Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Israel had a Coronavirus record over the July 4th weekend, with cases spiking by 13 percent. Why do you think that is?“

Now we are heading toward the end of July 2020, and the coronavirus cases have spiked nearly 92% more over the course of the month, from 28.4K cases on July 5 to 54.4K cases on July 23.

Why?

As I have written and spoken about extensively since the coronavirus became a global pandemic, COVID-19 is not merely a health and economic issue, but a nature-sent phenomenon that has come to reprogram humanity: to make us all more aware of our interdependence and interconnectedness, and to give us conditions by which we become forced to exercise our mutual dependence on each other.

Also, before the coronavirus struck the world, I extensively wrote and spoke about the people of Israel having a special role in our world: to pioneer humanity’s transformation to a positive connection above its increasing divisiveness.

The more divided society becomes, the more there is a need for the unity that the people of Israel have a method to realize.

Therefore, if we, the people of Israel, make strides to positively connect in order to be a unifying example for humanity, we will then experience a positive reaction from nature and other nations.

If we fail to move in a unifying direction, then our negligence and disunity will ripple throughout humanity in the many forms of social division pitting people in the world against each other, and we will experience its negative backlash.

Instead of becoming a unifying example capable of leading the world to a more harmonious state, we have become the opposite: an example of social discord, like a tail trailing behind humanity, dragging along and slowing down humanity’s progress to a more positively connected state.

This is the situation we’re currently in. Thus, it comes as no surprise to me that we have encountered a major rise in coronavirus cases this month. And it has nothing to do with whether or not we observed the health department’s guidelines.

Until we reach an understanding of our role, that we exist not for ourselves but for humanity, and feel on our flesh that we need to contribute an example of unification above division to humanity, then we can expect more and more malfunctions that work against us.

The calculation with regard to the people of Israel is always in relation to humanity’s unity or disunity: if we act to increase unity among ourselves and humanity, then we will experience positive feedback together with a force of connection that increases humanity’s happiness, safety and health to humanity.

And the more human society needs unity, i.e., the more it experiences the negative effects of its divisiveness, then the more we will become pressed to respond according to our fateful role.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What disgusts you?“

Disgust emerges when there is a discrepancy between oneself and what is outside oneself, and when there is antagonism with that “someone” or “something” outside of oneself.

In other words, disgust is a feeling that appears when we feel what is outside of us as not being our own.

We then hate and distance ourselves from that person or phenomenon.

However, when we feel someone or something as belonging to us, we sense the opposite—that we love them.

Therefore, so it happens that we can feel disgust toward many other people and phenomena, and feel whole with ourselves, but this is merely a natural outcome of our egoistic human nature that places a self-serving filter over our vision, making us see what is only most self-beneficial.

If we felt the depth of how our very nature is completely egoistic, self-serving at the expense of other people and nature, and that it makes us constantly see flaws in other people and things around us and not in ourselves, we would then feel this egoistic nature as the most disgusting thing that needs correction.

Such a revelation, however, requires prior guidance toward attaining its opposite form of love.

In other words, if we setup society with a goal to establish ties of mutual responsibility, consideration, and ultimately, love among people, aiming to view other members of society as our own family, and organize our media, society and educational programs to develop such connection, we will then develop a wiser view of what should disgust us more than anything else: that the egoistic nature residing in each and every one of us constantly operates in an opposite direction to loving others, and it is the cause of all our suffering.

Appreciating values of mutual responsibility, consideration and love over the many values of self-benefit, such as wealth, fame and power, would let us progress to become more loving, considerate and positively connected, becoming disgusted in our egoistic motives and views that act to divide us along the way.

Therefore, it is natural to feel disgusted with other people and phenomena in the world that appear negative to us in many ways. But if we try to love each other, and build a supportive environment that guides us toward loving one another, we will then discover a more positive form of disgust: a disgust in our egoistic quality that shuts us off from the love surrounding us.

It is a more positive form of disgust because it serves to make us want to change ourselves to become more loving and considerate—necessities for better social connections—and by doing so, experience much happier, safer and more harmonious lives.

Above photo by José Martín Ramírez Carrasco on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Will the Coronavirus change how humans interact for ever?“

The coronavirus is indeed making us undergo serious changes.

Our behaviors, thoughts, ambitions, hopes and expectations have already changed, showing us that the coronavirus is not merely a tiny physical particle that infects us.

The coronavirus is rather a new program that has entered our reality, transforming us behaviorally and psychologically.

The longer the pandemic lasts, the more it will make us reevaluate our values, tastes and attitudes.

It is as if we have walked onto a bridge between the heavily materialistic pre-coronavirus world—where we viewed individualistic accumulation of wealth, fame and power as signs of success—and the understanding that such values hold much less worth as we move deeper into the pandemic.

If we could take a step back for a moment from the vision of the coronavirus as only being an infectious disease, to the coronavirus as a nature-sent evolutionary phenomenon that has emerged specifically to transform human interactions, then we would see how nature is subtly guiding us to improve our relationships and connections.

Such a view stems from understanding how nature develops us: through increasing diversity and individualization, then through stages of crisis, which then become resolved by cooperation and connection on more advanced levels.

Evolution biologists such as Elisabet Sahtouris have illustrated this process of nature guiding its parts to greater connection and more evolved life forms, and it is consistent with Kabbalists’ depictions of nature’s purpose and plan, which is for humanity to positively connect as a single whole, and by doing so, reach balance with nature.

The more we develop, the more interconnected and interdependent we become. The problem is that we fail to actively upgrade our attitudes to each other in order to realize our increasing connection positively.

Therefore, nature has sent the coronavirus primarily for the purpose of teaching us a lesson in caring about each other.

For instance, we now need to wear masks in order to not infect others, in case we unknowingly carry the virus. In other words, we wear masks not for our own health, but for the health of others, and our own health depends on others “caring” about us in the same way.

Also, in the economic realm, as the coronavirus has struck a blow to many businesses and jobs, it is forcing us to consider everyone who encounters a tight situation, and think of new solutions so that everyone can at least have their essentials met. Authorities thus also become compelled to think and act with more consideration toward their respective publics.

In times of nature-induced crisis, people come together out of necessity, and the coronavirus pandemic is like a drawn-out crisis that ultimately serves to improve our attitudes to each other.

The sooner we understand that mutually responsible and considerate relations are the next phase of our development, and make active steps to help each other act more responsibly and considerately toward one another, then the sooner we will match the more advanced state of connection that nature is guiding us to—and we will then have no need for pandemics and other crises to unwillingly coerce our transformation.

Therefore, since the coronavirus has already begun a process of changing the way we interact, we would be wise to adhere to the conditions it places before us, and seek how to think and act more considerately toward others.

It will be our ticket to exit the pandemic and enter into a happier, safer and healthier world, more balanced with nature, where we will be more aware of what nature ultimately wants from us.

It is my hope that we undergo this shift more actively, and thus, faster and more enjoyably, than if we were to continue leaving it up to nature to goad us there.

Above photo by Kate Trifo on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What startup idea should I build?“

What does it take to build a successful startup in these uncertain times?

At the outset, we need to grasp the extent to which the world has shifted to a new program over the past few months.

Today, we live in a completely different world. It is as if aliens visited us and implanted a new chip into our reality, changing our surrounding conditions, our behaviors and our ways of thinking.

Still, we are in a transition phase, and likewise, many people continue trying to operate according to the outdated program of our pre-coronavirus world, a program that prioritizes values of self-benefit over benefiting others.

If we understood nature’s evolutionary tendency to guide all of its parts to perfect connection and interdependence, then we would see how today’s changes are for our ultimate benefit: they come to bring us closer to each other, not necessarily physically, but to a more heartfelt closeness.

And when we feel closer to each other, we feel happier, more confident, safer and healthier.

Therefore, what we need more than anything else today is an environment that can support, encourage and guide our connection, so that we can balance our relationships with our new program of development—conditions that demand increased cooperation and care for each other.

If we fail to upgrade our attitudes to each other in order to match the mutual dependence and responsibility required by today’s new program, then we will feel an increasingly heavier weight on our shoulders the more we plod on from one day to the next.

Nature, by means of the coronavirus, has placed us into new conditions precisely in order to transform us.

Today’s startups thus need to take that into consideration.

If our past startups ended up in a marketplace that pitted them up against each other, now everything needs to change. We will still need to compete, but our competition needs to shift from egoistic, where we try to reap as much of the market for our business as we can, to a competition where we each aim to contribute as much as value as possible to humanity.

And what does “value” mean today? It means caring that everyone’s needs are met, as well as helping everyone genuinely become happy, safe and healthy via upgrading the quality of human relations.

Therefore, anyone bold enough to initiate a startup in this period should first be equipped with sufficient knowledge and an environment to understand the transition the world is in, and then create tools that help people feel closer to each other.

For instance, there is plenty of room for technology to develop means by which we can feel ourselves together in one room, and even more so, as parts of a single whole where our every breath and contact is sensed by everyone.

In other words, as we head toward the discovery of our tight interdependence, we can develop technologies that help us sense what it means to feel as one with others, and which will thus help guide our fateful transition much more positively and harmoniously.

We thus need startups that authentically fill the human need for connection, which will serve to smoothen our transition from our current degree to greater mutual support and consideration.

Above photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How are people around the world coping with the coronavirus?“

In general, I see more and more people becoming more accepting and accustomed to the new conditions brought on by the coronavirus.

Of course, there is a lot of reluctance and tension at the boundary of this acceptance.

Human nature—the so-called “evil inclination” that prioritizes self-benefit at the expense of others—received a few major blows, and it is still swinging back with all of its might.

We try to hold onto our culture that glorifies wealth, fame and power, where we pit ourselves against each other and have no choice but to compete with each other to reach the top of our respective individual empires.

But nature’s evolutionary steamroller continually flattens out this evil inclination’s throes of death.

It infected humanity with a virus in order to awaken upon us a new sensation of a much greater interdependent reality, outside of our self-serving worldviews.

We have already undergone a major transition from resisting our new restrictive conditions, which we were forced into, to gradually coming to terms with them.

If we knew for a fact that this pandemic has saved us from a much greater hatred-infused blow that we would have inflicted upon ourselves, like a war, then we would be happy for our current state.

I understand that the virus has killed and infected vast amounts of people, and that many more have become financially and personally stressed. But if we could see the overarching global tendency taking place, then we would see that this current direction has spared us more suffering than if we had continued our previous ways.

For instance, I view it favorably that authorities are preoccupied with the health, well-being and future of their own publics instead of complicating themselves on international scales. Likewise, people across the board fare better by being more essentials-focused instead of letting themselves get confused with the smorgasbord of surplus luxuries, which repeatedly fail to provide any lasting satisfaction.

Nature has given us something to be busy with, through which we can change our ways and start perceiving our surrounding reality afresh.

Also, today’s speed of change is unprecedented. Therefore, I very much hope that in the coming months, we will witness a more understanding and empathetic humanity, one more perceptive of the process it is undergoing, and a humanity that knows how to progress more smoothly to a well connected, safe, healthy and happy future.

Above photo by Osman Rana on Unsplash

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are some of the best skills for the future?“

As our society becomes increasingly interconnected and interdependent, our good future depends on our development and sustenance of considerate relationships.

Also, since our egoistic human natures continually grow, making it harder for us to be considerate toward each other, then caring attitudes will indeed become necessary skills that we will need to learn in order to survive and prosper healthily heading into the future.

Further supporting the idea of the need to develop considerate attitudes to each other is that technology will become increasingly sophisticated, taking over more and more of the jobs that people are required to do today. We will thus have the ability to supply for our life’s essentials with much less time and effort than we currently do.

So as more labor will shift from humans to machines, and more time will free up, we will need to learn how to get a grip on our growing egos—to learn how to manage them so that they will not lash out and harm others, and also to learn how to develop mutually considerate and positive relations above our egos.

By exercising positive relations as a new skill that we regularly develop and sustain, we will discover a whole new kind of harmonious social life that we cannot currently envision. It will emerge not only from our motions to connect above the ego that moves in an opposite divisive direction, but our revamped social connections will surface the force of connection that dwells in nature, since we would then be more balanced with nature.

We would then experience much more satisfaction, happiness, confidence and good health in our lives.

Above photo by juan pablo rodriguez on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Will the Coronavirus change how humans interact for ever?“

The coronavirus is indeed making us undergo serious changes.

Our behaviors, thoughts, ambitions, hopes and expectations have already changed, showing us that the coronavirus is not merely a tiny physical particle that infects us.

The coronavirus is rather a new program that has entered our reality, transforming us behaviorally and psychologically.

The longer the pandemic lasts, the more it will make us reevaluate our values, tastes and attitudes.

It is as if we have walked onto a bridge between the heavily materialistic pre-coronavirus world—where we viewed individualistic accumulation of wealth, fame and power as signs of success—and the understanding that such values hold much less worth as we move deeper into the pandemic.

If we could take a step back for a moment from the vision of the coronavirus as only being an infectious disease, to the coronavirus as a nature-sent evolutionary phenomenon that has emerged specifically to transform human interactions, then we would see how nature is subtly guiding us to improve our relationships and connections.

Such a view stems from understanding how nature develops us: through increasing diversity and individualization, then through stages of crisis, which then become resolved by cooperation and connection on more advanced levels.

Evolution biologists such as Elisabet Sahtouris have illustrated this process of nature guiding its parts to greater connection and more evolved life forms, and it is consistent with Kabbalists’ depictions of nature’s purpose and plan, which is for humanity to positively connect as a single whole, and by doing so, reach balance with nature.

The more we develop, the more interconnected and interdependent we become. The problem is that we fail to actively upgrade our attitudes to each other in order to realize our increasing connection positively.

Therefore, nature has sent the coronavirus primarily for the purpose of teaching us a lesson in caring about each other.

For instance, we now need to wear masks in order to not infect others, in case we unknowingly carry the virus. In other words, we wear masks not for our own health, but for the health of others, and our own health depends on others “caring” about us in the same way.

Also, in the economic realm, as the coronavirus has struck a blow to many businesses and jobs, it is forcing us to consider everyone who encounters a tight situation, and think of new solutions so that everyone can at least have their essentials met. Authorities thus also become compelled to think and act with more consideration toward their respective publics.

In times of nature-induced crisis, people come together out of necessity, and the coronavirus pandemic is like a drawn-out crisis that ultimately serves to improve our attitudes to each other.

The sooner we understand that mutually responsible and considerate relations are the next phase of our development, and make active steps to help each other act more responsibly and considerately toward one another, then the sooner we will match the more advanced state of connection that nature is guiding us to—and we will then have no need for pandemics and other crises to unwillingly coerce our transformation.

Therefore, since the coronavirus has already begun a process of changing the way we interact, we would be wise to adhere to the conditions it places before us, and seek how to think and act more considerately toward others.

It will be our ticket to exit the pandemic and enter into a happier, safer and healthier world, more balanced with nature, where we will be more aware of what nature ultimately wants from us.

It is my hope that we undergo this shift more actively, and thus, faster and more enjoyably, than if we were to continue leaving it up to nature to goad us there.

Above photo by Kate Trifo on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the significance of gematria?“

Gematria is a person’s or soul’s particular internal state, which consists of a spiritual desire (called a “Kli” [“vessel”]) and spiritual light (called “Ohr”) that fills the desire.

It is a way of recording a definitive state of the soul. The totality of all feelings, perceptions, states, memories and intentions that the soul undergoes can be expressed by means of letters or letter sequences known as “Gematria.”

Since ancient times, Kabbalists, i.e., people who attain a soul and increase their closeness with life’s causal force of love and bestowal, known in Kabbalah as “the Creator,” have recorded information about the spiritual states they experience, and all such records are known as Gematria.

In other words, when we attain the soul, we perceive through a new sense called a “screen” (“Masach”), an intention that equalizes between the Creator’s light (“Ohr”) and the desire (“Kli”) of the created being. Gematria thus becomes an expression in our world of what we perceive with the screen.

What, then, is the significance of Gematria, i.e., recording spiritual states in our world?

The significance is that by reading the letter sequences and words, we do not simply read stories, fables, parables or any other corporeal information, but we shift from one spiritual desire to the next, discovering our soul, i.e., our increasing closeness with the Creator, through the changing letters and their sequences.

Every letter in Gematria is a spiritual symbol, and every word is a matrix. It is like a encrypted secret code where every word, letter, sequence of letters and words, and every word’s root, stems from the relationship between the light, the Creator’s quality, and the vessel, the soul.

The more we approach Gematria with the intent of attaining our soul, the more we will sense the harmony registered in the connection of the forces of nature that are expressed through its letters.

Kabbalists created the Hebrew language to express their spiritual attainments, and in addition to the 22 Hebrew letters, there are expressive points, called “TANTA” (“Taamim, Nekudot, Tagin, Otiot”), which express the letters’ connections and developments.

The 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet break down into:

9 letters from Bina;
9 letters from Zeir Anpin;
4 letters from Malchut, and
5 more letters at the ends of words.
The 5 letters at the ends of words symbolize the positioning on the Parsa. The exit of the light builds the expressive points (TANTA) that disappear. Vowels are nearly never used. They are just hinted at.

Ultimately, the significance of Gematria, the words, letters and their sequences, is that it contains the revelation of the Creator to the created beings, and by reading it, we can attract such an influence upon ourselves, drawing us closer to the discovery of our soul’s connection with its Creator.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do people hate each other?“

Hatred is an attribute unique to humans.

Human nature is a self-serving egoistic desire that considers its own benefit before the benefit of anyone else.

The more we develop, the more our egoistic quality grows, and likewise, the more we try to benefit ourselves at the expense of other people and the ecology.

In other words, the more we develop, the more our hatred toward each other increases.

While seemingly a negative quality, there is a positive flip side to the hatred increasingly unfolding in humanity: the growing negative sensation serves to lead us to a serious self-examination, where we will discover that we need to change our egoistic human nature in order to survive, prosper and be happy.

Outside our egoistic nature is nature in its positive, altruistic, loving and giving form, which thinks and acts oppositely to the way in which we think and act.

Therefore, if we act on our hatred, it merely shows our unawareness of nature’s laws, and also our incongruence and imbalance with nature.

Genuine hatred thus reveals itself as we head toward love. That is, if we set foot on a path to love each other as we love ourselves, as is the ultimate law of nature, we will then start seeing hatred surfacing in us as a quality that we need to fix in order to truly love others.

And why would we want to love others?

Whether we want to or not, nature is guiding us all to a state of absolute love—nature’s fundamental quality. By aligning ourselves to love others, through building a supportive environment to love each other above the rising hatred, we would then spare ourselves from much suffering that would otherwise emerge in the involuntarily-surfacing hatred.

Today’s many world events express the immense hatred dwelling in humanity. We take sides against others in many areas of life, and bridging our divides seems unthinkable.

Since we fail to implement any kind of education that guides our understanding of how our egoistic human nature operates on us, dividing us in order that we develop supportive ties above the divisions, then we fall to the ego’s demands time and again, and hatred takes over in an unabated fashion.

We need to learn how to fix our hatred’s source—the human ego—so that we would know how to cover it with love.

If we take a status check of what is happening in the world right now, we would see that we are in a very significant transitional era: one where we increasingly become aware of the ego’s wickedness.

We feel worse and worse, more depressed, stressed, anxious and uncertain about our future, but still are unaware of our negative sensations’ causes and effects, and what we can do about it.

However, we will eventually have to reach a realization that our egoistic human nature is a lever that we can “pull” in order to switch it to love.

Without the increasing hatred and negativity filling our lives, we would also be unable to sense a much fuller sense of enjoyment in love, as the increasingly unraveling evil within us adds more appetite and yearning for a genuine sensation of love to emerge.

Yet, we need not wait for pain and suffering to spur on the recognition of our egoistic nature as evil in order to want it to change.

There is a method of connection that we can implement in order to build supportive ties, direct ourselves to love one another, and already start connecting positively and accelerating the revelation of our hatred’s source—the ego dwelling inside each of us—within a more powerful envelope of love and positive connection that we construct with the method’s guidance.

In short, we are sent hatred so that through our active efforts in building a society that aims itself at loving one another, we could repair the hatred, cover it with love, and by doing so, experience a new sense of harmony and bliss spread throughout society.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can I learn to remain calm in any situation?“

It is impossible to remain calm in any situation. Also, we do not have to always be calm.

Nature develops us by constantly growing our ego. If we look at eons of human development, we can see development from basic survival desires for food, sex, family and shelter—desires we had as cave dwellers—through the egoistic desires that appear when we develop as civilizations: money, honor, control and knowledge.

The more the ego grows, the less calm we become.

Aggravation, agitation and stress are all states that nature urges us to feel in order to reach the recognition of our human ego as the cause of the turbulence, and by doing so, develop a sincere new desire to rise above the ego.

At this juncture, we need a supportive environment where we feel encouragement and confidence in order to rise above the ego.

One aspect of such an environment is regular learning and activity aimed at elevating us above the human ego, which shields us against any aggravations that come to unbalance us.

In other words, by regularly calibrating ourselves in order to recognize the ego as the source of our imbalance with our surroundings, and to rise above the ego, we would need to strengthen our supportive environment, which would in turn help us through any states we experience faster than if we were left to our own devices.

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