Question: Is it correct to say that a Jew is a symbol of eternity and because of this, these people survived all the trials that fell to their lot and will live forever?

Answer: Any person can become a Jew if he wants to join us. It doesn’t matter what nationality he is and what color of skin he has.

A Jew is something above nature. The Jew is an ideology of rising above our egoistic nature and connecting with others. A person wishing to achieve unity of people (Yichud) and to live in it is called a Jew (Yehudi). Therefore, after becoming a Jew, a person loses all the characteristics of this world, such as nationality and past relationships; he or she becomes a new person.

Question: Is there a guarantee of eternal life to everyone who aspires to unity?

Answer: Everyone who works according to the original method of Kabbalah, using original sources, and who achieves unity, reveals within himself a connection with the upper force that is called the Creator (Boreh), which means “come and see” (Bo-Reh). And in fact, we do “come” to a state and achieve revelation and “see” in it.

Then we are really called the Jews, the people of the Creator, because by uniting between us we provide a vessel for the upper force where it can connect with us. This way we begin to feel our unity and connection with the Creator. This is called the attainment of the upper world.

Question: Why does the principle of unity that is the basis of the Jewish people protect them and prevents them from disappearing?

Answer: Our forefathers, the founders of the Jewish people, began this process. They rose above earthly egoism and preferred unity above separation. Through all generations they aspired to unity, and this made them similar to the Creator; the Upper Light that influenced them was stronger or weaker depending on the importance of unity to them.

We can’t separate the fate of the nation from its purpose, its responsibility to achieve full and universal unity. At the time when they aspired to unity, their fate was good, and as soon as they were destroying this unity, they fell immediately and suffered from enemy attacks. Their lives became terrible.

The history of the Jewish people goes back almost 6,000 years, from the “first man” Adam who was first to reveal this secret and to start talking about unity and connection. It is clear that throughout their entire history, the fate of the Jewish people depended completely on their unity.

Since this nation always aspired to connection and was connected with the upper force, it was called eternal and passed through centuries. At the same time, it also suffered much more than all other nations. Although this nation is immortal, it receives blows all the time.

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains this by the fact that at any time in their history that the Jewish people weren’t aspiring to unity and drawing the Reforming Light hard enough; therefore, the Light wasn’t strong enough to correct them and dwell in them.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/13/16

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New Life 490 – The People Of The Book, Part 1
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

In our world, I have to prepare myself to read each book. If it is an English novel, I need to know English; if it is an architecture guide, I must be familiar with architecture; if it is a report on chemical experiments, I must be familiar with chemistry.

There must always be the basis of preparation that is transmitted separately from generation to generation.

So it is for spiritual attainment. The Oral Torah accompanies the written Torah. The word “Torah” is derived from the word “Ohr” (Light). Therefore, the Oral Torah precedes and is a preparation for reading the book; it accompanies this book and is transmitted by “word of mouth” from generation to generation, from Kabbalist to Kabbalist, in a chain of those who are able to open the book.

If I really want to find out and know what it is talking about, if I want to uncover the world in detail and understand through it who is showing me this “film,” if I am ready to be changed to become like Him, to delve into the matter of the essence of the “pictures” being broadcast, then I must search for people who have a mastery of the Oral Torah.

A Performance with a Surprise

Question: What does it mean to be similar to that force that is showing this “film”?

Answer: This is talking about equivalence of form, equivalence of characteristics.

For example, if I am far from being interested in the theater, when I go to some performance, I cannot connect to it immediately. But then they whisper to me that the playwright has a special cast, the lead actors are real characters who are truly experiencing these dramas….

At first I didn’t know and didn’t understand anything, I was not ready. But now, when I know the background, the substrate, with this I penetrated a bit more deeply. I created new characteristics and feelings within me, I could identify with the protagonists, come in contact with them as if I am standing in their place myself and even going through the situations they are experiencing. I acquired the same characteristics, and thanks to that, the performance appears before me in a completely new light. We don’t understand this world otherwise.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 490 – The People Of The Book, Part 1,” 4/1/15

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Question: Mark Twain wrote about the Jews: “The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished.

“The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality? ” (Mark Twain, “Concerning the Jews”)

Russian philosopher N. Berdyaev adds to it in his article “The Meaning of History,” “According to all materialistic criteria, this nation had to disappear from the world a long time ago. Its existence is a mystical and miraculous phenomenon, proving that the life of this nation is controlled by the force of its ancient mission.”

So what is the secret of the Jewish people that makes them immortal?

Answer: This “secret” is the most revealed of all. It is written in the Torah that the Jewish people are eternal because they are intended to be a “Light for the nations” to bring humanity to the final goal of its development.

Any other nation can disappear or change. No other nation has been preserved in the form in which it exited ancient Babylon. If we look at the map of Europe, we can see that there are no original nations that existed one or two thousand years ago. The modern nations are the result of mixing with Asian nations, who once immigrated to Europe in droves.

Yet, the people of Israel remain the way they were. Only in the last hundred years did they begin to lose their external material form, but internally they remain the same.

This nation was formed from a group created by Abraham from the residents of ancient Babylon. That is, they were assembled not according to a biological, but the ideological principle of those who gathered around Abraham. These are people who answered his call, “Let’s unite with each other despite the egoism that is burning within us and reveal the upper force inside this connection. Then we will learn about our mission in eternal life, in the upper world. When we connect to the Creator and are filled with the Upper Light, we discover the next dimension, a special ‘matrix’ where we can exist.”

There is a program in the world that leads us to a specific development through a variety of stages. It can appear to us that this development isn’t always kind, but it follows certain laws. Historians, philosophers, and other scientists study these laws, although they can’t understand their inner essence.

The wisdom of Kabbalah gives a full and clear explanation of what we need to do. The people of Israel must be this group that unites above their egoism. Each who feels the desire to reveal the Creator comes to this group.

It doesn’t matter in what country he was born or what his nationality or religion is, he will find a place for himself in this group. And if he invests his efforts in the right direction, he will participate in the construction of the group called “the people of Israel.”

The people of Israel aren’t a biological nation; they are assembled from the representatives of all nations. However, they survived and went through the centuries because they were aspiring to the great goal that all of humanity should reach in six thousand years.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/13/16

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New Life #483 – Secret Alliance With The Higher Power 
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Summary

Question: What kind of a connection is there between the meaning of our existence and attaining the higher power?

Answer: This is the most primal force of nature. It is higher specifically because it manages everything; that is, it is the force of bestowal and love, spreading around it everything that exists within it: energy and fulfillments. It intentionally created the force of reception in order to fill it and bring it to a special level of existence.

The force of bestowal is perfect because it doesn’t need anyone. The force of reception that was created by it is limited and poor because it always lacks something and is not able to attain what it lacks by itself.

Comment: People are used to imagining the higher power, the Creator, as some kind of personality with which we make an alliance and now accompanies us. It is difficult to perceive it simply in the form of a force, as something lifeless.

Answer: Is it really difficult to imagine this? Even in our physical world there are many different forces that are unknown to us. So why is it so difficult for us to grasp the existence of an upper force? On the contrary, other than forces, nothing else exists.

All I see around me are forces that are shaped within my perception, in the form of physical images that seem to exist: inanimate, vegetative, animate and human nature. But in principle, these are all appearances of the same force.

Question: How can we develop a relationship with this force?

Answer: This is the upper force. When we create a relationship with someone, the forces are used to zoom in or connect, to get closer, to create contact. In reality there is only one force and nothing more besides it. Today, even physics, a purely materialistic science, has come to this conclusion.

Upon more in-depth investigation, the matter that we see disappears; it exists only in our perception. The whole world we feel is the product of our imagination. There are only forces affecting our brains, drawing a picture that seems to be standing in front of us. But all of this is the result of the work of forces, like the display on a computer screen.

Question: And each one of us is also a force?

Answer: A person is just a receptive force. But this force is composed of various receptive forces that are linked together in some kind of relationship. Therefore, all people are separate from each other. The receptive force is the force of the desire to receive.

A person is a desire to receive. But he has many desires for various fulfillments that are woven together. Each one has its own special combination typical of men or women, children or adults. But in fact there is only a desire to receive pleasure from all kinds of sources possible.

Question: So what are we referring to when we talk about the Jewish people having a connection with the upper force?

Answer: Abraham taught people how to achieve the goal of life, the general program of nature, if they have such a desire for it. It is possible if a person obtains the force of bestowal that is found above us. And it is possible to attain it on condition that we build relationships between us that are similar to the force of bestowal. For this, we need to reach love for others as we love ourselves, mutual love.

To the degree that we begin to discover these forces of love, unity and mutual cooperation between us, within them we discover the power of bestowal.

Question: If we create relationships of love and reciprocity between us, then do we discover the same upper force within them with which they say the Jewish people made an alliance? What is this higher power?

Answer: This is the upper force of love and bestowal, a desire to do good for others through our force of love. People who have a connection with the upper force are called the “Jewish people,” Jews, because they understand that they are obliged to be united among themselves and between them and the upper force.

The force of reception is given to us from birth. It is particularly very great among these people, so they are called a “stiff-necked people” (Exodus 34:9). But we understand that it is required only so that with its help we will discover the force of bestowal. The force of egoism burns within us and keeps us apart from each other. In this way it forces us to search for the force of bestowal and connection.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #483 – Secret Alliance With The Higher power, Part 2,” 12/25/14

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New Life 775 – Assimilation
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

In our day the differences between the Jewish people and other peoples have become blurred; everything has become free and open. This is a process that endangers the existence of the people of Israel. With the departure from the fold of religion, the Jews should have adopted the wisdom of Kabbalah. Because they didn’t do this, they began to disappear.

In fact, since the 16^th century, we needed to know about our inner wisdom. If we don’t add spiritual development to popular Judaism, people will disappear from Judaism because a Jew can only exist as a religious Jew or a spiritual Jew who applies the wisdom of Kabbalah. When a Jewish person becomes assimilated, the Jewish point in him enters into a coma.

Being a spiritual Jew means returning to our root, correcting human nature, living according to the general rule, “And you shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). A spiritual Jew gives an example of how we connect to each other with love, above the egoism of each and every one. If the current trend continues, it is specifically the Jews abroad who will harm the nation of Israel. In the United States, the Jews will completely disappear, except for a few ultra-orthodox groups.

At the peak of our development, humanity will reach a state in which everyone will be equal and connected, and the people of Israel must provide an example of it. If we don’t provide an example like this to the world, everyone will forcefully pressure us and obligate us to do it. Without adding the values of the wisdom of Kabbalah, spirituality, to our lives, we are liable to disappear.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 775 – Assimilation,” 10/6/16

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New Life 774 – Jewish Demography
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

The birth rate in Israel is high because we are living in an optimistic bubble and are unaware of danger. We are unaware of our mission in the world and that we are not sufficiently carrying it out. Our mission is to show the world how to live in connection and love.

The Jews of the Diaspora are renouncing Israel; the Jews who are not religious will continue to disappear from the fold of Judaism. This is a process that is leading to the point where we will realize that we have nothing to rely upon except ourselves, and then we will begin to act.

There are Jews just about everywhere in the world because the Light shines through them onto the world. This is the life force and its vitality. The Jews need to spread the value of connection to connect all of humanity into one big soul.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 774 – Jewish Demography,” 6/10/16

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From my article in Ynet: “Have We Lost Our Way as a Nation?”

Is the decision to deny our historical relationship to the Temple Mount only the warning shot before the impending de-legitimization of the State of Israel worldwide? Is the real reason for this decision the conflict between the Palestinians and the settlers in the West Bank, or is it that we have lost our way as the nation of Israel? (Rav Laitman about the true legacy of the Jewish nation).

The great anxiety regarding the fate of the State of Israel does not allow me to sit idly. The UNESCO decision that denies the close connection between the Jewish people and the Temple Mount and the Western Wall is not what bothers me, but the fact that it is a first step and a good way on the road to denying the legitimacy of the State of Israel.

The Jewish people have a long term memory. Our historical connection to the Jewish legacy or to the land of Israel will not be cut off by international organizations and diplomatic declarations. We still remember very well the Holocaust we have undergone, the great tension just before the UN declaration of the foundation of the State of Israel, the great joy in the city squares, and Mota Gur’s moving announcement that “Temple Mount is in our hands,” at the end of the Six Day War. We have forgotten only one important thing: our role in the history of mankind.

The United Nations and the uniting nation

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the relationship between Israel and the nations of the world has not changed one bit in the last 3,500 years. The Jewish nation was founded in ancient Babylon when different individuals, families, and tribes who were alienated from each other agreed to follow the revolutionary spiritual idea as led by Abraham, the father of the nation. The social division at the time reached unprecedented peaks due to the erupting ego, and the mutual hatred and repulsion became part of daily life. Abraham, a unique Babylonian scholar, refused to accept the situation as inevitable, and began to explore nature and the system of creation. By studying himself and through his deep search, he discovered that humanity is connected by a network of ties, and the basis of this system we can see are only two forces: positive and negative. The positive force is constantly working to bring together and connect all of the individuals into one whole, while the negative force operates to separate and divide them.

Abraham concluded that the internal regularity that exists in one individual is true with regard to the systems of nature. He concluded that the immediate solution for the Babylonian society in crisis was to restore balance to the bad relations between them through strengthening the positive force in nature. Thus, he gradually guided the Babylonians and taught them how to develop the unity between them as the supreme value and to rise above the egoistic nature that separates them. “Abraham began to call the whole nation to let them know that there is one God in the world. Because they used to gather around him and ask him questions, he used to tell everyone according to his level of understanding until he brought them back to the path of truth, until thousands and hundreds of thousands gathered around him, and they are the people of the house of Abraham. And he planted this great idea in their hearts and wrote books, and this idea grew and increased among the children of Jacob and their followers and a nation that knows the Lord was founded in the world.” (Rambam, “Strong Hand”). Thus, the method of connection between people developed: the ancient method called the wisdom of Kabbalah.

The Babylonians who listened to Abraham’s advice and reinforced the foundations of mutual guarantee and love of others discovered a natural phenomenon they did not know before. They discovered that, when their relationships ascend to the level of unconditional love, a feeling of harmony and wholeness spreads among them, a kind of upper force that connects all the separate individual forces into one, which they called God. The hundreds of thousands of Babylonians who made up this group and were aimed straight to the force of connection that was revealed among them, Yashar El, called themselves the people of Israel.

The force that is concealed in the Jewish nation

Since the day the Israeli nation was founded on the basis of unity, they were given the mission to spread the method of connection among the seventy nations of the world, the Babylonians who chose not to follow Abraham and who dispersed all over the world. Since the entire world is connected by a harmonious network of ties that strives for constant balance, the fate of Israel and the nations of the world—the two opposite parts that operate in the system—are dependent and connected to each other. The part called the nations of the world constantly demands from the part called Israel to be a light to the nations and set a good example of unity above all of the divisive factors “since the secret of the unity of the world is concealed in Israel,” as Rav Kook says.

A lot has been written about the direct and indirect connections between Israel and the world in the authentic Kabbalistic sources and especially in The Book of Zohar, which was written 2,000 years ago: As long as Israel kept the force of connection between them, the positive force streamed through them to the world and it was good for everyone. But when they began to quarrel with each other and lost the sense of unity and mutual guarantee, the nations of the world rose against them with the subconscious demand for the vitality the force concealed in the Jewish nation arouses.

The world subconsciously feels that the source of all of the evil and the root of the suffering it undergoes is directly connected to the fact that the nation of Israel is not fulfilling its role. The fact that Israel are the most hated nation in the world, either for religions reasons, or racial reasons, or capitalism, or communism, or cosmopolitanism and more, the hatred that is at the root of all these reasons is that everyone excuses his hatred according to his own psychology, as Baal HaSulam says. This feeling of hatred is brewing among many and forming a trend reflected in the hostile attitude toward Israel. The UNESCO decisions regarding the Temple Mount may deteriorate to even more hostile decisions and even to the understanding that the world was wrong when it voted for the establishment of the Jewish state in the heart of the Middle East, and that now it is time to go back on their decision and act to deny the legitimacy of the only Jewish state in the world.

Rav Yehuda Ashlag warned us about this a hundred years ago when he said, “We need to give the gentiles the wisdom of connection, justice, and peace since it is only with regard to this that they are our students, and this is what they have been waiting for since our return to Israel. And the wisdom of Kabbalah is attributed only to us, and it shows to all the gentiles the justification of Israel in returning to their land and even to the Arabs. But our return doesn’t impress the gentiles today in any way and we have to hasten because if we don’t, they will sell the independence of Israel to satisfy their own needs, not to speak of the return of Jerusalem.” (The Writings of the Last Generation” by Baal HaSulam).

We determine our own fate

UNESCO, the UN, the EU, and other bodies that condemn us and vote against us are a kind of reflection of our failure in fulfilling our role. In other words, we provide UNESCO with the grounds for their decisions, and the nations of the world only execute these decisions. The world’s attitude toward us depends only on us, and it is up to us to determine whether the world will continue to demonstrate hatred and anti-Semitism, or whether they will understand and respect our presence in the land of Israel!

About two years ago, I met in Paris with Mrs. Irina Bokova, the UNESCO general secretary, as part of my efforts to spur a positive change of attitude of the organization toward the state of Israel. Although I had already foreseen the outcome of the meeting before my trip to Paris, I still felt it was important to try. Unfortunately, the outcome of the meeting proved what our teachers, the great Kabbalists, have said: there is no point in expecting any kind of change on the part of political factors. The decision regarding the future of the State of Israel, for better or for worse, is in our hands.

“And when the children of Israel shall be completed with full knowledge, wisdom and overcome springs to mind over the Israeli border and pour all the nations”

“The aim of Israel is to unite the whole world as one family,” (Rav Kook). All we have to do is decide to make a fundamental change in our interpersonal relations, to connect as one man in one heart, and stop worrying only about ourselves. The positive force that we will create between us will balance the forces of separation, and bring to perfection the network of connections between people. The force of connection will seep into the nations of the world and obligate them to begin a similar process, too, to connect and recognize us as the source of connection and goodness.

The nation of Israel  was made to be a kind of transmitter through which the sparks will flow to mankind all over the world until they develop and are able to understand the pleasantness and tranquility there is in the love of others. “And when the children of Israel shall be completed with full knowledge, the flow of the springs of wisdom will grow stronger beyond the border of Israel and will saturate all the nations of the world” (The Writings of Baal HaSulam).
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From Ynet article 10/18/16

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New Life 629 – Sukkot And Temporariness
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Man, just like any other animal, aspires for security and stability. In the past, life was predictable and stable, but today everything is changing, unexpected, and uncertain. We could have built a good life for all of mankind, but the ego didn’t let us do so, and half the world is starving. In the 21^st century, millions are wandering from one country to another, everything is unstable, changing, uncertain, and unsure.

The message of Sukkot is that only if we change our values will we be able to build a stable, good, and beautiful world. The essence of the change is switching from self-love to love of others, to caring about everyone.

The immigration of millions from one country to another is part of the evolutionary program of nature. We may be afflicted by natural disasters that will cause millions to wander, the Japanese, the Chileans, and others.

The only practical solution is to explore nature’s program in depth and adapt to it. The sure thing we can rely on is universal knowledge, the connection to the upper force of nature. The formula of holding onto the upper force is the rule of “love thy friend as thyself,” of changing our senses and the world.
From KabTV’s “New Life 629 – Sukkot And Temporariness,” 9/27/15

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New Life 443 – Simchat Torah
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

What is the Torah, what makes us happy on Simchat Torah (Rejoicing in the Torah), how do we reach this unlimited happiness, and what do we discover when we reach it?

Torah means the Light of the Torah. It is a unique force that reforms a person, changing the evil inclination to good.

• The Light in the Torah locates the evil in us and then transforms it into good.
• When the Light transforms the evil in me to good, it makes me similar to the Creator.
• A person who reaches this exalted state, merits to feel what Simchat Torah is from a spiritual aspect.
  Simchat Torah comes after Sukkot, which symbolizes the seven Lights that come to correct a person.
• At the end of the process of correction, complete bestowal and love for everyone are built in a person, and through them to the Creator.
• But aren’t there those who study the Torah in whom we don’t see love for others? Right, that is because there are special conditions for this.
• One must specifically learn Torah from books of Kabbalah that are designed for our generation, and with the right teacher. Kabbalah is called the hidden Torah because it makes what is hidden in me visible.
• In  the period of exile, Kabbalah was concealed from the general public; today it is again revealed to everyone.
• Simchat Torah today is from our having received the possibility of revealing the Light that Reforms to the entire world.
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  From KabTV’s “New Life 443 – Simchat Torah,” 10/5/14

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New Life 628 – The Secret Of The Sukkah
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

I remember that there were no Sukkot when I was a child living abroad. When I became interested in the depths of the Torah, in the wisdom of Kabbalah, I discovered the reason for our customs. This is how I discovered the secret of the Sukkah: The Sukkah is a symbol of a new world that we can build for ourselves.

The Sukkah is a new world that we build from the waste materials of the granary and the winery, of materials we can lay our hands on and don’t consider important at all. My world is made of things that are important to my ego, and I don’t feel things that are not important to me at all. If I change my attitude so from now on, everything that is unimportant becomes important; I will live in a new world.

A great part of reality is concealed from me at the moment since I have gotten used to not paying attention to it since I was born. Today what’s important to me is what is good for me, and what is good for others is not important to me. This is the whole idea of the Sukkah.

I would like to be connected with everyone, to reach “love thy friend as thyself,” at least for a week.

The waste materials of the granary and the winery: “granary (Goren)” refers to wheat, to bread, and “winery” refers to wine.

The waste materials of the two are usually unimportant to us. Why is “love thy friend as thyself” important? It is by this attitude that I transform myself and build a new world.
From KabTV’s “New Life 628 – The Secret Of The Sukkah,” 9/27/14

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