Entries in the 'Nations of the World' Category

The Essential Secret Of The Jews, Part 59

From the book The Essential Secret of the Jews, M. Brushtein

The Postulates Of The Theory of Integrality

We complicate our life ourselves, deprive it from confidence, bring fear and limitations into it.

For life to emerge, there must be an incredible coincidence of the unique circumstances.

The internal program pushes us to develop and forces us to learn about the surrounding world.

The human being will face the stage of denial of his nature.

“What is the meaning of life?” – is the question that concerns people today.
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My Self-Judgment Day

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why is an offense against a person worse than an offense against the Creator? Does it mean that a person cannot manage with the Creator unless he manages with those around him?

Answer: You cannot turn to the Creator if there are people in the world whom you have harmed. We can influence the Creator only through people according to the law of “from the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator.”

After all, the Creator is concealed and we can only reveal Him by giving to people. This is the reason that the wisdom of Kabbalah is called the concealed wisdom. It teaches us how to truly give to people in order to discover the Creator behind them. If we don’t know that, we will never be able to do people good by our giving, then we will not be able to bestow upon the Creator either. It turns out that we will end our life without any positive outcome.

Question: Suppose I have hurt a friend and want to make up with him. Is it enough to ask for his forgiveness as is customary before Yom Kippur?

Answer: Of course it isn’t enough if you only ask  for the friend’s forgiveness just to cleanse yourself before the Creator on Yom Kippur. In order to do that you are ready to give the friend anything as a gift as long as you can be sure that he will forgive you and you will be able to justify yourself before the Creator.

But this is better than nothing since we come to Lishma (for Her sake) from Lo Lishma (not for Her sake). Truly making peace with a friend means to start loving him, which means to restrict your personal desires and be truly ready to do everything for him. This is the correction of the intention in the heart when there is no self-calculation left, which means that whatever happens to me doesn’t matter. Such a correction called true bestowal is required of us and only the wisdom of Kabbalah can teach us it.

We may say that the essence of Yom Kippur is the summing up, the clarification, of how many restrictions I can perform on myself so that I can act in love of and bestowal to others after that day. Through the love of people I will attain the love of the Creator. The “day of judgment” is the day of my self-judgment.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 9/30/14

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Five Prohibitions Of Using The Ego

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If it is important to correct the intentions and not the actions, I don’t understand how this is possible. We can do everything with some effort, but we have no control over our intentions.

Answer: But this is the whole idea of the correction. This is actually what the Torah demands of us: the correction of the heart. All the commandments were given only so we could purify our intentions by them.

Our actions are worthless without the right intentions. The whole general system of nature called the Creator, the whole huge mechanism of the creation, takes only our intentions into account and not our desires.

Question: How is the fasting on Yom Kippur related to this?

Answer: The fasting on Yom Kippur reminds us that we should stop receiving egoistically and start bestowing unto others above our self-benefit. A person’s desire is made of five layers: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut and so there are five prohibitions on Yom Kippur as a sign of the restriction of these egoistic desires: the prohibition of eating and drinking, the prohibition of washing, the prohibition of anointing, the prohibition of wearing leather shoes, and the prohibition of sexual intercourse.

Thus, we cease to receive and then we have to change to bestowal. But in order to start bestowing unto others, we first have to totally restrict our egoistic desires and intentions of self-love and stop worrying about ourselves completely. This means that I should stop using all the black areas that appear on the X-rays of my heart during the ten days of repentance that precede Yom Kippur.

This is the essence of Yom Kippur. I cannot perform actions in order to bestow yet. On that day I only restrict my ego so as not to receive anything for myself. Even if I am allowed to receive, it is only in order to pass it through me and give it to others.

But this will happen later, while on Yom Kippur there is a total restriction, five prohibitions. This symbolizes the fact that a person doesn’t even use his most essential desires. Eventually we reach the same revelations as the prophet Jonah, by clarifying what is the most important thing in person’s life.

Although Jonah wasn’t an ordinary person but a prophet, we have to see the difficult missions that the Creator gives us. First Jonah wanted to escape his mission to bestow unto others, but eventually he was forced to carry it out, by passing on the wisdom of connection and unity, love, and bestowal to the whole world, which the people of Nineveh embody.

On Yom Kippur I must forget myself and totally focus on the benefit of others: first our people and then the rest of the world. This is the mission of the Israeli nation, as Kabbalists tell us. By accepting this work, we begin to correct our actions of bestowal when Yom Kippur is over, and the holidays that follow Yom Kippur symbolize that.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 9/30/14

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The Essential Secret Of The Jews, Part 55

From the book The Essential Secret of the Jews, M. Brushtein

The Animal Is Not The Human Being

The animal, unlike the human, lives according to the laws of nature, but in nature it is not accepted to kill anyone for profit and for the sake of profit. Animals in general are much more peaceful than most people think. By the way, animals prefer not to deal with the “king of nature.”

Scary stories that are told about the wolf (just as the tiger) are embellished by the fantasy of idle people and nearly all of them contain little truth.

A pack of wolves, maddened by hunger, on occasion can attack people, even adults that are armed; it may happen that wolves kill and eat a human, but in any case, the threats of wolves in the countries where the wolf populations are large is not as great as it is often imagined.

A lone wolf rarely attacks an adult, even one armed only with a club; this behavior can be caused only by special circumstances, such as a rabid wolf or female wolf fearing for her cubs. (Alfred E. Brehm, Brehm’s Life of Animals)

An animal is certainly not a human. Animals are not capable of the following:

“With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 per cent. will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 per cent. certain will produce eagerness; 50 per cent., positive audacity; 100 per cent. will make it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 per cent., and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged.” (Thomas Joseph Dunning)

A surreal picture is in front of us. The human being, the highest degree of nature, behaves much worse than animals. Why does intellect, which a man is so proud of, bring much more harm than good? Why is the human able to do such unspeakable things to his own kind?

Now Dadon has reached the tent…

Staggers backward: sight appalling,

Hard before his eyes lie fallen,

Stripped of helm and armour chain,

Both his noble princes, slain,

Pierced each by the other’s charge;

And their wandering mounts at large

On the mead all stamped and scored,

On the bloodied meadow-sward . . .

‘Boys . . .my boys . . ‘ the father groaned,

‘Strangled both my hawks,’ he moaned,

‘Life is forfeit – woe is me . . .

Here were killed not two but three.’

Wail of men and master merges

Soon resound with heavy dirges

Gorge and cliff, the mountain’s heart

Shakes. Behold, the curtains part

On the tent. . .The prize of maidens,

Queen of Shamakhan, in radiance

Lambent like the morning star,

Quietly salutes the Tsar.

Silenced by her brilliant gaze

Like a nightbird by the days,

Numb he stands – her sight outstuns

Aye! the death of both his sons.

(Aleksander S. Pushkin, “The Tale of the Golden Cockerel”)

Source: The Tale of the Golden Cockerel http://www.artrusse.ca/pushkin/tale_cockerel.htm

And does this creature stand on the top of the development of nature? It looks at least illogical. How could he, who is capable of destroying millions of his own kind, be above everyone else? How did it happen that the “king of nature” is able for some illusory ideas to destroy not only others, but even himself?

And at the same time.

How can all this be combined with high ideals, culture, art, moral principles and powerful intellect?
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Medicine For The World

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How should we relate to the expressions of anti-Semitism more correctly? Should we continue to ignore its growth in the US and hope that it will go away by itself, or will it grow to such an extent that later it will be too late?

Answer: Nothing will go away by itself because the anti-Semites are right. Listen to what they say: The Jews are responsible for all the problems in the world. They feel that they depend on us. How would you relate to people who cause you harm and that you depend on?

They have been claiming this for centuries. We have to listen to what they say and to understand from where it stems. We have to bring the idea of unity and connection to the world: the theory, the practical experience and the example for it; as it is written, “become a Light unto the nations.”

We, on the other hand, don’t do that but show the world the opposite, how it is possible to get along better in life egoistically. Unless we connect and become a good example for the nations of the world, the world’s attitude towards us will not change for the better. It will constantly get worse to the extent that the world becomes increasingly more global and mutually connected on the one hand, and torn internally by the ego, on the other.

Thus the tension is constantly growing as nature closes in on us by connecting us from the outside while on the inside we are torn apart, repulsed by each other. In this state, the wisdom of Kabbalah, which means not only the idea but also the practical experience of our right connection and unity, is the medicine for the whole world without which the world will not survive.

If we don’t start to connect and unite properly, we will reach a third world war and great sufferings, which are mentioned in the writings of Kabbalists. They also tell us how we can unite in a quick and proper way. It is very easy to practice and this will immediately be reflected in the nations of the world. If we want the nations of the world to change their attitude towards us, and as it says in Isaiah “to admire us,” it is possible only if we give them the right example of mutual cooperation among all of humanity, an example of the order in the world, so that there will be total mutual dependence.
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From A Talk in USA, 8/6/14

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The Results Of The Thousand Year Race

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The annual cycle of the Jewish holidays symbolizes the series of states through which a person passes on his way toward connection and unification, and this is the goal of the evolution of the entire human species. Every holiday represents a particular stage on the way toward unification.

Why does this entire cycle finish in the month of Elul where we summarize the results of what we went through and attained, and judge ourselves?

Answer: Israel means Yashar-El (Straight to God), meaning a desire directed straight toward the higher force of nature. The Creator is nature, and, so, what is being spoken about here is our balance with nature. There was a time when Abraham discovered that this is precisely the goal of human evolution that we must reach. That group of students that he gathered around him in ancient Babylon and brought to the land of Canaan eventually became the people of Israel.

This was a community of people that defined the attainment of equivalence of form with the higher power as the goal. The higher power of nature is the power of bestowal and love. This is what Abraham taught those Babylonians who followed him: love of one another, bestowal, and benevolence. Benevolence is the original and primordial characteristic of Abraham.

During his investigations, Abraham discovered the goal of the existence of the human species, which is to reveal the love between all people or, at least at first, among some of them. Thanks to relationships like these, they attained similarities between them: equality and conformity to nature, to its inner power called the Creator.

Nature is based upon a single force that connects all parts of creation together, these being the parts of the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking. All of them are included in a single system that connects all of the elements together in general harmony and working together.

Just like a working cell of our body inside which there is a whole world, a countless number of mutually connected elements—like genes, bacteria, and whatever might be there—but everything is found in a general harmony. If there is no harmony, then this is a disease.

All of nature is like a cell; it is a single, closed, integral, global system, and is absolutely connected. There are no parts in it that could operate independently of the others and develop separately from them. All development is mutually connected and precisely defined.

Lately, science is discovering how much we lack free choice and that everything is determined by genes, hormones, and combinations of chemicals and various bacteria. What I will do depends only upon this—which decisions I will accept, to whom I will be attracted, and who I will avoid.

We naively think that we have free choice, yet we don’t. We only obediently carry out the commands of nature. A person is found within nature, and all of his development is determined through a combination of the internal forces within him. He also obeys and blindly follows his instincts like animals.

By what means is a person ready to influence his development? First of all, we must understand that nature has only one law, and it is general unity. This law connects together the parts of nature into a single system, except for one part, which is the human being.

Humanity, ultimately must also reach that same connection and attain balance with all the parts of nature. Yet this is as a result of blows and pressure through suffering and troubles during thousands of years of evolution. This has cost us a multitude of suffering and pain.

After all, we know how nature is ready to push us. For thousands of years, human society has advanced and lived as if in a wild jungle where one devours the other. Yet, at some stage of development, we suddenly say to ourselves, “Enough!”

This means that feelings and intelligence are discovered in us at such a level that we begin to think and wonder about the reason for our endless torment. For what are we compelled to suffer? What useful conclusions can be derived from these sufferings? Who enjoys our life? To whom can we give pleasure?

These questions pop up in our minds and hearts by themselves. From the blows and the pain, we begin to ask, “What does this mean?” We already have gone through the first and second world wars. How much more is it possible to endure? Today, the world is found on the threshold of a third world war. We already have discussed this quite openly.

This is a life under the conditions of terror. There are terrible problems, a feeling of powerlessness. Half of the world throws surplus products in the trash, whereas the other half is dying of starvation. The humanity of today possesses such immense powers and possibilities, but look at what we do with these immense abilities and potential.

We are compelled to stop here and summarize, to judge ourselves. The month of Elul represents this repentance. Following this, we receive a kind of understanding and knowledge. We become a little wiser. The Ohr Hochma (Light of Wisdom) appears in us, saying to us, “You are suffering, but it is possible not to suffer. It is up to you only to understand from where suffering comes to you. Then you will know how to be released from it.”

All of these questions are awakened in us, and call for a search and investigation of the cause for suffering. They are awakened as a result of the unique illumination of the understanding in our heart and mind that is called Elul. The word “Elul “is an acronym for “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine,” Ani Ledodi Vedodi Li, (Song of Songs 6:3).

“My beloved” is that immense system of nature that develops us. We receive a special sign from it, experience unique feelings and mental insight that makes it possible for us to understand what the system of nature wants from us, what it is thinking about, and what it demands. The entire general system of creation is called the Creator, or nature, which is the same thing.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 9/14/14

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The Essential Secret Of The Jews, Part 54

From the book: The Essential Secret of the Jews, M. Brushtein

The Postulates Of The Theory of Integrality

The external environment can affect the development of inclinations.

The human being loses human shape faster than a domesticated animal become wild.

Egoism – is our software.

The term “human being” has no relation to our animal body.

It is difficult for the human being to “escape” himself while in contact with others.
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The Common Game Against Each One’s Private Ego

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Children in the Diaspora usually go to Jewish schools called Hebrew school. These are special schools that are open on Sunday, where children learn Hebrew, Jewish history, and Jewish customs. Let’s try to imagine a school where unity is taught. What should it look like? What will happen there?

Answer: People learn there by connection, by playing connection games and by having discussions in circles. Of course, children also engage in physical activities like games with balls, etc., but they don’t play against each other, only together.

We must develop games that are not based on competition between individuals and between teams. Instead, a person has to compete against himself in order to properly be incorporated within the common activity and to see himself as his own competitor.

This doesn’t apply only to children, because the parents also have a problem. They must be taught the principles of family life and how to impart to their children a general, integral attitude towards that world.

The relevant issues should be discussed in circles where everyone connects and then the discussion should be continued and expanded at home.

Question: Is this what will make a child Jewish?

Answer: Of course, since a Jew is someone who yearns for unity and connection with everyone. A Jew is someone who knows that his role in life is to be a Light unto the nations and to bring correction to the world through connection. This is especially true in our times, in the time of the global crisis when there is no other remedy but the connection between all the parts of reality, in perfect harmony, in one circle.

Generally speaking, it isn’t about a Jewish school, but about a social community school where the whole family comes to practice connection. When they perform these exercises, they feel that suddenly a certain power surrounds them and changes their perception of reality so that the world seems different.

Connections and relationships begin to change internally under the effect of the force of the unity that is invoked by the Light, and it raises people to a new level of understanding. They begin to see the world as they have never seen it before, as if they wearing glasses that brings into focus the fogginess and blurriness of their nearsightedness, and they become as one connected picture, stretches into the distance.

This is exactly the feeling that both children and adults will feel, starting from their very first workshop.

Question: Will this connection help overcome the gaps between them?

Answer: The connection will not only help, but will also solve all problems. The connection gives us power, not in order to overcome hardships and to win, since when we are united, there is no one to defeat. The unity between us does all the work and drives away all our enemies, all the interferences, illnesses, and problems, everything that comes from self love.

At the same time, there is no need to give up our opinions and our beliefs, but only to add our exertion in order to connect with the whole nation, with all of Israel; that’s all.

This is what the Torah and current research of connection the wisdom of the crowd tell us. The Israeli nation must be the first to connect. Otherwise the force of connection will not be able to go through it to the nations of the world.

Question: Why is it the Israeli nation that has to pave this path?

Answer: Not everyone agrees that we are special, but history proves it is so. We are special because the whole world depends on us. Although this connection is invisible for the time being, the nations of the world do feel it. There are those who believe that their lives would be much better without us, but there are others who know that we need to change and that this change will be for the benefit of the world.
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From KabTV’s “Anti-Semitism” 6/18/14

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A Small Collective Effort Can Change The World

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we unite more closely around the events that are taking place in Israel? How can we affect and help strengthen the groups in Israel on the one hand, and at the same time, use this situation in order to advance and leap to a new level?

Answer: The point is not just about Israel, but that the Creator wants to raise the created being to a state of adhesion with Him. We have to see everything in a much more global manner and not be confused by what we see in the corporeal world.

There is a created being that includes the different levels of the desire and every desire has to reach complete compatibility with the Upper Light, with the Creator, and with the attribute of bestowal. This is what the Creator is leading us to.

The less egoistic, purest part of creation begins to yearn for the Creator and so it is called Israel, Yashar-El (straight to the Creator). Although in our world, even though this part seems the most egoistic, it isn’t so.

It fact all the nations of the world make up the whole great ego that is divided into billions of tiny pieces and so it isn’t expressed in its full intensity. The ego of Israel is concentrated in a small number of souls. How many people in the world yearn for the Creator? Let’s say a million such people and all the others number seven billion.

This is the reason that people think that we are much more egoistic: we demand to reveal the Creator, the spiritual world. We have to understand that we are one vessel (the vessel of the general soul). We have to yearn to go forward, and not to help Israel. Israel also doesn’t have to help us, but we must come together. The Creator has arranged these conditions for us that we don’t chose. They stem from the incompatibility between the Lights and the vessels, from the oppositeness between them.

The Light of Ein Sof (Infinity) is in a certain level of compatibility between the vessel of the world of Ein Sof at any given moment and they must reach absolute connection. The relationship between them determines everything that happens in the world.

Therefore, we have to accept this as an essential condition and see each of these conditions as the optimal condition that was chosen by the Light and the vessel. It is the law of physics that operates here and not anyone’s desire. It says in the Torah, in the language of the Haggadah, that this what the Creator wanted.

“He gave a law that cannot be broken,” and so we have to see objectively that every state that was given to us stems from the adaptability between the Light and the vessels. Although these states are very painful and unpleasant, all the internal and external states, the general and the private, were all given to us only so that we will connect more tightly among us. This is the only way we can fulfill them correctly.

The right fulfillment of each of these states is only in the connection between us that is aiming at resembling the attribute of bestowal, the attribute of the Light, until the Light is dressed, incorporated, and felt within us. We have to yearn for that at any given moment, despite the difficult conditions that the Creator gives us. Sometimes they are very unpleasant, confusing, humiliating, complicated and disturbing, making it difficult for us to understand what is actually going on.

By the way, this is the best state, which indicates that a person has transcended from one state to another, sometimes it may be very painful and accompanied by physical problems. I saw how my teacher Rabash used to go through them. He actually didn’t understand where he was and what he was doing. I used to take him by the hand and help him sit by the table and serve him a cup of coffee and then another, and then gradually we would begin to speak and come back to himself and turn to Light. But at first, he was simply a body that could hardly move.

We should understand that since each of us includes all of the desires, starting from the still, vegetative, and animate, all the way to the human level. We will gradually go through all of them.

We have to help Israel be together with us in one connection among us. All those who yearn for the Creator are called Israel. We have to remember our descent from Babylon and reach the state that all of modern Babylon called Israel yearns for the Creator. How? We do this by working together.

I hope that the Creator won’t leave us and will not hold back our advancement. The tension in the world will not subside, but will grow. Even if we are bombed, if there are demonstrations against us, or pressure put on us, the main thing is that we continue to yearn for the Creator above all that and bless every situation, since at least in this way we can develop. But we have to try to do it differently.

On the whole, we will later discover that by making one small change in our intention, we can change everything that happens in the corporeal world from bad to good. In one day our enemies and the missiles can turn into something wonderful and that is the absolute opposite! Together we will be able to do that and we will witness all of it!
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From the Convention In Toronto “Day One” 8/4/14, 1st Meal 

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Exile: On The Verge Of The Light And Darkness, Part 1

Dr. Michael LaitmanLet’s go into more details of the period of the destruction of the First Temple. In essence, it was a descent from the level of love, the obliteration of the “Temple of Love” among people.

Previously, all twelve tribes of Israel observed the principle of “loving their neighbors as themselves.” Then, this notion collapsed. As a result, ten tribes out of twelve vanished. In other words, they were spread throughout the world.

Formerly, they existed at the level of “loving their neighbors.” After their descent to a lower level, they had nothing to do in the land of Israel since they were no longer connected with the general desires that had to be corrected for the sake of reaching other levels. The two tribes were quite enough to reach the lowest degree and stay at this level.

Let’s put it this way: all twelve tribes fell from the level of love to the lowest degree. The difference between these two steps actually comprises the ten tribes. That’s why they vanished.

Afterward, they led humanity towards the contemporary period: the ultimate dead end, the crisis that nowadays embraces the entire world.

Question: What do you mean by “they led”?

Answer: Many key historic characters came from the ten tribes. After ascertaining this fact, people will blame the Jews for “spoiling” everything. They will accuse them of purposeful guidance of innocent humanity towards the global crisis throughout history.

Question: Is it true that all leaders who directed the most significant and large-scale historical processes and influenced them come from the ten tribes?

Answer: Yes, it is true. The majority of them are simply a part of the ten tribes.

Question: Do they still run humanity to the crisis, the deadlock we are currently in?

Answer: Yes.

Question: What happened with the other two tribes?

Answer: They fell from the level of the First Temple. It was the reason why they lost the war with Babylonians, their “neighbors” who were ruled by Nebuchadnezzar. After he conquered the Jews, he took some of them into captivity and left some in the land of Israel.

Only a very small number of the Jewish people returned and re-connected with their brothers later. So, the two tribes started to build the next temple.

Question: Do they still have a spark living in them?

Answer: Not just a spark! They never hit the very bottom. They fell from the level of “loving their neighbors” to the level of a good connection among them, a so called “level of Hassadim” which in essence is about “not harming each other,” establishing good relationships and being courteous with their neighbors: “I am not against you; you are not confronting me.” This is also a spiritual level since it is built above the ego.

That’s why after the Jews returned from Babylon they built the Second Temple, which was constructed under the guidance and direct supervision of the Babylonian tsar Cyrus, Esther’s son. It’s a “twisted” story of “family” relationships…
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From KabTV’s “Babylon Yesterday and Today” 9/3/14, Part 6

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