Love is our most exalted connection with everything outside of us, which harmonizes us with nature and its laws.
Love is a means to become like nature, which is a quality of love, bestowal and connection. It exists outside of us. There is no love in individual beings.
Love is the exclusive quality of nature that is given to us, and with the help of such a quality, we can elevate ourselves from the animate degree of existence to the human degree. In Hebrew, the word for “human” (“Adam”) comes from the word for “similar” (“Domeh”), and a human is considered one who becomes “similar to the most high” (“Domeh le Elyon”). In other words, becoming a human means becoming like nature’s quality of love, bestowal and connection, which is outside and opposite to our inborn animate qualities.
Based on “Kabbalah Express” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on December 6, 2021. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Our nature is to enjoy, to receive pleasure, and our desire to enjoy constantly grows. As a result of its development, it demands new and different fulfillment time and again. Likewise, the more the desire to enjoy grows, the more humanity develops increasingly sophisticated ways to fulfill itself.
We are currently in a unique state. Capitalism has reached its dead end. We have been trying to revive it for the past 50 years or so, but it has not worked out. Today, nature is developing us into a new state against our will.
In the past, we participated in transitions that transpired throughout society, because such transitions aligned with the growth of our egoistic desires, our nature. We developed each successive degree of our society, taking steps to shift from slavery to feudalism, and then to capitalism, which is what we now have.
Today, however, we will not find peace by remaining in a capitalistic system, and we will be unable to create the next level of development by the force of our own will, because we have reached a satiation of our egoistic development. Our ego no longer needs to grow to a new level of development, and we thus have no need to build any new state through our ordinary means, as we have done in the past.
Our next degree of development will be one that opposes our ego. We will need to adapt to our next degree of development by inverting our egoism, as well as ourselves. We will need to grow consciously, to recognize that the egoistic force that has driven our development until today is a negative force that leads us to more and more problems and crises in our current era. Through realizing the negativity in our egoistic desires, we will then need to conclude that we need to rise to an opposite state.
Today, the ego no longer develops us. Nature is developing us according to its own form, which is altruistic, interconnected and interdependent. We thus need to adapt ourselves and build humanity in harmony with nature, and no longer develop by contradicting it. We must develop ties of positive connection throughout human society instead of letting the egoistic forms of exploiting others in the name of self-benefit proliferate.
Today, we are on the verge of a whole new kind of transformation and transition. We can no longer develop by naturally following the ego’s growth, because the ego has become overblown and has satiated its development.
It is very difficult, because humanity does not understand that we have satiated egoistic development, and governments certainly do not understand. Crony capitalism is in a state where each of its proponents holds up the others, and does not wish to think about any change.
Kabbalists today feel it as their duty to explain what humanity will soon encounter, because as opposed to the revolutions we had in the past, which changed the face of humanity, we now encounter a time not of revolution, but a complete inversion. Let us hope that we will succeed in explaining this, and by doing so, that we will help understand and mitigate the changes that human society needs to undergo. Otherwise, humanity will undergo the next phase of its development through a lot of unfortunate pain and suffering.
Based on the video “Why Do Changes Happen?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Chaim Ratz. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Pride is a key expression of our egoistic nature, where we want to feel that we are above other people.
Pride is given to us in order to realize the extent to which we are indeed egoistic, that we think and care about ourselves over others. Such a revelation should bring us to the conclusion that if we wish to be beneficial parts of society and nature, then we need to act according to nature’s force of connection and altruism, outside of our egoistic nature.
Pride is thus a positive quality. It is given to us in order for us to realize that we are insignificant when we are under its control, and that this realization of the evil of our pride and our egoistic nature in general would enable our desire for a different control upon ourselves: the unfettered control of nature’s altruistic quality. In other words, the evil of pride is in order to lead us to the absolute good.
We have been given pride in order to eventually come to feel it as a foreign force that controls us. It makes us submit to benefiting ourselves over benefiting others, and when we feel it as a foreign controlling force, we then come to seek strength from—and a genuine connection to—the altruistic force of nature.
Based on KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” on November 4, 2021. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
First, white is not a color because it does not absorb anything. A color absorbs something, but the concept of white is that it receives nothing from the outside.
Therefore, white is felt as nonexistent. White is seemingly transparent. It demands nothing, and it draws no attention to itself.
If we adjusted our attitudes to each other and to nature accordingly, i.e. with no demands to receive anything for ourselves, we would find ourselves living in a harmonious and peaceful world, free from the problems we encounter today.
In other words, when we do not want anything from nature on any of its levels—the still, vegetative, animate and human—and wish only for everyone’s benefit, then it means that we act like white.
What would sustain us in such a state? We would then find that we receive from everyone and nature exactly what we need in order to exist. We then use any surplus that we receive for the benefit of others and nature.
We then develop ourselves in our service to others, which is possible if society mutually operates according to such lines—where each member of society thinks about how to serve the others their respective needs.
That is the spiritual meaning of white. By contrast, the spiritual meaning of black is self-centeredness, to show us that by prioritizing self-benefit over benefiting others, we ruin our lives.
It is necessary to see the black part of our lives, because if we would not see it, then we would not want to turn it into white, i.e. we cannot rise above our self-centered nature into a new altruistic, harmonious and peaceful reality if we do not feel living in our self-centered nature as a major problem that requires correction.
Based on the video “What Is the Spiritual Meaning of White and Black?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
The very foundation of our attitude toward life, nature and everything else is our ego, which is a desire to enjoy at the expense of others and nature.
Therefore, our most significant problem is our desire to exploit for personal gain that we place above the development of positive relations.
We cannot continue by wanting to control everyone, destroy them, and then discard them.
We are depleting our planet through such an attitude, and it is the base cause behind all of our problems and crises on personal, social, economic, ecological and global scales.
Besides our world, we have nothing else. So, let us not delude ourselves, thinking that we will inhabit the moon or Mars or anywhere else. It is not going to happen. They are unsuitable for our survival, and moreover, even if we succeeded to somewhat populate them, what would we do there? We would destroy ourselves and those places similarly to how we bring ruin to ourselves and to our planet.
We thus only need to correct our attitude toward each other and to nature, to see that by following the dictates of our egoistic nature we bring ruin to ourselves, and then seek how to positively connect in society with attitudes of mutual consideration. The more we engage in developing positive attitudes to each other and to nature throughout society, the more we would activate the positive forces dwelling in nature to enter our lives, which would start letting us think and want oppositely to our egoism, for the benefit of others and nature, and we would then see a major positive transition to a new harmonious and peaceful world.
Based on the video “New Paradigm Approaching” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Chaim Ratz. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Today, most American Jews wish to disassociate themselves with the State of Israel. If tomorrow, the State of Israel would cease to exist, most American Jews would regret it for no more than a few minutes, if that. They wish to associate themselves more with America than with the State of Israel or the nation of Israel.
By doing so, they feel more aligned with American society; and on the contrary, by thinking, helping and caring about Israel, they draw hostility onto themselves from American society.
Only through uniting above divisions do we have the ability to give the people of Israel strength, i.e. connection between us and with the great force of nature that ties and holds us together, thanks to which we exist.
Back in the days of Abraham, some 3,800 years ago, the nation of Israel at its foundation was a gathering of 70 nations of the world. Abraham led them out of Babylon and brought them to the Land of Canaan. Since then, we have the name “Israel,” from the words “Yashar Kel” (“straight to God”), i.e. those who aim themselves straight at the upper force of love, bestowal and connection.
By uniting toward a common goal, united “as one man with one heart,” above the divisive egoistic drives, Israel becomes seen as a friend—from the love of Israel and the love of your fellow man, we come to collective love. This will protect us because we then connect to the single acting force in nature.
Based on the video “Why Do American Jews Separate Their Identity from Israel?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
NASA is working on trying to hit an asteroid that might make its way to earth. They sent a missile that is supposed to hit the asteroid in ten months, and will measure the extent to which they could deflect it from its orbit.
However, we do not need NASA or science in general to protect us from these threats that we perceive. The forces of nature are aligned precisely for our existence, and so if we need to be alive, then we will prevail.
We do not have to take nature into our own hands. We only need to reach balance with its laws.
If we correct our attitude to nature on all of its levels—the still, vegetative, animate and the human—then we will gain all the protection we need from all forms of natural calamities.
“Correcting our attitude” means developing an attitude of love, consideration and positive connection in every conceivable way. We need to understand that we exist in an interconnected and interdependent system, and we need to play our correct part in this system. The more we correct our attitude from egoistic to altruistic, and most importantly, the more that we do so in our relationships to each other, then the more we will let the positive force dwelling in nature into our lives. We would thus be wise not to worry about asteroids hitting us, but to focus on the place in our lives that we can change for the better—our attitude to others and nature—and then everything will work out to our benefit.
Based on the video “Do We Need to Hit Asteroids Before They Hit Us?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
We have been created such that we should build our own future from how we adjust ourselves in the present, and not draw it from various sources and wait passively for the future to simply happen.
We have to make sure that even in the present we currently live in, we operate in such a manner where we constantly construct ourselves. Otherwise, if we sit and wait passively for the future to happen to us, we simply let life’s circumstances determine our future.
We are formed by the desires inside us and in our surroundings. Therefore, in order to determine our future, we should consider how we connect optimally among each other and with nature.
We are all parts of a closed system that we need to enter into balance with if we are to experience it harmoniously. We should thus be interested in improving our relations in order to reach balance with nature, because if we make no strides in our attitudes to each other and to nature, then we will experience this closed system we are in negatively, through all kinds of afflictions.
Based on “Spiritual States” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on December 21, 2021 and a Kabbalah lesson with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on January 13, 2019. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
We were created as interdependent beings. The more we evolve as a humanity, the more we find ourselves becoming increasingly dependent on each other. We find ourselves depending on each other more and more in several fields of human activity, whether it be in trade, commerce, industry, communications, technologies, culture, science, and the list goes on and on.
Take a look, for instance, at how popular tourism has become in our times. Where does the interest in travel come from? We had no such interest on a mass scale even a hundred years ago, but such desires gradually develop in us.
Why are we made to be dependent on each other, starting from our closest circles such as to our homes and our families, and then expanding out to our towns, cities, states, countries, and the more we develop, the more we feel our dependence become global. Today, we can see several examples of how we have become dependent on the whole world.
Whether it be oil and gas supplies, various harvests and crops from different countries and regions, through to all kinds of cultural products that span different countries and cultures, the more globally dependent we become, the more we develop a need to realize our global dependence positively.
We cannot get rid of our interdependence, but we will become forced to change our attitudes to each other from negative to positive. That is, instead of infusing our network of connections with egoistic motives, where we each seek maximum benefit for minimal effort, we would instead seek to relate altruistically to each other, aiming to benefit others over our natural drive for self-benefit. We will then perceive our growing global interdependence as a great phenomenon, one that lets us exercise the “muscle” of benefiting others over self-benefit. The more we do so, the more we will start feeling a new harmonious and peaceful reality open up to us.
As a result, we will reach a point where we will feel a sincere need for the billions of people in the world, that each person is a precious part of a perfect system, and we will feel a need to fuel our globally-dependent relations with positive, altruistic, supportive, encouraging and mutually considerate relations. We would then also start feeling the positive forces dwelling in nature; it would vitalize our entire world with abundance and perfection.
Based on a Kabbalah lesson, “Deriving the Greatness of the Goal from the Friends,” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman from the World Kabbalah Convention, “Rising Above Ourselves,” on August 1, 2022. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
In 1936, Albert Einstein wrote his friend a letter where he discussed the atmosphere of Jew hatred in American society. He wrote about the magnitude of antisemitism, especially in the academy, but also in industry and in the banking sector. He said that the enemy was everywhere; perhaps it could not be seen, but it could truly be felt.
Einstein mentioned how he did not understand how educated people, especially in the academy, could not see the extent to which Jews contributed to research and development, and asked how could they hold such dark ideas about the Jews?
The truth is that the more developed a person is, the more he hates Jews.
Hatred of Jews exists in everyone, including Jews themselves, until the Jews fulfill their role toward the world: to embody an example of positive connection, and act as a conduit for such connection to spread worldwide.
If Jews were more connected, the hatred against them would not only subside, but people would willingly wish to learn how to positively connect from the Jews.
By generating the force of connection among each other and wishing to become one nation, “one man with one heart,” then we can influence others so that they will also connect.
In the meantime, neither we nor the rest of the world understand that we need to positively connect, that at the end of it all, we need to all become as one nation. That is, connection is not solely a Jewish obligation, it is universal, but the Jewish people activate the process, and they need to lead it to a state where all will become “as one man with one heart.”
When the Jewish people will aim themselves at unification, then antisemitism will become a phenomenon of the past.
Based on the video “Kabbalist Responds to Einstein’s Antisemitism Experience” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is love?“
