Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why should we respect elders?“

The elderly represent the layer of society that holds a reservoir of wisdom and experience.

We see that people with more developed desires, such as scientists, who seek knowledge about our lives and the world develop more in their practice the more they age.

When scientists reach their elderly years, they don’t simply stop their scientific work, go on pension and relax for the rest of their lives. After spending a major portion of their lives accumulating knowledge and experience, the older they become, the more they improve in their scientific work. There is no age to seekers of science, knowledge, and wisdom.

We should respect the elderly because we very much need them and can highly benefit from the wealth of their wisdom and experience.

What would happen if all elderly people were removed from the planet? We don’t feel it, but the world would lose an immense amount of richness and depth.

One of the problems today is that it has become normal to live until the age of 90 and over. When I was younger, over 60 was considered old, with 70 being the peak. Now it’s over 90. Unfortunately, however, society has yet to realize how to make best use of people in this age group. It is a sign of us failing to best realize what nature has given us.

It’s common to envision our elderly years as those where we detach from the daily grind, go on pension, and find ways to relax and enjoy life till we die. Unfortunately, however, we fail to see how such an approach separates us from the vitalizing spring of human activity that comes from being contributing members of society. Numerous studies today show the physiological and psychological benefits of human contact, and it is no different for the elderly. In addition, death doesn’t come as a result of old age, but as a result of people losing engagement with life.

We should therefore, first and foremost, understand what elderly people lack most, which is to express themselves. Moreover, in order to let elderly people express themselves, we would need to setup systems that activate their contribution to society.

For example, currently in Israel there is an experimental project that pairs 80-year-olds with 4-year-olds for 2 to 3 hours a day in an effort that aims to mutually benefit the elderly and the children. I support such an initiative. In general, in the structure of a family spanning 3 generations—grandparents, parents and children—the children can receive a rawer kind of emotional connection from the grandparents than from the parents, one that is pressure-free and more heartfelt. Likewise, the elderly can find plentiful ways to express their many insights from life in sharing with the children, and the children can learn and gain a special kind of attention from their elders.

We should thus respect elders for their wealth of wisdom and experience, and instead of letting the elderly detach and wither away from society, we should rather seek ways to offer them self-expression by being contributing members of society.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are your thoughts on the shooting in the German city of Halle that took place outside of a synagogue on Yom Kippur?“

The shooting attack near a synagogue in Halle, Germany was yet another dreadful act of anti-Semitism on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. However, it could have been much worse if the 27-year-old attacker, who identified with the far-right, had broken the synagogue’s doors and slaughtered the 80 worshipers who were conducting the Yom Kippur prayers.

In a video he shot leading up to the shooting, the attacker denied the Holocaust, denounced feminists and immigrants and stated outright that “the root of all these problems is the Jew.”

Following the attack, there were cries, prayers and warmth given to the victims’ families, but also a clear demand for a significant shift to take place against the anti-Semitism that has rapidly spread worldwide.

For example, upon news of the two people who were shot to death, condemnations came one after another, from German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas tweeting that “shots being fired at a synagogue on Yom Kippur, the festival of reconciliation, hits us in the heart,” and “we must all act against anti-Semitism in our country,” through Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commenting for a “call on the German authorities to continue taking determined action against anti-Semitism.”

However, other than desperate words, there is an air of helplessness in the face of the growing phenomenon.

Helplessness. Desperation. They sound like very undesirable feelings. But could it be that such sensations are actually a positive outcome of the exponentially rising anti-Semitic crimes and threats?

Perhaps when we are repeatedly stunned by an irrational phenomenon that has haunted our people for generations—one which makes no differentiation between genders, between Yom Kippur and a weekday, and between synagogues in Berlin and Pittsburgh—then maybe this is what will goad us to look into what the Kabbalists have been trying to tell us for generations?

Whether in The Zohar or other Kabbalistic texts, what have the Kabbalists been trying to communicate to the Jewish people? Simply put, if we Jews unite with one another, we invite a positive force dwelling in nature to spread not only among each other, but among all humanity. By awakening nature’s positive, unifying force through our unity, we can bring peace to the world. On the contrary, if divided, where every Jew remains within him- or herself in his or her own prayers, then we provoke the opposite: hatred and conflict. As Kabbalist Rabbi Yitzhak Isaac Haver wrote, “Creation and choice, correction and destruction of the world—all depends on Israel” (Siach Yitzhak. Part 2, Likutim 1).

Hours after the deadly shooting attack, German chancellor Angela Merkel attended a vigil to identify with the victims at a historic synagogue in central Berlin. She stood with the Jewish community as they together sang, “Ose shalom be Meromav” (“make peace in His heaven”). Ironically, sometimes the answer to our toughest questions can be found right under our noses. Sometimes we need only open our ears and listen to the words we’re singing…

• “Ose shalom be Meromav” (“make peace in His heaven”). It means that in our unity and our common prayer, we can make the upper force bring peace above;
• “Hu yaase shalom aleinu” (“He will bring peace upon us”), i.e. the upper force will bring peace to the whole of humanity;
• “Ve al kol Yisrael” (“and upon all of Israel”), i.e. where the role of the people of Israel is to unite;
• “Ve al kol yoshvei tevel” (“and for all the people in the world”), i.e. our role is not to receive the light of unity for ourselves, but to be a conduit for the light to spread to the world, i.e. to be “a light unto the nations.”
• “Ve imru amen” (“and say Amen”), i.e. then we will all—Jews and the nations of the world—be truly grateful for reaching the long-awaited peace.
  Amen.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How does one become wholly Jewish?“

Anyone can become a Jew, no matter whether one is French, Italian or any other nationality, because Jewishness is not via lineage.

To become a Jew means to adopt a certain way of thinking, an attitude toward life and its purpose, when you realize what it actually means to be a Jew.

What does it mean to be a Jew? It means to bring the method of correction and connection into the world, and to become a contributing member toward the world’s unification.

In other words, to become a Jew means to unite all people, to be the force that elevates them toward the quality of bestowal, love and unity. It means reaching such communication between all people in the world so that they will be as one. Being Jewish has nothing to do with whether or not one’s mother is Jewish.

Therefore, ultimately, the goal of every person is to become Jewish, i.e. to transition from the egoistic and divided perception of the world into its opposite, altruistic and united perception. Such an action is considered as crossing (“Laavor,” from “Ivri,” which means “Hebrew”) the barrier between this world and the spiritual world. Those who currently identify as Jews have been given an opportunity to pioneer this process before it reaches humanity as a whole (the Hebrew word for “Jew” [Yehudi] comes from the word for “united” [yihudi] [Yaarot Devash, Part 2, Drush no. 2]).

It is thus my hope that us Jews will, sooner rather than later, recognize our responsibility toward the world, to implement our unity “as one man with one heart” and by doing so, witness the harmonious effect of our unity ripple out to the world at large, as “a light unto the nations.”

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “[Serious] Why does it seem like everyone in the world is protesting right now? Hong Kong, Lebanon, Chile, and many others are all in the news for serious, widespread, and often violent protests. Why now?“

To start with, most of the world is heading into winter now, and there is always more illness, depression, and problems with living conditions and supplies in winter than in summer. It’s felt in every family and small business.

Other than that, with the increasing entanglement of existential threats, whether it be cyberattacks, bio-weaponry, artificial intelligence, climate change, and nuclear warfare, to name a few, it’s a wonder that nothing has already triggered a chain reaction of mass devastation around the world.

Perhaps such a critical situation can show us how a higher intelligence is sustaining us throughout the positive and the negative, wishing to teach us how to relate to life?

We cannot say that we’re surviving and continuing to somehow make our way through life according to our own intelligence. If it were solely up to us, we would have finished ourselves off a long time ago.

Humanity has trouble understanding that most of its produce is surplus to its real needs. We live in a game where one player profits off of the other player, who buys and disposes of all kinds of unnecessary things.

Why do we agree to live like this?

It’s all in order to give ourselves a false sensation of enjoyment, and nothing will come of it. In other words, human nature constantly demands pleasure, but all pleasures we receive dissipate and we’re always left emptier and emptier.

In the meantime, we’re given time to understand where we are, who we are, how nature works, and how we can reach harmony and balance both among human society and with nature.

The current protests will likely fritter away at some point, and then they’re expected to reignite. However, all in all, we can expect a lot more protests heading into the future because life continues becoming increasingly difficult.

We are being cornered from all sides in order to ultimately consider that our lives require a fundamental transformation.

However, where is the solution? Protests and riots will erupt. Governments and leaders will get replaced one after another. It will all serve only to show us that nothing can solve the increasingly complex puzzle of our times.

Moreover, I’m very optimistic about this situation.

I’m optimistic because such an intensive mesh of complications serves to lead us to the awareness of our own egoistic nature as standing behind all the problems, that our nature is basically evil and negative.

In other words, we’re gradually being led to a correct diagnosis of what’s wrong with the human condition: that the egoistic human nature, which wants only to consume pleasure for its benefit alone, is the cause of all our problems.

Once we reach a widespread realization of this common cause to all our problems, we can then start fixing it.

When we reach such an awakening, we’ll realize that there is no person, no leader, no good or bad people, no right-wing or left-wing political orientations to blame. There is only our very egoistic nature, dwelling sneakily within each and every one of us.

How can we then correct human nature if it is the cause of all our problems?

We can’t. Or at least, we can’t correct human nature directly.

To correct human nature, we need to demand from the people who possess a method for the ego’s correction, that they will implement the method, and by doing so, change themselves and the world for the better.

Who are these people? Who holds the solution for the increasingly complex web of problems on personal, social, economic, ecological and global scales that we face?

It is none other than the Jews.

It appears as if the protests in Hong Kong, Lebanon, and Chile have no connection to Jews. However, it only appears this way in the present moment. In the near future, we will see the connections.

People still feel that they can fix something through protests. However, soon it will become evident that there are no solutions in protests, but only in correcting human nature, a process that the Jewish people have been given the ability to pioneer. Simply put, the Jews’ correction of human nature and their establishment of positive relations would ripple out to all nations, bringing about the required correction of the human ego. We thus need only demand such correction from the Jews.

I see us in an excellent situation. The world is nearing mass awareness of the true cause behind all of its problems—the egoistic human nature—together with its treatment—the method of correction, which the Jews need to set off—in order to undergo a major shift to a harmonious existence.

For more info about the role of the Jews, I recommend reading my article that I once had published in The New York Times, “Who Are You, People of Israel?”

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What’s the best schach?“

The best Schach is the inner Schach that we build out of “waste of barn and winery,” i.e., what our ego considers wasteful, ideas of love, unity, brotherhood, and concern for others. We raise this Schach above our heads, making it the roof of our temporary dwelling, the Sukkah.

Meanwhile, our temporary Sukkah structure made with rickety materials becomes sturdy, safe and secure when we cover it with a common wrapping of love and unity.

Therefore, the best Schach is the one through which we penetrate our egoistic mental and emotional makeup, and discover the upper world.

In the language of Kabbalah, the Schach is the Masach (screen) that we build and that is granted to us: an ability to think toward others as nature itself thinks toward us—with absolute love and care.

The Schach thus represents the most significant boundary in our lives: the boundary between corporeal life and spiritual life, between egoism and altruism, human nature and nature itself, creation and Creator.

In the shade of the Shach are our egoistic desires. We’re grateful for the ego because it leads us to a realization of the need to rise above itself. Above the Schach, i.e., above our egoistic and corporeal reasoning, where we cannot picture any self-benefit, are the altruistic desires. In our altruistic desires, we can reach true harmony in balance with nature, united as a single entity.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why should we not use plastic?“

This evening, I was approached by a newer student who stated that perhaps we would be a better example of a positive force in society if we wouldn’t use plastic, since plastic is considered as bad for the environment.

I explained to him simply that Kabbalah doesn’t relate to the topic of plastic. Kabbalah deals with pinpointing the base cause of all evil phenomena in nature—our egoistic desire to enjoy—and correcting this desire, i.e., inverting its intention from “for my own benefit” to “for the benefit of others.” As a result of the work at the level of desire, the causal point of any phenomena in our world, nature corrects all man-made distortions.

Therefore, if we correct the plastic in our hearts—the desire to benefit ourselves alone—it will all work out, I promise you.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What would it take for Israel to get involved in Syria?“

Israel should not get involved in Syria. It makes no sense for Israel to get involved in such conflict zones.

Israel is not a superpower. It’s a small nation, and it’s finding it hard enough to survive as it is.

Against Turkey, the current attacking force against the Kurds in Syria, Israel is powerless. Turkey is very powerful, boasting an extraordinary population of over 79 million people.

For the time being, Israel needs to be neutral. The world needs to understand that Israel is in a situation where it needs to be concerned about itself. It has no need to show itself off to other nations as “holy,” i.e. involving itself in different places to try and portray a positive image of itself to the world.

Just as every individual has the right to exist, every nation also has the right to exist. We can say it openly, that every nation has the right to exist, but it does not mean that we need to enter into war with everyone in the process.

If Israel would really like to offer its help to the Kurds, the Syrians or any other nation, it needs to realize the role it assumed when it was given the name, “the nation of Israel”: a role of a people who aim Yashar Kel, i.e., straight to the higher force of unity and love.

By uniting above differences (“love will cover all transgressions”), the nation of Israel’s unity would have a positive rippling effect throughout humanity as a whole, softening conflicts and calming the world by inviting nature’s unifying force in between the multitude of people and nations (i.e. to be “a light unto nations”).

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What causes anti-Semitism on the left?“

Anti-Semitism emerged together with the emergence of the Jewish people in ancient Babylon about 4,000 years ago. Likewise, there are no causes of anti-Semitism specifically coming from the political left or right, as they both stem from the very causes of the phenomenon of anti-Semitism itself.

Hatred toward the Jewish people has been a regularly recurring phenomenon over the course of history, starting in ancient Babylon, and taking place in many additional ways to how it appears from a particular political standpoint.

What happened in ancient Babylon?

It was a time of great social turmoil marked by the shattering of the Tower of Babel, where the Babylonians felt an outburst of the human ego (desires for self-aimed benefit) and stopped understanding each other.

Due to the calling of the time, a Babylonian priest, Abraham, discovered a way of rising above humanity’s divisive inclinations to reveal the single and unified force of nature. He taught and promoted this method of uniting above divisions to whoever was interested.

Abraham called the people who gathered around him, “the people of Israel”: “Israel” from the words “Yashar Kel,” i.e., directed at the unified force of nature, God (according to Gematria, “nature” and “God” are one and the same).

Essentially, Abraham showed people a path to the discovery of the unified single force of nature via exercising relations of “love your neighbor as yourself” and “love will cover all transgressions” in society.

After attaining newfound unity above the social division of the time, the group that gathered around Abraham endured a further outgrowth of the ego over the following 200 years, which ruptured their unification.

This period became known as the “ruin of the Temples.”

The ego that grew in those times once again divided this people, as they failed to overcome it with positive connection.

Their hatred rose so much that Rabbi Akiva, who was the leader of the people of Israel during the ruin of the Second Temple, requested an end to the hatred. No one heard his calling, and consequentially the people of Israel dispersed.

Since their dispersion, the people of Israel have lived through a period of exile.

The people of Israel share no biological connection. They emerged based on an ideological connection as a people who realized “love your friend as yourself” and “love will cover all transgressions” upon the social division of the time. Without holding onto this ideological connection, they feel nothing holding them together.

However, if they are hated by other nations, then they assemble. On the contrary, if they’re not hated by other nations, then they continue dispersing around the world.

Today, the human ego has become overblown to enormous proportions. It stands behind the increasing division and hatred in societies, nations and between nations, and it becomes expressed as an ever-increasing amount of interest groups, parties and factions.

As social division intensifies, the increasing need for unity among the nations of the world becomes expressed as a feeling of hatred toward the people of Israel.

Why does such hatred appear specifically targeted at the people of Israel?

It surfaces naturally and justifiably, because since we once attained the heightened state of unity above division, we innately hold the method to be able to unite and thereby calm down the tensions abounding in the world.

Since we fail to yet realize this method of our unification, then we block unity from spreading to other nations. They feel its lack. The myriad problems and crises bubbling around the planet due to increasing social division further intensify the hatred and blame that fall upon the people of Israel.

Here, too, the people of Israel have an additional problem in that they’re unaware of what they’re not bringing to the world. Therefore, as anti-Semitic sentiment increases, neither anti-Semites nor Jews know how to point out the core reason for the phenomenon.

They point out leftist or rightist political views, from the State of Israel’s oppression of Palestine through to the Jews’ disproportionate influence on governments and the financial sector, in order to justify their hatred. But the hatred itself precedes the reasoning that it dresses.

If we continue developing without providing a method for uniting above the hatred, then we’re headed toward yet another Holocaust that will be not only in Europe, but worldwide.

We have the choice today to replace the goading, negative form of anti-Semitism with a new, positive form of unification above our differences.

By implementing our method to connect ourselves and people around the world, we would start opening up new sensations and perceptions of the reality we’re in, simultaneously bringing about harmony, happiness and peace in the world. If we will fail to do so, we will continue experiencing growing anti-Semitism.

It is my hope that we’ll start realizing the immensely valuable treasure we have in our hands: a method to unite and bring unity to humanity as a whole.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why doesn’t anarchy work?“

A society with no governing body cannot survive. It needs a head that determines and a body that executes.

Anarchy states that there should be no head.

In any system, however, there is a head and a body. What would a head do without a body, or a body without a head? What would activate the body? Our problem is that we cannot build such ideal and correct systems where the head knows what benefits the body, and the body knows how to communicate with the head.

The problem we encounter today is that the head part of society has self-interest at heart. It is because the human ego (the desire to enjoy at the expense of others) is in control. Until you extract the ego from everyone, remaining without the divisive and destructive force, you could never build a harmoniously functioning society.

So what should we do? What does a harmoniously functioning society require?

As we grow increasingly egoistic, society becomes increasingly needy of a system that would keep it sustained in a state of balance. Balance in society requires us to consistently nurture positive connection above the growing ego and the divisiveness it brings.

Human nature is anarchic. At its foundation, it is ready to destroy everything for self-aimed enjoyment, and this is the source of all division and conflict.

However, through the environment, we can influence human nature to positively direct its desires and needs for collective betterment.

Therefore, the body is not to blame for its shortcomings. It is governed by the head. Thus, the head needs to know the laws of nature, how to balance society, to bring society into increasing balance above the constantly growing ego, and to constantly work to fulfill the yearnings and desires of the collective of society.

The head cannot be anarchic: it needs to see where it leads the body according to nature’s tendency, and then we will certainly reach, in a positive, pleasant and healthy way, more and more states nature has paved for us. The head needs to function similarly to Sanhedrin, constantly discussing and sharing with the people how they bring the laws to them.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Are the Amazon fires a problem for the entire Earth?“

We need to see the whole of nature as an integral system. That is, there is a current focus on the Amazon fires, but there is an entanglement of environmental problems including ocean and air pollution, ozone depletion, outbreaks of natural disasters from volcanic eruptions through to earthquakes and hurricanes, not mentioning many others, and they are all influenced by the person, who according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, is a small world.

Therefore, when we reach states where we become internally organized, i.e., when our attitudes to each other become balanced and positive, then we will also experience positive phenomena from the outside, i.e. from nature.

We do not cause environmental problems with our hands. We cause them with our lack of inner correction. By letting our divisive egoistic drives cause us to harm each other, we invite upon us a negative response from nature. Also, the more we develop without correcting our attitudes to each other, the more we will draw to ourselves increasingly severe reactions from nature.

The time has come for us to reach connection among all people as in an integral system. We witness mammoth-scale problems in nature, and we’re unaware of how we cause such phenomena from the point of our attitudes to each other.

Many people, world leaders among them, think that by implementing actions toward nature, like cleaning garbage from the oceans, lessening air pollution or reducing the use of fossil fuels, we will have some kind of positive impact on nature. However, it’s not the case. Politicians especially only use such pleasant rhetoric for the purpose of their own self-promotion.

Nothing we do outside of changing our attitudes to each other will help us. Moreover, the more efforts we apply to fix things externally without undergoing an inner change, the more harm we will bring about. Why? It is because the world would continue developing by not dealing with the cause of all these problems: that we need to correct ourselves by upgrading our attitudes to each other—from egoistic to altruistic, divided to connected, and self-centered benefit to benefiting the whole of humanity. By doing so, we will see a positive response back to us from nature.

The inner change of our attitudes to each other is what nature demands of us. Note that according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, “Nature” and “God” are synonymous (they share the same number in Gematria—the Kabbalistic number system). We need to become integral in our awareness, to understand the system we’re in, the need to resemble the system of nature, and adapt ourselves to it.

Through our adaptation to nature, nature would calm down and become balanced.

Complementarity and wholeness would abound on all of nature’s levels—still, vegetative, animate and human—and we would experience harmony and perfection as a result.

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