Question: Should we be aggressive about criticism in relation to the study of Kabbalah?
Answer: Why be aggressive? I don’t do that. I often hear various accusations, insults, and slights against kabbalists and Kabbalah from people. Well, what can you do with a person if they do not understand what you are talking about?
It is necessary to explain. This attitude is given to people by nature, so that you nonetheless gradually, patiently explain the essence of things to them, and by this you correct the world. You are dealing with selfishness that the Creator created. So understand who you’re working with.
I have patience. You can’t go anywhere. So gradually the world will be transformed. That’s why it is given to us. [266271] From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 4/19/20
The Element of Freedom in the Rigid Program of Nature
Question:According to Baal HaSulam, the law of mutual guarantee is the basis for the interaction of all living organisms and is built on the balance between reception and bestowal.
Moreover, the law of reception is that each member of society tries to get everything he needs to live in the way his individual, egoistic system requires. And the law of bestowal is that each person cares about the welfare of the entire society.
If a person does not observe the law of bestowal, then he is hit by disasters and problems sent to him by nature. How can a person observe this law?
Answer: How to observe is one problem. And the fact that a person is obliged to observe this law follows from the image of nature that is revealed to us.
We see in front of us an absolutely integral picture: one single nature in which man is included with all his egoisms, scientific and anti-scientific “isms.” It turns out that we can not dodge and escape from the integral picture of nature. Whether we want it or not, we are inside this system and cannot exist outside of it.
This system is constantly evolving: from the inanimate level for hundreds of thousands of years, to the vegetative level for tens of thousands of years, to the animate level for thousands of years, and at the human level for literally decades. In other words, the higher nature is organized, the faster the stages of development occur in it.
The only question is when do we begin to discover ourselves in this system? We see that we are opposed to it for a very simple reason. We are not instinctively involved in nature because it affects us with the element of freedom.
We can agree or disagree with the way nature works on us, and to this extent, we determine our fate. It turns out that we are unhappy people. Nature is given to us, we can live in it, work, reproduce, create anything imaginable—unlike animals—on the next, conscious level. And we do not know what to do with it.
We create everything based on our natural egoistic nature, acting to the detriment of others and ostensibly for the benefit of ourselves. We do not understand that integral nature forces us to become different. For the benefit of oneself means for the benefit of others. [266700] From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era,” 4/16/20
Question: How can I explain to my grandchildren that we need to change? How can I help them get closer to nature?
Answer: Since nature is integral and leads us to complete adaptation to it, we have no choice but to get closer to nature. We are inside this system. Therefore, they must accept it as a model and be the same—integrally included in it.
Explain that only in this way can we come to a better life. We will be just fine. [266749] From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 5/10/20
Question: How is it possible to accept and love all people? After all, there are maniacs and murderers among them.
Answer: It all depends to what extent you look at the world correctly. Do not think that you are changing and the world is not.
As much as you change in your perception of the world, the world will also be changing in your perception. It turns out that in the end, you will be able to see the whole world as absolutely good, corrected, and perfect, because you have changed.
In other words, you evaluate the world either according to your correction or to your corruption. [266837] From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 5/17/20
The first time we were told to stay at home and keep a six-foot distance, we largely obeyed. We didn’t want to catch the virus or put our elderly loved ones at risk. When authorities rolled back the lockdown and said we could go out again, that’s when we lost it. Not everyone, but enough of us to make the virus hit back ferociously.
But now we can’t go back. People’s patience has vanished, their obedience—replaced with defiance. It’s as if people are telling nature, “Catch me if you can!” It can and it will. If not with the coronavirus, then with some other virus, bacteria, or an entirely different disciplinary menace. Once nature has made a statement, it will not let up until we listen, since each statement is the beginning of a new phase in our development as a human society.
The coronavirus is telling us that we should stay apart from one another because we’re harmful to each other. We have been harmful to each other in so many ways, often deliberately, that our society has been falling apart and disintegrating long before the George Floyd protests began. But with COVID-19 spreading faster than ever, racial tensions escalating all over the country, a police force that has been demonized and delegitimized to the point where it has become powerless in many cases, and a rabid elections campaign whose virulence will only peak in a few months, we are seeing the making of a perfect storm that could tumble the most formidable superpower in modern history, and perhaps ever.
The next phase, the one that nature is forcing through the virus, will see a humanity that is much more considerate and caring one. But humanity will determine how fast that phase evolves, and how pleasantly and smoothly it overcomes the current, self-centered humanity we’ve all grown up with.
Any parent knows what to do when his or her child isn’t straightened out after the first admonition: give a second, much harsher one. Since we have been disobedient, this is what we should expect from nature.
But nature has no wish to obliterate humanity; it’ll only hurt us until we learn to treat each other and the planet better. We may challenge nature and throw COVID parties, and we may refuse to wear masks or keep our distance, but it won’t be long before nature grabs us by the ear and sends us to the corner.
Sometimes, when the odds are totally against you, it’s unwise to be a wise guy. Sometimes, the wisest thing to do is simply play along. And in this case, at the end of the game, we will discover that we are the winners and our defiance only delayed our victory.
A woman is able to weigh things correctly, and if she sees her country as her home, which is important and dear to her, then she is able to reconcile all conflicting trends and parties and balance it all out. Only a woman can do that.
The woman, who used to remain in the shadows throughout history, must now go to the forefront and engage in the reconstruction of human society. And men will agree to it. Nature drives the woman to the front, and no one is objecting. This process has been developing over the past few hundred years. From Twitter, 7/6/20
Considering that our values, desires, behaviors, anxieties and responses are highly influenced by our surrounding society, then there is no doubt that the coronavirus and the changes it has introduced into the world has significantly impacted our lives.
In the beginning of the outbreak, most thought of it as a temporary phenomenon, that the life we lived would get “back to normal” soon afterward. Today, however, we already see that it is going to be around for a lot longer, and that permanent changes are set to emerge.
What will those permanent changes be?
The pandemic has made us reevaluate what is and isn’t essential in our lives. Today, even if we have the “privilege” in our areas to still be able to go out to bars, restaurants, malls, gyms and flights, many think twice before going.
To start with, the lockdown period we went through calmed down consumerist habits.
Also, economic uncertainty as to whether there will be another lockdown makes many reconsider where they spend their money.
It is as if the coronavirus made us step off of the materialistic treadmill that we were running prior to its outbreak, and we started to walk through our lives at a much slower pace.
We discovered a newfound interdependence and reliance on each other in order to maintain our health, as we depend on each other to uphold certain conditions in order to lessen our chances of catching the virus.
The longer the coronavirus affects our lives in such a way, the more we will realize that a permanent change is at hand: a change from using each other and the ecology in the name of personal profit and individual success, to a more balanced lifestyle, keeping us closer to our homes, to our families, and to rethinking our mutual influence on each other in society.
If we relate to the coronavirus as a lesson from nature—a lesson in becoming more considerate and responsible toward each other, doing away with our excessive consumeristic drives that distanced us from each other and nature—and instead focus our sources of enjoyment not in what a materialistic society promotes to us, but in developing positive connections to each other, then we would make good use of this period and experience its permanent changes positively.
However, if we stubbornly try to hold onto our pre-coronavirus lifestyles, then we will experience more and more suffering. That is, we would fail to learn from nature’s hint as to what we need to change, and thus nature would have to give us harsher lessons in order to wake us up to relate positively to our new tighter interdependence.
Question: The virus pushed people inside their families, and many have discovered how distant they are from each other. Could this make us ponder about some phenomena that lead to tragedies in relations between relatives?
Answer: Of course. People who had difficulty spending an hour or two a day with each other suddenly find themselves forced to communicate around the clock. It is horrible! We are not used to it; we are not brought up like that.
But on the other hand, we all experienced it, somehow got used to it, got to know each other. Maybe for many years we did not even know each other as we do now. So, let’s look at it positively.
The coronavirus created all the conditions for us to get to know our family. And now we need to correctly compare what happened before the virus and now. I go to work, return to my family, and do I see the same or not?
It was necessary that we somehow establish relations between us that we lacked before the virus, and now we can imagine them. After all, you will not run away from the family. Therefore, the virus gave us a very big gift: it forcefully imprisoned us together in one apartment.
What is needed here is what we have never done: particular, psychological, social work with people. We did not prepare people for family life, for example, a man for the role of father and husband.
I know this myself. Therefore, for my part, I made many mistakes in family life, and my wife on her part. And the children did not receive proper upbringing. That is, this is a complex problem that needs to be addressed. [266828] From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 5/3/20
Question: Should we be aggressive about criticism in relation to the study of Kabbalah?
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