A question I received: In your blog entry, “Faith And Science Are Incompatible,” you wrote: “Kabbalah is science: a person reveals a new reality and then scientifically (experimentally) researches it.”

As a scientist (a physicist doing research in the area of brain functioning), I don’t agree that Kabbalah’s approach is scientific. In conventional, earthly science, one reveals and researches reality simultaneously. If anything, the revelation follows the research rather than precedes it. What else can the revelation of the new reality be based on if not on scientific research?

However, in Kabbalah, it is impossible to avoid a religious explanation. Everything that is written in the holy books requires some kind of faith, whereas in my field of work, I do not leave anything to faith.

My Answer: In Kabbalah, one reveals a new reality to the degree one becomes similar to it. This is done by developing new qualities – those of bestowal and love – in one’s heart.

One then activates the brain (one’s thoughts and intelligence) in order to interpret what the senses have attained. So, in Kabbalah there is no place for faith, let alone religion.

The science of Kabbalah is based upon:

1. The gradual transformation of one’s qualities as one is influenced by the study material (the Upper Light, Ohr Makif)

2. The sensation of the new reality in one’s newly acquired attributes

3. Research and attainment of the new reality

4. To the degree one attained something, one’s heart and mind then proceed to a deeper adhesion, a more profound penetration of the new state

The above sequence of states repeats on all 125 degrees of the spiritual world, which are degrees of change in one’s qualities, desires, and intentions. They change from “for my own sake” to “for the sake of others, for the Creator.” This continues until the soul is completely corrected, whereby it attains the goal for which it was created.

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In the News (from Reuters): “Filmmaker Michael Moore targeting economic crisis” Firebrand filmmaker Michael Moore, who targeted the Bush administration in “Fahrenheit 9/11” and the health care industry in “Sicko,” is now focusing on the global economic meltdown. The Oscar-winning director will release his as-yet-untitled documentary across North America on October 2, 2009.

“The wealthy, at some point, decided they didn’t have enough wealth,” the statement quoted Moore as saying. “They wanted more – a lot more. So they systematically set about to fleece the American people out of their hard-earned money. Now, why would they do this? That is what I seek to discover in this movie.”

My Comment: This offers further support for the fact that egoism brings the world to crisis, instead of causing progress the way it did in the past. Therefore, we should fight egoism instead of encouraging it as we used to.

People are now connected together inside a “small village,” and therefore every person should desire, think and act in ways that are beneficial for the whole of society, not just himself. And while Mr. Moore explains the cause of the crisis, he does not have the answer to it – but Kabbalah does.

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In the News: (from The University of Minnesota): “Oxytocin and the genetics of altruism” In the study, “The Oxytocin Receptor (OXTR) Contributes to Prosocial Fund Allocations in the Dictator Game and the Social Value Orientations Task,” by Salomon Israel and colleagues, the researchers measured altruism in 200 students, based on how each chose to divide a pool of money with another unknown individual. Their hypothesis, based on various past studies, was that the hormone oxytocin is important for social interactions in general and for human altruism in particular.

My Comment: It is impossible for a person to do anything that is not for personal gain. This is what our instinct dictates, similar to how it makes us care for our children and fellow countrymen. Everything is controlled by a program – one that is egoistic. What the researchers are seeing are the external expressions of this program, which is encoded inside us. They are observing the program when it is realized in matter – in the biological and genetic material.

Kabbalah, on the other hand, teaches us how to correct the program itself. And the method to doing this is also pre-programmed by nature. Doing anything else will only bring about a resistance from nature, which will be externally expressed as disasters, crises and suffering.

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In order to reach the purpose of creation, we need a special force – one that is external, existing outside of us. Without its help, all our efforts to reach the Upper World (or in other words, to perform acts of love and bestowal) will be futile. It is because our entire nature is the will to receive. Therefore, every action we make is done in order to fulfill ourselves. Even if we weigh in the needs of others, we do it out of fear or because the person we give to is so close to us that we feel he is a part of us.

The engine of all our actions is self-love. Therefore, we cannot truly care for others and bestow to them. We have a desire to fulfill ourselves at the expense of others, which is called “egoism.” This desire is what differentiates the human level from the animate one.

When man is uncorrected, he is worse than an animal, but when he attains correction, he becomes equal to the Creator. Every person in the world feels unique and exceptional, but when this feeling is coupled with egoism, it turns into the worst, most destructive force in Nature.

However, this too has a purpose: we have to discover the utter lowliness of this state in order to single out the corrupted form of the feeling of being unique, exclusive and exceptional. We will then be able to truly plead with the Creator, asking Him to change the way we use this feeling. It will then transform into goodness and love for all, where every person’s love for everyone will be unique and special.

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In the News (from The Seattle Times): “RNA research sheds light on first life forms” John Sutherland, a chemist at the University of Manchester has found the hidden gateway to the RNA world, the chemical milieu from which the first forms of life are thought to have emerged on Earth some 3.8 billion years ago.

He has solved a problem that for 20 years has thwarted researchers trying to understand the origin of life — how the building blocks of RNA, called nucleotides, could have spontaneously assembled themselves in the conditions of the primitive Earth. The discovery, if correct, should set researchers on the right track to solving many other mysteries about the origin of life. … Sutherland said he had not yet found natural ways to generate the other two types of nucleotides found in RNA molecules, but synthesis of the first two was thought to be harder to achieve.

My Comment: We are incapable of creating life! What we can do, however, is elicit the expression of the Reshimot, which exist in all matter, and then cause them to develop. As a result, it will seem to us as if something appears out of nothing.

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In the News (from CNN): “Pension guarantor: unprecedented deficit” The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which guarantees private pension payments for 44 million Americans, said on Wednesday that it faces a massive, unprecedented deficit.

My Comment: It looks like we will have to build a new society from scratch. People will spend all the existing funds, and only when there isn’t anything left to spend will they stop and think about what is happening.

There is no means in our world to correct the current crisis! That’s because we were created by the Upper Force (the Creator, the force of altruism) and It endowed us with an egoistic nature. The Creator is waiting for us to desire to change our nature, and as soon as we desire this, He will change us.

Kabbalah teaches us how we can reach this recognition –  and the solution to the crisis – sooner.

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