In the News (from The Wall Street Journal): “His Empire in Tatters, German Billionaire Takes Life” Adolf Merckle, one of Germany’s wealthiest men, committed suicide. Mr. Merckle’s body was discovered Monday night near train tracks… In a rare interview last month, Mr. Merckle told the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung he had survived “many so-called stock-market crashes” but that he “couldn’t calculate a banking and financial crisis of this dimension.”

My Comment: He’s right: there’s never been a crisis like this in all of human history, because the current crisis is “qualitative.” It was caused by the human society’s opposition to Nature. Society has become global and interconnected like a “small village” where everyone is completely interdependent (“the Butterfly Effect”). However, our mutual egoistic hatred destroys all the connections. The effect of broken connections in a single system manifests as a crisis in the system – a crisis in all areas of our activity.

The crisis will not end until we find a solution – a way to be together, united by bonds of bestowal and love. This is what is required of us by the system that we have found ourselves in. We cannot escape these closed connections. We will have to observe the rule, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” We can do this through suffering (as we always have) or by realizing that it’s necessary (the method of Kabbalah). The choice is ours.

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Baal HaSulam Article: “Introduction to the Book, The Tree of Life”, Item 4

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A question I received: I am non Jewish, and I have been studying Kabbalah for several years. I am considering the path of conversion. However, I am trying to find information on the concept of Chasid Omot Olam. All I know is that this is a non Jewish person who lives his life according to the precepts and the cause of spreading Kabbalah. Is this correct? How can I find more information on this concept?

My Answer: There’s no need to convert. You have to correct yourself to “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and today this is required of all people. Nationalities and religions will vanish, and our world will disappear from our perception. The only thing that will remain is the one common soul, united with the Creator in the state of the World of Infinity, just as it was at the beginning of creation. Read the section about the three states in Baal HaSulam’s article, “Introduction to the Book of Zohar.”

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In the News (from The New York Times): “In Effort to Build Support, Obama Details Stimulus Plan” The White House envisions using loan guarantees and other financial support to leverage $100 billion in private sector investment in so-called clean energy projects over three years. The plan would help 8.5 million Americans keep health care coverage by providing workers who lose insurance with tax credits to pay for continuing coverage… The plan would modernize 10,000 schools, improve security at 90 ports and build 1,300 wastewater projects. It would bolster Pell Grants to help seven million students and offer a new tax credit for four million college students. And it would increase food stamp benefits for 30 million Americans and increase Social Security benefits $450 for 7.5 million disabled and elderly people…

In his speech, Mr. Obama said he knew that some worried about the size of his plan, “We won’t just throw money at our problems; we’ll invest in what works.”

My Comment: Investment alone will not work! What’s needed is a gradual change of the social consciousness, making it planetary, global, and integral. It must approach the rule, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” which is the condition of the global world’s existence.

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In the News (from The Herald): “We’re all in this together, Brown warns” British Prime Minister Gordon Brown yesterday warned against the “deglobalization threat,” saying countries faced with the worldwide recession should not retreat into economic protectionism. The Prime Minister said, “If what happens to a bank in one country can within minutes have devastating effects for banks on a different continent, then only a truly international response of policy and governance can be effective.”

My Comment: Separating from one another contradicts the process we are now in, which is happening under the influence of the forces of Nature. Hence, separation will lead us to greater and more diverse crises. We must understand that the only thing that can help us to overcome the current crisis is to draw closer to each other.

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In the News (translated from Lenta.ru): A hotline offering emergency psychological help for people affected by the global financial crisis is now operating in Moscow. People can receive free consultation from a certified psychiatrist over the phone. The phone calls will be answered by specialists from the national center of social and forensic psychiatry.

My Comment: In addition, there should be a “hotline” that will disseminate the global (anti-crisis) education for the whole world. Instead of just offering people consolation, it will explain that this problem is shared by all humanity, and that the transition from disconnection to unity is embedded in the foundation of Nature. We must go through it, either under Nature’s pressure (via the path of suffering) or consciously (by using Kabbalah). Moreover, we have to come out of the problem together. Then it will be easy, because it will happen in harmony with Nature’s movement, rather than by isolating ourselves and being opposed to each other.

You can start doing this on your own, without waiting for it to happen: just by thinking about everyone and about our common connection, while studying our materials (available free of charge online), you will not only feel more relaxed, but also cause an improvement in the world, as this will bring us closer to balance with Nature. As a result, it will improve people’s health and well-being.

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In the News (from AFP): Japan’s Sony Corp. said Tuesday that it was cutting more than 8,000 jobs worldwide and shutting plants as part of an overhaul of its business to cope with the global economic downturn. The electronics giant said it would axe about 10 percent of its manufacturing sites, cut investment in its electronics business by about 30 percent.

My Comment: Only the necessities will remain!

In the News (from The Daily Telegraph): Pubs are closing at a record rate, with six closing every day because of the economic downturn. The British Beer & Pub Association says that 39 pubs a week are closing in Britain, a rate 20 times faster than three years ago. It is estimated that 44,000 jobs in pubs and bars have been lost in the past couple of years and that 60,000 more jobs will go shortly.

My Comment: Could anyone imagine this happening?! Truly, the world will be different…

In the News (translated from Newsland.ru): “Will the crisis turn women into wives and mothers?” Being mother and wife is the only worthwhile way for a woman to realize herself. Most women toil in order to earn a salary, but not for self-actualization. Meanwhile their children grow up lacking a mother’s attention and develop inferiority complexes. However, the crisis is forcing women to return home.

My Comment: Kabbalah views the crisis as correction. The disappearance of excess will help us to better prioritize life and its values.

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In the News (from The New Scientist): According to physicist Craig Hogan, GEO600 [a detector of gravitational waves] has stumbled upon the fundamental limit of space-time – the point where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into “grains.”

If this doesn’t blow your socks off, then Hogan has an even bigger shock in store: “If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram.” … Our everyday experience might itself be a holographic projection of physical processes that take place on a distant, 2D surface.

My Comment: According to Kabbalah, “The particular and the general are equal as two drops of water.” Everything consists of ten Sefirot, which in turn divide into an infinite number of parts, each of which repeats the same structure of ten Sefirot. This was even described by Abraham in his book, The Book of Creation (Sefer Yetzira), where he writes: “Ten Sefirot: Ten and not nine, ten and not eleven.” It’s the same in all parts and in the entire creation.

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“Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot”

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At our Bnei Baruch center, preparations for the Congress are proceeding at full speed:

[Show slideshow]

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In the News (from The Associated Press): “Group of 6 arrested in western Ariz. fires includes 4 firemen” Four firefighters and two others have been arrested on suspicion of igniting between 15 and 20 fires in western Arizona to make money by fighting the very blazes they lit, officials said Tuesday.

My Comment: Egoism forces people to harm others in any way possible for the sake of their own benefit. The same can be said of doctors and others who manufacture food fillers, useless and harmful drugs, and so on. Our society is built so as to use people in every way possible. Instead of, “Everything for the people, everything for their benefit,” what we have is, “Everything for the sake of one’s profit, everything to harm people” (and this harms both those who do it and to whom they do it).

In the News (from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany): “Does persistent low fertility threaten the future of European populations?” Three stylized demographic facts are nowadays taken for granted by many Europeans: First, European birth rates are very low and further declining. Second, the currently low fertility will inevitably lead to rapid population aging and population decline in the future. Third, these trends are unsustainable in the long run… Perhaps no one summarized the fears of shrinking Europe more succinctly than Pope Benedict XVI: “…the problem of Europe, which it seems no longer wants to have children, penetrated my soul. To foreigners this Europe seems to be tired, indeed it seems to be wishing to take its leave of history” (Vatican 2006).

My Comment: Egoism doesn’t need anybody; it wants to feel special and unique. The same thing will happen in all the countries as their population’s egoism develops. But the emergence of the quality of bestowal and love in people will naturally make them desire to have children in order to continue their kind.

Related Material:
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Three questions I received on the spiritual desire:

Question: First of all, thanks for a great Congress at Blackpool which I thoroughly enjoyed. Which prayers should we be saying as potential Kabbalists? I have watched the children’s lesson on prayer but cannot find the answer. Is there a particular prayer book we should use?

My Answer: A prayer is the heart’s desire. One should do all that one can to make his heart desire the goal of creation – the revelation of the Creator.

Question: Why does the Creator want us to need Him?

My Answer: Because He is the quality of “bestowal and love” within us. And this quality creates a sensation – within us – of an eternal and perfect life.

Question: You say that a person needs to feel a “deficiency.” What kind of deficiency are you talking about: spiritual or corporeal?

My Answer: This means that you must reveal that you don’t love others, and reveal it in such a way that it will suppress your self-love. It is as though you ascend on top of the mountain of your egoism through love for others, and to this degree, the Creator will be revealed to you, or rather, in you.

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