Question: How is it really possible to reach recognition of evil, to express remorse, and repent in this world where it has become the norm to harm each other, disregard others, and deceive every day?

 Answer: Humanity developed for thousands of year in order to reach the recognition of evil in our time. All of nature around us is starting to “round off” and put pressure on us, forcing us to connect to one connected system, similar to the world of still, vegetative, and animate that is united in one symbiotic system, and people need to be connected with each other like that. This state is created now, the first time in all our history.

The Kabbalists pointed to the 20^th Century as the time that humanity would start connecting. To this end, the wisdom of Kabbalah is revealed, the method of connection, unity, and correction. But the correction is not possible as long as the ruin is not revealed, and that’s why so many problems—hatred of each other, separation, parents and children unable to find a common language, people not getting married and establishing families or divorcing—are revealed in the world.

All these are signs of the time that Kabbalists described precisely like that many years ago. Evil, hatred, and separation is revealed and people are looking for every opportunity to retreat and hide in order to take a break from each other. But we need to understand that nature obliges us to unite, leaving us no choice. We are in the framework of the laws of nature. Just as you cannot go against the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, anatomy, there cannot be disregard for the internal laws of human behavior, that is, the soul.

The wisdom of Kabbalah tells about the laws of the soul: how to assemble it all together from the separated parts of the broken Adam HaRishon. We all must connect, but not in physical bodies, but in our inner desires in order to complete each other. When we unite and connect, one mutual general virtual creature comes out that is called Adam (Man). We all work for this virtual unity and make efforts to improve it, and then inside it we will feel the upper spiritual world.

Question: What can I do if I curse everyone on the road, argue with the cashier in the supermarket, insult people that are near me in my egoistic attitude?

Answer: Everyone behaves like that. The main thing is to understand that this is bad, that is, to reveal what benefit we would receive due to our unity, for example, a million dollars. For example: if a few people unite together and each of them would receive a prize of a million dollars, everyone would run to unite if they would see such a benefit from connection.

Imagine that ten people are sitting around a roundtable. Ten is the number required for a complete measure of connection. And if we succeed in connecting, then from above a sack with $10,000,000 falls on the table, one million for each.

Then I realize that my inability to connect with others is my evil nature, my enemy. I could have gained, but my ego did not let me connect. Only this recognition is lacking.

The wisdom of Kabbalah reveals a little of what is the upper world to us. How good it is, but the condition to enter it is that we scrutinize our main obstacle, our egoism, calling it the evil inclination. We are only lacking this recognition; otherwise, we don’t think that our egoism is bad. And this is whole purpose of repentance, which is customary to do in the month of Elul before the new year. Repentance is the revelation in me of the disturbances against good connection with everyone.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 8/30/15

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Question: What is the meaning of the symbols of Rosh Hashanah: apples in honey, a fish head etc.?

Answer: A fish head symbolizes our desire to be a head and not a tail. It is because we want to determine our life by ourselves and not allow ourselves to draw us in the direction of the ego. We want to know what this life was given to us for, what the purpose of our life is, and how to fill it with meaning and make it worthwhile and significant. This is the difference between a head and a tail.

The pomegranate symbolizes the nation of Israel, the unity of all the souls in one body. This is exactly how we want to feel, united in one soul.

The apple in honey symbolizes our desire to fill our life with meaning and sweetness. It is the same apple that Adam ate and sinned because of his calculations. He meant to perform a correction for all of humanity at one time because he included all the souls in him. This is how great the egoistic desire was that was revealed in him.

But Adam didn’t succeed in performing the correction. To correct means to fill with sweetness and to ascend above our ego. The apple symbolizes our egoistic desire that was created by the Creator and when we dip it in honey and correct it we reach a good life.

Adam tried to perform this correction at one time and didn’t succeed, and so we perform it gradually—many people throughout history, one correction after another, gradually attaining the end of correction.

The apple dipped in honey is the symbol of the correction and the sweetening of the ego that allows us to use it for good.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 9/6/15

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Question: How can we start believing that relationships among the people of Israel can be corrected to such an extent that they will be an example for the entire world? After all, today we can see that they are becoming increasingly worse and the rift within the society is growing.

Answer: It is actually good that the situation is so bad, as this is forcing us to discover the cause of all evil and correct it. I am happy when transgressions are revealed, and may they come to light even more.

These transgressions existed among the people of Israel before, ever since the destruction of the Temple. Only now, they have finally emerged and floated to the surface in such a way that nothing can be done through the usual means. Things cannot be smoothed over, nor silenced, nor hidden. Only one thing remains, and that is to explore and understand their true cause.

It is then that the people of Israel will discover that they have the wisdom of Kabbalah, which speaks about this, that there are people who know what to do, and that it is worthwhile to learn from them. They will see that a whole system is already in place that should be strengthened and broadened, but that salvation will come specifically from this handful of Kabbalists.

Question: And what is this salvation? Everyone understands it in their own way, and usually one’s salvation comes to the detriment of others.

Answer: Salvation is a way out of the evil of egoism. The good is love amongst all people, with such a connection between everyone that we feel ourselves as one body. This method and its effects will spread from Israel to all countries where it will develop and fill the entire world.

Question: What does a country, where all citizens feel themselves as one body, look like?

Answer: It is like a close knit family where everyone feels at home, in his castle in the best possible sense.

Question: And how will this influence international relations?

Answer: It will force the entire world to adapt the same form as Israel. The nations of the world do not have freedom of choice in this. Today they are copying Israel’s negative form, and this is why they hate it. But when Israel will influence them in a good way, they will realize it and treat it with the same goodness.

Question: Should the people of Israel give some thought to why the world hates and blames it these days?

Answer: It is necessary to understand the root cause and stop hoping that the situation will resolve itself. From now on, there will no longer be a good life, it will only get worse.

This will be to such extent that after waking up in the morning, a person will be thinking about how to survive until evening, and when going to bed at night, he will not be sure that he will wake up in the morning. Life will become worse and worse until we fulfill our mission.

The people of Israel will not be able to escape it, because only they have the freedom of choice and determine all relationships in the world, including the relations between Russia and the United States, about which everyone is very concerned.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 8/6/15

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The month of Tishrei is coming, a special month full of holidays. The Jewish holidays are not just fulfilling a traditional obligation, they have spiritual roots derived from the forces of nature that operate in cycles, according to the rotation of the Earth around the sun and other higher reasons.

We feel that every day influences our world with different forces: One day is not like another, and one night is not like another night; we are changing all the time. There are more pleasant and better days and there are problematic days.

The month of Elul is a very good time for review of what we did in the past year and what we intend to do in the New Year.

The meaning of the name “Elul” is an acronym, “Ani LeDodi VeDodi Li (I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine)” (Song of Songs 6:3). We must understand the essential demand of the Creator, the higher force of nature. “I am my beloved’s” means that I need to examine myself this month before the beginning of the new year, in a special period of concentration of unique forces within us and our influence on the world.

We must carry out what is written in the Torah, the obligations that were received at Mount Sinai: “Become as one person with one heart” and “All Israel are friends.” Ultimately it is up to us to reach, “And you shall love your friend as yourself” and complete union.

People don’t understand what love is. In our world, this word takes on a very unclean and sexual nuance, or we connect this word with love for animals, trees, and the preservation of nature.

But the concept of love of others means connecting to feel all the desires of others and trying to fulfill them. This is like the connection of two devices; if we connect them correctly, the result is a single device all of whose parts can understand each other and work together.

That is how an engine is built so that all of its parts work in concert, like the organs of a single body that support each other. In this case, it is possible to say that there is love between them.

The Torah is speaking about love like this, about mutual connection, about understanding between everyone, when each one works for the others. If everyone works for everyone, a perfect system emerges, and this is the situation we must attain.

First only one person was created, Adam, one desire. But after that this system was shattered into a multitude of fragments that were not able to integrate with each other. Our work is to find a place for each one that is appropriate for him, and clarify in what form he must be integrated with the others. This is like a gigantic puzzle that we must assemble into one picture.

This puzzle includes 600,000 essential parts called “six hundred thousand souls,” and a further multitude of additional small fragments that are inserted between us. Every person in this world has a part of the overall puzzle because all of us are the “children of Adam,” and must compose him together.

But the main obligation in assembling this puzzle is imposed upon the people of Israel. They are the main constituents of all its billions of parts. If the people of Israel will assemble themselves correctly and will connect this puzzle correctly, then all the rest of the fragments will begin to move and search for their place. And ultimately each one will integrate with the others and become integrated in the puzzle.

In this way humanity will attain harmony, wondrous union, and the correct global integration that our world requires today so profoundly.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 8/30/15

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Question: What is the Kabbalistic meaning of Rosh Hashana, the new year?

Answer: Rosh Hashana is a new beginning, and the wisdom of Kabbalah is the wisdom of life that includes the wisdom of the universe, the wisdom of creation.

After all, it speaks about all of nature, about the totality of nature, not only our world, but also about all the higher worlds that are found above it. In the meantime, humanity doesn’t know anything about what exists beyond the limits of this world, but it still is approaching this attainment.

Rosh HaShana is the day Adam HaRishon (First Man), Adam, was created. It is precisely this event that we celebrate on this day, the creation of Adam.

But the question can be asked: How could Adam have been created 5,775 years ago if it is known that humans already lived thousands of years before then? This is proven by archaeological excavations and ancient inscriptions on stone that have survived until our day. We have found plenty of evidence for the existence of humanity in the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age.

This means that there is overwhelming evidence that humans appeared much before 5,775 years ago, and clearly the wisdom of Kabbalah agrees with this. It only adds that Adam was the first who became an Adam (Man).

In our world, there are three types of creatures: inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature. The human also belongs to the animate world.

The truth is that he has a more developed sense and reason. He builds more comfortable houses for himself than animal dens, develops commerce and industry, and explores the world that surrounds him, but it is doubtful if this makes his life happier than the lives of the animals. According to all indications, humans are only part of the animate world.

The wisdom of Kabbalah says that Adam was a human, like us, who lived 5,775 years ago. However, he is considered to be the First Man because he was the first to discover the secret of life, what we are living for, why we were created, and what there is beyond our lives in this world. He was the first to break the ceiling of this world to a higher world. After all, our world is the lowest of all the worlds, as Adam discovered. Before then, we didn’t even know about this. After entering the upper world, Adam told others about it; Adam conveyed to his students the wisdom that he discovered about the upper world and its management of us. He talked about the secret of life, that life is meaningful and purposeful.

Our life possesses a higher value because it makes it possible for us, through special activities, to break out of our world into the upper world; this physical life was given to us to attain the upper world in our lifetime and to become humans after Adam, meaning to become “the children of Adam.”

Adam is called Adam HaRishon because he was the first who rose to the next level, the upper world, where he became “like” (Domeh) the Creator, the higher power that operates there.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 9/6/15

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Question: How will our life look when the new global education process that develops consciousness within us begins? Will the people of Israel begin living like one family?

Answer: Everyone will relate to others like they were his own children. He will be happy about their success and sad about their failures.

He will love everyone, wish them well, and other people will treat him likewise. This means that “all of Israel are friends.” This way we come to a world of absolute good.

Everyone feels love towards one another and it entirely covers hatred. This is what it means to come out to freedom.

Question: Do you indeed believe that this is possible?

Answer:  I don’t just believe but know this is possible if we reveal the second power, which is the power of good. One more force will awaken within our nature that will stand against Pharaoh, the evil force. If we awaken this good force within us, it will completely neutralize Pharaoh by covering all transgressions with the clothing of love.

Let’s make this leap (Pasach), which symbolizes the Passover , and come to this good and kind world.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 3/22/15

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I am happy to invite you, dear readers, to read a special article for Rosh HaShana that I published today on Ynet and with this I also want to wish you and all of Israel a happy holiday and a good and sweet year!

This Year We Choose To Be Connected

“On Rosh HaShana, 5,776 years ago, one person succeeded in creating a connection with his surroundings. This evening, we celebrate the birthday of the first time that a connection like this was created in humanity. Rav Dr. Michael Laitman, in a special column for Rosh HaShana, explains how it is in our power to make the coming year more successful.”

I am looking at the year that has passed. It was a complex and difficult year for the people of Israel. There is no need to say very much about what we experienced, and it is clear that all of us look forward to a much better year. It depends only on us to make it better.

This evening, we are celebrating Rosh HaShana. 5,776 years ago, a special person was born whom we call Adam ha Rishon (The First Man). He was not the first person who was created; I don’t mean to say that the universe was created 5,776 years ago. This material universe has existed for 14 billion years. There is no argument about that.

What, indeed, was born 5,776 years ago is that system of unique connections that one person succeeded in creating with his surroundings, with others. That relationship that brings people together is what gives us the true reason for living, opens other worlds before us, and makes a person happy. Today, we celebrate the anniversary of the first time when a connection like this was created with humanity.

During the last 5,776 years, we have gone through innumerable situations, but something of this root is left in us. It is too small. It is distant. It comes and goes. However, on holidays, more than usual, it is still possible to feel a kind of spirit like this that envelops and connects all of us. It is because this nation was born from a special feeling of connection.

Abraham, the father of the nation, took the amorphous concept that Adam HaRishon began, and it really has developed into a method. Later, it even became a common slogan in the mouths of everyone, called, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” However, the idea of “Love your neighbor as yourself” is not a slogan. It is the foundation. It is the essential basis for our existence here. This is what makes us unique, and this is the basis for our moral values as a nation. Incidentally, this is the only thing that we can and must contribute to humanity. But that is another story.

So, on this holiday, we close a circle; or, more correctly, we open a circle, and it is always necessary to begin from the head, and today is the head, Rosh HaShana, the head of the change. It means that it is the first point in which we understand that a change in the form of the relationships between us leads also to a change in our feeling as individuals and as a society. The way is the same way that Adam HaRishon began and our father Abraham developed, and is relevant to the same degree and perhaps even more for us today as well.

I hope, wish, and yearn for a year of change. It should be a year of building the right systems of relationships between us. A year of “Love your neighbor as yourself,” a year of unity, connection, love of others that will transform our lives here and make the approaching year into a sweet and happy year. I wish for a good year for all of the people of Israel!
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From the site Ynet article.

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Question: If we were created as egoists from the start, why do we need to express regret, repent for our sins, and ask for forgiveness?

Answer: Prayer is making a judgment about our inner characteristics, obtained from the outside. The higher power of nature created our egoistic inclination, whereas we are only required to discover it and recognize its evil.

It is evil because it doesn’t allow us to connect with others and recreate the Kli of our common soul through which we feel the upper world.

A person is completely determined and defined by whatever characteristics he is born with, where he grew up, and what kind of education he received. So, we ourselves don’t sin that much, and even though it may seem to us that we have committed some sins in the past, we haven’t done anything bad. This is because nothing depends on us!

But if we clarify that the reason for all evil is our egoistic nature and we want to correct it, we have the possibility of doing this. So, let’s connect for that purpose because it is impossible to correct yourself on your own. So, I am appealing to everyone. Come, let’s correct ourselves, and we will feel ourselves in a completely different world!

All of our regret and repentance is awareness of how much we don’t want to connect with others. We begin to understand that it is possible to live well only through connection and unity, but our evil inclination is preventing us from attaining this. So, we ask the higher power of nature to connect and unite us, as it is written, “He who makes peace in His heavens, may He make peace for us and for all Israel.” (Kaddish).

Question: But what if I don’t want to relate well with others, and I am afraid they will exploit me?

Answer: We simply don’t understand how we benefit from connection and unity. It is as if we receive a sack with a million dollars as a gift. If the reward were revealed to us, everyone would want to connect. Everything depends only on the relationship between the results and the reward, and the wisdom of Kabbalah tells us how great the reward is.

Question: I am familiar with very many good people who are trying to relate well with everyone, but they haven’t gotten a million dollar prize.

Answer: The idea is that we don’t know what a good connection is. So, Kabbalah is called a science. It requires study and research. A person may invest much effort completely in vain. Many people in our world try to do good without results. They simply don’t recognize the laws of nature, so they make mistakes.

It is known that without knowing the physical laws of nature, it is impossible to do anything good. On the contrary, you only cause harm. If I don’t understand the law of gravity, I am liable to fall off a roof.

The same thing even happens with the soul. We must know the laws of our inner nature or of the soul, and then we will use them correctly and easily reach a wonderful, harmonious, peaceful life and benefit from much more than a million dollars.

In the month of Elul, we are entering a unique period. We have an opportunity to benefit greatly if we just will understand that the goal is to connect and unite among us, and the one thing that disturbs us is our ego, the evil inclination.

If we try to become freed from it with the help of the wisdom of Kabbalah, then it will provide us with all the necessary means required for correction. Then we will attain abundance and full prosperity. Between us, we will discover the upper world and begin to live a fabulous life as if we were on a cloud.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 8/30/15

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Question: How should we start the new year?

Answer: We should start the year with the recognition that we have an opportunity to become equal to the Creator, which means to relate to Him the way He relates to you. However, first you must discover that the Creator relates to you with absolute love and bestowal, and you must develop the same thing within you.

However, you don’t feel the Creator; you don’t know Him. The moment you begin to invent Him, you will create another religion, and we already have enough religions in our world.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, we have all the means to attain the Creator. Like a jigsaw puzzle, if you use everything you are given correctly, you will resemble the Creator totally.

In fact, the Creator has created this world in a state of total destruction and division. If you arrange it, you not only will become equal to Him, but also will resemble His depth, and so you will attain the same state, the same thought, the same goal, the same starting point from which He began.

You will attain the full depth of His thought, and as a result, you also will attain the Creator to some extent. Kabbalists don’t tell us about what comes next. When you reach that point, you will see for yourself.

Therefore, for us, a new year, Rosh Hashana is indeed a step toward new horizons.
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From KabTV’s “Holidays. Rosh HaShana” 8/6/15

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The month of Elul is the time for self-examination. Did you fulfill the instruction that was given at Mount Sinai and, even before that, at the time of Abraham, which is to attain connection?

The Upper Light will be dressed on us and will reveal the upper world to us to the extent that we begin to unite, and we will feel that we are living in a corrected, round, upper and harmonious world.

Therefore, a sin or transgression is what stands in our way of achieving unity among us. Anyone can examine himself from this perspective and find out how full of sins, of egoistic attributes and desires, he is, which makes him resent others.

The month of Elul is called the time of repentance, which means the return of the created being to the Creator, to resembling and being equal in form to His attributes, to love and bestowal.

Discovering our sins and transgressions is already a correction. All we must do is to acknowledge our corruption. People try to conceal their evil and hide it, while the wisdom of Kabbalah tells us to bring out your evil because, you are a complete egoist. The moment these sins and transgressions are discovered, they immediately will be corrected.

We are divided and immersed in our ego, but we must connect like the parts of Adam’s one soul. Our role is to find the way to connection and unity. We look for the way, but each time, we discover that we really don’t want to unite, and we don’t yearn for connection. This is actually our only sin, and simply discovering that is the entire correction.

A prayer is judging yourself, the desire to discover and bring out all your sins and transgressions so that they can be corrected and will disappear. Regret and repentance is not tears but the recognition of the need to unite. We see that the world is beginning to realize that without connection and unity we simply will not be able to survive.

Every time we discover different sins against connection and unity inside us, they will be corrected thanks to our revelation. We cannot correct anything by ourselves and it is our duty only to discover the evil within us and to point out the egoistic attribute of our character. This is called a prayer, judging yourself.

Question: Why is it enough to simply discover and highlight our egoistic attributes, which already is the correction?

Answer: When we discover and highlight our evil, we realize to what extent we need correction. The correction itself is done by the Light that Reforms.

When we discover our ego and our sins, we draw the Light of correction. It is written, “’I have created the evil inclination, I have created the Torah as a spice’ …since the Light in it reforms it.”

The Torah is the general Light that is around us, but it operates on us only if we discover the attributes inside us that stand in the way of our connection and unity, which means our sins.

The main thing is to determine the diagnosis because the remedy already exists! The moment we discover the ego inside us that doesn’t allow us to connect, the Light that Reforms, called the Torah, immediately operates on it and corrects this desire.

The correction allows us to connect with others, but to the extent that we connect internally and begin to feel close to one another, the Upper Light can be revealed to us and let us feel the upper world.

Our work in the month of Elul comes down to revealing the evil that doesn’t let us unite with others. During this time, the evil only is revealed, but it is corrected when the new year begins on Rosh HaShana.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 8/30/15

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