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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Our egoistic development has brought us to a state where we can no longer be satisfied by the little things. But even as our own nature causes us to suffer, we cannot do anything about it. So why do we have to go through failure, suffering, and a life of constant stress? It is in order to reveal that our egoism is evil, and to realize that we have to get rid of our egoism, despite the fact that this seems impossible.

We have no choice: since we cannot reduce the egoism, we must correct it. The phenomenon that is taking place now is completely unprecedented. Today, the will to receive pleasure is growing more than ever and showing us how powerful it is. In fact, it is becoming global, and it cannot be reduced, brought back to the old limits.

People cannot restrict themselves and go back to a simple life, because their egoism is becoming global. One cannot disconnect from the whole world. One can’t say that he doesn’t care about anything and hide away on a piece of land, where he will grow his food and live his life in privacy, leaving others on the other side of the fence to make sense of their world on their own.

The force of globalization and integration has come into effect, and we are all under its influence. The more the general egoistic desire to receive pleasure is revealed in the world, the more we will see how integral it is, and how much it is connecting all of us to each other. And we will then be forced to rise above it!

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A question I received: How is our growing ego connected to the things we read about in the news every day: “father rapes daughter,” “teacher molests her students” and so on?

My Answer: The news tells us of only a small portion of what actually happens. A lot of it is passed over in silence. For years people have been coming to see me about their personal problems, and every year they speak more openly about the things they could not mention before. They have revealed inner impulses, desires, thoughts, disorders and deviations that were never before revealed on such a grand scale and of such quality.

All of this is caused by our ever-growing, egoistic desire to receive pleasure. This desire will grow bigger and bigger, and there is nothing we can do about it. The only thing we can do is begin to correct it.

We are now seeing the entire “thickness” of our egoistic desire, which separates us from the Creator and weighs us down. This is called the aggravation of the exile, concealment, or separation from spirituality. And it will go on until we become such monsters that we won’t be able to stand ourselves.

This evil must be revealed either though action or through the realization of egoism. The latter can be done through upbringing or education. A person can only be corrected by revealing the evil inside himself, by feeling that his egoism is evil and detrimental to him. Only then will a person be able to correct the evil that he does onto others.

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A question I received: Many people relate to all of life’s ills by the principle, “Just smile and all will pass,” meaning everything will work out in the end. Does this mean that these people will never come out of their egoism?

My Answer: This kind of approach is destructive. One thinks that if he smiles like an idiot, everything will work out. He expects things to work out not because of his efforts and work, but just like that, all by itself.

Where does this attitude come from? From the fact that people don’t have anything in life, yet they already know that there’s nothing that can be done about it. They feel that everything is determined by blind fate, and this means that everything should work out somehow. So they think: You can’t really change anything, but at least you can smile like an idiot.

This approach diverts a person from action, from freedom of choice, and from correction. And this is why it is destructive.

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A question I received: If my egoism has become global, does that mean I depend on everyone else?

My Answer: Your dependence on others means that if you don’t act for the sake of benefiting everyone, you will never succeed. Suppose I am a taxi driver. I pick up a passenger, drive him to wherever he needs to go, overcharge him twice the actual amount he owes me, conceal this money from the tax collectors and put it straight into my pocket. It’s all mine! But in the end, I see that somehow I don’t get to keep any of this money! I don’t know where it all went or why, but that’s just what happens.

Suddenly, I’m surrounded with problems: the bank cheated me, something’s not going right with the wife and the kids, my health is deteriorating, and everything else is going wrong. I’m faced with a thousand different problems and misfortunes. Whatever I do, and no matter how much money passes through my hands, none of it is any good.

Thus, people must understand that by continuing to act the way they do, they are simply killing themselves. And it’s not easy to explain to people that no matter what they do, they must always consider everyone else as well. This is so because we’ve entered a whole new world, where we cannot keep cheating the way we used to cheat the tax authorities or the taxi passengers, in the above example. We will then see that what we have to cheat are our egoistic bodies, because they don’t allow us to act in consideration of others.

Can you imagine what an enormous transition we must all go through? It can only be done by means of education, which will explain that we’re living in a new world and must abide by this new law. And if we don’t, we condemn ourselves, our families, our relatives and the entire world to suffering.

Therefore, society must begin to create these education systems. They may appear as mere education systems, meant to explain these concepts, but in fact, they will be connected to the Light – the only force that is able to correct our desires. It is our uncorrected desires that continually make us go back to our old ways, tricking us to act this way even when we want to be different already, to bestow to others. In order to correct these desires, we need a methodology that is connected to the Light and that will allow us to channel this Light toward us. It’s like laying a pipeline that enables electricity to get to the consumers, to reach into every home.

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You are told that you have to be considerate of others, but you are incapable of this – even when threatened with death! Even if you want to be considerate of others, how could you? It is against human nature!

People really do want to be considerate of everyone already. The law of universal connection and the need for the “Mutual Guarantee,” which are being revealed in the world now, stipulate that you will only receive food under the condition that everyone will be each others’ guarantors. When this happens, the economy and businesses will begin to work again and will provide everyone with all the necessities.

Today our livelihood depends on the mutual guarantee, which means that you have to be considerate of everyone and everyone has to be considerate of you. Of course, you don’t want suffering for yourself and your family, and so you are ready to change. But how do you do this? You would like to unite with others, but you are unable to. The reason is because you were created an egoist. Recognizing this is called “the realization of evil.”

When you reach this state, this dead-end, you will begin to reveal that there has to be a force that will correct you. You will feel a need for a force that can correct your egoistic nature. This force is called the Creator – the whole of Nature, and it can only be revealed inside you. This revelation of the whole universe will give you the power to rise higher and to control your egoism for everyone’s benefit.

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A question I received: How do Kabbalists explain the parameter of time, which we feel through our senses and can measure using technical instruments of this world?

• Why do we need the factor and the perception of time, and why does this feeling fade after one crosses the Machsom?

• How and why do we create time within ourselves?

• What affect can a person have on time, and how does time affect a person?

• Finally, what affect does time have on nature as a whole, and vice-versa?

My Answer: Time is produced by one’s egoism. Time is the feeling of a deficit, of the difference between what exists and what will exist. However, if one perceives the future as something that has already been received, something that is already present, then he does not feel time – he does not have the sense that there is something missing today which will come in the future.

On the other hand, if a person fully believes, without a shadow of a doubt, that he has not yet received something, but he will definitely receive it, then the present and the future are the same for him, since the future has nothing to add to the present. This is why ascending above egoism lets us enter the present and nothing but the present.

It is written that one who strives toward the Creator compresses time. The fact is, the entire image of the world is within us, and it includes the parameter of time.

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A question I received: I am a regular person, like many others. I pay taxes, work at a factory and even do community service. I am considerate of others, I do everything I can to protect nature, and I serve my country. What else do I have to do according to Kabbalah?

My Answer: What you describe as being a “good person” is actually a good, corrected animal. However, now you are expected to become a human being. A human being (Adam) means “similar” to the Upper Force, the Creator. The Creator is Nature: It is integral, all-encompassing, and all its parts are united. Therefore, in order to become similar to It, you now have to unite with everyone, including the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels of Nature.

You will understand this through your suffering. You can shout all day about how you pay taxes fair and square and how you do community service. It won’t help you – you will still receive painful “blows” from Nature. Just because you follow all the different laws humanity has invented doesn’t mean you are following the laws of Nature.

Humanity has built an egoistic society in order to suit everyone’s desires for self-gratification, and everyone follows the established rules in order to feel comfortable in this society. However, this does not make you a good, corrected person. You have simply made your life more comfortable than if you were living in the wild jungle, by establishing various laws and rules of behavior that provide everyone with a worry-free life. And in addition, you are proud of this.

If an alien from another planet would come here and see all of this, he would say, “Friends, you are not uniting – you are using each other! You don’t look like good, kind citizens, but more like full-fledged criminals. You cannot continue like this. Enough!”

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Today there is a new law being revealed in the world – that of everyone’s interconnection. We, however, are learning about this law by opposing it, by resisting being together. We were initially divided in order to learn about unity, using the examples of separation and the rejection of unity. Otherwise we will not understand anything. The Light is revealed only in contrast to darkness.

This is why today we hate the fact that our integration and interconnection are being revealed. We do not want this, and every person desires to fence himself off from others. Moreover, this desire only becomes bigger all the time. We are in danger of becoming more egoistic, even to the point of Nazism. The only thing that can protect us from this is an explanation, which will show us that our total interconnection is the new law.

Everyone will want to separate. Everyone thinks, “There are so many problems coming my way. What will I eat? Maybe I should store away some supplies for a rainy day.” And while people do have to take care of these needs, at the same time they should realize that they have to correct their relationships with the whole world. It is possible to do both at the same time.

We have to become familiar with the law of our total, mutual connection – the law of the “Mutual Guarantee.” Today we are revealing that this law is incumbent upon us. We will have to go through “seven years of famine in Egypt” in order to realize that our egoism is evil, and we will then be able to “come out of Egypt” – rise above our egoism and be in harmony.

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