This wisdom is generally divided into two parallel, equal, and identical orders, like two drops in a pond. The only difference between them is that the first order extends from above downward, to this world, and the second order begins in this world and traverses from below upward precisely by the same routes and make-ups imprinted at their root when they appeared from above downward. (Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”)

We study that there are three axes, three lines, three vectors:

The first, a descent from the above downward from the world of Ein Sof to our world.

The second, the evolution in our world.

And the third, an ascent from the bottom upward to the world of Ein Sof, which means correction.

Question: Does this mean that our evolution has ended?

Answer: Not only has our evolution ended, it is reborn. If we don’t ascend upward, we see its maladies, like a fruit that rots if it is not picked in time.

We see that humanity has in fact become rotten. If we look at the time line, we reached the good right state in the 16th century. Today, however, we are in a state in which we should have started our ascent long ago, but unfortunately we are only preparing for it.

A long and demanding road from the bottom upward lies ahead, and everything has already been prepared for it: the wisdom of Kabbalah, books and different tools that explain how we should develop, how to establish a group, how to unite and to gradually reveal the Creator.

Question: What stems from the world of Ein Sof leads to the shattering etc., while what stems from our lowly world should lead to wholeness. What is the Creator’s rationale here?

Answer: The whole process is predetermined from the start in the thought of creation. The upper force enters us and shatters us.

Therefore, selfishness arises. Then, over almost 15 billion years, it evolves. And only then begins its correction, also with the help of the upper force.

But the correction takes place thanks to the fact that you draw the upper force that imfluences you in a wise and sensible way by raising MAN. When you raise your desire for correction, for unity, the light of correction descends unto you.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 8/18/19

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Filed under: Egoism, Kabbalah Study, Spiritual Work | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Prophets, Joshua 20:5: And if the avenger of blood pursue him, then they shall not deliver the slayer into his hand, because he smote his neighbor unwittingly, and did not hate him from before.

A neighbor for you is the one with whom you can create a connection. But instead of connecting with him to achieve an even greater common desire, and raising it to the level of appealing to the Creator, you did the opposite. You did not use this desire, you neglected it, killed your part, and the part of the other, that of your friend. By doing this, you seemed to harm the Creator.

Question: But this is done without intent, right?

Answer: There is no such thing without intent. Everything is judged by intention only.

It is said: “I had no hatred for him either yesterday or the third day.” That is, it really was not planned in advance, but in the end egoism still worked.

Question: If the murder is unintentional, then there is no place for revenge. What is revenge?

Answer: In spirituality, it is a correction and not revenge like in our earthly understanding. Everything comes from the Creator. He framed the person in such a state that he made a mistake, and having made this mistake, he got to know himself even more deeply, so that he understands what to do to correct himself.

Question: Does he thank the Creator for this? It is a crime after all.

Answer: In fact, the Torah does not talk about crimes, although it is described with such words. But these are not crimes since everything comes from above. A person should only learn from this, realize that everything comes from the Creator, and make maximum efforts to correct it.

Question: If I understand that everything comes from the Creator and I live this way, then, in principle, I have no one to be offended by and no one to turn to, right?

Answer: You just must study. Therefore, the Torah is called “Torah,” from the word “teaching,” “textbook,” “methodology.” This is a teaching methodology that explains what kind of world we live in, what we should do with ourselves, and how to move on.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/16/21

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Question: How can we correct our sensory organs if we are not happy with this or that manifestation of the Creator in us?

Answer: Only by love for our neighbor! Only that! This means that by having a correct attitude toward others I correct myself, become similar to the Creator, and begin to feel new attributes and emotions. This is how I actually attain the Creator inside me by trying to resemble Him.

On one hand, it is very simple. And on the other hand, it is very complicated. It is easy to understand the principle, but it is hard to implement it.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 9/15/19

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Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #34 “The Advantage of a Land”

Selected Highlights

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We all look at the world with the same eyes and see the same thing. But besides eyes, we also have a mind that depicts what we see to us. The mind is different for everyone because it serves the will to receive.

To the extent that we can add the will to bestow to it, we will see the world through the contrast of these two qualities—reception and bestowal—and then we will begin to reveal the true picture of the world.

This is the difference between people in the world because everyone is very different in their minds. Although we all have the same eyes and it seems to us that we should see the same thing, none of us sees the same picture.

After all, everything depends on the mechanism behind the eyes and behind all the other sensations: smell, hearing, speech, texts we read, that is, all the information about the world perceived by a person. All information is processed in the brain, and everyone has their own mind. This is why no one can understand one another.

The more we feel our lowliness, the more we can see. After all, this reduces our egoism and then we can better see the Creator and His bestowal to the world. It seems conflicting and contradicts ordinary perception and ordinary education.

However, the lower a person puts himself with respect to his correct perception and the more clearly he understands that he does not understand, the more he is ready to see the truth.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/19/21, Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #26 “One’s Future Depends and Is Tied to Gratitude for the Past”

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Spiritual work can bring inspiration and pleasure even before a person comes to the revelation of the Creator if we inspire each other with the greatness of the goal and the importance of the group on the background of the crisis that we see in the world and the despair and confusion that has fallen over humanity.

If previously there were periods of relative calm and prosperous life when people could travel and have fun, today everyone is in fear for their present and future, and have already gotten used to living under such pressure from nature. Volcanic eruptions, extreme heat and cold, floods, earthquakes, wars, epidemics—it seems that all of nature has turned against us.

I do not remember when during the seventy-five years of my life people have been so worried about their existence as in the last decade.

Previously people were afraid of a world war. However there has never been such a threat from natural disasters, which are much worse than war. After all, we are not able to prevent them through our usual means, but only by correcting the relationship between us. And humanity does not understand this yet.

All the problems that we hear about today and that will soon reach us—hurricanes, heat and cold waves, and earthquakes—are reactions of nature.

Today when humanity has become global and affects the world on a global scale, we have to connect, and we do not do this. By this lack of connection, which should be between us, we influence nature and the Earth, which react accordingly.

Therefore it is time to finally understand that only through our ever more powerful and perfect connection can we calm nature and achieve a beautiful, magnificent life. If not, then nature will teach us by the blows that have already begun.

Therefore we want to help humanity by disseminating the method of correction and explaining what the true cure for all catastrophes, including pandemics and other natural disasters, is. After all, everything comes from nature; the Creator is nature, and everything comes from Him.

And our job is to convey this to people.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/16/21, Baal HaSulam. Shamati, 20 “Lishma [for Her sake]”

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If the world is in such a critical state, then why would the Creator not ignite a burning interest in the science of Kabbalah in large masses of people to push the world to correction?

The fact is that the Creator organizes the world according to the large egoism that we need to correct. He does not choose desires and does not force them. The system that He created at the beginning of creation; all its conditions unfold and are realized in the course of the entire history.

The Creator is not going to revise and change the action of creation in the middle of the process, and He will not compromise. We are inside the system and we must determine through our own efforts which forces in it should be greater and which should be less, and how to use these forces to bring us to the right connection.

We are not canceling any forces. Everything remains: both evil forces and large egoism. Nothing is destroyed, as we would like. One exists against the other and it is only necessary to increase the power of bestowal relative to the power of reception, the power of good relative to the power of evil. Only in this form will we achieve a balance between these two systems.

And when they gradually come to balance, then between these two, within their correct combination, we will reveal the force of the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/19/21, Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #26 “One’s Future Depends and Is Tied to Gratitude for the Past”

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My new article on Linkedin “Despite Its Appeal to Young Americans, Socialism Is Not the Answer”

A recent Axios/Momentive poll revealed that among young Americans between the ages 18-24, views are shifting toward favoring socialism to capitalism. According to the survey, cited also by the Conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, “Among adults in Gen Z (ages 18-24), perceptions of capitalism are truly underwater: 42% have a positive view and 54% have a negative view.” Moreover, even “18-34 year-olds are almost evenly split between those who view capitalism positively and those who view it negatively (49% vs. 46%). Two years ago, that margin was a gaping 20 points (58% vs. 38%).”

I understand people’s disappointment with capitalism, but socialism will not solve their problems. For one, our egos grow continuously, and if a certain regime succeeded at one point in history, it will not succeed in the future since it will not be suitable for people’s bigger egos. Second, Americans are raised with such a self-centered mindset that for them to adopt socialism today is simply not something they can do.

At the same time, capitalism also isn’t working anymore, and for the same reason: our growing ego. We’ve become so self-absorbed that nothing balances our behavior and the principles of free market and competition have become a winner-take-all contest, where the winners use and abuse everyone else.

The solution to our woes is in neither ideology, but in a new type of economy. The economy reflects the state of our society. Accordingly, to enjoy a thriving economy, we must have a thriving society. A society that is built on constant struggles, suspicion, and ill-will, cannot thrive. It will disintegrate, and the economy, which relies on the quality of connections among people, will collapse.

Having an economy that guarantees people’s well-being requires care about each other’s well-being. Establishing care and mutual responsibility must therefore be the top priority in every society, and the main focus of every future economic model.

People will still want to realize their dreams and express their unique skills and traits, but they will be happy to do it for the common good. Besides the satisfaction of realizing their potential, they will enjoy the recognition and gratitude of society for their contribution.

There will, of course, be a monetary system, but making a lot of money will not be people’s main incentive. Their present and future livelihoods will be secured by society, which will free them to realize their unique characteristics in a manner that supports all of society. Since contribution to society will win people society’s respect, while exploitation of it will result in harsh reproof and condemnation, people will do their best to advance the society, and everyone will benefit from their efforts.

In this way, we will learn to care for others, while they care for us. And the better we become at doing so, the happier we will be.
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My new article on Linkedin “People Are an Open Book, How to Read It?”

In Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, there is an original library that is gaining momentum around the world and is called the “human library.” Here people do not come to borrow books but to ask human beings to share the story of their lives.

Anyone can come in and choose a person whose worldview or lifestyle is intriguing—such as a refugee or AIDS patient, a Tibetan monk, or a PTSD suffering soldier, transgender, or drug addict—and simply have a conversation with them for thirty minutes.

In a well-kept green garden in the heart of the city, the interviewees will tell the story of their lives openly and calmly, and the “reader” can freely ask questions, and engage in dialogue. The premise is to meet live people commonly persecuted and to confront them without prejudice or taboos.

Hypothetically if we could listen to all the stories of all the people in the world, whatever and whoever they are, we would discover a common thing: they are all stories of disruption and are a result of their environment’s impact on them, the education they received as children, and the society that shaped them over the years.

In a divided and polarized world, it sounds as if a tolerance-building human library initiative could help people, both the narrator and the listener, but it can only confuse them both. The narrator speaks from his or her gaze, imprisoned in their own narrative, because no private life story really leads to reading our great and shared story, the one that ends in a happy humanity.

Our common story begins with the plan of creation, a pre-existing and constantly running plan that directs everything in the entire system of nature and humanity. —Starting from the big bang, from the spread of an infinite number of particles in the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human degrees, creation continues to connect all its parts, to collect and group all its details, and to bring unity between all creatures and the feeling of the wonderful harmonious power of creation. That’s the whole story.

The plot is complicated by the increasing egoistic nature in every person, another factor that stems from creation’s natural evolution, which strengthens our sense of individuality, separates us from others, and makes us feel superior to the rest. Therefore, the shared story is overlooked.

As a result, speakers in the human library brand their life story as a “bestseller” and it proudly inflates and reflects their life experience as if they were real acts of heroism. Instead of seeing how our inborn human egotistical nature, the evil instinct operating in everyone from an early age for the destruction of the other, has led us as a human society to abuse others.

The narrator will naturally soften the problem, color it in a certain hue, give others advice that they are unlikely to follow, and the personal example may confuse the listener. Instead of being impressed by the pervasive egoism that rules society and prevents us from reaching the purpose of creation and recognizing that we have deviated from the purpose of life, we only praise the lifestyles we have created and perpetuate them in beautiful words and define them as the essence of life.

There is no prevention or prohibition of cordial human conversation, nor is there room to undo the identity of each and every one, but the most important thing is to find and highlight in these personal stories the same hidden point that arises in the search for the whole story, a story of reconnection, a story of humanity’s friendly and supportive relations. This book is for any and everyone to open.
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