In the News (Jpost): “French Jews contemplating aliya should take the initiative, and the Israeli government should provide them with the benefits once afforded Soviet immigrants, according to Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky.

“’I believe many French Jews are planning to leave,’ Sharansky told The Jerusalem Post ahead of the Jewish Agency Board of Governors gathering in Paris from Sunday to Tuesday. …

“Sharansky noted that according to a survey conducted last year by Étude IFOP, more than 40 percent of France’s estimated half a million Jews are considering immigration to Israel.”

At present the immigration of the French Jews to Israel is continuing to grow. In the not too distant future we can expect a wave of immigrants from the Ukraine, Russia, and the United States. The two hundred French immigrants who came not long ago, met Minister Sharansky who said that during these recent summer months around another two hundred thousand will come to us.

Question:  Do you think that all of the Jews will leave France?

Answer: If half a million Jews leave France, nothing will remain of the nation. I heard from senior French officials that they believe that the departure of the Jews will be a real disaster for France. In their opinion, even if a thousand Jews were to leave the nation selectively, among them would be scientists, diplomats, politicians, and managers upon whom the French economy is based. And then the nation would cease to exist in its current form.

The Muslims will replace the Jews.

Now there is a big boom, even the French are beginning to seriously study the Arabic language, to get a job. It takes a lot of workers with knowledge of the Arabic language because it is necessary to serve these populations.

Question: Does this mean that you tend to think that the Jews will leave?

Answer: They will have no choice. But in Israel they will have no choice either, because if they arrive in a very large numbers, it will not be possible to employ everyone. We just shout: “Come to us! We love getting immigrants so much,” but where?

Comment: Mr. Sharansky’s view is different. When addressing 200 recent arrivals from France in Israel, said, “‘There is a great future for French Jews in Israel. Every one of you has made a huge step forward. This is a step for you, for the sake of the future of your children, for the sake of the future.. the state of Israel.’  According to Army Radio, about 9,000 new immigrants from around the world are due to arrive in Israel this summer.” (MIGNews)

Answer: As a politician, it is very good to say this, but what will happen when an immigrant tries to find work in his profession? I hear from many French immigrants that they don’t know where to find work, and this in addition to problems that they are having with integrating into life in Israel, we are very different from France.

In France the situation is completely different; Israel is not Italy, Spain, or Germany. It is very difficult for immigrants to live here; they don’t feel the atmosphere here. So for them it is not a very simple transition, in particular when looking for work.

It is not easy just to absorb 9,000 people in one summer, arranging initial conditions for them so that the future will be bright for them. Receiving them with flowers at the airport is very nice, but the question is, what’s next?

Question: Will Israel potentially be able to absorb all the Jews?

Answer: This could be done without a problem. If there were a friendly atmosphere here, if everyone understood that this is a national, popular, and worldwide task that is derived from the goal of creation and that we must organize people as one, united whole, if we wanted to do this, then this would certainly be something great!
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/24/16

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

From my column in Ynet: “School for Emotions: Hatred Becomes Love”

The religious and secular in Israel can’t stand each other. Secular Jews in Israel would rather their child marry a Christian spouse than an Orthodox partner. That is what came up according to the latest survey published by the Pew Foundation, and it reveals what all of us already know. Is there a way to bridge the separation and hatred?  Rav Laitman teaches how love will cover all crimes.

Israel has an impressive list of achievements: a strong military, economic stability, advanced agriculture, first place in Nobel Prizes, and we are thriving in almost every aspect, except for one thing which is precisely the most important: the relationships between us. In all the years of our existence, we have not succeeded in building ourselves as one connected nation, and if we don’t learn to do this, we may soon be erased from the map.

Last week, the results of a comprehensive survey conducted by the American Pew Foundation were published. The survey conducted over six months involved in-depth interviews of 5,600 Israelis, and presented a disturbing picture about the crisis in our society. According to the study, relationships of alienation and separation exist among the four main groups in Israel: secular, traditional, religious and ultra-Orthodox. Members of the groups rarely connect, almost never marry each other, and are divided in their positions on a wide range of subjects from religious and national issues to their political positions.

The survey results are hardly surprising. The extreme tensions and disunity, the implicit and explicit hatred, the trampling of anyone who thinks differently, and the exploitation of others are egoistic expressions that are leading to the destruction of our society, and respectively, also to the denial of our right to the land and the destruction of the nation of Israel (1).

The Ego and its Punishment

The main factor dividing us and destroying every good relationship is our egoistic nature. The negative force burns in all of us and makes us reject and even hate anything that is different and foreign to us. The ego dominates us so strongly that it hides from our eyes the tight link that exists between us in spite of all the differences.

We can create countless agreements and compromises that apparently will assure us of social order, but the experience of many years proves, and is also expressed well in the latest survey, that we only are going and dividing into many factions and sectors.

We could dismiss all of this by saying, “This is sad, but not really that bad. There are more serious problems than these,” but according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, all of nature has a plan that differs from ours which causes all of its various organs, meaning us, to act as a perfectly harmonious body. In contrast to the still, vegetative, and animate levels that function in a perfectly coordinated manner with the laws of nature, the human species is the only one that is motivated by pure egoism, pushing every person to provide himself with the most pleasure at any price, even at the expense of others (2), and this, as was said, is against the laws of nature. We can wait for nature to urge us and push us toward the desired unity, but it would be better for us to march forward on our own initiative and flow with it according to the same lawfulness and in the same direction (3).

Unity, not Uniformity

The first time we worked together with nature was about 3,500 years ago in the days of ancient Babylon. We shared a common destiny then. When the negative power of the ego suddenly broke out, it divided the Babylonian empire into a collection of tribes who were strangers to each other (4). Those divided groups rarely intermarried and were divided in their opinions, as is happening with us today. However, some of them were smart enough to gather around the Babylonian priest Abraham. That is how we managed even then to receive from the mouth of the father of the nation the method that eventually connected us as one people, the wisdom of connection between people—the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Abraham did not try to hide or blur the differences or the gaps. By virtue of his attainment of the depths of the laws of nature, it was clear to him that the matter was impossible. Every sector, community, or group in a unified and rich society is significant and must be protected and nurtured. What must be done is to bridge all of the gaps that hurl society into the abyss (5).

The unique position in nature that makes it possible for two opposites to coexist and live in peace with each other is called “Love covers all transgressions” (6) in the wisdom of Kabbalah. It means that it is up to us to maintain two floors simultaneously. On the first floor are the gaps between us that divide us with severe hatred, whereas on the second floor, we cover them with love. No feelings disappear. Rather, specifically within the gap that intensifies between the plane of hatred and the plane of love, a new space is discovered, a place in which the Higher Power connects and includes both of them as one (7).

The Wisdom of Kabbalah – The Way from Hatred to Love

Today, we are “separate people united against their will by a ‘common enemy’” as Achad Ha’Am said in his time (8). Since then, we immigrated to the land, remained a group of exiles, and have not succeeded in becoming a people (9). The only thing that does succeed in uniting us is that blazing hatred from the side of our enemies, whether it is the Intifada that is raging in the streets or the winds of anti-Semitism that are blowing through the enlightened world in our direction. However, the script just keeps getting worse. The moment that the hatred of our enemies weakens, the contempt among us increases, and it will not be long until the fires of hatred will reignite and spread to depths we have never known. It is even liable to develop to extreme points and lead to civil war (10).

This is precisely the reason for the revelation of the wisdom of Kabbalah in our time (11). Kabbalah doesn’t come to preach to us to be good to each other. Rather, it is a special method of connection for the people of Israel, and it is the only thing that can unite us to rise above the gaping rifts between us.

The goal of the wisdom of Kabbalah is to stabilize human society so that it will be able to continue to maintain unique and separate parts and simultaneously be connected like organs in a single body. The power of the wisdom of Kabbalah is in strengthening the unity between us until we feel the general power of connection, the Higher Power (12). When we connect among us, we gradually will be able to radiate this power to all of the nations of the world, serving as an example and model for them and becoming “a light of nations” (13).
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From Ynet article 3/14/16

References:

(1) “Most of the people have lost their ancient spiritual form, and a few have even sunken into a pursuit of all the vanities of life, fake factions and false Kabbalists, brawls and squabbles and unfounded hatreds, and their spiritual form is even worn externally without any internal Light” (Hillel Zeitlin, Safran shel Yechidim).

“And here is the main sign of the illness of the hour—the terrible internal disintegration, the disputes between factions, the hatred of brothers that are consuming all of us here, destructive acts and the internal destruction and ruin of the extremist parties” (Hayim Nachman Bialik).

(2) “But the equal side in all the people of the world is that each of us stands ready to abuse and exploit all the people for his own private benefit with every means possible, without taking into any consideration that he is going to build himself on the ruin of his friend” (Rav Yehudah Ashlag [Baal HaSulam], “Peace in the World”).

(3) “…nature, like a skillful judge, punishes us according to our development. For we can see that to the extent that humankind develops, the pains and torments surrounding our sustenance and existence also multiply.

“Thus you have a scientific, empirical basis that His Providence has commanded us to keep with all our might the Mitzva of bestowal upon others in utter precision, in such a way that no member from among us would work any less than the measure required to secure the happiness of society and its success. And as long as we are idle performing it to the fullest, nature will not stop punishing us and take its revenge.

“And besides the blows we suffer today, we must also consider the drawn sword for the future. The right conclusion must be drawn—that nature will ultimately defeat us and we will all be compelled to join hands in following its Mitzvot with all the measure required of us.”(Rav Yehudah Ashlag [Baal HaSulam], “Peace”).

(4) And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make ourselves a name, lest we be scattered upon the face of the entire earth.” And the Lord descended to see the city and the tower that the sons of man had built. And the Lord said, “Lo! [they are] one people, and they all have one language, and this is what they have commenced to do. Now, will it not be withheld from them, all that they have planned to do? Come, let us descend and confuse their language, so that one will not understand the language of his companion.” And the Lord scattered them from there upon the face of the entire earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore, He named it Babel, for there the Lord confused the language of the entire earth, and from there the Lord scattered them upon the face of the entire earth (Genesis 11:4-9).

(5) “There has never been any kindness as there was with Abraham…and he brought peace between one person and his fellow, for after all he was the father of many nations, because of this he unified and made peace among all the created beings” (Gevurot HaShem, Chapter 6).

“Love your neighbor as yourself.” That charge implies that whatever you would like other people to do for you, you should do for your comrade in the Torah and mitzvot.

“The reward one receives for accompanying guests is greater than all of the others. This is a statute which Abraham our Patriarch instituted and the path of kindness which he would follow. He would feed wayfarers, provide them with drink, and accompany them.” (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon [Rambam], Mishnah Torah, Sefer Shoftim, Hilchot Avel, Chapter 14:1-2).

“Now Abraham was forty years old when he comprehended his Creator.
“…and [he] began to stand up and to proclaim with a loud voice to the whole world, and to reveal to them, that there was but One God of the whole Universe, and that Him only it was right to serve; and so he continued preaching and assembling the people from city to city, and from kingdom to kingdom…

“…and so thousands and myriads assembled around him, who constituted the men of the house of Abraham; and (Abraham) planted this great and radical principle in their hearts, and also composed books…

“And thus the thing was continually gaining strength among the children of Jacob, and among those that joined them, so that there grew up in this world a nation who knew the Lord…” (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon [Rambam], Mishneh Torah, Sefer HaMeda, Hilchot Avodah Zarah, Chapter 1).

(6) “Hatred arouses quarrels, but love covers all transgressions” (Proverbs 10:12).

“…the heart of the vitality, persistence, and correction of the whole of creation, by people of differing views being included together in love, unity and peace” (Rabbi Nathan Sternhertz, Likutey Halachot [Assorted Rules], “Rules of Tefilat Arvit [Evening Prayer],” Rule no. 4).

(7) “The essence of peace is connecting two opposites, so don’t be afraid of your ideas if you see a person who has opinions that are the complete opposite of yours, and it seems to you that it is impossible in any way to maintain peace with him; and also when you see two people who are really opposites, don’t say that it is impossible to make peace between them, for on the contrary, this is essentially the whole of peace, to try to have peace between two opposites” (Likutei Etzot, The Value of Peace).

“We are not neutral when we claim that for consolidation, there must be consolidation of common responsibility, of mutual responsibility, of mutual influence. We claim that we must not blur the boundaries between the unions, circles and parties, rather a shared recognition of the common reality and a common position in a test of common responsibility. Separation between hearts is a disease that afflicts the peoples in our time and following its cure by way of coerced union is nothing but a mistake. Unity is lacking in the organizational structure. At the moment there is no remedy for this except that there will be people from different circles of opinion who need one another with a pure heart and take the trouble together to discover the common foundation” (Martin Buber, “Education and Examining the World”).

(8) “This Zionism sees where the Jews are – separated people who are united against their will by the ‘common enemy’, but it does not see Judaism – a single unit that aspires to exist in its unity even without all of the external compulsion. This is its main deficiency, revealed in all of its ways and deeds” (Ahad Ha’Am, “The Congress and its Creator”).

“Historically we are a group of people who belong to each other with clearly recognized relevance and whose consolidation is firmly maintained by the existence of a common enemy” (Theodor [Binyamin Ze’ev] Herzl, The Jewish State).

(9) “In the end, all we have here is a gathering of strangers, descendents of cultures of seventy nations, each building a stage for oneself, one’s spirit, and one’s leanings. There is no elemental thing here that unites us all from within into a single mass.” (Rav Yehudah Ashlag [Baal HaSulam], “The Nation”).

(10) “It is a shame to admit that one of the most precious merits we have lost during the exile, and the most important of them, is the loss of the awareness of the nationality, meaning that natural feeling that connects and sustains each and every nation. The threads of love that connect the nation, which are so natural and primitive in all the nations, have become degenerated and detached from our hearts, and they are gone.

“And worst of all, even the little we have left of the national love…exists within us on a negative basis: It is the common suffering that each of us suffers being a member of the nation. This has imprinted within us a national awareness and proximity, as with fellow-sufferers.

“This is an external cause…

“And most important, it is completely unfit for its task. Its measure of warmth suffices only to an ephemeral excitement, but without the power and strength with which we can be rebuilt as a nation that carries itself. This is because a union that exists due to an outside cause is not at all a national union.

“In that sense, we are like a pile of nuts, united into a single body from the outside by a sack that envelops and unites them. Their measure of unity does not make them a united body… The fault is that they lack the inner unity…” (Rav Yehudah Ashlag [Baal HaSulam], “The Nation”).

(11) “I am glad that I have been born in such a generation when it is permitted to disclose the wisdom of truth. And should you ask, ‘How do I know that it is permitted?’ I will reply that I have been given permission to disclose…

“…and this is what the Creator has given me to the fullest extent. We deem it as dependent not on the greatness of the sage, but on the state of the generation…” (Rav Yehudah Ashlag [Baal HaSulam]), “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”).

“Turning the hearts and occupying the minds with noble thoughts, whose origin is the secrets of the Torah, has become an utter necessity in the last generation” (Rav Raiah Kook, Mist of Purity, p. 65).

(12) “The wisdom of the truth teaches us about the global unity, the side of equality to be found in the whole of existence through the very top, at the parity of the form with this Maker, and how to walk without obstacles by the path of this Light” (Rav Raiah Kook, Orot HaKodesh [The Lights of Sanctity],” 2 p. 393).

(13) “Israel brings Light to the world as it is said, (Isaiah 60:3) ‘And nations shall walk at thy light’” (Midrash Rabbah, Shir HaShirim, Section 4, Verse 2).

“…the Israeli nation had been constructed as a sort of gateway by which the sparks of purity would shine upon the whole of the human race the world over.

“And these sparks multiply daily, like one who gives to the treasurer, until they are filled sufficiently, that is, until they develop to such an extent that they can understand the pleasantness and tranquility that are found in the kernel of love of others. For then they will know how to shift the balance to the right, and will place themselves under His burden, and the scale of sin will be eradicated from the world” (Rav Yehudah Ashlag [Baal HaSulam], “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee],” Item 24).

“When the Children of Israel are complemented with the complete knowledge, the fountains of intelligence and knowledge shall flow beyond the boundaries of Israel and water all the nations of the world…” (Rav Yehudah Ashlag [Baal HaSulam], “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 4).

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In the News (newsru): “According to the New World Wealth, in recent years, when many countries in the Middle East were destabilized due to the sharp growth of extremism, many Arab millionaires went to Western countries.

“Reporter Imad al-Marzouki on the Al-Masdar site wrote this week that, according to the same New World Wealth, rich Jews from Western countries move to Israel. …

“According to published reports, as of 2015, French Jewish millionaires in 2500 moved to Israel. At the same time in 2007, France had left 7,000 millionaires. A similar phenomenon is observed in other Western countries, including the UK, Italy and Russia. …

“Expert Iyad al-Manan, said today, after the Arab countries plunged into chaos, and the West was marked by a surge of anti-Semitism, Jews began to feel Israel more secure than anywhere else . Arab millionaires, on the contrary, prefer to send their money to the West because of the destabilization of the region, and these two trends are gradually increasing.”

My Comment: It is said in the Torah that in the end of days the Creator will gather His people from all the ends of the earth.
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Question: On the seventeenth of Tamuz, Moses came down from Mount Sinai, and when he saw his people dancing around the golden calf, he broke the first Tablets of the Covenant. What does this mean from the Kabbalistic point of view?

Answer: From the point of view of Kabbalah, the Torah is not talking about the objects and phenomena of the material world. It is unlikely that Moses, who was 80 years old, could come down from the mountain with the heavy stone Tablets of the Covenant.

Also, Mount Sinai is not a mountain, the tablets are not tablets carved in stone, and Moses didn’t have glowing horns on his head as Michelangelo scuplted him. The people of Israel—who, from the times of Abraham, were educated in spiritual attainment—could not engage in the casting of a golden calf.

Moses’ descent from Mount Sinai is a descent from the spiritual level where he revealed the Creator and then came down from it to connect with the people, meaning that the Torah speaks about spiritual degrees. The upper degree is Moses, who is on the level of the Creator, where he reveals Him and is in contact with this force of bestowal and love.

The lower degree is that level to which Moses descends to be with the people. In Kabbalah, the AHP of the upper descends to Galgalta ve Eynaim of the lower. Moses comes into contact with the general egoism in order to begin correcting it. Here, he sees that his detachment from the general egoism upward to the Creator happened at the time when this lowest egoism of the people fell to the next lower degree.

We are talking about three degrees. The upper degree is where Moses is in contact with the Creator. The middle degree is the one to which he descends in order to be with the people of Israel. The lowest degree is like the nations of the world, the same Egypt that the people of Israel already had left, but now are there again.

After all, as soon as Moses broke away from his people by climbing up, these people immediately fell to the lower degree because no one was holding them. This is a connection of the nation of Israel that wasn’t yet a nation, but simply a desire that rose from egoism and fell into it again.

When Moses saw this, he felt that the Upper Light he received from the Creator disappeared in this egoistic desire because the Light and egoism are incompatible with each other. So, the shattering of the Light occurred, the Light seemed to disappear, and accordance with it, the golden calf is diffused, dissolved, and destroyed as well.

However, the correction is impossible without it because the entire process leads us to the recognition of human nature, its connection with the lower level, called the nations of the world, and the impossibility of combining the Upper Light with material egoism.

Question: Is this the first contact between the Creator and the creature?

Answer: No, there can be no contact because Moses must be in the middle. He is the quality of Bina, the Creator is the quality of Keter, and all of humanity is on the level of Malchut. However, the shattering creates a connection through Moses between level of the Creator and level of the creature. These opposite qualities enter each other, and then it is possible to begin the next stage of correction.

Now, when Moses rises to the Creator, his interaction with both the Creator and the people that sinned is completely different. After all, the people that fell to the level of the golden calf have much more egoistic desires that are passionate, Egyptian, and real! Therefore, Moses now raises to the Creator much more internal, real, and deep desires to be corrected.

He spends forty days on Mount Sinai again. However, these are a completely different forty days. They are forty degrees of rising from Malchut to Bina. However, it is not from that Malchut where they were during the exodus from Egypt, but from the one on which they created for themselves the same Egypt at Mount Sinai.

The second forty days is completely different in its quality of ascent from the golden calf to the Creator. Naturally, the tablets Moses receives the second time are completely different. They are suitable in their quality to the state of people who fell to the level of the golden calf. With such tablets—meaning with such connections between the golden calf and the level of the Creator—they can begin to work on themselves.

Mount Sinai symbolizes the enormous hatred (“Sina” means hatred) that is revealed as an incongruity of qualities of the Creator and the creature, that is, qualities of complete bestowal and love, and qualities that wish to live just for themselves. When Moses comes down from Mount Sinai the second time, from the height of the level of attainment with the Creator and connection with Him, he comes down from it on Yom Kippur.

On the one hand, this is a day of the recognition of our nature. On the other hand, it is a day of forgiveness. From this day onward, the correction of the people begins, and the next stage is Chanukah and other dates that symbolize spiritual actions.

Hopefully, we recognize the correct work with the Tablets of the Covenant that are within us. We only can identify them and implement them on ourselves.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/11/16

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My article, “Breaking Out From the Straights” was published in The Jerusalem Post on July 28, 2016.

The Three Weeks, or Bein ha-Metzarim (“Between the Straits”), that begins on the 17th of Tammuz (commemorated last Sunday) and ends on the 9th of Av (commemorated this year on Sunday, August 14) mark a very dark time in our past. In the days of Candy Crush and Pokémon Go, no one really wants to know about it, but we really should because the ailment that devastated our nation 2,000 years ago has never been cured. Today, just as it did then, it is causing all our problems.

The Sad Story about Kamtza and Bar Kamtza

The Talmud (Masechet Gitin) tells us that once, when the Temple still stood, a wealthy Jew in Jerusalem had a friend named Kamtza, and an enemy named Bar Kamtza. One day the wealthy Jew decided to make a feast. He sent his servant to invite his friend, Kamtza, to the feast, but the servant mistakenly invited his enemy, Bar Kamtza. The surprised Bar Kamtza took this as a gesture of reconciliation and accepted the invitation. He put on his best clothes and went to the home of the man who he thought was no longer his enemy.

When the host noticed that Bar Kamtza was there, he was infuriated and demanded that he leave at once. The mortified Bar Kamtza pleaded with the host to let him stay. He even offered to pay for his own food and drink, and for everyone else’s, too. The host not only refused him mercilessly, but even had Bar Kamtza dragged out of his house and thrown into the street.

Humiliated and disgraced, Bar Kamtza pledged vengeance not only against his host, but also against the guests, who supported the host. “I’ll slander them before the Emperor,” he decided.

Bar Kamtza went to Emperor Nero and told him that the Jews were planning to rebel against him. After some cunning persuasion, the emperor was convinced that Bar Kamtza was telling the truth, and sent his army to destroy Jerusalem and the Temple.

Over the generations, this famous story has symbolized the unfounded hatred that led to our social and moral decline and to our subsequent exile. In today’s social climate, it could not be more pertinent. As we can see, read and hear each day, conflicts, manipulations, and dishonesty have never been more prevalent among us. The sarcasm and derision we use against each other point not to our wit, but to our dislike of one another.

Time to Reconnect Our Threads of Love

The Three Weeks marks the time between the shattering of the walls of Jerusalem and the ruin of the Temple. The Holy Shlah wrote that “unfounded hatred caused the ruin of the Temple.” Indeed, as Baal HaSulam noted, “It is a shame to admit that one of the most precious merits we have lost is the natural feeling that connects and sustains each and every nation. The threads of love that connect the nation, which are so natural and primitive in all the nations, have become degenerated and detached from our hearts, and they are gone.” As a result, the only thing that keeps us together as a nation is the world’s hatred toward us.

Today’s Western world still offers Jews freedom of speech and freedom of movement. We must use this freedom to reestablish brotherly love above our alienation and rebuild our peoplehood. Now, before the door of freedom closes once again, our nation must work tirelessly to rebuild itself from the ruins of unfounded hatred and realize our people’s vocation—to become a role model of a truly united nation, one that all the nations will want to emulate so that they, too, can benefit from that unique power of unity.

Building the Temple Within

As we reflect on the ruin of the Temple, we should also consider the future. When The Book of Zohar describes the building of the Third Temple, it does not speak of bricks and arches; it speaks of our connections. It describes the mending of our shattered hearts, which suffer from the sickness of unfounded hatred. The Zohar explains how the whole world will come to embrace the connectedness beaming from the united people of Israel. Building the Third Temple is therefore done within us and between us, mending our broken ties and covering our hate with love, or as King Solomon wrote, “Love covers all crimes.”

Just as we invoke a negative force when we separate from one another, we invoke a positive force when we connect with one another. This force inverts our mutual suspicion into mutual concern, and our isolation into mutual responsibility. The beauty of this power is that we maintain our individuality and fulfill our personal traits while contributing to society and collecting benefits from others’ contributions. In this way, we weave a “blanket” of connection that covers our separation.

The Gene of Unity

Today’s Judaism is fractured and fragmented into more pieces than probably anyone can count. But the “gene” of unity lies latent within each of us, and we can bring it back to life if we so choose. If, despite our bursting egos, we will strive to join forces toward our common goal as a Jewish nation—to provide humanity with an example of unity at a time when it so badly needs it—we will accomplish our vocation.

Now is the time to be proactive. The world is spiraling downward, and it is plainly visible that ego has at least a large stake in this descent. But no one knows how to stop our collective suicidal conduct. We, the Jews, the bearers of the tenet, “love your neighbor as yourself,” must rise to the challenge, put down our egos, and unite above them. This is the true and positive message we should take from The Three Weeks, and it is the one thing that will guarantee our safety and happiness in Israel and the world over.
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From The Jerusalem Post 7/31/16

Filed under: Holidays, Israel, Israel Today, New Publications - 1 Comment →

Comment: If you look online, you can find quite a few responses from Israelis about the terrorist attack in Nice, such as, “Now you can feel what we feel,” or “Now you see what happens to us in Israel.” Generally speaking it is impossible to change Israeli Jews.

Answer: It is indeed impossible to change Israeli Jews but they are right in a way because it is very unpleasant to live in Israel, to fight, to suffer, to realize that you are being pressured on all sides, and to see the indifference and even the arrogance of your own people in France, America, and in other countries. If the Jews are sent to the gas chambers, everyone will be sent there, including the anti-Semitic Jews.

Everywhere they live they adopt attitudes that are radically opposite to Israel so they won’t be associated with the Jewish state.

Comment: It is surprising since, in fact, the safest place for them to be is Israel.

Answer: They don’t think so. They look at the map and for them Israel is a tiny piece of land. “Where could we find a place to live there? We will be torn to pieces there.” They estimate everything according to kilograms and kilometers.

Question: What kind of blows will hit the French people and the French Jews?!

Answer: We have already seen that blows don’t help. Even before entering the gas chambers they would still express their opinions because their egoism is spiritual and no corporeal afflictions will correct it. The only thing that can bring about a change is the influence of the Upper Light, by gradually teaching them the wisdom of Kabbalah by social circles, drawings, and articles.

Question: Will that help them more than afflictions?

Answer: Yes. The sufferings will increase their resistance and their oppositeness because their arrogance, boastfulness, and foolish pride puts them in a more rigid position.

I am not deluding myself that the terrorist acts will force them to wake up. What would a series of revolutions and terrorist attacks lead to? Nothing, they will not learn anything. Only the dissemination of the wisdom of Kabbalah can change people. Let’s hope that we will succeed.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/17/16

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Question: What is hindering the people of Israel and all the Jews in the world from uniting? Why don’t other peoples have this problem?

Answer: The other peoples have the same problem and even more so! But they aren’t founded on the idea of consolidation, like we are. We possess the method of unity! Therefore, the nations of the world are pushing us to begin to use it.

Question: So why doesn’t anything succeed?

Answer: It is because our people don’t know and don’t want to know that they have this method, the wisdom of Kabbalah. It is specifically this that talks about how it is necessary to unite and how to show this to the rest of the peoples.

But no one wants to listen. Check yourself: how important it is to you, what will you do, and when will you think about it next? It turns out that we, the Jews, prevent ourselves! Anti-Semites are right when they accuse us of being a problem for the whole world, because only we have the uniting technique called “Kabbalah.” But we do not want to use it and lead the world to the good bright future!

It is not important to the anti-Semites how many achievements we have brought to the world, how many Nobel Prizes we have, and that we want to be good to them. The world requires something else. The one thing that it wants from us is that we transform it into a better world with happy people!

This is possible to attain only through consolidation. Give humanity an example of unity. This is the only thing missing in our fragmented and miserable world. Show that people can live together happily in unity and connection between them and that the method is in our hands! It is called the wisdom of Kabbalah and we have to use it. We haven’t used it for 2,000 years, and now the time has arrived to begin using it and bringing the world to happiness.

Question: Would there be peace in the whole world if we were happily and joyfully singing and dancing in circles in Israel?

Answer: If this method could be summed up by our singing and dancing in circles, everything would be simple. But it is much more complicated, it is universal and profound. It is unique in that it reveals how to reach the higher management. This is a very wise, serious and internal global method. It is possible to read what scientists, thinkers, and philosophers have written about the wisdom of Kabbalah and to understand what it is. This is the only asset of our world.

Question: If the process of unifying were to begin in Israel, would the world around us then change?

Answer: Absolutely! Both the Arabs and the anti-Semites would become our friends. Nobody, except the Jews has freedom of choice. What do the anti-Semites seem to say? “You hold the key to our happiness! You are the reason for all the evil in the world!” So we can become the reason for all the good.

Let’s do this! There is no reason to sit and cry about this, drawing a bitter future upon us again. We must wake up and approach this question seriously. Really great powers are in our hands. We can make ourselves and the entire world happy!
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From the Webinar 5/8/16

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New Life 522 – From A New Society To A New Family
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

In the last decades we have gone through a dramatic change. Outbreaks, fights, and family conflicts have become commonplace.

The solution to problems in the family will be found only when we know where nature is leading us, what the law of equivalence of form is, and we equalize our form with Him. All of us must become one big family. When we build a new society, families will get along, there will be love, consideration, and reciprocity; everything that we want to be in the family we must create in society by ourselves.

In the society we are building, every person will begin the day with 15 minutes of watching something about corrected interpersonal relationships. After that at work, the day will begin with a connection workshop about the right relationships between people.

At the end of the day we will move on to a workshop that will prepare us to return home and how to act calmly and to relate to the members of the family at home. Nationwide social education processes like these will bring us to the feeling of a wonderful life; we will be in the clouds. This will heal our connections with the members of the family and co-workers and will also buy security for us.

The direction is: each one must see how he transcends his egoism to a higher life. So that each one will have the forces to relate to the family at home nicely, social support is needed. This future state will be called the next world, a corrected world in which the force of bestowal and love will prevail among us.

Without a nationwide process of social education, no family will succeed in contending with the growing egoism alone. The growing ego will bring every member of the family to close himself off in his own corner without any connection to the others. It is worthwhile conducting a family workshop: Let’s talk about what a good family is, what will let us make concessions, and so on….

Only the education of the people will bring education of the family. The direction is: All of us are friends; all of us are family.
From KabTV’s “New Life 522 – From A New Society To A New Family,” 2/15/15

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Filed under: Education, Integral Upbringing, Israel Today, Man and Woman, Marriage, New Life, Society of the Future, Unity, Workshops - No Comments →

Question: Why doesn’t the wisdom of Kabbalah save the Palestinians? Why do the Israelis, who are supposed to show the world a model of morality, world suppress the Palestinians?

Answer: First of all, the wisdom of Kabbalah is not meant to save anyone. It is designed to teach people the correct relationships between them, and then the whole world will be saved. Secondly, I don’t think that the Jews suppress the Arabs. I have been living in Israel for over forty years and I believe that it is impossible to coexist in peace if the whole world engages only in provoking the clash between these two nations.

Today, I can say only one thing: no country in the world besides Israel cares about peace with the Palestinians, none. They all benefit from the fact that someone else risks himself for them.

Question: Most genetic research shows a great similarity between the genes of the Jews and the Palestinians. Both belong to the Semitic race but simply have different religions. Are there any real genetic differences between the Jews and the Palestinians?

Answer: The people who are called Philistine*[1]/ Palestinians became extinct 3,300 years ago. Therefore Palestinian is not a nationality whereas Arab, French, German, etc. are nationalities. This nation does not exist today, and if people are born in the small region close to the sea once called Palestine, it doesn’t mean that they are Palestinians.

If humanity worries about the future, there is no point provoking the conflict between the Arabs and the Jews. Unfortunately no one really cares about establishing real peace. Everyone thinks only about how they can profit from this conflict, and thus entice the two nations against one another. Moreover, they take advantage of this situation in their own countries for purely political purposes, like France has been doing lately.

Question: If that’s the case, how can we establish peace?

Answer: There is no way we can do it unless the Jews themselves restore it. It is actually the Jews who can do it, not the way the world thinks, but by uniting and showing humanity the great force that is revealed when this unity manifests in the world. The key to happiness is only in the hands of the Jews!

[1] Palestina is the name of the entire Holy Land. It is the Hebrew version of the name of the non-Hebrew name Palestine, which has been commonly used for ages, while “Falestine” is an Arab term rooted in the Arabic being.
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From the Webinar 5/8/16

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In the News (The Boston Globe): “Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the Boston-based publisher of Hitler’s notorious anti-Semitic manifesto “Mein Kampf,” has decided to donate the book’s proceeds — reportedly tens of thousands of dollars annually in past years — to a local organization that works directly with aging survivors of the Holocaust. …

“The decision marks a sharp shift for the publishing firm, which was criticized this spring after the Globe reported its plans to give royalties and profits from the book to Boston-area cultural organizations for projects to promote general themes of tolerance, not necessarily linked to Holocaust issues or combatting anti-Semitism.

The publishers of “Mein Kampf” in Boston have declared that all the sales profit will go to the Boston Fund which helps holocaust survivors. Having consulted the Boston Jewish Federation, the publishers have decided to transfer all the money to the Jewish fund which will help finance the medical and social needs of holocaust survivors.

“Andrew Russell, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s director of corporate social responsibility, said the publisher will give the funds in an ongoing multiyear grant to the Waltham-based Jewish Family & Children’s Service, which provides care to elderly Holocaust survivors through its Schechter Holocaust Services program. Russell said the publisher consulted with Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston before making the decision. …

“In the summer of 2015, however, the company switched course, asking Boston-area cultural organizations such as the Museum of Fine Arts and the Boston Children’s Museum to submit proposals for projects that would promote a more general message of tolerance. …

“But the plan backfired when the Children’s Museum, which had submitted a successful proposal, retreated from the deal, unsettled by the money’s association with the slaughter of some 6 million Jews.”

Answer: This news item turns my stomach and makes me gag. It smacks of a special fanaticism. The publishers want to show that they publish Mein Kampf for apparently educational purposes, while the Jews, as always, are willing to accept any money. The conclusion is that the publishers want to launder and justify themselves and even demonstrate publicly that they are taking the responsibility, which no one ever took. And they are seemingly doing so for no profit, with no benefit for themselves. This begs the title: “Hitler Helps Victims.”

Question: How can the Jews accept that!?

Answer: It doesn’t surprise me anymore, especially after their calm response to what is happening in America: supporting Obama for two terms while he lets millions of radical Muslims enter the US during his presidency! They have thus prepared themselves for the end. Now the same Jews will vote for Mrs. Clinton and then against Israel, against the only place where they can be saved in the not-so-distant future. Nothing surprises me anymore. It seems that they have totally lost any sense of reality. They think that they can be saved, just as the Jews in Europe thought that they could save themselves from Hitler.

The problem is that they don’t think about where the emergency exit is. They have no sense that they need a shelter and that the only safe place for them can be Israel. They don’t feel the need for such a safe place, and so they are digging a hole for themselves, since the future social and political movements will be Nazi movements, totally anti-Semitic!

Baal HaSulam, at the time, wanted to encourage the Jews to control their own destiny, but he did not succeed because no one wanted to listen to him. When I speak about controlling our fate, I am not talking about high ideas and corrections in the supreme governance, but only about what is actually in the hands of the Jews if they so wish. No one wanted to hear about it, not before WWII and not after the war.

Today, we are speaking about the same situation, but they still don’t want to listen to us, not in Israel and not in the world. The Jews are actually in a state of blindness once again. Maybe after the next Holocaust they will come to the correct decision.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/3/16

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