A Song In Memory of My Teacher Rabash

A Song in Memory of RabashA question I received (from the German blog): Lieber Rav Leithman, Das Lied welches zum Todestag des Rabash komponiert wurde habe ich gehört und war sehr gerührt, ja ich fühlte eine sehr große Verbundenheit, so, dass es fast schmerzte. Ewald Heinz Feuerstein.

Dear Rav Laitman, I heard a song that was sung on the day of mourning for Rabash, and I was very moved because I felt a very close connection to it, to the point that it was almost painful. Ewald Heinz Feuerstein.

My Answer: I am glad that you came across it. I will post this ancient Kabbalistic melody for you, which we sang during one of our meals:

The Lost Sons Are Disillusioned With the American Dream

A New Year's Wish to the WorldNews Report (translated from news.ru): Between the years 2000 and 2007, 3,500 people per year returned to Israel. In 2008, however, the number of people who have returned jumped to 7,000, and another 15,000 have submitted their applications to the ministry of absorption. In the last two months alone, as many as 2000 people returned to Israel.

My Comment: The return of the “lost children” marks the end of their wanderings in search of a heaven on earth, and the beginning of their search for the real heaven – the revelation of the Upper World. The Book of Zohar says that this precedes the return of the truly lost sons – the return of the ten tribes that were lost 3000 years ago. Today there are hundreds of millions of them in the world…

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Russia May Lead the Way to Global Unity

RussiaA question I received: A new worldview seeking to shift the entire civilization to a new level of consciousness has been published on the site of the national movement “RUSSIA IS US,” in the section “A New Worldview,” on the discussion forum, and other places.

Your thoughts and ideas from different articles published on your Kabbalah Academy websites and the Internet at large, were used in building a foundation for the new worldview. We would greatly appreciate your comments and suggestions.

With deep respect,
Alexey Yurievich Bartunov
Leader of the national movement “RUSSIA IS US”

My Answer: Dear Alexey Yurievich,

I will be very happy to participate in an opportunity to build a better Russia. I have always said that the inner demands of the Russians are close to the Kabbalistic ideas. The search for a national idea, self-expression, self-realization in the world in the capacity of a special enlightening force that draws respect and praise – all this is possible precisely by correctly implementing the idea of unity of all the nations. Russia can come forth as the initiator of an organizational plan for the new humanity. I am completely together with you in this!

Additional Comment: Professor Dov Sadan writes in his book Spiritual Revival that during the revolutionary period in Russia, Baal HaSulam took part in Polish workers’ demonstrations and supported them by carrying a red flag! He explained that what was happening in Russia signified that the masses were coming closer to the ideas of Kabbalah.

Later, after moving to Palestine in 1921, when socialistic changes started taking place in Poland, Baal HaSulam returned to Poland again and tried to get in touch with the leaders of the Polish workers’ movement. He wanted the socialist changes to be implemented correctly.

Unfortunately, people could not hear him. After all, to do this the society should have been able to rise above its egoism and recognize that there is no path other than global unity.

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Spiritual Teacher

Is There Meditation In Kabbalah? A spiritual teacher is a person who shapes and molds you, sets your direction toward the purpose of life, sets an example for you, and helps you make your first steps in a world that’s completely new for you, the Upper World.

How much you can absorb from him depends on you. To the extent you incorporate in him, you will find your future degrees of ascent.

A teacher conceals and reveals himself as much or as little as necessary to give the student the ability to develop freely and along the right path. When the teacher is present, the student isn’t happy with him, but once the teacher is gone, the student isn’t happy with himself.

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Will China Be the Superpower of the 21st Century?

How Can We Stop Being Slaves of the Advertisement Industry?A question I received: How do you see the future of China in light of the current global crisis?

My Answer: Today China is the most dynamically developing part of the global economy. Nevertheless, although China isn’t losing capital, a slowdown in its development is inevitable.

It appears that the Chinese economy is suffering less than the other economies. After all, China is protected by a powerful political regime, a closed inner market, its own strong currency, a cheap labor force, and a weak connection with the international funds system. Compared to the international recession, China is revealing an opportunity for growth in internal real estate development and consumption.

The Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of China, Wen Jiabao, gave a speech at the closing of the Asia-Europe summit held on October 26, where he stated: “We need reforms that will aid in creating a fair and effective global financial structure.” Unlike any other country, with the exception of the USA, China cares about education in the scientific field. There are 500,000 Chinese students studying outside of China, of whom 200,000 are studying in the USA. It turns out that in the 21st century, the only countries that will be able to successfully develop a technical-scientific base are the USA and China.

However, in order to become a superpower of the 21st century in a multi-polar system of the world order, in order for the Chinese goods to find a market, considering that the country’s economy is built on direct international investments, China will have to consider the need to integrate into the single global civilization. In the future, the system of interactions will have no choice but to change under the influence of nature, and to become harmonious, interconnected, truly integral and global, like a single organism. Incidentally, the ancient Chinese philosophy also sees the world exactly this way!

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Reflections On The Crisis

crisisGlobalization is the revelation of a new level of connection between us. It should be beneficial, but as we can see, it only causes more problems.

Why is this happening? It is because we are using the integral global system backwards – aiming to suppress one another, instead of learning to work together. We keep trying to defeat each other, to put others down and be superior to them.

Even if we wanted to maintain the proper interconnection – the commerce principle of “I scratch your back, you scratch mine” – this would still bring us to a crisis today. It would happen even if we did not lie to one another and conducted honest commerce. That’s because nowadays we are all interconnected, like parts of one body. Under these conditions it is useless to be egoistically honest, just as it is useless to create a global government or a world bank – to seek a common regulator.

The world’s political and economic leaders want to arrange a joint meeting between the G20 (heads of the leading countries) to discuss a joint global government. However, this will not help us come out of the crisis, because we are in opposition to Nature and Its general law. The system must not just be based on the correct interconnection, on agreements and honesty, but must operate in accordance with the inner connection between the elements of a single system, at whose basis lies a consideration of others as yourself.

This is the root of the problem. Kabbalah warns humanity that if we continue to try building our relationships according to the corporeal, egoistic laws – even the most direct and honest ones, following the principle of “what’s yours is yours and what’s mine is mine” – then the system will not work and we will elicit an even greater explosion.

As we start to reveal that we are all part of a single global system, we must come to the conclusion that everything is collective, and everyone must take care of everyone else. The only things that are “personal” are those necessary for one’s existence, while everything else is the collective property of the whole world. This pertains to natural resources, goods and production, education, health care, and so forth. Everything must be collective, global property. Otherwise the crises will not stop, and no matter how hard we try to set things right according to our egoistic logic, we will continue experiencing one crisis after another.

Kabbalah warns us that nature has already elevated us – in terms of our development – to the level of a single integral system, which follows the law of absolute interconnection of all its parts. No one can escape this law. Essentially, this is the ancient Biblical principle of “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” And we must use our ego in order to establish the correct connection with others.

Even if we create a rational system of interaction between different countries, according to the egoistic principle, “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours,” then this quality of Sodom will actually bring about an even greater crisis. That’s because in doing so we will seek to use the interconnection between people in order to raise the usage of egoism even higher, instead of correcting it. In this scenario a crisis will arise which will reflect this pseudo-correction, in order to expose the error. And it will be stronger and more acute, in order to teach us a lesson of what not to do.

What does Kabbalah suggest? To already take into account the future form, the functioning of the integral system as one body, by the principle of “the end of an action lies in the initial thought,” and actualize this end state to the best of our ability right now, even if we do it gradually and fragmentarily.

Does “actualize it right now” mean “fair distribution”? No. However, even if we initially accept the distribution of “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours,” and at the same time begin to intensively teach all humanity the laws of coexistence, which are based on the discovery of our society as a single organism; if we teach people the laws of behavior and distribution – then we will already be on the right path. We will shift to the path of correction and will stop being opposite to nature. We will then feel an immediate reduction of the suffering.

Baal HaSulam has a parable that says: We have lost our way in the desert and don’t know where to go. Now that we’ve completely lost our strength, we’ve realized that it was impossible to avoid wandering in the desert. And now we are revealing the path that we must walk. At the end of the path lies a castle full of all the goodness in the world. We are desperate; we are ready to sink into depression and drugs. All of a sudden, in this situation, we receive a global positioning system (a GPS map or GPS navigator) from people who can see everything from above. If a person agrees and changes his attitude to the world, then he discovers that the whole world was created for this path, and he suddenly has the strength to reach the goal.

How can we implement this change? We can do it by revealing the goal and the method of attaining it. The method comes to us from Ancient Babylon, when this problem of civilization came to light for the first time: a closed civilization is like a single body and must function as one organism. That is also when Kabbalah was revealed, in order to change the use of egoism – to use it for the benefit of society. However, the people didn’t want to use Kabbalah, and solved the problem in another way – they scattered all over the earth and globalization receded.

Now we are faced with the same situation, but this time we must utilize it, because we can no longer “run away” from one another, just as we cannot destroy the interconnection between us. Should America, Russia and Europe decide to isolate themselves from one another, they will face the emergence of Nazism in their countries and bring the world to a Third World War – a nuclear one.

What is the most practical solution that we can offer people? They have to know about the world they are living in today. Today we must learn about how to live in an integral system, where we’re all together “in one boat.” In this boat, the salvation of all depends on each individual. This is what we must also teach our children. We are dealing with nature: a global ecology and a global human society. We must teach ourselves and our children how to be incorporated in this system, where every person must care for the others.

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Kabbalah News Around the World

ARI onlineThe ARI Online Learning Center
The ARI Online Learning Center reports that several thousand people from many different countries have already signed up for the new semester, “Fall 2008.” Presently the top ten participating countries are: America, Mexico, Columbia, Argentina, Romania, Canada, England, South America, Australia, and various countries in Europe.

FrankfurtInternational Book Fair in Frankfurt
The world’s largest international book fair was held in Frankfurt on October 15-19. This year marked the 60th anniversary of this famous book fair, and visitors had an opportunity to acquaint themselves with the book industries from one hundred countries.

A book stand with Kabbalah books was organized by our friends Daniel Lange, Martin Wieczorek, Urlik Hammer, Mark Daniels, Eddie Yusupov, and Uri Laitman. It elicited great interest from the visitors of the exhibit. Over thirty publishers from the most diverse countries have already started negotiations about translating and publishing Kabbalah books.

Among them are publishers from Brazil, Switzerland, Israel, Hungary, Italy, Germany, China, Croatia, Korea, Holland, Turkey, Sweden, and even Saudi Arabia.

MexicoNew Publications in Mexico
The editorial staff of the Mexican magazine “Medicable,” with a circulation of 70,000, has decided to start printing our Kabbalah articles. The magazine comes out once every two months and is distributed in cities such as Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey.

FinlandKabbalah in Finnish
Finland isn’t lagging behind either. The first issue of the newspaper Kabala Tanaan, (Kabbalah Today in Finnish) has been published. The newspaper’s publication was timed to coincide with two large annual exhibits held in in Helsinki in October of 2008. Our newspapers, brochures, and books in seven languages will be presented at the stands of both exhibits.

MosdowOnline Education in Moscow
An international conference dedicated to online education was held in the “President Hotel.” Representatives of the Moscow branch of the Kabbalah Academy were in attendance. They gave a presentation on the online learning classes that the International Kabbalah Academy has been successfully teaching for several years. To date over 20,000 students have taken part in the classes.

This presentation was of great interest to the conference participants. During the discussion, the participants exchanged opinions on methods of increasing the efficiency of online learning, and the role of online education in the conditions of modern globalization.

ZaporozhieBook Fair in Zaporozhye
A book fair was held in Zaporozhye, Ukraine, called Khortotzki Djerela – 2008. Visitors showed a lot of interest in the books, brochures, CDs, and newspapers about the wisdom of Kabbalah that were on display. The book Kabbalah – It’s Very Simple sold out on the first day of the fair. Many visitors became acquainted with Kabbalah during last year’s fair and came back to learn more this year.

When Will Hunger Start Affecting Us?

Using the Sixth Sense, One Perceives Like the CreatorTwo questions I received on worldwide calamities:

Question: I would like to hear a specific forecast of when and how soon will the worldwide hunger begin affecting us? How many days, weeks, or months do we have left?

My Answer: Unfortunately, the upcoming winter in Eastern Europe will already be difficult. Correspondingly, we have to explain to people that positive forces can only be evoked by our equivalence to nature. These forces’ influence will be felt as a quick improvement of the situation.

Question: In a practical sense, what would Kabbalah have advised Jews to do during the Holocaust?

My Answer: As early as 1920 Baal HaSulam organized 300 families to move to Palestine. However, his plans to evacuate all the Jews of Poland were resented by the Orthodox and they exiled him from Warsaw. Hence he left for Palestine alone, and all those who remained were later burned by the Nazis.

All the Kabbalists of that time called on the Jews to flee Europe. But it’s the same as today: No one listens to us! You don’t think that you are in mortal danger today, do you?

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Health and Kabbalah

Immerse Into the Waters of Bestowal, and You Will Become PureThree questions I received on Kabbalah’s attitude to health and healing:

Question: During one of your classes you mentioned that when you weren’t feeling well, your teacher would ask you to study with him. I have a heart problem. Can I come to the Creator and ask for the Light that Reforms to heal my heart during the lesson or during my dissemination activities? And does this work for women?

My Answer: Yes, if it is done along with and in order to achieve the goal of creation.

Question: When I try to unite with other souls and add the intention, my blood pressure drastically raises. Why?

My Answer: Instead of getting tense, you should relax. After all, this action should bring you pleasure, shouldn’t it?

Question: I heard that Baal HaSulam once said to his students, “I don’t care where the sack with my bones will be buried.” I have never visited my parents’ graves since the day they died, about 50 years ago. However, I had a stomach pain that lasted for 10 months, and medicine did not help. I went to an alternative medicine practitioner and he advised me to visit my parents’ graves and ask them for forgiveness. How does this connect with Kabbalah, which says that the physical body is “ashes and dust?”

My Answer: There is no connection, but it may have a good psychological effect and may even heal you, since there is also a psychological aspect to your pain.

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The Society of the Future

Why Do We See Such a Diverse World?A question I received: I have a question regarding the society of the future. I came from a state that was a part of former Yugoslavia, which was an artificially established “communist” state. I can still remember the good feelings that everybody had in that society. However, it fell apart and all sorts of nationalistic, ethnic and religious hatred emerged, escalating in a terrible war.

Now, after reading a portion of the material on your website, I find it difficult to understand one of the principles stated in the text of “Building the Future Society,” which contradicts some things from other texts. In “Building the Future Society” it is clearly stated that it is the Jews who should be members of the future altruistic-communistic government, because they suffered most in history and thus are the most experienced and knowledgeable about the best ways of ruling.

In other texts it is also clearly stated that the Creator invites all nations to unite, that the word Israel means “directly to God” rather than current Israeli citizens or Jews. I wonder if there is a sound explanation to this. Can you please clarify this for me as well as for others who are firm believers in the so called “Jewish conspiracy”?

My Answer: Historically it happened that a part of the people from Ancient Babylon have already gone through correction, reached the level of the Temple, and then fell from the spiritual level of “Love thy neighbor as thyself” into our world of “Unfounded hatred.” These people are the carriers of the inner spiritual potential – and you are admitting this very fact with your prejudice to them! They are heading the dissemination of the method of correcting all humanity. This is why they have already gone through this path.

Everyone who joins them are also Israel (IsraEl – those who aspire toward the Creator), and later everyone else will also gradually join the process of correction. This is how the full correction of the common soul of Adam is attained. For more on this, see items 61-71 of the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar.”

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