Entries in the 'Religion' Category

Short Stories: Polytheism Or A Single Providence

laitman_276_02Abraham, who was a priest in ancient Babylon and one of the followers and disciples of Noah’s teachings, was the first to realize that everything that happens with the nation is intentional.

It is hard to accept that negative outcomes, which can destroy an ideal society, can stem from the good upper force.

If people who live together in peace and friendly relations suddenly feel that they don’t understand one another and resent each other, that they are growing apart and even feel hatred towards one another, we may wonder whether the force that manages the world is indeed good and benevolent.

These questions usually concern Kabbalists but not ordinary people.

The separation that was suddenly felt in ancient Babylon led the priests and the sages to think about the existence of two gods: a good one and a bad one who are in a conflict that is reflected in our life in this world. “Probably the evil force prevails over the positive force. And maybe there are not, but a whole host of deities of all kinds.”

Eventually people began to believe in polytheism, thus denying the providence of one force in this world. Abraham regarded it as paganism. He totally disagreed with it because he discovered that there is only one force and one providence in this world and not the many forces as the Babylonians believed when they saw good and evil in all its manifestations in our world, contradicting one another and destroying everything.

Abraham claimed that it all stemmed from one force, but humanity is shown the imbalance of the whole system, just like in an experiment, so that it will start to investigate and understand it. We should understand, feel, and bring it closer to us or get closer to it. We have to connect with its good and bad attributes that are revealed in us and this is why the world seems like such a terrible place.

There is only one manager of creation who operates by two opposite forces: good and bad. We have to control these two forces and connect them so that we have one positive force that overcomes the negative force and the negative force should increase the positive force.

Thus, the continuous revelation of the evil force in a person obliges the positive force to grow to a level called the Creator. This is actually what Abraham discovered and he began to explain and disseminate his attitude to nature, man’s mission, and purpose of life.

However, very few agreed with him, actually several thousand people in ancient Babylon did. He distinguished them from all the others who had their own intentions and inclinations and began to teach them. Thus, each of the groups followed its own path.
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From KabTV’s “Short Stories” 10/15/14

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A War Over The Taste Of Life

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Millions of people read and study the Torah, but what are they looking for if the Creator can only be found in the connection between people?

Answer: Their study is not in vain. Any study of the Torah helps a person advance and enables him to clarify things. Millions of people both religious and nonreligious have studied the Torah in many ways: the Bible, the New Testament, Islam and Christianity. Any form of studying that is somehow connected to the Torah, whether directly or indirectly, helps people advance and prepares humanity for the right connection, for correction, for the revelation of the Creator to all the created beings.

Everything that happens leads to certain outcomes. All the religious struggles and wars in the past and those that are going on today were meant to clarify the right spiritual vessel. It isn’t clear why our desire to receive has to suffer, but it is a fact that the afflictions a person undergoes develop him.

How many people die each day and what terrible diseases are revealed! New viruses will appear in the world to which modern medicine will have no answers and it is all in order to clarify the right desire.

After all, it is impossible to advance towards revealing the right desire unless you are totally disappointed of the previous desires. You are disappointed not because you cannot fulfill these desires but because you want something more meaningful.

If I suffer now, the pain doesn’t enable me to sin because I have no desire, no power, no time left, or the opportunity to do so. The afflictions force me to feel disappointed of the state I am in and to start clarifying the taste of life and of my existence.

I cannot reach the question of “what is the point of my life?” without sufferings. All the extremist streams that existed in Christianity in the past and which are rising in Islam now are meant only for this purpose: to clarify the taste of life. By demanding that the whole world accept their religion and putting their flag in every continent they are fighting for the purpose of human existence.

It is all the subconscious clarification of the thought of creation. At the moment they are clarifying it this way, but we who study Kabbalah must allow them to advance by the Light that Reforms.

This Light is revealed in our desires. If we draw the Light and begin to reveal it sufficiently, it will begin to flow from us to the rest of humanity since all the souls are connected, like connected vessels. Then they will begin to clarify these questions on a totally different level.

Then the extremist Muslims will not have to fight the corporeal bodies and will try to understand more deeply the meaning of life. In the meantime they are looking for the answer to this question by killing one another, but we can raise them to another level of clarification, to the next level.

Then they will understand that the issue isn’t bodies but desires. This clarification will be by the connection to the source of life, to a state that the Light comes from, that we all have to attain. We have to illuminate this way for them and show them that it exists, that it is open for everyone, and that the clarification is actually by the connection between different people, actually between those who are most distant and different.

Thanks to their connection above all the differences and covering all the sins by love, they will discover the upper force, which means that they will attain a deeper meaning of life.

It all depends on us. We only have to teach humanity how to connect in order to discover the Creator in the connection among us. This is the goal we are fulfilling when we organize conversation circles for the public all over the country. Thus we will be able to express the power of unity rather easily since the Israeli nation has been in this state in the past. Later this force will spread from us to the other nations.

Then we will suddenly discover that the moment we manage to connect the nation to the wisdom of truth, which means to connect thanks to the Light that Reforms, the world will suddenly calm down: the wars in Iraq, the Ukraine, and in other places will stop and so will phenomena like the Ebola virus, etc.

Our whole life will work out since we will bring people to a state in which the Upper Light will begin to clarify their desires and they will not need to clarify them by killing each other. Those who can draw the Light are only those who study the wisdom of Kabbalah.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/17/14, Writing of Rabash

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The Truth About The Three Religions, Part 1

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why has Islamic religious fanaticism become so strong in recent years? Islam began its journey to the West and is gradually conquering Europe and the United States. Today in Europe there are 54 million Muslims; 7 million Muslims are living in France alone.

The trend towards Islamization is gaining momentum, but worst of all is that it is amplified in the radical, extremist movements. In today’s Europe there are “Muslim ghettos” into which both residents and the police are afraid to enter. They conduct their closed lives in these places together with the Mosques and a legal system according to the laws of Islam.

This phenomenon has grown to threatening dimensions and has gradually gone beyond governmental control. The culture war began in central Europe, which had been an example of freedom, democracy, equal rights, and pluralism.

Suddenly a foreign body is beginning to develop within it that is opposed to all of its basic principles—radical Islam—bringing us back to the distant past regarding the equality of women and additional modern achievements.

The Dutch MP, Geert Wilders, founder of the “Freedom” party, made a speech warning of the great danger that threatens Europe. In his opinion, we are in the last stages of the process of the Islamization of Europe that threatens not only its existence but also the United States and all of Western civilization because it is leading to extremism, violence, and intifada.

Why has the popularity of radical Islam grown so much, in particular among the young?

Answer: The idea is that we have reached the last stage of the process of human development that has been happening for thousands of years. Human civilization emerged from ancient Babylon and developed in two directions: Part of the people followed Abraham and the other part were scattered all over the world. After that, the doctrine of Abraham became the foundation of the three world religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

These religions developed in that order, one after the other. Judaism developed directly from Abraham. Christianity was founded around 2,000 years ago when the first Christian communities appeared. And Islam only appeared in the 7th century.

A relative flowering and decline of every religion happens according to these stages. Judaism flourished in its true form until the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash (temple). After the destruction, the Jewish people neglected the principle of “Love your neighbor as yourself,” that was the foundation of the doctrine of Abraham, and so it went into exile. This was a spiritual exile from the altruistic state, a fall from brotherly love into hatred.

Christianity flourished until the Middle Ages, and after that it began to decline, change, and split with the formation of the Protestant movement.

Islam was in a long dormancy and didn’t express itself in its full power. And only lately, when Judaism and Christianity became so weakened that they stopped determining the form of society, then it began to become stronger. And indeed, it is written in the Torah that in the end of days, in the last stage of human development, Islam would accumulate great power, as was written about Ishmael, (Genesis 16:12) “…his hand shall be against every man, and every man’s hand against him… ,” meaning that this religion would ascend above all.

Judaism flowered for the first 2,000 years after the departure of Abraham from ancient Babylon, meaning approximately until the beginning of the common era. This was a period when Judaism existed in its true spiritual form and in its full power. Yet after that the Jewish people fell from their spiritual level and began to sink into physical desires. Therefore they went into exile. Every generation sank deeper than its predecessor.

After the burst of Judaism, the Christian surge began. Christianity developed in a storm until it squeezed itself out. Today we are in the period of the decline of Christianity, which has lost its former power. In Europe, to be a Christian, nothing is required except for a necklace with a cross around the neck.

In some places Christian fanatics still remain, but these are not people who were Christians from the start, these accepted Christianity in a more recent period, as in South America, for example. For them, Christianity is still a relatively new religion. It had already existed for 2,000 years and it reached America through the missionaries only after it was discovered by Columbus 500 years ago. So there are still devout Christians in America..

Islam in our day is truly beginning to be awakened. Until now, it was in its incubation period. After 2,000 years of the blossoming of Judaism and after that the 2,000 years of the flourishing of Christianity, Islam’s turn has arrived.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 8/31/14

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Worship Or Attainment?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If all religions appeared after the destruction of the Temple, what did people worship before its destruction?

Answer: Anything and everything! In ancient Babylon, people worshipped various natural phenomena: trees, the sun god, etc. It is not considered religion.

Response: But nevertheless, the Temple itself was established by a particular religion…

Answer: No, the Temple embodies the non-religious zeal of people who were on the level of clear attainment of the upper force, the general force of creation, overall nature.

It is not what we understand as religion today. Our modern Judaism is a religion of exile from the spiritual world, exile from the Temple, exile from the land of Israel. It is a religion of exiles.

Kabbalists have a completely different view than religious people of the world about the challenges of the people of Israel, the challenges of humanity, and what we need to bring to the world.

Question: Can you share the secrets of Kabbalah with others?

Answer: In Kabbalah, there are no secrets.
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From an Interview in Toronto with V. Kanevsky, 8/5/14

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The Majority Of Us Are Hidden Racists

 Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Psychological Science): “The social world is stratified. Social hierarchies are known but often disavowed as anachronisms or unjust. Nonetheless, hierarchies may persist in social memory. In three studies (total N > 200,000), we found evidence of social hierarchies in implicit evaluation by race, religion, and age. Participants implicitly evaluated their own racial group most positively and the remaining racial groups in accordance with the following hierarchy: Whites > Asians > Blacks > Hispanics. Similarly, participants implicitly evaluated their own religion most positively and the remaining religions in accordance with the following hierarchy: Christianity > Judaism > Hinduism or Buddhism > Islam. In a final study, participants of all ages implicitly evaluated age groups following this rule: children > young adults > middle-age adults > older adults. These results suggest that the rules of social evaluation are pervasively embedded in culture and mind.”

My Comment: Only  correction by the Upper Light (Ohr Makif) through the method of Kabbalah will elevate us above all subjective assessments and make us independent, free, and ready for equality and unity.
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Equip Yourself With The Higher Power Of Nature

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: A regular person doesn’t even suspect that there is some kind of higher power that is approaching us and summoning problems in our lives. In ancient times there were prophets who told the people about the actions of the Creator. But who will explain to people today what is happening with them?

Answer: The role of Kabbalists is to explain what is happening to everyone, and the main thing is to say that there is a remedy for correcting the unpleasant situation we find ourselves in. We have the possibility of transforming all the negative phenomena into positive ones, transforming darkness into Light.

Question: For this, what kind of change must happen in us?

Answer: All the changes are directed only towards connection. We don’t feel anything else. We need to overcome the rejection, the hatred of one towards another, our indifference, and to understand that only through connection between us do we bring the higher power closer to us in a good way. This force will be clothed in us and then we will merit the most wonderful life.

Everyone will need to study the method of connection and unification in order to understand what must be done and how. In this manner, we merit a wonderful life and remove all of the disasters, problems, diseases, wars, and anti-Semitism.

A powerful weapon like this is in our hands, but we haven’t even suspected this, and this is the whole problem. People must discover and know what this higher power is and how to use it through our connection. The war is not conducted with an external enemy, rather within the people of Israel.

In the meantime, mentioning the Creator, the higher power, frightens a person because he connects these concepts with religious stereotypes he is accustomed to. Nobody knows exactly what is standing behind these words, but each one has his concept, and it seems to him that he supposedly understands.

But essentially, the Creator is the collective power of nature. There are many forces we learn about in physics, chemistry, biology and zoology. These are the laws of all kinds of natural systems. But the collective power that includes all the rest of the forces within it, the general system that includes the other systems within it, this is called the “Creator.” This is everything!

The Creator is not some kind of mystical image but the collective power that holds within it the entire creation that was created by it. Therefore this is what is called.

Besides that, the Creator (Boreh) symbolizes “Bo Reh” (come and see). This means that we can “come,” advance in our correction, and “see.” We approach this higher power through connecting with each other, and in this manner we form the ability to feel the Creator within us.

The law of equivalence of form exists according to which we can only feel such a phenomenon we have common characteristics with. So how can we acquire common characteristics with the Creator in order to feel Him? We attain characteristics like these through our connection with others.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalists Write: Preparing the People of Israel for Light” 8/20/14

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Pope Francis: “Inside Every Christian Is A Jew”

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Huffington Post): “Underscoring the close ties between Christianity and Judaism and calling Holocaust denial “madness,” Pope Francis told an interviewer that ‘inside every Christian is a Jew.’

“In a wide-ranging interview published Friday (June 13) in Spain’sLa Vanguardia newspaper, the pope said dialogue between the two faiths can sometimes be a ‘hot potato.’

“’I believe that interreligious dialogue must investigate the Jewish roots of Christianity and the Christian flowering of Judaism,’ Francis said. ‘I understand it is a challenge, a hot potato, but it is possible to live as brothers.’

“Francis’ statement seems to go further than his predecessor, St. John Paul II, who made headlines in 1986 as the first pope to visit Rome’s main synagogue and declared Jews to be the ‘elder brothers of the Christian faith.’

“’Every day, I pray with the Psalms of David. My prayer is Jewish, then I have the Eucharist, which is Christian,’ the Argentine pontiff added.”

My Comment: Undoubtedly, the further development of humanity towards the purpose of its creation will lead people to distance themselves from all religions and faiths of the world. They will increasingly begin to feel their common spiritual root, which is not clothed in earthly images and representations that religion and beliefs impose on them.

This will lead all people of the world to feel that only Kabbalah expresses the true representation of the higher force. In this aspiration to become close to it, they will come close to each other.
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The Essential Secret Of The Jews, Part 2

From the book, The Essential Secret of the Jews, M. Brushtein.

Law

Jews are blamed for all the sins of mortals. But we don’t talk about this. This is boring and useless. It is much more interesting and topical to talk about something else. About the “terrible” Jewish secret.

This is the most amazing thing, this “terrible” secret cannot be stolen because it is freely accessible to everyone, to Jews and non-Jews.

It is possible to share it with everyone; and nothing will happen. There is no need to control it, to go or to travel anywhere and there is no need to pay anything. There is no need to ask permission from anyone. It is imperative for all, but nobody knows this. It doesn’t weigh anything at all, but we cannot take it and go. It is very attractive, but we don’t want to look at it. It is more valuable than anything else in the world, but we don’t want it, even for free. It is found in front of us, but we don’t believe it. It is impossible to give it as a gift and it is also impossible to take it as a gift.

So what kind of secret are we talking about? You haven’t guessed yet? This is talking about an idea that consists of eight words: “And you shall love your friend as yourself”.

As is known, the Jewish people were founded by the patriarch Abraham. The ethical principle or ideal “and you shall love your friend as yourself,” was spread with the help of the people of Abraham all over the planet.

And you shall love your friend as yourself (the Golden Rule) is a basic principle ofthe religions of Abraham, in Confucianism, in ancient philosophy, and in a number of other world religions.

Only one thing is unclear, how did Abraham reach, if such a thing can be said directly, to this “crazy” idea, “you shall love your friend as yourself”? On the basis of what observations, discoveries, and experiments was it?

There are those who say that he received this knowledge from the Creator. Others claim that he discovered this by himself. The essential idea is not changed by this. The result is what is important. And the result is amazing; it surpasses all imagination. The principle, which essentially cannot be followed, lies at the foundation of all our civilization!

An approach exists that this is not some kind of ethical ideal but is a fundamental law of nature according to which all humanity must behave. …

It is specifically this approach that we want to examine in this book. If this is an ethical principle that was discovered by some person, then this is one thing. But if this is a law, and further, a fundamental law, then everything is absolutely different. In such a case we, as far as it seems, can look in another way not only at our present and our past, but it could be that ultimately we will discover how we must build the future.
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The Course Of Events Is Not In Our Favor

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Israel is in a difficult position these days, under a missile attack. Every time we hope it will not happen again we find ourselves in the same position all over again. What is going on here?

Answer: The point is that we want to solve the problem by using force, by military action. But this will not work because our enemies are strong enough and have enough money and weapons to stand against us. We think that we are stronger since we have powerful rockets armed with nuclear warheads. But we cannot use the weapons that we have under these conditions. Every war has its own rules and the reaction has to be according to the threat.

In addition to that, we do not live in a vacuum. The world intervenes in our actions, and somehow the UN, Europe, the Arab countries, Russia, and other countries are beginning to treat us more and more negatively.

We should understand that the course of events is not in our favor and that time works against us: either we find a solution or not. We had hoped that our enemies would finally understand that they should live in peace with us and accept our existence, but we see that this isn’t happening. Islam is becoming tougher and stronger.

The fundamental Islamists are growing stronger in Syria, Iraq, Russia, Europe,  and America and they are now represented in the United Nations. Turkey is also becoming more and more Islamist. We used to think that with time, the attitude towards us would improve, but we see that it is quite the contrary.

The whole world is advancing towards liberalization, integration, and becoming more and more unified, and softer. At the same time, the Islamists are accumulating more and more power and are advancing towards greater extremism. What the Torah says about Ishmael has come: “His hand is in everything and everyone’s hand is in him.” Now we are in the time of the general correction.

We should understand that this state is irrational and cannot be explained logically. On one hand, there are the right conditions today for a good life, especially in the Arab countries, but they still insist on carrying on their war against the Jews all over the world and especially against the state of Israel. We have no choice but to turn to our sources in order to find out the reasons for that.

After all, Islam and Christianity stem from the same source and this is where they receive the force for anti -Semitism. It has been this way throughout history until today. We should understand that it is help against us, and is meant to push us towards correction.

There have always been conflicts between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism and today the situation is even worse. Our allies are leaving us and taking the other side. They are changing their attitude towards the Jews and towards the state of Israel. We are witnessing a clear inclination to place the Jews against all the religions and all the other nations, but this actually happens in order to bring us to correction.

All these religions are drawing their force from the Torah and we should also receive our power from it. The only solution is the connection between us in order to truly become the nation of Israel. If we unite as a nation, we can stand against the whole world and solve all its problems. But if we don’t, we will drown, lose our power, and find ourselves in the hands of the enemy. Our only weapon is unity.
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From KabTV’s “The Mission of the People of Israel,” 7/08/14

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The Science Of The Higher Dimension

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Book of Zohar, the article “Among All the Sages of the Nations of the World, There Are None Like You,” item 161: Among all the sages of the nations of the world and among all their kingdoms, there is nobody who will reach you. We exist within a particular reality. There are two approaches to perceiving reality. The first approach is a scientific research.

According to this approach, through our senses and the instruments that we construct to expand our senses in depth and breadth, we perceive the reality that we can feel with our five corporeal, earthly senses that also exist in animals.

The study of reality as it is revealed to our senses is called science. The foundation of science is philosophy, the approach to the understanding of the human perception of reality. This doesn’t mean the philosophy of today, which has become a bad word since it doesn’t have any real foundation, but the original philosophy, what it once was. From that, degrees in all disciplines are called Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)  as it is the foundation for all the sciences.

In this article, The Book of Zohar speaks about the philosophical approach, meaning the scientific approach of each and every person to the world and life in this world, to his desire to receive, to his desire to bestow, to the Creator, to the creatures, to everything, but in a sound way that a person is able to perceive in his mind and feelings. This is the approach called philosophy. It is impossible to refute it because we feel, see, examine, and measure all that exists in front of us.

However, there is another approach. If philosophy as science suddenly goes beyond its limits and begins to speak about phenomena that are not perceived by our senses, it stops being science and becomes some kind of mysticism, which is what today is called “philosophy.” This means that it is a philosophy without any real basis and without any practical examination.

What is no longer within the limits of earthly sciences, such as philosophy, are things that go beyond our senses: the origin of life, what happens before birth and after death, and the system of management and supervision. It is impossible for these topics to be discussed, since they are outside of the areas addressed by these methods.

This is within the realm of the wisdom of Kabbalah, which is a science for someone who develops additional senses within himself, and he examines and investigates with these senses. Then from his investigation, he constructs a new science in addition to the earthly sciences that we have developed with the help of our five current senses.

Humanity developed, and through the five senses wanted to discover and use everything possible until it saw that in the end, everything that it attained brought it to a crisis and to a breakdown. This is our life.

And then humanity began to probe and ask. If there was something here that had not been taken into account, with whom we are in contact, who is managing us, why do all kinds of things happen to us, and so on. We need additional data about the situation we are found in. This data is not revealed to us with our five senses. So what can be done?

On one hand various mysticisms, religions, and faiths developed for people who were looking for what might possibly help. And on the other hand, the wisdom of Kabbalah has been revealed because it has become imperative, and it invites humanity to become familiar with that reality that we don’t perceive with our five senses.

We can attain it if we develop an additional sense within us, which is not an extension of the familiar five senses, but  another approach to perceiving reality: not that I swallow everything and examine everything within me, but I can go outside of myself and not be dependent upon my body, on my desire to enjoy that creates the body for me. I go outside of it and examine reality as it is. Then I don’t see bodies, and I don’t see reality as it is portrayed for me through my five senses. And so the world becomes Ein Sof (Infinity).

The wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about this. It speaks in the same way as philosophy, but it defines precisely where the part of science of philosophy exists, as philosophy once was, and not the useless quibbling of today, and where the sequel to science is, meaning the wisdom of Kabbalah that penetrates a field that our five earthly senses cannot discover.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/06/14, The Book of Zohar

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