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

Hatred is everything that doesn’t benefit me.

While it is a negative quality, it has a positive aspect because with its help, we can check what we need to change in ourselves. We are surrounded by a humanity, a world and a nature that we need to treat with absolute love. If we relate to anyone or anything out of hate, it means that we lack balance with nature: to be as loving, giving, caring and kind as nature.

True hate surfaces as we head toward love. If we wish to progress to become as loving as is the quality of nature, then we find how hateful we are toward others. Through such a revelation, we receive clarity on what we need to correct within ourselves in order to reach a state of love.

The more humanity develops, the more we see expressions of growing hatred. Hate is a natural and easy release of our inner human nature, and the explosions we see from vitriol all throughout mass and social media, and events such as mass shootings, are all expressions of this hatred surfacing more and more. In all these cases, only our negative qualities manifest, since we have yet to acquire nature’s positive qualities in addition to our inborn egoism, and we thus seek only to use others for self-benefit.

Our egoistic human nature is behind all of our hatred, and we need to correct it so that it will invert to love. We can undergo this needed hate-to-love transformation with the help of connection-enriching education—which teaches how to connect above our hateful and divisive drives—and the positive force of nature that we discover through such education.

Based on KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” on March 13, 2017. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do I find my true self?“

Our substance or matter is a desire to receive pleasure, and our physical body is nothing more than an animal. We sometimes feel our desires through the physical body, i.e., those for food, sex and family, and sometimes through a more inner body—desires for money, honor, control and knowledge.

The first group of desires (food, sex, family), are individual desires belonging to our physical body. Our social desires for money, honor, control and knowledge follow them. They involve interaction with others, yet still differ from an even higher level of desire that we have yet to come to terms with.

The latter desire is spiritual. When it surfaces, we feel attracted to a new unknown “something,” on one hand, and that all the previous levels of desire fail to ultimately fulfill us, on the other hand.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah, the spiritual desire is called a “point in the heart.” It is characterized by questioning the meaning and purpose of our lives, why things are the way they are, what is our “true self,” and whether we can influence our fate.

The point in the heart creates new poles of positive and negative, plus and minus within us. Where we once lived, survived and thrived solely according to our individual and social desires—picturing fulfillments at levels of food, sex, family, money, honor, control and knowledge as the “positive” pole of our lives that we aspired to—when the point in the heart emerges, we naturally feel that as much as those desires can fulfill us, they cannot fulfill a deeper and more internal part of us that demands meaning and purpose. We thus feel their transient fulfillments as a “negative” or “minus” pole in relation to our newfound spiritual aspiration that demands something more meaningful.

The wisdom of Kabbalah was made for fulfilling the deeper and more inner spiritual desire. It defines the spiritual goal, the true self that we emerged from, and that we are headed toward, and it provides a method for how to attain it. By spiritually advancing using the method of Kabbalah, we learn how to simultaneously take the reins of a new positive/plus pole in reality—the spiritual quality that we can gradually attain likeness to, which is where we learn how to access our true self, the soul—as well as the negative/minus pole in reality, our constantly growing desires to receive pleasure.

By taking these reins, we learn how to create a positive/plus level, and develop our connection with our true self—the soul that is in likeness to the source of our lives—more and more above an increasing negative/minus. This adds a whole new level of depth to our perception and sensation of reality, all the way up to a point where we feel no end to our fulfillment and exist in a consciously-attained eternity and harmony.

Based on the Virtual Kabbalah Lesson with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on March 13, 2016.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are some ways to end child abuse?“

The ultimate solution to end child abuse is the same solution to end all of our problems in our time: to work on our connections so that they become positive, and that we will prioritize concern for others over self-concern.

If mothers, for instance, came together and connected in order to change society, so that a mutual concern would blossom around children and babies, then this concern would bridge all distances and boundaries. Such a concern would become expressed through these mothers connecting several times a day, and the creation and consumption of programming that they would make on the Internet, the TV, and the radio on the topic, which would raise awareness of what children go through both at schools and in their homes.

If such a concern would spread throughout society, even if only among mothers, then it would change the picture regarding child abuse, as well as several other problems children experience. However, it is currently far from the case. They feel no need to connect in such a way. Each mother cares only about her own children, which is insufficient.

Ending child abuse thus involves generating a supportive environment through sharing the same concern, that all of us together will take care of this common problem, where we will care for other children in addition to our own, and others will do the same. Until we reach such a mutual concern for each other’s children in society, then we will continue seeing more and more unfortunate cases of child abuse.

We need a special force here, a unifying force that will influence society, and unless mothers come together and unite, then this force will elude us.

Based on New Life episode 1147 with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman, Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum-Moshe. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why is there antisemitism? Do not bring up Israel, because antisemitism existed 2000 years before Israel was born.“

Without antisemitism, there would be no Jews.

Hatred and pressure on the Jews has kept them united. They have no instinctive will to unite, but the forces of nature pressure Jewish unity through seeming negative antisemitic forces, and it is up to the Jews to use the antisemitic pressure as a wake-up call to realize their unity, so that unity can pass through to all people of the world. When everyone feels a positive unifying force entering their lives, then antisemitism will also subside.

Kabbalists are people who do not run away from antisemitism. Instead, the kabbalists call for the study and examination of antisemitism in order to view it as a phenomenon that has a purpose and a role in nature.

The wisdom of Kabbalah has become disclosed in our times in order to assist humanity to reach a higher level of existence. When the wisdom of Kabbalah will become a universal method of education, then we will become “a light unto the nations.” In other words, the only rule by which the Jewish people and the nations of the world will get along harmoniously will be that of unity: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

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

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the spiritual meaning of receiving the Torah?“

Receiving the Torah means that a special force becomes revealed that helps us rise above our ego and align ourselves with the spiritual force of love, bestowal and connection.

If we wish to receive the Torah, then we must study it on ourselves. How else could we study it if not through our own experience, by gradually transforming from a tiny egoist to a big egoist, and then from a tiny altruist to a big altruist?

We can accept the method of correction called “the Torah” only when we understand that we will voluntarily transform ourselves in order to become spiritual, aligning ourselves with the quality of love, bestowal and connection for all.

Based on the TV program “Spiritual States” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on April 9, 2021.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What did God mean when he wrote in the Torah that he made man in his own image?“

The Creator’s quality is called “light,” and it is a purely altruistic force. This light imprinted itself in the desire to receive, which is the quality of the creation, and it made an identical desire that wants to receive all of the light. The light then disclosed its giving essence to the desire that wants to receive all of the light, which thus revealed the opposite giving nature to the desire to receive. This forced the desire to resemble the light by becoming as altruistic as the light.

We undergo this process either involuntarily or voluntarily. Also, our involuntary involvement in the process takes place until we receive a desire to participate voluntarily. In other words, we involuntarily go through several situations until we discover the wisdom of Kabbalah, which is a method of resembling the light and discovering the Creator, and then using this method, we voluntarily attain such resemblance.

Once we start voluntarily realizing our resemblance to the Creator, we then take control of ourselves and the world we live in. Moreover, we will all reach this state, either through pains or through understanding its necessity, and then implementing it enjoyably, lovingly and with far less pains than if we were to continue involuntarily.

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

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is anti-semitism?“

Anti-Semitism is hatred for the spiritual gene that exists in part of the people in this world.

We all bear inside us an egoistic desire to receive, the ego, but inside the ego is a spark that draws us to a development that is opposite and above the ego.

There are people in whom the spiritual gene—also called a “spark” or a “point in the heart”—is large, and it attracts these people to spiritual development, and also influences their way of thinking, their characteristics and their attitude toward people and nature. (Note also that the Nazis wanted to find out how the spiritual gene in Jews influences spiritual qualities.)

Anti-Semitism is hatred of the spiritual gene, which completely opposes everything existing in creation.

Anti-Semitism stems from the essence of the Jewish people, where they are the complete opposite to every other nation, and due to the fact that they might later draw everyone with them to the purpose of creation. People hate the fact that they are opposite to the Jews, who hold a connection with the original quality of nature—the nature of love, bestowal and connection—and that they are connected to the most exalted goal, and also that only after they originally attained that connection did they tell the nations of the world about it, who proceeded to create religions and beliefs based on that.

We have this foundation, one that is connected to the spiritual force of love, bestowal and connection. This is who we are. The world hates this foundation in Jews, which cannot be uprooted. They feel it existing in us, and not in them, that we are close to the meaning of life, and they depend on us in order to reach the meaning of life.

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

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How many dimensions exist?“

We live in an egoistic dimension, the quality of reception, where we have self-aimed desires and needs that we constantly try to fulfill.

Around us is a hidden dimension of an opposite quality: bestowal.

While living in this quality of reception, we are unaware of the quality of bestowal. If we could add this opposite quality to our receptive one, then we would be able to clearly and fully picture the world.

Moreover, even though we exist in the egoistic dimension of reception, we feel it only to a limited extent, and feel no connection at all to the dimension of bestowal.

Reception and bestowal are the only two dimensions that exist in the universe, and they both exist in relation to us, subjectively. If we reach a state where they complement each other, then we perceive n-dimensional space.

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

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are individual consciousness and collective consciousness, and how are they different from each other?“

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, defining individual consciousness and collective consciousness depends on transforming our inborn natural qualities into a new mode of perceiving reality.

Those who transform their perception of reality into one that is above the inborn egoistic mode of perception, where we want to enjoy for self-benefit alone, perceive reality as a single force of love and bestowal that connects all parts of reality.

Those who do not transform their perception of reality into one that is above the ego, instead perceive reality through much more limited self-serving filters.

Reality thus becomes modeled in us according to our desires and their transformation, or lack of.

There is a major difference between the two modes of perception, and the wisdom of Kabbalah is unique in that it describes the need, the process and the method for transforming our qualities in order to shift from one mode of perception to the other.

Based on KabTV’s “Meetings with Kabbalah” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on March 29, 2019.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the real essence (true self) of the person? How can we differentiate it with personality? Can you explain more about essence? How do we see the essence of a person?“

Nature divides into four levels: inanimate, vegetative, animate and human. We currently belong to the animate level, because like animals, we engage in maintaining our body and earthly life.

Animals, however, instinctively provide for themselves. We, on the other hand, in addition to instincts, are influenced by society. In other words, animals live in a framework that guides them to secure their survival, whereas we are directed by society in addition to our instincts.

In principle, animals also have families, groups and leaders. However, their hierarchies and struggles are based on a natural and instinctive control that emerges from within, which makes their realization direct and simple.

We have a much more complex situation than animals. We are unaware of how to act in connection with each other, with the surrounding society, and how society influences us and determines our development and values. In this respect, we are much more confused and miserable than animals, which know exactly what they want, and what they need to do in order to secure their survival, as much as their environment and the ecology allows.

We humans, on the other hand, self-destruct. Nature supplies us with additional abilities to transcend our earthly development, and when we use this excess in the direction of our earthly development, solely in the plane of serving our egoistic desires, then we try to fulfill ourselves excessively with food, sex, wealth, and so on. As a result, we find no lasting or meaningful happiness, no real gains, but on the contrary, a life that becomes darker and emptier.

If instead of trying to direct the additional abilities nature gives us to self-benefit at the expense of others and nature, which leads us into a growing chasm, we would use our social desires for money, respect, control and knowledge as a means to achieve a higher level of reality, the human level, then we would reach that level to its fullest: a state of positive connection among us, and the discovery of a new life of happiness, confidence, harmony and balance with nature.

Based on KabTV’s “Close-up” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on August 19, 2009.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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