Question: Europe is going through difficult times: an economic crisis, refugees problem, the spread of Islam, and resurgence of fascism and Nazism; all these problems are snowballing very rapidly.

Yet Europe made a great contribution to the development of humanity, probably greater than all other continents. What is the reason that such a high civilization developed in Europe?

Answer: Ancient civilization emerged in the Middle East, in ancient Babylon, Persia. But then it all moved to Europe, to ancient Greece and Rome, which built European civilization.

From Greece to Europe came science and philosophy that Greek scientists received from the Jews during the period from the First Temple until the destruction of the Second Temple, a thousand years before our era. European scientists and philosophers write about it themselves.

The Romans gave the social system that developed Europe. After all, when the Roman Empire was at the height of its prosperity and power, Europe was totally barbaric. If the Romans didn’t conquer Europe, crossing it all up to the northern borders and down, it’s hard to say what would have happened to the European civilization.

The Romans gave Europe a state system; they laid and paved the roads. The Talmud writes that when Judea fell, the Roman Empire took over its power and wisdom and rose upon them. Eventually everything came out of Israel, from the destruction experienced by the Jewish people. The spiritual knowledge of the people of Israel, their spiritual attainment and strength, were exhausted, and only pitiful crumbs were left from them.

The people of Israel didn’t know how to use them because they were not created to build something in this material world, but only for the spiritual work. The Romans adopted this knowledge and used it to build the material life in European countries.

The campaigns of Alexander the Great really contributed to it who stated that he sought to convey this modern, scientific, developed public method of existence to the entire world. This was the purpose of his conquests.

In addition, Christianity was a great help in spreading the Roman influence over Europe. It was adopted from the Jews and grew on the basis of those remains that were left after destruction of the Second Temple. The first Christians were Jews that turned Christianity into a new religion, after the destruction of the Second Temple.

Christianity obliged its followers to develop this religion, to spread it further and to add new souls to it. This is what inspired ancient Rome to conquer Europe, bringing science, philosophy, and religion there.

Prior to it, barbarians that worshiped spirits inhabited Europe. Christianity gave them a system and books. Art began to develop since people were illiterate and drawings were required in order to explain this idea to them.

Religions and philosophies blossomed on the ruins of the Jewish Temple due to the impossibility of continuing the spiritual idea that fell and shattered. The entire European civilization grew from the few crumbs that were left from the hidden wisdom that the Jews had.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #762 8/18/16

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Question: You often have said that Eastern doctrines are based on the suppression of the ego. One of the basic principles of Zen Buddhism is that truth cannot be expressed in words and that the only criterion is personal experience.

The Zen Koan system (questions and answers) is based on the principle that it is impossible to answer the teacher’s question by using formal logic.

The method is meant to spur the student on, helping to transcend the limits of logical thinking to reach a level where he has no rational support.

It seems that you often use a similar method, whether consciously or unconsciously. Is that really so?

Answer: To some extent this is also one of the techniques used in studying the wisdom of Kabbalah, but it doesn’t mean that the methods are similar, not in development nor purpose.
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Question: At the gathering of the 18^th Knesset, a compulsory education law was passed regarding essential subjects (mathematics, physics, and others) for the ultra-Orthodox schools. However, the ultra-Orthodox are introducing another bill to nullify this reform.

How do you feel about the proposal of teaching essential subjects for a general education in all schools?

Answer: I don’t understand the ultra-Orthodox’s fear. This doesn’t include history, social sciences, culture, or art. These are subjects that are essential today for every person to apply for any job.

Maybe they are afraid of being left without their electorate or that people will become more secular, will begin to work and leave their communities in which children grow up without a profession;  they don’t have degrees and must study in a kollel [institute for advanced Talmud and rabbinical literature study] for a poor people’s scholarship. The problem is compounded by the fact that they receive very large benefits from the state according to the number of children in the family.

If you consider the situation from the perspective of the future, on the one hand, in any case everything is going toward a reduction in the number of places to work because robots and automated machines will enter our lives so much that we will simply not be able to find work for everyone. On the other hand, in spite of everything, it is necessary to give a person a minimal job besides studying Torah. At least, that is what the Americans did. But it could be that to a particular degree this caused them to begin to become distanced from religion, from Jewish communities and to gradually spread all over America. The problem is serious and as far as it seems, the Orthodox are considering this issue.

They must stand guard in relation to their community and they are doing this magnificently. They use whatever they can get from the nation and from local self-management organizations. They are good politicians who can see everything correctly, predict developments, and come to agreements. They understand what they must do. There is a thorough understanding of their internal problems, but externally they always present themselves as one single monolithic force.

Comment: In principle, this is a type of preservation….

Answer: This preservation is correct because in their perception there is nothing new in the world, “If we wait 30 years, nothing will happen.”

Preservation like this is justified. So I think that they know what they are doing and all of our secular views about their behavior, in which we immediately denounce and judge them, is derived from a point of view in which everything must be changed immediately and be constantly clothed in another form.

While they assume that changes can wait, the main thing is to hold their community together, under one roof, behind one fence and not allow it any way to dissolve or to disperse anywhere.

Comment: According to Kabbalistic theory, the ego is growing and one way or another it will always win, meaning that the barriers will be breached….

Answer: This will only be in the end of days. First everything will come from the secular strata of the population through the moderate religious Jewish communities. And only at the end, when all the rest will already be close to correction and unity, then the Light of correction, by way of the external strata, will it gradually manifest in them.

Until then, they will be against any changes; they will hate the wisdom of Kabbalah and this will continue until the end of days.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/24/16

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Question: The question about the meaning of life interests me so much that in addition to lectures on the wisdom of Kabbalah, I also listen to lectures by other teachers from various sources and doctrines. Is this “garbage” for my spiritual life?

Answer: I wouldn’t advise you to connect the wisdom of Kabbalah with other teachings. It is better for you to engage in other methods and leave the study of Kabbalah.

It is better for your spiritual health. For example, engage with Yoga or Tarot cards, anything you want, just not everything together. You think you can understand it all? But you can’t! Personal and spiritual “garbage” will really appear that you will have a hard time getting rid of.

A person is unable to get along with and profoundly understand what he hears from everyone. It only seems to him that he can “sort the wheat from the chaff.”
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 4/10/16

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New Life 741 – A True Blessing
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Jewish customs stem from Kabbalists who discovered the system of leadership through which the Creator, the upper force, operates us. The blessings mean that I have revealed the upper force as good and benevolent, and therefore I bless it.

The Creator created an evil inclination in us, the ego, and He “created a Torah spice for it,” a positive force that can balance the ego. We have to reach a state in which we say the blessings not simply as words from our mouth but in thought and desire. This happens as a result of the correction of the ego.

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us that it is possible to correct the ego through a special connection of mutual guarantee between people. Thus from the love of the created beings we come to the love of the Creator. The effort to connect summons a positive force upon us that balances the ego. Blessings between a person and his friend are meant to be the outcome of our request, asking the Creator for the power to love others. The Creator wants everyone to reach His level, and so a person’s true healing can be only as a result of correcting himself.

In spirituality a person discovers that he is a small world, which means that everything is inside him. Thus when he corrects himself, he corrects the world, and when he sees that someone suffers, he understands that he has to correct himself. Turning to the Creator is a request for the power to see reality correctly. “There is none else besides Him, the good and the benevolent.” At first there is nothing in us but the evil inclination. All the good that we seemingly do stems from our egoism. When we bless, we bless the appearance of the good force that we have been rewarded to actually reveal.

All of reality exists between two forces: the force of receiving and the force of giving, which we have to acquire. We have to ascend to a state in which we will feel the others just as we feel ourselves; the bodies will not separate us. The blessings people bless one another with symbolize the level we have to reach with the help of our efforts to connect. Eventually a person discovers that there are no other people before him but the Creator, which means that only he and the Creator exist in reality.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 741 – A True Blessing,” 7/5/16

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New Life 740 – Morning Blessings 
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

What is the origin of all the blessings? After all, no book fell from the sky? Kabbalists discovered that there is an inner more concealed part of nature that manages us, the Creator of the operating system. Feeling this system is called day. Drawing away from this feeling is called evening, and being disconnected from it is called night. Returning to it is called morning and so on.

Kabbalists also discovered that unpleasant events are also in our favor and this is from where the blessings stem. The heart of Kabbalists blesses everything by itself. They wrote the blessings for other people in order to guide them to the Creator, to be in contact with Him, connected to Him. Washing hands, for example, is an action that stems from the same Hebrew root as taking. When I wash my hands, I want to keep them away from egoistic actions.

To be in contact with the upper force means, that we feel the Creator’s presence every moment in our life. Kabbalists tell us what we should do in order to raise ourselves to the recognition of the Creator. We are actually inside the upper force although we are not aware of it, but we should be aware of it and not detach ourselves from Him. We have to reach a state in which we feel how the Creator manages every thought, every desire, me managing myself.

In the past people performed the rituals that Kabbalists determined in order to reach the revelation of the Creator. The revelation of the Creator raises a person above time, motion and place. When a person discovers the Creator he connects to eternity and to wholeness, and the internal meaning of the blessings recited upon arising in the morning are meant to help us hasten the revelation of the Creator in practice.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 740 – Morning Blessings,” 7/5/16

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In the News (Catholic Herald): “Christians in Europe must break down ‘walls of fear and aggression’ and try to understand people of other faiths and backgrounds, Pope Francis has said.

“In a video message on Saturday to participants at the ‘Together for Europe’ gathering in Munich, the Pope insisted that ‘invisible walls’ are being strengthened and dividing people from one another. 

“’These walls are being built in people’s hearts,’ the Pope said. ‘They are walls made of fear and aggression, a failure to understand people of different backgrounds or faith. They are walls of political and economic selfishness, without respect for the life and dignity of every person.'”

“Pope Francis told representatives of some 300 European Christian organisations, movements and communities from different churches that they and their fellow Christians need to find new, more vibrant ways to offer Christian values to European society and to the world.

“’Europe is called to reflect and to ask itself whether its immense heritage, so permeated with Christianity, belongs in a museum or is still able to inspire culture and to offer its treasures to the whole of humankind,’ he said.

Question: Pope Francis is an extraordinary person. Is this warning about the lack of awareness of a person of other religions dangerous?

Answer: No, this is not a dangerous warning. He is simply stating a fact. Within the religions there are thousands of different “walls.” For example, if the “wall” that exists between Christians and Muslims is clear, the impulses that burn within each one of the religions are much stronger passions.

Question: Is Europe, as the Pope appeals: “still able to inspire culture and to offer its treasures to the whole of humankind”?

Answer: Europe is a tired continent. It is not ready to do anything.

Question: The Pope also said:“’Every authentic unity draws on the wealth of diversity which forms it – like a family which grows in unity in so far as its members can fully and fearlessly be themselves.’

“For Europe to be a family, he added, the good of the human person must be the central concern and groups and nations must find ways of working together that “are not only economic but also social and cultural” (Catholic Herald).

Answer: All of these words are right, but many of the inhabitants of Europe can say this; what is important is do they have a method for realizing these words? If not, then these are only beautiful expressions; it is like sitting next to our grave and crying.

The inhabitants of Europe have no faith in their power and essentially have no faith in the method of correction, the change. So Pope Francis is indeed looking at everything correctly and is saying the right things, but what is next? In fact, he is just lamenting over Europe. The Pope is the spiritual leader of not only Europe but also a billion other people. He must offer an educational method.

In the past, in their evolutionary development Christians became savages. Today, Christians and all of humanity must be educated to become human, connecting to become united, resembling nature, creating a single harmonious whole. Through connection like this, everyone can feel happy and balanced, and peace will dwell in Europe.

Comment: He also says, “Unity is like a family.”

Answer: Indeed, it is up to society to live as one big family. The Pope is correct that this situation doesn’t exist in Europe. The ancestors of European society didn’t set this goal for themselves. But he can now show them the way. He can turn to the entire continent of Europe as their spiritual leader.

We must write to him and actually spread before him a series of explanatory applications, documents, and materials. This should be his appeal to Europe. The Jews, and in their hands the wisdom of Kabbalah, exist to help the Pope to turn to the society of his European friends correctly. For after all, the wisdom of Kabbalah is derived from the same source from which Christianity is derived.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/4/16

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New Life 735 – Blessings And The Connection To The Creator
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

“A person should not enjoy the world without a blessing.” It isn’t easy to understand what the sages mean by that, but they don’t refer to empty words. A person should reach the revelation of the Creator and true gratitude.

Children learn to say blessings and adults should learn how to actually discover the Creator.

Those who have revealed the Creator say that He is good and benevolent to all, and therefore I have to be like Him. The blessing is only a reason to connect to the upper force in order to identify with Him. The blessing should include the intention to discover the Creator and to bring Him delight.

All our work is to correct our attributes, to correct the desire to receive, which is totally egoistic. All this can be fulfilled only by studying the wisdom of Kabbalah in a group of people.

It says “the commandments were given only in order to purify the created beings,” that is, purify us, to correct our egoism. To bless actually means to reach a state in which a person enjoys the actual connection with the Creator and his giving to the Creator.

The purpose of the blessing is not to say thank you but to ascend to the level of the Creator, to be loving and giving like He is. Giving to the Creator can only be by giving to others, as it is written,  “from the love of the created being to the love of the Creator.”

Therefore, “love thy friend as thyself” is the greatest rule of the Torah. This is the goodness that a person can “give” the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 735 – Blessings And The Connection To The Creator,” 6/21/16

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New Life 734 – Why Do We Bless?
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

The reality that we feel is not the actual reality we live in. This is the reason scientists have been trying for quite a while now to break through this world and discover the forces that manage it.

Nature operates according to laws. And so the question is: What is the general force, the general formula that manages nature? The first man to discover it lived 5,776 years ago. He discovered the Creator, the general force.

When a person changes himself and his attributes, his perception of the world changes. If he nullifies himself, as if resets himself, he perceives the true reality.

The upper reality helps us get to know it better, and we can do so either willingly or as a result of pressure. The upper force is good and benevolent, and there is none else besides it.

I have to tune myself to the upper force in every situation in my life. Thus I gradually annul the partitions between me and the upper force, and this is from where the custom of blessing stems. The goal of everything that comes from the upper force is for our own good. It leads us to the revelation of the upper force.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 734 – Why Do We Bless?” 6/21/16

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Question: Are you moving away from traditional Judaism?

Answer: Without a doubt. The reason for this is that we must reveal the knowledge about the world we are living in to people. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah reveals. It teaches a person how to discover the world that is hidden from him, more precisely, to discover the Creator, because nothing except this “field of life” exists.

Religion teaches a person mechanical actions that he must carry out in order to mechanically, but unconsciously, conform to this field. It aspires to hold a person only at the level of implementing instructions. This form is convenient for religious domination and also subordinates a person because everything is clear: carry this out and you will receive a reward!

Kabbalah explains that through this acceptable mechanical implementation, a person’s state is called “exile” from spirituality, meaning exile from feeling the Creator.

This period of performing mechanical actions ended in the time of the Ari in the 16^th century. The Baal Shem Tov, the great follower of the way of the Ari, began to introduce the wisdom of Kabbalah to the masses in a practical form. Opponents rose up against him and a war began between the supporters of the revelation of the Kabbalah to the people and those who opposed this movement.

Currently, the religious part of society carries out the Mitzvot (commandments) mechanically, and a large part of society is moving further and further away from any tradition. I believe that it is specifically for the part that is “moving away” that it is necessary to reveal Kabbalah, the heart of Judaism, the true Torah, the ability to discover the Creator. When people don’t find answers to the meaning of things, they move completely away from the Jewish people. The example for this is American Jewry.

Studying the wisdom of Kabbalah reveals the possibility and opportunity to discover the Creator.

Our Bnei Baruch organization invites anyone interested in entering spiritual life and the feeling of eternity, because it is said that “they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them” (Jeremiah 31:33), “and all nations shall flow unto it” (Isaiah 2:2). Any resistance to us will disappear in the future, both by our opponents and by that part of society that still doesn’t perceive that the wisdom of Kabbalah brings freedom from all troubles and an ascent to the sensation of wholeness. This is because human egoism is growing constantly and pushes a person toward discovery of the Creator as “help made against him.”
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