New Life 672 – What The Torah And Mitzvot (Commandments) Actually Are
 Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

People today don’t understand and don’t know the real meaning of the Torah and Mitzvot. The Torah and commandments are a system of laws of the upper world that control us, and it is our duty to get to know it.

Abraham explained the Torah and Mitzvot to the people of Babylon, and they reached an equivalence of form with the upper operating system of nature and Judaism was born. The upper system includes a network of forces operating in the primary law of mutuality, connection, and complementation. Man’s nature is totally opposite to the law of nature; he wants to draw away from, disparage, and dismiss others.

Abraham spoke about mercy and the love of others as a means of resembling the upper system since eventually all parts of reality have to be totally connected. Later Abraham’s students received additional egoism, went to Egypt, and received the Torah, the method of correcting the ego, at Mt. Sinai, which symbolizes the mountain of hatred between them. According to this method, they had to work on the connection between them, feel mutual guarantee toward each other, and expect the correcting force, the Torah.

The Torah is the Light that awakens in us when we try to get closer to one another. Rabash explained that there are 613 egoistic desires in a person and that there is a special correcting Light for each of them. The Torah was written in the language of branches and tells us how to relate to all the desires on the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels of nature.

He also explains that the picture of this world a person sees is the picture that his desires depict for him when they are reflected against the white light, and the Torah, which is the correcting Light, enables a person to see a new world instead of the dark egoistic world. The difference in perception is expressed in the relations between us, and it is described in the Torah by expressions like: Mt. Sinai, the Golden calf, the desert, etc. The land of Israel is the good attitude, the desire to love and to bestow, and a state that is similar to the upper force.

To observe the 613 Mitzvot means to correct the 613 egoistic desires and every person is obliged to do so. Abraham’s students discovered how they had to relate to the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels of nature, and taught the next generations. They used the language of branches and behaved in corporeality just as they behaved in spirituality since the corporeal life is only an addition to spirituality; it doesn’t affect it in any way and certainly doesn’t replace it.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 672 – What The Torah And Mitzvot (Commandments) Actually Are,” 1/13/16

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New Life 671 – Where To?
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Where is nature pushing us to through the climate problems and terrorism that is spreading throughout the world? How do we behave as a society as if we are united under a common goal and how can you use the ego for the good of connection and not against others?

Celebration of the beginning of the civil New Year has begun to take on a ritual nature: fir trees, fireworks, and so forth. Marking the beginning of the year is considered in the eyes of people as an event of great importance, even though this really is not talking about any scenario of a new beginning on the face of the Earth.

Rather, there is a continuing process in which humanity is advancing toward new situations. Changes in climate are placing our planet in a very dangerous situation. The causes of climate change are more internal that we think. We don’t understand the reasons for what is happening: increasing terrorism and the various factors that cultivate and encourage worrisome phenomena like the Daesh organization; advances in technology the ejects unemployed and unclear what their fate will be. There is a feeling that the Earth doesn’t require that many people to continue to exist, which may lead to a world war.

After having experienced socialism and capitalism, humanity is beginning to understand that integration between these approaches is required. Competition is required in the labor market, in trade, and in industry while equality is required in the system of relationships between us in the family and in society in general. We can attain this only with the help of a unique general social education, and the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches how to do it.

My hope for the New Year is that humanity will understand that we are compelled to correct our human nature. Materially, we don’t lack anything thanks to developments in technology. The problem is only in our relationships through which we cause symptoms like Daesh and allow them to exist. Today, we are not prepared to unite and react correctly to phenomena like these.

Therefore, as stated, general social education is the solution that will help us understand the world that we are facing.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 671 – Where To?” 1/5/16

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New Life 675 – Science and the Investigation of Life
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Science developed thanks to the human desire to improve our lives and its ability to discover knowledge, but the ego, our desire, was not big enough for that yet. Knowledge of the higher power, the operating system of our world, would order our emotions and intellect for us.

We find all kinds of phenomena and laws in nature, but we have not become aware of the force that controls us; the higher knowledge opens only when we are ready for it. Today even Aristotle would not comprehend what the children of our day already understand; there is something in life they need to know and achieve.

To reach new knowledge, we have to become a new people, open to the world, to see it integrally and stop seeing everything from a narrow point of view, individually, only for our own benefit. The essential change is to see the world as a single general system and this depends on the development of general love for all. This is not talking about as we know it, in which I enjoy something and so I love it; that is egoistic love, but  this love is feeling that everyone and me together feel eternity, wholeness, and a divine radiance. There is no better feeling than that.

The reason for living and why everything exists is revealed to a person; therefore he moves into living in a new, whole and eternal reality. The great secret of life is that there truly is an entry into another life, and the present life is only a preparation for approaching it.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 675 – Science And The Investigation Of Life,” 1/19/16

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New Life 674 – Information Is Power
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

We need information about the world and ourselves, and further information to help us realize what know. When we know that something is bad for us, like smoking for example, we have a desire that prevents us from fulfilling it.

The wisdom of Kabbalah gives a person information about the system that manages him and the possibility of integrating in it, but this upper knowledge opens up to a person provided he learns to control his evil inclination, his heart.

All human knowledge accumulated until now has not led us to a life of happiness, but to a deadlock and collapse of the system, and everything we produce eventually turns against us. We live in constant competition and war with one another, subject to pressure and tension, until we finally ask ourselves: Am I glad? Am I happy? What am I living for anyway? We have no answers and we become depressed.

We lack vision of where we can go and how to open ourselves to this perspective for the future. Without this, we have no energy for all the trouble and pressures of life. In fact, a person wants to feel that timeless and eternal life depends on acquiring the knowledge on the operating system of the world, on opening horizons.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 674 – Information Is Power,” 1/12/16

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New Life 673 – Torah And Mitzvot: Not What You Thought
 Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Humanity lives in its world without being aware of the system that manages it, and so it takes a beating. This system is what we call “Torah.” The Torah describes the 613 forces that manage a person and the 613 desires that are desirable as a correct reaction to the active forces. The situation is like a person who is in a dark room with a treasure, and he is hungry and sad, not seeing anything. And only if he implements the Torah and Mitzvot (commandments) according to the definition of Mitzvot in the wisdom of Kabbalah, will he correct his desires and discover the Light.

From the period of the destruction of the first Beit HaMikdash (Temple), the decline of the generations began, and ignorance spread among the people of Israel about the understanding of the Torah and Mitzvot. The children of Israel who fell under the control of the ego stopped seeing life spiritually and the attitude towards the Torah and Mitzvot became a formality. They implemented the Mitzvot in their literal sense as written in the Torah in an external form without trying to reach, “And you shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18), and the connection with the Light that Reforms to correct the soul disappeared.

If we return to the internal and correct implementation of Torah and Mitzvot, another world will be opened for us, and we will discover the upper force that is the general force in nature, and we will understand how it acts on us and toward what it is leading us. The correct reaction of a person to this force makes him similar to it until he becomes one with it.

It is our obligation today to teach humanity what the correct meaning of Torah and Mitzvot is; otherwise, life will just go on until a time when it will be possible to attain eternity. According to the religious perception, a person expects a reward, a paradise in the next world while the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us that everything depends on the person who attains it, “You will see your world in your lifetime” (Berachot 17a), and if we develop love for each other, we will discover the upper world.

In the past we attained the upper world from which we understood how to relate to everything that exists on all levels of existence: still, vegetative, animate, and speaking. Over time, the feeling of the upper world disappeared and we were left with only mechanical actions without any correction of the heart.

The human ego is in constant development; the world is continuing to become more difficult, filled with emptiness, and humanity doesn’t know how to fulfill itself. The screaming will be terrible until ultimately everyone will reach the question: What are we living for? And then a new world will open before us.

With the help of the Light that Reforms, we correct the 613 desires in us, from egoism to love. Each one of us is connected to others with 613 threads; in our egoistic nature we want to exploit each other, and the correction is to want to connect and bestow goodness to everyone.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 673 – Torah And Mitzvot: Not What You Thought,” 1/7/16

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New Life 446 – The Ebola Virus, Part 2
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

The Ebola virus is spreading and is becoming a matter of global mortal danger. How does the wisdom of Kabbalah refer to the phenomenon as the reflection of the social imbalance between people in general and in Israel in particular?

We fear the Ebola virus now, but there are greater problems that nature can bring upon us.

• We are in one system and the imbalance we cause in this system summons different blows upon us.
• Kabbalists warned more than a hundred years ago that the world will become one family and that we need to be balanced.
• One family requires one leadership, one global health ministry that will take care of all the people.
• The problem is that every government thinks only about its seat. No one sees things globally.
• The Ebola virus and other troubles are breaking out in Africa because people belittle it. They don’t regard it as part of the global family.
  If we treated the world as one family, there would be no world wars or other troubles. It makes no difference that there are parts in the world that are more developed and parts that are less. It is like different children in one family.
• The human level is the highest level in the system of nature, and in this system Israel is on the highest level.
• The balance in Israel will reflect imbalance on the whole world and all of nature. Therefore, we will soon be blamed for the spread of the Ebola.
• All of nature is one system; like one bowl of soup. We all stem from the Big Bang and are connected to each other.

If we wish to heal the world we should think that we live in one system, connected and dependent on each other and that everything needs to be balanced.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 446 –  The Ebola Virus, Part 2,” 10/19/14

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New Life 445 – The Ebola Virus, Part 1
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Why does the Ebola virus break out again and why is it becoming more lethal than in the past? What sort of system do we live in today and can we impact the spread of the virus by balancing it?
We live in a system. If the system is unbalanced, it leads to a variety of difficult phenomena like the Ebola virus.

• Health means balance. If we balance the system the good bacteria will be balanced with the bad bacteria.
• Because all of nature is one system, balance on the higher level leads to balance on the lower level.
• Man is at the head of the evolutionary hierarchy. Social relations determine everything.
• Medicine in the past and even modern Eastern medicine speak about body and soul. The mental state affects the individual’s health.
• But in the past we were not connected to each other. One person could balance himself and be healed.
• Today we are all part of one global village. A system of mutual dependence. Our balance and our health depend on the whole society.

We must understand that we are one system and treat each other accordingly in order to stop the spread of plagues.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 445 – The Ebola Virus, Part 1,” 10/19/14

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Question: I would like to translate your explanation into specific actions that I, as an Israeli citizen, need to perform. What do I need to think, and how do I need to behave in order to add my grain to the scale of merit and begin bringing the world to good?

Answer: You need to participate in round table discussions, workshops that are organized in all the cities now. You can organize them at home, having invited a few friends. It does not even matter what you are talking about. Most importantly, strive to connect in such a way that everyone feels the other and annuls himself.

Because of questions, answers, and discussions, you reach such a unity in which everyone loses himself, seemingly disappears. Instead of ten people, there is one common desire and one thought. It means to become one man with one heart.

You will feel this connection and how it begins to radiate good energy to your life and family, at home, and on the road, where suddenly order and tranquility are established. The entire world will calm down because we all are connected by internal ties around the globe.

We, the people of Israel, are able to activate this connection in a good direction, bringing benefit to the entire world. Then everyone will love us! We will need no guns and no boundaries. We will live in peace and serenity on our own land and, in general, in any part of the world.

It is written that Israel will disperse over the earth. That is, this approach to life, calling us to connect by good ties, will be spread throughout the world. We can make this miracle a reality.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 7/17/14

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Question: Why does time fly so fast in the modern world? In general, the older one gets the faster time flies and before you know it a whole week has gone by.

Answer: The feeling of time is merely a psychological phenomenon. Since we live in a world that moves at such high speed with constant changes, it seems that time flies and is over soon. The problem isn’t time itself or what happens but our desire to receive that goes through very fast changes internally.

The desire constantly changes according to its inner program and so a person feels as if everything around him changes and feels that time flies. In fact, however, nothing moves on the outside except for the desire itself, which builds up an acceleration.

After all, we go through an emotional development in our desire to enjoy in order to reach its ultimate fulfillment, the right perception of who we are and what this desire is. In this desire we will discover the upper reality that is above it.

This means that time is a collection of impressions that change inside our desire to enjoy and which create the feeling of time that we have, that-time flies or time that doesn’t move: past, present, and future, but time itself doesn’t exist. The concept of time is a result of the changes that take place inside our desire.

As we develop more and more, desires to enjoy something new are invoked in us and these desires are increasingly stronger and change in a growing pace and so we feel that time flies faster and faster.

If we compare our life with life in the Middle Ages, 500-1000 years ago, it will seem that time hardly passed then. Nothing changed from morning till night and so one day followed another and one week followed another and a month followed another. If we compare the life of a modern man that is 70-80 years to the Middle Ages when they lived about 30-35 years, the 30 years in the Middle Ages would seem longer than the 80 years today.

After all, everything moved very slowly in the Middle Ages with hardly any changes. A person’s whole life passed at the pace of a horse or a donkey, while today it is at the pace of a missile or a jet plane. This is the reason that our life is full of a variety of phenomena and time flies relatively fast.

Moreover, our perception has changed. Three hundred years ago I had to plan a journey of 100 miles for a long time, and to think where I would stop for the night, what I should feed my donkey, what I would eat, how I would get there, and how I would return. The feeling of life and the time axis were totally different. Human psychology, the perception of time and movement, places and life were very different.

A person then didn’t feel time the way we do. He measured time in relation to his donkey, which determined the speed. Today, however, we measure time according to an atomic clock that counts a millionth part of a second.
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From Kab TV’s “A New Life” 4/17/14

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