Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is Chanukah?“

Chanukah (also spelled “Hanukkah,” Heb. “חנוכה”) , starting on 25 Kislev (start-to-mid December), is also known as the Festival of Lights. It designates the start of our perception and sensation of the one, unique and unified force of nature, the first crossing of the boundary separating our ego from the altruistic force of nature. Hanukkah’s concepts and customs—the war of the Maccabees and the Greeks, the Hanukkah miracle, the candle, light, oil and wick—all connect to the crossing of this boundary between egoistic and altruistic perception.

In order to cross this boundary, we need to rise above our egoistic desires. The war of the Maccabees and the Greeks takes place inside the person, between a person’s egoistic rationalizations and reasoning, which the Greeks represent, and the inclination to unify by inviting nature’s unifying force into our connections, which the Maccabees represent.

However, since egoism is human nature, how can we find the ability to overcome it? Moreover, any desire to unify, love and give to others is minuscule compared to egoism, which incessantly seeks to receive self-aimed enjoyment.

Enter the Hanukkah miracle…

Our perseverance to unify above egoism draws the unifying force of love and bestowal dwelling in nature, also called “the light” in the wisdom of Kabbalah. Despite our very small desire to unite, love and give compared to our egoistic desires that comprise our entire nature, if we support each other so that we keep ourselves adhered to our effort to unite, we eventually arrive at a helpless state: we feel a complete inability to rise above our ego, i.e., to defeat the Greeks, and at that point, a miraculous light sparks up—an appearance of the unifying force of love and bestowal dwelling in nature, which grants us the strength we need in order to overcome our egoistic desires with a unifying, loving and giving tendency. That is the meaning of the Maccabees winning the war against the Greeks.

We prosper when we, on one hand, feel a necessity to win the war, but on the other hand, find ourselves out of options and in despair, i.e., under the attack of the Greeks. While under attack, we feel like we need to keep fighting with all everything we have, however with no success in sight. In any case, due to sensing a responsibility to win the war, we do not throw in the towel, because it would be like agreeing to be locked away in the ego’s solitary confinement.

At that point, the miracle happens—the illumination of the light of unity, love and bestowal. It charges us with its omnipresent energy, and we win the war.

The Hanukkah war is internal, taking place on the boundary between egoistic desires versus those of unity, love and bestowal. Our egoistic desires and thoughts are what filters our perception of the boundless force of love and bestowal surrounding and permeating us, and we revel in the revelation of this force when we win the battle for unification above our egoistic desires.
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What has shocked you the most about Trump declaring that Jews are a “nation”?“

Nothing shocked me about this declaration. It was a move to combat anti-Semitism and the rising anti-Israel movement on US college campuses. However, such actions will not stand in the way of anti-Semitism’s expansion.

I’m certain that anti-Semitism will continue becoming an increasing problem if we fail to treat it at its root, i.e., that we, the Jewish people, will wake up to what made us Jews in the first place—our inclination to unite (“love your neighbor as yourself”) above divisions (“love will cover all transgressions”) in order to spread unity to humanity (to be a “light unto the nations”).

The more torn today’s societies become, and the more people suffer from social division, the more anti-Semitism will rise.

Why? It is because we, the Jewish people, were originally founded based on a unifying ideology—a group of people who lived in ancient Babylon some 3,800 years ago, who gathered around Abraham, uniting according to the method of unification that he discovered and applied on himself.

When we reached sublime states of unity above the divisive social climate of that time, we became known as “the nation of Israel.” That is, our nationhood was never biological, as with other nations. It was ideological, based on the idea of unifying with positive connections of love and bestowal.

After Abraham’s time, we received the name “Jews” (Yehudim) from the Hebrew word for “united” (yihudi). However, since the ruin of the Second Temple, we entered a long period of exile, which continued till today. We detached from the sensation of our unification and dispersed both around the world, and in our attitudes to each other.

Today, as humanity becomes increasingly globally interconnected, technologically, economically and culturally, the time has come for our internal attitudes to become as connected as our external systems.

The more we develop today without working on upgrading our attitudes to each other, the more we will feel our tightening connection in a negative way. We can see such paradoxes in our era, where the more the population increases to numbers we have never seen before, the more people feel isolated and lonely; and the more we build vast global social networks, the more people feel depressed and stressed.

All such problems point to the need for positive connection in society. Therefore, implementing the unifying role of the Jewish people today becomes all the more necessary and urgent.

We Jews today first and foremost need to understand the need for a major transformation—to move toward unification, mutual consideration, concern, support and encouragement of one another—and that we hold the keys to pioneer such a monumental shift in society, spreading unity worldwide to a point where humanity would feel as a single nation.

Until we start realizing the method of connection we have at our fingertips, the world will continue pressuring us. Even if the current US President has a favorable attitude to us for the time being, it has no effect on the global-scale correction that is upon our shoulders to initiate.

In fact, the contrary is the case. It is similar to a person with a disease who was given a painkiller. He feels fine, even though the disease continues spreading.

In the meantime, he lies in bed, talking and laughing with others around him, everyone thinking everything is okay, but he is just numb to the disease, which gradually brews under the surface toward an irreversible outbreak.

It is similar to Germany in the 1930s, where there was a period of positive relations between the Nazis and the Jews (as I elaborated here). It is a latent period where we need to digest the process unfolding, our role in the process, and act accordingly, not simply thinking that everything is business-as-usual, because nothing will heal that way. History shows us how the Nazis quickly overturned the boat on the Jews, getting rid of us with ease.

And so, history is repeating itself before our very eyes. Although we see some seemingly encouraging moves toward Jews in actions such as Trump’s executive order recognizing Jews as a nation, or for instance, the British election of Brian Johnson as opposed to Jeremy Corbyn, it is for a limited time only.

If we fail to complement this relatively calm period with motions toward becoming a positive conduit of unity toward the world, then we can expect an intensification of anti-Semitic hatred to reach a future boiling point. Trump and Johnson will eventually become replaced with new leaders, and all it takes is for them to press a few buttons and we will lose all the help we now have. It is similar to how Hitler swiftly shifted gear to the Final Solution. He also had pro-Zionist consultants close by, who later became revealed as anti-Semites.

Therefore, although we see signs of support from some world leaders for now, anti-Semitic sentiment continues growing under the surface. We still have some time to adjust our sights and prioritize unity: to implement the method of connection among each other, from which it will ripple through humanity. By doing so, we will see a new and harmonious balance of forces blossom in the world, and can prevent a future of mass suffering and bloodshed from materializing.

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Question: When we ask the Creator for the light of correction, through what does He act on us?

Answer: Through the group.

Question: You designated periods of spiritual development: 13 years, 20, 70, and 120. What are these periods?

Answer: These are phases of spiritual development. They have nothing to do with years in our world.

Question: What are they called?

Answer: Conception (Ibur), smallness/infancy (Katnut), greatness/adulthood (Gadlut). You should study Kabbalah.

Question: What is this common leap into spirituality and what is the ultimate effort?

Answer: The common leap into spirituality is simply a leap. It cannot be otherwise. One person cannot do anything, only through a common leap.

The ultimate effort before the leap is when each one annuls himself before others for the sake of the leap.

Question: What is shame? How can one get used to being grateful for the feeling of shame?

Answer: Shame is the feeling of my disparity with the Creator. All the rest is simply feeling upset that I was caught stealing. Real shame is disparity with the Creator.

Question: In one of his letters, Baal HaSulam wrote that he rejoiced in the revealed obstacles and that if you pay attention to them, they will turn into a pile of bones. How can we determine what an obstacle is, and what does it mean to pay attention to it?

Answer: If something stands between my friends and me or between the Creator and me, this is called an obstacle. Then I pay attention to the fact that it bothers me and I turn directly to prayer, to the Creator, and it becomes a “pile of bones.”
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From Lesson 5, World Kabbalah Convention in Moldova 9/7/19, Turning to the Creator

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can we stomp out Anti-Semitism in the United States?“

The way to eliminate anti-Semitism in the United States is the same as how to solve anti-Semitism anywhere in the world: to raise awareness of the root cause of anti-Semitism in order to invert hatred into love.

Kabbalistic sources explain both such a cause and solution to anti-Semitism. It is because Kabbalists perceive developmental processes unfolding in our world, and can both warn people of oncoming threats, as well as offer a remedy to prevent such threats from materializing.

For instance, Kabbalist Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), the most renowned Kabbalist of the 20th Century, tried convincing European Jews in the 1930s to leave Europe because he foresaw the oncoming disaster. Both following his example, as well as taking heed to the alerting recent rise in anti-Semitism worldwide, I also feel the need to communicate the message about the root cause of anti-Semitism and its solution both to Jews and non-Jews, and I extensively
write and speak on the topic with the hope that, at the very least, a future mass tragedy can be prevented.

In relation to the United States, I have lectured to Jewish communities in the United States at various intervals over the last 20 years. During the 2000s, I was laughed at when I mentioned that anti-Semitism was going to become a growing issue in America. Now, in the 2010s, after anti-Semitism’s immense exponential growth, both in the amounts of anti-Semitic crimes and threats, as well as in anti-Semitic sentiment, I am saying that the all signs are pointing to the next Holocaust emerging in America.

However, as much as I write and speak about this topic, I see little response to this message from the Jewish people. It is written about us, that we are a stiff-necked people, i.e., we have a tough skin that makes it very hard to penetrate such awareness into our perception.

In any case, in order to prevent a future dystopian scenario for the Jewish people in the United States, as well as elsewhere, the message is the same for all Jews: we need to unite, according to the tenet “love your friend as yourself,” in order to become “a light unto the nations,” i.e., a conduit that passes the positive unifying force dwelling in nature to the world. If the message doesn’t become accepted through education and promotion, then anti-Semitic blows and suffering will rise, “softening our stiff necks,” undesirably increasing our ability to absorb such a message.

That is the state we first reached some 3,800 years ago in ancient Babylon, under Abraham’s guidance, which granted us the name, “the people of Israel” (“Israel” from the words, “Yashar Kel,” which means “straight to God” [“God” being the same as “Nature” according to Kabbalah, i.e., a positive force that connects between all elements of reality]). Also, according to the same unifying tendency, we were later named “Jews,” from the word for “unity” (the Hebrew word for “Jew” [Yehudi] comes from the word for “united” [yihudi]).

We are gradually reaching new heights of anti-Semitism that the world has never seen, since today’s world is more globally-integrated than ever before. Due to anti-Semitism emerging as a natural phenomenon in non-Jews, toward a subconscious expectation for the Jews to pioneer a process toward more positive human connection, then we can expect a future where everyone other than a few Jews will be anti-Semitic.

Therefore, we Jews first and foremost need to show everyone how unity above the growing hostile divisions in society is not only a possibility, but that there is a method of connection to guide our every step of the way. By implementing such a method on ourselves, we sends positive unifying ripples throughout humanity’s consciousness, and invite an opposite attitude from anti-Semitism upon ourselves in return. In other words, by witnessing increasing positive connection, and subsequent rises in happiness, support and confidence in society at large, the general attitude toward a unified Jewish people would become favorable and encouraging.

However, if the Jewish people will continue rejecting, ignoring or remaining unaware of the message of the need to unite, then instead of seeing unity form in society’s mainstream, we can expect unity to form more and more in society’s fringes, i.e., as Nazi and fascist unity. Such unity is dangerous, since it is built on uniting around the hatred of the other, and it becomes the infrastructure that can lead to the manifestation of horrific events, as exemplified by the Holocaust.

Therefore, I hope that Jews in general, and especially American Jews, will start noticing that the ball is in our court, and that we need to play the game properly: to prioritize our unity in order to spread unity onward. If we do so, we’ll be in a better general state in America and around the world. However, if we fail to realize what the wisdom of Kabbalah is saying on this pressing issue, then the state will become much worse.

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Question: How do the four phases of the development of nature (inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human) correspond to the physical age of a person? At what age does he become a man (Adam)?

Answer: There is no correspondence with this. The created being can become a man (Adam) at any age. The spiritual experience does not depend on age.

Question: There were such cases when the sages prayed to forget all their knowledge and to start from scratch. How is it possible to advance without comparative analysis? By what parameters can a person compare the revelation of one’s feelings or any change?

Answer: The more a person can forget so that there will be nothing left in both the brain and the soul, the faster and better one can advance.

Question: What are the stages of development of the Creator in the ten?

Answer: These states are called conception, nine months of development, birth, two years of suckling, upbringing to the age of six, then from 13 to 20, 70, and to 120 years. These are the phases of the development of the soul.

Question: You said that thought is primary, above the flesh. What does it mean?

Answer: Naturally, thought is the most important thing in our world, even in the egoistic one. Therefore, above thought there is only the next level—the Creator. However, thought does not exist on its own. Thought is the expression of the heart, expression of the desire.

Question: How can we ask the Creator correctly when there is a split in the ten?

Answer: Ask Him to bring you together. Imagine that you had nothing except a plate and suddenly it shattered. You could receive everything on it. How would you ask the Creator to assemble this plate for you? Otherwise, there will be nothing.
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From Lesson 4, World Kabbalah Convention in Moldova 9/7/19, Rejoice in What We Lack/Work in Concealment

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Question: We begin to feel darkness as if from within our egoism. Darkness, which in essence is the same as light, is external darkness. Does it differ in any way from the darkness that I begin to feel egoistically?

Answer: Darkness is the feeling of egoism, period. There are no other kinds of darkness. There are only two forces: egoistic and altruistic. The egoistic is felt as darkness in our spiritual development, the altruistic—as light.

Question: What does it mean to annul myself? What should I restrict in spirituality and in corporeality? How is it possible to find balance between these two lines?

Answer: This is a problem that you can learn about only in our courses, only in the lessons in a gradual connection with teachers: how to balance corporeal and spiritual life. You have to work, have a family, and study Kabbalah. How can you bring it all into balance? In order to do so, you have to be under the supervision of mentors.

Question: Can I, through my request to the Creator, influence other people’s perception of the world? Or is the revelation of the Creator to them not my task and I need only concentrate on the prayer for connection?

Answer: Concentrate only on the prayer for connection of your ten, and through it, you can already ask the Creator for greater connection than in the ten. There must first be the ten, otherwise you do not turn to the Creator, but to whatever, simply to the air.

Question: What should I do if today, at the lesson, during the workshops, I do not want to say anything, I have neither thoughts nor words?

Answer: It means that yesterday you were filled so much that nothing fits into you anymore. What can you do? It will pass gradually. Whatever you received today by being present at the lesson will be revealed in you later. It all entered you, but at the moment you cannot work with it.

Question: How can you pray correctly for the ten in the darkness?

Answer: In the darkness, you cannot pray for the ten. You should adhere to it, enter it. This is why you were given the darkness. The ten then begins to correct and elevate you, and everything will work out.
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From Lesson 4, World Kabbalah Convention in Moldova 9/7/19, Rejoice in What We Lack/Work in Concealment

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can Jews be anti-Semites?“

Not only can Jews be anti-Semites, they can be the biggest and most severe kind of anti-Semites.

Why?

It is because we Jews have a point that connects us to humanity’s corrected and unified state—“love your neighbor as yourself”—which we once discovered under Abraham’s guidance some 3,800 years ago. Together with that point, we also play host to the shattered egoistic desire, which opposes the point of unification, detaching us all from each other.

Every Jew accommodates this duality: an egoistic desire to receive, which seeks personal benefit at the expense of others, coupled with the altruistic point of unification that is attached to humanity’s peak unified state of development.

Whoever feels closer to the central point of unification is drawn to develop differently than those swept into the rat race of the masses, to positive connection in society. Whoever resists such development, letting the ego determine his or her goals and pleasures in life, is against unification, and is thus, according to its deeper definition, an anti-Semite.

However, whether or not certain people are anti-Semitic is not the main issue. We rather need to understand how such inclinations surface as part of a natural phenomenon, where they originate, and how our sentiments emerge from the interplay between these inner forces.

If awareness of the authentic cause of Jewish self-hatred arose among more and more people, then we would be able to somewhat influence humanity’s balance with nature. Humanity would then be able to better understand what it is going through.

In short, Jews are the biggest anti-Semites, precisely because they host the two extreme points of unity and anti-unity.

These two points have constantly changing relations. They actually exist in every person, and we see them in every nation and in every stage of development. However, due to once discovering unity upon the great differences between the people in ancient Babylon, the Jews have a much more prominent differentiation between these two points: on one hand, access to the same method Abraham used to unite people above their differences, and on the other hand, a more inflated ego that resists such unity and makes Jews disproportionately successful in egoistic endeavors compared to other nations.

Therefore, the more humanity develops, the more the nations of the world feel hatred toward Jews. It is because anti-Semitism is a natural response of the ego’s growth, which hates the point opposite itself, a desire that wishes to concede upon the ego in order to positively connect with others.

People in undeveloped areas, such as tribal peoples, have no such attitude to Jews. The more people develop in a civilization, with its amassing egoistic competition and materialistic individualism, the more their attitude toward Jews develops. All of a sudden, people who encounter more and more problems from trying to make their way in the modern civilized world, start feeling that they dislike Jews. It is due to the ego’s growth, and the subsequent tension between the ego and the deeper point within the person that yearns for positive connection with others.

We will reach a state where the whole world will reveal their negative attitude to Jews. It thus all depends on how soon, and to what extent, we Jews will start exercising our potential: to realize the method to unite (“love your neighbor as yourself”) above divisions (“love will cover all transgressions”), through which we can become a conduit for unity to spread among humanity (“a light unto the nations”).

When such a transformation takes place, the rising hateful attitude to Jews will invert to its positive form: a supportive, respectful and even loving attitude toward a people who bring a new elated sensation of happiness and togetherness to the world.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why does Germany’s Angela Merkel visit Auschwitz for the first time amid rising anti-Semitism? “

It is a political move on her part. Politicians make such moves not according to emotion, but according to what’s more worthwhile for them and their party. So I am sure that Angela Merkel and other people involved accordingly made a calculated decision.

The phenomenon of anti-Semitism, however, is much broader than politics. Until widespread knowledge about anti-Semitism’s true cause will spread, it will remain an unsolved problem. It will thus only continue worsening as we head into the future.

Anti-Semitism is a natural phenomenon. It surfaces in every person and nation, both Jews and non-Jews. Combating anti-Semitism is thus possible only if we gain awareness of where it comes from and what is its cause. Currently, we Jews raise the issue of anti-Semitism in a way where we as if seek to ask other nations not to hate us, and we see that it never works out.

It is impossible for the nations of the world not to hate the Jews. It is also written in the Torah that Esau hated Jacob. Esau symbolizes the desire to receive, the quality of the nations of the world, and Jacob is the force that balances the desire to receive with the desire to bestow, the quality of the Jew.

Also, today we can identify hatred among Jews themselves who lack knowledge of the cause of anti-Semitism. If we do not learn the law of nature, how nature operates through all these phenomena, we will then always be mistaken.

The law of nature specifies that humanity’s final state is one of total unification, defined by the tenet, “love your neighbor as yourself.” The Jewish people became knows as such from having once attained a similar unified state around 3,800 years ago, under Abraham’s guidance in ancient Babylon (the Hebrew word for “Jew” [Yehudi] comes from the word for “united” [yihudi] [Yaarot Devash, Part 2, Drush no. 2]).

Therefore, Jews hold this message, to unite according to “love your neighbor as yourself,” within themselves. It is, as if, embedded in their “DNA” as a definitive component. The point within the person that connects with humanity’s more unified state is known in the wisdom of Kabbalah as the “point in the heart.”

Anti-Semitism emerges due to the following distortion: Jews have a latent point within that lets them access a reality of love, bestowal and connection. The Jews, however, do not want to realize the potential of this point, because they have been born, raised and identify completely with their egoistic nature.

Moreover, how could it be that Jews are anti-Semites? It comes from the attitude toward this point in the heart within. If they hate this point, i.e., want to live a comfortable egoistic life, and have nothing to do with trying to develop love, bestowal and connection to others, then such Jews become the biggest anti-Semites. In other words, anti-Semitism is always in relation to this tendency to love, bestow and connect that the Jews once attained: if they start trying to realize it, anti-Semitism will lessen, and if they reject it, knowingly or unknowingly, anti-Semitism will continue rising.

Therefore, the knowledge about the true cause of anti-Semitism is half of the problem’s solution. The next stage is to understand how we need not try to eliminate hatred toward Jews, but to discover a loving, bestowing and connecting tendency equal to or greater than the hatred upon it, according to the words, “love will cover all transgressions.” When we understand how to work in such a way, we will see how anti-Semitic hatred was given to humanity in order to elevate it to the peak of its existence. Until we do so, the hatred will continue being aimed solely at Jews more and more, and we’ll be blamed for everything.

We Jews are to blame for the hatred that anti-Semites feel toward us. However, it’s not due to the direct reasons that they point out, whether it be directed at the State of Israel allegedly oppressing Palestinians, or that we Jews have assumed too much power in countries we have assimilated into, among many others. It is instead due to us lagging behind our own revelation of love, bestowal and connection among each other, and our subsequent failure to pass on a connection with the source that brings abundance into our lives, which is capable of bringing peace, harmony and perfection to everyone.

Therefore, until we will initiate a major change toward uniting (“love your neighbor as yourself”), anti-Semitism will only grow.

Also, the €60 million that Germany donated to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation in advance of Merkel’s Auschwitz trip would be better put to use if Germany opened a research center for the phenomenon of anti-Semitism.

Through investigating anti-Semitism, there is hope that we would discover its true cause and understand what needs to be fixed in order to reach a solution.

What can truly help combat anti-Semitism is the spreading of the true cause of anti-Semitism, understanding it as a law of nature.

Germans would discover that they are not to blame for the Holocaust, and moreover, that no anti-Semite is to blame for the hatred they feel toward Jews.

Jews are unaware of the fact that they are to blame for anti-Semitism, because they have a role in nature to reach “love your neighbor as yourself,” and pass the knowledge of that law to everyone. Due to what our ancestors discovered in ancient Babylon under Abraham’s guidance, we once again have a demand from nature upon us, to unite above divisions and bring the world to balance. This will, in turn, create a counterbalance against the negative force of anti-Semitism, which will bring the world to a perfect state.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why is consumerism a bad thing?“

Consumerism never fulfills us. On the contrary, we become emptier the more we run after materialistic pleasures, where each fulfillment we receive after each purchase soon after turns into emptiness.

Our nature, the desire to enjoy—where we constantly seek to feel pleasure, using anything and anyone around us just to input pleasure into ourselves—eventually leads us to a desperate state.

Desperation from never finding true fulfillment will awaken our understanding that we’re trapped: our pursuit of happiness leads to unhappiness, a lack of fulfillment and dissatisfaction, as Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) writes, that we die with half our desire in our hand.

“All their possessions are for themselves alone, and ‘he who has a single portion wants a double portion,’ one finally dies with only ‘half one’s desire in one’s hand.’”—Yehuda Ashlag, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Volume 1, Part 1, Histaklut Pnimit (Inner Reflection)

What we once enjoyed no longer fulfills us, and we constantly seek newer and different kinds of pleasures to try and fulfill ourselves.

We make it easier for ourselves to buy material goods. We make it cheaper to travel. But we find ourselves in a catch-22, because when our purchases and our travels were harder to achieve, they held more value.

Now, with a few taps of our thumbs, we can have goods delivered directly to our homes the same day, and access entertainment to keep us busy for hours. There is nothing left to desire.

What’s next? Our desire grows, we feel emptier, we start feeling out of control, that our desires are controlling us, and become increasingly frustrated.

Then comes a major crisis.

The accelerating consumerist treadmill is quickly reaching a state where we will be unable to keep up with its speed, and will fall flat on our faces. As a result, we will need to seek a different way to fulfill ourselves. The entire basis for our every enjoyment, that we enjoy egoistically, for our personal benefit, will need to undergo a fundamental transformation: that we enjoy altruistically, for the benefit of others.

How is such a transformation possible?

It is possible because our desire to enjoy simply wants to enjoy, and it doesn’t care about what it enjoys from.

Consumerism is built on the premise that by advertising various ways to enjoy, we will pull out our credit cards and pay for pleasure. However, if society advertised that we could enjoy by giving pleasure to others, then we would simply change the way we fulfill ourselves: by giving instead of by receiving.

Today, there are many people and groups focused on fulfilling themselves by giving. Baal HaSulam writes about 10% of the human population being naturally altruistic, i.e., people who feel an innate sense of pleasure by giving to others. Such people and organizations already provide an example of how we can change our means for enjoying ourselves.

Therefore, by shifting the way we enjoy—by giving instead of by receiving—the desire and the fulfillment will remain, but the means will be different.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah, this state is called “bestowal in order to receive.” It is a step higher than “receiving in order to receive,” which is considered as the lowest form of human consciousness.

The same human ego operates, albeit differently. It will become possible to undergo this transition when we will understand it as the solution to the egoistic dead end we reached in our consumerist attempt to enjoy ourselves.

Together with this awareness, the “recognition of evil” of our inability to fulfill ourselves by means of consumerism, we would need to establish our social influences—advertising, the media, the rewards and payments we receive for our work—to honor and respect giving and disregard receiving.

Baal HaSulam describes this phenomenon in The Writings of the Last Generation, as “free competition for every individual, but in bestowal upon others” and that “disclosing any form of desire to receive for oneself is dishonorable and such a great flaw that such a person is regarded as being among the lowest, most inferior people in society.”

In other words, Baal HaSulam explains that when human society reaches an altruistic state, medals and prizes would be awarded to people who exemplify exceptional acts of giving in order to encourage altruism throughout society at large, and disregard any displays of self-aimed enjoyment.

Human development is marked by the constantly growing desire to enjoy, and it is monstrously overgrowing. We’re recognizing our inability to enjoy egoistically, and the idea to enjoy altruistically starts surfacing.

We are headed toward a state where we will receive no fulfillment from receiving, and will then discover that we can fulfill ourselves by giving.

People would enjoy by, for instance, wandering around the public, seeking how they could contribute positively to people and to society at large. It would happen simply because we would find no satisfaction anywhere else. We would seek what and how to give in order to fulfill ourselves.

Such a different mode of fulfilling ourselves—altruistically instead of egoistically—would bring society to a state where we would start understanding how there is much greater benefit, happiness, confidence and satisfaction when we seek to enjoy by giving, and not by receiving.

We would then come a step closer to the laws of nature, which function altruistically—a force of giving and love dwelling between all connections in reality—and we would be closer to realizing nature’s connections in our social connections.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why don’t Israelis living in Israel feel anti-Semitism?“

We Jews are people with an augmented ego, which lessens our feeling of others, and increases our feeling of ourselves.

Where does this augmented ego come from?

It comes from us Jews having once experienced heightened states of unity, starting from Abraham’s diverse group of Babylonians who discovered the law of nature together (“love your neighbor as yourself”), which granted us the name, “Israel” (“Yashar Kel,” i.e., “directed at the single force of love and bestowal dwelling in nature”), and having since fallen from that sublime unification into deeper layers of the ego than other nations.

Therefore, feeding the ego with the enjoyments it demands becomes our primary concern, just like anyone else, but with a naturally more intensive self-aimed direction than others, lessening our sensitivity toward others in the same vein.

It’s important to understand that we’re discussing a natural phenomenon, describing the natural characteristics of a certain people—a quality that emerged specifically due to our ancestors having once experienced heightened states of unity, harmonized with nature—and since we were in higher states of love and giving due to our connection based on an idea of unification, we have since lost consciousness of that unity, and have now sunk into deeper depths of the ego.

Another way to describe this augmented ego is that we once felt greater pleasures than this entire world has to offer, spiritual pleasures, and since we detached from spirituality, we now seek heightened pleasures, but locked off from spirituality, in our corporeal desires for food, sex, family, money, honor, control and knowledge.

Therefore, after years of being dispersed among other nations, we feel ourselves today in the State of Israel as in our own fortress. We feel as if we’ve returned home, secured ourselves with a strong army, and we hope it remains calm enough as it is now, and don’t want to hear about anything else.

It’s a problem, because with such an attitude, we simply put shields up around ourselves as best as we can, and ultimately wait to be attacked in order to start uniting against any threats to our illusory calm.

By doing so, we fail to acknowledge that there are certain laws of nature acting, which have their own demands: that human society starts taking active steps toward uniting—positively realizing the interconnected and interdependent form of nature itself—and we Jews hold the key to a new positive direction to such unity, since we have attained unity before in history, amid times of social division similar to today.

As Israelis living in Israel don’t feel anti-Semitism, Jews abroad also don’t see the many signs pointing toward another Holocaust.

Continuing along the same lines we are currently treading on won’t help. Today, we can see clear historic patterns showing how we’re on another path to widespread tragedy.

It is all up to how much we Jews will want to open our eyes to see that a transition to a harmonious future, or an ongoing decline into a cataclysm, rests in our hands. Until we will wake up to what makes us Jews—our unity (“love your neighbor as yourself”) above division (“love will cover all transgressions”), in order to be a conduit for unity to spread worldwide (“light unto the nations”)—no positive shift will take place.

Just as the greatest Kabbalist of the 20th Century, Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), called out to the Jews in Warsaw in the 1930s to leave Poland, because he foresaw the carnage that was coming, and they refused to listen to his advice, thinking that everything would turn out alright (they ended up in the Holocaust), and moreover, they forced him out of Poland… so it is today.

However, the difference between the rising anti-Semitic sentiment of the 1930s and the modern world is that today’s anti-Semitism is global. Today, even countries with basically no Jews have strong anti-Semitic tendencies, like North and South Korea.

Thus, it all depends on how much the final solution to anti-Semitism awakens in human consciousness: where we Jews will understand the deep-rooted cause of anti-Semitism, and start adjusting ourselves to more unification among each other. A little awakening of our duty to unite, and we would already see the start of a major positive shift in human consciousness.

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