It is clear that we are not able to change our nature from egoistic to altruistic. It is like rising from the level of created being to the level of the Creator. Of course, it is not in our power because we are just created beings and rather low.

Obviously, we have the chance to grow, but this is still ahead of us. The more we try to rise to the spiritual reality, the deeper we plunge into the corporeal world because the Creator created one against the other. It is due to both forces, Pharaoh and the Creator, and learning how to use them correctly so that we rise between the two, in the middle line, toward the Creator.

Of course, we cannot unite in the ten by ourselves, but we can ask the Creator to help us connect. But it is impossible to ask until we have tried to do it ourselves. That is, we make efforts to connect and discover how different we are, that do not accept each other, how lazy we are and do not understand what connection is, or what it means to be one man with one heart.

When we fall into despair from our attempts, we turn to the Creator. Now we have something to show Him: “Look, we tried everything and nothing works. You must help us!”

But if we did not start trying on our own, the Creator would not be able to help us. He always makes corrections to our unsuccessful attempts. All our work is to try to do something, and after that we have the right to turn to the Creator and He will help us with great joy. After our own attempts, we realized where the shattering occurred and how to correct it, and that we ourselves are not capable of it.

When a person tries to achieve unity on his own, that is, the spiritual degree where he is united with others, he reveals his helplessness. He understands that he has no feelings, no understanding of how to do this, and he needs to receive the upper force, the upper desire for this. That is, he lacks the work in the mind and heart.

The Creator does everything, but we must come to Him with despair from the work that we tried to do and did not succeed. Until we try it ourselves, we do not know what to ask for.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/4/21, “Pesach (Passover)”

My new article on Linkedin “Covid Not Incentive for Antisemitism”

The Ministry of Diaspora Affairs 2020 Antisemitism Report argues that last year was good in the sense that in the previous year, no Jews were murdered for being Jews. At the same time, the report laments the rise of what it considers the most decisive power driving antisemitism in the previous year: the Covid-19 pandemic.

We should know better. Jews have always been blamed for the world’s woes. Were Jews not blamed for the Black Death in the Middle Ages? Were Jews not blamed for Germany’s woes before World War II broke out? And when Jews aren’t blamed for something as tragic as the Black Death, they’re still blamed for every little pain. In fact, Jews are hated even when there is nothing at all to blame them for.

Unless, of course, we put a stop to it. We, Jews, are the unexpected holders of the key to ending antisemitism. And once again, it is not a circumstantial solution. Nor is it a matter of policy, ideology, or stifling of antisemitic outbursts. We can and should apply sticking plaster solutions when possible, but we must not think that they will solve the problem. If we believe they will, reality will explode in our faces.

These days, the trend is to blame Israel for the intensification of antisemitism, as though this or that policy of the Israeli government will change how the world feels about Jews. I was born in Eastern Europe right after the war; almost my entire family perished in the Holocaust. There was no State of Israel to blame, and my family certainly didn’t cause the downfall of Germany in World War I, but they were murdered nonetheless. Their only “fault” was that they were Jews. Once it is legitimate to assail Jews, no pretext is needed, and no brutality is off limits.

According to the Internet Archive, since the Bar Kokhba Revolt, which ended in 135 CE, Jews have been expelled from their host countries, or altogether exterminated, more than 800 times! These pogroms predate the State of Israel, racism, and even Christianity. In fact, antisemitism is as old as Judaism itself. Therefore, if we want to find the solution to Jew-hatred, we have to look deeper than attributing it to some passing crisis that is here today and gone tomorrow.

But perhaps the most intriguing fact about Jew-hatred is the apparent dichotomy between the development of a country and the intensity and ferociousness of its antisemitism. Of all the countless atrocities that non-Jews have inflicted on Jews, none did so more potently and painfully than the most powerful nations of their time. Egypt under Pharaoh was the first, followed by Babylon, which ruined the First Temple. Then came Greece with the temporary destruction of the Second Temple, followed by Rome, which destroyed the Second Temple beyond repair and let the Jews destroy each other in a gruesome civil war. In the 15th century, Spain, a mighty and enlightened empire, expelled all the Jews from its midst in the second most traumatic event since the ruin of the Second Temple, and finally, the Holocaust that Nazi Germany had wrought on European Jewry was the worst trauma since the ruin of the Second Temple. In all those episodes, the decimators were the most advanced, cultured, and civilized nations of their time. But at some point, something made them turn against the Jews and let the monster loose.

Since this pattern has persisted throughout history, and only the pretexts changed to suit the circumstances, there is no reason to expect it to change going forward. The future of the Jews, it seems, is bleak, and another blow is nearing. Whether it will strike the State of Israel, American Jewry, or both is anyone’s guess, but there is no question that the two most developed and advanced Jewish communities are the targets of the next great blow to the Jewish people.

Unless, of course, we put a stop to it. We, Jews, are the unexpected holders of the key to ending antisemitism. And once again, it is not a circumstantial solution. Nor is it a matter of policy, ideology, or stifling of antisemitic outbursts. We can and should apply sticking plaster solutions when possible, but we must not think that they will solve the problem. If we believe they will, reality will explode in our faces.

The real solution lies not with the world, but with the Jews themselves. This is why this hatred persists through any circumstance. We must look for the solution not in how the world treats us, but in how we treat ourselves. Our relationships with one another generate the hatred of the nations toward us. It may sound outlandish, but our sages have known this throughout the ages, yet the people were reluctant to heed their advice.

Note that our sages do not attribute the ruin of the First Temple to the Babylonian conquest, but to the bloodshed and corruption within Israel. Likewise, they do not attribute the ruin of the Second Temple to the Romans, but to baseless hatred of the Jews for one another. Time and time again, they tell us that if we unite, no harm will come to us; time and time again we pay them no attention, conveniently adopt the victim narrative, and blame our woes on others.

When I look at the global political climate, I do not think it bodes well for the Jews. I don’t know how much time we have, but I do not believe it will be very long before the dark clouds on the horizon amass into a storm front that will unleash its wrath on the Jews. Worse yet, from what I can see, it will not be a single country that will give a free rein to hatred, but the entire world; there will be no escape. This is why I think it is so urgent that we apply the one cure we haven’t tried since before the ruin of the Temple: unity.

The incentive for antisemitism, our sages tell us, is our hatred of each other, and the cure for it is our unity, “as one man with one heart.”

For more on this topic, you may refer to the books Like a Bundle of Reeds: Why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour and The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord.

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the importance of interdependence in nature?“

Interdependence in nature exists on its still, vegetative and animate levels. No created being—including human beings—can exist on their own, separate from other beings. In nature, there is a constant exchange of substances with their environment. Even a rock feels its environment and the environment feels the rock through several forces and systems that we have yet to fully understand.

Also, the higher up the levels of nature we go, and also between the levels, the more interdependence there is. There is a very tight connection between the still, vegetative, animate and human levels of nature.

We people are, on one hand, part of the animate world, intimately connected to the still, vegetative and animate levels of nature. However, on the other hand, due to the human ego, we want control and power over nature, to make nature submit to our demands. Such an inclination backfires on us as the subjective ego is blind to what it really needs in order to truly benefit itself.

We are all parts of a whole interdependent and interconnected system. However, our egoistic attitude disrupts, corrupts and brings about imbalance in such a system.

Today, we live in an era where we are becoming more and more aware of the extent to which we harm nature, ourselves and our future generations. Moreover, we seemingly do not care much, if at all, about the harm we cause, which is also due to the same ego.

Therefore, the importance of interdependence in nature is that it should lead us humans to acknowledge how we think and act contrarily to such interdependence—in our egoistic attitudes to each other and to nature.

In order to reach balance with nature’s interdependence, we need to change our attitudes to each other so that they match the overriding attitude in nature: egoistic to altruistic, divisive to connected. We will then enter into balance with nature and experience a whole new kind of harmonious existence, the likes of which we cannot even imagine right now.

Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman

Question: Why did Pharaoh while he wanted the Jews to stay in Egypt, order the boys to be thrown into the Nile but not girls? What is this power of boys? Why were they killed and not the girls?

Answer: Women are always passive, they can obey, this is their nature. “So, nothing will happen to them if they are left without their men. We will use them to our advantage and that’s it”—to use crude human language.

But, in principle, it is not about this but about the fact that in every person there is a female and a male source. If one kills his male nature, i.e., the intention to bestow, connect, and unite with the Creator, then all his actions become feminine, small, for their own sake, at the level of our world, and they do not affect anything but destroy the nation.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/12/19

My new article on Linkedin “To Solve Migrant Crisis – Redefine Humanitarian Crisis”

Fox News reported that in March alone, “Border officials encountered 172,000 migrants at the border … a 71% increase from February and the latest indicator of the extent of the crisis at the southern border. The 172,000 migrants … included 18,890 unaccompanied children – a 100% increase from the already high numbers encountered in February, and the highest number recorded.” Once across the border, these children are crammed into “pens” where thousands occupy spaces that were built to contain no more than 250 children. These pens are not only grossly overcrowded, they are a breeding ground for violent and sexual assaults on helpless children. Already, the stories coming from these coops are heart-wrenching. By all accounts, this is a horrifying humanitarian crisis, and its solution is nowhere in sight.

I think we need to redefine “humanitarian crisis” to include the human part of the crisis even before we consider the material part. The reason these crises are happening is that people do not receive the proper education before they immigrate. They are promised a land of unlimited opportunities and end up in cages, or refugee camps, or dropped off busses in a small town in the middle of nowhere and left alone.

Currently, a humanitarian crisis is defined as “a series of events that are threatening in terms of health, safety or well-being of a community or large group of people.” To solve such crises, various aid organizations provide material assistance to those affected by the predicament. In this way, we do not prevent future crises, do not help the people affected by them, but merely keep them alive and suffering. Emergency provision of food, tents, and basic medical assistance may look good in pictures circulated in order to draw more funds for the organizations that thrive on the suffering of the victims, but they do nothing to solve the problem.

Therefore, I think we need to redefine “humanitarian crisis” to include the human part of the crisis even before we consider the material part. The reason these crises are happening is that people do not receive the proper education before they immigrate. They are promised a land of unlimited opportunities and end up in cages, or refugee camps, or dropped off buses in a small town in the middle of nowhere and left alone.

A border should be closed for everyone except those that a country wants to admit after testing that applicants meet the required criteria. If people want to immigrate to a new country to improve their condition, they should first make the necessary preparations: learn the language of the new country, acquire required work skills so they don’t become a burden on the new country’s welfare system, and acquaint themselves with the basic civics of their future home.

The current situation where people are flooding the border is a recipe for disaster. It is already happening, but it will grow much worse! In simple words, it is a suicidal policy. If it continues, we will begin to see migration in the opposite direction where the educated and affluent “relocate” to more sustainable societies. The pouring of migrants into the United States rattles the pillars of democracy. It will not be long before they collapse and America falls from the zenith to the nadir.

Still, as long as this scenario has not materialized, it is possible to avoid it. It takes resolve, but I don’t see what other option this mighty nation has.

Comment: Let’s look at Passover from the point of view of modern realities.

When the Jews descended into Egypt, there was a flourishing not only for the people of Israel but also for Egypt. And suddenly, this power, this large number of Jews started to frighten the Egyptians.

My Response: It is not about the large number but about Jewish control over Egypt.

Pharaoh was not stupid. He quickly realized that he had a serious force in his hands and he put Jews above all the overseers, commanders, etc. It was then that they built the pyramids and everything, and Egypt became very rich. So, later on, the Pharaoh did not want to let them leave Egypt.

But they quickly realized that they had nothing to do in Egypt, that they could live on their own, and they started to slowly get ready for the journey. And that is when problems arose.

This suits modern realities very well. We saw in the example of European and other countries that when Jews came to a country from places they were expelled from, the country that expelled experienced declines in its economy, culture, etc., and the country they came to rose and flourished.

Of course, this caused great damage to those countries that refused them. We can also see this in the case of Egypt, which has not recovered since then. Egypt, when it was a great culture, built its pyramids and to this day “sells” them.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/12/19

Question: There is an expression “the desire to give.” What is its root, its attribute, and its development?

Answer: The desire when I want to give is the desire to bestow. There is nothing other than the desire to bestow (the Creator) and the desire to receive (the created being).

The fact that we see concrete items and objects around us is an illusion, and all this actually does not exist. Initially, there was only one desire, the Creator, the desire to bestow, which later created a desire to receive. These two desires exist one opposite the other.

In order to give the desire to receive independence, it was created and developed with the intention for itself. To the extent that it feels the desire for its own sake, meaning the ego, it is separate from the Creator.

As one moves away from the Creator, the desire to receive at the same time feels that it is detached from something and wonders: “Why do I exist? What is happening to me? Who manages me?”

All these questions remain empty, unanswered, and then it starts looking: “Who created me, for what, and why? Gradually, it begins to act, to make progress in the search for its source, and eventually it finds the desire to bestow.

When one begins to understand that another desire exists around him, a desire for bestowal, but he exists inside himself and does not feel that he is in the desire to bestow, all kinds of conflicts and decisions take place in him. Then we can speak about a created being who wants to exit himself and be in contact with the Creator.

Question: Is the desire to give the initial, original desire given to a person who enters a group?

Answer: When the Creator pushes a person toward Him and wants to bring him closer to Him, He gives him such desires. He sort of lures a person, He flirts with him.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 4/7/19

Question: When we study The Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah (Pticha) should we be impressed by the material or rather work with it dryly?

Answer: You should be impressed by it and try to transform it into sensations. To feel it!

We are talking about connecting with each other and connecting with the Creator. And how can we connect? In what?

The only way to connect is with our hearts, and heart means sensations. The head, the mind, are necessary only in order to know how best to achieve unity. We use them as tools to achieve connection.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 4/4/19

Question: In Baal HaSulam’s book Shamati (“I Heard”) it is written that a person who is, as it were, in the sensation of hell, understands that the only thing that can get him out is the upper force, from which everything emanates. But for this must he feel this upper force because only then can he truly ask?

Answer: Of course. Until a person feels it, everything is pointless.

Therefore, Kabbalah does not require any preliminary conditions from us. Just listen, read, and see everything this science is talking about. It reveals the force that changes you in the same way a child changes in our world by acquiring new properties as he is growing up and becoming different every day.

An adult does not become different. He fills himself with all sorts of new impressions and delights. But a child is changing, gaining more and more.

This is the way Kabbalah, as it acts on us as adults, raises a new person in us. Therefore, we acquire new properties, a new mind, and feel new every day. This is a special property due to which we become “Adam“—equal, similar, to the Creator.

This will certainly happen. You just need to open the book and study systematically. There is every possibility for that on the Internet. I invite everyone. And people will see what changes take place in them literally from day to day or at least from week to week.

Kabbalah invites us to become as naive as children in order to get closer to the perception of the new reality that should be revealed for us. And if we behave this way, we will really become adults.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #9

Question: According to Kabbalah, what is the main difference in the nature of male and female parts?

Answer: Absolutely everything. There is nothing more opposite in nature than a man and a woman. Moreover, this difference increases all the time; it first begins to manifest in inanimate objects, even in minerals, then in plants, even more in animals, and even more in humans.

That is, a developed man and woman, if they are really highly developed as personalities, represent the most opposite elements of creation. There can be nothing alike in them. Therefore, it is very difficult for them to come to some kind of agreement, they simply do not understand each other and cannot in any way get closer to be in likeness to each other.

Question: That is, all their attempts to understand each other’s view of the world, in principle, fail?

Answer: In the end, yes. We see that we are gradually entering a big crisis: children leave home, parents get divorced, they cannot bear each other, a person hates himself.

He not only cannot get along with the opposite sex, but he also has all sorts of abnormal drives and realization of sexual needs. In general, gender, marriage, family, and children, all this in our time is beginning to literally crumble and get out of control of previous laws and conditions.

Therefore, there is a Kabbalistic methodology that explains how we can really come to unity. It is a whole system of knowledge.
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From KabTV’s “Close-up” 8/11/09