News Report (from Marketwire): “Global Economic Meltdown: Systemic Shock” The present economic crisis is systemic and global. Consumer optimism has dipped across the globe, leaving no region untouched… Emerging Markets – heretofore stalwart guardians of global consumer confidence – have shown a precipitous decline in optimism as well. Case in point is China, registering a 42% decline in optimism from 2007 to 2008… In response to the crisis, a super-majority of the world’s consumers have already made cuts to their family budgets.

My Comment: Because some politicians don’t understand the fact that our world has become integral (one interconnected system), they say that “the crisis is happening over there, not over here.” Indeed, the world has become a single whole, and hence, regardless of any country’s level of development (whether economic, industrial, or other), anything that transpires in any part of the world will now reverberate everywhere. In addition, we can’t even tell how powerfully this will happen in different places, because we don’t know the true structure of each country and nation in the general system of souls.

The crisis began with something that is a common, unifying factor for all of us – money. However, we will soon discover that we are completely interdependent in all other respects as well! There’s only one piece of advice to give to anyone, from governments to average citizens: don’t do anything that’s against others, lower your pride, give in, and help others. At the very least, these actions are contrary to the crisis.

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News Report (from Reuters): More than half of teenagers mention risky behaviors such as sex and drugs on their MySpace accounts, U.S. researchers said on Monday. In two studies of 18-year-olds, overall, 54 percent of the publicly available accounts contained information about high-risk behaviors: 41 percent mentioned substance abuse, 24 percent sexual behavior and 14 percent violence.

My Comment: It is an art to raise an animal that’s just been born into a human being. The world’s entire problem is that adults don’t understand that the world can only be changed through upbringing (education). Indeed, if we could raise just one generation correctly, the subsequent ones would be correct as well.

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The blog “Kabbalah, Science, and the Meaning of Life” is now available in Italian:

La Kabbalah, la scienza e il senso della vita

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Kabbalah website in Italian

Filed under: Notices - 1 Comment →

Dear readers of the blog,

Please don’t get offended if it appears that your questions are being “disregarded.” The thing is that the questions often repeat themselves, and I’m sorry, but I don’t answer the same questions over and over. However, whenever there are new questions, and they are substantial, I always answer them! That’s why I recommend that you read back through the blog – you’ll find all the answers there!

Thank you,
With love,
Michael

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A question I received: I heard that the Torah mentions something about the war in Israel that is going on right now. Is this so? You also wrote that all the future events are mentioned in the Torah.

My Answer: There is no explicit reference to this in the Torah, but there is when you look at the inner meaning. However, it is impossible to show it vividly.

It says in the book of the prophet Amos (Amos 1:6):

עמוס א ו כֹּה, אָמַר יְהוָה, עַל-שְׁלֹשָׁה פִּשְׁעֵי עַזָּה, וְעַל-אַרְבָּעָה לֹא אֲשִׁיבֶנּוּ: עַל-הַגְלוֹתָם גָּלוּת שְׁלֵמָה, לְהַסְגִּיר לֶאֱדוֹם. א,ז וְשִׁלַּחְתִּי אֵשׁ, בְּחוֹמַת עַזָּה; וְאָכְלָה, אַרְמְנֹתֶיהָ. א,ח וְהִכְרַתִּי יוֹשֵׁב מֵאַשְׁדּוֹד, וְתוֹמֵךְ שֵׁבֶט מֵאַשְׁקְלוֹן; וַהֲשִׁיבוֹתִי יָדִי עַל-עֶקְרוֹן, וְאָבְדוּ שְׁאֵרִית פְּלִשְׁתִּים–אָמַר, אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה.

Translation: Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they carried away captive the whole captivity, to deliver them up to Edom. But I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, which shall devour the palaces thereof. And I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him that holdeth the sceptre from Ashkelon, and I will turn mine hand against Ekron: and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord GOD.

I will abstain from any commentary. One should understand these texts however he understands them, to the degree of his spiritual development.

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Filed under: Israel - 1 Comment →

News Report (from Commodity Online): According to a new IBM national survey of 30,000 US consumers, they are changing their shopping habits to deal with shifting budgets and incomes. The study, titled ‘Shopper Advocacy: Building Consumer Trust in the New Economic Environment,’ shows that tighter budgets and lower confidence have fundamentally changed consumer behavior.

My Comment: This is why no bailouts or purchase incentives will help the financial situation. We have passed a psychological turning point. As long as society’s feeling of financial security is not restored, people will not spend a cent beyond necessity. Egoism is growing and changing, and people are no longer willing to throw around their money – the times have changed. So we shouldn’t try to bring back excessive production or luxury vacations all over the world. Instead, it’s best to engage people in something more useful for their souls and bodies – and for the ecology too!

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Every Thursday at 7:30pm Israel time, our television channel YES – 66 airs a live broadcast of the show “Ask the Kabbalist.” The show is simultaneously translated to English, Spanish and Russian. I invite everyone to watch it and to ask questions at 1-700-509-209 or at www.kab.tv/eng

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News Report (from Financial Times): “German bond sale’s fate signals trouble ahead” A German sovereign bond auction failed on Wednesday as investors shunned one of the most liquid and safe assets in the world in a warning for governments seeking to raise record amounts of debt to stimulate slowing economies. The fate of the first eurozone bond auction of 2009 signals trouble ahead as governments around the world hope to issue an estimated $3,000bn in debt this year, three times more than in 2008.

My Comment: We will continue to reveal the lack of the correct interactions in the whole world among all its parts. This will become clearer as it finds expression in people’s lack of trust, faith, unwillingness to participate, and so on – until we realize that it’s necessary to create new relationships: those of mutual trust and cooperation.

These relationships can only arise once we see the interconnected system that we have suddenly found ourselves in. And for this to happen, we need explanations, education, and upbringing that teach people about the world’s globality.

So what means will we use to come out of the crisis?

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A question I received: In one of the lessons you were asked a direct question: Will Kabbalah studies improve one’s financial situation? You answered, “No.” I was waiting for an explanation, such as that there’s no use waiting for a miracle to happen overnight, the way people expect from amulets and holy water. I thought that you would talk about a simple principle that everyone can understand, such as, “Everyone should give according to their ability, and receive according to their needs.”

After all, Kabbalah does provide material prosperity to the people who search spirituality, but in addition, it gives them a way to open the gates to the spiritual world. But instead, you cut the whole topic off and said, “No.” Why?

My Answer: You’re right: of course, a person who works on his own correction sways himself and the whole world to the scale of merit, and to the degree he ascends above egoism, he feels the Light and abundance in his entire life.

However, I want to underline that Kabbalah is the method of revealing the Creator to man in this world, and not a method to get rich, be healed, know the future, cast spells, and all the other things people attribute to it. This is why I clearly tell beginners that Kabbalah studies do not give you any direct material gain. And this is true. It’s because initially a person must reach a feeling that he needs this, and then Kabbalah – the revelation of the Creator – is for him.

It is not a method to get rich quick, or to heal one’s animate body, and so on. If a person genuinely aspires to reveal the Creator, then the Upper Light influences him and elicits changes in this life as well.

Nevertheless, sometimes this may also manifest as it is written in the verse, “He is the righteous and unhappy.” Actually, this doesn’t mean that the righteous person is unhappy, but according to our criteria, he is not rich or healthy. This is because we are all interconnected, and hence sometimes a person who’s righteous suffers for the entire world.

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News Report (from BBC News): “Is love just a chemical cocktail?” Writing in the respected scientific journal Nature, Professor Young argues that love can be explained by a series of neurochemical events in specific brain areas. … Researchers have found that oxytocin is involved in the bonding of male and the female prairie voles, which like humans, form an intense bond with each other that lasts for a very long time.

My Comment: Love, like any other feeling, brings about physio-chemical reactions in the organism. Otherwise, we wouldn’t feel it. However, these reactions are just an external manifestation, or the result, of our feelings.

Scientists are solving our problems backwards: they suggest influencing our feelings with drugs or chemicals. Science is approaching the situation from the only angle that it is able to.

On the other hand, Kabbalah explains that the foundation of all matter is the desire to enjoy. Furthermore, Kabbalah teaches us how to change our desires and control them. Then we will be able to control all other changes, which are just the results of the desires and the changes happening to them.

The division of nature into the still, vegetative, and animate levels is also nothing but a gradation of the desire to enjoy – “to preserve oneself and to develop,” or “to draw closer to what’s beneficial and move away from what’s harmful.”

Science cannot unlock the mystery of love – this cannot be solved with chemical means. Kabbalah, on the other hand, teaches us how to change our feelings, and even to ascend above them. In our transformed feelings, which will change from hatred to love for the neighbor, we will perceive “the world outside of us” – the Upper World, a state that’s eternal and independent of our bodies.

This is love, but not the corporeal type.

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