A question I received: Can Kabbalah logically explain the connection between a particular blow and the lack of connection between people?

My Answer: As a consequence of the Egyptian plagues, Pharaoh’s sages concluded that the plagues had come from the Creator, telling Pharaoh: “It’s the Creator’s hand!” And although Pharaoh stubbornly contended: “Who is the Creator that I should listen to Him?” as a result of the blows, he gave in and freed his slaves.

Pharaoh is the egoism created by the Creator. The plagues are the suffering that is caused by our egoism, thereby revealing it. Because of the blows, we begin to hate our egoism and realize that the blows come from the Creator and are sent specifically so that we will desire to escape from Egypt and Pharaoh’s (egoism’s) rule over us.  We come to realize that our nature is not our own, but rather a force outside ourselves that has control over us.

By receiving blows caused by our egoism and aspiring to something higher through the “Moshe” in us, the Creator is revealed, and we see that the blows come from Him. Otherwise, we would come to hate Him.

A person should go through the process of developing hatred for his egoism,  tearing away from and parting with it, while coming closer to the quality of bestowal.  We are seeing that now is  the time when humanity is going through these very stages of development.

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Because our egoistic desire constantly develops, we also perceive the world as becoming more developed, as the world is our internal, subjective perception. As our desire grows, we feel that we become more developed, yet we also feel emptier.

As each individual egoistic desire (each person) develops, it starts to feel its dependence on the other egoistic desires (other people). At the same time, it perceives them as alien and strange to it. This kind of perception was created inside us on purpose, so we would collect all the other desires and make them our own.

It is in order to make us do this that the circumstances make each of us feel our dependence on the environment, whether our country or town, our relatives, the world, or all humanity. We later discover that our connection to the world is not simply necessary for our existence in this life, but in order to create the Upper World and our future existence.

This is why a new law is being revealed to us in this world: the law of mutual participation, or the law of mutual guarantee, altruism, and unity.

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A question I received: How can a person who experiences the crisis today understand that he is facing a turning point, an opportunity to ascend spiritually, instead of deteriorating into the ever-deepening crisis?

My Answer: All of creation consists of the Light (delight, the energy of bestowal) and the vessel (the desire to be filled with the Light). The Light develops our egoistic desire to its final state, where the desire begins to sense that it’s impossible to be filled with the Light directly. The reason for this is that the pleasure cancels the desire. For example, when you drink out of thirst, you quench the pleasure by fulfilling your desire for water.

The current crisis shows us that our egoistic development has come to an end, and we can’t continue to use the Light in order to serve our egoism. In other words, we are discovering that it is impossible to fill our ego. And while our egoism still pushes us to make further attempts to fill it, our mind understands that it’s futile.

However, we can’t exist without fulfillment, and thus we are forced to follow our ego’s orders, even if we do so against our will. We don’t feel any enthusiasm about it, but we are forced to do it by the influence of our environment. We do it against our will and therefore we feel miserable and depressed. This is also why people fall prey to drugs.

In fact, this leads to a crisis in all aspects of our life. After all, our entire life is based on using the Light to fill the egoistic desire. While the desire was developing under the influence of the Light, we aspired to advance. We felt that we were going to be fulfilled by quenching the next desire. And this lie helped us to evolve.

But as soon as the desire ceased to evolve egoistically, we discovered that it is empty. The Light shows us that it is impossible to be fulfilled this way. This is what we call “crisis.” So, we have to stop misleading ourselves and instead realize that the only way to feel life is by adopting the quality of the Light – the intention to bestow and to love.

Our “earthly” development has ended, and as testimony to this, we see many factories being closed, since there is no need to produce the redundant, useless goods. The size of your yacht and the number of digits in your bank account are not objects of envy anymore.

People just don’t see any real sources of pleasure in the world anymore. At the end of the day, any star – no matter how bright – will dim. And we too are fading, as we fall into the black hole known as the final stage of egoism. This egoism consumes everything, lets nothing out, and has only darkness inside.

The dissemination of the wisdom of Kabbalah is the only thing that will give us the ability to rebuild our nature – “And the darkness will shine like the Light.”

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A question I received: Why do you say that we don’t know or understand what “love of others” is?

My Answer: People usually think that “love” is related to things like sex, taking care of a child, and helping the sick and needy. Now it is time to really understand this notion, which is why the current crisis has erupted. This crisis is here to make us realize what is love and what it means to lack love. This is, in fact, the essence of the crisis.

The only purpose of everything that is happening in finance, industry, and other areas is to show us what true love really is. We will then be able to compare everything else to this notion, and will realize that right now our only quality is egoism.

People will have to undergo this process, called “the revelation of evil.” They have to see that their current understanding of love is evil, as is the fact that they already think they love others. People will then realize that if they continue treating each other the way they are, then everyone will feel bad, both individually and collectively. I may feel good personally, but as long as I don’t love others, I am still in an evil state.

We have to define what “love of others” really is, as well as its opposite – hatred, because “the Light has advantage over the darkness.” As long as we don’t acknowledge that we hate everyone but ourselves, we will not be able to cross over to love. This is the first stage, and humanity is now starting to approach it.

For the time being, people are just agreeing, thinking that “Yes, it is possible that we don’t love each other enough.” However, they haven’t yet begun to realize the hatred that reigns among us.

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Egoism has reached its maximum development on the individual level, and the individual egoisms have started to bond. This is why people have begun to reveal their interconnection and interdependence. Here is a lesson for everyone who has bad luck: if your desires and thoughts are aimed at the common good, then you will succeed at everything you do.

The recipe for success is to do everything you can to bestow upon others. This means that you only keep what’s necessary for you to have a normal life. For a business, “working to bestow” means that the only revenue it makes is the amount necessary to cover its expenses This is how people should set the retail price of goods and services. No one should make a profit that just “sits there” in their bank account.

This approach is completely opposite to what is happening today. However, by the end of the crisis, everyone will shift to this system. Not a single business will be able to operate differently.

This is because everything that one receives in excess of what is necessary for him, is a violation of his balance with nature. In order to be in balance, a person should consume as much as he needs in order to exist, the same as any other animal. The suffering people feel and Kabbalah’s explanation of the cause of the suffering will help people to understand that best way to exist is to serve others, in the same way as cells, organs, and body parts do.

One way or another, Nature (the Creator) will prevail. This can either happen forcefully – through suffering on our part, or voluntarily, with understanding, because people will realize that they have to obey Nature and its law of harmony.

As soon as we begin to cooperate with Nature, It will begin to treat us differently and our condition will change. We will suddenly have enough water, food and all the other things that everyone needs.

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The connection between us is governed by our egoism – the Pharaoh. We have to dethrone him, remove him from power. How?

This can only be done with the power of the Creator, who created the Pharaoh as the evil inside us. The Creator did this purposefully, so we would realize that we need Him and then dethrone the Pharaoh together with Him. This way, in the process of our cooperation, we grow close to the Creator.

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In order to rise to the “human” level, to a level higher than the animate, one must acquire the quality of bestowal and love toward others. This is called “faith above reason” – bestowal above reception. It enables a person to come out of himself and his egoistic nature.

Science is going through a crisis while it develops on the egoistic level. Meantime, humanity has gradually risen to a higher level, where everyone is interconnected as one body. From now on, the only way we can understand and reveal Nature is by becoming one whole. By making this change in our consciousness, we will reveal a deeper layer, new connections, forces and dependencies in the world around us.

But until we change our egoistic perception of reality to an altruistic one, our sensations, desires and thoughts will not allow us to overcome the knowledge barrier that we are stuck in. It is imperative that we rise above our egoistic reason to the altruistic reason. We must step outside ourselves to a feeling that seems completely irrational to us today. This is why the subject of my PhD thesis was: “Kabbalah – The Irrational Method for Attaining the World.”

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In the News (translated from APN): Mikhail Khazin, a famous Russian economist, asserts that the only way to save the world from catastrophe is to implement a “global project” that will renew the public consciousness. Hopefully the world’s most ambitious individuals will then prove their worth by spearheading meaningful social projects, instead of showing off the size of their boats. And their reward will not be another ten billion dollars, but the respect and gratitude of the entire humanity.

My Comment: The world cannot be saved by economists’ tricks. The reason for the crisis is our egoistic relationships, which have become global. We are like cogwheels meshing together and unable to break free – and we’ll never be able to break free! Yet, every cogwheel (person) still keeps trying to spin in his own direction.

Because we are in this situation, there is only one solution – to start spinning all together, in total agreement. This is what we must learn to do. Otherwise, the crisis will not go away, and will even continue to worsen.

The new public consciousness can only come from a new system of education. Every one of us must be reeducated, from being petty egoists and separate cogwheels, to becoming one massive mechanism, like the members of one family.

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Kabbalah provides people with the means to succeed in life, showing us that all of our misfortunes are caused by our egoism, which has been growing throughout history. In the past, our growing egoism fueled our drive for greater achievements and revolutions. Back then, our life was improving. But over the last 50 years, we have been feeling progressively worse. We feel that there is a crisis affecting virtually all areas of our lives, causing strife and divorce in our family lives, ruining our relationships with our children, and causing drug addiction and depression.

Thus, egoism has ceased making us fulfilled. For the first time in history, we do not wish to progress. And this crisis is universal. It is also happening in science, in education, and in culture. It’s inside us and it strips us of the opportunity to develop.

Egoism no longer entices us toward lofty goals and prosperity. On the contrary, it shows us that we will never be able to fill it, driving us to the point of despair. Moreover, egoism demonstrates that each person is connected to everyone else, that each person’s success depends on the success of all others, and that success will no longer come from using others for one’s personal benefit.

We have reached a developmental stage that has no precedent in the previous generations. Our ego is not pushing us forward any longer, but quite the opposite: it stops us. It is telling us, “From this moment on, you have to use me differently. You have to know how to use me to feel good.” The answer is that we have to use our egoism for the service of others rather than for ourselves, because each one of us is connected to everyone. This is how we can attain happiness.

This approach is so opposite to the way we are used to using egoism that we are at a loss as to what to do. Not using our egoism means not using our nature! But then everything comes to a halt and goes into crisis mode. And this is what is happening today: we can no longer do anything. For example, we are unable to do business with each other, because every deal we make has to be considerate of how it affects everyone else. Small business still works for the time being, but big business can no longer function.

Living inside this universal egoism, people are suddenly starting to feel that there’s no reason for them to take pride in their achievements compared to what others achieve. And this means one has no reason to use others any longer. The inner sensation of our connection with one another, revealed to us by the current crisis, is leading to a situation where people will stop feeling pleasure from using others. This is very strange, but this is what is happening to us. Eventually, we won’t feel pleasure from money, fame or power. So what will he have left? We will then understand that the way to reach happiness and prosperity lies in the connection between us.

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A question I received: If we change our egoistic model of behavior to one of mutual friendship and consideration, wouldn’t this stop the development that competition brings?

My Answer: Competition will not disappear. Here’s why.

Today a person wants to maximize his profit, but he’s discovering that his success depends on the entire world. As he observes the growing connection between himself and the world, he will begin to feel how bestowal to others will eventually cause him to be successful. He won’t be better off because the world suddenly became wealthier and he got a share of the profit, but because he gradually started to feel that by making actions of bestowal to the world, he connects to something higher – a higher fulfillment and satisfaction. And this higher fulfillment is what starts to give him the sense of a meaning in everything taking place – a feeling of the Creator.

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