Question: How is an integral family different from the traditional family we’re used to seeing?

Answer: The aspirations of men and women who constitute different charges, different natures, must be aimed at creating a dipole between them, that is, the kind of interconnection that could become a building block of the universe.

As the Bible says, together, husband and wife are a single whole or “of the same breed.” They are two people who are opposite to one another and connected together at the same time. Either they are connected in a natural way, or via a special method, for here nature actually shows us the complete opposite data. This is important to keep in mind.

But this isn’t simply the bonding or cementing of a family; rather, it is the cementing of a family for the sake of achieving general harmony. Therefore, it transpires in a completely different manner, in a different sense. This is very important! In this case the couple feel responsibility not only for themselves, but for others as well, for they are part of a greater whole, and by not “connecting” to this greater whole, they trigger from nature a negative reaction proportional to the disturbance they introduce.

Suppose my spouse and I introduce 10 grams’ worth of disturbance into the general system because we are merely a tiny part of it, these 10 grams are then multiplied by the complexity factor of the entire system, thus turning into kilograms or tons. And then it all comes back to us, presses us and forces us to change.

Even the mistakes we make presently and in the future trigger the correct consequence, which is felt by us as undesirable, forced, and unpleasant. But it is precisely the consequences of our mistakes that push us forward.
[64862]
From a “Talk on Integral Education,” 12/12/11

Related Material:
Courses On Household Management
The Integral Upbringing Of Spouses
Where Are You Real Men?

Filed under: Education, Family, Integral Upbringing, Q&A - No Comments →

Economics is a science about our egoistic relations, which today is gradually transforming into a different kind of economics—the economics of altruistic relationships.

When we solve our family’s economic problems, we usually sit down around the table with our spouses and children and think together how to best use our limited budget. We take into consideration the needs of each family member: the youngest wants a toy, the older child wishes to attend classes, the oldest requires medications, we need to buy food, and so on…. We structure our budget according to everybody’s needs. We have to arrange the world’s budget the same way.

Generally, we bring to our families everything we earn; we don’t automatically set aside part of the salary for ourselves exclusively; for example, we don’t from the start put aside for our own sake 30% of our earnings as regular enterprises do.

Let’s say, a factory produces cups and sells them for $10.00 each; the owner keeps $5.00 for himself; the remainder covers salaries and other production expenses—amortization, insurance, etc.

Why does the owner earn $5.00 per cup above everybody else? He should receive the same salary everyone else does. We are within a single system where everybody should receive in equal proportions and interact with others in a fair way.

If we stick to this plan, each item will cost 50% less because the price of all components would also go down—machinery, materials, transportation, etc. Each person will receive a decent salary to maintain a decent way of life; it won’t be even close to a beggarly salary!

A huge surplus of goods and resources will emerge in the world. Every year, humanity is throwing away a half billion ton of good food. That’s enough to feed another Earth!

It turns out that our wrong egoistic relationships bring disequilibrium to the entire globe. If we strive for balance in the relationships between us, then naturally this will lead to values of peace and harmony, and we will end up with a huge excess of materials and natural resources. We’ll stop wasting the earth’s resources and we’ll stop eating chemically grown vegetables and fruit because all systems will be in balance.

We don’t have to enhance industry. It is enough that we correct the relationships between us in order to provide the world with everything we need: food, clothing, shelter, etc.—all at a normal level. We’ll get there by changing ourselves, rising from the egoistic to the altruistic level.

In the past, this sounded like science fiction: The City of the Sun, communism, utopian, etc. But today we have no other option. Nature forces us to act accordingly.
[61421]
From a “Talk About the Integral World” 10/20/11

Related Material:
There Is No Turning Back
The Economics Of The New World
The Economy Of Balance

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, Egoism, Integral Upbringing, Society - 1 Comment →

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio
[audio:http://files.kabbalahmedia.info/audio/eng_o_rav_2012-01-06_declamation_blog-rav_full.mp3]

Filed under: Audio Version of the Blog - No Comments →

We start from the shattering. Without it we would be just like the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels of nature that act by obeying the one force that motivate and operate them from within. But because of the shattering, spiritual attributes have penetrated the desire to receive for oneself in their opposite form.

All of creation advances under the direct influence of the Light, but man advances under its opposite influence. All this is so that he will be able to understand that he needs to adapt to the force that motivates him by himself.

The more he advances, the more he feels the pressure upon him. Eventually he has to fully “format” himself, in order to get the right form. In the meantime, he gradually grows in his desire, in an opposite way from the desired form.

It takes a long time until a person finally begins to feel the pressure inside him in different directions, which molds him like raw material. If he tries to raise his sensitivity, he feels how the Creator works on him. No matter what external activities he has, there is an internal life in which he constantly tries to feel how the Creator pressures him in every direction through different feelings.

It is like a mother who is constantly by her son’s side, telling him what he should or shouldn’t do, correcting his every action. In the same way a person constantly feels internally how the Creator operates on him, as if he is some soft piece of clay in the hands of a sculptor pushing him gently, but firmly letting him feel his pressure. But he has to want this pressure.

It is somewhat difficult and unpleasant, but on the other hand, a person understands that the work that is being done on him cannot be stopped and he wants it to continue. This is the initial feeling of a person who begins to feel inside himself the actual work of the Creator on him.

We can feel this bestowal inside us because after the shattering there are different forces and different influences inside us, as a copy of the spiritual actions. These are potential actions that exist in the general soul that wanted to perform them in order to bestow. But after the shattering it all became “in order to receive,” and now it exists in us in an opposite, egoistic, form. But it is thanks to this that we can identify the Creator’s work on us.

This is why a person’s behavior becomes opposite from the Creator’s actions. There is a conflict: a resistance on the side of a person, on the side of his clay, and the pressure on the side of the Creator. Thus they beat each other and a person feels the pressure and the beating as the Creator tries to show him what is wrong with him.

Eventually he begins to justify the internal pressure and goes along with the Creator’s actions, wanting them, like a horse that obeys his rider. He feels the leadership as a revelation of love and justifies it. Thus he acquires faith and connects to the Creator. He moves to the sculptor’s side. Although he still feels sufferings, they are felt in the clay, whereas he already identifies with the intention, with the one who creates all the different forms in him.

He connects to the hands of the craftsman that creates and sculpts him. He actually wants the craftsman to affect him so, and increasingly yearns for him, until he adheres to the actions of the upper one. They adhere in the same motion, the same intention, and the suffering becomes a pleasure.

All the sufferings that the clay felt disappear and a person finds himself above it, in his intention, and sees that the clay is meaningless. He agrees with the Creator’s work on him and understands that “only good and grace shall pursue me.” He rises above his feelings and adheres to the intention of the Maker, to the attitude of the Creator, and reaches complete adhesion with Him.
[65060]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/12, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
Ordering My Own Development
Like Clay In The Hands Of The Master
Face-to-Face With The Creator

Filed under: Body and Soul, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator - No Comments →

Question: Who will study at the courses on integral education: only those who are left without work or everyone?

Answer: I think that the number of unemployed will be very high. And since we are talking about correcting society, then we need to attract not only people who have lost their jobs, but also housewives, retirees, and in general people who do not work. It turns out that at least 80 percent of the population will be ready for this course.

And if on the next day, a person finds employment or an income, it does not mean that he should leave the course. We believe that to complete the course of integral education will be everyone’s responsibility, and people need to divide work among themselves to spend only a few hours a day on the job.

These are big changes from the conventional approach, but we do not introduce them on our own; the crisis does, leaving us no choice. I think that this would take no more than a year.

Question: What will happen in the interim period, when we have not yet come to dividing the work among ourselves and working for several hours a day, and when people have not given up the hope to return to the previous state?

Answer: I think that a high percentage of unemployment will lead to unrest, the impotence of the government and the loss of direction. This will cause a state of complete anarchy, and there will be no choice but to adopt such a framework. This will happen very quickly; otherwise, we will come to a complete collapse of the whole society and a world war.

As the government now cannot take control of economic systems, so they will not be able to rule anything. If millions take to the streets, neither the army nor any other force will be able to stop them. The government will not know what to do. Everyone saw what happened in Syria and Egypt.

Every country will have to take into account their local context and national character. For example, it would not be as easy to make people come to school in Greece as in Germany. The Germans will study as diligently as they work today. But in countries like Greece, it will be necessary to attract people by some kind of compensation.

The problem of all European countries is the aging population, living between home, café, and little trips. Every place needs a program, adapted to local conditions.
[65326]
From “Lessons About a New World” 12/1/11

Related Material:
Lessons About A New World: Advancing With Small Steps
Lessons About A New World: Course Format
Everyone Needs Integral Upbringing

Filed under: Crisis, Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A, Society - No Comments →

The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion “VaYechi,” Selected Excerpts
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Filed under: Torah, Zohar - No Comments →

There is no good without bad and there is no bad without good. Only when the two are balanced does the feeling of life grow between them, prosperity. We see that in every “creation.” Even in music, minor and major don’t get along without one another. At the junction of notes it is constantly pulsing with the resistance in each chord, dissonance and consonance coexist. Harmony—this is the correct relationship between the discordant sounds.

Even at home you won’t be able to reach an agreement if you don’t bring two opposites together. How can you reach domestic peace? After all, peace is wholeness, the middle line, which is made of two contrasts. They gradually grow and the contrast between them grows stronger; you don’t annul them, but rather, connect them, bringing them together at the top.

This is mutual guarantee: Despite the differences, we look for the common upper force that will connect us to each other. We only want to summon it, to draw it so that it will be among us.

In fact “it” is the future “we.” Now we cannot treat each other correctly and so we want that power of mutual bestowal to be dressed in us, to be awakened inside us.
[65174]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/12, “The Freedom”

Related Material:
“Plus” and “Minus” United By Mutual Work
Concessions Bring Peace In The World And Family
Mutual Guarantee Is The Key To The New World

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Free Will, Mutual Guarantee - 2 Comments →

Question: What does a person in the new world need to know about himself?

Answer: Everyone should know about everything only to the extent that he can grasp and see it due to his general education. But he should be a “perfect human” to some degree, at least to a small extent. He may have a small or large volume, but everyone will be perfect like the complete 10 Sefirot. He can’t say, “I know only one thing, and nothing else!”

He should fit into the general system. This is the requirement of the global system so that we understand it a bit and become imbued with everything that it contains. I also have to be “round.” That is, the purpose of the course is to give a person a perfect minimal picture of the new world, society and humanity.
[65339]
From “Lessons about a New World,” 12.1.11

Related Material:
Lessons About A New World: 80% At The School Desk
Lessons About A New World: Advancing With Small Steps
Back To School

Filed under: Education, Integral Upbringing, Society - No Comments →

Question: Let’s say Greece is going through a difficult economic situation: bankruptcy and high unemployment. At the same time its citizens hope that some day the crisis will end and they will return to their previous life.

The purpose of the proposed course is to change this approach so that a person would not expect that the crisis would end in one, two, or five years. He should understand that this process is consistent with the law of nature and he is part of this process. In general, the entire world is changing. Does it mean that the person has to change after taking this course?

Answer: This course provides the understanding of the new world and helps to enter it. It should be clear to the government that it opens a person’s eyes. He becomes intelligent and gains the ability to understand. He simply will not go out on the streets to protest and smash store windows. First of all we are talking about calming down the tensions. We are going to take small steps rather than initiate a spiritual revolution.
[65322]
From “Lessons About a New World” 12/1/11

Related Material:
A New Control
Is It A “Special Way” Again?
A Game As An Opportunity For Self-Expression

Filed under: Crisis, Education, Integral Upbringing, Society - No Comments →

Question: Baal HaSulam writes in “The Freedom” that the method of Kabbalah is intended for the purification of Israel, and this refers to the recognition of evil. How is one connected to the other?

Answer: Do you really achieve something good by recognizing your own evil? Of course, because this has led you to purification, you have become better, more receptive; you feel more, understand more, you permeate the matter of your desire. Before it would come down to good or bad sensations, and you had no knowledge of anything else. You would simply respond to stimuli like a very primitive animal. Just like a frog’s leg automatically contracts under the influence of an electric impulse.

Now you have questions: “Why do I do this? Who does this come from? What is it for? Is it for the good or the bad?” You rise above your nature by analyzing the situation, and in some way it’s the same as coming out of your nature. Like a worm in an apple, you start making your way towards the light.

Imagine a red, juicy apple, and you’re inside of it. And an opening leading to the exterior appears. Even if you haven’t yet gone through it, you already begin to distinguish that there is light there, and it is dark here. Differentiating between them becomes your recognition of evil.

This is an enormous achievement amid the size of creation, which serves as our “apple”…..
[65395]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/5/12 “The Freedom”

Related Material:
Kabbalists On The Torah And Commandments
Victory Over The Creator
Spiritual Fine Tuning

Filed under: Body and Soul, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Free Will, Inner Work, Q&A - No Comments →