How Can We Promise Ourselves a Good Year?

An Experience Called Kabbalah Event taking place in Ashkelon

Kabbalists are people who feel this world is too small for them. Everyone thinks you're so successful but you go to sleep with a hole in your heart. Kabbalists researched this and discovered that there is something beyond this life. They discovered our entire life works according to the rule of equivalence of form. The closer we are to the source of good - our situation in life in better. The further away from his attribute of love and bestowal. The worse our lives are. This gap I feel between Him and I is because He built us opposite to Him. How opposite are we? We've developed AI to know how to talk to our spouse or child. Each of us has an enormous ego as individuals - but all together it's blowing up. And it's not for nothing. It's to make us recognize our bad nature, so we can transform it to good. If we're satisfied with what we have great. But if I'm not then I need to search for where I can find more. That's what we're here to do in this lesson.

Clip: Rosh Hashanah is a New Beginning

Rosh Hashanah is a new beginning, of course. But a new beginning begins even before that, when we take stock of the year that has passed, and if the year has actually gone well, then we feel that it has gone so well that our bad qualities have actually been revealed in us, which is the opposite of what people think. That is why we arrive at the month of Elul when we yearn to reach the attribute of bestowal, the attribute of giving, the attribute of love, which symbolizes for us the attribute of the Creator who is "good and benevolent", bestowal, love. When we examine ourselves, and see that we are even worse than before.

If we have developed correctly, if we have climbed the moral ladder and are looked at from the perspective of morality, from the perspective of ethics, from the perspective of recognizing goodness, recognizing evil, then we need to show ourselves to be worse, that there is still much lacking in us, we still have much to correct.

And so we arrive at the month of Elul and are not amazed by what is written in "Selichot," "We have sinned, we have betrayed," and so on, and that we are really full, full, full, not full of commandments like a pomegranate but full of transgressions like a pomegranate, that's how we all are. That it is actually good that we feel that we have something to pray for. To pray, that is, to judge ourselves. To judge ourselves. That our nature is truly a bad nature, we are all selfish, we do not think about others, we are far from being good to one another. We have completely forgotten that the Torah is "Love your neighbor as yourself, this is the great rule in the Torah" and we need to follow that.

And here we really have the opportunity to take stock of ourselves, who we are with Israel. Why is it called Israel? Israel is called La'el, Israel is straight La'el, that is, to a higher power. A higher power is a power of bestowal and love, the Creator is a power of love and bestowal and giving. Am I also the one who calls myself Israel, that I also aim for the same quality or not? Michael Laitman

Workshop question: What is the ideal measurement ruler for summarizing the passing year?

The Hebrew word for holiday, Chag (חג), shares its root with the word for compass or circle (Machuga). It represents a natural cycle - a recurring point in time where we return to a specific state. But behind this physical rhythm lies a profound internal process. A holiday is not merely a date on the calendar; it's a station on the path of transforming human nature.

By nature, we are created with a purely self-centered engine. We operate within an egoistic framework, naturally prioritizing our own benefit, often at the expense of others. In a closed, interconnected system, this dynamic creates a zero-sum game where one person’s gain translates to another’s loss.

The wisdom of Kabbalah points to a different approach: transitioning from a mechanism of mutual exploitation to one of mutual consideration. Through small, deliberate corrections in how we relate to one another, we move from inherent division toward genuine connection, discovering that acting for the common good ultimately secures the well-being of the whole.

This process unfolds across 125 internal stages, organized into five broader levels or "worlds." The entry point to this internal scale is Rosh Hashanah - literally the "Head of the Year" or the beginning of spiritual revelation. It marks the moment a person first recognizes the singular, underlying force that governs reality, a force defined entirely by bestowal and love.

Reaching this initial recognition requires an honest inventory. True preparation for a new beginning - the spirit of the month of Elul - does not come from self-congratulation, but from self-assessment (Lehitpalel, which root-wise means to judge oneself). As a person develops internal sensitivity, they become more aware of their egoistic drivers and the gap between their current state and the standard of "love your neighbor as yourself." Recognizing this self-interest is not a failure; it's the necessary diagnostic step that allows for genuine transformation.

Moving into a new cycle means shifting from passive reaction to conscious direction - being "the head and not the tail." Instead of reacting blindly to external circumstances, a person aligns their intentions with the underlying law of nature, which drives humanity toward integration and balance. By actively cultivating positive connections above natural self-interest, one participates directly in shaping the network of human relationships. In wisdom texts, this conscious effort to build harmonious ties is referred to as "inscription" (Ktiva), while its realization and fulfillment within the system is known as "sealing" (Chatima).

Ultimately, Rosh Hashanah represents the shift from self-containment to active participation in a unified system. It is the decision to begin building a new framework for human connection, aligning our internal drivers with the broader, integrative force of nature.