New Life 444 – Hanukkah: The Maccabean War Against The Greeks
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

What does Hanukkah symbolize? What is the war that took place between the Maccabees and the Greeks and how is it related to the goal of the creation and to the role that the nation of Israel has to fulfill?

Hanukkah symbolizes a person’s first spiritual ascent.

The Greek’s domination is a shell, Klipa, an evil force that limits our consciousness so that we will not feel the Creator. The Greeks did not demand a change in our corporeal life; they wanted to control our spirit. The Greeks objected to our worship of our God according to which, through love of others, a person connects to the Creator.

The Maccabean war was an ideological war about the definition of who and what the upper force is. The main war was between the nation of Israel, between the Maccabees and the Hellenists. The nation of Israel exists only because it has a spiritual root. If we are not connected, there is no nation of Israel.

Yashar-El means that through the love and connection between us we reach a greater love, which is the upper force. We build a shelter by the love between us that will be able to absorb the upper force that is absolute love and bestowal.

Idolatry exists even today. We worship the “God of science,” for example.

Hanukkah symbolizes our return to our internal war, to connecting to others and to discovering the upper force between us.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 444 –  Hanukkah: The Maccabean War Against The Greeks,” 10/7/14

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In the News (The Huffington Post): “CNN host Jake Tapper was on vacation Monday when his show outraged many viewers who thought the program was normalizing anti-Semitic comments.

“During a segment led by guest host Jim Sciutto about Donald Trump’s transition into the White House and whether the president-elect needs to distance himself from the blatantly racist and Nazi-sympathizing ‘alt-right,’ a chyron appeared at the bottom of the screen characterizing recent hateful comments made by white nationalist Richard Spencer.”…

“A CNN spokesperson told The Huffington Post, ‘It was poor judgment, and we very much regret it and apologize.’”

My Comment: The truth is that the Jewish people are not ordinary people like the rest of the peoples, so there is room for a question regarding them. But this is in an entirely different sense than the question that anti-Semites ask.

The Jewish people are an unusual group of people among the nations of the world. They are active, advanced, developed and possess initiative, but their uniqueness is deeper than that. In fact the Jews are not a people, but a collection of many people who populated ancient Babylon 3,500 years ago. In fact, in those times all of humanity was concentrated in Babylon. The Babylonian society experienced a crisis when people became egoistic and stopped understanding each other as described in the Bible.

Their spiritual leader Abraham advised them to get closer to each other in spite of the egoism that grew and separated them. He gathered a group of several thousand Babylonians who wanted to unite above the ego with a demand, “And you shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18), and he led them to the future land of Israel.

The word “Israel” is composed of the words Yashar-El, straight (Yashar) to the Creator (El). In other words, their goal was to reach and discover the Creator, the positive force of nature, with the help of their exaltation of love over the ego.

This group that was called Israel developed for 1,500 years. Two thousand years ago, the ego increased sharply, toppling the same level of love to the level of hatred in which all of humanity is found. The group has existed on this level among the nations of this world to this very day. Although they no longer knew what their uniqueness was themselves, that uniqueness was still felt by everyone. The thought of creation is to bring all of humanity to a state of mutual connection and complete love. The Jewish people must provide an example of this by returning to this way of life. Therefore, humanity expects and demands this from the Jews and they exhibit hatred toward them without knowing the reason why themselves.

The reason for the hatred is not religious, even people who are not Christians or Muslims, like the Korean people, for example, feel hatred toward the Jews. The demand from the Jews is to draw all of the peoples after them toward complete unity in which our next level of development will be revealed.
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In the News (Science News): “The world’s earliest alphabet, inscribed on stone slabs at several Egyptian sites, was an early form of Hebrew, a controversial new analysis concludes.

“Israelites living in Egypt transformed that civilization’s hieroglyphics into Hebrew 1.0 more than 3,800 years ago, at a time when the Old Testament describes Jews living in Egypt, says archaeologist and epigrapher Douglas Petrovich of Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada. Hebrew speakers seeking a way to communicate in writing with other Egyptian Jews simplified the pharaohs’ complex hieroglyphic writing system into 22 alphabetic letters, Petrovich proposed on November 17 at the annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research.”

My Comment: According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the Hebrew alphabet emerged because it was necessary to record and convey information from Adam HaRishon (the First Man) in the Book of Creation to the next generations. The Jews brought the Hebrew alphabet to Egypt, but even before that the Hebrew alphabet had developed into other alphabets.
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Question: Why does extremism attract people from different races and religions so much?

Answer: Today, just to be “against” gives a person the feeling that he is changing the world. The world demands change, revolution in the way of thinking and life from egoistic to general equality and unity.

Meanwhile people cannot imagine such a thing, although unconsciously they understand that they cannot agree with what is happening. But they don’t understand how to change the world and what exactly to do for this. Actually man cannot imagine the next step in the development of the world because it is completely opposite to the current state.

Therefore, the next state doesn’t appear to us instinctively as any action that has consistently appeared in the states in the development process of human society, for example, revolutions. It is a state that is given to special people to disclose: Adam, Abraham, and their followers. This knowledge cannot appear in any form in people as a result of their natural egoistic development, as the stages of development were born until now.

Now the next stage of the development of humanity is altruistic, opposite to all the previous ones. Therefore, the next state of development of humanity can be revealed to humanity only with the help of a ready example of a group of people called the “nation of Israel” that originally possess special qualities that enable them to attain this new state and later to transmit it to all mankind.
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Question: Why do the nations of the world need the wisdom of Kabbalah? Many believe that only Israel needs this.

Answer: The nations of the world specifically need it. The people of Israel are that small fraction of the nations of the world who received the wisdom of Kabbalah in their past. So, today we must restore it in us, realize it again, and disseminate it to the whole world. That is why the people of Israel exist.

Question: If so, why should we reveal the wisdom of Kabbalah to the nations of the world now since the people of Israel have not yet realized it again themselves?

Answer: It is because the time has come. The entire process is happening simultaneously. That is also how it was at the time of the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt. The Egyptians needed to know what was happening with the people of Israel who were among them. The entire process is being realized precisely according to plan and according to the spiritual laws that don’t depend on us but are found within the nature of our existence, our ego.

Humanity must gather together into a single system, a single soul; that is what humanity must attain. After that, humanity will ascend through the spiritual levels to an eternal and infinite state.

Comment: You have chosen work that is not easy.

Response: I haven’t chosen anything, this is the mission that was imposed upon me from above and I must carry it out. In a sense, it is possible to say that I am a servant. But when I see the need for what must be done, I do it and nothing else.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 10/31/16

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In the news (Fox News): “A Swedish prosecutor may have set a dangerous precedent last week in regards to the Islamic State flag.

“Prosecutor Gisela Sjovall announced last week that a 23-year-old man wouldn’t be charged after posting the flag to his Facebook page in June, according to The Local. Authorities in Laholm had investigated the man, who came to Sweden from Syria, on suspicion of committing ‘hate speech.’

“In comparison to the Nazi symbol which has come to be a symbol for prejudice against Jewish people, the same couldn’t be said for the Islamic State flag, Sjovall added.”

Question: Why is this happening even though this decision is incompatible with common sense?

Answer: This trend is completely compatible with the program of creation according to which the Muslims have to conquer Europe, subjugate it, paint it green with the color of Islam, and then together with the Europeans conquer Jerusalem.

Question: Does the Swedish prosecutor who made this decision understand this?

Answer: Definitely not, but that is what is “recorded” in the program of creation and it implements this. The Upper Light operates and influences a person and the person supposedly makes decisions and thereby expresses the view of the Upper Light. We are all in a matrix of thoughts and desires and act accordingly. There is no reason to complain about the Swedish prosecutor who is like a biological machine expressing the general current of all the forces that are operating in our world.

Question: Does this confirm once again that Islam is an extremist entity?

Answer: If Islam were not extremist in nature, they would not be coming to conquer Europe. We are indeed seeing that the Muslims have a very precise intention, coming and taking. They have many different justifications. They claim that the Europeans enslaved and oppressed them for five or ten generations. So now they can take everything for themselves. From their point of view, everything is theirs. Understandably, all Islamic currents will be extremist in nature because only Islam can oppose everyone and enslave them. Nobody believed that a revolution like this would happen, that they would arrive in Europe to conquer it, and the conquest is already close.

This entire process is happening solely and only to obligate the people of Israel to unite and in that way provide an example to the world. If the Jews will want to unite voluntarily and show the world how to do this, the world will immediately accept this example and follow it because through this unity they will draw spiritual power. Therefore, everything depends only on the Jews. It is impossible for this to change. The only question is how we will be compelled to do this, through a little suffering or much suffering.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 10/19/16

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Torah, Deuteronomy 12:5: But only to the place which the Lord your God shall choose from all your tribes, to set His Name there; you shall inquire after His dwelling and come there.

The common soul is divided into twelve tribes because it consists of the four-letter name of the Creator “Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey” (called HaVaYaH), and each of these letters includes three lines: right, left, and middle.

Four times three equals twelve parts, i.e., twelve tribes, twelve different types of work to correct the desires that must connect together into one single whole.

The place where the twelve tribes work shall be called the Third Temple – the abode of the Creator. After all, the Creator is where the above-egoistic desires, expectations, and aspirations of the entire humanity connect, as it is written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isaiah 56:7).

This was not said about the first two Temples, because they were preliminary ones and had to be destroyed and rebuilt in the form of the Third Temple that will be built in our hearts.

So far we are just beginning to spread this idea throughout the world. But the impulse has been given. We have already started to move in this direction.

When I was young and next to my teacher, it seemed to me that this was about to happen, and now I understand that it is necessary to go and work. After all, the Kabbalists worked on this all these thousands of years and did not panic, did not become depressed, and did not despair.

They knew that they had to put their little stone into the general picture: to attract more and more people, to talk to, show, and at least somehow shape them, to direct them to the vision of the future common state where we can reveal the single Creator in our common heart.

We live in a wonderful time when we make a transition from the absolute concealment of the upper world into its attainment! We begin to talk about this world, develop the method of discovering it, and disseminate it everywhere to both ourselves and the nations of the world.

Of course, this requires time. I hope that my students will have their students, who will continue this work—I am absolutely certain of it. However, when it manifests, it depends on our persistence.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 6/30/16

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Comment: The elections in the US are over and Trump has indeed won. During the race, you claimed that Trump was the better candidate. To be honest, I had many doubts about his victory and I don’t understand how it happened.

Answer: I felt that the Creator is still leading us along a smoother path in  Achishena (I shall hasten it) and not in Beito (in its time), not by blows but by support, just as you carry a stubborn child in the right direction against his will.

It is on the spiritual level, not the corporeal level where someone places his ballot or presses a button. Spiritual forces are much stronger than all the corporeal forces.

The outcome of the elections is a sign that Obama’s failing foreign policy and his support of radical Islam has come to end. Eventually it caused great damage to everyone, to the Arabs, to Europe, and to the whole world.

Obama engaged in turning different states and nations against each other, North Africa, the Middle East, Russia, etc. He left a torn world behind him and America’s status weakened in the world. Consequently, the world is now facing the threat of world war.

I don’t advise you to trust the big statistics and PR offices whose only goal is to make a profit. They deceive people and do what is beneficial for their clients. Trump who is surrounded by advisors counted on his instinct and turned to the heart of the American people repeatedly using his winning motive of making America great again.

Question: Do you believe that there will be a strong civil resistance to Trump?

Answer: I don’t think so, the upper force has helped Trump and brought his victory; the whole world has received a timeout, and especially we Kabbalists, and we have to use this time properly.

The nation of Israel has to reveal the method of unity to the world, the method of attaining the right connection between people, of attaining harmony between us and with nature.

This is our duty to the world. If we don’t do it, the world will eventually turn against us. We must understand our mission and fulfill it in order to balance the world and bring it to harmony.

Only then will the world acknowledge and understand the uniqueness of our mission, stop hating us, and even understand that the hatred they feel toward Israel stems from the fact that Israel haven’t fulfilled their mission. But now, when they begin to fulfill it, the world has to support Israel. I hope that we will succeed in our mission and save the world.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 11/9/16

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New Life #586 – Between Culture And Spirit
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Summary

There are many conflicting opinions regarding culture. Many works of art were based on hatred. Of course, those who rule want to influence education and culture, and this is true all over the world.

An artist or a composer is blessed with talent, but this doesn’t mean that they are mentally more developed than others. There are endless examples of books and plays that were written by people who hated mankind and were not intellectuals.

A person who is with a developed mind is a person who loves others, and he can be a very simple person. Education and broad cultural knowledge do not mean that a person is necessarily good or bad to others. This is measured by a person’s heart, his attitude to others, not by how much he has learned.

Studying the wisdom of Kabbalah changes a person for the better and corrects his egoistic nature. An intellectual is a spiritual person who values the good relations between people above anything else. An intellectual is a person who is above matter, above the egoistic relations between people. An intellectual doesn’t criticize others since he understands people and that a man’s heart is evil from his youth. He knows that it is only human to take advantage of everything for one’s own good, to suppress others, and he aspires to help people ascend their nature.

Even if you are educated, a composer, or a philosopher, it doesn’t mean that you are an intellectual, that you are above the ego. A cultural person is a person that everyone feels comfortable being by his side. He is not proud and doesn’t think lightly of others. Culture means knowing human nature and thus relating to everyone with love and understanding.

The original Israeli culture is a culture based entirely on “love thy friend as thyself,” and it is on this basis that the nation of Israel was founded. An educational process that will turn a person into a cultured person who can change his evil nature as required in order to reach this level.

But engaging in composition and art makes people even more egoistic than others. It is not their fault. The great egoism that is built in them doesn’t enable them to sit quietly, and they have to express themselves. It is only natural for such a person to belittle others, not to regard them as equals, and not to want them near him.

An educational process that changes a person’s nature for the good makes good use of art and composition. Theater, for example, can illustrate our current situation, how low we have plunged, and what the correction we need is.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #586 – Between Culture And Spirit,” 3/31/14

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New Life #585 – Secular, Religious, Ultra-Orthodox And Arab
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

Question: Why is it only with us in Israel that the distance between factions is so troublesome?

Answer: It is because of our spiritual roots.

We are not a normal people. Abraham gathered different people around the idea of love for others. When we fell into unfounded hatred, we were destroyed. Today there is nothing that holds us together other than our enemies.

Israel is in fact divided today into four nations, secular, religious, ultra-Orthodox, and Arab. Each one has a different culture, different education, and different means of communication.

According to the program of creation, we need to provide the world with an example of connection into one people, above differences. If we can create connection between the factions, including the Arabs, the world will understand that we have a method for connection.

We do not enter into any politics or calculations; we immediately build a “second floor”; we educate toward a positive and correct connection. Certainly there will be endless arguments, but specifically by rising above them, the connection between us will be strengthened more and more. We don’t enter into any arguments, but only work on connection, building links. That is how we will create a new order in Israel.

Today the whole world is suffering from lack of good relationships. and everyone is expecting to see a good example from Israel. It seems unrealistic, but the doctrine of Abraham, the doctrine of Kabbalah, enters here. Abraham taught us how to bring a unique power into our lives that can transform hatred into love.

The ancient wisdom of Abraham teaches how to connect, step by step. The method of connection of Kabbalah is imperative and appropriate for all the factions in Israel and the whole world.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #585 – Secular, Religious, Ultra-Orthodox And Arab,” 6/11/15

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