Question: What should we do so that this year will be a real new year for us?

Answer: It is very simple. The Torah says: “I have created the evil inclination.” And indeed all the division and shattering of our world, all the contradictions and the oppositions, the ego and unreceptiveness, the lack of understanding, everything that humanity has been through during its history, is of course, the Creator’s doing. So a person has to come out of his own ego in order to understand Him.

Weak or very egoistic people, who are ready to trample the whole world, are not attracted to this kind of work. On the other hand, they have big egos, are not satisfied with this world, and it doesn’t interest them. They want to control the whole of creation, know everything that happens, and discover everything so that there will be nothing that they don’t know, feel or control.

The revelation of such an ego in a person is indeed a gift from the Creator. This means that a person is ready for attainment and ready to pay everything he has to in order to reach that. Then he finds himself in the right group, where people like him get together.

This group is under the influence of the Kabbalistic method where people come and eventually undergo very serious states of resisting their ego, rising above it, and connecting to one another. They learn all the processes on themselves and feel, discover, scrutinize, integrate and do everything necessary. Eventually, the right picture of the world is formed within them. They build the Creator in the connection between them, because this is the only way He can be revealed.

It is impossible to reveal Him other than by this connection and other than this platform on which He is revealed. It is a force that requires matter in order to reveal Him within it.

Electricity, for example, can be revealed in something such as in the form of a dial moving, wires heating up, or an explosion. Only then can we say that there is some force there. It is the same with the Creator who is simply a force without matter. We have to provide the matter ourselves, so that this force can be revealed according to accurate physical laws.

There is nothing irrational or mystical here. It isn’t religion, but the science of Kabbalah. Therefore, all our attention and all our efforts are focused on how to create the conditions in which the Creator can be revealed. We need to put this matter together by its separate parts, combining the attributes of bestowal, mutual guarantee, and mutual incorporation so that the spirit will appear within this matter.

We sculpt it for a long time and suddenly our statue comes to life. Thus, a man is created out of the dust, out of still matter, becomes a corrected man into which we have poured life. We celebrate this wonderful opportunity we were given during Rosh HaShana.
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From KabTV’s “Holidays. Rosh HaShana” 8/6/15

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Question: According to religion, man was created 5,776 years ago, while according to science it happened more than 200,000 years before that. Who is right from a Kabbalistic perspective?

Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t take part in such debates. It studies nature and tells us about it. Nature is the same thing as the Creator, and the wisdom of Kabbalah explores the upper force of nature called the Creator. The word “Creator” in Hebrew “Boreh” means “come and see.” If we explore nature properly, we attain the Creator and see Him.

Thus Rosh HaShana (the Hebrew New Year) is the day of the revelation of the Creator, of the upper force. This is the day that mankind first attained the upper force, the spiritual world, an upper reality that we left to live here in this world only so that we will be able to break into it again. From this world, we will be able to attain the upper world.

Then we will know the answers to all the eternal questions: “What is the purpose of this life? What is its meaning? For what purpose do we exist on this earth and for what is all set? This isn’t a mere search for filling because we are unsatisfied with life, but a search for the goal for which we were created from above. Kabbalah teaches us how to turn to the Creator, raise Him, and reveal Him. Then the whole plan of creation is revealed to us, including what happened before we felt that we exist here in this world. It is because our world is only an intermediate station between what happened before we were born and the station of our future goal at which we arrive after we leave this world.

We either ascend to an upper dimension or lower to our level in this world. The wisdom of Kabbalah allows us to do both. All this is accessible to us thanks to the wisdom of Kabbalah that was revealed by first man who was the first human being to discover the Creator.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 9/6/15

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Question: What does the food we eat on Rosh HaShanah symbolize?

Answer: On Rosh HaShanah, it is a Mitzvah (commandment) for us to eat the head of a fish to emphasize our desire to be the head and not the tail. This means that we want to find an understanding for the entire structure of creation, the entire spiritual project, and not just to understand and recognize our actions, goals, or our role in penetrating into the entire wisdom of creation, but also to find the power and courage to realize them within ourselves.

The pomegranate symbolizes the correction of the 613 egoistic desires in every person for rapprochement, unity, and love. The seeds of the pomegranate create one collective, common fruit. Each one of us is a small seed, and we need to unite, which represents the completion of our common collective spiritual work, a fruit in which all components are connected in the right way.

The apple is that part we took from the sin that happened with the Tree of Knowledge. We dip it in honey to sweeten whatever is waiting for us as we continue forward, so that the instructions and help that we receive from above will be correct and precise. The correction of the sin of the Tree of Knowledge is called mollification. If a person places before himself the same goal that exists in nature and finds harmony within it, there can no longer be anything in life that is bad for him. He will constantly feel mutual, harmonious help from nature that surrounds him.

If we think about unity and connection between us, we can balance the climate on Earth and do everything that we want, such as preventing all suffering and war. But before we teach humanity to connect and unite, we need to learn this ourselves. Studying the wisdom of Kabbalah will explain to everyone how this is done, andI hope that we attain this unity.

All these customs are simply external in character. But in fact, this is a huge, major holiday from which the right attitude towards life truly begins because a person now begins to restore himself.
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From KabTV’s “Holidays. Rosh HaShana” 8/6/15

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In order to ask for forgiveness, we must know what love is for people like yourself and what it means by asking these questions, “What haven’t I done on behalf of this love? If it is necessary to feel that I have love for others, which is the main Mitzvah (commandment) of the Torah, do I or do I not feel it?” Many people think that it is enough just to carry out physical Mitzvot.

The Kabbalists advise us to unite into groups of 10, so that together we can check if we are truly treating each other well. Is everyone trying to distance himself from his ego and connect with others, become integrated with their desires and to feel love between us? If we understand that all of this doesn’t exist, we feel we are to blame, so we ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness is for not carrying out the main condition, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Today, this condition has become imperative for the whole world in order to come out of the global crisis. But the people of Israel must be the first to realize this, and we are not doing it. So we ask for the power to help us attain this love. We clearly see that we are not prepared to carry out this condition by ourselves, but we can ask for help. And we conclude the Selichot (forgiveness) by asking for the power to carry out the main Mitzvah and bringing people closer together. And through this getting closer we also get closer to the higher force, the Creator.

A person cannot realize this by himself, so we work in a group, which is how we check if we have attained mutual bestowal and connection or not. If not, we need to ask for the power to help us connect and reach unity. This common request is called prayer and it is derived from our connection, from the center of our circle, like a pillar that rises upward. When we examine our union, we reach Selichot.

From here we see that without studying the wisdom of Kabbalah, it is impossible to discover what to ask, towards what to be attracted, the purpose of Creation, and how the Torah is connected to the Mitzvot of love of others and love of the Creator through the entire order of correction. The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us how to realize ourselves according to what is written in the Torah. The only Mitzvah is to rise above our ego and attain connection and unity between everyone. It includes within it all the rest of the Mitzvot, which are individual corrections of our ego. The egoistic desire is composed of 613 parts, each one of which we must correct, beginning with the easiest and moving towards what is more and more difficult. In this way it is necessary to carry out 613 corrections, which are called the 613 (Taryag) Mitzvot.

When we help each other we ultimately attain redemption, meaning that we discover the higher power, the Creator, within our correct mutual connection of bestowal and love. And this is the forgiveness before Rosh HaShanah. Certainly it is impossible to begin the New Year, the new beginning, the next level, towards which we must ascend thanks to our correction without clarifying all that we went through. And this is the essence of repentance, to ask with greater vigor for the Light that Reforms to correct us and make it possible for us to attain an even stronger union.
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From KabTV’s “Selichot” 8/17/15

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The month of Tishrei is coming, a special month full of holidays. The Jewish holidays are not just fulfilling a traditional obligation, they have spiritual roots derived from the forces of nature that operate in cycles, according to the rotation of the Earth around the sun and other higher reasons.

We feel that every day influences our world with different forces: One day is not like another, and one night is not like another night; we are changing all the time. There are more pleasant and better days and there are problematic days.

The month of Elul is a very good time for review of what we did in the past year and what we intend to do in the New Year.

The meaning of the name “Elul” is an acronym, “Ani LeDodi VeDodi Li (I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine)” (Song of Songs 6:3). We must understand the essential demand of the Creator, the higher force of nature. “I am my beloved’s” means that I need to examine myself this month before the beginning of the new year, in a special period of concentration of unique forces within us and our influence on the world.

We must carry out what is written in the Torah, the obligations that were received at Mount Sinai: “Become as one person with one heart” and “All Israel are friends.” Ultimately it is up to us to reach, “And you shall love your friend as yourself” and complete union.

People don’t understand what love is. In our world, this word takes on a very unclean and sexual nuance, or we connect this word with love for animals, trees, and the preservation of nature.

But the concept of love of others means connecting to feel all the desires of others and trying to fulfill them. This is like the connection of two devices; if we connect them correctly, the result is a single device all of whose parts can understand each other and work together.

That is how an engine is built so that all of its parts work in concert, like the organs of a single body that support each other. In this case, it is possible to say that there is love between them.

The Torah is speaking about love like this, about mutual connection, about understanding between everyone, when each one works for the others. If everyone works for everyone, a perfect system emerges, and this is the situation we must attain.

First only one person was created, Adam, one desire. But after that this system was shattered into a multitude of fragments that were not able to integrate with each other. Our work is to find a place for each one that is appropriate for him, and clarify in what form he must be integrated with the others. This is like a gigantic puzzle that we must assemble into one picture.

This puzzle includes 600,000 essential parts called “six hundred thousand souls,” and a further multitude of additional small fragments that are inserted between us. Every person in this world has a part of the overall puzzle because all of us are the “children of Adam,” and must compose him together.

But the main obligation in assembling this puzzle is imposed upon the people of Israel. They are the main constituents of all its billions of parts. If the people of Israel will assemble themselves correctly and will connect this puzzle correctly, then all the rest of the fragments will begin to move and search for their place. And ultimately each one will integrate with the others and become integrated in the puzzle.

In this way humanity will attain harmony, wondrous union, and the correct global integration that our world requires today so profoundly.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 8/30/15

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Question: What is the Kabbalistic meaning of Rosh Hashana, the new year?

Answer: Rosh Hashana is a new beginning, and the wisdom of Kabbalah is the wisdom of life that includes the wisdom of the universe, the wisdom of creation.

After all, it speaks about all of nature, about the totality of nature, not only our world, but also about all the higher worlds that are found above it. In the meantime, humanity doesn’t know anything about what exists beyond the limits of this world, but it still is approaching this attainment.

Rosh HaShana is the day Adam HaRishon (First Man), Adam, was created. It is precisely this event that we celebrate on this day, the creation of Adam.

But the question can be asked: How could Adam have been created 5,775 years ago if it is known that humans already lived thousands of years before then? This is proven by archaeological excavations and ancient inscriptions on stone that have survived until our day. We have found plenty of evidence for the existence of humanity in the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age.

This means that there is overwhelming evidence that humans appeared much before 5,775 years ago, and clearly the wisdom of Kabbalah agrees with this. It only adds that Adam was the first who became an Adam (Man).

In our world, there are three types of creatures: inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature. The human also belongs to the animate world.

The truth is that he has a more developed sense and reason. He builds more comfortable houses for himself than animal dens, develops commerce and industry, and explores the world that surrounds him, but it is doubtful if this makes his life happier than the lives of the animals. According to all indications, humans are only part of the animate world.

The wisdom of Kabbalah says that Adam was a human, like us, who lived 5,775 years ago. However, he is considered to be the First Man because he was the first to discover the secret of life, what we are living for, why we were created, and what there is beyond our lives in this world. He was the first to break the ceiling of this world to a higher world. After all, our world is the lowest of all the worlds, as Adam discovered. Before then, we didn’t even know about this. After entering the upper world, Adam told others about it; Adam conveyed to his students the wisdom that he discovered about the upper world and its management of us. He talked about the secret of life, that life is meaningful and purposeful.

Our life possesses a higher value because it makes it possible for us, through special activities, to break out of our world into the upper world; this physical life was given to us to attain the upper world in our lifetime and to become humans after Adam, meaning to become “the children of Adam.”

Adam is called Adam HaRishon because he was the first who rose to the next level, the upper world, where he became “like” (Domeh) the Creator, the higher power that operates there.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 9/6/15

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Question: How will our life look when the new global education process that develops consciousness within us begins? Will the people of Israel begin living like one family?

Answer: Everyone will relate to others like they were his own children. He will be happy about their success and sad about their failures.

He will love everyone, wish them well, and other people will treat him likewise. This means that “all of Israel are friends.” This way we come to a world of absolute good.

Everyone feels love towards one another and it entirely covers hatred. This is what it means to come out to freedom.

Question: Do you indeed believe that this is possible?

Answer:  I don’t just believe but know this is possible if we reveal the second power, which is the power of good. One more force will awaken within our nature that will stand against Pharaoh, the evil force. If we awaken this good force within us, it will completely neutralize Pharaoh by covering all transgressions with the clothing of love.

Let’s make this leap (Pasach), which symbolizes the Passover , and come to this good and kind world.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 3/22/15

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I am happy to invite you, dear readers, to read a special article for Rosh HaShana that I published today on Ynet and with this I also want to wish you and all of Israel a happy holiday and a good and sweet year!

This Year We Choose To Be Connected

“On Rosh HaShana, 5,776 years ago, one person succeeded in creating a connection with his surroundings. This evening, we celebrate the birthday of the first time that a connection like this was created in humanity. Rav Dr. Michael Laitman, in a special column for Rosh HaShana, explains how it is in our power to make the coming year more successful.”

I am looking at the year that has passed. It was a complex and difficult year for the people of Israel. There is no need to say very much about what we experienced, and it is clear that all of us look forward to a much better year. It depends only on us to make it better.

This evening, we are celebrating Rosh HaShana. 5,776 years ago, a special person was born whom we call Adam ha Rishon (The First Man). He was not the first person who was created; I don’t mean to say that the universe was created 5,776 years ago. This material universe has existed for 14 billion years. There is no argument about that.

What, indeed, was born 5,776 years ago is that system of unique connections that one person succeeded in creating with his surroundings, with others. That relationship that brings people together is what gives us the true reason for living, opens other worlds before us, and makes a person happy. Today, we celebrate the anniversary of the first time when a connection like this was created with humanity.

During the last 5,776 years, we have gone through innumerable situations, but something of this root is left in us. It is too small. It is distant. It comes and goes. However, on holidays, more than usual, it is still possible to feel a kind of spirit like this that envelops and connects all of us. It is because this nation was born from a special feeling of connection.

Abraham, the father of the nation, took the amorphous concept that Adam HaRishon began, and it really has developed into a method. Later, it even became a common slogan in the mouths of everyone, called, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” However, the idea of “Love your neighbor as yourself” is not a slogan. It is the foundation. It is the essential basis for our existence here. This is what makes us unique, and this is the basis for our moral values as a nation. Incidentally, this is the only thing that we can and must contribute to humanity. But that is another story.

So, on this holiday, we close a circle; or, more correctly, we open a circle, and it is always necessary to begin from the head, and today is the head, Rosh HaShana, the head of the change. It means that it is the first point in which we understand that a change in the form of the relationships between us leads also to a change in our feeling as individuals and as a society. The way is the same way that Adam HaRishon began and our father Abraham developed, and is relevant to the same degree and perhaps even more for us today as well.

I hope, wish, and yearn for a year of change. It should be a year of building the right systems of relationships between us. A year of “Love your neighbor as yourself,” a year of unity, connection, love of others that will transform our lives here and make the approaching year into a sweet and happy year. I wish for a good year for all of the people of Israel!
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From the site Ynet article.

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Question: If we were created as egoists from the start, why do we need to express regret, repent for our sins, and ask for forgiveness?

Answer: Prayer is making a judgment about our inner characteristics, obtained from the outside. The higher power of nature created our egoistic inclination, whereas we are only required to discover it and recognize its evil.

It is evil because it doesn’t allow us to connect with others and recreate the Kli of our common soul through which we feel the upper world.

A person is completely determined and defined by whatever characteristics he is born with, where he grew up, and what kind of education he received. So, we ourselves don’t sin that much, and even though it may seem to us that we have committed some sins in the past, we haven’t done anything bad. This is because nothing depends on us!

But if we clarify that the reason for all evil is our egoistic nature and we want to correct it, we have the possibility of doing this. So, let’s connect for that purpose because it is impossible to correct yourself on your own. So, I am appealing to everyone. Come, let’s correct ourselves, and we will feel ourselves in a completely different world!

All of our regret and repentance is awareness of how much we don’t want to connect with others. We begin to understand that it is possible to live well only through connection and unity, but our evil inclination is preventing us from attaining this. So, we ask the higher power of nature to connect and unite us, as it is written, “He who makes peace in His heavens, may He make peace for us and for all Israel.” (Kaddish).

Question: But what if I don’t want to relate well with others, and I am afraid they will exploit me?

Answer: We simply don’t understand how we benefit from connection and unity. It is as if we receive a sack with a million dollars as a gift. If the reward were revealed to us, everyone would want to connect. Everything depends only on the relationship between the results and the reward, and the wisdom of Kabbalah tells us how great the reward is.

Question: I am familiar with very many good people who are trying to relate well with everyone, but they haven’t gotten a million dollar prize.

Answer: The idea is that we don’t know what a good connection is. So, Kabbalah is called a science. It requires study and research. A person may invest much effort completely in vain. Many people in our world try to do good without results. They simply don’t recognize the laws of nature, so they make mistakes.

It is known that without knowing the physical laws of nature, it is impossible to do anything good. On the contrary, you only cause harm. If I don’t understand the law of gravity, I am liable to fall off a roof.

The same thing even happens with the soul. We must know the laws of our inner nature or of the soul, and then we will use them correctly and easily reach a wonderful, harmonious, peaceful life and benefit from much more than a million dollars.

In the month of Elul, we are entering a unique period. We have an opportunity to benefit greatly if we just will understand that the goal is to connect and unite among us, and the one thing that disturbs us is our ego, the evil inclination.

If we try to become freed from it with the help of the wisdom of Kabbalah, then it will provide us with all the necessary means required for correction. Then we will attain abundance and full prosperity. Between us, we will discover the upper world and begin to live a fabulous life as if we were on a cloud.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 8/30/15

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Question: How should we start the new year?

Answer: We should start the year with the recognition that we have an opportunity to become equal to the Creator, which means to relate to Him the way He relates to you. However, first you must discover that the Creator relates to you with absolute love and bestowal, and you must develop the same thing within you.

However, you don’t feel the Creator; you don’t know Him. The moment you begin to invent Him, you will create another religion, and we already have enough religions in our world.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, we have all the means to attain the Creator. Like a jigsaw puzzle, if you use everything you are given correctly, you will resemble the Creator totally.

In fact, the Creator has created this world in a state of total destruction and division. If you arrange it, you not only will become equal to Him, but also will resemble His depth, and so you will attain the same state, the same thought, the same goal, the same starting point from which He began.

You will attain the full depth of His thought, and as a result, you also will attain the Creator to some extent. Kabbalists don’t tell us about what comes next. When you reach that point, you will see for yourself.

Therefore, for us, a new year, Rosh Hashana is indeed a step toward new horizons.
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From KabTV’s “Holidays. Rosh HaShana” 8/6/15

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