Return Issue

Question: Why, even in our time, do religious Jews who live, say, in America, not move to Israel? What is the reason?

Answer: There are two reasons. The first reason is that American Jews have no religious incentive to live here. It is enough for them to come here once a year. Moreover, today it is not a problem at all. Basically, they come here three times a year for three major holidays.

The second reason is that it is said that the Jews will return to the holy land together with the Messiah (with the deliverer), but he is not there. So, if he is not there, then where should I go? I’m not going to break the basic commandment to return.

That is, returning when you are ready and going is an anti-religious, Zionist movement. And in the religious sense, the Jews will arrive and populate the Land of Israel together with the Messiah.

Comment: Nevertheless, there are many religious Jews living here.

My Response: Different religious trends interpret the question of return in different ways.

Question: What is the reason that many religious and non-religious movements, including the peoples of the world, believe that the place of the Jews is in the Land of Israel?

Answer: It should be so. Basically, the people should return to their land. This is what the Torah says, all the prophets say so back in the days when we were expelled from our homes. After all, the Babylonian exile took place at the time of the prophets who brought us back from Babylon to this land in the period between the First and Second Temples.
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From KabTV’s “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel” 8/12/19

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Lack of Spiritual Connection with the Land of Israel

Question: From the 17th to the 19th century, one more call was added to the standard anti-Semitic claims, which was heard in different strata of society: to ask, persuade, beg Jews to return to where they came from 2,000 years ago.

For example, French philosopher Charles Fourier wrote: “Jews! Descendants of Cain and Iscariot, leave us, leave us! Cross the Red Sea again and go to the desert, to the promised land that awaits you, to the only country that suits you; you evil, rude and dishonorable people, go there!!!”

After waiting in vain for any concrete action from the Jews, statesmen took the initiative into their own hands. The French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, while in Acre, said that the Jews are the true heirs of Palestine, and urged them to admit this fact and return there. A willingness to help Jews was also expressed by American President Abraham Lincoln.

So what did the Jews do? They were in no hurry. Upon getting the rights during the period of emancipation, they rushed into politics, science, and economics and succeeded everywhere. They had no time for the land of Israel.

However, anti-Semitism had grown even more. Before, the Jews were hated for their dissimilarity, then they became like everyone else. And yet the hatred did not disappear.

What is the root of the paradox that the Jews waited so long to return to the land of Israel, and when the opportunity arose, they did not use it? Most Jews today live outside the State of Israel. What is the root of this phenomenon?

Answer: The root is very simple—the lack of connection between the people and the land. The people do not feel that their land is here, that they are attached to it. One does not feel any origins, does not see anything special in this land.

The people are divided. A person comes from the other end of the earth, meets people here who are completely different from them, who also consider themselves Jews, and even, perhaps, greater than him.

And a paradoxical picture arises: Every Jew read and was told that this was his land, and having arrived here, he did not find any connection with it. The climate is terrible, the land is dry and scorched; there are no signs of life. What is promised in it? Where is the earth flowing with milk and honey? There is none of this.

Moreover, Jews who come to Israel do not look like Jews. They live in conflict with each other. A person who came here from Europe understands the French, Germans, British, and Russians among whom he lived more; he cannot understand these Jews at all. After all, people come here mainly from the Maghreb, Asia or even more distant places. It turns out that there is nothing familiar here.

In addition, here you have to work with your hands, farm, cultivate the land so that it becomes more suitable for agriculture. It turns out that Jews have to do work that they have not done for many years.

Since the 18th century, they have been employed in industry, business, finance, science, and art. Even in Russia, where there was very strong anti-Semitism, the founders of the Russian Philharmonic Society, scientists, and artisans were mainly Jews. True, they often hid under pseudonyms, but they were all the same. And where can such conditions be found here?

Question: What does it mean to feel a connection with the earth?

Answer: The feeling of a physical connection with the land is no longer the condition that can be imposed on Jews today. This connection is internal, spiritual.

Perhaps the material connection is felt by someone who has received a special religious Jewish education. He was well stuffed with all sorts of stories about the holy land, and therefore just living on this land is already a great commandment for him.

Besides, in the past, Jews were simply paid to come and live here. Thus, several large communities were built in Tiberias, in Safed, partly in Acre, in Jerusalem, and Jaffa.

For more on this topic, read my books Like a Bundle of Reeds: why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour, and The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord.
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From KabTV’s “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel” 8/12/19

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How can tension in society be relieved?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Answer: They will not be able to unite.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Rejection of the Religious Perception of the World

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Confrontation Between Two Movements

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Ari’s Contribution to the Development of Kabbalah:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Expulsion from Spain and the Blossoming of Lurianic Kabbalah

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Disagreements Between Two Movements in the Jewish People

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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