Here is an interesting excerpt from the book, The Fourth Turning, by William Strauss and Neil Howe, published in 1996:

“We perceive our civic challenge as some vast, insoluble Rubik’s Cube. Behind each problem lies another problem that must be solved first, and behind that lies yet another, and another, ad infinitum. To fix crime we have to fix the family, but before we do that we have to fix welfare, and that means fixing our budget, and that means fixing our civic spirit, but we can’t do that without fixing moral standards, and that means fixing schools and churches, and that means fixing the inner cities, and that’s impossible unless we fix crime. There’s no fulcrum on which to rest a policy lever. People of all ages sense that something huge will have to sweep across America before the gloom can be lifted, but that’s an awareness we suppress. As a nation, we’re in deep denial.”

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A question I received: Presently, the Big Bang theory is the most credible explanation physics has of how the universe was created. What does Kabbalah say about this?

My Answer: In the past, we were taught that the universe is infinite and eternal. Today, however, this seems naïve and is not a sufficient answer, for how can anyone who hasn’t attained these concepts speak about them?

Kabbalah can accept the statement that the universe appeared as a result of an explosion, or a breakthrough of the Upper Energy into our world, the lowest level of creation. That spark of Upper Energy gave rise to all matter, energy and information in our world, which then developed further.

In the science of Kabbalah we learn about how a spark of the Upper Degree breaks through to the lower degree. This is called an act of creation, or the appearance of existence from absence. This is how the next, lower level appears.

And it was the same process that brought our universe – the lowest of the worlds – into existence. However, we are unable to grasp how just one spark of Upper Energy can create everything. People were able to “guess” that this happened because this idea came to them “from God,” or “from Above,” even though it is contrary to our reason and assumptions. It’s just as “ridiculous” as the idea that the universe is infinite and eternal. We are simply asserting what the facts lead us to conclude.

Kabbalah agrees with the above theory, although science views it as a paradox.

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In the News (from JTA Org): “Poll: Most Israelis know Temple destroyed on Tisha B’Av” Ninety-seven percent of Israeli adults surveyed know the Jewish date of the Holy Temple’s destruction, a survey reported … Some 64 percent of Israeli adults surveyed, including about 47 percent of secular Israelis, said they would like to see the Temple in Jerusalem rebuilt.

My Comment: That’s right: they are “waiting,” expecting someone else to come and build it for them. In addition, they think that the Temple is a building where specific rituals are performed, and a place that may give new jobs to people. They see it as a confirmation of their heritage (and of themselves), as a tourist attraction and a political instrument.

However, no one realizes that “the construction of the Temple” means that every citizen will create the quality of love and bestowal within. Or in other words, that it is a person’s transformation from an egoist to one who loves everyone.

It’s not this Temple they are mourning, but their own selfish ambitions. It is written that the Temple was destroyed due to the people’s unfounded hatred toward one another. It is also written that for every day the Temple is not rebuilt, it is destroyed. This means that as long as the people don’t correct themselves, their “love for others as for oneself” (which they had during the times of the Temple) will remain destroyed.

Somehow, no one seems to be worried about the fact that this loving relationship is missing among all the citizens of the Israeli society. And the education system – whether secular or orthodox – doesn’t inspire any true aspiration for the Temple.

Therefore, the percentages from the above survey are fake: people don’t understand the true essence of the Temple.

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In the News (from The Economist): The rich world’s population is aging fast, and the poor world is only a few decades behind. …labour forces are now beginning to shrink and numbers of pensioners are starting to rise. For the public finances, an aging population is a huge headache. In countries where public pensions make up the bulk of retirement income, these will either swallow up a much larger share of the budget or they will have to become a lot less generous. What can be done? As the IMF puts it, “the fiscal impact of the [financial] crisis reinforces the urgency of entitlement reform.” People in rich countries will have to be weaned off the expectation that pensions will become ever more generous and health care ever more all-encompassing.

My Comment: And the same thing will happen all over the world. Old age is no longer protected, and the hungry will have no one but themselves to count on.

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In the News (from arxiv.org): “Testing the link between terrestrial climate change and Galactic spiral structure” We confront past suggestions of a close link between terrestrial climate change and the Sun’s transit of spiral arms in its path through the Milky Way galaxy. We use new information on spiral structure based on CO data that does not make simplifying assumptions about symmetry and circular rotation. Comparing the times of these transits to changes in the climate of Earth, not only do the claimed correlations disappear, but also we find that they cannot be resurrected for any reasonable pattern speed.

My Comment: All the changes that occur in Nature are influenced mainly by human behavior, or rather, by people’s thoughts and desires. The problem is that this influence is hidden from us and thus we erroneously focus on and measure our external influences, such as gas emissions and solid waste pollution.

However, even though the pollution on the Earth’s surface seems enormous, its influence on climate change is actually negligible. The greatest influence comes from our egoistic thoughts!

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In the News (from The Wall Street Journal): “Pope Weighs In on Financial Crisis” You know the international financial crisis has implications in every aspect of global life when the Pope decides to weigh in. Today Benedict XVI issued his third encyclical focusing on the economy. It is widely seen as directed at G-8 leaders gathering in Italy this week. Here are some excerpts:

Economy and finance … can be used badly when those at the helm are motivated by purely selfish ends. …we must adopt a realistic attitude as we take up … new responsibilities to which we are called by the prospect of a world in need of profound cultural renewal, a world that needs to rediscover fundamental values … it is not the instrument [the economy] that must be called to account, but individuals, their moral conscience and their personal and social responsibility.

My Comment: All of the above is correct, but how can we possibly make people’s all-enveloping egoism budge? Only through Kabbalah! Maybe someone could tell the Pope about it…

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Three questions I received on the new generation’s changing traits and values:

Question: In the last few years, psychologists have shown that younger people are much less able to focus their attention and to anticipate and build models for future actions.

My Answer: This is actually a positive phase of their development, because there cannot be anything negative in nature. People have to go through this, since all the positive properties and qualities originate from the negative ones.

Question: People who enjoy books, such as myself, are now being replaced by number-oriented people, who have completely different values and a different kind of perception. Because they are so different from people like me, they often just can’t hear or understand us. How can we communicate with them so they will actually listen to us?

My Answer: If this change is happening, it means that it is precisely these types of people that must start becoming aware of and sensing the spiritual world, rather than the philosophers and other thinkers of the past. Things just might work the opposite of how we expect them to: the awareness, logic, and ability to analyze and synthesize that the great, enlightened thinkers have, could actually be an obstacle that keeps them from entering the new, spiritual world.

Question: Then what type of thinking is preferable?

My Answer: Our thoughts arise as a result of our desires, because desire is the basis of our nature. Therefore, reason appears only according to one’s desire to attain something. If I desire to fulfill myself with something, then my mind develops accordingly. Otherwise, I would not have a mind (or reason).

The more I desire something and the more this desire is aimed at something higher, something new and unknown, the more my mind develops in new ways along with this new desire.

When Kabbalah speaks of reason or the mind, it is not talking about the egoistic kind of reason, which is handed down to us by various philosophers, thinkers and scholars. It is not talking about the kind of reason people are normally proud of, which they consider the human part of man. This kind of reason is not present in man, but in an egoistic creature whose mind works only for satisfying one’s egoistic desires, desires that are aimed at science and cultural values, but not bestowal. All of these desires are based on reception and egoism, but not bestowal.

This is why all the previous cultural and academic values will gradually decline. They will come down from the high pedestal they currently reside on will be considered insufficient. People will use them as a mere base to help them achieve the next, spiritual degree.

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In the News (translated from News1): The internationally renowned Professor Prabhu Guptara, Executive Director of Organisational Development at Wolfsberg (a subsidiary of UBS AG – one of the largest banks in the world) said that all indicators show that we are far from coming out of the crisis. While businesses welcome globalization, there is national protectionism. Each country is trying to help its own companies and save its own economy.

However, in the era of globalization, this is no longer the right course of action. A rapid shift from a global economy to national isolationism always ends up with a world war. And it so happens that we are witnessing a rapid growth in military spending in all countries. This may provoke a world war.

The way to control the crisis is to create a global organization for coordinating economic policies globally. Any other approach to the global world will bring about divisions and wars.

My Comment: As they say, the author’s opinion happens to coincide with the editorial office’s opinion. Notwithstanding, the way to overcome the crisis is to correct the global world, namely, the relationships between people.

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Three questions I received on the breaking of the common soul from my student in Brazil:

Question: In the book Kabbalah Revealed , it says that only 600,000 souls were created, and they were subdivided because of the issue of selfishness. Is the result of the subdivision also regarded as a soul, i.e., a single spiritual entity?

My Answer: The souls do not subdivide or converge, but rather, each soul undergoes its own individual correction.

Question: What happens to the souls that have resolved the issue of selfishness: do they become extinct and cease to exist entirely?

My Answer: The souls simply descend to the level of our world, and then ascend back by virtue of our efforts. Their essence is eternal.

Question: Can a soul be extinguished?

My Answer: Nothing in the spiritual worlds can be destroyed – everything there is eternal. Things merely change their form.

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Established in 1876, Corriere della Sera is the most famous and most important newspaper in Italy.  The paper published an article  about me (shown below) in one of its recent issues:

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