Comment: They write to you: “How can we change our attitude toward each other if the whole world is squeezing one another for money? Perhaps money, the cause of all selfishness, should be eliminated?”

My Response: No! in no way! Money is the universal equivalence for our efforts. Not just our efforts but our personal exertions that show how much we have succeeded in using the special talents given to us from above.

Suppose you are smarter than me, you are more successful and I succeed less, or you are even stronger and luckier in something. Something happened to someone by chance. It can also be measured by money. Therefore, having a universal equivalent is essential. It is necessary to measure our efforts.

Question: As it is written in this letter usually those who have a lot of money earned their wealth dishonestly. Is it still possible to derive this equivalent?

Answer: Impossible! Money is Kesef in Hebrew, from the word “Kisuf—covering.” When you cover your efforts correctly, the measure of covering your efforts is called Kesef. Here we imply spiritual efforts and spiritual results.

Question: So, money cannot be withdrawn from the world because then there would be no equivalent?

Answer: Only if we want to replace it with the next equivalent, what can money be exchanged for, for relationships.

It is when we understand our relationships between one another and share them among each other and the Creator. When the Creator becomes our common equivalent, then all other dimensions will disappear except for real, internal relationships between us. This is called Masach (screen) and Ohr Hozer (reflected light).

This is what we call a coin, “ringing coin,” as they say.

Question: And what will it mean when we say: “I am rich” or “he is rich”?

Answer: It will mean that I have the power to resist my egoism and place others above myself. That is all. This is the measure of our rapprochement, unification, and the measure of our bestowal.

Question: Is this what we call wealth?

Answer: Yes. Wealth is about how much of myself I can give to others.

Comment: And that is the root, right? That is where it all started and degraded to simple cash?

Answer: Actually, we must go down to the very bottom and clearly see the entire truth of our relationships, only then will they change.

Question: So, as you always say, we must go to the very bottom before we can go up?

Answer: The Creator will lift you up! You have to understand and ask.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/28/22

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Question: We are constantly being pursued by various kinds of crises, and the most basic question that remains to humanity is: “Where and, most importantly, why should we develop at all?”

Answer: In the paradigm in which we are now, we have absolutely nowhere to move. There is no point in continuing to develop like this, and we do not want to. We get into drugs and depression, and we lose the desire for everything. If it were not for advertising, which is still trying to move something, then there would be nothing at all.

People do not want that. They gradually, from year to year, increasingly understand that for some reason such development does not yield happiness.

So gradually the realization of evil is born, that an artificial way of life is imposed on us, and a person remains just like a little naked child standing in the middle of the universe screaming he is lost.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. The Future of Humanity” 7/17/11

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Question: Is real egoism located in the masses who do not have to correct themselves?

Answer: No, the biggest egoism exists in a few people who are aimed toward spirituality, but precisely they correct it. If we look at this in the form of a pyramid, then at the top, in terms of quantity, there is a very small number of people who understand and realize the meaning of life and at the bottom there is a huge mass.

And if we examine the pyramid from the side of egoism, then it is the reverse picture where the few have the largest egoism, and the masses have the smallest. What egoism do they have? What do they need in life? Give them a little in this world: football, vacation, a bottle of beer, and TV.

Question: Do you want to say that even nowadays when the world is becoming global and moving toward correction, this division still remains?

Answer: No, it does not remain. The highest triangle and the lowest triangle symbolize the Star of David and in the end, it transforms into a circle.

​​After the absolute complete complementation occurs, the mutual inclusion of all parts into all parts, egoistic and altruistic, bestowing and receiving, lowest and highest, right and left, then the whole creation turns into one single sphere.

And this sphere that feels itself eternal, perfect, harmonious passes through the “eye of a needle” into the next dimension.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Branch of Sakura” 5/15/11

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In the News (Psychiatric News): “The sobering side of the neurobiological revolution is that behavior is largely determined—with little or no room for free will—by the psychological, physiological, and evolutionary forces science is now decoding, says Robert Sapolsky, Ph.D.

“The message that neuroscientist, primatologist, and best-selling author Robert Sapolsky, Ph.D., carries about the neuroscientific revolution of our time is both hopeful—promising a new understanding of behavior and more effective tools for treating people with mental illness—and yet also profoundly sobering, challenging our notions about free will. …

“Synthesizing findings from a range of disciplines, Sapolsky describes how any behavior is shaped by events in the environment and responses by the human organism in the immediate seconds prior to the behavior. But these responses are shaped in the hours or days before the behavior by psychological, hormonal, and other physiological responses (usually unconscious) and in the weeks and months and years before that by social and cultural factors—all the way back to childhood, infancy, and the womb.

“And these factors, too, are shaped even earlier by epigenetic changes transmitted across generations and by events all the way back to ‘evolutionary pressures played out over the prior millions of years that got the ball rolling.’”

My Response: This of course, just shows the narrow-mindedness of the professor. On what basis does he draw such conclusions? Let him collect all the data that he is talking about into one volume and burn it. Because he will not learn anything from it anyway and nothing reliable will be revealed before him.

Question: Do you think there is any reliability in his base conclusion that there is no free will?

Answer: This is right. But what is the conclusion from the fact that there is no free will?

Let’s say we came to the conclusion: there is no free will. What is next? If there is no free will, then there is no point in our existence at all.

Without freedom of behavior, freedom of choice, and freedom of decision and decision making, a person is not a person. He is just an animal that acts according to its instincts.

Well, so what? So, we would need to close absolutely everything and think only about an easy way to feed ourselves and rest easy from birth to the grave. Or even better, to invent a pill that would put us to sleep and to fall asleep quietly.

Question: How can we get out of this dead end? Here he comes to this conclusion, but does not suggest what is next. Is there any loophole there?

Answer: The loophole is a very simple one that states that there is no dead end in nature. The apparent dead ends that it sets for us are only there for us to jump over, to overcome the barrier and develop further.

Dead ends are like steps and only exist at our level. How does a small child climb up the stairs? He moves on all fours, with difficulty. This is why we are given these disappointments, ups, downs, and so on. We grow through them.

Question: Does it mean that the growth of a person is precisely through overcoming these dead ends? Should I even feel that there is a dead end?

Answer: Yes. You must understand that the obstacles before you are the steps of the ladder of ascent.

Question: Where am I headed as I go through these dead ends?

Answer: To understand the meaning of life. To attain the meaning of life.

I ascend in order for these steps of ascent to create such desires, properties, and qualities in me in which I could reveal the meaning of life. And it exists! Only I do not see it, I do not feel it, and I cannot formulate it.

As a result of these ascents, when I crawl from step to step like a small child on all fours, trying to climb, I develop my mind and feelings in order to understand the meaning of this ascent.

Suddenly I begin to understand that this meaning lies between the steps. I did not expect that this is the way it would be revealed within me at all. But it is born precisely from my efforts to climb on all fours from one step to another step and so on. Like a child crawling on his knees on these steps.

Question: Is there an end to these steps?

Answer: It is somewhere very far away. Almost non-existent. And what if I begin to feel that this is life?

This is life when at every step you have disappointment, the need to find strength, and the need to find an exact aim or goal. Otherwise, you will not have the strength to determine what for, why, what is the correct goal, the correct decision or not, and so on.

As a result of climbing these steps, you begin to feel yourself growing and creating.

Question: Ultimately, what will motivate me? The desire to pass this dead end or the desire to come closer to something?

Answer: No, you do not even want to reach some final step so much anymore. You begin to feel pleasure in the fact that you are going through them. Between the steps you begin to feel the wisdom, the clarity of these steps.

Question: Do I start feeling this governance?

Answer: This is called “From Your actions I shall know you.” From the steps themselves, from how they were created for you, and at the same time how you were created in order to nevertheless rise above them, from all this you begin to attain the Creator of these steps. This is the main thing.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/14/22

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic “Going Above the Arguments with the Will to Receive”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “From My Flesh I Shall See God” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 3,” “Inner Observtion,” Chapter 3, Item 1

Selected Highlights

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do economic crises happen?“

Economic crises happen in order to lead to the truth, that a well-oiled economy with a high standard of living for all is not the reason we are here. What is the reason for our existence if not for us to have it good here on Earth?

We need to ask ourselves precisely this question: Why are we here? We are not here just to live well for a few years and then to die, but our lives have a greater purpose, and we need to clarify what it is, where we are from and where we are headed.

We should each engage in such scrutiny in order to reach its resolution, and then we will find out how we can organize our lives harmoniously and peacefully. Otherwise, we will head to more and more crises, as if stumbling and falling time and again.

If we would better understand the harmonious and peaceful state that we are supposed to reach, then we would have no need for any more economic or other crises, because we would then be able to organize ourselves in adaptation to our perfect future state, at our own pace and in our own way.

Based on the video “Elon Musk’s ‘Super-Bad Feeling’ about the Economy – A Kabbalist’s Response” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash.

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My article in Newsmax: “Integral Solution Needed to Address Root Cause of US Violence”

America hardly recuperates from the shock of a mass shooting in a certain city when a new incident takes place somewhere else. Seven people were killed and more than 30 wounded in the shooting perpetrated by a 21-year-old suspect at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois.

Gun violence in America has become no less than a social epidemic, and as with any other illness of such magnitude it is important to find the right treatment from the root cause of the problem.

Jacki Sundheim, a senior staffer at a local synagogue and Nicolas Toledo, a grandfather from Mexico, were among the fatal victims of the senseless parade attack by a suspect who, according to the police, acquired the guns legally. Undoubtedly, it is important to keep guns away from unstable, dangerous individuals, but the gun violence epidemic goes beyond laws and regulations since those willing to cause harm will always find ways to achieve their sinister goals.

In order to offer a true solution, we have to go beyond the symptoms of the problem. Human beings are social creatures and individuals cannot be separated from their culture when we are trying to understand a behavior that repeats itself. It is true that in America it is easy to purchase firearms, but what pulls the trigger is the growing egoism and division in American society.

In such a social climate of “every man for himself,” tension and frustration accumulate daily until people with violent tendencies explode in cruel ways. In their unbalanced minds a mass shooting is a way to “fix” the system and compensate for their fears and insecurities.

Lack of meaning and purpose in life are also key triggers. More and more people have no idea what they live for, and life with no meaning and purpose makes human life lose its importance and preciousness. Mass shooters feel that human life is cheap and worthless, and the more this lack of direction spreads throughout society today, the more mass shooters surface.

The remedy to this problem is education. America must treat the deep cultural and social conditioning that breeds these events by initiating a massive federal educational program to infuse people from an early age with new examples, norms and values. They should be regularly trained to cooperate, build trust, as well as develop social sensitivity to each other through workshops, discussion groups and collaborative projects.

Education does not refer only to formal systems for providing and acquiring knowledge. The aim of education should not be to simply create a workforce of trained individuals. Education must now focus on cultivating the human being. This means building a value system within a person and an adequate social environment around a person to balance the human ego and direct it toward positive realization.

Such a state will never come about by simply drafting new laws, but only through a change in the way human nature operates in society. Instead of relating to each other through egoistic lenses, we need to learn and develop new supportive, encouraging, understanding attitudes to every person.

In order to reach that level of positive change, society needs to forge meaningful and healthy connections through a new socio-educational shift, which will become doable and realistic when America realizes that it has had enough suffering and it is time for an integral solution.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Curse of Re-elections”

“As long as the laws of society are not satisfactory to each and every individual in the state, and ‎leave a minority that is dissatisfied with the government of the state, that minority conspires ‎under the government of the state and seeks to overthrow it,” wrote Baal HaSulam back in the 1930s in his essay, “Peace in the World.” To this he added that if the power of the losing faction “is not sufficient to fight the government of the state face to face, it will seek to ‎overthrow it indirectly, such as by inciting countries against each other and bringing them to ‎war, for it is natural that at wartime there will be many more dissatisfied people with whom they ‎will have hope to achieve the critical mass to overthrow the government of the state and ‎establish a new leadership that is convenient for them.”

It seems as though these words were written yesterday, not ninety years ago. What is worse, the pertinence of Baal HaSulam’s words proves that we have not learned much.

We established the Jewish state based on laws we borrowed from the British Mandate that ruled here before us, with some leftovers from the rules of the Ottoman Empire that ruled here before the British. These are not the laws of the Israeli nation, but laws of the nations of the world. This incongruity wore down the legitimacy of the judicial structure to such an extent that lawmakers and laypeople alike are leaning increasingly toward following their own interpretations of the law.

Without a common goal and a collectively adopted constitution, we will never have a stable government and a solid Jewish state. Our common law should be the law that was the basis of Jewish peoplehood: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Even when the people of Israel could not practice it, they always strove for it. If they do not, they are not regarded as Israel.

Currently, because no effort, or even aspiration to unite exists within the people of Israel living in the State of Israel, we are not Israel. What are we then? We are a collective of persecuted migrants and refugees, many of whom feel that the country they live in does not belong to them and dream of the moment they can return to the country from which they or their parents were chased away.

Herzl’s vision of forming a safe haven for Jews is not enough. If this is the only reason for our gathering here, we will not be able to form a cohesive and stable society. The obstinate, opinionated nature of our people will soon take over, and division and hostility will develop. This is what is happening to Israel today. As a result, the political parties have splintered and become fragmented, and a succession of elections ensued.

If we want to stabilize the Israeli society and prevent its disintegration, we need to fall in line behind a single goal that we value more than our own opinion. Also, the goal of our country should not be to save the Jews, but to save the world from division and conflict.

The reason Israel is always at the center of attention, especially in times of conflict, is that the world looks to Israel for example. Since the inception of our people, we have been tasked with serving as a model of unity. Our ancestors assembled from numerous tribes, clans, and countries, and pledged to love each other more than themselves. This is unheard of by today’s ostensibly civilized standards. In the ancient world, this was utterly inconceivable.

Nevertheless, our ancestors attempted it and succeeded. Moreover, they proved that when they unite, they triumph and overpower any nation that challenges them. They proved that military and economic success depend, in the case of the people of Israel, solely on their unity.

Alternatively, when they became divided and hostile toward each other, they demonstrated weakness, and foreign nations overpowered them and exiled them. Our unique nation, therefore, became the first nation that could choose its own fate. When it chose unity, it succeeded; when it chose division, it failed. In a sense, our nation was a proof of concept, a “pilot,” as historian Paul Johnson called us. We proved that foreigners can bond in peace and love if they value unity more than their own culture and tradition.

The modern-day curse of endless elections reflects a decline in the level of the unity of our people in the State of Israel. Instead of lining up around the tenet of unity above all other considerations, each party promotes its own agenda and claims that it will lead Israel to success. Yet, they are all wrong because if their ideas do not require national unity as a precondition, it makes no difference what agenda they support; it is condemned to failure.

Only when we realize our unity, above all differences, will the curse of perpetual elections be removed. Moreover, only when we realize this will the danger of another cataclysm to the Jewish people be averted, as Israel becomes what Israel is meant to be: “a light [of unity] to the nations.”
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Filed under: Israel Today, New Publications | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Question: Who is the driving force behind the changes in the society of the future: leaders, youth, scientists, or people?

Answer: Education that permeates all layers of society. It should be built in such a way that everyone cares about the balance between reception and bestowal.

All people are created as different, and therefore, everyone is given the opportunity to realize themselves as much as possible for the benefit of others.

Question: Does a person feel these differences? If I am 100% in the desire to bestow, then in theory I should not even feel them.

Answer: Everyone feels equal to others although they can work much less than others. After all, everyone is required to participate in the common work within his capacities.

A person does not feel himself as bigger or smaller relative to others and does not feel discomfort in the difference.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 6/24/22

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