What Does It Mean To Be Jewish Today? Course – Lesson 9: Plurally Speaking
Lesson 9 Transcript: Plurally Speaking [With Chaim and Gilad] Chaim : Welcome to session number nine of What Does It Mean to Be Jewish Today? Today we’re moving into a special stage in the course. We’ve been through all the material that explains where Jews come from, why there’s anti-Semitism; and we also talked about the solution being unity. Then how do we achieve unity? That’s been the question in the back of the mind of I’m assuming every one of you who has been watching the lessons. Gilad: Actually not everyone only here but I think that a lot of people in the world are asking that question. A lot of people are talking about unity. A lot of people want unity. But it isn’t like anyone has this method of how to reach unity. So the whole course has been telling us about a method that enables human beings to reach unity. You’ve been telling us that it’s based on this ancient wisdom, that it’s actually a method that was founded not a few years ago through pop psychology, but thousands of years ago by Abraham. And today is really exciting because we’re going to talk about the actual implementation, now in our days, with a method that’s actually out there for everyone to use. Today and in the next lesson too. And the thing...
What Does It Mean To Be Jewish Today? Course – Lesson 8: Q&A Session
Lesson 8: Question & Answer Session [ With participation of Chaim and Gilad] Chaim: Hello Gilad. And how are you guys? We are today in lesson number eight in What Does It Mean to Be Jewish Today based on the book Like a Bundle of Reeds: Why Unity and Mutual Guarantee Are Today’s Call of the Hour. Gilad: As usual we are very happy to be here. Although today we’re going to have a Q&A session, you’re still welcome to add in your live questions on the chat and we’ll be happy to refer to them as well. Before we begin we would like to do a recap on last week’s lesson. We talked about the mingling of the Jews throughout the world. Let’s go back to the beginning and quickly run through this development until today. So we have this guy named Abraham and he lives in Babylon, Mesopotamia, in the fertile crescent somewhere, Haran. He starts thinking about his townspeople and what’s going on with them. He’s dissatisfied with their situation. He feels that the mood is changing. He is a very well-known individual. His father is a spiritual leader in this big town. He starts asking questions, this Abraham, and he discovers that there is only one force to reality, one power—the power that gives life to everything—and he discovers that it is a power...
What Does It Mean To Be Jewish Today? Course – Lesson 7: Contemporary Anti-Semitism
Lesson 7: Contemporary Anti-Semitism [ With Chaim and Gilad] Chaim: Hello. Welcome to Lesson # 7 or What Does It Mean to Be Jewish Today. Gilad: Hello to all of our viewers. [Reminders re chat, questions etc.] Speaking of questions, we ended the last session with a bit of homework. We talked about unity and how to implement and we suggested that you try it out. We gave a few rules, we called it a workshop and we said to get together. It’s the holidays. Everybody is together—families, and what not. Sometimes it’s a very festive atmosphere but it can also be a little pressing, a little tense, so we suggested a few rules for the discussion. No negation of what the other person says. You only add. You use an attention object. Everybody is equal. Everybody’s opinion matters; you only add to it. You don’t put down another person’s words. You only speak one at a time; that’s why you have the attention object, etc. We also said that those rules are actually what create what scientists have found today to be collective intelligence, that it creates this social sensitivity among the participants, and people who usually burst into conversation, like I just did to you now [laughter]… So if you create that in a circle with people and go according to these rules, then you develop...
What Does It Mean To Be Jewish Today? Course – Lesson 6: The Roots of Anti-Semitism
Lesson 6: The Roots of Anti-Semitism [With Chaim and Gilad] Chaim: Welcome to What Does It Mean to Be Jewish Today, Lesson 6. We are going to focus on answering your questions today, but before we do we want to remind you where we’re at a point where we’re talking about the Jews being different from other nations because of the role they have, and the sense that they are different exists in everyone—non-Jews and Jews alike. Gilad: So the usual, the chat’s open and we’ll be taking our questions there. So let’s begin. Let’s begin with your questions from last week and also questions that students have sent during the week and after last week’s lesson. Some of them already relate to this week’s chapter, but in any case, we’re going to answer all of them. Question: Why is there so much hate toward Israel/Jews if they’re the people who contribute the most to the progress/development of the world—Nobel prizes, inventions, high tech, etc.? That’s been discussed quite often. The problem is that it’s discussed mainly by Jews. Jews are wondering why is there so much hatred towards us if we’re giving humanity so much? We’re giving humanity such great scientists in medicine and in physics and in high tech and let’s not forget culture, with all the Jewish actors and film-makers and owners of the big...
My Trip to LA and DC
by Dr. Michael Laitman It has been approximately six weeks since my return from a trip to LA and DC, and nearly five weeks since the start of the course, “What Does It Mean To Be Jewish Today?” based on my book, Like a Bundle of Reeds: why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour. Despite the successful media engagements and the encouraging responses from audiences, since my return, much has happened in the world, but most of it has not been positive. The drop in oil prices has caused a major economic and social crisis in Russia, which is bound to have adverse effects worldwide. The Israeli government has argued itself to extinction and declared a new election, the last thing that people need. Anti-Semitism has been, well, anti-Semitism. It’s not only vibrant, but has spread as far as Australia and New Zealand. In the US, it is gradually becoming institutionalized, primarily in campuses (see Harvard and the SodaStream case), and in Europe it is growing increasingly violent. In short, we have our work cut out for us. Many people feel that if only the Jews, or at least the Jewish state, would cease to exist, so would their problems. That is not the case. The world’s problems will cease to exist when Israelis and Jews all over the world do what they have...
What Does It Mean To Be Jewish Today? Course – Lesson 5: The Role of the Jewish People
Lesson 5: The Role of the Jewish People [With Chaim and Gilad] Chaim: Welcome to another lesson of What Does It Mean to Be Jewish Today, or actually maybe we should ask what does it take to be Jewish today. In the previous lesson we talked about: a nation being on a mission, the role of the Jewish people and what it means to be Jewish, what it takes to be Jewish, the assignment that the Jews were given at the foot of Mt. Sinai to be a light for the nations, and what it actually means in terms of changing human nature and change of being a role model to society, and how anti-Semitism is rooted in the Jews not doing what they are intended to do and therefore arousing on themselves pressure from the nations, which now more than ever require us to unite and to be a role model to humanity. That was the gist of the message, not just the last lesson, but all of the lessons so far. It is the gist of the message of the entire book. We also had great questions… Gilad: And also we invite you today to write in the chat any questions you have about the lesson in general. We’ll be happy to answer them as much as we can. We have some questions from last week....