The problem of the world is that a correct connection between people doesn’t exist. A correct connection is a system in which all the parts are found in mutual relationships between them and in harmony, where all are concerned about the welfare of the entire system and nobody is concerned about his own welfare. In a situation like this, the system is perfect.

When people attain a connection like this between them, they begin to feel nature and not themselves. The nature that they begin to feel is called the “Creator” because they discover its mind, program, and purpose.

Beginning from Abraham, people began to attain the harmony of nature in the connection between them, they discovered the Creator. The students of Abraham behaved according to the general laws of the world, to the extent that they discovered the Creator. This behavior came to be expressed in daily activities and in the relationship with the environment, and it was derived naturally and directly from their sensations. The activities that the members of the group of Abraham implemented seemed like they were only mechanical actions to someone who didn’t belong to this group and didn’t feel nature and the system of connection between people.

A harmonious mutual connection between people is called “love,” so it is said: “I created the evil inclination, I created the Torah as a spice.” The intention of the word “Torah” is the power of the Creator that is designed to correct the relationships between us, the relationships of egoistic mutual rejection. Involvement with the correction of the egoistic nature of a person is called keeping the Torah, and learning the Torah is called learning the possibilities for correcting the ego.

The general Mitzvah (commandment) of the Creator is correction of the ego to the level of “and you shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). When a person mechanically performs the associated activities without correcting himself, his ego, this is called maintaining the customs. Since the days when the people of Israel fell from the level of “and you shall love your friend as yourself” to the level of “unfounded hatred,” they have been found in a state of maintaining the customs.

In their internal essence, the people of Israel are a group of people who are found in mutual Arvut (guarantee), yearning to be “as one person with one heart,” and filled with mutual love.
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New Life 531 – The Prayer Of Many
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Even when masses of people pray together for everything to be fine, there is no guarantee that their prayer will be answered.

Nature demands that we should be in a state of “love thy friend as thyself.” We have to educate ourselves to love.

To pray means to check yourself as to whether you really aim at love of others. It is hard for us to feel love for others, so this process takes place in a group, in a Minyan (a group of ten), in the prayer of many.

The good and benevolent force is everywhere, but it is hidden from us. Our nature is opposite from it and so we don’t feel it. All the evil in our life stems from the fact that we are opposite to this good force.

If we don’t want to be deluded into thinking that we already love everyone, we have to work with people, in the group, in relation to everyone. All the people in the world are part of my soul. We acquire our soul through love.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 531 – The Prayer Of Many,” 3/1/15

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New Life 530 – Which Prayers Are Answered?
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Even though we constantly try to improve our situation, life today is nothing. It is somewhat pointless and meaningless.

We have to live under pressure; otherwise, we would not have developed throughout history. Today we have reached a general state of crisis, including in the perception of life. Everything is available, yet nobody is satisfied. This situation leads people to ask about the meaning of life, as well as to be carried away by fundamentalism like Daesh and so forth.

In the natural environment, everything operates according to absolute laws, and we must also live that way. It is up to us to recognize the final state nature is leading us toward. Then we will know if there is a place for prayer.

The sages of Kabbalah discovered that there is a component of freedom of choice within the absolute laws of nature.

The possibility of choice doesn’t change the final outcome but the way in which we advance toward it. There is a path of suffering and stress, and there is a path of self-awareness. The transition between them is with the help of “prayer.”

In fact, all people pray. What the heart wants is the prayer of the person. Yet only the prayer of many is answered. The prayer of many is a prayer for the many, that things will be good for everyone. When we pray together for someone to be healed, the connection between us influences the higher system. In addition, the patient gets strength and encouragement from this; his spirit is fortified and this gives his body and spirit the power to heal.

In conclusion, the higher power is good and benevolent, and all the problems in our lives derive from the evil inclination in us, the ego, the desire to receive for ourselves. If we connect to correct the evil inclination in us to aim toward love for others, we will be cured of all troubles.
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From KabTV “New Life 530 – Which Prayers Are Answered?” 2/26/15

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New Life 529 – What Is Prayer?
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

We are found in a particular reality and yearn for another reality. Prayer is the means for this change.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the reality that we feel is portrayed by our internal characteristics. This means that everything that I see outside of me radiates from my interior.

Praying means that I direct my heart toward correcting the ego in me that separates me from everything around me. “And you shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) – this is our next level of development. This is what upgrades our attitude toward reality. This upgrade includes two stages: wanting to love and receiving the power to do it where prayer is the means for doing it.

I search for a connection with the upper force in nature, the power of love and bestowal, that will help me to love. Prayer is not a means for fulfilling what we lack individually; so understandably we see that it doesn’t help. Prayer is turning toward the upper force in nature that produces and directs reality toward a particular goal. This operation is not simple. I must know how to penetrate into the “big computer” that manages the world.

Only prayers that come from love for others, from a pure heart, from a desire for things to be better for everyone, are answered. Nothing can change for the better if we don’t change ourselves and advance toward inclusive connection.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 529 – What Is Prayer?” 2/26/15

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Question: How can a person imagine the upper force, the Creator, if it is impossible to perceive Him through our human senses and compare Him to anything in the corporeal world? How is He revealed, and how do Kabbalists attain Him?

Answer: It is very simple. There is a force called the force of bestowal, and a person can feel it only if, on his part, he has a desire to bestow. Therefore, the attribute that we gradually acquire by studying the wisdom of Kabbalah called “Love your neighbor as yourself” is the attribute of bestowal, and it is fulfilled by our love of others.

If a person loves another, he yearns to give him everything. When a person feels that by himself, he immediately begins to feel in this emotion the upper attribute—the Creator, the upper world—and it depends on how intensive this emotion is on his part.

The upper field exists in potential and is revealed only when a network of the right mutual cooperation between us is created.

The incorporation with others, the connection with them, is the network through which the upper force is conveyed. Then, we feel that it exists.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/20/15

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Comment: A group of atheists filed a suit in federal court in Akron, Ohio USA demanding the expression “in God we trust” be removed from the dollar bill, claiming that they are forced to use these bills and feel that there is an implication that God intervenes in financial activities, which is contrary to their non-religious belief.

Answer: There is no greater blasphemy or distortion of the idea of the Creator than to print such an expression on currency, regardless of which religion it is. The Americans believe that it helps them and protects the dollar, which means that God protects the dollar since the dollar mentions God.

What can I say about it? It is better to replace money with a plastic card so that people will be able to pay without using dirty pieces of paper. In the future people will need the same amount of money in the bank and will use money only for their basic necessities. It can be 1,000 dollars a month, for example, and if a person doesn’t use all the money, he can use what is left the next month.

The next phase will be a phase without any bank accounts or money. A person will consume only what he needs from special warehouses or stores and everyone will rely on the fact that he takes only what he needs and not more.

Comment: A person has to undergo a special educational process in order to take only what he needs.

Answer: We will have to come to that.

Comment: That sounds like science fiction.

Answer: It will be done by the Upper Light, a special force that corrects us. Of course we will not be able to reach this level of correction by ourselves. It is impossible.

But we will be able to evoke a special, yet hidden, good force into the world, through our unity and connection and efforts, so that it will correct us and make us better, like it is.

We will not take anything more than we need and will begin to produce only what is actually necessary so that everyone will feel equally good and comfortable.

Question: Where will God’s name be written in the future?

Answer: God’s name will be written on the human heart, not on a bill. The heart is the collection of all all human desires; it must transform itself and become His name! All human actions, all desires, the whole system, which is conditional, is allegorically called the heart,  which has to change and to be for the sake of the Creator.

All of a person’s actions, all his desires, the whole system called a heart, has to embody the Creator’s image.

This means that the heart itself is a system and the sum of all its internal relations should similar to the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 1/26/16

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Comment: A year after the massacre at the offices of the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo, a new edition was published depicting God on its cover with a Kalashnikov assault rifle and hands soiled with blood. The Vatican immediately protested.

Answer: Why was the Vatican indignant? Didn’t God to this?! Who creates all the problems in the world?

After all, God said: “I created the evil inclination” (Kiddushin 30b). What is the origin of all the terrible crimes and everything else? Our evil inclination that the Creator created in us: so turn to Him.

He gave us the evil inclination so that we would correct and reeducate ourselves, but we are not doing this. The second half of the phrase “I created the evil inclination…” is “I created the Torah as a spice.” Therefore, it is necessary to take the Torah and use it correctly.

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains how to change our nature from an evil and egoistic nature to a good and altruistic nature. That is how God will be revealed before us correctly. Then we, the evil inclination, and the good inclination will be aimed correctly and will rise to the level of the Creator. That is what the Creator created the evil inclination for.

When we use only one characteristic without the other, we don’t have anyone to blame except ourselves, and anyway the Creator created even this in us.

Therefore one must turn to the Creator, but through the second half of His statement.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 1/7/16

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Question: What is the revelation of the Creator? Does it happen when you transcend the Machsom (barrier)? Is it the exit to a new dimension?

Answer: The revelation of the Creator is the revelation of the one general desire in our unity, above our personal egoistic forces.

Question: You say that the Creator only wants what’s good for us, but how can He want anything? Is He alive?

Answer: This is how, in our feelings, we perceive nature’s (the upper force’s) attitude toward us.

Question: How does the wisdom of Kabbalah explain Spinoza’s theory that God is nature?

Answer: God is everything, and everything is nature.
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Question: Why do you speak about the upper forces and not about the God if the wisdom of Kabbalah relates to the Bible?

Answer: The word “Creator” refers to the general upper force of nature, which is called the upper force since it is above everything in its power, volume, and size. It is the force of goodness, the force of giving and bestowal, which determines everything and includes all of the force of nature.

We can discover, understand, and attain this force. Therefore, it is called Creator, Bore, stemming from the Hebrew words  “Bo – re” – “come and see.” We cannot understand what the Torah says unless we reveal it because it isn’t about faith.

We must learn how to read the Torah because it is written in a very accurate, concrete, but secret and allegorical language. Therefore, it isn’t a historical novel, but a code that can be deciphered only by studying the wisdom of Kabbalah. The Book of Zohar is the commentary on the Five Books of Moses (the Torah). We can begin to understand The Book of Zohar by studying the wisdom of Kabbalah and thus understand the Torah.

We don’t use the name God so as not to confuse the students by associations with what they previously imagined the upper force to be and the fact that there is seemingly a God in the image of man who sits up there looking at us, seeing everything and managing us. The upper force is within us, between us, filling the entire space. This is the field we speak of. It isn’t a corporeal field, but a spiritual one that is on a higher dimension, a field that contains everything and affects everything, a field of goodness.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 11/15/15

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Question: Why does the upper force want man to understand the plan of creation in this world and to be able to manage his own fate? Is it a sign that the upper force is losing control of man?

Answer: True, this power passes to man and he is beginning to manage himself and nature, instead of the upper force.

It is part of the plan and the thought of creation. Although the upper force gradually transfers to us, the united integral structure of the whole system doesn’t change. However, man is part of it, attains it, understands and manages it, and accordingly becomes eternal and infinite.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 11/8/15

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