Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Did the Ten Commandments come from God?“

The true meaning of ten commandments eludes us in this world, and it is common to refer to them simply as God’s instructions for human morality. However, the ten commandments mean something else entirely.

The ten commandments are limitations that we apply to the use of our nature, the desire to enjoy, which in the wisdom of Kabbalah is called “Malchut.” In the language of Kabbalah, these limitations are a “Masach” (“screen”) and “Ohr Hozer” (“reflected light”) placed on Malchut, which in short means applying an intention to love, bestow and positively connect to each other and to our common source. When our desire to enjoy, Malchut, accepts these limitations, it becomes the place for the dressing of the ten Sefirot, and so it is called “the Ten Commandments.”

A commandment, which in Hebrew is “Dover,” stems from the Hebrew root of the word “utterance” (“Dibur”), which is born in the Peh (mouth) of the Partzuf (spiritual entity), known in Kabbalah as the “Peh de Rosh” (i.e., the place in our soul where we act on our decision to resemble the spiritual quality of love, bestowal and connection, and which receives the ability to love and bestow according to the strength of the intention to bestow). These actions are performed in the world of Atzilut, the highest of the spiritual worlds that is closest to the pure quality of love and bestowal, the Creator’s quality.

We receive the ten commandments only after connecting to each other “as one man with one heart” in order to rise above the raging egoistic desires that resist connection, and which make us hateful of one another. That massive egoistic quality is represented in the Bible story by Mount Sinai (“Sinai” from the Hebrew word for “hatred” [“Sinah”]). If we fail to positively connect to each other in order to rise above the ego that divides us, then we also cannot discover or observe any of the ten commandments. We have to be on a spiritual level of attainment, namely the level of “Bina,” one of the ten Sefirot which represents the pure quality of bestowal, in order to have the ear (Bina is the spiritual root of our sense of hearing) to hear the ten utterances from Mount Sinai. In other words, we need to attain a certain level of equivalence of form with the Creator in order to observe the ten commandments.

We can reach a spiritual level where we will discover and observe the ten commandments by first undergoing a preparation period in this world, where our main emphasis should be to achieve connection “as one man with one heart,” and only then will we observe the commandments. Otherwise we will lack the ability to understand them. In short, “love your neighbor as yourself” is the foundation of all spiritual attainment and ascent to a spiritual level.

Based on the first part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on June 3, 2014, Shamati 66 “The Giving of the Torah.” Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Clint Adair on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is Israel technically becoming an apartheid state?“

I’m not interested in all these labels people apply to Israel. My view of Israel is guided solely by authentic Kabbalistic sources that I have been studying for over forty years now.

Nonetheless, taking into account the vast amount of Arabs in Israeli society who share equal rights as Israeli citizens, whom you will find studying at universities and in a whole range of respected professions, such as lawyers and doctors, I would not consider Israel an apartheid state. Apartheid is something completely different.

Yet the various categories that people place Israel into do not matter to me. What does matter is the growing need for the people of Israel to realize their role in the world: to unite (“love your neighbor as yourself”) and be a conduit for unity to spread worldwide (“a light unto nations”).

If the people of Israel would observe this condition, then both the people of Israel and the world would experience a whole new kind of harmony, peace and happiness enter into their lives. If the people of Israel fail to make any motion toward more unification among themselves, then the attitude toward Israel will continue worsening.

Whether you define Israel as an “apartheid” or a “terrorist” state makes no difference because it will not change reality. What matters is our attitude to the law of nature that determines everything: to learn how it determines everything and how we are in relation to it.

I need to realize that as a Jew, I ignite the hatred that others have toward me. In other words, if I fail to work on connecting positively to others, starting from a positive connection to the people of Israel, then I stimulate the massive human ego—the desire to enjoy at the expense of others—which brings division and hatred to humanity. Accordingly, negative sentiment toward Israel and the Jewish people grows from one day to the next, leading to decisions that are based on this growing hatred. Therefore, what do I have to fight if I myself give rise to that hatred against me?

All I see in such negative stereotyping of Israel is that we fail to act as we need to. I attribute nothing to Israel’s critics and haters. If the people of Israel would operate according to what made them the people of Israel to begin with—a group that aims at its increasing unity according to “love your neighbor as yourself” in order to spread unity and love to the world—then the world would respond positively to Israel. By uniting and generating a positive force among themselves, people worldwide would feel a much more harmonious, balanced, happy and confident sensation surface within them, myriad problems and crises would thus subside, and the attitude toward Israel would also invert from an increasingly negative one—as it currently is—to one that respects and loves the people who bring unification and goodness to the world. The nations of the world are like a shadow of the actions of the people of Israel.

“The Israeli nation was to be a ‘transition.’ This means that to the extent that Israel cleanse themselves … so they pass their power on to the rest of the nations.” – Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), “The Love of the Creator and the Love of the Created Beings.”

Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What can be the solution/s to the Israel-Palestine conflict?“

The current Israel-Palestine crisis is another chapter in an age-old conflict dating back to our early efforts to reestablish a Jewish State.

In short, we hold the key to put an end to this crisis. Our unity or division makes the difference between our enemies subsiding or rising up against us. Also, the extent to which we are united or divided mirrors the extent to which our enemies calm down or flare up.*

Why is our unity the definitive factor in this conflict?

It is because unity, and specifically unity above division, marks our uniqueness and what made us a Jewish people to begin with some 4,000 years ago in ancient Babylon. When Babylon experienced a crisis of social division, with conflicts and hatred tearing apart the ancient Babylonian society, Abraham—a Babylonian priest who discovered the path to unite above the growing divisions, i.e., reaching the revelation of the single force of love and bestowal that exists in reality above the growing ego—began openly teaching this path he discovered to anyone wanting to learn.

Since division throughout society was felt as a major problem, several people gathered around Abraham and implemented the method he taught. They went on to discover the unique unifying force of love above their divisive drives, and by doing so, became known as “the people of Israel.” The word “Israel” comes from “Yashar Kel,” which means “straight to God,” i.e., straight to the single force of love that fills reality. Later, this group became known as “the Jews” (the Hebrew word for “Jew” [Yehudi] comes from the word for “united” [yihudi] [Yaarot Devash, Part 2, Drush no. 2]).

Therefore, the Jewish nation was founded on this ideological basis. People living in ancient Babylon, who felt the pressure of the divisiveness and hatred of the time, gathered under Abraham’s guidance, and they eventually united above their divisive drives. By doing so, they became known as “a light unto the nations.” That is, their attainment of nature’s unifying force above the human ego, which causes all the divisiveness and problems in society, positively affects all of “the nations,” i.e., all people in the world. A critical mass of people uniting in love above their differences and divisions spreads love, unity, mutual care, support and encouragement throughout humanity at large. And when people feel this force of unity connecting them, they feel happier, full of confidence, strength and warmth, and then they revere the source that brings them such sensations.

As it was then, so it is today, but on a much greater global scale.

The human ego, divisiveness, conflicts and hatred are all on the rise, and they lead to crises across the board. For instance, the escalation in Israel and Palestine comes during a period of mass shootings in the United States becoming almost as commonplace as eating breakfast, and more generally, despite our increasing technological and economic connections worldwide, we feel more isolated, stressed, depressed, empty and anxious than ever before. The more people feel all kinds of negative feelings and phenomena in their lives, the more feelings of discontent toward the people of Israel surface.

If we Jews function according to the original unifying inclination that brought us together, we will then spread a positive unifying force to the world, and thus experience a positive reaction from the world. If, however, as is currently the case, we fail to make moves toward our unity, then we obstruct the positive unifying force from reaching humanity, and hatred naturally stirs up against us in order to prod us to unite. It is thus my hope that we will wake up to our fateful need to unite sooner rather than later, as doing so would spare ourselves and humanity much pain and sorrow.

We simply have no clue as to what a unifying calibration of our attitudes to each other would result in. The current Israel-Palestine crisis will calm down, and moreover, crises spanning personal, social, economic and ecological levels all throughout humanity would also subside. The rampant exploitation, manipulation, hatred and abuse in humanity would invert into its positive forms of mutual support, consideration, encouragement, love and care.

That is why I put in so many efforts to spread the message about the need for Jewish unity, because its implementation or neglect will determine whether humanity shifts to a harmonious and unifying course of development, or whether we will continue declining down the current divisive path.

* See my book, The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism: Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord, for more details on this topic.

Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the role of the ten commandments today?“

The ten commandments represent desires to positively connect among each other and with our common source.

The Giving of the Torah takes place at the foot of Mount Sinai after the people of Israel accept the condition of Arvut (mutual guarantee)—to be united “as one man with one heart.”

Mount Sinai represents an enormous amount of hatred (“Sinai” stemming from the Hebrew word for “hatred” [“Sinah”]), rooted in our egoistic self-centered quality. We can rise above the immense ego and hatred, which divides us from each other and causes all the world’s ills, if we follow a single small desire that wishes only to love, bestow and positively connect. That small desire is called a “point in the heart” in the wisdom of Kabbalah: a tiny desire for spirituality within our “heart,” which represents the totality of our egoistic desires. In the Bible, this point is called “Moses,” which in Hebrew is “Moshe,” since this point “attracts” or “pulls” (“Moshech” in Hebrew) us out of our divisive ego and into the harmonious spiritual quality of love, bestowal and positive connection.

Mount Sinai is a gigantic amount of ego and hatred, similar to the Tower of Babel, but bigger because it is on a later degree of egoistic growth. The people of Israel standing at the bottom of Mount Sinai means that we are ready to rise above our divisive ego in order to unite. In other words, we agree to unite parts of our individual egos into one big mass, and not fear it even though it is a huge amount of hatred, because our focus is entirely on longing to positively connect with a mutual love and care for one another above our egoistic drives that itch away at us, which make us want to do everything but to connect in such a way.

When we unite in such a way, we form a demand for the revelation of the spiritual quality—love and bestowal—in our unity. The tendency to unite forms a true need for the spiritual quality of love and bestowal to dwell among us, what in the wisdom of Kabbalah is called a “Kli” (“vessel/tool/receptacle”) for spirituality. That is, the more we direct ourselves at connecting to each other, the more we discover our ego resisting connection, and this dual-motion eventually leads us to a true need for the spiritual quality of love and bestowal to dwell in our connection, since we increasingly find that without such a force, our ego forever blocks us off from each other. It is written that “From the love of the created beings, we come to love of the Creator.” We thus accept the condition of “Love your neighbor as yourself” and by doing so, discover the laws of spiritual connection that the ten commandments describe.

Based on the first part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on June 3, 2014, Shamati #66 “The Giving of the Torah.”
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can I destroy my ego (self)?“

We do not need to destroy the ego.

What we should do is construct a new level of love, altruism and positive connection to others and nature above it. The inclination to create a new positive attitude above the ego is described in the wisdom of Kabbalah as covering with “love above the crimes.”

If we try to destroy the ego, we will only make it twice as bad. We should not touch the ego, neither to decrease nor to increase it. On the contrary, we should solely concentrate on constructing a positive attitude of love, altruism, kindness and caring for others above the ego.

The ego’s purpose is to lead us to the realization of its evilness, that by desiring to benefit at the expense of others and nature we harm everybody including ourselves. However, such a revelation should act as a springboard by which we leap to act in an opposite loving and caring way toward others above the ego. We will then discover how all the evil in our world, which is based on the egoistic quality within us, exists solely in order to lead us to goodness.

In order to reach happier, more balanced and harmonious lives, we need to engage in creation, not in destruction. If we shift our emphasis outside of our egoistic level entirely, and focus completely on building a new society of positively connected individuals, with threads of love, altruism and kindness dwelling in our connections, then we will invite the positive altruistic forces dwelling in nature into our connections, and start seeing how a whole new harmonious world opens up to us.

Based on KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” on February 18, 2021. Written/edited by Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Liz Dougherty on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can I win the hearts and love of other people?“

You can win the hearts and love of other people by loving them, which means feeling their desires and doing everything possible in order to fulfill them. You will then act toward them in a way that they like and enjoy.

Based on KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” on April 12, 2021. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How would you change if you won a half-billion dollar lottery?“

Recently in the United States, four people collectively won a little over a billion dollars. It was the third-biggest lottery win in US history, and the prize pool keeps growing. There is a well-known phenomenon where people who suddenly win such massive amounts of money have bigger chances of bankruptcy.

These prize winners receive a rare opportunity to make an effort to relate to life in a balanced manner. Can they balance the forces working on them in order to deal with the temptation of buying extravagant and unnecessary items? We are unable to digest or fully understand such a magnitude of luck.

True luck is having the ability to be directed to a balanced state through every situation, to constantly choose the happy middle between intellect and emotion. Sometimes we are lucky in some life events and unlucky in others. It so happens in order for us to find a balance by ourselves, so that we can check to see if what we receive is truly essential in our lives.

No matter how we spin it, luck exists within the system of nature, and no matter how lucky we are, we still depend on the general calculation where we are all connected together, the state of our collective soul. In such a state, forces operate on all of us at every given moment, and we have no idea as to why, how, to whom and when certain events arise for all kinds of people.

In order to derive more luck from this system, we should want to use nature’s forces in a balanced manner, with the desire to perceive and sense the system of nature in a balanced and harmonious way at every given moment of our lives.

We become balanced when our intellect and emotions are balanced, i.e., when our human nature (the force of reception) and the general nature (the force of giving) are balanced, regardless of our myriad drives. By balancing ourselves with nature, i.e., by acquiring the giving force over our innate receptive force, then our behavior can serve as an example for how to relate beneficially to other people.

Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by dylan nolte on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can unity help us to fight COVID-19?“

As I write this, more than a year since the coronavirus pandemic hit the world, its effects are still felt very strongly and humanity has yet to get a grip on the virus. Germany is on its way to another lockdown, France is in lockdown, and in India, the situation has reached extremes, while in Brazil, the death toll is constantly rising.

For a certain period of time, we felt the coronavirus as humanity’s common problem. Now, however, there is a feeling that each country needs to deal with it separately. The UN Secretary-General is complaining about inequality in the global distribution of the vaccine, and we are left with the question about when and how the pandemic will end.

Unity—and nothing less than global unity spanning all of humanity—is the key to solving the COVID-19 pandemic. Until we unite around the world and start relating to this problem globally, where we care about everyone worldwide as we care about ourselves, then the pandemic will continue chipping away at us. Unity, mutual consideration and mutual support are thus necessary if we are to exit this pandemic.

We need to see humanity working in consent, together as one family, instead of seeing, for instance, some countries getting their populations vaccinated because they can afford to, and others not doing so because they cannot afford to.

Nature treats us all the same with this blow. We should thus learn from nature how it relates to us, and make steps toward relating to ourselves—all of humanity as a single entity—in the same way. Therefore, the key to defeating the pandemic is to be able to offer help where it is first needed, as much as possible. This requires global concern and consent beyond our individual and national concerns.

Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by NASA on Unsplash

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do some people suffer so much in this life, especially the children and the innocent?“

The world is full of suffering and we cannot justify murder, theft or any kind of affliction of pain on innocent people, especially children.

However, when we start feeling that suffering in our corporeal lives can lead us to some correction—to the acceptance of justice and sensations of happiness and healing—then we start justifying the suffering that we endure here.

We cannot understand the suffering afflicted on innocent people, such as children, who have done nothing wrong in life. The purpose of such suffering is solely in order to make us seek its meaning and purpose.

The problem is that we neither feel nor understand why we suffer, and some pains might be very severe.

There is an incredible amount of suffering sweeping through the world, and it all eventually connects to one overall desire that prods us to become wiser and start waking up to the reason for our being here.

As hard as it is to fathom, feelings of injustice, meaninglessness, purposelessness, emptiness, suffering, and not understanding why all kinds of negative phenomena take place in our lives, awaken questions about the cause of the suffering, and ultimately, the meaning of our lives.

The more suffering humanity sustains, the more a question mark forms that makes us want to seek the reason for suffering and the meaning of life.

Based on the Virtual Kabbalah Lesson on January 3, 2016.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is the spiritual world real?“

Over the past 3,500 years, a few hundred books have been written about the spiritual world by great kabbalists who investigated and discovered it.

In these books, you will find out how you need to change yourself so that you can perceive and sense the spiritual world, learn how to expand it, and penetrate deeper into it.

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us how to open our mind and heart in order to perceive the spiritual world. It is akin to looking at a stereogram, where we need to defocus our vision in order to see the hidden image. When we concentrate on the picture, then it seems as if there is nothing other than the lines. However, in an instant, the moment we defocus and disperse our vision, a three-dimensional picture appears.

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us how to defocus and disperse all of our five senses in order to refocus ourselves on a more inner level of reality. We then come into contact with a picture of the world that is beyond the boundaries that currently limit it, and enter into the perception and sensation of the spiritual world.

The spiritual world that we come to perceive is inexplicable to anyone who has yet to attain it. All someone who has attained it can do is teach—according to the texts and the method left by kabbalists—how to defocus ourselves on the corporeal world and refocus ourselves on the spiritual world. If we apply ourselves to such a method, then we will enter the perception and sensation of the spiritual world.

The spiritual world divides into five spiritual worlds, which have the names Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira and Assiya. Our corporeal world is below the spiritual worlds, and it does not count among them. The five spiritual worlds are composed of 125 levels. They are omnipresent, but we cannot feel or see them with our inborn senses. We can, however, direct ourselves at revealing them, and by doing so, receive their influence.

The key difference between our corporeal world and the spiritual world is that we perceive egoistically in our world, and the spiritual world operates by altruistic laws. Ultimately, our purpose while in this world is to discover the spiritual world, to defocus ourselves on our egoistic approaches to life and refocus ourselves on the altruistic laws that are opposite our world. Thus, the essence of the transformation we undergo in discovering the spiritual world is a shift from egoism to altruism, receiving to giving, division to unity, self-concern to concern about others, and hatred to love.

Accordingly, the commandment “Love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) does not merely describe the need to hold pleasant relations among each other in this world. Rather, it is the general law of the spiritual world. If we want to feel it, then we need to try and practice such an attitude toward the world, and this is easier said than done. In fact, it is only possible if we enter into a supportive environment of like-minded people who share a common yearning to discover the spiritual world, and who are willing to apply themselves to such a law.

Therefore, the key to defocusing our perception and sensation on our corporeal world and refocusing it on the omnipresent spiritual world is to gather ourselves into a supportive environment of like-minded people who wish to exercise positive attitudes to each other in order to attain the spiritual world. Over time, we will then find that a seeming fog lifts from around us, and a new hidden world appears more and more.

The entire method of Kabbalah guides our transformation from living in this corporeal world alone to perceiving and sensing the spiritual world. At the same time, no kabbalist can describe the spiritual world to someone who has not attained it because such a person lacks the inner model to perceive or even imagine the spiritual objects and phenomena described. In our world, we are born with models that make it possible to feel the spiritual world. They are, however, incomplete, but we can apply ourselves to their attainment. For instance, newly-born babies do not instantly see, but gradually start seeing. Such models formulate gradually in us as our senses develop. This is the reason for the word “Kabbalah” extending from the word “Lekabel” (“to receive”), i.e., through applying ourselves to its methodology, we gradually receive the perception and sensation of the spiritual world.

Based on the Virtual Kabbalah Lesson on March 20, 2016.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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