Question: From my experience during trips abroad, I can say that in relation to the concept of the “chosen people,” others envy the Jews and ask: “Why them, but not us?”

Answer: What advantages do people see in being the “chosen people”? More money? Are the Jews awarded some special treatment other than anti-Semitism and general hatred? Would anyone like to take their place? If you look at it from the standpoint of common sense, then it is better not to be Jewish.

Only if I accept my duty, if I feel that I can perform a special task in the world, then it makes sense to be a Jew. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Hence, there is assimilation, an inability to accept one’s Jewishness, and the like. If various Jewish organizations around the world started speaking with a warm heart about the role of the people of Israel by leading them towards unity through love, then there would be no assimilation in its current scale. Then a person would feel that a special part that needs to be realized is inherent in him, that he is unique in history, in all reality, in the universe.

Question: Isn’t there a pretext of pride?

Answer: There is a place for responsibility and care for others, but not for pride. Being deeply acquainted with the methodology, personally, I feel no arrogance; I am just anxious about realizing our mission.

It is said: “The Creator has chosen you,” but He chose you for the purpose of correction. You have to work; you should take care of the whole world. And after you complete your task, and all people unite in love becoming a single entity, there will be no difference between us. People will integrally unite in a common “sphere” that has no right or left, no top or bottom, no great or small. Everyone will unite together, similar to the upper force.
[82980]
From a “Talk at the Convention” 6/5/12

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In the News (from Mother Nature Network): ““A growing body of psychology research shows that incompetence deprives people of the ability to recognize their own incompetence. To put it bluntly, dumb people are too dumb to know it. Similarly, unfunny people don’t have a good enough sense of humor to tell.

“With more than a decade’s worth of research, David Dunning, a psychologist at Cornell University, has demonstrated that humans find it ‘intrinsically difficult to get a sense of what we don’t know.’ Whether an individual lacks competence in logical reasoning, emotional intelligence, humor or even chess abilities, the person still tends to rate his or her skills in that area as being above average.

“Dunning and his colleague, Justin Kruger, formerly of Cornell and now at New York University, ‘have done a number of studies where we will give people a test of some area of knowledge like logical reasoning, knowledge about STDs and how to avoid them, emotional intelligence, etcetera. Then we determine their scores, and basically just ask them how well they think they’ve done,’ Dunning said. ‘We ask, “what percentile will your performance fall in?”’

“The results are uniform across all the knowledge domains: People who actually did well on the test tend to feel more confident about their performance than people who didn’t do well, but only slightly. Almost everyone thinks they did better than average. ‘For people at the bottom who are really doing badly — those in the bottom 10th or 15th percentile — they think their work falls in the 60th or 55th percentile, so, above average,’ Dunning told Life’s Little Mysteries. The same pattern emerges in tests of people’s ability to rate the funniness of jokes, the correctness of grammar, or even their own performance in a game of chess. ‘People at the bottom still think they’re outperforming other people.’ …

“If only we knew ourselves better. Dunning believes people’s inability to assess their own knowledge is the cause of many of society’s ills, including climate change denialism. ‘Many people don’t have training in science, and so they may very well misunderstand the science. But because they don’t have the knowledge to evaluate it, they don’t realize how off their evaluations might be,’ he said.

“Along the same lines, people who aren’t talented in a given area tend not to be able to recognize the talents or good ideas of others, from co-workers to politicians. This may impede the democratic process, which relies on citizens having the capacity to identify and support the best candidate or policy.

“The ultimate takeaway of the research is the reminder that you really may not be as great as you think you are.”

My Comment: Kabbalah explains in details how much our egoism blinds us and does not allow us to see the truth. It takes a lot of effort in the group, being against the friends to begin in one’s perception of them to “see” oneself. And by developing the objective perception above egoism, one can “see” the Creator.
[82757] 

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We must stop dealing directly with our desire, trying to fill it through the different systems we have created. It simply doesn’t work. It worked partially for a while, meaning intentionally in order to let us reach the shattering, and the full recognition of our evil. But now we’ve reached a state in which we can come to the conclusion that we can’t advance this way anymore. We have to rise above the old approach, above the attempts to fill ourselves and to manage our lives egoistically. We will never succeed this way and so we must rise to the level of bestowal.

If we don’t rise from the attribute of receiving to the attribute of bestowal, we won’t be able to reach fulfillment. We must understand that we cannot continue with the old way. The new approach is: only the connection of everyone, not of some on the account of others. We can fulfill ourselves only if we unite.

It’s as if nature is confronting us with a condition, a new egoistic law that says: “You can have a wonderful life, everyone will receive fulfillment and will be happy, but only if you are all equal.” It’s like a mother who says to her children, “Do you want some ice cream? You will get it only if you are connected and don’t fight. If not, no one will get anything.”

This is how nature calls us to advance to equality, so that within the equality we will be able to discover an even greater opportunity. The main point is not the ice cream that you will get when you reach equality; you are being drawn by the ice cream so that you will reach equality and feel that it’s the highest value. When you eat the ice cream, you already enjoy it from a state of equality and connection. You suddenly discover that the ice cream that is eaten together when you are connected is 1000 times tastier than the ice cream you ate by yourself.

So what does nature want? It wants you to feel that you have received a new vessel, a new desire that enables you to discover a taste that is a 1000 times greater, NRNHY instead of Nefesh. You become free of the limitations of life and death and begin to exist in an infinite space. You reach a new perspective, a feeling of limitless freedom from the limitations that the ego imposed on you.

You feel how wonderful it is to connect with others. The ice cream was just an excuse, a trigger that brought about the changes, the discovery of the new integral desire. This is the process the whole world has to go through now.

We are going through this process consciously, as we understand where we’re headed. Therefore, we have to help the rest of the world, by explaining to them that they shouldn’t try to reach connection in the old ways anymore. They have all failed. Let’s try a new approach, a very simple approach: If we unite, we will succeed.

For others it will be a simple egoistic goal: to unite in order to succeed. But because we organize it and we are together, through us they will receive another filling. The desires of the world are “round” and our desires are “straight.” So when they connect to us they will also receive this straight form, just like a musical instrument that fills its bag. After all, the “circle” already contains the straight form that has the Masach (screen) and works with the Light. Then everyone will start feeling that it’s this integral form that gives the special filling, NRNHY, and thanks to our connection, the world will advance.
[82942]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/02/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Inside of each nation, there is concealed an internal force that unites it. However, the sons of Israel, as Baal HaSulam explains, are not like the rest of the nations who possess this natural interconnection. If there is no love among them, they disperse easily. Only the hatred of other nations holds them together and protects them from complete assimilation.

Baal HaSulam uses the example of a bag of nuts. They are so unwilling to unite that they even rattle and hit against each other, but the “bag,” meaning anti-Semitism, doesn’t let them fall apart. However, this is not love and not unity. So, how long will they last?

That is why now the time has come for them to unite with each other and not due to the “bag” that shrouds them, but based on love and interconnection. Then, the external pressure will not be needed and it will cease. Suddenly, the Arab cousins will change their relationship and actually will become like brothers to them. This is because the point is not in someone else, but this is how the higher governance influences the Jewish people.

If the nation will merge, the “bag” will no longer be needed, and in this way, all of the negative forces in the world will be eliminated, only by the means of unity. Realizing this methodology, people will feel something that is instilled in their soul and forgotten long ago.

The seed already has been planted, and that is why Baal HaSulam writes that the Jewish nation needs to awaken the love within it again while, of course, it is necessary to be open to everyone. Who knows where the ten tribes who fell away during the time of the First Temple have gone? Who knows where their descendants are now and how many there are.

Anyway, if the entire world has to arrive at the same unity, then, of course, the Jewish nation is ready to accept all of those who want it. There are no accounts in love. Those who wish it so, join in.
[82850]
From a “Talk on 5/6/12”

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Question: What do we do if the women whose husbands already are working with integral upbringing raise claims to them such as, “You go there; you’re saving the world while we are vegetating here”?

Answer: It means that the woman has not received enough of integral upbringing. She does not feel that, through her self-sacrifice, since the husband is not home because he is studying and everything rests upon her shoulders, she makes a huge contribution, above all, for herself and her children. She does not understand the higher, spiritual impact that comes to them.

Here, it is important to explain to the person and give him the opportunity to somewhat feel that eternity, the perfection into which we are entering on the next level, is instilled in nature. Everyone talks about this today.

We need to let the women feel that here is a higher reward, to make them participants of what their husbands are doing, but in different circles, with children, between women, and so on. This is all possible.

We are situated at such a transition where we are developing the methodology from various directions. In front of us, the entire world lies as an untrodden expanse. This is our century, our generation; this what we still have to do.

Psychologists, ecologists, economists, and political scientists must play their role, all of the people who represent the middle class and above who understand, realize, and feel the reasons behind what is going on; in contrast, the ordinary people who do not feel what is going on, the causes and roots, are therefore unable to do anything. Here, the intellectuals must play their role.
[82856]
From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/28/12

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Question: Is it possible to say that, when a man studies the integral method, he is saving the world?

Answer: Of course it is the saving of the world since otherwise we are all headed for disaster. I believe everyone understands that.

Question: How can a man express the importance of this work to his family?

Answer: I don’t think that a man today can influence a woman, his wife, and explain to her that what he deals with is important. She won’t accept it through him, but she will perceive it through other men. If his friends come to her, not those with whom he used to have a beer, but his new friends, if they talk to her or if she goes to a lecture or to a course for women or something like that, others will convince her, but I doubt that the husband himself can do it.

After all, she sees through her eyes, on his part, he has to undergo very serious changes in his behavior, in his openness and in his attitude toward her. If he spoke to her in a completely different way, looking into her eyes and getting rid of all the external trappings which were between them, if he put his arrogance aside and all the distortions and the habits, then he might be able to do it, but, in order to do that, the husband has to be free of the domination of his “promiscuous” society. This is, of course, a big problem since a person is enslaved to his environment.
[82853]
From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/28/12

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Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Rabash, Dargot HaSulam, “Article 68”

The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpts “Beresheet Bet (Genesis 2),” Lesson 141

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 3, Chapter 1, Item 2, Lesson 2

“Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 45, Lesson 17

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Question: What counts as our efforts?

Answer: The main effort is in the work against one’s indifference, against disregard, the sensation of the unimportance of bestowal. The main and permanent war should be carried out against the disrespect for bestowal. In it, we always have to look for things that would make us stronger.
[82771]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/12, Writings of Rabash

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There is only one desire that was created—to receive pleasure and delight—and there is nothing else that can be attributed to the created being. Everything else is the correction of the creation, the external form the desire to receive can take on as the Light influences it.

There is the upper one, which is bestowal and there is the lower, which is receiving. The lower can receive such bestowal from the upper that will change its external form; like a wolf that is in sheep’s clothing, it is still a wolf! This is actually what we do with our ego, with the evil in us, by trying to give it a form that is similar to the Creator.

We should understand that everything takes place within the desire to receive, since this makes us face the fact that everything depends on us and everything takes place in us. There is nothing on the outside; all of reality is inside us, in our desire to receive.

The desire always remains a desire, and I mustn’t try to change it. I shouldn’t increase it or decrease it, torture myself by fasting or beat myself. I only have to demand that the Creator change the form of my desire and make it similar to Him.

There are no other actions, except turning to the Light, by which I can attain a real change. I will only harm myself and distort nature by any other way. How can I do something with my desires by myself? It is even ridiculous to expect this. If a person acts this way, he distorts his whole way, his perception, his understanding, and his approach.

This is what all of humanity does, by hoping to achieve something by different actions like revolutions in science and in society. All our actions so far, starting from the time we came down from the trees, became human, and began to develop, were only meant to show us that all these actions were wrong.

Now we are on the verge of a change, and by examining all our evolution we see that it is the egoistic desire that forced us to follow this whole way. Everything that we have done so far is one big mistake.

It was impossible to avoid it since it is impossible to advance without the revelation of evil. But the mistake was in trying to deal with our desires, to limit them or to fill them, and to change them by ourselves. We always hoped to reach a better life by that, but every time we were wrong and received blows instead of pleasures.

Now we have to weigh things: Is it worthwhile to go on this way? It is now impossible even if we would want to. We will not be able to move forward in order to go on corrupting our desire to receive; there is nowhere to go! All the systems have reached a dead end and cannot be fulfilled any further.

If we continue in the same direction, the only thing we can expect is a world war as the last definitive blow. We can either start by conscious changes or summon terrible afflictions upon us. But the whole process was necessary in order to bring us to the recognition of evil, to our approach to correcting ourselves and the world.
[82947]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/02/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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