Entries in the 'News' Category

How Can You Meet God?

962.3Question: There is a Jewish parable about a young man who asked a sage: “We hear that in the past, in the good old days, people used to see God with their own eyes. People used to meet with God. God used to call people by their first names. God was very close. What happened now? Why is He hiding from us? Why doesn’t He hold people’s hands anymore? They stumble in the dark without Him.” The sage looked at the student and said: “My son, God is still where He was, but people have forgotten how to lower themselves low enough that they can see Him.”

He says you must lower yourself. What is it to lower yourself?

Answer: Annul yourself. Your mind, your strength, your superiority, your egoism overall. Then you will see the Creator.

Annulling myself means I don’t want to decide anything. I want only one thing: to bow before the force of nature, which claims that only for the sake of others, only in connection with others, and only in mutual support can we exist. This is called lowering yourself.

The law of nature says it very simply: we are all interconnected. That is, if I think about others, and care for others everyone will be fine and so will I.

Question: Is this lowering my “I”?

Answer: Yes. But this lowering toward others, this egoism cannot be broken through. It is possible only if we convince each other that we have no other option and lower ourselves together.

Question: This word “lowering” does it frighten you, push you away? Not really you, but someone proud?

Answer: Of course, we will have to put away our pride somehow, and deal with it.

Question: How would we make purely corporeal decisions and some plans?

Answer: Precisely by lowering ourselves toward each other. We won’t survive any other way.

Question: So we cannot build one strong country. Do we also have to take care of everyone else, the whole world, everything? You give us such difficult tasks. Or can we do it?

Answer: I think this is not a difficult task. Our development will lead us to feel that we are one nation on Earth, and there is no escape from the fact that we must support each other. This will become the main law. Nature will force us.

Question: Is this the future?

Answer: Yes. I think it is not far off.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/5/23

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The Doomsday Clock Keeps Ticking

294.2Question: The Doomsday Clock symbolizes how close we are to a nuclear catastrophe (how much time to midnight). Midnight signifies the moment of nuclear catastrophe. In 1953 we were very close to that, two minutes to nuclear catastrophe. This was during the development of nuclear weapons in the US and the Soviet Union.

Today, the hands of the clock are 90 seconds away from midnight. This means there are 90 seconds until midnight. The clock readings are calculated annually by 15 Nobel laureates.

We understand and see where this can lead. We see the consequences of the disaster; we have been shown footage of this all the time. But we are not afraid of anything. Somehow it does not frighten us. Why?

Answer: It is because we live with it, we got used to it. Also we did not experience it firsthand, and whatever happened in the past was a long time ago. It is human nature to forget everything and live by today.

Question: Do you think you have to live in Nagasaki to remember and be afraid?

Answer: I think they are not afraid today either.

Question: Is there a mechanism in us that says that nothing will happen or “I don’t care about anything”?

Answer: Perhaps it is a habit. How much can you be afraid and how much can you talk about it? It is better to live and not think. I think that is how people live.

Question: And now it is getting worse; the expenditures for armaments is outlandish. Why is this arms race increasing?

Answer: It is because one cannot help but think about defense. Countries cannot think about it any other way, and are conditioned this way. One looks at the other and copies them.

I am more concerned about new countries, such as Iran and various states in Asia, getting pulled into this.

Comment: Pakistan has nuclear weapons.

My Response: Yes. They also have nuclear weapons and maybe even the means of delivery. Of course this is all wrong and misguided. The proliferation of weapons has taken on a widespread fascination, significance, and growth. Therefore, according to all this, the world indeed is very close to nuclear war, on the one hand.

On the other hand, many people understand that, in general, it is the end of this entire era, which, although marked by a nuclear arms race, was still peaceful.

Question: We always say, “The upper force, the Creator.” Why is He showing it all to us? Why is He unleashing all this?

Answer: So that we think about ourselves.

Comment: But we think about ourselves all the time.

My Response: No, we do not think about ourselves. If we thought of ourselves, we would not behave this way.

Question: What should we do?

Answer: Imagine there are two fighting factions where you live and everyone is in this atmosphere. What should they do? Naturally they would want to get rid of these two militant groups.

Comment: And live peacefully.

My Response: At least peacefully. Certainly not under a threat of war which can ignite every moment.

Question: And yet, why does the upper force, the Creator, allow such a thing?

Answer: So we understand that everything we do, we do badly. We are the ones who bring ourselves to such a state with our egoism. We do everything out of egoistic considerations that do not allow for anything other than suppressing another. Any concerns for what happens to this person are turned off.

Question: So egoism is not against its own destruction or being destroyed?

Answer: No, it is not against it because it will still exist in some form.

Question: So we have to come to understand this evil?

Answer: The evil is in the ego itself. That is the main thing. So the intensity will grow higher and higher until we realize it.

Question: You are saying that to stop the arms race we have to understand the evil of egoism?

Answer: Yes. It is quite possible that there will be a thermonuclear war. After that, humanity will gather and perhaps will even be able to adjust itself correctly in this quiet period after a nuclear war.

We will see how it unfolds. Baal HaSulam did not rule out the second, a third, and even a fourth world war.

Question: He thought the ego to be so resilient that it is the only way to destroy it or break free of it?

Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/26/23

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We Should Say Only Good Things to Each Other

630.2Question: There are a lot of articles in the media questioning where we are going. Many articles today report on what is happening in Israel and concludes that Israel is becoming a tough and cruel country as evidenced by 55,000 cases of physical violence, 32,000 of domestic violence, and mayhem on the roads.

Instances of a driver in a traffic jam getting out of his car and beating up another driver, knives instantly being pulled out in altercations, and domestic violence turning into death have been noted. There is also violence in hospitals, in ambulances, and incidents of doctors being beaten.

Tell me please, what is happening with Israel? Or maybe we haven’t seen this before?

Answer: It used to be a little different because egoism was not so big everywhere. Today it is a terrible condition and it will be even worse.

Question: Does this mean we will not be able to stop it by any earthly, ordinary measures?

Answer: No, not by any ordinary measures. Egoism is getting bigger, more merciless, and more uncontrollable by the minute. That is how it happens.

We are influenced by the egoism growing in us, which we must correct, and yet we do not correct it.

Question: So it will inevitably grow and require only correction?

Answer: Yes. And we cannot look at others to compare with others, how they are and how we are.

Question: So the correction is on us? Only?

Answer: Yes. Just turn everything into friendship, into good relations. Nothing else. If it will work, yes, and if it will not work, it will be the end of us.

Question: So you think the goal of the country is good connection and friendship between all citizens of Israel?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Just like that, in a simple way?

Answer: It is not easy and simple, but it should be like this.

Question: So you think that the laws, even the economic and political laws of the Knesset, should be brought only to this?

Answer: Of course.

Comment: They say that we simplify everything, that sentences are too simple, so simple for people! But, on the other hand, it is impossible to implement, as it turns out.

My Response: So if they can’t do them, then what does “we simplify” mean? We should only say good things to each other.

Comment: Meaning, to radiate only warmth to another.

My Response: Only!
[307024]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/8/22

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We Have to Rise Above Death

294.3In the News: “Tesla CEO Elon Musk has a ‘super bad feeling’ about the economy – so much so that he’s directing company executives to freeze hiring and cut staff…” (NPR).

“Elon Musk welcomes global recession: ‘it’s been raining money on fools for too long’ …  Some bankruptcies need to happen. (The Guardian).

My Response: Ultimately, of course, to bring the world to a healthy and correct distribution, with balance, proper payment for labor, and the right labor, a great deal of the things we have done must be destroyed.

How many schemes have we twisted between us, and all these judges, lawyers? A change in our relationships, when we cleanse them of all all that is pretentious and unnecessary, when all the stock markets and law offices fall, and so on, and so on, then all of this will acquire a completely different foundation, a healthy foundation.

Question: Are you drawing direct connections between us or all sorts of concocted things and production? As soon as these connections become corrected, all of this space will start to be cleansed, right?

Answer: Yes. Even if we removed just the insurance companies from our world, the world would become different.

Question: Will we be able to remove it by simply having more direct relationships?

Answer: Of course, yes. The very name “insurance company.”

Comment: Yes, I insure myself to the fullest; if something happens, then… And when will they fall, these companies? Won’t it simply happen by changing the law and saying that there are no more insurance companies and that’s all?

Answer: I don’t think it will fall quickly and decisively. It depends on man’s disillusionment in this life.

We have to undergo very serious distress and reassess our values. Only then will we reach a decision about what we need in this world and what we don’t, to such an extent that in that decision we will be at the degree of life and death, eternity and death.

With these kinds of problems and when we wish to change them, then we really will be able to start rebuilding our world.

Question: Will we reach a sort of simple decision as a result of all these deliberations?

Answer: The decision is very simple: how can we rise above death. Because all of these insurance companies, everything there is are just how I can make things safer, fulfill them.

Question: Yes. They are founded on death, actually. And here everything will be founded on life, yes? Meaning it will be based on how can I rise above death, right?

Answer: Yes. Therein lies the basis for the existence of all these companies, and in general, the social relations we have concocted over the last century.

Question: And when I desire this, to rise above death, then I will gradually be cleansed of all of this?

Answer: Yes. Everything will go! The threat of war and all of these competitions in general will go away.

Question: When you say rise above death, what do you mean by it?

Answer: Rising above death is ascending above egoism. And it is such that I do not care about the relation of death and life; it is when I see an eternal flow in this.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/13/22

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What Does Love for My Neighbor Give Me

527.02Comment: There is a very clear Jewish parable in which a scientist came to a sage and asked, “They say that you, sir, give people amazing medicines and know how to heal. Give me medicine that will teach me to fear God.” “For the fear of God,” the wise man replied, “I have no medicine. But there is a medicine that will help you love God.” “I desire this even more,” said the scientist, “give me that one.” “This medicine is, love of one’s neighbor,” answered the sage.

That is such a simple formula: If you love your neighbor, you will love God.

My Response: Yes.

Comment: There are always questions, I see my neighbor…

My Response: We do not see our neighbor either. In principle, he is just as incomprehensible and hidden, as the Creator.

Comment: But for an ordinary person, I see my neighbor. Here he is in front of me. But I do not see the Creator.

My Response: What does it mean to see the Creator? What is the question here?

The Creator is everything that is around us. Absolutely everything that is around, everything that I exist in, that fills the whole world around me; all this is the Creator.

Question: Is it possible to fall in love with everything that fills the world around us?

Answer: Yes. Connect with Him and desire to be afloat in Him all the time. That is all.

Question: Does the fact that I do not tear myself away from Him mean that I accept everything?

Answer: Absolutely.

Question: And do I also accept the worst thing?

Answer: It does not matter what.

Question: All this is from You, and I accept it?

Answer: Yes. This is what adhesion is.

Question: Then why does love for one’s neighbor lead to love for the Creator?

Answer: Because we can better direct ourselves this way. Otherwise, how can we do it? For me, as an ordinary person, the Creator is something distant, incredible, other-worldly, and so on. And if I accept everything around me that it is the Creator, then how can I get close to Him and direct myself to Him? Only through my neighbor.

Question: That is, I am trying to love my neighbor and understand that this is …

Answer: Everything around me.

Question: This very thought must stay in me all the time, that all this is from the Creator?

Answer: Yes, this is the Creator. And this is called, from the love of one’s neighbor to the love of the Creator.
[309268]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/12/23

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Do Not Contradict the Creator

565.02Comment: There is a parable about a man who was dying from an incurable disease. His relatives had already given up believing he would recover. But they were told that there is a wise man nearby who heals people. They brought this wise man to the ailing man. He asked to be left alone with the patient. They talked quietly and then the sage left. The next day, the patient began to recover. He recovered fully. And then he was asked: “What did the sage say to you that you easily defeated the disease?” He replied: “The sage told me: don’t try to overcome the disease – love it.”

It sounds, of course, very wise, but it is impossible to love your illness.

My Response: Agree with this. Meaning, agree with what comes to you and accept it as the best option.

Comment: Humanity is sick, and sick with diseases that are largely incurable. Everyone wants some advice that will suddenly help him to live somehow.

My Response: Relax and don’t try to change anything. Swim calmly with the flow of life. Accept what you have. Because everything that is done is done by the Creator. Therefore, do not contradict Him, but feel that at every moment in time, you are connected with Him.

Question: What should one do with the fears that spur a person on all the time?

Answer: There will be no fears! Because fear comes from you wanting to secure some special future for yourself. Here it doesn’t exist.

Question: So, fear is when you disagree with the Creator?

Answer: Yes. But not in this scenario. The future disappears, it doesn’t exist. At every moment it is equivalent to the fact that you are leaving and there is nothing left of you. And everything is calm. Whatever was, will still be. As King Solomon had it written on the ring.

Question: So, you think that if a person gets along with this formula if he lives with it and exists, then it will free him from fears and even from pain?

Answer: The point is not that he will be free from fear and pain, but that he will simply be properly connected with nature, with the Creator.

Question: And what will this result in?

Answer: This will give a connection with the Creator, serenity, rapprochement, and simply merging.

Question: What place do doctors occupy in this whole bundle, in the formula?

Answer: Doctors, in principle, are not designed to pull a person out of an illness. They can’t do that. It is necessary, so the Creator will send it in one way or another, wherever and whenever is necessary.

But the fact is that doctors should help a person to be in clarity. In clarity of mind, in clarity of strength, as much as possible. So that he would properly relate to everything that happens to him.
[309231]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/12/23

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The Truth about Kabbalah

219.01Question: From a letter: “Kabbalah is a mystical movement in Judaism. In essence, it is a method to read and understand Torah. It is based on the idea that the text of the Torah can be interpreted at four different levels the highest of which is revealed through special mystical practices. So, Kabbalah is mysticism and not truth?”

Answer: What nonsense! I have not heard a single word of truth right now.

Kabbalah is simply a set of laws of nature that we must observe if we want to live in harmonious union with nature.

Question: What is this set of laws, what is nature?

Answer: There is nature, it is everything that exists including people, including everyone and everything, our world, our worlds, galaxies. Basically, it is everything that we can imagine. It all represents one unified whole that exists with the help of mutually interconnected forces. Kabbalah explores these interconnected forces.

It explains to us that only by fulfilling the general law of nature, the general interconnection between all parts of nature, will we be able to understand, perceive, feel and exist in this nature.

If we do not reach the desire to attain this nature, then it will gradually throw us out from itself. And in the end, we will still be forced to accept its integral law as the general law of everything that exists.

Question: You talk all the time about one law that governs all this nature and us. What is this law?

Answer: This law is called the Creator. That is, there is a force that contains all parts of the universe at any level: inanimate, vegetative, animate, human, and others that we do not yet know. We may call them mystical, it does not matter. But all these levels exist, interact, and are interdependent on each other.

Question: It turns out that we are inside the Creator, inside this law?

Answer: Of course! Inside the Creator. And we are obliged to obey this law. Of all the forms of life known to us, we are the only form of life that is aware of itself and is aware, in some way, of the presence of the Creator, its source, its root.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/26/23

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Should We Live for Ourselves?

79.01Comment: The following text is very popular on the Internet:

Do you know what will happen after your funeral? After a few hours, the crying stopped. Your family will be busy ordering food from hotels and caterers for relatives. Grandchildren running and playing. … A relative may complain about funeral expenses and that he/she had spent a few hundred dollars more on his/her share. The crowd will slowly dissolve. In the coming days, some calls may come to your phone without knowing you are dead. Your office will be rushing to find someone to replace you. One week later, after hearing the news of your death, some Facebook friends may search with curious sadness to know what your last post was. In a few days, your son and daughter will be busy shopping and packing before they return to work as their emergency leave ends. At the end of the month, your spouse will watch a comedy show and laughing. Some siblings and relatives will ask about the properties and assets you had, if any. In the coming months, your close relationships will return to the cinema and the beach. Everybody’s life will go back to normal just as there is no difference between a withered leaf of a big tree and what you lived and died for. It all happens so easily, so fast, with no movement. This world will forget you and be in a grave at an astonishing pace. Meanwhile, your first death anniversary will be celebrated lavishly. In the blink of an eye, years have passed and there is no one to talk to about you. One day, just looking at some old photos, one of your close friends may remember you. In your hometown, of the thousands of people you’ve become acquainted with, only one person, as you have ever been, can rarely talk to anyone about you. You may live elsewhere, as someone else, if reincarnation is true. Otherwise, you will be nothing and will be plunged into darkness for decades. People are waiting to forget you easily. Then who are you running around for? And who are you worried for? For most of your life, say 80%, you think about what your relatives (excluding love ones) and neighbours think about you. Are you living a life to satisfy them?

My Response: That is another matter. But it is not an end in itself—what am I living for? It does not solve the issue. “Live for yourself”; that is, I will live for myself, I will not think about anyone. Then what?

Comment: I will pass away the same way someday. This is understandable. The worry here is that everyone will forget me. Everyone to whom I have given so much warmth.

My Response: There is no question about this, this is understandable. They will forget.

Question: Then what is the conclusion? If everyone forgets me, everyone I did so much good to.

Answer: I am not going to live inside others because they are mortal too. Why do I invest in others? Just to be closer to the Creator. Otherwise, what are people for?

Comment: When I say, I live for others, I am living for others. But you say, I live for others in order to come closer to the Creator.

My Response: Of course. Because others, too, will disappear today or tomorrow.

Comment: That is, others and everything else exist precisely so that I move, and come closer to the Creator.

My Response: Of course. I can remember how much my parents invested in me, and I cannot get away from this, this is with me all the time. But I look at my grandchildren, they do not care at all, and they do not feel how much their grandparents invested in order for them to exist. And so on. That is, after a generation, it is practically no longer felt.

Question: Does it mean that all is perishable, and it all goes away? Only our coming closer to the Creator is eternal, right?

Answer: Of course.

Question: Then what is this coming closer to the Creator?

Answer: Coming closer to the Creator means becoming included in an endless chain of caring for each other. We should feel that caring for each other is eternal. It leads to a feeling of eternity.

Question: Does the purpose of life lie in this? Is it precisely in this?

Answer: Yes. Then you come closer to the Creator with your feelings, time disappears, and only feelings remain.

Question: What is He, the Creator? What do I want? What does it mean to come closer to the Creator?

Answer: To come to absolute care for others. For another! If I can forget about myself and think about someone else, then I enter into eternity. We will begin to feel this eternity. You, as if, will move into others, and in this, you will feel infinity.

Question: I do not have such a thought, such a wormhole: “What will I get in return?” Doesn’t this exist?

Answer: This will be what you get. You will begin to feel eternity in your attitude to the other.

Question: Is the main goal to come closer to the Creator, and everything around us is given to us in order to come closer to Him?

Answer: Yes

Question: What about wars, sufferings, tragedies, and diseases?

Answer: Without them, we would not be able to feel all this. This is also necessary. That is, the evil inclination is specially created so that we feel ourselves rising above it.

Question: Is our task to rise above all this?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: For people, this is such pain, suffering, and so on, and you say, all of it is also for this.

My Response: This is necessary.

Question: Is it possible without it? To go through life in a clean, smooth way?

Answer: No, the person is not able to. He must go through anger, through the evil inclination; otherwise, he will not feel the good.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/5/23

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Will The Dead Be Used for Fertilizer?!

600.02In the News (The Guardian): “New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul…legalized natural organic reduction, popularly known as human composting or terramation, after death.

“In most cases, the deceased is placed into a reusable, semi-open vessel containing suitable bedding – wood chips, alfalfa or straw – ideal for microbes to go about their work. At the end of the process, a heaped cubic yard of nutrient-dense soil, equivalent to 36 bags of soil is produced that can then be used as fertilizer….

“‘For a lot of folks being turned into soil that can be turned to grow into a garden or tree is pretty impactful,’ Spade told the Associated Press.”

My Response: Do you want to be made into a mummy, as a pharaoh? There is no need. It is better this way.

Question: How do you feel about the fact that a person leaves like this, with such a thought, and his body decomposes?

Answer: If we think about it a little bit, we will accept it with pleasure. I’m going back to nature. That’s correct, that’s good. Let people know and think about it.

Question: What about the fact that it was in the Jewish tradition all the time to bury in a way so that the body decomposes quickly? Was this also because complete decomposition is necessary?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: In other traditions, there is a great worship of the body.

My Response: No, the opposite is true here, it is necessary that nothing remains of the body. Utilize it.

Question: Why? Is there any basis for this?

Answer: Serve the world normally by returning to global nature.

Question: A simple answer, just like that?

Answer: Yes.
[308904]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/12/23

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Inside a Black Hole

260.01Question: Black holes are known to absorb everything within their gravitational field. Using the most powerful Hubble telescope, astronomers discovered a black hole that has become a mother and given birth to several stars. They describe how black holes give birth to stars. A black hole sucks gas clouds into itself, gas clouds heat up to certain temperatures, connect with plasma streams, and become nurseries for future stars.

In which case does a black hole give birth to a star?

Answer: When there is a clear transition from darkness to light. That is, when it can no longer pull in, but must push out. There must be some pulsation law at work here.

Question: Can this be applied to our world, which everyone seems to compare to a black hole? They say that our world is like a black hole. We live by consuming, exclusively by consuming.

Answer: We ourselves are inside a black hole.

Question: We are inside a black hole ourselves. In what case can we give birth to something like light or stars?

Answer: It is only possible with different qualities, not the ones we have now.

Question: Meaning, there are properties of a black hole in us? We resemble it, right?

Answer: Yes, we resemble a black hole. We absorb everything into ourselves.

Question: In what case can we not absorb, but give?

Answer: To do this, we must change our nature from taking to giving.

Question: That is, like a star born out of a black hole, can we give birth to something like light if we transform ourselves? How do we transform and give birth?

Answer: First, we need to realize that black holes are the basis of all nature. This is a massive force of ego, which pulls everything into itself, sucks it in. And then? We need to understand how we can break out of this black hole.

Question: Would it be painful to realize we are a black hole? Will it be bad for us? Why would we want to break out of this?

Answer: Yes, because the black hole only consumes it therefore cannot develop. It only pulls everything into itself; it has no future.

Question: So it turns out black holes are inside us?

Answer: Black holes are inside us. These are huge egoistic voids that we would like to fill, but we cannot and will not be able to.

Question: And that is what we have to come to?

Answer: When we discover these black holes, that our egoism is a pure black hole, the source and origin of all other black holes at all levels of the world, nature, then we may ask the question: “How can we correct it, complement it, and turn it around somehow?”

Question: Will this mean we are getting ready to give birth?

Answer: Yes, this is the act of birth.

Question: So humanity will conceive in order to give birth?

Answer: It is already happening gradually.

Question: What will we give birth to? In terms of relationships or states, what will we give birth to? What do you call birth?

Answer: I call birth an inverse change from wanting to receive to wanting to give. I realize this way is flawed, so I try to change myself.

Question: And this very attempt is what brings results?

Answer: Of course. Nothing in nature is above human reason, above human desire.

Question: So, we have to want it, is this the point?

Answer: Yes, this is sufficient.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/13/22

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