In the news (from Associated Press): “STOCKHOLM (AP) — At the “Egalia” preschool, staff avoid using words like “him” or “her” and address the 33 kids as “friends” rather than girls and boys….

Staff try to shed masculine and feminine references from their speech, including the pronouns him or her – “han” or “hon” in Swedish. Instead, they’ve have adopted the genderless “hen,” a word that doesn’t exist in Swedish but is used in some feminist and gay circles….”

The school is especially careful in selecting books and toys for children. It strives to give children the possibility to be who they are and to prevent them from developing barriers that separate masculine and feminine activities.

“There’s a long waiting list for admission to Egalia… It places a special emphasis on fostering an environment tolerant of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. …Nearly all the children’s books deal with homosexual couples, single parents or adopted children. There are no “Snow White,” “Cinderella” or other classic fairy tales seen as cementing stereotypes.”

My comment: We are surrounded by what is called “Nature.” We know virtually nothing about its laws, reasons, and the goals of its and our own existence. Yet, our observations and knowledge show that everything is in the process of causal development, and nothing is accidental or redundant. Whoever does not agree with this demonstrates their unfamiliarity with the laws of nature.

Hence, all we have to do is to study the laws of nature and carry them out. This will guarantee our good future. A breach of a natural relationship between the sexes brings about tremendous suffering in children and, as they grow up, problems with sexual and social identity.
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Filed under: Children, Crisis, Education, Sex, Women - 2 Comments →

Question: How do our efforts to unify during our reading of The Book of Zohar impact the world? What changes does it instill?

Answer: There is no world per se. Your efforts build this reality for you. Right now, it seems to you as you see it. To the degree of your exerted efforts, you create another reality, a different world. What you make is what you get.

Spirituality has no image. It doesn’t have any specific picture unless a person forms it within himself, within his desires that he collected and linked in one.

We should reflect on this as much as possible in order to get accustomed to this view of reality. This isn’t about spiritual attainment. I am saying that every person in our world, who hasn’t attained any spirituality yet, can still choose to view reality as suggested and in so doing begin experiencing certain sensory impressions.

Question: But how do our efforts to unify affect the desires of the most coarse level within us, where there is no yearning to unite? It seems that at the deepest level, I don’t have the slightest aspiration or desire to unite with the others….

Answer: I am made of desires of all kinds and forms, of all levels of Aviut (thickness, coarseness), including desires that don’t change until the final correction. These desires unfold in me in all possible combinations which I am not the one to set up.

I must, to the best of my ability, mold them into a spiritual form, meaning to bring them to unification with the desires that seem alien to me and which I reject, despise, and wish to have nothing to do with: “Who are they, anyway?! Why do I need to unite with them?”

I must overcome this resentment and try to unite with them if they have a desire for spirituality similar to mine. For now, it’s only with them. And if we try to rise above our mutual resentment and unify, we build the “place” for revelation of a more inner degree.

Question: Sometimes, I feel as if I am standing against the wall, trying to push through it with all that I”ve got, but it won’t move. What do I do in this state?

Answer: Ask the friends for help….
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/2011, The Zohar

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Question: What can one do when one feels very weak and his family and environment are unable to support him since they do not feel a great importance of the goal?

Answer: Baal HaSulam explains why we experience so many difficulties on the spiritual path in Shamati (I Heard), Article #4: “One comes to a state as if the entire world stands still, and he alone is now seemingly absent from this world, and leaves his family and friends for the sake of annulling before the Creator.”

It is like a person becomes suspended in the air. But the Creator arranges all of this for him on purpose so he would not look for solid ground to stand on, but on the contrary, would search for a way to become similar to the upper one in his thoughts and ideas and would aspire towards the upper one in order to adopt His spirit. In other words, you need to aspire to reveal the Creator as the quality of love and bestowal in the desires of another, and then you will rise above your own desire through “faith above reason.”

When you feel suspended in the air without the support of your usual corporeal environment, it is your invitation to cleave to the upper one in bestowal. Instead of looking for support in rational, reasonable proofs, you need to look for support in faith above reason.

Baal HaSulam says: “There is but a simple reason for this called “lack of faith.” It means that one does not see before whom one nullifies, meaning he does not feel the existence of the Creator. This causes him heaviness.” But on the other hand, this is our invitation to reveal the quality of bestowal, the Creator.

From the highlighted parts we see again that faith is a clear revelation of the Creator. To see means to believe, and the one who sees Him is said to believe in Him. This shows us how distorted the meaning of these words has become and how incorrectly we read the sacred texts. They are  “sacred” because they talk about attainment and revelation of the Creator, and He is holy, He is the property of love and bestowal. Books that describe how to reach this property are called sacred books.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

The Subject of the Purpose of Creation Is Man

And the most important thing in this whole diverse reality is the sensation given to the animals—that each of them feels its own existence. And the most important sensation is the noetic sensation, given to man alone, by which one also feels what is in one’s other—the pains and comforts. Hence, it is certain that if the Creator has a purpose in this Creation, its subject is man. It is said about him, “All of the Lord’s works are for him.”
– Baal HaSulam, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”

The ability to sense others manifests only at the “speaking” level, after studying Kabbalah, when they invert their will to receive to a will to bestow and come to equivalence of form with the Creator. …By that they become qualified to receive the purpose of the Thought of Creation.
– Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 39
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Everything becomes revealed in the connection between myself and others. Once we were in the world of Infinity where I or other souls did not exist: Everyone was one whole.

Then I developed the sensation that there exist me and others, the outside world: the still, vegetative, animate nature, and people, a multitude of different objects that connect, interact, and create the vanity of this world.

But why am I given this sensation instead of the peace and perfection of Malchut of Infinity? It is so I would start figuring out this mess that I am feeling and connect everything into one, as it is written: “He and His name are one,” like in Malchut of Infinity. This connection can only be realized through the quality of bestowal and love, which connects all of these different things back into one. After all, love unites!

The force of bestowal cancels our evil egoistic inclination which becomes revealed between the scattered and distanced parts, separated by the force of evil, the force of destruction. But I need to overcome this force of hatred and separation and its limitations specifically by opposing it and to build a connection between us. And then I will build a system that connects all these parts.

At first there was no system. They were simply united into one solid whole. And suddenly we get many parts, connected through a variety of different ties. It is like an electronic circuit filled with resistors, induction coils, capacitors, and transistors, which create different connection conditions.

I need to put together this kind of system on my own! Right now my ego is painting all these elements that interfere with connection: resistors, induction coils, and so on. They do not short circuit my circuit, but introduce a sort of resistance: sometimes “magnetic,” sometimes in the form of a “capacitor,” and sometimes with completely different conditions. And a circuit is made out of all this.

All the systems—human, electronic, and biological—operate according to this principle. In this circuit, I examine the creating force which operates within the one being created. I reveal the Creator within all these systematic connections! I do not have another opportunity to reveal Him, only by beginning to build this system within my egoistic desire.

I turn it on and make it work because the Light will be revealed in it if I have connected all the parts correctly. This Light begins to flow through this system like electricity, and then the mutual work of its elements, their program, and interaction become revealed The Creator becomes revealed!

And made all this happen? I did! And of course now I understand who and what He is. This is our work.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/31/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Shamati #5 “Lishma Is an Awakening from Above and Why Do We Need an Awakening from Below”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected, Chapter “Truma (Donation),” Item 365, Lesson 15
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Opinion: Sean O’Grady (Economics Editor, the Independent): “In an updated and expanded version of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has identified five “global shocks” that will destabilize the world economy with increasing frequency in coming years.

Rather than the traditional perils of conquest, war, famine and death, the OECD identifies viral pandemics, cyber attacks, financial crises, socio-economic unrest and geomagnetic storms as the five “global shocks” that will have to be endured….

The financial crisis of 2008 was the first such episode.” The OECD explains the increase in frequency of crises by “increasing inter-connectivity” of the world economy.

My comment: When individual, uncorrected (egoistic, narrow-mindedly focused only on their own profit) people, nations, and countries turn into a single, whole body, an inter-dependent system where every one is doing only what is beneficial for them, the chances of such system experiencing a shock increase greatly and unpredictably.

Inter-dependency creates unpredictable combinations of causes of any future state. Whereas we lack knowledge of this system to comprehend and estimate it. To do it, we need to start sensing it as our own. And this is feasible only if we ourselves become integrally connected with each other.

This is possible only if we ourselves assume its qualities and properties by correcting ourselves with the help of the method of Kabbalah, which is called revelation of the Creator to the created beings. After all, relative to us, the Creator is the revelation of our corrected properties within us. This is why He is called Boreh or “Bo,” come, and “Reh,” see, reveal it within. …Or you can take the book of Prophets and find out what awaits us if we do not appease Nature with our balance with it.
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Filed under: Crisis, Economy, Society, World - No Comments →

In the News (From bog.com): The Boston Consulting Group reports that despite the global crisis, “millionaire households grow in number and wealth. They represented just 0.9 percent of all households but owned 39 percent of global wealth, up from 37 percent in 2009. The number of millionaire households increased by 12.2 percent in 2010 to about 12.5 million.” In other words, there is one millionaire for every 500 people on Earth.

My Comment: The tendency toward the growing number of millionaires indicates a rapid movement toward the realization of evil, inequality, that goes against total balance, the main law of nature. But how will we realize it: through catastrophes or reason? How will we become so aware of it that we will introduce one law of unification and equality in reasonable consumption?
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Question: The Torah tells a story about how the people who were wandering around the desert faced death from lack of water and Moses turned to the Creator for help. The Creator instructed Moses to go and talk with a rock in front of all the people so it would give him water.

But instead of talking to it, Moses hit the rock with his staff, and “the waters of discord” flowed from it, named so from having disobeyed the Creator. Why did Moses, the leader of the entire nation, disobey the Creator’s instruction?

Answer: The rock is the ground, Malchut, the desire to receive pleasure, which needs to be corrected in order to be used “for the sake of bestowal.” This correction can either be in the form of a “blow” or a “talk,” depending upon the degree. It is in this way that it can produce an act of bestowal: the water flowing from it.

The water is the force that gives life to the desire to receive pleasure and turns it into the desire that receives for the sake of bestowal. When you “talk” with the rock, Malchut, you tune into it on the human level, the “speaking” level, the degree of Bina, and the water you derive from it carries life, bestowal, mercy (Hassadim).

But when you hit it, you derive “the waters of discord.” And even though it is water (the symbol of Bina, bestowal), this water is not kind (it carries the force of Gevurot); it has fallen under the influence of Malchut. This is the origin of all the typhoons, floods, and tsunamis. All these things are a reflection of the force of Bina controlled by Malchut.

“People” are all the private desires, and Moses is the highest quality which has the ability to receive the water of Bina by raising Malchut to it, the desire to receive pleasure. But Moses sees that there is not enough strength to lift all the other desires called “people” out of their current state and pull them over to the degree of Bina with him. And this is why instead of rising to a higher degree and “speaking,” he “hits” the rock, which means that instead of connecting with it on a higher, “speaking,” level, he only connects with it on the level of an “action.”

From the side of Moses, he was punished for this apparent sin. But we need to understand that all the “punishments” described in the Torah are corrections. He was simply unable to do it any other way, even though it was clear to him that at that moment he needed to attain the “speaking” degree: a certain level of connection between Malchut and Bina.

This is a result of his spiritual revelation, and it is called: “The Creator tells him.” But it is easier to carry it out quickly and correctly on the level of an action, and he does not see any other opportunity for correction.

This is why Moses was forced to “sin,” and his correction is in his “punishment” of not receiving permission to enter the land of Israel. He dies as he reaches the actual border. Even though he was not able to enter it (it is not his degree), he is called “a loyal guide,” and the maximum he can reach is Bina. And others continue after him.

A border is the line where I stop my actions of bestowal due to the lack of strength of the intention. This forces me to stop and no longer use my desire; I restrict myself.

To die means to lack the ability to do actions for the sake of bestowal.
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From the Lesson on Weekly Torah Portion 6/27/2011

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Kabbalah books use different images to describe the connection between Malchut and Bina. For example, they use the image of a well, either empty or full of water. An empty well, Malchut, consumes everything and remains empty. Whereas a well full of water is the proper connection of Malchut and Bina. Or the other way around, Malchut’s desire rises to Bina, into the sky, and derives water from it. This is why it rains.

Another description of a connection between Malchut and Bina is a “red heifer,” a purifying sacrifice, whose ashes purify some and, on the contrary, makes others impure. All these transitions are related to the way Bina and Malchut become included in one another: Whether Bina becomes included into Malchut or Malchut into Bina and which one of them dominates as one connection brings purification, and the other, impurity.

The “heifer” symbolizes the force of Bina, the force of bestowal, because it gives milk (the Light of Hassadim or Mercy). But if it is red (Aduma), which means that it is connected to the ground (Edom), then it is mixed with Malchut. And when the forces of bestowal and reception, Bina and Malchut, connect, it is man who determines what the resulting force will be.

If man intends to correct himself and reach bestowal, he will derive the force of bestowal specifically from this connection of forces called “a red heifer” and will purify himself. But if he was already pure, then a new egoistic desire becomes revealed in him, and if he is yet unable to work with it, he becomes impure.

The Torah provides detailed instructions on finding a red heifer and burning it, and what then needs to be done with the ashes. These are not simple actions because none of this exists in our world, even though scientists are searching for the traces of a red heifer to prove that it once existed, but now has disappeared.

During the times of the Temple, the entire nation was on a spiritual degree due to the wisdom of Kabbalah, as it is written: “Every adolescent knew the laws of impurity and purification,” which is the difference between egoistic reception and bestowal. In other words, their level corresponded to the connection of Bina and Malchut, called “a red heifer,” and they could understand to what the Torah refers.

The entire Torah is a description of the order of correction, an “instruction” (Oraa) on the correction of the soul.
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From the Lesson on Weekly Torah Portion 6/27/2011

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