Question: How can your students, who represent the whole world, help correct the Jews?

Answer: In a natural way. By the fact that we, a group of my students scattered all over the world, understand that the main thing is rapprochement of everyone with everyone and that this corrects the world.

As a result, we put pressure on Jews so that they begin to understand that their job is to set an example and demonstrate how people should strive to get closer to each other.

Although, it is precisely for Jews that this is the most difficult thing to do.

Comment: But this is predetermined from the very beginning. If we turn to biblical sources, to our forefathers, they were given the Torah and they were called the chosen people.

My Response: Certainly. We all must understand that the most important and greatest vices exist in nature. They manifest themselves in us in advance as in people who are the closest and at the same time opposite to each other.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations, Israel and Its Impact on the World” 11/18/21

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Question: Let’s say two people are butting heads. The first reaction of one is to hit the other, to overpower him, and thereby win; it is not like “turn your cheek” at all. How does Kabbalah relate to this?

Answer: Kabbalah teaches that if I am threatened and about to be punched, then I can punch first. And why not? Why should I turn the other cheek? This is not Kabbalah or Judaism at all.

In Judaism it is said: “Kill the one who rises against you, kill him first.” That is, “Eye for an eye; tooth for a tooth.”

Question: It is interesting that in Israel when two people clash, there is almost never a fight. There is no such quality in people here to immediately hit the other in the face.

Answer: It depends on the level of development in people. Greater development suggests that they will deal with it by logical methods and not by force.

I would not say that there are no fights at all. They happen among young people but very rarely. Fighting doesn’t solve anything. You have to convince or defeat your opponent by logic and argument.

In our world, physical strength is not a guarantee of superiority over others. Anyone can carry a gun or use mace or something else in their pocket. Anyone can have more money to show off, say their Porsche or something else.

Convincing others! That is, the use of logic where you kill an opponent with a word; that is strength. And we see this both in the Talmud and in other primary sources. There is no mention of showdowns anywhere, and everything is solved only logically.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Showdown Israeli Style” 10/19/13

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Question: A Ministry of Happiness has been established in Dubai. It is headed by a woman whose function is to develop a program to make people living in the United Arab Emirates happy.

Apart from you, who talk about this all the time, this is perhaps the first real embodiment of the idea of ​​a proper government that cares about the happiness of people. However, the question is what exactly do they mean by happiness?

Tell me how your ideas, articles, books, which are aimed primarily at the education and upbringing of the population of Israel as well as Jews around the world, are combined with this?

Answer: To be honest, I do not know the plans of the Ministry of Happiness. It would be interesting to familiarize myself with them. But I am sure that we have a completely different program.

By happiness we mean reaching mutual connection that leads people to love for each other, that is, to the fulfillment of the biblical commandment “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Nevertheless, it would be good to create such a ministry. 🙂

Question: When you talk about the spiritual world and about the fact that the goal is to reach a sense of spirituality, does this not contradict a happy life in a physical body on Earth?

Answer: In no way.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations, Israel and Its Impact on the World” 11/18/21

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “75 Years of Indecision – When It Comes to Israel, Jews Are Still Divided”

Seventy-five years ago, on November 29, 1947, “a 2000-year-old dream became reality: A Jewish State was born anew in its ancient homeland,” writes the official web page of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the topic. “On that day,” the statement continues, “the UN General Assembly voted on Resolution 181, adopting a plan to partition the British Mandate into two states, one Jewish, one Arab.”

The following day, Israel’s War of Independence began, initially against the Palestinian Arabs, who denied the UN’s right to determine the fate of Palestine, and subsequently against six invading Arab armies. Israel won the war and survived against all odds, but its greatest battle has yet to be decided—the battle for the support of the Jews.

The nations did not want a Jewish state. This was clear then, as it is clear now. The Holocaust was a powerful lever to bring the world to support the establishment of the State of Israel, and there were other considerations such as the emergent Cold War, where the US and the USSR wanted to dominate the oil-rich Middle-East.

Today, however, there is no question that if the UN voted on the establishment of a Jewish state, probably not one country would say yes. The problem that the world had hoped to solve by giving the Jews their own country has clearly not been solved. Antisemitism is rife, spreading quickly, and the Jewish question that the Germans intended to solve through extermination is a mainstream, and worse yet, legitimate topic of conversation. Things are moving in a very negative direction, and without a drastic change, they will end the way all of our good times ended: in tragedy.

However, as I indicated above, our toughest battle is not against the Palestinians or the United Nations. The worst enemies of Israel are overseas Jews and Israelis who feel that the Jewish state should not exist, and they do all that they can to destroy it—from using manipulative and false media, to supporting terrorists and praising their horrific acts.

This inner battle is the toughest because in order for us to win, we must first be willing to admit that there is something more important than being right, and that something is internal unity among the Jews. Until we accept that our troubles do not come to us at the hands of the Palestinians or the nations, but stem from our own disunity, and until we agree to work accordingly and unite despite our mutual dislike, the aversion of the world toward us will only grow.

Today in Israel, the majority of the Jews agree with the existence of a Jewish democratic state. There are many who do not, who think that Zionism is a contemptible idea, but they are still a minority in Israel.

Outside of Israel, however, the situation is very different. In the US, by far the largest Jewish community outside of Israel, as well as in many other communities, the majority of Jews consider Israel a nuisance, a trouble maker that gives the entire creed a bad name and causes the world to hate overseas Jews for Israel’s “crimes.” These Jews, who adopt the Palestinian narrative hoping that the world will spare them its hatred because of it, actually saw the wind, and they will reap the storm like the rest of us.

Jews are known for being opinionated and obstinate. I am all for firmness of views, especially when it is supported by serious data and reasonable arguments. However, at the end of the day, our well-thought-out views will not prevail over the equally well-thought-out views of the other side, nor are they intended to. The differences of opinion are there precisely so we will rise above them and place unity above what appears to be sensible arguments. When we do so, we will realize that however sensible, no argument can win if it does not stem from unity and promotes unity. In the end, it is our unity that brings peace with the Arabs, and not the tactics that either side hopes to implement.ADVERTISEMENT

The reason so many Jews oppose the Jewish state is that they do not realize their own role, and how the State of Israel is vital for their success. If they knew that the role of every Jew is to show unity precisely above division, and that this is the only way the nations will accept us, they would look at differences of opinions not as existential threats, but as challenges that we can overcome only together.

When we do so and unite, we will become a model nation, a light to the nations. This is our calling, our vocation, and we will never know peace until we do this. No political agreement will grant us what our unity will grant us. If we do not unite, instead of peace, the opposite will happen. Therefore, the only way that Israel can truly win its War of Independence is by uniting, not by fighting. This is our ticket to peace.
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Comment: The US is holding midterm elections. Right away a lot of anti–Semitic leaflets appeared, stating that Jews are the reason for coronavirus, abortions, and inflation. They mention the names of Jewish officials in the presidential administration and heads of media companies.

This happens in the places where many Jews live: New Jersey, New York, California, and Florida, in many states. They talk a lot about Jews and not just talk about, but brand them. They give a lot of figures. The number of these phenomena has increased 3 to 4 times there.

This occurs mostly whenever something happens and Jews are immediately blamed. How much longer will this go on?

My Response: Until the Jews begin to correct this matter, until they realize that they are really to blame. This is already established in the structure of the world, in the structure of the universe. Galaxy wide!

Question: Does it mean that even nature demands that we would understand that we are to blame for everything?

Answer: So that we would correct ourselves! Then everything will be corrected, and there will be no such reaction.

Question: Are we the most egoistic or what is wrong with us? Why were we chosen?

Answer: Why we were chosen is not our business. We were chosen and that is it! Nature chose it that way. It took a small fraction of humanity and appointed it.

Question: “You will be responsible for everything,” right?

Answer: Absolutely for everything! If you are connected with each other, love, respect, and support each other, show an example to everyone else, to the nations of the world, and to humanity, and they will begin to correct themselves and come closer to each other following you, then everything will be fine. If not, then all of humanity will be against you. As humanity progresses further and further, to this extent it will progress in hatred in relation to you.

Question: So you say: There is such a law. Just as there is the law of gravity, laws of physics, there is such a law of nature: Until a Jew begins to change in relation to love for each other, in connection with each other, the world will hate him, and will drive him to this connection all the time.

Answer: Yes.

Question: The entire history of the Jews, in principle, is the history of suffering, continuous catastrophes until the last Holocaust. And you say: “Everything is just according to this law.” Is it really just because of that?

Answer: Just because of that. For the fact that they do not love each other, do not respect each other, and do not come close to each other. Moreover, when we look at other nations, we ask: Why are we worse than them?!

No. Such an internal, close connection is not required of them, but it is required of us.

Question: Will they also begin to come closer to each other as a result of our connection?

Answer: They will also begin to come closer to each other and to us. Then all of humanity will turn into one common whole.

Question: Can we say when we will deduce this law ourselves?

Answer: We cannot deduce this law ourselves, our egoism will not let us.

Question: Do you mean that we will be able to come to this conclusion only as a result of blows?

Answer: Yes. We already hold on to each other a little bit because we are afraid to be left alone against the hatred of the nations of the world.

Question: Which, as you say, is justified?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: But we had strong blows!

My Response: It does not matter, we do not know whether they were strong or weak. We do not know what to compare them with.

We know only one thing: that the Torah says so. The wisdom of Kabbalah explains this to us absolutely clearly. Do you want to be like other nations? It will not work! You should aim for connection between each other, for love between each other. Only then will you see that this is your salvation, up to the point that you will show other nations the correct connection between everyone and lead all nations to unification.

Question: Tell me, is it possible to destroy these Jewish people?

Answer: In no way. This is not a solution.

Question: Tell me, what is the solution on the part of the Jews and the solution on the part of the nations of the world?

Answer: On the part of the Jews: They do not see any solution at all, except that the nations of the world will change their attitude toward them by themselves. On the part of the nations of the world: Of course, it would be nice to destroy the Jews, but somehow it does not work out.

Question: Are you saying this ironically?

Answer: Yes. They even seem to say that it does not work out because God loves them, although He punishes them.

Question: What should be the conclusion from the nations of the world? “We have to bring them to this. We have to force them somehow.”

Answer: The nations of the world cannot realize that it is they who should force the Jews to come closer to each other. They are very far from this in order to direct the Jews toward coming closer to each other. Although, it would be, of course, salvation.

The conclusion is very simple: until the Jews, the people of Israel, in all their modifications and metamorphoses, understand that they must be together and reach unity in love with each other, until then nothing in the world will change. There will be ascents, descents, and various wars, no matter what. But, in principle, the world will not come to good in any way.

Question: Is there just one solution?

Answer: Yes, just one.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 8/25/22

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Question: Is there any force of internal energy that can suppress, say, arrogance? A Kabbalist is still at a much higher degree than an ordinary person. If a person has really gone too far, can a Kabbalist use some internal forces?

Answer: Upper forces, secret forces? He cannot, he does not know how, and he should not.

Comment: But there are people who go against the upper nature—so to say.

My Response: There are no people who go against upper forces. This is incorrect. No one goes against the upper forces. Not that he has no right to—he cannot, he is unable to because he is controlled by those same upper forces. How can I go against the Creator if what I do, say, and think comes from Him, and I am just a dummy, a puppet?

This cannot happen. You just have to understand that there are degrees where I have to rebel, including physically. It is said about this: “He who comes to kill you, kill him first.” And in all other cases—no. I cannot act here by any upper forces.

All the gain that a spiritual person has is in his spirit. He cannot use it to harm others. Otherwise, it is no longer spirit, it is not spiritual. The spiritual is only the right intention in the right action of bestowal and love. But this action can destroy the enemy both mentally and physically.

If you really act with love and dedication and your opponent is the opposite, then in the end, he will lose. It can happen through great suffering, through long-term problems, but he will lose. It will be so because he goes against the plan of nature.

Question: If you look at the Holocaust from this point of view, the Nazis lost because of it. But was it, as you have just explained, as a result of the fact that they were going against the plan of nature?

Answer: If the Jews were united among themselves—not against the fascists but among them according to the method of Kabbalah, according to the method of human development—then there would be no Holocaust, everything would be the opposite. Both Europe and the entire history of mankind would have developed differently.

Also today, if Israel were more united, if we could unite it under the banner of bestowal and love so as to become one, in a state of mutual guarantee, then, of course, we would not have any external problems with our neighbors.

All borders would be completely open, and the whole world would rise to a completely different level of relationships.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Secret Powers of the Kabbalist”

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Question: You keep saying that unity of the people of Israel is the only salvation. Why are people so distant from each other in a nation that has such a destiny?

Answer: Unity is the truest thing, and therefore the egoism of humanity rises against it.

Our work is to attract everyone to unity through a long process of re-education and to become a source through which the whole world will understand how it needs to reorganize and achieve the revelation of the upper force so that the upper forces of nature, and later the general upper force as well, are revealed at the level of our world.

Then all of humanity will become eternal and perfect. But only if we reach unity among us as one person with one heart.

Question: Are you talking about Israel?

Answer: I am talking about the entire world. But first of all, it is Israel and those people in the world who feel an attraction, a need, a necessity, for this.

It is Israel, because in every Jew there is such a point in the heart. Other people in the world also have it, but it can be manifested today, or maybe in years, as they develop spiritually.

But the Jews are obliged to do this, and most of all the Israelis. If we go forward in our spiritual development, that is, toward uniting with each other, we will see how everything bad around us dissolves, we are given the opportunity to act further and feel only good influence and help.

I do not see any problems at all in the fact that those countries that are so vehemently opposed to us today will change. It depends on us, not on them. In their behavior, we must see the imprint of those missed opportunities that we can correct and do not correct.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Role of the Jews” 10/19/13

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Cultured Meat – a Sensible Step for Civilization”

A newspaper article that was sent to me last week declared, “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared its first ever lab-grown meat product as safe for human consumption… The product is a ‘slaughter-free’ chicken, grown from cultured cells, which could be rolled out to the public in a matter of months.” If this development is commercialized successfully, and if the proper conditions for producing safe and healthy meat are maintained, and there is a big “if” around that last condition, then I am all for it.

Today most people live in cities. They rarely see the connection between the food they buy in the supermarket and where it comes from. If the vegetables they eat are grown without soil, or if the meat they buy comes from a factory rather than from an animal that was slaughtered in order to produce it, I do not think they care. In fact, many people would be glad to hear that the chicken meat they bought did not come from a real chicken, and no poultry was slaughtered to make their dinner.

Additionally, considering the cost of raising cattle and poultry, lab-grown meat and chicken will probably be cheaper to make and cheaper to buy. For many people, healthy food is a luxury, so perhaps this will make it slightly more affordable.

Also, there is a clear environmental benefit to producing cultured, lab-grown meat compared to meat that comes from animals. Animals need grazing areas, which not only deplete vegetation, but also destroy natural habitat for wildlife.

In the more remote future, I think naturally grown food will disappear altogether. It might be that people will buy boxes that contain food that cannot be recognized as anything we know today, that will be neither vegetables nor meat, but something else entirely. I have no problem with it, especially since I myself am not a big fan of meat. I am not a vegetarian, but I am also not fascinated with meat. As long as humanity manufactures adequate food, I have no problem with producing it in a lab or a factory, and I do not think we should give it a second thought.

What I do think we should think about is our attitude toward the things around us. We need to learn to treat everything with decency and kindness, and understand that we are dependent on each other on all levels, from the mineral to the plant, to the animal, and to the human level. If we understand how vital we all are for the perfection of our planet, how we complement each other, and how our well-being depends on the well-being of all of Earth’s inhabitants, we will conduct ourselves correctly and there will be plenty of food for everyone.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Who’s a Beauty Queen?”

For the first time since 1950, there will be no Miss Israel beauty pageant in Israel, and Israel will not send a contestant to the Miss Universe contest that will take place in the United States in January. According to i24 News, the decision “aroused many reactions, some deploring the event’s end while others rejoiced. In recent years,” the story continues, “the pageant has been criticized on the grounds that women are only judged on their physical appearance.”

I sympathize with the critics. I do not think that the length of a woman’s legs is a yardstick for her beauty. Besides, how can anyone decide who is the most beautiful woman in the world when every race and ethnicity has its own characteristic look? How can we compare the Japanese standard of beauty to the European standard beauty, and who can say which is more beautiful?

To pretend as if these girls are treated as anything but objects, the judges ask the contestants silly questions, which no one even expects them to answer sincerely. If we were to believe them, we would think that all the girls wished for world peace, and they are all deeply troubled by climate change.

A student of mine told me that the contest is losing popularity and asked why I thought this was happening. I was happy to hear about this; I think it could be a sign that we are maturing, and we are beginning to look beyond the physical.

It is time to start looking for inner beauty because at the end of the day, this is what makes people happy. When you search for a woman’s inner beauty, you will find that you cannot measure it. This is true not only of women, but of all people. When you search for their beauty, it is always hidden.

A person’s beauty evolves over time. It is defined by one’s connections with other people and with the environment. Beautiful people are caring people, people who sympathize with the sorrows and hardships of others, and want to help them feel better.

Such feelings are a gift, but we can also develop them. Once we recognize how self-centered we are, we can learn to change.

It is not a process that one can do on one’s own, but if we, as a society, decide that we have had enough of the Me! Me! Me! culture, we will be able to teach ourselves to think more in terms of We! and less in terms of Me! This will do a world of good for everyone. It is certainly a better way to promote world peace than conducting Miss Universe beauty pageants.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Meaning of Being Jewish”

I received an email from a man who converted to Judaism in a Reform synagogue in Arizona, U.S. To his dismay, he discovered that his conversion was not recognized by Conservative and Orthodox denominations. As a result, he started looking into the meaning of being Jewish and asked me what the wisdom of Kabbalah and The Book of Zohar say about it.

To begin with, the wisdom of Kabbalah does not relate to a person’s body or to one’s material actions whatsoever. It speaks of and relates only to the desires in one’s heart, and how to help us unite with each other and with the power of unity, the Creator. As a result, the wisdom of Kabbalah does not relate to one’s formal religion, but only to one’s spiritual state. In other words, a person can be Jewish and a member of the Israeli nation at one moment, and a gentile (non-Jew) the next. At the same time, one can be born into a different religion altogether, yet be regarded as a member of the people of Israel in the spiritual sense. I hope my explanation below will clarify what I mean by these statements, which I know will surprise many people.

The Hebrew word for “Jewish” is Yehudi, from the word yechudi [unique or united]. Unity is the heart and soul of Judaism, and particularly unity above differences and divisions. King Solomon said (Proverbs 10:12), “Hate stirs up strife, and love will cover all crimes.” The Book of Zohar (portion Aharei Mot) describes the relation between uniting precisely above hatred, and what it means for the whole world: “‘How good and how pleasant it is for brothers to also dwell together.’ These are the friends, ‎as they sit together inseparably. At first, they seem like people at war, wishing to kill one another. Then ‎they return to being in brotherly love.‎ …And you, the friends who are here, as you were in fondness and love before, you will not part henceforth … and by your merit there will be peace ‎in the world.”

The ancestors of the people of Israel united so deeply that they became as one, or as the great commentator RASHI described it, “as one man with one heart.” Only once they achieved that profound unity, they were proclaimed a nation, having united with the power of bestowal that we refer to as the Creator, and with each other. Once they achieved that unity, they were commanded to lead the world to unity, as Prophet Isaiah (42:6-7) described it: “I will appoint you as … a light to the nations, to open blind eyes, ‎to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, and those who dwell in darkness from the prison.”‎

Indeed, if we examine the ancestry of the founders of the Israeli nation, we will find that the greatest among them had non-Jewish roots. They achieved greatness because they united the people, not because of some ancestral privilege. Abraham, the founder of our nation, was not born Jewish; the nation did not exist before his time. Moses’ wife, Zipporah, led the women of the people of Israel along with Moses’ sister, Miriam, after they came out of Egypt and crossed the Red Sea. Rabbi Akiva, the greatest sage after Moses, whose disciples wrote The Book of Zohar and the Mishnah (the basis of Judaism), was born to parents who were not born Jewish. Another one of Rabbi Akiva’s greatest disciples, Rabbi Meir, who is the third most frequently mentioned sage in the Mishnah, and whose wife Bruriah is cited in the Gemara, descended from the Roman Emperor Nero. And last in this list, but certainly not the least, Ruth the Moabite, the heroine of the Biblical story, was the great-grandmother of Israel’s greatest king, King David, and whose dynasty were the kings of the people of Israel for centuries, during Israel’s greatest times.

We therefore see why the wisdom of Kabbalah pays no attention to one’s physical ancestry. If a person believes that unity of all people is the ultimate value, that everything else is secondary to it, and strives to unite all the people “as one man with one heart,” in the spiritual sense, that person is regarded as a member of the people of Israel.

From the spiritual perspective, as the wisdom of Kabbalah sees it, being Jewish has nothing to do with one’s color or creed. The only “test” is whether one strives for unity or for self-centeredness. As long as one chooses unity, one is Israel. If you ever watched one of my lessons, you will see that I have students from all over the world and from every ethnicity and background. The one thing that unites all of us is our aspiration to unite above all differences. This is the spiritual people of Israel.
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