [fifteen] BiShvat [of Shevat], Letter No. 29, which you’re welcome to read in our online archive. Below is the gist of his words.

The order of operations of man’s spiritual development can be compared to the operations we perform on trees if we want them to blossom and yield good fruit.

Fertilizing: This pertains to using the “litter” from our world as fuel and as a substrate on which we grow in spirituality. To succeed in spirituality, we must plant ourselves in an environment that
encourages spiritual growth, an environment that promotes the values of giving and loving others. However, the ego keeps spoiling and soiling our love. When we intensify our connection so it is stronger than the ego that emerges between us, we use the egoism as a reason to boost our connection. This is the meaning of fertilizing the tree, meaning the spiritual growth.

Hoeing: This means we must dig into our hearts and scrutinize the purpose of our being here. The growth of the tree depends on the soil in which we plant it. Then the soil must be cultivated, hoed, and turned inside out. Likewise, we must look into the depth of our heart, bring what is in there to the light, and find the purpose of our lives.

Removing calluses: Calluses are signs, indications of our spiritual work. However, our spiritual work must be concealed. Therefore, as we cut out the calluses from the tree, so we must cut out external signs of our spiritual work so as not to evoke envy or bad thoughts from others.

Removing excess leaves: Leaves precede the fruit. They represent the works we do in order to come to a state of working for the sake of others. As one approaches that state, these leaves have to be measured carefully and the excess leaves must be removed, so as to allow the fruit, the intention to give, to grow to its maximum potential.

Dusting: We dust the exposed roots and cover them with earth. Sometimes we come to a state of despair and think that we will never rise from our current state. “Dusting” means struggling with these thoughts [in Hebrew, Me’abkim means both “dusting” and “struggling”]. When doubts on our spiritual path appear in us, we must “cover” them up and keep growing.

Smoking under the tree: When there are worms in the tree, we spread smoke under it in order to kill them. Smoking represents burning yesterday’s spiritual work and starting over the next day as if from the beginning. This means that at each new spiritual degree, we must leave the previous degree behind, seemingly “burn” it. Otherwise, it hinders our entry into the new level. This is the only way to climb up the spiritual level to the purpose of life.

Stoning means removing the Avanim [“stones,” as well as “understandings”]. This means we must abandon our previous understandings in order to prepare the ground for new understandings. In the beginning of the work, our understandings are egotistical. We must clean up our hearts from those understandings and absorb new, altruistic ones.

Trimming is the final work that RABASH mentions. It means we must trim the dry branches and leaves from the tree so as to allow new ones to grow. The old and dry branches and leaves are everything we had acquired from our environment. These must be pruned so as to allow the new, spiritual understandings to grow. However, we must be careful not to grow too many new branches, as this would make us “too smart for our own good,” meaning that we would work too much with our minds and too little with our hearts, with our intentions toward others, which is the heart of our work.

If we follow these customs in our spiritual work with each other, we will have a great year and our spiritual fruit of love of others will be healthy, strong, and beautiful.

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I wish us all a special miracle! A really big, big miracle in the new year. One! So that we rise above our lives and learn at least a little bit about what it is for. Then we all will feel good. We will all have a purpose. We will know why we give birth to children, raise them, and what we are leading them toward.

The only thing we need to do is reveal the world in which we exist. It is necessary to understand what nature does to us, what it wants from us, what we must be in order to change ourselves. Let’s try it! Let’s think about this and try to change something.

I hope that the year 2021, practically the first year after the blow we received in 2020, will be the year of some kind of enlightenment. I wish that to all of us. Happy new, a really new year!
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/28/20

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Comment: I want a miracle! I really want a miracle. Always, in better times, before the New Year everyone was anticipating some kind of New Year’s miracle. Not only as children, but also as adults, we await this miracle. And today, we are also waiting for a miracle that everything will change, that there will be a new situation, a better and more favorable one. Look at this world! It is waiting for a miracle!

My Response: If it is still waiting for a miracle, then it is still in its childhood. What miracle can there be? Only the one that we create.

Question: It means you believe in miracles?

Answer: I believe in miracles that we do ourselves, if we really do them. My whole life has convinced me of this. And there is no point in expecting a miracle. Otherwise, nothing good happens.

Everything will change for the better if you do it. And if you do not, everything will change for the worse.

Question: So your viewpoint on life is so materialistic?

Answer: Absolutely.

Comment: The new year has come, and everyone is waiting for everything to return back to the way it was. People are waiting for the miracle that everything will change. You see, it still lives in a person.

You say you do not believe in miracles. You believe in a “do it yourself” miracle.

My Response: Yes. When I clearly know what I am waiting for and what needs to be done for this, I try to do everything I can. And if this is at least partially successful, then it is already a miracle.

Question: Then tell me, what miracle can a person do with his own hands so that his life really turns for the better and takes a victorious path?

Answer: For this he must change himself because everything else is not in his power. And he can change himself if he acts according to his nature. It has made him this way, and he can remake himself.

Question: Will it be a miracle if he realizes that his nature is egoistic, that his nature is evil? Will this already be the beginning of a miracle?

Answer: Otherwise, there will be no changes for the better. Unfortunately, I must announce it to everyone.

Question: If a person does not start to take care of himself, to correct himself, no miracles should be expected?

Answer: No. Miracles cannot be relied on. They do not exist.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/28/20

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Question: Is it possible to trace in the events of the second century BC, when people were divided into Maccabees and Hellenized Jews, the current division in the State of Israel?

Answer: I don’t think so. I do not see that there are people in Israel who want to be corrected. No one believes that we are in a spiritual descent.

In the time of the Maccabees, there was a battle for ideology: how people should advance, how to serve the Creator, i.e., achieve the principle of “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Does anyone today have a method for achieving this spiritual rule? Do you see it in the program of any party or any part of society? And in those days, there was.

Rabbi Akiva and 24,000 of his disciples, and many others, believed that the principle of “Love your neighbor” must be fulfilled. But they could not resist their egoism because the rest of the people were heading in the opposite direction.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12/16/19

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Comment: The holiday of Hanukkah is called the celebration of the victory of light over darkness, purity over conformism, spirituality over corporeality. And I think, clearly this is not only a Jewish holiday. The whole world is now on the threshold of victory or defeat of light over darkness.

My Response: There are actually no Jewish holidays. This is the interaction between the quality of bestowal, love, and the quality of reception, hatred, which always fight with each other.

Question: Was there a day in history when the forces of light defeated darkness?

Answer: Yes. The forces of connection.

Question: The forces of connection, of love, suddenly defeated the darkness in this egoistic, dark world of ours. Was there such a fragment in history?

Could you reveal it? How can we expand this fragment now and bring it to the present? Everyone is interested in the present time and only few people are interested in history. How can we bring light, the holiday of Hanukkah to this melancholy, to this despondency of humanity?

Answer: In general, this is a constant, ecumenical opposition between Rome and Jerusalem. Rome is power, it is strength, the conquest of Europe, the conquest of all the savage tribes that lived in Europe then. It is no secret that almost until the 10th century people there lived in trees, underground, and so on. There was barbarism in Europe, and they ate each other.

And Jerusalem wanted to bring to the world a completely different law: the law not of power, not of supremacy of authority, but of the spirit. This was the motto, the goal of Jerusalem. Of course, people were not ready for this.

Question: Is this the time when the Temple was built on the height of love for the neighbor?

Answer: Yes, for a thousand years from the 10th century before our era to year zero of our era, there was a struggle of what would overcome. Eventually, Judea fell. And at the end, when it was already crushed, during the fall, there was a great uprising. It was led by the Maccabees. It was the Maccabees who were carrying this light. This last surge in the fight for ideals marked Hanukkah.

Question: This was a fragment of history. How can we transfer it to our time? What is Hanukkah for the world today?

Answer: Hanukkah is an image of light, bestowal, love, connection of all and everything no matter at what level. The main thing is the good attitude of everyone toward everyone, above all prejudices, religions, philosophies, above everything.

In this dark time, there is an opportunity to tell the world what it should be like. This is because the advantage of light is precisely over darkness. And also because the world today, during these 2,000 years, has already been completely imbued with this ideology of Romans and Greeks.

Question: That is, with complete materialism?

Answer: Yes. Since the world has realized where it is heading, where it is, and also its end, today it is already possible to tell, explain, and try to pull the world to look in a different way, with different eyes. We are not going to conquer the world; we just want to explain to it that it is falling and that this is very threatening.

Question: So, is this holiday very relevant and necessary?

Answer: Of course.

Question: How can a person now light this little fire in himself?

Answer: It is very simple. We have nothing else left but to turn ourselves inside out, to begin to negotiate between all our hatreds, adversities, desires to destroy, humiliate, and subjugate each other, and so on. We should stop playing these games.

Today we can say: “Let us remember, let us see what those true ancient Maccabees, the Jews, were talking about.” They talked only about restoring the kingdom of understanding, mutual help, and love between all the people in the world. Not on an egoistic basis because it is impossible—we would be building something unsuccessful again—but on the basis on which the wisdom of Kabbalah is founded.

There is a force in nature that can reveal itself and subjugate our egoism. This will happen. I do not just believe it, I see it coming closer every day.

It is on the ruins of the old world, and now we see how its last bastion that is built on capital is crumbling, and crumbling, and crumbling, that a different world will be built: a world of mutual respect, love, opposite to the past one.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/7/20

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Question: It is interesting that Hanukkah and Purim are two great holidays not described in the Torah. Why are they considered the most childish holidays? On Purim, children dress up in carnival costumes, on Hanukkah they sing songs and eat sweet doughnuts.

Answer: The fact is that we have not yet reached these states in our world, and therefore, it is all personified in children. A child who is looking to the future as if shows us that we must reach those states that have not yet occurred.

Historically, these states have taken place but not within a person. Internally, we have not yet set ourselves up for the holiday of Hanukkah and then for the holiday of Purim.

Question: So it is like a game. Children are always associated with games. So here we have to play this state?

Answer: Yes. The correction of small vessels is called Hanukkah (Hanu-Ko, stopover). This is an intermediate state, half of the correction. And the second half of correction is Purim. We are yet to go through both states—both the people of Israel and the whole of humanity.

Question: Why is it customary to eat doughnuts on Hanukkah?

Answer: Oil symbolizes the desire to receive and dough, the power of life. Oil must saturate the dough because the power of life comes to us from flour. Since then, it has been the custom to fry the dough in oil.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12/16/19

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