New Life 657 – The Split Between Right And Left
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

There are two forces in nature: reception and giving. The wisdom of Kabbalah is the method for balance between these two forces. Essentially, there are two general rules: “And you shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) and “What is hateful to you, do not do to your friend” (Shabbat 31a).
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From KabTV’s “New Life 657 – The Split Between Right And Left,” 12/8/15

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Question: The day of the unity of the Jews is celebrated in Israel and it is called the Day of Good Deeds. How do you relate to it?

Answer: If we overcome ourselves in order to show off only one day a year, as if we are doing good to others, it will not lead to anything good and can even make things worse.

We must understand and realize how egoistic we are and to what degree we have to change ourselves. This is the reason there is a method of correction, of re-educating ourselves. I am ready to offer it and to show everyone the ancient method that that we have had since the days of Abraham.

I truly hope that the Jews will listen to it, that they will unite and will be a role model for the whole world, and thus, the whole world will become peaceful.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 3/27/17

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I was born in 1946 and grew up in the shadow of that ruthless war that took the lives of millions of people in a terrible tragedy called the Holocaust of the Jewish people. The Holocaust has impacted me personally. Although my parents were lucky to survive, two-thirds of my relatives were killed in the death camps.

For this reason, the Holocaust is not some distant memory for me, but a painful reminder of what might also happen to us. The question, “How can we prevent another Holocaust?” is not an idle question for me. I ask this question with all the pain and the responsibility that I feel.

I feel how an ocean of hatred is drowning us. The signs of the impending disaster have never been so evident. All international reports regarding the unprecedented growth of anti-Semitism are clear warning signs.

On the International Holocaust Memorial Day, a question was asked on BBC as to whether it isn’t time to stop talking about the Holocaust. A scientific convention is going to be held in England about Israel’s legitimate right to exist, and an agreement has been signed with Iran regarding its nuclear plan, which is more proof that we cannot count on our “allies.”

All this is a cause of great concern regarding our future.

We can still prevent another Holocaust, but it is not enough to mourn the past in order to do that. Tears should give way to critical analysis of our current situation and a search for other means to correct it.

Why? Because we are living in a closed system of emotionless forces. The law, according to which this system operates, is homeostasis, which means the harmonious balance of all the elements in the system.

Therefore, if we act in accordance with this law, which means that we aspire to establish good and harmonious relations, we feel good, but if we are divided, this system forcefully rebalances us with it. Sometimes such a correction involves terrible suffering.

I know how hard it is for Holocaust survivors and members of their families to read these lines, but the truth has to be told. The Holocaust happened because the nation of Israel did not act according to the law of unity. Why us? Because we have a special responsibility to fulfill this law ever since the days of Abraham.

Abraham, the founder of our nation, discovered that everything is managed by the law of unity. When the people of ancient Babylon were divided because the ego grew, Abraham began to teach the Babylonians the method of unity.

The few that followed him were called the nation of Israel. The implementation of this law is the reason our nation exists. The only justification for our existence as a nation is to convey this law within us and to all the other nations of the world.

In the beginning of the last century, we received a chance to get back to the land of Israel, not in order to build a home for all the Jews in it, but in order to reacquire the unity that we have lost. Unfortunately, we did not do it then. Most of the Jews of Europe preferred to remain in their local communities or to assimilate.

The reaction of the upper system to that was the Holocaust that started at the beginning of the 1920’s. Long before the world was flooded and suffocated by blood, Kabbalists felt that a great tragedy was approaching and called the Jews of Europe to return to their land and to unite, but they did not listen to the Kabbalists.

Instead of uniting into one nation of our own freewill, we got closer to each other due to the terrible suffering during the Holocaust. After that we received our statehood.

The real mandate for the existence of our country is not the UN declaration, but our mission. According to Kabbalists, the state we received was given to us only in order to fulfill the law of unity. And this is exactly what the world demands of us.

Subconsciously, the people of the world want us to attain unity between us and to convey the method of Abraham to them. We have refused to do that so far and thus invoke anti-Semitism. It is actually this refusal that could be the cause for the next Holocaust.

Holocaust Remembrance Day and Israel’s Independence Day have to become days of fulfilling our mission, days of recalculating and reassessing the existence of our nation. On these days, we should gather around thousands of roundtables all over Israel and the world and understand how we must attain true independence, independence from our egoism, and learn how we can ascend from unfounded hate to brotherly love.

This is the only way we can ensure our future and the future of our children and to confidently say, never again!
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New Life 834 – The Uniqueness Of The People Of Israel
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

The uniqueness of the people of Israel stems from its role toward humanity.

Their obligation is to teach humanity how to build connection on the basis of the general rule, “And you shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18).
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From KabTV’s “New Life 834 – The Uniqueness Of The People Of Israel,” 3/7/17

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In the News (The Jerusalem Post): “Following Wednesday night’s terror attack in Tel Aviv’s Sarona market that left four people dead and 16 wounded CNN inspired outrage with its headline when it put the word ‘terrorists’ in quotations on its Facebook page.

“Additionally, the news agency failed to mention terrorism even once in the article reporting the ordeal. …

“CNN swiftly removed the tweet and issued an apology via Twitter on Thursday evening, calling their use of quotation marks around the word terrorist in their news headline ‘a mistake.’

“‘The attacks were, without question, terrorist attacks,’ the news agency said in a press release.”

(The Jerusalem Post): “CNN has updated a graphic it featured this week listing some of the deadliest terror attacks that occurred throughout the month of Ramadan to include reference to the July 8  [sic] shooting attack in Tel Aviv.

“An advocacy group for Israel, Stand With Us, pointed out the update on its social media, claiming that ‘criticism’ led to the change. …

“But the graphic does not include reference to several other attacks that have occurred within Israel and the Palestinian territories, including the fatal stabbing of a teenage girl in her bedroom and the murder of a father in front of his wife and kids.”

Comment: CNN constantly lies about Israel. For example, they constructed a map of terrorist activities that occurred during the last Ramadan fast and updated it to include the June 8th attack in the Sarona district in Tel Aviv, but didn’t mention anything about what happened in Yehudah and Shomron, where a 13-year-old girl and later a Rabbi were murdered. CNN did not consider these acts of terrorism.

Researchers conclude that Israel, during the period of state formation, was constantly explaining its morally correct behavior to the world, and now we have stopped doing this. They think that it is time to understand that this is the wrong approach and we should start explaining our rectitude.

According to them, something will change as a result.

My Comment: Without a doubt everything would change if our government understood that it is imperative to publicize our rightness in order to educate humanity. I relate to publicity as part of our educational work that we must conduct with humanity, to be a “Light unto the nations” (Isaiah 49:6). We must show this to them, not so CNN will have a good opinion about us, but so the world will know why the Jewish people were created and exist in the world, how humanity must interact with us and we with them, and how the Jews must understand their task and their mission.

Question: Does this mean that you don’t agree when they say that if we were to explain our justification something would change?

Answer: What kind of justification do we have? We have no justification. Was anybody living here when we arrived 100 years ago at the end of the 19^th century? People lived here settled throughout the territory. We cannot claim that we didn’t expel them. They left and moved to Jordan and other places. Whether they want to come back or not makes no difference. We came to their place.

And since then, there has been a problem. It is true that there are those who have inflated the problem artificially, but the problem existed and it has not been solved to this day. How can it be solved? This can only be through educational work and an explanation of why we have the right to settle here, why we have the right to live together with our “cousins”—the Arabs?

If there were peace and security here, we would be happy to live with them. Our religions are similar in their basis, their roots are close, we have one “father.” Therefore, we must take into account that they were here. In this respect, I don’t belong to the right wing camp that says, “This is ours alone!”

We need to convince everyone that this is our territory. This will happen when we show and prove that this is the program of development of the world and that our presence here is imperative for all of humanity and not for us personally because it is specifically from here that we can show everyone in what manner we must create a new world!

Only then will the whole world, including those who have been living here, understand everything and help us instead of trying to annihilate us.

This is the real propaganda when you bring everything to a very serious basis! The main thing is that Jews must be allowed to live here because without them, the world will not be able to reach its proper state. Jews must live here for the sake of the world, for the sake of the Creator, for the sake of implementing the program of creation into life.

And then everything will be changed. If we prove our right to live here like that, then everyone will agree with us.

And if we just say we need to live somewhere… What, all of a sudden we are coming back after two thousand years?! Imagine how many claims against each other have accumulated and how much has happened in the world during this time—what a shuffle, a great migration of peoples. Take out the maps from the archives and see what it is!

Therefore, so the problem of redrawing the world map does not erupt, we need to get rid of all borders. But this must be through bringing people close to each other, not as was done in the European community by force with the stroke of a pen.

I don’t see another way out, from both the point of view of human development and the need for humanity becoming closer to each other. There is no other way out besides education! If we remove the internal boundaries, then the external borders will be eliminated by themselves. This can be achieved only through proper education.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/21/16

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New Life #571 – Why Don’t Protests Work
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

Question: Why don’t protests, which are a perfectly democratic tool, work in Israel?

Answer: Because different laws work in Israel.

The nation of Israel can only be based on the rule of “love thy friend as thyself.” Connection is our foundation.

Protests will not solve our problems because the solution is in establishing a new connection between everyone. Crying out in the streets will not work; the only thing that will work is the gradual study of the reasons why we don’t succeed in building a better society here.

The connection between us has to help us learn something about connection every day, about the love of others, about the correction of our relations. We have to connect in order to solve our problems, to unite our hopes, and to stop treating others with disrespect.

Protest is connecting against someone. We, on the other hand, have to protest against our egoism, the force that separates us. Connecting is ascending above all our differences, above our opposite views, spreading an umbrella of love above everything.

We have to promote actions that will lead to connection with the people: workshops, debate circles, sing along, etc. The reason is that a very powerful force is revealed in the connection between us, the positive force that is concealed in nature, the force that balances everything.

Connection summons the force that builds instead of the force that destroys. We protest against the egoistic force in us. It is only when we change that the Israeli society will change and life in our country will be better.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #571 – Why Don’t Protests Work,” 5/17/15

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New Life #570 – Social Frustration
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

If we thought there were some kind of anchor in Israel to rely on, today we see corruption is ubiquitous. There is general frustration and it is good that we have come to this. It reveals a truth that was not clear to us before.

Everything has become rotten from the ground up. Every politician promises, “I will fix it for you/for all of you/for myself,” and it is clear that he will not be able to do anything.

You cannot say that there is a loss of direction, for in fact there never has been a nation on the right path. The only way possible in Israel is the way of “And you shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) and mutual responsibility.

The positive change that is hoped for can happen only through a change in the person. Corrected people build a corrected society. Only through connection between us will we discover the force of good, the power of love, that can correct everything.

A general social education is required for the people of Israel, an education for connection and mutual love. Without this we are not a people. Since the destruction of the Temple, unfounded hatred has been destroying us. “And you shall love your friend as yourself” is our only future. Even if this sounds naïve, the forces of nature are directing us toward that. That is what the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #570 – Social Frustration,” 5/17/15

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In the News (The Jerusalem Post): “Resolution 2334, approved 14-nil by the UN Security Council on December 23, 2016 with only the United States abstaining, has generated a tsunami of media comment.  …

“The truly unique aspect of resolution 2334 is that it seeks to modify Security Council Resolution 242, the accepted and agreed basis for the Arab-Israel peace process.  …

“Emphasizing the need to establish ‘a just and lasting peace in the Middle East,’ it maintained that Israeli armed forces should withdraw ‘from territories occupied in the recent conflict’ and that there should be an ‘acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area, and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.’…

“These areas, now referred to in resolution 2334 as ‘Palestinian territories,’ were governed by Jordan and Egypt respectively for 19 years ­– from 1948 until 1967 – without any attempt by either Arab state to establish a sovereign Palestine.  Then, as now, recognizing a sovereign Palestine in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza meant recognizing a sovereign Israel outside those areas – something the Arab world was not prepared to do at the time.”

Question: Fourteen states voted for the resolution and one state abstained. It seems that the whole world is against Israel. Is that really so?

Answer: The whole world has always been against Israel, ever since the days of Abraham. Once the Jews left ancient Babylon and the split between the nation of Israel and the whole world occurred, the hatred of Israel emerged.

Resolution No. 2334 is an example that the whole world is against us. No one supported us; all the nations of the world united against Israel and unanimously accepted the resolution. If all the nations of the world, billions of people, censure us, claiming that we don’t behave properly and in a desirable manner, we should look deeply into this matter since perhaps something is indeed wrong.

Imagine what would happen if the UN proposed to vote for or against the establishment of the State of Israel today, just like it did 67 years ago. If they had to vote on Israel’s right to exist today, the outcome would probably be negative.

The UN would probably vote on totally detaching all ties with Israel and we would not be able to do anything about it. How could we exist after such a resolution? It is impossible to exist alone in the modern world. Such isolation would ruin the state even without war. We have to take such an option into account and find out the reason for the general hatred the world feels toward Israel.

The great minds of humanity looked for the reason for the hatred that has been felt toward the Jews for ages, but only the wisdom of Kabbalah provides the reason and the solution. We have to unite and it is our duty to pass on the method of unity to the whole world. The world desperately needs it and is waiting for us to do so. As long as we don’t do it, the world will unite in its hatred around us more and more and will not accept our existence.

Let’s hope that in 2017 we will acknowledge our duty to the world and fulfill it! Then the whole world will calm down, as it is written in the prophets, it will reach the wonderful corrected state.
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From a “Talk About 2016 Results,” 12/25/16

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In the News (Times of Israel): “Israel is throwing away approximately 35 percent of the food it produces, to the value of an estimated NIS 18 billion in 2015, according to a report released this week by Leket Israel, the National Food Bank.

“The food waste in Israel has far-reaching implications, especially for the 17% of Israeli society considered ‘food insecure’ — those who are not sure that they will have enough food over the course of the month.

“‘There are things that we can do with very minimal effort to rescue food, but we need to have policies that will direct this, policies that come from a government level,’ said Gidi Kroch, the CEO of Leket Israel.”

My Comment: I think that it is much more than that. But even this would be enough to feed all of those in need.

Comment: Many steps are being taken to avoid throwing food away.

My Comment: Nothing will help with this or automobile accident fatalities, problems in schools, the family, and every possible place. Only the ascent of a person to the next level of development will help solve all problems.

People throw food away because what happens to others doesn’t matter to them. If you knew that your children living a few kilometers away from you were now starving, wouldn’t you bring them food?

We lack a sense that we are one family. So, it is necessary to revive this feeling between us. Then there will be plenty of everything for everyone. Otherwise, it will not be possible to solve this problem.

I am not saying that it is necessary to run and distribute food. But anyone would willingly set aside all his surpluses. So this is not even about sharing with someone, but simply about giving them the surplus we are throwing away.

Then all would be well and rational related to food. We cannot imagine the quantity of food that is thrown away in stores, supermarkets, wedding halls, and restaurants. We throw away more than we eat.

What this means is that we must organize special distribution systems. Then people will not starve and there will always be enough for everyone.

If we felt that those who are hungry were our relatives, this would push us to set our surplus aside and create a system for collecting and distributing it. The same could be done with clothing and everything else, meaning the immense surpluses of products we have manufactured.

It is possible to achieve such a feeling only when we begin to implement the great general rule, “And you shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18), or at least when we feel that we are one people.

But we can achieve this only with the help of serious re-education and in no other way. It is impossible to solve problems like these differently. We must speak and write about this so much that everyone will understand how they are living and who they are. Then it will be easier to explain to people that we need to do something about ourselves.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 1/11/16

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Question: Inside the narrow family circle, a person feels warmth and protection because there is no egoistic struggle between relatives. What would happen if this circle expanded and covered many people not connected by family ties?

Answer: The positive force of nature will be revealed between these people. If they try to maintain good relationships, the force hidden in nature will be revealed. There will be a place for it to be revealed because they will want to connect above their egoism.

The distance between the force of such connection and the egoism that resists it will be the place where the positive, anti-egoistic force of nature can be revealed.

There are two forces in nature: the negative that separates us and the positive that connects us. The positive force appears if we try to connect. We become its detector, creating conditions for its revelation.

The family is too small a group, hence it is difficult to feel the manifestation of this force in it. But a tribe that unites many families provides a place for the revelation of the positive force of nature.

Abraham spoke precisely about this in ancient Babylon 3,500 years ago. He said that we have no other choice but to unite despite the egoism that erupted and the social crisis that it caused and despite the mutual misunderstanding, what is called the confusion of language.

We must rise above this misunderstanding, that is, mutual aversion, so that love will cover all transgressions of our egoism.

If we cover egoism with love, we will discover the good force hidden in nature to the extent that we can overcome our evil inclination. Egoism will grow more and more in all possible shapes and forms, and we will have to overcome it more and more.

After all, evil is revealed only so that we can connect more strongly above it and uncover the positive force even more until we feel that we live in the ocean of goodness.

And who helped us? It was the same evil egoism that was constantly growing in us. And so it is called “help against it.” So we find ourselves in the world of absolute goodness, but it is built above our egoism, above the evil forces. Now these two forces begin to work together, helping each other. The evil force helps the good force in which we live.

This method is called the wisdom of Kabbalah. It teaches how to use the revealing evil egoism correctly, every time rising above it through the good force. This is impossible to do alone, as it is written “They helped everyone his friend.”

Therefore, we should go back to this brotherly love when we all felt like one single tribe.
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From KabTV’s, “A New Life” #794 11/29/16

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