In the News (from MSNBC News): “Antidepressant use doubles in U.S., study finds” Use of antidepressant drugs in the United States doubled between 1996 and 2005, probably because of a mix of factors, researchers reported on Monday. “Significant increases in antidepressant use were evident across all sociodemographic groups examined, except African Americans,” Dr. Mark Olfson of Columbia University in New York and Steven Marcus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia wrote in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

My Comment: Because people are feeling a new, unearthly desire, which is impossible to fulfill in this world, they are experiencing an incurable state of depression and melancholy that they are trying to suppress with drugs or other addictive substances. However, this desire can instead be fulfilled with the desired pleasure by revealing the Upper World, using the method of fulfilling this new desire, the soul. This method is called the “Wisdom of Kabbalah.” Kabbalah is translated from Hebrew as “reception or fulfillment.”

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How does man dare to declare that he is not part of nature’s system? Then what are you, if you aren’t part of nature? A thousand years ago, or a century ago, you were controlled by nature, but now you’re not? And why is the world not? Is it because you have created a few “toys” – cars and airplanes? All you did was take different substances and mix them together, and you came up with plastic and bubble gum. So what has made you separate from nature?

The fact is that we have not been separated from nature. All the sciences, including Darwin’s theory, say that we are the result of evolution of the still, vegetative and animate levels of nature. So why does man suddenly deem himself above nature, separate from the integral system of the universe? Why does he suddenly step beyond its boundaries and say, “I am free!” What is he free from?

So now, because of our senseless pride, because we impudently think we are free, we are facing a crisis. The fact is that we aren’t free, and we exist inside the integral, global system of Nature (the Creator). Therefore, we have to behave in harmony with the system.

We are inside the Creator. He controls us, and there is no one else besides Him. We don’t have any possibility of acting freely, not in any regard. Even the sensation that we seem to stand opposite Him is given to us by Him, in order to raise us.
(From Part 3 of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, on “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot”)

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Preparation and Part 1 of the Lesson
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Part 2, on Chapter 2 of Talmud Eser Sefirot
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Part 3, on “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot,” Item 142
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A question I received: You often mention that everyone has to attain the quality of bestowal. But when someone’s giving, it means that someone else is receiving, doesn’t it?

My Answer: Yes, but the person that receives does so in order to give, in order to please the giver with his reception. The balance you speak of remains, but on another level, free of reception.

I am taking from you because my action gives you the opportunity to show your love to me. In that case, my response is not called reception, since I am doing it for your sake.

The spiritual system works according to the principle where you don’t receive anything from anyone; all you can do is give. You give to everyone. You fulfill them and they are pleased to receive from you, because that way they can demonstrate their quality of bestowal to you. When a person receives in this case, he is actually giving. That is to say, he offers others an opportunity to give to him.

In our egoistic world, family members who love one another can establish a similar kind of relationship, where each one indulges the other by acting the way the other one wants.

But that’s still a small, animate level. In the spiritual world, however, such relationships make us similar to the Creator, because we bestow and are able to boundlessly receive from others in a reciprocal relationship.

Then each one of us and all of us together become “conductors” of endless information and energy through the entire creation.

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In the News (from Time): Surging unemployment, tight credit and depressed housing prices are common components of a recession. But rarely do they occur at once, like now, and endure for so long. But it is hardly the only oddity. The rules for tough times are being rewritten almost daily. Here are some other ways this recession is rewriting the rules:

1. Soup: A Recession Staple No More
2. Organic Food Sales Remain Strong
3. Loan Rates Remain Stubbornly High
4. Movie Ticket Sales Are Booming
5. Intimacy Takes a Hit
6. Sin Industry Goes to Hell
7. There Are No Safe Havens
8. Trade is Getting Clobbered
9. Nail Salons Are Getting Nailed
10. The Rich Feel it Too

My Comment: Apparently people still haven’t figured out the fundamental difference of this crisis: that it comes from the lack of a benevolent connection between people, and not from the lack of any other connections, whether political, economic, or anything else. Meanwhile, people are still trying to pinpoint the external consequences…

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A question I received: Where is my “I” in the system of spiritual forces?

My Answer: “I” is the one who reveals them. “I” is the screen upon which they become revealed. “I” is the degree of similarity and revelation. In the spiritual world, it is impossible to draw differences, because you reveal it by means of interaction (Zivug) and unification. It is impossible to divide the spiritual sensation into the attainer and the attained.

Spirituality is a sensation of commonality; it is the result of your involvement with the Upper Level. You are not called “creation” until you reveal the Creator. And when you have this sensation, it is impossible to draw a distinction between Him and you. The creation and the Creator cannot exist without one another, and you reveal this to the degree you become similar to Him.

So, you ask, “Where is my ‘I’ here?” “I” is the degree of your similarity to the Creator. Without it, you don’t exist in the spiritual world.

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There is nothing but forces in the spiritual world. But the connection between them is determined by your perception (world-year-soul in a ready-made reality). And the Creator is also a detail of your perception. He is something outside of you. That is to say, from within your inner reality, you deduce something that provides and sustains it, and you call this part, “the Creator.” It is you who distinguishes and “depicts” Him inside your qualities.

The same thing is true regarding the rest of the picture (world-year-soul). When you are in the spiritual world, you reveal the spiritual matrix of forces, “world-year-soul and a ready-made reality.” You then reveal a different order of forces that influence one another. They contain an inner part (the soul) and an outer part (the world). And you understand some of the forces, seeing them as cause and consequence; this is the year. They contain an Upper Thought and a force that leads the process; this is the ready-made reality.

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The spiritual world consists of the same parts and connections between them as the material world. However, we can only feel the spiritual world to the degree our sensations enter it.

Forces descend from Above into our world, and they have inanimate, vegetative, animate and human qualities. This is what we observe: the expression of the Upper Forces in our world as objects and actions.

Our encounter with the details of perception gives rise to the forms. For example, say I see an object before me now. It appears to me in a specific form, but if I had different qualities, then I would see a different form. Baal HaSulam gives the example of a table: I see it one way, but an angel sees it through its qualities.

Reality or perception is produced when my qualities unify with the Light’s, due to our having common or similar qualities. Beyond my perception, there is only Infinity, out of which I perceive just the part that I have shared qualities with. So how can I attune myself to having shared qualities with the Upper World? I can do it because inside me, I have the same coordinate system (world–year–soul and a ready-made reality) as it has inside. And when I ask for it, the Upper Light makes my system similar to the Upper Level. This is called the correction of the soul. It’s when I make my inner system similar to Infinity, in a specific measure. I thereby determine my spiritual level and the degree to which I perceive Infinity.

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There is no sense in trying to correct anything in our world, as it is a world of consequences, which descend from the spiritual roots. However, if we can somehow affect the upper roots, we will also  be able to change the material world.

The roots cannot be affected by separate individuals. It is only by uniting together that we can achieve a connection with the root, since we do not exist there as individuals. In the roots, we are all united as one system.

Therefore, if we wish to change our reality, we have to unite. When we have this desire, it will draw the Light upon us, which will correct everything here in this world.

We will then truly “correct the world.” But if we try to correct the externality – the external actions, behavior, or religious commandments – then it is pointless, since there is nothing to correct here. All of these all merely an imprint on the inanimate matter of what happens Above.

This is like trying to hit an image that’s projected onto a wall using light, or kissing it and asking for forgiveness. That is what our actions are like, but we think we can change something this way.

Only a person’s inner corrections can influence the material world. This is why we disseminate Kabbalah instead of encouraging people to correct the ecology, the crisis, and finances.

Nevertheless, a person is always more willing to “correct” the material things, especially if he knows that his efforts will be seen and valued by others, or if he can be proud of his own actions, society will support him. In this case, a person is willing to do anything, and this drives him to carry out such actions.

Inner, spiritual work is difficult precisely for this reason: it isn’t valued by the people around us or even by our own egoism. However, the true work occurs only inside a person, and it does not depend on his body or the physical actions he makes.

Related Material:
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Preparation
I can feel empathy for someone in the material world, but this will only be a measure of my participation in his suffering. It won’t be pain that I myself feel.
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Part 1, on Baal HaSulam’s Letter 23
The spiritual world is not a theory. Actually, it is much more real than the “reality” we are familiar with now.
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Part 2, on Part 12 of Talmud Eser Sefirot, “Inner Observation”
All the corrections are made by the Light. So if a person acts on his own, he is acting inside his egoistic desire.
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Part 3, on “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot,” Item 142
Reality is something that you have in common with the Light. You gradually perceive one more part, and then another one, and so on, but you always perceive only the things you are ready for.
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