From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 9/21/20

The new Hebrew year began with closure. But that was only the official declaration. In practice, every faction pulls its own way and tries to ease the restrictions on it and make them more convenient. In this tag of war, the public’s health is of no interest to anyone and everyone is losing.

The people of Israel that’s living in the State of Israel are not a nation. It is a collective of many sects and factions. I don’t see a collective and I don’t see an Israeli nation. For this reason, we will not emerge stronger or healthier from this closure, since getting better or stronger is not on anyone’s mind. The more we sink into this pandemic, the more divided, hateful, and alienated from each other we become.

As long as we continue our separation, there is zero chance of curing from the virus. This hatred between us is the exact opposite of what we should be doing, and this is why the virus is winning. We are already the country with the second highest number of cases per million people in the world, and we are quickly racing to the “top.” Instead of a role model for the world, a light unto nations, we have become the world’s laughing stock.

If we don’t take the time while we are in closure (assuming we obey it) to think about the future of our nation and what it means to be the people of Israel, we will bring on ourselves a third, and more painful closure.

Being Israel means being united. It means making unity the top value, above all our differences. We pride ourselves in our legacy of debates and arguments and often give the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai as examples of two conflicting views within the nation. But we omit what is not convenient: They helped the nation scrutinize essential issues precisely because they were a part of the same nation.

Today’s so called debates are nothing of the kind. We wish to eliminate our dissenters, not learn together what is best for the nation. We’re not using disagreements in order to grow. In fact, we don’t even want to grow, but to obliterate our opponents and be left alone in the rink. By this we are bringing on ourselves our doom.

There will be no vaccine to Covid-19, since the real pathogen is our sick egos. When we change our relation to each other, we will be freed from the virus. Our ill-will creates it, and it will create ever worse pathogens until we switch our ill-will into good will.

Currently, we aren’t doing this. We are defying the closure to go out and protest, clash with the police, and shout in defiance without masks and without distance. Why are we not defying the closure in order to get closer to each other? As long as our motivation is to destroy, we will continue to destroy ourselves. If we maintain it long enough, we will succeed.

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When a person asks the Creator for forgiveness, he has to feel that he has sinned. Otherwise, it turns out that he just mocks the Creator and the entire system that He created. However, we do not feel that we have committed any sins and do not think we need to be corrected. It is all because there is a law in nature that you repeat a crime for a second time and you already consider it as permitted not recognizing it as a sin.

Therefore, we need to think: is it possible that we do commit crimes in our life? In fact, we are full of crimes, every one of us at every moment. However, we return to them all the time, and therefore in our egoism, we do not feel we are committing a crime. You repeat a crime a second time and you begin considering it the norm; this is the law of nature.

A person is perplexed: What did I do? Who did I harm? The crime is felt just for the first time. After that, I can repeat it a thousand times and will not feel that I am doing something bad.

This is why we do not feel that we are sinners when we ask the Creator for forgiveness. What is our fault? Before Rosh HaShanah it is customary to cry and ask for forgiveness, but these are artificial tears since we do not recognize our crimes.

Therefore, we need to become included in the tens and find out that we are neglecting our friends, our connection, and our appeal to the Creator. We do not feel that we are constantly returning to the same crimes and therefore we stop considering them sin, a vice.

I should feel how much I disregard the Creator in order to ask his forgiveness for not appreciating Him enough, not realizing that only the Creator does everything, arranges everything, controls everything, that there is none else besides Him, and I depend on Him one hundred percent.

I was not considering correctly the presence of the Creator in my life, was not recognizing that only He determines my thoughts, desires, perception of reality. Now I ask to forgive me because I did not attach importance to the Creator.

It means that all my pleas for forgiveness are only with regard to the singularity of the upper governance and all my appeals to the Creator are only through the ten. All this we establish inside our connection: how much I disregard my friends, do not consider them as great, and do not value the ten, which is the only tool that can direct me to the Creator.

To the extent I disregard my ten, I disregard the Creator. Therefore, first of all, I must work with the ten, and through it, I will come to the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/15/20, “What Is Preparation for Selichot (Forgiveness)”

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First of all, I must press “Delete” on all my claims against my friends because it was not them who acted badly toward me, but the Creator. Instead of my friends, I must see the Creator who is hiding behind them and teasing me on purpose.

The Creator is standing behind each friend encouraging him to do something that I condemn. Therefore, I erase all my claims against my friends, and I see only the Creator who has pushed them to these actions.

And therefore, I apologize to my friends for thinking they were bad. It was not them at all, but the Creator who awakened the evil inclination in them and has done everything.

But I have no claims against the Creator either because “there is none else besides Him, who is good and does good.” I I feel bad, it indicates that within myself I turn all His good into evil.

I am now in the world of infinity, in the Garden of Eden (paradise), and you too! Why on earth do we feel hell instead of paradise? It is because we perceive this paradise in our corrupted Kelim. How can I fix them? The Creator has given me the opportunity to check myself in relation to my friends. If I love them, then I have corrected my attitude toward my neighbor.

We ask the Creator to help us achieve good unity between us in order to please Him. We want to wish Him a good year! A good year means that we have made a good change, that is, we have prepared a place for the Creator to reveal in order to express our love and unity. And so we wish the Creator: “Have a good year!”

Try to wish the Creator a good year through your connection. And then He will be revealed in Rosh HaShanah as the king who has done all this. We are His creations, and He unites us together and rejoices in us.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/17/20, “What Is Preparation for Selichot (Forgiveness)”

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How can we make this new year different from all the others, that is, make a leap to a spiritual degree? And not just any spiritual degree, but the one that is in line with the Last Generation.

There is a huge difference between that and what the chosen few, the Kabbalists of the past, have achieved. This is a completely different feeling, a different revelation—the true revelation of the Creator to the creatures of this world.

This new year differs from all the previous ones in that the Creator is beginning to relate to the world as a single unit. And we also need to relate to Him this way, to turn to the Creator as the whole world, and pull the whole world to this goal set for us by the Creator.

In this new year, a new state of reality is revealed. Only now, after many thousands of years of human development, is humanity altogether able to rise to the first spiritual degree. We are already beginning to enter it: The first tens open this door, enter it, and pull the whole world with them. You need to be prepared for this and feel your responsibility, strength, confidence, and mutual guarantee.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/15/20, “What Is Preparation for Selichot (Forgiveness)

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Medium published my new article “Individual and Collective in Repentance”

“‘How will the Jews atone for their sins?’ wondered King David. To which the Creator replied: ‘When suffering will befall the Jews because of their sins, they should gather before me in complete unity. Together they shall confess their sins and recite the order of the Selichot, and I will answer their prayers.’”(Mishna) This exemplifies the very essence of the Israeli nation which requires us to adopt a collective approach vis-a-vis everything, for the good and for the bad.

This shattering of our peoplehood is what we should ask forgiveness for, for ignoring the growing gaps between us, for forgetting what is expected of us as a people, and for our actual behavior that is out of sync with mutual guarantee.

The Selichot (forgiveness), communal prayers said during the High Holiday season, represent a special time of introspection and repentance. But what should we be asking forgiveness for? This special period delivers the realization that, collectively, we have been heading more toward separation than toward connection with others in our lives, and this is the sin for which we need to ask pardon.

This has important implications for the Days of Repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. All our introspection — all we wish to reflect upon, examine, clarify, admit to, confess, seek pardon for — must also be carried out jointly and in full consideration of each and every member of the nation.

However, since we have been raised separately, we have been trained and encouraged to manage ourselves as individuals. As a consequence, we have grown distant from our communal beginnings and lost awareness of ourselves as a people. In other words, we have retreated from behaving as a society inspired, organized, and operated according to mutual guarantee.

The sensation that we are like the organs of a single body — the consciousness where each individual is not evaluated separately, but rather as an integral part of a healthy and fully functional whole — has degenerated. It behooves us to gradually awaken from this delusion of division and realize that we are being looked upon by others as a people, not as a collection of faction groups or separate individuals.

This shattering of our peoplehood is what we should ask forgiveness for, for ignoring the growing gaps between us, for forgetting what is expected of us as a people, and for our actual behavior that is out of sync with mutual guarantee.

There is no reason to be angry and reproach each other; there is no reason for arguing and using harsh words. Generally, such words achieve little, and often have the opposite effect. Take, for example, educating children. We raise our voices and command them to “be good, give in and share,” but our words seem to fall on deaf ears. Before they will comply, they need to recognize in us something that comes from deeper within. Remember your parents. Don’t you mainly remember their actions rather than their words? Because children observe everything and have a keen ability to recognize what comes from the real place of the heart, they learn best from personal examples; we are just the same.

We must take the opportunity the High Holidays provide in order to rediscover the ties of loving connection between us. We lack only the awareness of our division to be able to cry out and ask for the strength to unite, for the force of love and correction. Our ultimate goal is to internalize the notion that we are parts of one single body functioning in mutual guarantee and love.

The love that we are talking about is internal, deep, and hidden. It does not burst out in front of everyone as it is seen in films or theatre, where it is selfish love anyway. So it is difficult and complicated to demonstrate what it is like when all are connected and feeling as one.

After we come to this profound awareness of the state we should be in and realize that we have not even come close to exerting enough efforts in that direction, then we are ready to repent and to plead for help. When together we come to such a heartfelt demand for healing and unity between us, we are ready with a prayer that will certainly be fulfilled.
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Medium published my new article “A Shana Tovah Depends on Us”

We are on the threshold of a complete revolution — a substantial change in our attitude toward ourselves, society, humanity, and all of nature. Rosh Hashanah, in Hebrew meaning the “head” or “beginning” of “the year,” arrives at a special time, one like never before, in the midst of a global pandemic. We are aware of the far-reaching impact of the virus, but we need to ask ourselves for what purpose did it arrive? The answer to this question is the key to a good new year, a Shana Tovah 5781.

The coronavirus era is reshaping our lives, literally by force. It is moving us toward a higher and more advanced world in which all the parts are bound together. The fact that the world looks exactly the opposite now — filled with ego games, violence, corruption, struggles and riots — is all part of the development process.

The coronavirus is showing us just how our individualistic, self-serving behavior is leading us to destruction and pain. By looking ourselves square-in-the-eyes in the mirror, with complete honesty, we will want to reform and correct our nature into one that only wants mutual cooperation and unity.

The increasing challenges and predicaments we are experiencing awaken worldwide introspection in order to realize that the current path humanity treads is not leading us to a good place. This recognition alone is already a very important step in our development. The coronavirus has turned out to be a force that is awakening humanity to undertake a complete revision of its state.

Our current understanding of what is happening boils down to awareness that we are being beaten by this virus. But our discernments do not dig deeper than that. We have no idea what the blows are directing us toward, where they are coming from, and more importantly, for what purpose. We are as helpless and disoriented as a newborn baby who feels pain and will not stop crying, without any understanding of the reason for the situation.

Thus, our most important challenge is to discover the reason for the coronavirus, not in the biological sense, but in the essential sense, from its very origin. Social distancing, masks, crowd prevention, a global race for a vaccine, experimental treatments — all are measures looking to alleviate the problem of Covid-19. Nevertheless, none will be able to constitute a comprehensive solution to the coronavirus phenomenon.

Nature, just like a loving parent, always works for the good of all of creation together. The blows, pressures, and anguish, as painful as they feel to each individual, do not come to harm us, but to bring us to balance with nature, and by that, to a better life. Their purpose is to sharpen our awareness of our priorities in life, of what really matters: our harmonious relations with each other and with nature.

The pandemic is aimed at teaching us how to approach our surrounding environment properly, in an integrated and complementary way, with the desire to do good to others and to our environment. Nature is global, integral, and unified. Thus, the trend of evolutionary development is to cause us to identify ourselves with those same qualities, despite the fact that we were created different and distant from each other.

The coronavirus era is reshaping our lives, literally by force. It is moving us toward a higher and more advanced world in which all the parts are bound together. The fact that the world looks exactly the opposite now — filled with ego games, violence, corruption, struggles and riots — is all part of the development process. If at the beginning of the pandemic we still saw manifestations of solidarity and mutual help, today everyone’s patience has run out.

Moreover, the illusion that we treat each other well has been shattered, and it has become clear that it is human nature to look out for only oneself.

The helplessness we are feeling will lead us to search for guidance from our sages who, throughout thousands of years, created a unifying method for this special time to usher humanity to a new horizon. This timeless method develops in a person the vision and feeling that we are all within one system. Once this notion is firmly instilled in us, it becomes natural to treat others as we would like to be treated until we become “as one man in one heart.”

And when we are finally harmoniously connected, we will feel how the one power in nature that rules everything in reality does only good to us.

So what should we wish ourselves for the new year? First, to recognize our egoistic human nature as a self-destructive force that separates us. Second, that we will desire to change direction and connect for the good of all. By this, we will activate the force in nature that radiates a healthy and peaceful world. Our intention and will to build a deep connection between our hearts will heal the coronavirus at its root and will ensure that next year will be the sweetest we have ever experienced, a true Shana Tovah.

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Medium published my new article “Repenting Last Year’s Sins Does Not Permit Their Repetition in the Next”

In the weeks leading up to Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), and especially on that holiest day of the year, many Jews repent last year’s sins. We ask God to forgive our sins against Him, and mainly against each other, and plead with Him to erase our “indictment.” We confess our sins before Him, and in return, expect Him to forgive us.

Every occasion on the Hebrew calendar symbolizes a stage in our transformation from selfishness to selflessness. This is the meaning of Tikkun — that we become good people, who want to do good to one another and strive to love our neighbors as ourselves.

At the end of the fast, we sing with joy that our sins have been forgiven and God has forgiven our sins. And what do we do immediately afterwards? We begin to fill up next year’s sheet. This is a complete misunderstanding of the whole idea of Selichot — the request for the Creator’s forgiveness.

Every occasion on the Hebrew calendar symbolizes a stage in our transformation from selfishness to selflessness. This is the meaning of Tikkun — that we become good people, who want to do good to one another and strive to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Selichot is not permission to sin next year; it is a pledge to refrain from sin, a request of God to change our evil, selfish inclination into a good, giving inclination. If we resume our mistreatment of each other as soon as Yom Kippur is over, it’s as if we tried to cheat God. It doesn’t work.

We Jews have the obligation to correct ourselves and be a role model nation, “a light unto nations.” This is why all our holidays are about transformation from egoism to altruism. As long as we avoid it, we are pariahs in the eyes of the world, a pestilence the world wants to clean up and clear out. We ask why there is antisemitism and why Jews have suffered at the hands of the nations throughout the generations, but we ourselves are causing them to hate us through our abominable relation to our brethren.

Every non-Jew, and especially antisemites, examines closely how we treat each other. Even Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that Jews unite only when a “common booty” entices them to cooperate, but otherwise, they are mean to one another. If we want atonement for our sins, we need to look at our past only in order to learn from it how to treat each other better, and ask God to give us the strength to keep our promise to Him, but mainly to each other.
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New Life 1279 – The Code For Success In The New Year
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

In order to have a successful new year, Israelis need to discover the connection between all their diverse citizens such that they achieve Arvut or mutual guarantee between them. The coronavirus was sent by the Creator to arrange us in ties of mutual love and connection according to an evolutionary plan. Humanity doesn’t understand this so far and is busy hiding and trying to protect itself. Subsequently, we are frozen in terms of our international and cultural relations.

It is the role of Israel to show the world how to connect correctly according to the principle, “love your neighbor as yourself,” and therefore become a light unto the nations. It is not enough to be brothers in times of war, but Israelis must understand that they are locked into an integral system and that they have to change themselves in order to develop inner closeness between them.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1279 – The Code For Success In The New Year,” 8/31/20

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My new article on BIZCATALYST “Rosh Hashanah, Will It Get Worse Before It Gets Better?”

We are about to celebrate the Jewish New Year, a Rosh Hashanah like no other. Synagogues across America and the world are adjusting their services to the Covid-19 restrictions limiting physical gatherings. Besides the loss of lives, individual members and entire congregations have been deeply affected by the pandemic’s economic blows, wreaking havoc in rippling waves, which have fueled antisemites to blame Jews for the creation and spread of the virus. A somber future looks like the most realistic scenario, but this can definitely be changed if only we will see our fate as a single, seamlessly-shared project.

The opposite is happening now. Within American Jewry, division, self-hatred, and bickering signal an internal fragmentation that puts in jeopardy the continuity of a vibrant Jewish life now and for generations to come. Israel, politics, who is considered Jewish, these topics and more are igniting burning clashes within our community.

Interestingly, Covid-19 arrived without paying attention to who is religious and who is secular, left-wing, or right-wing. Meanwhile, we fail to look at the big picture which is the threatening crisis caused by a virus that disregards no one. Covid-19 appeared and halted regular life with the clear purpose of making us reflect on ourselves and our egoistic perspectives toward others and our surroundings.

How can we grasp a global view when we are so busy with quarrels and fights?

Sadly, we enter the holiday season with blinders on, preoccupied with getting back to the routine and to our usual power struggles, caring only about our personal interests.

It’s high time for us to stop in our tracks and take a firm hold on the new year as a unique opportunity for introspection and change. Rosh Hashanah, from the Hebrew “Rosh Hashinui,” marks not only the beginning of the Hebrew calendar but also symbolizes renewal—a time for inner evaluation of our thoughts toward others and the intention behind our actions.

We are currently ruled by our intellect that immediately makes calculations about how to best pursue egoistic relationships for self-benefit, stirring up separation and conflict. The time has come to be inspired by a higher, more comprehensive, and steady mindset, one that will help us to open our eyes and recognize our exhausting and fruitless struggles in life and choose change instead.

How is such a meaningful transformation possible? Through the power of nature—a force that works consistently to unite all the details of reality, that embraces and connects us all as one, that transcends our limited and selfish views—profound change is assured.

Our problem is that we are currently in a state opposite to nature where everything works in balance. Due to our lack of integration with the larger system in which we live through our broken relations with each other, nature will continue to amplify the impact of the pandemic until we react and unite. Our lives are already ruled by closures, restrictions, uncertainty, and every successive blow will be even more painful than the last until we make efforts to improve the connection in our human relations.

However, there is no need to wait for the situation to get worse. Things can get better if we will begin to ask what the root cause of the coronavirus is, learn from life what is essential for us to exist, and approach one another in a healthy and considerate way. Like the round and connected natural world around us, nature is trying to teach us to live in harmony and peace out of a desire to do good to others, implementing the ultimate Jewish tenet, “love thy neighbor as yourself” and transforming our hearts.

We awaken the force that propels a positive change when we take a step toward connection when we get closer and reduce the huge gaps between us. We may do it either against our own will or proactively with open hearts. We do not even need to erase the negative feelings and disagreements between us, but only to rise above them in the spirit of, “love will cover all crimes.” (Proverbs 10:12)

In a nutshell, the power of love we activate through the connection of our hearts, above everything tearing us apart, is precisely what will sweeten our fate as Jewish people and as individuals, keeping us strong and healthy. Happy Rosh Hashanah!
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The Times of Israel published my new article “Aiming High at the High Jewish Holidays”

Images of profound introspection and deeply connected community depict the vivid atmosphere of the Days of Awe (yamim hanoraim), that pack synagogues every fall. This year, for the first time in history, COVID-19 will give a completely different feel to the High Holidays because they will be conducted mainly through virtual platforms instead of in massive physical gatherings. The physical distance being imposed upon us is no coincidence. It is a reflection of our internal state as Jewish people. This year’s High Holidays offer a special opportunity for transformation, to rise from our current division to unity of hearts.

Our new conditions are actually an indication and direction from Above of what our prayers—particularly during the Jewish holidays—should be about. Now is the perfect time to pause and reflect on our presence in the world as a people—so divided, full of unfounded hatred, without connection or reciprocity. A potent and effective prayer should be the united plea for the whole nation, and how is it possible if we hold each other at arm’s length in internal opposition? If this is our state, then we should also feel the distance physically. This is the message inside the unique conditions presented to us by the pandemic this year.

It is good for us to feel how much our self-centered games close each of us within ourselves, how hard it is to open the heart toward someone with different opinions, and how much we are divided into factions and parties and camps. We take natural pride in our community and denomination, but it should never be used to belittle, despise, or mistreat others. While our diversity is wonderful, there should be something that connects us all as one above all the different shapes and colors. Currently, we are missing that overarching capstone of love between us.

So this year, instead of mechanically congregating, we should sit by ourselves and mourn the splintered and wretched state that we have sunken into as a people. As soon as we realize what must be fixed—our fragmentation as a Jewish nation—a true prayer will burst from the depth of our hearts to breathe life into the empty words recited from the prayer book.

Originally, a synagogue, or beit knesset (from the Hebrew kinus, meaning congregating) symbolized a house of connection, a place where everyone gathers together to seek a supreme power of love and giving. If this year the striking circumstances do not even allow us to come together physically, it must be an indication that we have reached a dead end on our current path. But there is a bright side: when the evil is revealed, it provides an invitation to correct the course and chart a new path to a more advanced form of existence.

Moreover, the coronavirus era illuminates something that was hidden until now. If in the past we could be separated in our hearts and still sit next to each other, it is no longer so. There is a law in nature which requires us to adapt ourselves to a world that has evolved into a tightly interconnected state. Therefore, we can no longer relate to “Love thy neighbor as thyself” as a lovely but empty platitude. It is the absolute formula for mutual connection, without which it will be impossible to survive. We are entering a new evolutionary degree where everyone will feel that the other is truly a part of him, and we really will become like one man with one heart.

The pilot project for integral connection between people must take place first between us, the Jews. And when we crack the new code for connection between us, we will light the way for all other peoples. The end result will be joy, health, prosperity—a supreme abundance that will flow through our connected hearts.
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