We have become accustomed to getting swept away by cultural confrontations, but in reality, when the gaps between us continue to grow to a feeling of a threat, there is a special method for how to maintain each and every opinion, as well as to hold onto a common goal above them.

Israelis love to argue about almost everything. They spar at home, flame on Facebook, and dominate the road, and just about every place possible. Even the hall of the elected public officials in Israel has become an arena for the most prominently reported disputes. The Israeli Knesset is the main meeting place for the culture of debate.

The moment that one “friend” gets up and delivers his speech, immediately his “friend” stands up against him and contradicts him. Constructive criticism for discussion or illuminating issues on our minds is welcome, but much of the discussion that we encounter today is motivated by narrow interests, not from a desire to benefit society.

Ostensibly the polarization and division in Israeli society reflects failure, but the wisdom of Kabbalah holds that a developed society is one that knows how to contain opposites within it, a wide range of diverse opinions (1).  Pluralism, differences of opinion, and public discourse, even if they conflict, are important to maintain and even intensify, but above them, it is necessary to build a sort of glue that unites us above the differences, or in the end, we will “devour” each other.

It Is All Mine

Jewish history is interwoven with conflicts and oppositions between different parts of the society in which the peak is represented by the unfounded hatred that developed among the people that later led to the destruction of the Temple (2). Since then, one dominant force has acted among the people of Israel, known in the wisdom of Kabbalah as egoism or the left line; when we use it only in its natural form, it begets hatred and division. We can learn about the intensity of the opposition between us from the proverbial: “Two hold a garment. One of them says, ‘I found it,’ and the other says, ‘I found it.’ One of them says, ‘It is all mine,’ and the other one says, ‘It is all mine.’ Then the one shall swear that his share in it is not less than half, and the other shall swear that his share in it is not less than half…” (3), and they disagree.

The dispute between the two in the end leads to the conclusion that in fact, in all areas all of us hold onto that prayer shawl in the same common destiny that joins us together. However, in order to balance the negative force that causes every person to be concerned only about himself, we need to awaken the positive force that can glue us together and elevate warmth and a sense of family, connecting us above all of the conflicts that divide us. In the wisdom of Kabbalah, this force is called the right line. To awaken it, we must invest effort and connect between us (4).

The Golden Road

The starting point for the first communication between us is the common aspiration for the better future everyone hopes for. A common goal can develop within us the readiness to concede and listen to others. We don’t need to concede our personal positions or our individuality. On the contrary, in the light of the common goal and despite the differences, we try to create connection.

As a result of this, a new point of contact is created between us. This is not a compromise or a temporary bridge, but a middle line that balances between the two opposing lines and complements them (5). The matter is similar to couples who quarrel with each other, but always keep in mind the ideal marital relationship that joins them together. Specifically, the ongoing quarrels and the desire to dominate each other creates the infrastructure that helps the couple rise above the struggle between them and create a new connection.

The Wisdom of Connection

Let’s not allow ourselves to sink into endless social struggles that will cause the nation to deteriorate into terrible corruption and brutality. We must consider all these cases as a sign that expresses the imperative to bring peace among all of the disputants.

It is in the power of the wisdom of connection to bring this unity, without deleting the gaps between us. The magic of the method is that it changes the attitude toward the dispute. Suddenly, the picture seems different in purpose and takes on a new meaning. The opposition is clarified as a unique motive that has been created for us so that we could rise further above the gaps and connect in a system of mutually responsible relationships (6).

If we don’t take action, sooner or later the oppositions are liable to lead to a social short-circuit that would disrupt all the systems in the nation. To prevent this proactively, it is better for us to take responsibility and seriously consider the establishment of a body that intentionally will guide and correctly direct each and every citizen in the nation of Israel, a kind of national social-educational council that regularly would initiate processes and social events to develop the value of unity in the social consciousness. The future of the society is in the hands of every one of us (7).

References:

1. “…drawing the right conclusions depends particularly on the multiplicity of disagreements and separation between opinions. The more contradictions there are between opinions and the more criticism there is, the more the knowledge and wisdom increases…” Rav Yehudah Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), “The Freedom.”

2. “The Temple was destroyed because of unfounded hatred, when their hearts were divided and they were divided and were not worthy of the Temple since it is the unity of Israel.” Rabbi Israel Segal, Netzhah Israel, chapter 4.

3. “Two hold a garment. One of them says, ‘I found it,’ and the other says, ‘I found it.’ One of them says, ‘It is all mine,’ and the other one says, ‘It is all mine.’ Then the one shall swear that his share in it is not less than half, and the other shall swear that his share in it is not less than half…” Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Baba Metzi’a, Chapter I, 2a, Mishnah.

4. “Hatred arouses quarrels, but love covers all transgressions” (Proverbs 10:12).
“…the heart of the vitality, persistence, and correction of the whole of creation, by people of differing views being included together in love, unity and peace.” Rabbi Nathan Sternhertz, Likutey Halachot [Assorted Rules], “Rules of Tefilat Arvit [Evening Prayer],” Rule no. 4.

5. “…this is the middle line, which decides between the two lines—right and left—which are opposite from one another in a way that both shine to the side of holiness” Let There Be Light, VaYetze [And Jacob Went Out], Item 118.

6. “We are not neutral when we claim that for consolidation, there must be consolidation of common responsibility, of mutual responsibility, of mutual influence. We claim that we must not blur the boundaries between the unions, circles and parties, rather a shared recognition of the common reality and a common position in a test of common responsibility. Separation between hearts is a disease that afflicts the peoples in our time and following its cure by way of coerced union is nothing but a mistake. Unity is lacking in the organizational structure. At the moment there is no remedy for this except that there will be people from different circles of opinion who need one another with a pure heart and take the trouble together to discover the common foundation.” Martin Buber, “Education and Examining the World.”

7. “…social unity…can be the source of every joy and success.” Rav Yehudah Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), “The Freedom.”
“We have yet to open our eyes and see that only unity can save us. Only if we all unite … to work in favor of the entire nation, our labor will not be in vain.” Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, “VeOd Musar Lo Lokachnu.”
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From Ynet article 4/6/16

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Question: What is your attitude regarding the reestablishment of a full peace agreement with Turkey?

Answer: I can judge only in relation to global changes. And here we are talking about a local change. They quarreled a bit, made peace, and don’t know who gains and who loses.

Everyone understands that agreements are signed only for that moment when they are beneficial to the two sides, otherwise they are violated.

Question: Are you in favor of the signing of peace agreements?

Answer: We have no possibility of reaching an agreement with the Arabs of the East, but only with the Arabs of the West (with Gaza) because they need help and restoration.

Question: What do you mean when you use the term “peace” (Shalom)?

Answer: By peace I mean “wholeness” (Shlemut). This is not the signing of a non-aggression agreement that at a given moment is beneficial to the two sides that is signed for a short time and is violated most of the time.

Wholeness is the yearning for connection into one single whole without borders, not just finding contact with each other.

We see that even in Europe this is not happening because there is no feeling of a single whole. They arranged banking and marketing links between them but didn’t simultaneously create a connection between the peoples.

Question: At what moment does wholeness begin?

Answer: Wholeness will begin only after a long-term process of re-education of the population about a mentality of approaching one another. And this is ongoing work.

Even a small nation like Israel remains divided to date, divided into the Jews of the East and West, those who left Europe, Russia, America, and Africa and the Arab nations.

If it is not possible to do anything with a small group of people who have experienced so much and are under the pressure of the whole world, what is it possible to say about Europe where the peoples have fought against each other for thousands of years and hate each other in every variation possible?!

Question: Is there a possibility of beginning the process of education among us in Israel?

Answer: This requires the willingness of the political system. But our politicians don’t think about this at all.

If they speak about connection, about friendship or about something else, they do this to express their political demands—how to act in order to be closer to power and directing.

Clearly this is a dead end regarding peace! There is nothing to do. In the meantime humanity listens and develops only in this way.

The decision regarding an educational process can be reached through the government, through the elite, only to the degree that people willingly will be compelled to listen and obey for the purpose of consolidating the people and creating special conditions for it.

But for this we need to fight against the media is required to ultimately reach the heart of the people. The people must understand that they only need unity because there are no other means for survival. This will gradually become increasingly tangible. Twenty years ago there was nothing like this.

Forty years ago I began to talk about this, but at that time who took me seriously? So it was necessary to remain silent so as not to sully the wisdom of Kabbalah since to a particular degree I was its representative.

Only twenty years ago did we gradually began to speak about unification. Today we can proclaim and announce to everyone that there is no other way out. And we even see that new materials and new opinions are appearing that are closer and closer to this approach. So I am optimistic.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 6/27/16

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Question: Can the upper forces affect others through one person?

Answer: The upper force always affect us through other people. It is quite rare when it happens directly and only when a person summons them unto himself because he already has his own communication channel with them.

If a person summons the influence of the upper forces unto himself it operates on him directly, and if it doesn’t, it operates through the still, vegetative, or animate levels of nature.

Question: How does the Light that a person draws while studying the wisdom of Kabbalah affect other people?

Answer: The Light affects everyone in a positive manner because we are forcibly connected to each other in one system called Adam (Man). Therefore, if I draw the Light, I become a source of Light on that level and it spreads through me to others. The only problem is how to draw more Light.

The Jews have the method, and if they drew the right Light, everyone would treat them better. But since they don’t draw the Light and don’t spread it around them, people feel that they “steal” their happiness and are the source of all the troubles in the world.

Thus we can understand to what degree each of us can be a source of Light for others.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/20/16

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Question: Why do I feel, as a Jew, that there is no room for me in this world?

Answer: It is not in vain that Jews feel there is no room for them in this world because their mission is to be the conduits of all of humanity to the upper world. Therefore, there is nowhere in the world they can live a quiet peaceful corporeal life like the other peoples of the world, not even in their own country.

According to their spiritual root, they belong to the upper world. They have fallen from there into this world and they feel that they have a mission to rise to the upper world again ,which is also what all the nations of the world feel subconsciously.
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New Life 726 – Dealing With Pain And Loss
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

What is the right way to deal with the deaths of relatives and how can we continue to be linked with them even after their death?

A person existed and suddenly he is gone. Our perception is limited. We cannot digest this even though we are used to this perception. But there exists a possibility of developing vision beyond life and death.

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches that it is possible to reach a higher level of existence, a spiritual body, during our lives. It depends on building an opposite attitude toward reality, an anti-egoistic attitude, an attitude of love and bestowal toward others.

With this upgraded attitude, the picture of reality is changed and seems completely different. This is called the upper world. When someone dies, he does not just disappear. He finished his role for now and will continue in another form.

Even after a person dies, we are connected to him and influence him for the better with our good deeds. The correction of the attitude of the person toward the world is sure to help the souls of the departed. It is up to us to approach the love of others.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 726 – Dealing With Pain And Loss,” 5/5/16

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In the News (Foundation Strategic Structure): “Something here does not add up. The European leaders are not children, not understanding that the angry rush flooding from the Middle East to Europe cannot be stopped.

As the first steamers unloaded refugees in Murmansk, the passengers immediately headed to the Norwegian border. Fortunately close. And there will be many surprises like this at the EU’s borders. …

“In addition, a long-standing applicant for EU membership, Turkey is playing a game not European. She has refused to close its border with Syria … .

“In July 1938 a conference was convened in Evian, France, dedicated to the salvation of the Jews from the Nazi regime.The conference considered options for their removal from the Third Reich. As a result, representatives of the 32 member countries declared that they could not accept the refugees. And the United States would not accept them … . America did not find room for the mass migration of Jews because of the ‘anti-Semitism of the population.’ And what is most interesting: the Dominican Republic and Madagascar, opened its doors to refugees … and objections to this were made by representatives of the World Zionist Organization. The Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann explained the reason for the opposition: If the Evian Conference was successful (in helping Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany to emigrate to other countries), it would have caused irreparable damage to the cause of Zionism – the gathering of the Jews, in Palestine, the land of the future ‘Greater Israel.’ Yitzhak Gruenbaum spoke of the ‘terrible danger of Evian’ and David Ben-Gurion called on the world to disrupt the Evian conference that they should make the world accept the idea of a Jewish return to Palestine, only to Palestine. And if not, then they would burn with a blue flame. And they burned …

“Here and there in the summer of 2015 came the unexplained exodus of refugees, which will now settle in huge camps-traps, with no prospect of finding a place in Europe, with no prospect of returning home.

“What will become such camps – on the eve of a new Holocaust? In any case it will be a cauldron explosion threatens Europe of all its established order.

“It looks like someone who is closely watching the boiling cauldron did not intend to diminish the fire. ..

“Recall, in 1938, the Americans did not want the Jews to settle in Colorado and Nebraska, and the British – let them in Palestine. We prepared a taste for the Europeans.

“Those who today murmur of ‘impenetrable borders,’ the European Union must be entertained as this new dish is prepared. No, they are still like children, these Europeans! They can not understand that in order to reduce the boiler temperature they need not only destroy the notorious ‘Islamic State,’ but also put an end to the practice of the territorial redistribution of the Middle East”

My Comment: It is doubtful that their willingness would help in this matter since the whole thing is being conducted according to a US plan that is creating chaos in various parts of the world. Therefore, until the US itself, begins to feel the chaos it is creating in its own home, then all the world will decide, before or after a world war, that the only success is in general unity.
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Eli Wiesel, one of the pillars of the Jewish world, who served as the “mouth” for millions of Holocaust victims and dedicated his life to commemorate the Holocaust in an attempt to prevent a second one, passed away.

As a talented writer, awarded countless laurels and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, his personal history is closely interwoven with the fate of the Jewish people. In 1944, when he was 15 years old, he was sent with his family to Auschwitz, where he lost his mother and one of his sisters. Later after the death march, his father died in Buchenwald. But Wiesel was lucky to witness the liberation of the camp by the Allied Forces.

Since then he invested all his energy to let the world know about the atrocities the Jews had undergone in those terrible years.

We met in New York for the first time when I was on a lecture tour in America. Against the backdrop of a global surge of anti-Semitism, I crossed the country from coast to coast to give a series of lectures and interviews. Then I was fortunate to get to know an exceptional personality. He was truly a noble man, an outstanding representative of his people. We quickly found a common language since we are both from families that survived the Holocaust.

Eli showed great knowledge in Jewish literature. Among other things he was familiar with the authentic wisdom of Kabbalah in which I engage. He was very worried about the growing anti-Semitic trend, and I shared my concern with him regarding the impending waves of anti-Semitism about which I have been writing all these years. He listened attentively.

During that conversation, I told him about the main message of the wisdom of Kabbalah, about the special role of the Jewish people in fulfilling the principle of unity, and that after we fulfill it between ourselves, we have to pass on the method of unity to all of humanity. Eli showed great interest in this view and we had a very fruitful conversation.

It is very hard to accept his death. Eli Wiesel was one of the giants of the Jewish spirit who championed the Jewish people, and the moral foundations and universal values of humanity.

We, the Jews living in the land of Israel, are indebted to this man. In the hour of farewell, we have to greatly honor his mission, which has been completed, but which has not ended. His mission has been passed on to us, and just like Eli Wiesel we are responsible for the future generations.

Blessed be his memory.
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Torah, “Deuteronomy,” 4:25 – 4:26: When you beget children and children’s children, and you will be long established in the land, and you become corrupt and make a graven image, the likeness of anything, and do evil in the eyes of the Lord your God, to provoke Him to anger, I call as witness against you this very day the heaven and the earth, that you will speedily and utterly perish from the land to which you cross the Jordan, to possess; you will not prolong your days upon it, but will be utterly destroyed.

And so it happened. Because the nation is the group of people aiming toward the Creator and then this desire disappeared.

Generations change, meaning that more egoistic layers are revealed in a person and so he can’t remain in a state of close cooperation with others as one man with one heart.

Mainly it is revealed at the entrance to the land of Israel, because it is especially egoistic from the point of view of correction when you constantly climb your egoistic desires.

They constitute huge hard layers, the third and fourth levels of egoism that are impossible to withstand. On the one hand, they tear you apart by tempting with such cunning pleasures that you don’t have the strength to refuse.

And as soon as you move away from them darkness, depression, and blackness descend on you. Rising above such desires is only possible by being in mutual guarantee (Arvut), in connection, and by fervently praying to the Creator to give you the Light of correction.

Therefore the Creator tells Moses that his children and even more so his grandchildren “will become corrupt and make a graven image, the likeness of anything.”

Worshipping idols means worshipping our egoistic desires. It is unavoidable! “All the same, you will come to it and will become idol worshippers!”—the Creator predicts.

The future of humanity is inevitable. It was known to all Kabbalists, starting with Adam, Abraham, and further, because the real Kabbalists see to the end of creation, i.e., to the end of 6,000 years. The only thing they cannot foresee is the way the current stage, before the end of correction, will be passed, whether it will be by a good or bad way, because during the last stage of correction our freedom of will is revealed.

Comment: Thus, the Creator predicts to the people that they will disappear completely from the nation to which they crossover.

Answer: The people of Israel must go into exile. No wonder the greatest Kabbalist of that time Rabbi Akiva rejoiced at the destruction of the Temple and the fall of the Jews from the spiritual degree, because he saw that the prophecy came true, and the exile would be followed by correction.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/2/16

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Question: What is the reason for hatred toward Jews?

Answer: Briefly it could be said that people hate us instinctively and naturally because we are not attracting the Upper Light. More precisely, in this regard they have no direct approach to the Creator, but only through us.

But the revelation of the wisdom of Kabbalah to all the nations of the world in our time makes it possible for everyone to approach the Creator, which depends only on the realization of a person’s desire.

And if a person has a desire for the Creator depends on the individual relationship of the Creator to the person, which depends on person’s location in the collective soul.
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Comment: France is paying the price for a decade of a failed multicultural policy.

Aleksandra Rybińska asserts in a recent article that none of the models of immigrant integration are working: not the German model, the Gastarbeiter (immigrants as temporary, unskilled workers), not the French model of a secular enlightened country (the immigrant becomes a Frenchman and waives his own cultural identity), not the English version (the immigrant maintains his culture within the frameworks of the local community and the authorities believe that he at the same time identifies with British values).

The author concludes that France is approaching a revolution.

My Response: Not only are the French approaching a revolution. The explosion will be everywhere. The only question is: when? In spite of Europe wanting to maintain itself and maintain its roots, it won’t succeed. Its hope that the immigrants would work didn’t materialize. On the contrary, the Germans and French work on behalf of the migrants.

The immigrants don’t dissolve into the general mass of the local residents; actually it is the locals who gradually dissolve into the mass of the immigrants and convert to Islam.

Nothing is left of them. In the cultural practical sense of life, Europe has no power. It is decrepit and not ready for anything, except arranging beautiful costume parades, boasting its historical past. These are things that totally do not fit into the ensuing culture and Europe will be forced to yield.

Question: Won’t there be a revolution?

Answer: There is no need for that. Islam will conquer Europe and actively and undoubtedly enslave it. The religion of the Europeans will be Islam.

Question: In this case, what is required of Israel? Should it just watch passively from the side?

Answer: The Israelis cannot do anything except for one thing, to unite between themselves. Through unity, the Light will pass to the rest of the world and correct it.

Our attitude to what is happening should be completely passive. In no way should we interfere. The entire world is arranged as one unique unit that is connected in a totally mutual way. If we arrange for the contact of all humanity with the Upper Light, with the force of good, through us, then it will go through us to the whole world and will arrange everything needed.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 6/9/16

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