My new article on Linkedin “The Real Responsibility that Israel Should Take”

A few days ago, the Israeli army stated that after a prolonged investigation, it reached the conclusion that an Israeli soldier likely fired the bullet that killed Palestinian-American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. “There is a high possibility that Shireen was accidentally hit by IDF gunfire that was fired toward suspects identified as armed Palestinian gunmen, during an exchange of fire,” the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said.

There is no question that Israel’s many enemies will have a field day over Israel’s candid statement. Countries that have no regard for human rights or second thoughts about brutalizing and murdering not only their enemies, but even their own people, and for the slightest reason or no reason at all, will decry Israel’s “indiscriminate” killing.

Having served in the army for several years, I know first hand that there is no such thing as indiscriminate firing on the part of Israeli soldiers. At the same time, accidents do happen, and journalists who position themselves right in the middle between the fighting parties are putting themselves at risk. It is a professional gamble that many journalists take, and as gambles go, sometimes you lose.

As for the world’s denunciation, I must admit, I do not give it a second thought, I never do. My concern is not what the world thinks, but what Israel does. If Israel does not do what it must do, the world will denounce it, vilify it, and demonize it whether or not it apologizes and whether or not it takes responsibility for the death of a careless journalist.

However, and this is a big however, I do think that Israel is responsible. I think that Israel is responsible for much more than the death of Shireen Abu Akleh. Israel is responsible for whatever it is accused of. Even before the accusation is pronounced, we should say, “You’re right, we are responsible for it; it is our fault.”

We are responsible because we are divided, and our division causes every woe and tragedy around the world. These are not my words; they are the words of our sages, who have been saying this since the inception of our nation.

When our sages wrote in the Talmud (Yevamot 63a), “No calamity comes to the world but for Israel,” they did not mean it as a figure of speech. They meant, very literally, that everything bad that happens in the world is because of Israel.

Those sages, and countless more sages and spiritual leaders in the history of Israel, have stated this not in order to accuse us, but to galvanize us into action. Because if everything bad is our fault, it means that we are doing something wrong, and that if we stopped doing it and began to do that something right, there will be no more calamities in the world.

Our sages did not settle for stating our fault; they also provided us with the remedy: Peace among us brings peace to the world. This is why Midrash Rabbah (portion 66) writes, “This nation, world peace dwells within it.”

The legacy of our sages has continued through the ages, and all our teachers have been teaching the same principle. In the 20th century, the great Rav Kook wrote along those lines in his book The Vocation of Israel and Its Nationality, “Only when complete peace and faithful love come, ‎and the pure feeling of recognizing the brotherhood between people develops … ‎when that development is completed within us, at a degree that merits being a role ‎model to many, all the nations will recognize it, and the blessing of peace will begin to ‎dwell in the world.” In other words, before we make peace among ourselves, there will be no peace in the world.

This is why we are responsible—not because an accidental bullet killed a reporter, but because our own internal division caused the external conflict with the Palestinians.

Filed under: Israel, Israel Today, New Publications - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “After 125 Years, We Still Do Not Understand Zionism”

This week in Basel, Switzerland, Israel is commemorating the 125th anniversary of the 1st Zionist Congress. At the conclusion of that congress, Theodor Herzl, who organized the conference and was the driving force behind the Zionist movement in its early years, wrote in his diary: “Were I to sum up the Basel Congress in a word … it would be this: At Basel I founded the Jewish State.” The purpose of this week’s event is to both celebrate that seminal conference, and just as importantly, to discuss contemporary Zionism, its vision, or lack thereof, and its challenges and pitfalls going forward.

Indeed, the Jewish state is well founded. Israel is a strong and solid country, and it seems like even humanity has largely come to accept the existence of a Jewish state. Now I hope that we are correcting the world and that we will not vanish but keep on moving forward.

However, in order to advance, the State of Israel must go beyond securing its survival. It must come to a state where it agrees with our sages, who said that “Love your neighbor as yourself” is our all-encompassing law, and that this should be the basis for the existence of all the nations.

Despite Herzl’s initial assimilationist approach, by the time he conceived the idea of establishing a Jewish state, it seems like he had completely abandoned the idea of amalgamation among the nations. In fact, he concludes his book, The Jewish State, with words that imply that he even embraced our sages’ legacy that the Jews must serve as a model nation. In his words, “The world will be freed by our liberty, enriched by our wealth, ‎magnified by our greatness. And whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare, ‎will react powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity.”

There will certainly be challenges ahead. Our argumentative and opinionated character will pit us against each other, but we will learn how to funnel it toward constructive routes. It will take time, but we will learn how to forge unions while embracing contradictions of opinions and without suppressing ideological minorities. We will learn it not because we want to, but because this is our duty to the world, the wisdom we must project to all of humanity, and the only modus operandi that will create true and lasting world peace, once it is implemented.

Herzl’s words were correct. To the extent that we are close to one another within the people of Israel, we will bring the nations of the world closer to each other. The reason there are war and conflicts in the world today is that there are war and conflicts among us, Jews, and particularly the Jews in Israel. These are not my words; these are the words of our sages throughout the generations, and the words of many thinkers who were considered antisemitic for saying these very words.

Herzl, in that sense, was a special human being. He was a channel through which the awareness that Jews must have their own state came to the world. At the end of his book, as we saw, he also connected our return to the physical land to our spiritual calling, our duty to be a model of unity and solidarity, but this we have yet to accomplish. We must explain this first to ourselves, then begin to implement it among us, and then explain this process to the world. If we are sincere, the world will endorse our efforts with all its might. If we remain divided and derisive toward each other, the world will scathe us and deny us the country.

There are voices that say that we have lost our way and we need another Herzl. I do not think we need another Herzl; I think we need many people vocally supporting the right kind of Zionism, the Zionism of connection among Jews as an example for the world. We need many people to understand the process, embrace it, and act on it, for our sake, and for the sake of humankind.

—

*Read these books for more information on the obligation of the Jewish people to be a model nation: The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord, and Like a Bundle of Reeds: Why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour.
[302446]

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Israel, Israel Today, New Publications - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Who We Are without Our History”

September 1st is the beginning of the school year in Israel. Beginning this year, Jewish Israeli students will not learn about the history of the Jewish people during the period of the Second Temple, its destruction, the Great Revolt of Judaea, the Cyrus Declaration, the Hasmonean Revolt, and other key events in the history of our people. To give you some perspective, it is as if American children were not taught about the Civil War, what the war was about and how it ended. How would they understand what is happening in America today without learning about the Civil War? What kind of American citizens would they be?

History lessons have been given less and less time in students’ curricula for decades. In the early 2000s, Israeli students still had nine hours of history lessons weekly. Beginning September, they will have five.

A person without a past, without a history, is not a person, just as a nation without a history is not a nation. Our history is an essential part of who we are. It defines our principles and our personality; it is everything! I cannot understand how we can determine who we are if we do not know about the history of our people.

History is not only my family tree, or the history of my nation, or creed. It begins with the creation of the universe, the emergence of our solar system and Planet Earth within it, the beginning of life on Earth, the evolution of the species, the emergence of humans, and the evolution of human civilization to this day. How can we determine our direction for the future if we do not know our past? It seems to me that whoever wishes to cancel our history must be planning some sort of revolution. I see no other motivation.

The history of the ancient world, including what happened during the period of the Second Temple, the Roman Empire, Greek Empire, and other key processes and events in the history of humanity and the history of the Jews, is the foundation of our civilization, and the foundation of our people. I know that I learned it because I wanted to know about man on Earth, and it taught me a great deal. For example, how will we correct past mistakes if we do not know about them? In order to know our place in the world, we have to know where we came from, why, and what is expected of us in the future.

Besides general history, which begins, as I said, with the creation of the universe, and ends with today’s civilization, we must also know the history of our own people. If teaching about the destruction of the Second Temple and that entire period has already been eliminated, tomorrow, teaching about the exodus from Egypt might also be eliminated. And if these are erased, then what is left of our legacy?

I think this is a terrible mistake. If you erase one’s past, you have erased one’s present, and you have denied one the ability to plan the future correctly. Without continuity, without a historic perspective, it is impossible to build a future. I do not see any developed country doing this.

Perhaps the teaching methods should change; perhaps they should be more engaging, modernized, but one way or the other, without our past, we cannot understand our present or know how to proceed toward the future.
[302411]

Filed under: Israel, Israel Today, New Publications - No Comments →

Question: There are different calendars for measuring time: the Gregorian, Chinese, Jewish, etc. Why does everyone use exactly the same calendar all over the world?

Answer: It was simply accepted by the international committee. But did the Chinese live by this calendar, or India, or South America? No! If you take any of the Arab newspapers, a year written there is calculated from their prophet, not from the Christian one.

Jews also do not measure time by these dates. What is measured by them? This is only the external side. I lived for thirty years among Orthodox Jews. They measure nothing according to the usual calendar. Absolutely everything is measured only by the solar-lunar calendar: months relative to the Moon, years relative to the Sun, time relative to sunrise and sunset. That’s it! And there are no problems with this.

Holidays do not move anywhere. Everything is absolutely clear because in the Jewish calendar the Sun and the Moon completely coincide with each other. Therefore, it is clearly known on which days there may be which holidays. Let’s say Purim was on the fifteenth of the month of Adar. Then on the fifteenth of next month is Passover. Everything is absolutely clear, no problems.

The calendar has been around for thousands of years and it has not moved anywhere. There is no need to change to new time or old time; there is nothing to do because it is composed in accordance with nature. not just with the Sun or just with the Moon, but with both heavenly bodies that control us. Between them is the Earth.

The Sun shines through the Earth at the Moon, and thus we have phases of the Moon. That’s it; everything can be measured. You have no idea how accurately the calendar is compiled, astronomical hours, minutes, seconds, angles, etc. I can show you a book of ancient astronomical tables and with what accuracy they are compiled!

Question: But people could not take it from the outside. Can it be that there was some kind of internal record?

Answer: On the one hand, they took it from the inside, from their understanding of nature. But on the other hand they mastered all the dimensions because people needed a clock, for example to arrange a meeting. “You and I will meet at three o’clock in the afternoon.” Therefore the clock has always existed.
[301905]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. When Did Time Appear?” 3/6/13

Related Material:
Origins of Time Measurement
Influenced By The Sun And The Moon
The Jewish Calendar

Filed under: Israel, Nations of the World, Perception - No Comments →

Comment: It seems to us that in ancient times people were primitive. But you said that they were clearly aware of the connection between them.

My Response: In what way were they primitive? Twenty generations of Jews before and after Adam, ten before Noah, and ten from Noah to Abraham were not primitive. They were attaining the upper world in the connection between them. They realized that this was their destiny, and this was why they existed in this world.

Therefore, they did not do anything needless, and they did not create any great monuments, palaces, or deity-statues. They did not build anything! They did not need it. They were doing internal work. Everyone had a place to stay, bread, water, meat, and milk, everything they needed, and that was enough for them.

Look at the ancient civilization that lived here in Israel. What did they leave behind?

Nothing. Of course, there were cities and settlements, but very simple ones.

And the Temple! What was in this Temple? Nothing special. Two hundred by two hundred meters, or even less.

Everything was so simple because it was aimed at internal spiritual development. And when people went into exile from here to all countries of the world, they lost practically nothing; they took a book with them and left. They lived by completely different values.

And what did Greeks and Romans do? When I first came to Washington, I took a look: “This is Rome—one and the same!. Buildings and columns, this is all ancient Greece.” It is the same in Berlin. The thousand-year-old Reich is the heir of Rome. And in Russia they also built something similar.

And here there is nothing of the kind. Where is anything built here? Or where can you get something from ancient history that you would like to restore? There is nothing. One needs to just build ordinary buildings, live there, and that’s it. Everything else is inside.

Even modern new buildings, no one cares what type they should be. There is no architecture, no special music, no literature in the cultural sense, and so on. There is nothing, and there is no need for any of this! All that is needed is a normal living environment in order to provide clothes, shoes, and food that are necessary for the existence of the body. Everything else is just spirit.
[301781]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Ancient People and Cultures of the Past” 3/8/13

Related Material:
What Makes Us Change The Values Of Life?
Rise Above The Old Values
Know The Root That Starts Our Lives

Filed under: Israel, Nations of the World - No Comments →

Comment: We believe that people who lived a thousand years ago or even more were very primitive, and now we are so cool. Actually it is the other way around.

My Response: No, in Europe people were indeed really primitive. Look what was going on there in the Middle Ages, the way they lived, all the lawlessness, dirt, problems, lack of hygiene! Of course, there was wildness.

Who could read and write? Who understood history and geography? Who understood how he lives? Everyone was thinking only about how to survive. A small handful of people were busy burning away their lives, and the rest thought only about how to feed themselves.

Now they are showing us luxurious bedrooms and so on and so forth. Naturally, for the kings there was everything, and for the rest nothing. They slept like dogs on a litter and did not wash because they thought they might get sick from it.

What were they doing? What was the culture? What did they read? What did they talk about? They had none of this. I am not saying this in reproach. There were, of course, educated people, philosophers, theologians, etc. But I am talking about the masses.

The Jews for a long time maintained knowledge and a certain spiritual level. However when they fell from this level 2,000 years ago, they preserved their way of life, although it was purely external and mechanical. Study, education, upbringing, the relationship of husband and wife, children, all this has been preserved.

The book Shulchan Aruch contains the entire set of laws according to which Jews live in this world. It has not changed for 3,000 years. How to give birth, how to educate, how to cook, what is kosher, what is not kosher for eating, how to behave, marry, divorce, wash, etc., everything is specified down to the smallest details. A person is a machine; he needs instructions on how to use himself.
[301811]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Ancient People and Cultures of the Past” 3/8/13

Related Material:
According To Spiritual Laws
Clash Of Two Ideologies
Harmony Is A Balance Of Contradictions

Filed under: Israel, Nations of the World - No Comments →

Question: How did it happen that people were able to carry accurate time throughout history? We know exactly how many thousands of years have passed since this or that event. How was it measured?

Answer: In Judaism, it is measured very simply and there is no problem with this! But when you look at some other dimensions, let’s say, some city is a 100, 600, or 1,000 years-old, then in Judaism this is not the time because the calculation comes from Adam almost 6,000 years ago. We know absolutely everything that happened on what dates: great people, great events, and everything else.

If we take what is written in our books and remove all the world philosophical and historical sources that historians and philosophers came up with by pulling them out of their heads without any reason, but simply because they think so, then you can see that everything is known and everything it is clear: who existed, at what time, and so on.

If you open Wikipedia, you will see how much is twisted there because everyone wants to say something in their own way: “This is what I think.” It turns out to be such an accumulation of all sorts of absurdities and conclusions that no one can sort out anything here.

I hope that when humanity begins to understand a little from within itself of what the truth is and will determine by the smell that this is true and this is not, then it will simply begin cleaning everything up! Then it will see that everything is clear and everything is understandable.

“We found the Qumran manuscripts and now we understand that the Bible is right!” or something else. But who are you anyway?! The chronicle has been kept for 6,000 years. Why are you with your conclusions climbing to the heights of the sages?! It seems so ridiculous.

All this is a blind human pride: nothing more than, “I want to have my say!” There is nothing new in the world, everything is described and everything is measured. We know everything that happened and on what dates.

It is written, “And there was morning, and there was evening, the first day.” That is all. Sunday is the first day and it is called so. From that day all the measurement started. Measurement of what? The period when humanity began to approach the next stage, to become humans. Before that, there was the development of inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels.

This is how all historical dates and processes are calculated. Why are they not measured by our clocks and rotation around the Sun and the Earth? Because none of this exists. All this is within us! There is no sun, no moon, no earth—nothing. These are our inner feelings.

Soon we will rise to the next stage of development and all past sensations will disappear. This whole cosmos, with everything that I now feel, will suddenly begin to move away as if in a fog, will leave my sensations until it ceases to exist at all. That is all. It also does not exist now. All matter is given to us in our sensations.
[301894]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. When Did the Time Appear?” 3/6/13

Related Material:
The Origins Of Time
The Jewish Calendar
The Eternal Calendar

Filed under: Israel, Nations of the World, Perception, Q&A - No Comments →

Comment: You once said that classical composers, even Bach, were far from spirituality, that, in any case, their music cannot be considered spiritual.

My Response: Their music is not spiritual because it does not come from a sensation of the opposite properties of giving and receiving, but flows only in the single property of receiving, and in one egoistic key. All famous composers, artists, and sculptors worked only in this direction. Apart from a few Kabbalistic works, the rest are purely egoistic.

But all the same, their music showed humanity’s desire for spiritual ascent. It is felt in their direction. This is a huge difference between music aiming for the soul and the upper, or for instance, music by Tchaikovsky or Italian composers. Their music is delicate, nice, and gentle, but it doesn’t tear you apart and let your soul soar. This is not Bach.

Question: Who else besides Bach aspired to this?

Answer: There are several other such composers who lived in the Middle Ages. But there were very few of them, and none of them can compare to Bach. Everything else is music written out of purely selfish drives. It can be beautiful, and at the same time awaken strong feelings of a completely different kind.

Take Wagner, for example: a wonderful, talented composer, but it seems as if he was constantly strangled by a toad and had to somehow pour this bile out. Poor man.

He was a conduit of a hefty left line. He did not see much else in this life apart from it. As it is written in the Megillat Esther (Scroll of Esther), “But all this is worth nothing to me, every time I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the King’s gate.” This is a characteristic feeling of anti-Semites who can’t do anything about it. It burns inside them from morning until night, but they can’t get rid of it.

Seriously speaking, I understand them and deeply sympathize with them. This is a force that reigns in nature on purpose, and people in whom it burns are very unhappy. They are constantly consumed by this hatred, they eat themselves, and devote their lives to it.

Question: Is that why Hitler loved Wagner?

Answer: Yes. The problem is that when you get to the root of anti-Semitism, you are very close to real Judaism, to Kabbalah. Therefore they all had an idea of its origins and understood that it was the upper realm.

The book about anti-Semitism The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, we published, contains the quotes of many famous figures. The smartest, most educated, and cultured people with broad views are mainly focused on this idea.

As a result, they come to a correct understanding of the mission of the Jews. Look at what Henry Ford essentially writes: “I hate them all only because they can’t fulfill their purpose. I will calm down only when I see they are fulfilling their mission.”

Therefore we need to fulfill it; nothing else will do.
[301760]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Bach, Wagner, Ford… Anti-Semitism” 3/3/13

Related Material:
The Secret about the Jews that even They Do Not Know about
In What Way Does Kabbalistic Music Differ From The Music Of The Nations Of The World?
The Healing Power Of Music

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Israel, Music, Nations of the World - No Comments →

Question: What would happen if all Jews leave Europe?

Answer: I do not think this is going to happen. When the Jews in France wanted to leave (there were half a million of them there) the newspapers wrote that France could be shut down. Meaning, their participation in the management of industry, science, and art is such that nothing would remain of France. I do not know to what extent this is true. I am not connected with it, but this is what happened.

In addition, throughout history we have seen such examples that when Jews left countries, the countries declined.
[301750]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 8/5/22

Related Material:
Where Should The French Jews Go?
The Strongest Weapon
Exercises In A Sweet Wrapper

Filed under: Israel, Nations of the World - No Comments →

Question: If the Jews must gather in one territory, in Israel, should something then replace this force that they transmit in other places? Or should some new form of interaction be built? What will it be?

Answer: I think it will be the spread of the Jewish ideology, the Jewish mentality, the outlook on the world, life, society, and relationships all over the world. This all will be spread all over the globe. After all, Jews are not a people, but a worldview.

Ideas emanating from one center will cover the entire world and will replace the egoistic force that now reigns in the world with the opposite one.

Question: Where is the right place for a Jew to live (not good, but right)?

Answer: Here, in Israel. Not good, but right. 🙂
[301792]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 8/5/22

Related Material:
“Are American Jews And Israeli Jews Enemies?” (Quora)
“Can American and Israeli Jews stay together?” (Quora)
The Ancient Secret Of The Jews

Filed under: Israel, Nations of the World - No Comments →