A question I received: How do Kabbalists explain the parameter of time, which we feel through our senses and can measure using technical instruments of this world?

• Why do we need the factor and the perception of time, and why does this feeling fade after one crosses the Machsom?

• How and why do we create time within ourselves?

• What affect can a person have on time, and how does time affect a person?

• Finally, what affect does time have on nature as a whole, and vice-versa?

My Answer: Time is produced by one’s egoism. Time is the feeling of a deficit, of the difference between what exists and what will exist. However, if one perceives the future as something that has already been received, something that is already present, then he does not feel time – he does not have the sense that there is something missing today which will come in the future.

On the other hand, if a person fully believes, without a shadow of a doubt, that he has not yet received something, but he will definitely receive it, then the present and the future are the same for him, since the future has nothing to add to the present. This is why ascending above egoism lets us enter the present and nothing but the present.

It is written that one who strives toward the Creator compresses time. The fact is, the entire image of the world is within us, and it includes the parameter of time.

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We wouldn’t have to go through this financial crisis if we had become aware of the previous crises. These include the crises of the family, upbringing, depression, drugs, terrorism, ecology, and many others, which began in the middle of the 20th century. All we had to do was to realize that a good connection between us would give us peace at home, good upbringing for our children, and a correct attitude toward nature and the ecology.

However, we did not discover that the cause of our troubles lies in the connection between us, and this is why we arrived at our current state – the financial crisis. Today it isn’t just the political scientists, economists, and psychologists that are starting to realize what the cause of the crisis is, but everyone is starting to see it.

However, if people will not be able to influence society and change their attitude from “looking out for number one” to “we are all a family,” then the distance between us (the breaking of the soul of Adam) will become revealed even clearer. This means we will not only harm each other in the area of finance, but we will literally eat each other. This will continue until we find the reason for our condition – our initial egoism, and then begin to correct it and rise above it.

This financial crisis will be followed by a stage where the connection between people will be revealed in an even uglier form. It will show our dependency on each other to an even greater extent, and we will be much worse off than right now. Even our imagination is unable to fathom what can happen. And all of this will happen in order for us to reveal the enormous egoism that separates people, because this is precisely where the breaking occurred.

However, correction is possible – it can be done with the help of the Light, by studying and using Kabbalistic sources. This study reveals our egoistic desires to us and gives us the strength to correct them and to unite with each other.

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Two questions I received on love and relationships:

Question (from a woman): Why is it that before we find our match, we have to go through so much pain and disappointment?

My Answer: It is because you use the wrong criteria to look for a partner. Your spouse should be someone you understand, someone similar to you, with a similar upbringing and childhood, and you should remind him of his mother. Everything else will fall into place throughout the process of living together. Mostly it will happen when you forgive one another and compromise with each other.

Question: There is a couple starting out their relationship. Both study Kabbalah. They now have the opportunity to create the right connection between them. How should this occur? How can they aim their relationship toward the goal?

My Answer: Tune into the studies together, discuss them, and read articles together. This is what Rabash advised for couples.

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Globalization

• Globalization in its literal sense is the process of transformation of local or regional phenomena into a global one. It can be described as a process by which the people of the world are unified into a single society and function together.

• This process is a combination of economic, technological, sociocultural and political forces. Globalization is often used to refer to economic globalization, that is, integration of national economies into the international economy through trade, foreign direct investment, capital flows, migration, and the spread of technology.

Integration

• From to integrate (from Latin integratus, the past participle of integrare ‘to make a whole’, from integer ‘whole’) + -ation. The act or process of making whole or entire.

Butterfly Effect

• Butterfly Effect is a phrase that encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory. Small variations of the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system.

• The term “butterfly effect” itself is related to the work of Edward Lorenz. The phrase refers to the idea that a butterfly’s wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in a certain location. The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale alterations of events.
• Chapter four of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s story “Winter Dreams” contains the following sentence: “[The house] was sturdy to accentuate [Judy’s] slightness – as if to show what a breeze could be generated by a butterfly’s wing.”

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In the News (translated from Novayagazeta): Wishing people an early and agonizing death and rejoicing when it arrives is becoming good form in Russia. Notices of others having a serious illness or sudden death cause the citizens to experience spasms of malicious joy.

Respect for death – the common end for everyone, has ancient origins in many civilizations and is a social consensus. When death is not respected, neither is life. Russia went through this during Stalin’s repressions and the world went through it during Fascism. But with such symptoms, the forecast is quite dreary.

My Comment: The only way to change the public opinion is by educating people, by giving them the explanation of the correct relationships. How? By completely restructuring the mass media – eliminating oppression and introducing goodness. This is what Kabbalah suggests. People are like children: they learn only through example.

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A question I received: How can a business survive without making a profit? This sounds like a utopia.

My Answer: The economic condition is very simple: a business will survive economically-speaking if it is aimed at benefiting the whole of society to the maximum. For example, a supermarket should sell products whose prices differ from the wholesale purchased goods only as much as necessary for the business to cover all of its expenses. The calculation is made to ensure that one consumes only what is necessary for one’s existence, like a cell or an organ in a body, which is part of an integral mechanism.

Thus, the profit that the business makes is there only for ensuring that the whole business can lead a normal existence. Any profit beyond this is harmful, like excessive food for the body. There should be no accumulation of money and no additional income.

Of course, every manufacturer keeps a safety margin in case of unforeseen circumstances, similar to how our organism creates a reserve of energy in case of sickness, in order to be able to compensate for the fluctuations. But in general, this is how every business should make its calculations today.

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Questions I received on difficult times on the spiritual path:

Question: Should a person try to figure out his bad states while they are occurring, or should he rise above them and only later analyze what happened?

My Answer: One should figure it out later, when he reaches an ascent. During the state of descent, the only thing you should do is work.

Question: I study in the Learning Center and listen to your lessons. Right now I am reading “The Creator’s Concealment and Revelation” because I want to understand the reason for my current state of despair. I don’t feel happiness in the material life, the Creator sends me nothing but suffering, and sometimes I don’t want to live. I feel completely lost. Maybe there is some specific book which can help me overcome this state?

My Answer: The book, Shamati.

Question: If a person studies Kabbalah, and at the same time has an excessive desire for some “special” type of fulfillment, such as alcohol, drugs, or pornography, what should he do, especially when this desire only grows stronger with time? How can he stay on track?

My Answer: You should think only about the most important thing. Then, even if a descent will come along, you will quickly come out of it and continue on your way without thinking about the past.

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A question I received: I am a regular person, like many others. I pay taxes, work at a factory and even do community service. I am considerate of others, I do everything I can to protect nature, and I serve my country. What else do I have to do according to Kabbalah?

My Answer: What you describe as being a “good person” is actually a good, corrected animal. However, now you are expected to become a human being. A human being (Adam) means “similar” to the Upper Force, the Creator. The Creator is Nature: It is integral, all-encompassing, and all its parts are united. Therefore, in order to become similar to It, you now have to unite with everyone, including the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels of Nature.

You will understand this through your suffering. You can shout all day about how you pay taxes fair and square and how you do community service. It won’t help you – you will still receive painful “blows” from Nature. Just because you follow all the different laws humanity has invented doesn’t mean you are following the laws of Nature.

Humanity has built an egoistic society in order to suit everyone’s desires for self-gratification, and everyone follows the established rules in order to feel comfortable in this society. However, this does not make you a good, corrected person. You have simply made your life more comfortable than if you were living in the wild jungle, by establishing various laws and rules of behavior that provide everyone with a worry-free life. And in addition, you are proud of this.

If an alien from another planet would come here and see all of this, he would say, “Friends, you are not uniting – you are using each other! You don’t look like good, kind citizens, but more like full-fledged criminals. You cannot continue like this. Enough!”

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