My new article on Israel Hayom “Don’t overlook message of Tisha B’Av”

We should not be mourning the destruction of the Temple but rather the ruin of our unity, our brotherly love, and the abandonment of our task to unite as one and be a role model for the nations.

This Wednesday, July 29, will be the 9th of the Hebrew month of Av, when the Temple was destroyed and the Jews were exiled from their land. Although historians attribute the exile to the commander of the Roman army Titus, Jewish sources pin the ruin and the exile on “sina’at hinam” (unfounded/baseless hatred), the hatred of the Jews for one another.

The Jewish people gained their nationhood when they united “as one man with one heart” at the foot of Mount Sinai. When they united and became a nation, they were also tasked with being “a light unto nations,” namely to make their unity an example to the rest of the nations, so they, too, would be able to unite.

The demand that Jews would be role models of unity has since become the kernel of all Jewish hatred, both emanating from other nations, as well as from Jews who resented the idea of unity and wanted to pursue individualistic (later to become Hellenistic) agendas.

Two thousand years ago, the hatred within the Jewish people became so fierce that they locked themselves inside their capital, Jerusalem – with the Roman legion camped outside the walls – slaughtered one another, burned each other’s food reservoirs, and made Titus’ work much easier when he finally decided to conquer the city and destroy the Temple.

The day when the Romans marched into the Temple and sealed the Jewish defeat was to become a day of mourning. But we should not mourn the destruction of the walls or the breaking of the altar. We should instead mourn the ruin of our unity, our brotherly love, the abandonment of our task to unite as one man with one heart, and be a role model for the nations.

When Hitler explained in Mein Kampf why he hates Jews, he expounded on his disgust with their dislike for one another. “The Jew is only united when a common danger forces him to be or a common booty entices him; if these two grounds are lacking, the qualities of the crassest egoism come into their own,” he wrote.

Numerous other antisemites wrote and spoke similarly about the Jewish people. They would not dedicate such attention to Jewish hatred of each other if they did not expect Jews to feel otherwise toward their brethren.

These days, once again, division and internal hatred are rampant, both in Israel and outside of it. Jewish anti-Jewish groups and individuals once again decry with righteous indignation that only their way and views are right, that Jews with other views are ignorant and inferior. They do not realize that winning the nations’ hearts, for which they so desperately yearn, depends not on their ideology, but on their unity precisely with those brethren they hate.

From the perspective of the world, nothing has changed. We are still tasked with being a light unto nations by setting an example of unity, and we are still hated for showing the opposite. Vasily Shulgin, a senior member of the Russian Parliament before the 1917 revolution and an avid self-proclaimed anti-semite wrote in his book What We Don’t Like about Them: “Jews in the 20th century have become very smart, effective, and vigorous at exploiting other people’s ideas. However,” he protested, “this is not an occupation for teachers and prophets, not the role of guides of the blind, not the role of carriers of the lame.”

Deep inside, every Jew feels indebted to the world. Deep inside, we feel the call of our vocation. But we will never live up to our task by hating one another. We will do so only if we show the world that above our fierce disagreements, we love each other like family. Although we cannot agree on anything, we form a union that is stronger than any dispute.

The divisions between us are the vehicle through which we can show the world what unity means, but only if we rise to the challenge and unite above them. If we do so, the world will see that unity is possible however deep the chasm between people and nations. If we keep avoiding unity, the world will keep blaming us for spreading division and will make us pay for its suffering.
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How can tension in society be relieved?

Question: If in the past Jews were a homogeneous mass and lived in one place. Then, in the era of Enlightenment, secular, religious, ultra-religious, and various reformist movements appeared. Today we see how the split between the left and the right, the ultra-right and ultra-left, extremists, and all others is going on.

I understand that this is how nature pushes us toward development, toward diversity, but how can such different movements get along? It is not clear how this is going to happen. What is the next stage?

Answer: The next stage is the realization of the evil of our nature, our state, the society that we have created proceeding from our egoism, and how to rise above this, correct and raise ourselves to the next level of development: communication, connection, and ascent to the level of the Creator.

Comment: But it is not that all these movements do not understand each other, they do not even confront and do not want to hear each other!

My Response: We have again come to a state when a huge internal tension has accumulated in society where each movement does not understand what is in front of it. We only understand our final component: nothing good will happen if this continues. There will not even be the existence that used to be before. We are heading for some kind of a disaster.

Therefore, I believe that people are internally ready for big changes. However, on the other hand, they are scared and do not want it.

Question: Take, for example, the secular, ultra-religious, and reformists. They have to unite somehow. What will be the essence of this unity?

Answer: They will not be able to unite.

Comment: But you say that the people of Israel must become one.

My Response: This is a gradual process. I believe that this is possible only if non-religious people and perhaps partial reformists begin to study Kabbalah and understand that it addresses a person: how one should correct oneself and society. Proceeding from this, they will be able to attain the upper world and reveal their upper predestination for themselves and for the whole world.

And the ultra-religious circles will come to this in the last turn, against their will, by diffusion, slowly being included into them. But this process is gradual and consistent since all of them at once will not be able to get together.

Question: In the human body, all organs differ from each other in their function. But if there is some upper goal, for example, the maintenance of life, then all of them adjust to each other and work in unison.

And for this to happen at the level of society, it is not clear what sublime idea can really equate everyone?

Answer: It is unity. Because in unity the Creator, the upper force, is revealed.

Question: It turns out that without clear revelation of this force there is no chance of getting to reconciliation?

Answer: Without movement toward the revelation of the Creator, there can be nothing. Everything proceeds from the problems that arise in society, and we see how dead-end they are, how they do not allow us to develop, to achieve something. Therefore, all of humanity consciously and inevitably goes to some kind of precipice, beyond which there is emptiness.

And the science of Kabbalah helps to understand why all this exists—to lead us consciously or unconsciously to mutual reconciliation and revelation of the Creator within it.

Comment: That is, the fact that nature pushes us toward such diversity is good, it should be so. But without revelation of the upper force of nature, some kind of initial cause, there can be no unity or even movement toward it.

My Response: There can be no meaning of existence.
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From KabTV’s “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel” 8/5/19

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Rejection of the Religious Perception of the World

Question: In the first half of the 19th century, the struggle within the Jewish people began to subside, and it is perceived as a single whole. However, another problem arises, the era of the Enlightenment begins, the development of sciences, the acquisition of civil rights by Jews, and freedom of movement.

This again led to a split among Jews: on one side, the Orthodox society, and on the other side, people who began to leave religion. That is, there was a rejection of the religious perception of the world.

Why, for the first time in history, Jews, as well as other nations, began to leave religion en masse and engage in science?

Answer: It is because religion did not explain to them that love for one’s neighbor is its main law.
Following religion consisted only in the fulfillment of prescriptions, fasts, and all kinds of holidays.

It obliged people to observe traditions, but at the same time it did not explain at all why this was necessary and to what it should lead. Therefore, a person who did not feel why he was doing things and what positive purpose they had, simply renounced religion.

Question: How did this period affect the correction of all humanity and the role of Jews in this process?

Answer: I believe that this was a necessary period, firstly, because nothing happens in vain. It was necessary to sober up and cut off the figurative fulfillment of the laws of the Torah without any thoughts and feelings when they were realized only because this must be done, scrupulously and mechanically at that. After all, this is not what the Creator requires of us, but that we correct our thoughts and feelings, mind and heart.

Comment: In principle, such a mechanical religious approach is quite egoistic. I follow the traditions, and for this I am entitled to something in this world and in the other world, paradise is promised to me.

My Response: This is an egoistic, medieval approach that did not provide a person any development. Naturally, the great sages knew and understood why and for what purpose everything was happening this way, but there were only a few of them.

Question: It was necessary, because it kept people within limits and gave some kind of confidence in life?

Answer: Yes, this was demanded by the current period of human development. Everything depends on the development of the person’s inner desires.

Question: Why weren’t all these laws revealed 1,000 years ago and their disclosure took place precisely in the short period of Lurianic Kabbalah?

Answer: There are periods of accumulation of some internal tensions in a person and in society, and then they are released, as a rule, in an explosive way.
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From KabTV’s “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel” 8/5/19

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The Confrontation Between Two Movements

Question: Some time after the expulsion of Jews from Spain, spiritual movements began to flourish in Safed, and Kabbalistic knowledge among the masses began to spread.

But then the rapid dissemination of the new movement caused a response and resistance. Spiritual teachers of the traditional Lithuanian school began to oppose the spread of this knowledge with boycotts, slander to authorities, and physical extermination.

How does one explain this? Why did the teaching of the Ari, which should have already been embodied in humanity, suddenly fail and the fall began again?

Answer: This is not a failure, but a natural development of the method of correction, which cannot go by only one line. It goes precisely by two lines and is realized between them, in the third one.

As a result, it turned out that the Kabbalah of the Baal Shem Tov is the same Kabbalah of the Ari, which was understood by the masses. He organized a Cheder, that is, a place for classes. He recruited talented young people into his group, completely regardless of their status. And then large groups of students and leaders of Hasidic movements were formed from his students. They were especially popular among the Jewish population of Ukraine, Belarus, and Eastern Europe where their own schools were organized.

But at the same time, another school, which was founded by the Vilna Gaon appeared. He believed that people should be taught gradually, and only those who had achieved great knowledge in the Talmud, in a simple study of the Torah.

In his opinion, studying Kabbalah should be spread not among ordinary people, but among the elite to whom the spiritual worlds and other predestinations of humanity can be explained only after they had seriously mastered the “dry” Torah.

Question: Kabbalah speaks of love for one’s neighbor in its simplest, earthly form. What could be the danger of studying Kabbalah?

Answer: The fact is that when you simply talk about love for your neighbor, by that you let a person think that if he treats others correctly, then nothing else is needed. Therefore, there is some lightheadedness in the understanding of “love for one’s neighbor.”

This is how a movement was formed in Hasidism that if you love another person and seem to treat him correctly, then this is enough. Nothing more is needed, and you are already fulfilling your predestination.

And the Vilna Gaon claimed: “No, it is necessary to seriously study the Torah, the Babylonian Talmud, and carefully keep all the laws. Only after that one can study Kabbalah.”

Therefore, in the introduction to his great work, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Baal HaSulam pays much attention to this. At the very beginning, he asks the question: “Is it really necessary to fully know all the great laws of fulfilling the Torah in our world and only after that study Kabbalah?

“Or is it enough to do it in parallel? Or even, perhaps, is it not at all necessary to know and obey all the laws so scrupulously? Because the Creator requires us to correct our hearts more than to fill our heads with all kinds of laws.”

So here we are in a state of great ideological contradiction. And it is very serious because it speaks of the method of the soul’s correction. Should it be taught to children from the age of thirteen or even earlier? Or maybe, it can be explained to women as well? Or only to great experts on the Babylonian Talmud?

This ideological contradiction was a necessary process and was brewing by itself.
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From KabTV’s “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel” 8/5/19

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Hasidism: Touching the Spiritual Truths

Question: The Hasidic movement appeared in the third decade of the 18th century and was founded by the Baal Shem Tov. The approach of the Hasidic teachers allowed ordinary people to touch spiritual truths. If earlier only sages studied them, now ordinary people could do so as well.

What was so special about the teachings of Baal Shem Tov that they captured the hearts of so many people to such an extent?

Answer:  The Baal Shem Tov followed the path of the Ari and explained in a simpler language, close to the people, how to act and connect with each other in order to achieve the revelation of the Creator.

He set a very practical goal: to explain to any person who is in absolute ignorance about what kind of world he exists in, what states he passes through, why the Torah is needed, and why people exist.

It turns out that the Baal Shem Tov gave ordinary people life. He explained to them how to live correctly and that behind every inner movement of a person in mind and feelings is a huge force that is correcting the world. Therefore, every person who treats the world like that is engaged in correcting it.
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From KabTV’s “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel” 8/5/19

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Question: How do you see the fate of Israel? You cannot help but be concerned about it, as well as all people in the world, because, despite its small size, Israel is in many ways at the center of many conflicts and events.

Now everyone is watching with bated breath when the next phase of Israel’s jurisdiction over the territories will be announced, and how it may end.

Answer: Yes, I understand that the problem with the territories, in general, is completely out of place and beside the point. What is it for, anyway? Everything is completely artificial. Our ancestral territories are still much larger. They extend from the Nile to the Euphrates. This is all described in ancient books. We are not going to chase the ancient borders.

But the fact is that Israel has its own historical mission, which it must fulfill—to stand at the head of the spiritual reconstruction of humanity. I hope that this will begin in our century, in our time.

This will not reduce its role in any way. On the contrary, it will become more significant and eternal. Israel is Israel, there is no getting around it. It is a spiritual creature that needs to live and preach from here. People will come to understand, accept, and agree with this.
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From KabTV’s “Today’s International Situation” 6/18/20

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The Ari’s Contribution to the Development of Kabbalah:

Question: It is considered that since the time of the Ari, the period of correction of humanity began because he empirically derived a method that could be used by everyone. What is this method?

Answer: It is about uniting people. The Ari organized a group of students and he taught them the structure of the upper worlds and he explained the methods of their functioning and the development of a common desire in the group, which is yearning more and more for similarity with the Creator. He presented all of this as necessary spiritual steps.

He raised the teaching of Kabbalah from the corporeal to the spiritual level using what is called “the language of branches,” in which we call something by corporeal names, but in fact, we do not mean any material forms of objects and phenomena but only our spiritual qualities.

Gradually, people began understanding that Kabbalah does not belong to our world at all. Moreover, our world is an illusory world that appears to exist only in our perception. In general, this is a whole system of views, a science that is available for everyone. The Ari outlined it very specifically.

In principle, the Ari invented a new language that explained the interaction of light and Kli. A Kli is a desire that includes everything there is in the world. The only thing that this desire feels is light.

It is the interaction of light and desire, the Creator and creation, that the Ari fully described in his books.
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From KabTV’s “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel” 5/8/19

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The Expulsion from Spain and the Blossoming of Lurianic Kabbalah

Question: In the 16th century, several decades after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, a center of spiritual development arose in Safed, in the Land of Israel. This period is called “Lurianic Kabbalah” in honor of the great Kabbalist, the Ari—Yitzhak Ben Shlomo Ashkenazi Luria, who continued to develop the method of Kabbalah.

What happened after the expulsion from Spain? What is the meaning of Lurianic Kabbalah, which lasted only a few years?

Answer: First of all, it is necessary to understand that the expulsion of the Jews did not happen because the King and Queen of Spain decided to get rid of them, but because it was time to force them to go further into Europe and some of them to return to the Land of Israel. Otherwise, they would have never left Spain, because it really was going through a golden age.

Therefore, the forced expulsion of Jews from Spain was the result of an influence from above. This expulsion served as a good example for them because it gave impetus to the development of trade, the development of ties between Jews of the diaspora in all countries of the world, and it led to the discovery of new lands by Columbus.

In principle, the expulsion from Spain could only be welcomed, although by doing this Spain did a disservice to itself. To this day, Spain has not recovered from it despite the fact that many centuries have passed since then. After all, Jews were its best representatives in science, culture, medicine, and economics at those times.

And when they left, Spain did not see good times, and it continues until today.

But Spaniards did not want this. When Jews came to the Queen to ask her to let them stay, she said that it wasn’t they who wished it, but the upper providence that put pressure on them and forcing the to expel the Jews. That is, the top intellectual strata of the Spanish government understood this perfectly well.

After the expulsion from Spain, part of the Jews returned to the Maghreb countries (North Africa, Egypt), and some of them even reached the Land of Israel and modern Syria and Lebanon.

And in Safed, a small town in northern Israel, a very strong group of people who engaged in Kabbalah was formed. Their leader was RAMAK (Rabbi Moshe Cordovero). He was a respected wise man of experience when the young Ari, who was 36 years old, appeared in Safed.

The Ari began to teach people and revealed to them the Kabbalah that practically no one understood. And only RAMAK understood and accepted the Kabbalah of the Ari although, in general, he did not fully understand it. But he began to attend classes, and this was a good example for others interested in Kabbalah who also began to study with the Ari.

So, the Ari organized a small group of people whom he taught. But this lasted only a year and a half because the Ari died very young.

His students started to analyze the notes made by them during their classes. Basically, this was done by his first student, Chaim Vital (Marchu). He continued the work of the Ari, having written down what he heard from his great teacher. These records, representing extensive Kabbalistic knowledge, make up 18-20 volumes.
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From KabTV’s “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel” 8/5/19

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New Life 1253 – Immigration To Israel In The Coronavirus Era
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi

During the coronavirus era, it is natural for Jews to think about immigrating to Israel because they don’t feel safe abroad and businesses are collapsing. Jews are found in the safest position in Israel, even from the aspect of the education of children. The nation is committed to every Jew in the world, like parents are in regard to their children. Everyone’s home is here. They have no other future. In each and every nation in the entire world, Jews will always be strangers. The state must prepare for the correct absorption of the Jews, not as it was done in previous waves of immigration. What we are missing is education in love, education that recognizes that all of us are a single nation in spite of the divisions and differences between us. We must return to the doctrine of love and the principle, “You shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18), so that we don’t disparage and criticize one another.

The coronavirus is inviting the opening of a new page in history. It shows that it is up to us to communicate with connections of love. A good absorption of immigrants will be such that everyone will live here peacefully and we will be a global example. A person who will immigrate here from abroad will then feel as if wrapped in the hands of a caring mother.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1253 – Immigration To Israel In The Coronavirus Era,” 6/15/20

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Disagreements Between Two Movements in the Jewish People

Comment: Over the past few centuries, confrontation within the Jewish people has been very strong, in particular between Lithuanian Jews and Hasidim, the Vilna Gaon and The Baal Shem Tov.

The reason for their disagreement was a different point of view on the dissemination of Kabbalah within their own people and all the rest.

My Response: The Vilna Gaon was a great Kabbalist, but he opposed dissemination of Kabbalah among his people.

The Baal Shem Tov, on the contrary, believed that it was necessary to spread Kabbalah, to educate Kabbalist disciples, and to pass information about the spiritual world to everyone. Therefore, Hasidism originated from The Baal Shem Tov, whereby each child was taught about the spiritual worlds, unity, and the purpose of the existence of the people of Israel.

And the disciples of the Vilna Gaon engaged in Kabbalah only as a small group of people. As a result, the emphasis in their activities was placed purely on the formal fulfillment of the commandments.

The confrontation between these two groups continues to this day, although today it is external, informal. But at that time it was a serious war.

Question: Didn’t they understand that their disagreements lead them to disunity and alienate them from the Creator?

Answer: It is difficult for us to say something about these people. These are two different approaches to Kabbalah that manifest within the Kabbalists themselves. But the fact that they could not establish a connection between them led to great persecutions. And all this is felt to this day.

Comment: Our contemporary Baal HaSulam writes that it is only due to the spread of Kabbalah among the masses that we will be liberated, both each one and all of humanity. But if you look into the history of the development of humanity, almost everything repeats itself.

My Response: No. The time is different now. Today humanity is rapidly moving toward revealing itself as falling into egoism, which does allow simply settling down, enjoying life, and correctly using all the achievements of humanity.

Thus, a favorable environment arises for revealing the meaning of life. This question, which urgently requires an answer, appears in every person in our generation. And the answer is generally nowhere to be found except in Kabbalah.
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From KabTV’s “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel” 7/29/19

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