New Life 724 – Holocaust Remembrance Day
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

What is the soul-searching that we must do on Holocaust Remembrance Day, how do we make sure that an event like this will not return, and why is the attention of the world turned specifically toward us today?

Over time, the attitude toward Holocaust Remembrance Day has eroded because “there was a decree about the dead that they should be forgotten from the heart” (Pesachim 54b). The attitude in the world today toward Israel is reminiscent of the situation that existed 80-90 years ago, and it is up to us to prevent another Holocaust. Everything revolves around the people of Israel; we are the center of humanity because the method for the correction of humanity is in our hands.

Abraham taught the general rule, “And you shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18), kindness and oneness. Until the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash (Temple) we respected these values. The goal of creation is to bring all of humanity to become a single integral system. The people of Israel must lead the human species to a better life and a spiritual height. Humanity is demanding the method of correction from the people of Israel so they don’t appreciate anything else that we have brought to the world.

On Holocaust Remembrance Day it is up to us to take account of what we must do so that the Holocaust will not be repeated. It is up to us to correct the human rift, the hatred that dominates everyone, and the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches the method of how to do this. We require broad learning, a general education for all people and the world so we will understand the goal of existence. The people of Israel are required to become the pioneers in human development toward this goal. If we begin to connect, we will advance along with the good forces, explaining to the world what our role is. They will then support us. The wisdom of Kabbalah is intended for everyone, secular, religious, Jewish, or non-Jewish, this is a universal method of correction. It is up to the nation of Israel to provide an example of connection in which the Creator, the general power of love, is revealed. Instead of dwelling on the past, it is worthwhile to establish conversation circles in which we clarify how we will advance toward an enlightened world.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 724 – Holocaust Remembrance Day,” 4/28/16

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Question: The Graduate Student Association of New York University voted to support the resolution to impose a boycott on Israel. This resolution calls for the Student Union and all of its sponsors to end all ties with Tel Aviv University. Can this boycott be stopped?

Answer: It depends on us, the students of the wisdom of Kabbalah, on how much we succeed in explaining to everyone what the mission of the people of Israel is, why we exist as a nation and as a people. The role of the people of Israel is to bring humanity to the goal of creation, to the goal of the development of civilization. Those students who rise up against us as well as the entire world must discover and know this. It is up to us to say this with a “Voice of Voices” (Berachot 15b), in every street, on every stage, and in all of the communications media.

Unfortunately, we cannot even reach the Jewish people yet, all the more so everyone else; so this kind of threatening news will continue to reach us daily from all over the world, and gradually the “siege” will begin to tighten around us in the same manner but with different configurations.

The student boycott will be replaced by a technology boycott, an industrial boycott, an international trade boycott, the buying and selling of goods and so forth. But today no nation can exist in isolation, just as a family cannot exist alone without buying everything it needs at a store. So we have no choice. We must accelerate and rapidly catch up with the time that we have lost.

Jews all over the world must understand that the Creator is the one who is “narrowing the ring” around us, pushing us to carry out our mission. It is up to us to show all of humanity how to unite correctly for the sake of the world. Humanity can unite around the boycott against us, while on the contrary, we can come together if we begin to teach them about the right mutual connection between them. There are a total of two possibilities for the world. They can unite against us or unite with us in order to rise to the next higher level of human development.

The Jews cannot escape their obligation. We must carry out our mission because otherwise the boycott will become an “iron belt” tightening around us, a locked fortress that is being attacked from within and without. And we cannot hold our position because this is a “war” against the Creator.

Our role is not just to survive like all the rest of the peoples, but to show them the way toward the Creator. The Torah was given to us for this, and all the peoples subconsciously expect salvation from us. This is the reason they blame us for all of their problems.

We, the Kabbalists, must try to carry out our mission quickly with regard to the Jewish people; the Jewish people must realize their mission with regard to the nations of the world, and everyone together must carry out the general mission of humanity with regard to the Creator. Everything is realized in a single chain.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/25/16

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New Life 723 – The Holocaust In A Kabbalistic Perspective
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Why was the Nazi’s hatred aimed mainly toward the Jews? What should we learn from the growing anti-Semitism today, and how does the wisdom of Kabbalah explain the duty of the nation of Israel to the world?

The nation of Israel should bring the method of correction to the world as “Light unto the nations.” If it doesn’t do so the evil force will arrive. If it doesn’t connect the world in love and goodness, the evil force will force it to connect just as the Nazis did during the Holocaust. The Nazis attacked us as part of an ideological war. They wanted to destroy our spiritual dominance. We have brought the blow upon ourselves because we didn’t do our job and didn’t listen to the Kabbalists who called us to start the correction of the world.

When a person suffers greatly and doesn’t feel that he can overcome what is happening in any way, the only thing left for him to do is self-annulment. He accepted what happens, and thus the point of truth in him awakens, the human spirit. Rabbi Akiva was saved from drowning in the sea thanks to self-annulment when he held onto a log and lowered his head every time he a wave washed over him. After the blow, the human spirit remains in order to allow a person to recover and correct himself, and so it is less important to speak about what happened and more important to understand how to prevent another blow. Nature requires all of humanity to become one bundle as “First Man,” so in order to prevent another blow, we have to work on our connection and thus connect the whole world.

We, the nation of Israel, have the method of connection, which is the wisdom of Kabbalah. Nazism isn’t a German notion but another phase in the development of society following socialism, and it might spread throughout Europe and the US. The whole world might unite against us because its good future depends on us. We have received the Torah, the wisdom of Kabbalah, the method of correcting human nature from evil to good.

Unfortunately, the nation of Israel still lives according to values that are incompatible with its spiritual root. The fact that we have a state today is no guarantee in preventing another blow since the whole world might unite against us, and so the only solution is to work on the connection between us. The Holocaust Remembrance Day is a time for soul searching.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 723 – The Holocaust In A Kabbalistic Perspective,” 4/28/16

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Question: The State is Israel is celebrating its 68^th independence day, a country was built on the desert sands and has fought many wars in the struggle for its existence and independence. What do you think of the accomplishments of the State of Israel in such a short time?

Answer: It depends on what you consider an accomplishment. If we count the accomplishments by the technological innovations and other inventions, then they are truly great.

We have built a wonderful agricultural infrastructure; we can feed ourselves and we export many agricultural products; we don’t depend on rain water or on ground water, we desalinate sea water. We have built wonderful roads and railroads; we have a strong army and advanced weapons.

But all that does not guarantee our independence. A state’s independence today is not based on its power, on its inner technological, economic, or political strength. Today every country depends on the whole world. The modern world is round, global, a small village, and so if we want to be independent, we don’t need to be independent of others, but rather to be in good relations with everyone.

It is impossible to hold on to a certain position today and say, “I have a nuclear bomb so I don’t depend on anyone.” It is very easy today to isolate a country and to make it fall to its knees. Therefore, a state’s independence should be measured only by its good relations with other countries and not by its power.

The concept of independence does not refer to individual independence anymore. This concept now refers to global independence.

We can speak about being an individual country but the State of Israel is not independent yet.

Question: So what do we celebrate?

Answer: We celebrate the state’s birthday and nothing more than that.

Question: But the world we depend on is, in most cases, against us.

Answer: Unfortunately it depends on us. We are the only state in the world whose independence depends on us alone, while all the other states depend on each other and, at the same time, also on us. This is the most amazing thing!

Therefore, if we want to be independent, we have to unite in order to set an example for the whole world. The moment humanity sees that, it will immediately begin to learn how to unite from us and we will become Light unto the nations. In that case, nothing will threaten us anymore.

Now, on the other hand, we only cause the other nations harm according to what we hear on all sides and from all the nations. We are the source of evil for the whole world! Because Israel is the central part of the general system of the world and whatever happens to Israel affects all the other nations.

If the relations between us in our country are bad, we convey the same state to the world and the whole world falls to a state of division, disputes, and disagreements. Unless we unite, the world will not unite and all the nations will blame us for all their troubles.

Since the ego is constantly growing, the nations of the world will treat us increasingly worse with every year that goes by.

I wish our nation would begin to understand who we are and that not only our independence and our prosperity depend on our unity, but also the prosperity and independence of all the nations of the world does as does their positive attitude toward us.

I bless you all and wish all our future true independence day!
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 5/9/16

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Comment: The nation celebrates the memory of the fallen Israeli soldiers. On these days the situation at the border of the Gaza Strip continues to be alarming: renewed exchanges of fire, the discovery of new tunnels all the time. If the latest statement from the commander of the Southern Command, Major General Eyal Zamir is to be believed, Hamas is preparing for the next war. Chances are that events like these will continue. Since the proclamation of this state, 23,447 soldiers gave their lives for the existence of Israel. Can we freeze this number and stop it from becoming larger?

Answer: No, because we haven’t taken any extreme measures to stop not only the wars of the world, but also the lapse of humanity into a new world war. All of this is in the hands of the Jewish people, especially the people gathered here, in Israel. For this we must unite among us. Unfortunately, in this regard we are a very stubborn, stiff-necked people who don’t want to unite. To date, we are behaving like a bunch of refugees from different nations.

Comment: But our army is considered to be one of the most cohesive and patriotic armies in the world.

Answer: This has no relation to the unity we must find and discover between us. It is the unity that is expressed in the Torah as, “And you shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18), which is the great general rule of the Torah (Yerushalmi Nedarim 30:2). We must achieve this level of unification within the framework of all the people, or at least begin to move toward it. If we begin to make some kind of movement toward this, we will immediately begin to feel changes for the better among our people and in the attitude of the nations of the world in regard to us. We can simply check this out for ourselves. And if we don’t do this, then from day to day we will feel more fragmented, rough, and unsafe within our internal borders.

Question: Where to start—the media, the schools?

Answer: With the establishment of a general guideline of nationwide public education in that same spirit in which it was established by Abraham 3,500 years ago in ancient Babylon and existed with until the destruction of the second Beit HaMikdash (Temple), when it fell from love to hatred, in which it has been in until today. It is now up to us to ascend again to the level of love, kindness, and the understanding that we are one family, to be “like one person with one heart,” meaning to return to what lies at the foundation of our people. We are different from the other peoples. For them it is enough simply to be together with each other. We have no common biological foundation, like the English and the French and so forth, for example. So the moment we lose the unity between us, we immediately disintegrate, disperse, and begin to hate each other. Moreover, among our people appear those who become the main anti-Semites in the world. So we are obligated to begin with unification. That is what the wisdom of Kabbalah says, and only in this manner will we save ourselves and stop the increasing the number of soldiers killed.

Comment: Speaking of government policies, it is very difficult to compare those good and wonderful ideas that you talk about with the stern apparatus of government policy.

Answer: Yes, but the government must take this upon itself and the people must obligate it, and everyone together must begin to be involved with education in the spirit of unity, without waiting for government decisions. This must be a very serious network that will be involved with popular education, teaching the entire society to live with good mutual attitudes. This has already begun to exist. We have been trying to create it and have gotten responses from people. Even though we have seen good results, it is still too little. Certainly, we are trying in this way to influence the government, participating in elections, doing all the kinds of activities possible to materialize our idea in life. But without pressure from the people on the Knesset, there won’t be any shift.

Question: Can a person who is reading this do something toward this trend?

Answer: He can, only if he comes to study in courses according to the method of integral education and information. We are inviting everyone. Come, become interested. We will work together and immediately feel changes for the better from the entire world in regard to Israel.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 5/9/16

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Question: How did people manage to maintain their strength of mind in the concentration camps?

Answer: The upper force helped us maintain our strength of mind because we had to recover after this blow and bring ourselves to correction. If we forget about the past catastrophe and are ready to give up and do nothing again, then by this, we are preparing a new Holocaust.

We need to understand that we are approaching it! Just like the Jews before World War II and before the Holocaust didn’t believe that it could happen, it is the same is today: They don’t want to know about it.

Question: Nowadays people are more concerned about material things, and the spirit isn’t the center of society’s attention. What kind of spirit do we need to raise and develop in people?

Answer: It is unification; there is nothing else besides it. If we help all of humanity unite again into one common system, as one man, then we will achieve the desired state the good way. We still must come to it in any case, but if we, by ourselves, do not advance toward it, we will be driven by suffering.

Question: What role did all of the attempts to preserve cultural life, all the theatrical plays, have in the concentration camps?

Answer: This, of course, this helped people in such a dire state survive psychologically. But I am talking about real corrections that the people of Israel are obliged to make in order to destroy fascism completely as a phenomenon.

Unification has a special power, and this is the only thing that nature wants from us. We come to the fact that the development of all of humanity, human society, requires to connect correctly in a certain harmony. The world is becoming integral, as one small village, and only the people of Israel possess the method of connection, which is called the wisdom of Kabbalah.

If we understand this method and are able to use it, everything is wonderful.

However, while having the method of connection, if we don’t want to apply it and even resist our connection by any means, by creating various parties, movements, and schools, then we are arranging a very big problem for ourselves that can drop a terrible blow upon us again. We will again begin to advance by the evil, murderous force.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 4/28/16

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New Life #596 – Hatred Destroys, Love Builds
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

There is an upper force in the world that is good and benevolent, loving and giving, which has created a force that is opposite to it, which is evil, full of hatred, and takes instead of gives. Evil means a negative attitude toward others, enjoying harming others, which is unfounded hate.

Summary

There is a cycle of the good force and the evil force in nature, one force rules and then the other. Hatred leads to separation, to detachment; it ruins and destroys.

Our feelings and our relationships affect all of reality, and the stronger a force is the more concealed it is.

Information, for example, has enormous power. Nature is full of concealed information; we only know a very small fraction of it. We live in a home we don’t know. It is like walking around in a dark castle. Darkness stems from hatred since hatred closes us inside ourselves and we don’t see 99% of nature.

Therefore, we don’t need anything but love, by which we will connect all the parts of reality to us. People are on the highest level in nature, which is totally integral, but we affect it badly. We can sense the good force that can dwell among people in different connecting exercises like connecting workshops and discussion circles.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #596 – Hatred Destroys, Love Builds,” 7/9/15

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Question: What could the Jewish people have done to avoid the Holocaust? The Nazis expressly treated people like cattle, forcing them into boxcars and driving them into such a state where it was hard for a person to preserve human dignity.

Answer: The nation of Israel was obliged to pass the method of correction to the world, to stand at the head of the entire world and become a light to the nations.

We had to show to everyone the example of unity that humanity is destined to reach in order for all of the people, from young to old, to reveal the Creator. As it is written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

But if we don’t fulfill our mission, then we contribute to the rise of the forces of evil in the world. Therefore, it is possible to say that, precisely because of the Jews, the Nazis were able to come to power—thanks to our inaction.

The Nazis persecuted Jewish people specifically because, if we allow to the evil force to rule, it above all rules over us. The entire fight of the forces of evil is directed exactly against the people of Israel, not against other nations, as the main war was ideological.

The ideologists of fascism especially studied Judaism and sensed that they needed to destroy the force of spiritual power that exists in the people of Israel. In this way, they were hoping to take this power into their own hands, instead of ours.

The method of connection (the wisdom of Kabbalah, the authentic teaching of the people of Israel) hasn’t opened up and hadn’t begun operating in humanity, who required it so much. Therefore, another force rose instead of it, the force of the Nazis that was destroying everything by separating humanity, driving it to the different corners of the world and distancing it from unity.

In fact, the Nazis allegedly stated, “If you are unable to unite all the nations of the world in the mutual bestowal to each other, then we will unite everybody by the Nazi methodology.” After all, the word “fascism” comes from “fascio” (union), “bundle, assemble from many stems.” In other words, the union, either good or evil, will be achieved in any case.

The Jews have the method of good union through the upper force in which we reach universal equality and freedom of expression. The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us how to come to this.

However, if we can’t and don’t want to do this, as there are many opponents of this method amongst the people of Israel, by this we give freedom of action to the Nazi, fascist forces. This is what happened eighty years ago, and there is a great danger of a repetition of the Holocaust.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 4/28/16

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Baal HaSulam honored Israel Independence day very much. He even had a special Shabbat silver knife with the writing “State of Israel” on it. He valued this day enormously. And indeed, Independence Day is a special day because it contains a root of the general correction of the world, of the soul of Adam HaRishon, which begins nowadays. We are inside this drop of semen that begins to develop and realize itself. Therefore this day is so special for us.

Let’s hope that from the birthday of the State of Israel we will come to the day of its real independence. That means we unite so that our connection will spread to the whole world and will oblige all other nations to be in the deep mutual connection as well. And then the entire world will reach independence.

The independence of Israel is a sign and beginning of the independence of the whole world. I hope that we will be worthy of our mission.

We celebrate not an independence day of some country but a beginning of the independence of the entire world from its egoistic nature. The Creator deliberately instilled egoism in us so that we could rise above it and, on top of it, build the image of man, Adam, similar to the Creator.

Therefore while building love for friends we must not forget that we are doing it in the name of the Creator. After all, through the love for friends we build our spiritual vessel. If we succeed to connect shattered parts together, by this we will create a place for the revelation of the Creator.

The Independence Day symbolizes a priceless gift from the Creator to humanity. After all, everything created by the Creator besides this day is produced by spreading of shattered desires from above downwards. Abraham, forefathers, the First and Second Temples that were destroyed, all of it was just a preparation.

The destruction followed by destruction until we reached the last, the longest exile. And finally this exile is over and now begins an ascent that starts precisely from the Independence Day. This is the very first date that was established by ourselves, what is called “from below upwards,” starting point of the correction.

Before that we were all the time just preparing for it by descending from above downwards. And Independence Day symbolizes beginning of the ascent from below upwards and this is why it is such a special day and Baal HaSulam was so happy about it. This is not an ordinary Zionism but a joy about correction of the entire world system.

So let’s wish ourselves not to stop in the middle of the way upwards and finish this ascent at the highest point.
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From a talk during a festive meal 5/11/2016

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Question: What is the strength of the human spirit and where does it come from? Why in the most difficult times of the Holocaust, exactly when people were on the brink of survival, they showed the highest spirit and retained human dignity?

The Nazis tried to lower people to the level of animals, but even in the concentration camps and ghettos Jews managed to keep their spirit and a sense of mutual aid, organized education and theater groups, and did anything that allowed them to feel human and to rise above their state.

Answer: This is a known psychological phenomenon. When a person doesn’t feel any possibility of changing what is happening, he is forced to agree with the powerful and ruthless force that squeezes him in a very hard vise. And then he can only bow and accept everything as it is. But inside this lowliness awakens the point of truth, the human spirit.

Sending us such difficulties, the Creator, at the same time, supports our inner spirit. And therefore we see that even while submitting to the pressure of this enormous force, man in the depth of his soul feels that this is his destiny, the upper force. This blow falls upon him from above and he has to bow and tries to survive preserving human appearance as much as possible.

Therefore, during the Holocaust we saw such examples of courage and overcoming. However, it is indicative that people just resigned, accepted what was occurring, and simply waited for this blow to pass.

This is similar to what happened to Rabbi Akiva who was sailing on the ship and encountered a violent storm. The ship split and sank, but Rabbi Akiva managed to survive, the only one from the entire ship.

When he was asked later how he managed to stay afloat, he explained that he grasped a log and every time a big wave surged, he bent his head. This way these waves instead of drowning him carried him to the shore.

It turns out that in the state when, in our world, an evil force that was given permission to destroy us is already evident, it is too late to fight it. After all, we already lost this war if we permitted the evil force to appear. By our behavior in relations with each other we allowed the Nazis to rise, come to power, and begin to rule over all the nations in Europe.

And by lowering our heads, we allow this force to pass over us, and we can reach the promised shore.

The thing is that Jews could have prevented the Nazis from coming to power if they had listened to the appeals of Baal HaSulam and other Kabbalists and had commenced the correction of the world. But we didn’t do it and led a normal life in the exile. The great Kabbalist Ari in the 16^th century urged starting the correction of the world. In his time, the period of exile had already ended and the period of redemption had begun.

If we don’t move together with the forces of redemption that have started to act in the world and we stay in exile as before, not wanting and even opposing the redemption, then we invite upon ourselves a reaction of very evil and dangerous forces of destruction. In this case they are revealed in the world and act against the people of Israel.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 4/28/16

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