What Does It Mean To Be Jewish Today? Course – Lesson 4: Evolution of “the Method”
Lesson 4: Evolution of the Method [With Chaim and Gilad] Chaim: Hello and welcome to Lesson 4 of What Does It Mean to Be Jewish Today. Gilad: Hello. Happy to be here as usual. [Opening comments re internet, posting questions, etc.] Last week we talked about the evolution of the correction method. We said that it started with Abraham. He started the correction, he wrote books, and he and his wife Sarah taught what they knew to their contemporaries. And then it developed on and on through their posterity until they came out of Egypt and they needed a new method—not a new method but a new presentation of the method—so there came Moses. He received the Torah, the law, and the Hebrews became the people of Israel, those who want to go straight to the Creator. Now they were compelled to create mutual guarantee in order to achieve spirituality, to achieve the purpose of creation. They continued to develop the method until the ruin of the temple, when the people of Israel were exiled, and since then the correction method developed in what we now know as Kabbalah. Basically it was incarnations, development of the same method that Abraham discovered. Actually Adam discovered it, but he didn’t… from Abraham’s time on there is more of a methodical development of the method. The Kabbalists continued to develop it, starting with the Book of Zohar, right around the second century CE, and after that they continued to develop the method, but now there are two channels. One is the channel of open Judaism and the other is the channel...
Whenever Jews Unite
Whenever Jews unite, the serpent hides its head The spirit of comaraderie and mutual responsibility has always been our “weapon,” our shield against adversity. Now we should muster that spirit, cloak ourselves with it, and let its healing warmth surround us. And once we have done so, we must share that spirit with the rest of the world, as this is our vocation – the essence of our being “a light for the nations.” An excerpt from “Like a Bundle of Reeds”, by Michael Laitman, PhD...
We Don’t Need a Nation State Bill, We’ve Got One!
We Don’t Need a Nation State Bill, We’ve Got One! Originally Printed Online in the Jerusalem Post I understand why Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to pass the Nation State bill, but I completely disagree with both the idea he’s trying to promote, and certainly with its implementation. We’ve had a Nation State Bill since the inception of our nation, the Israeli nation. The emblem of our people throughout the ages has always been unity, and not segregation. Those who wanted to unite and through unity discover life’s essential force, the Creator, became the people of Israel, and those who did not became other nations. The original Israelites were not all from the same tribe; they were an eclectic assembly of people who united around an idea—that through unity, they will discover a level of reality that they could not see in their current perception. Therefore, unity is the only Nation State bill we need. And in that unity, just as when our nation was first formed, we must include anyone who wishes to unite, not just those born to a Jewish mother according to an ID. If people unite around the tenet, “love your neighbor as yourself,” then they are Israel according to its deeper, true meaning. If we unite around that tenet, we will be supported by all the nations; we will have no enemies whatsoever, and millions, if not billions will join us. Anti-Semitism will be a dim memory of our days of ignorance, when we didn’t understand what it meant to be Israel. Once we unite, and share that unity with the rest of the world,...
What Does It Mean to be Jewish? – Like a Bundle of Reeds with Dr. Michael Laitman
What Does It Mean to be Jewish? – Like a Bundle of Reeds with Dr. Michael Laitman Dr. Michael Laitman discusses what it means to be Jewish with “Like a Bundle of Reeds” executive editor, Chaim Ratz. “Like a Bundle of Reeds” is a TV series originally broadcast on JLTV based on the book of the same title. It deals with the following topics: * Are we Jews different from other nations? * Why was I born Jewish? * Why is there anti-Semitism? * Could the Holocaust happen again? * What can I do? * Why are there Jews? Download the eBook version of “Like a Bundle of Reeds” for free here » http://www.bundleofreeds.com(also available is the softcover version for only...
What Does It Mean To Be Jewish Today? Course – Lesson 3
Lesson 3: Life As An Evolution of Desires [With Chaim and Gilad] Chaim: Welcome to lesson number three of What Does It Mean to Be Jewish Today. Today’s lesson is going to be about the evolution of the correction method, from we all from Abraham, how he started the correction method and how we developed through the ages until today. We’re going to run through it. Gilad: We are here to take your questions about the lesson, or even not about the lesson. We’ll try to get to those. Last time we talked about the evolution of desires. If you remember, we talked about three basic levels—still, vegetative, animate and speaking—which develop everywhere. First of all you see them in nature, in the reality around us. Starting from the Big Bang, you see the minerals developing—the galaxies and planets and everything develops. Eventually the vegetative level emerges. Why does it emerge? Because another level of the will to receive emerges, and then the plants start to develop, and then the plants develop further and animals begin to appear. The difference between animals and plants is motion. Animals can move about to search about for food, for mates for reproduction, etc. Then humans appear. The difference between humans and animals is that humans can actually sense the presence, the past, and the future. They have this thing that animals don’t have which we call envy, which causes them to look into the past and into the present and into the future and constantly compare themselves. So what happens is that they constantly develop, as opposed to animals. There’s another big...
The World is Ready For a Message of Unity
At the beginning of the month I was invited to LA for a marathon shoot of 24 short episodes explaining the wisdom of Kabbalah and its relevance to our lives. This couldn’t have been timed better since I was already in town for a convention and a lecture that followed, so I delightedly took on the challenge of shooting 24 episodes in two days (though my part in each is about 5 minutes). The World is Ready for a Message of Unity On the second day of the shooting, I had a special treat. I sat before a panel of six students that consisted of the council of the USC interfaith program, who “grilled” me with questions regarding Kabbalah for seven hours straight. Naturally, anti-Semitism and the role of the Jewish people arose in their questions, and being students, they didn’t hesitate to ask whatever came into their minds. The panel consisted of a Roman Catholic, a Methodist, one who didn’t disclose his faith, a Muslim and two agnostics. All students said they were observant in their faiths, yet were interested in learning about other faiths and traditions, which was why they joined the interfaith program. Through their questions, I explained about Kabbalah, but I also dedicated time to discussing the role of the Jewish people in the world, and why so many people feel that there is something different about Jews, if they are not openly anti-Semitic. I also told them about my two NYT articles, “Who Are You, People of Israel,” and “What We Jews Owe the World,” where I proposed the solution of unity among...