In the News (from Business Insider): “Americans weren’t always addicted to buying things. … People used to save money for things they actually needed.

“But in the age of plenty that followed World War I, corporations countered the threat of overproduction with a manipulative psychological strategy.

“We must shift America from a needs, to a desires culture,” wrote Paul Mazur of Lehman Brothers. “People must be trained to desire, to want new things even before the old had been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality in America. Man’s desires must overshadow his needs.”

“This conspiracy, enabled by new sophistication in advertising and supported by the government, was shockingly effective….

“A new kind of advertising was key to this possible, and the pioneer in this field was Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud, who showed corporations how to make people want things they didn’t need by linking mass-produced goods to unconscious desires….

“Bernays shattered the taboo against women smoking by persuading a group of debutantes to light up at a parade — an event he leaked to the media ahead of time with the phrase ‘Torches Of Freedom’ — thereby linking smoking with challenging male authority.

“In 1927 an American journalist wrote: ‘A change has come over our democracy, it is called consumptionism. The American citizens first importance to his country is now no longer that of citizen, but that of consumer.’

“Elected in 1928, President Herbert Hoover was the first politician to embrace the central role of consumerism.”

My Comment: But time develops a desire in people, and they are no longer satisfied with shopping. There is a desire, but there is no fulfillment because desires became virtual, aimed at the meaning of life, the feeling of happiness. In addition, an understanding has come that fulfillment of the material desires kills the desire itself, and thus the feeling of enjoyment and happiness disappears because pleasure is felt only when the desire and fulfillment meet, and fulfillment reduces the feeling of happiness.

It turns out that happiness is unattainable if we fulfill the desire, and how is it possible to satisfy it so it is not satisfied, to always have desire and not receive?

There is a science of receiving—the science of Kabbalah (to receive in Hebrew), which teaches us how to achieve eternal and infinite happiness! It is possible if we break the link between desire and fulfillment, if I love someone by fulfilling him, I enjoy. That is why love (not for the body, but for a human being) is a means of achieving happiness. (See the Talk on the Economics of Happiness, 3/1/13)
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Throughout history, human development occurred with a person being afraid to enjoy for his own sake. He was afraid not only to enjoy the Light but also to disturb the restriction; the breaking occurred only once, and he can keep himself from this because he is afraid of whether or not he can withstand the pleasures that will be revealed to him through bestowing upon the Creator.

After all, the feeling of one’s similarity to the Creator brings great pleasure. And it is even a greater pleasure to feel how the Creator enjoys you, how you are united into one. It is similar to the pleasure that a baby experiences from closeness with his mother, how much the mother enjoys him, and he enjoys her, and from pleasing each other.

A person feels great fear because immense pleasures are revealed to him: NRNHY de NRNHY instead of Nefesh de Nefesh. It is an immense Light that is revealed from the feeling that he gives something to the Master because NRNHY is born from bestowal upon the Creator who is revealed to a person. And that is where all the work is concentrated.

Spiritual work is not about the meal that is arranged on the king’s table, but the feeling of the Master, one’s similarity to Him; it is with this enjoyment. By trying to be like the Master, I become like Him in something. I enjoy not only the fact that I bring Him pleasure, His love for me and my love for Him, but I begin to enjoy this very position, my status.

This reveals an enormous Light and the pleasure that did not exist before in the created being in his decisions, feelings, and reactions. And that is why I first should equip myself with the vessels, which is called “awe.” Otherwise, I will not be able to approach any action correctly, and everything that is revealed will immediately disappear without any use. It would be as if I poured wine into bags, and it immediately leaked out, or poured flour into barrels only to rot there. Nothing can be done; everything needs to completely match the other; all contents must be stored in its specific container.

That is why a person is afraid that he will begin to enjoy the greatness of the Creator, His love and reciprocity which he feels in the two united HaVaYaH: HaVaYaH of the Direct Light and HaVaYaH of the Reflected Light clothed in each other. The Light that is revealed in them has never existed in reality. If a person prepares himself for this trial, then he will be able to reveal the status of the Creator correctly and withstand it in bestowal.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/15/13, Shamati #38

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 18: And we must not ponder the state of other beings in the world but man, since man is the center of Creation, as will be written below (item 39). And all other creatures do not have any value of their own but to the extent that they help man achieve his perfection. Hence, they rise and fall with him without any consideration of themselves.

All the creatures on the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature have no value of their own; they cannot correct themselves, and so they ascend and descend together with man. This means that man discovers that the whole universe, including all the flora and fauna on earth, are in man without any expectation for themselves, just as corporeal body contains all the previous stages of nature.

So to the extent that I correct my desire on the speaking level, all the desires of the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature are included in this correction. I actually feel that they are included in me, regardless of their external existence. After all, I have been through these desires and so they have also have been corrected and some of them have disappeared.

The dinosaurs disappeared millions of years ago and are extinct, and today different species of plants and animals are also disappearing, but scientists are discovering many new species that we didn’t know about before. This is all a projection of what is happening with our desires, so we shouldn’t panic that the human race may also become extinct. Several desires in us have simply been corrected and have been exhausted, have ended the cycle of their role and have disappeared. There is no need for them anymore, and so they “return to dust.”
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”: Rabbi Akiva tells us about that, “All is in deposit.” This means that everything that God had placed in Creation and given to people, He did not give to them licentiously, but secured Himself with collateral. And should you wonder what collateral He was given?

He responds to that by saying: “and a fortress spreads over all of life.” This means that the Creator has cleverly devised a wonderful fortress and spread it over all of humanity, so no one will escape. All the living must be caught in that fortress and necessarily accept His work, until they attain their sublime goal. This is the collateral by which the Creator secured Himself, to guarantee that no harm would come to the deed of Creation.

“All is in deposit” means that whether I want to or not, I will have to pay my “debt” to the Creator. I was given life not because I asked for it and without my consent, and still I have to pay the debt. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t ask for it. If I received life, I have to pay for it, and I can only pay by attaining the goal of creation.

We see that the sufferings we have been through throughout history are gradually becoming more “spiritual” and “virtual,” and detached from reality. Today many people don’t want to live although they have everything. Once a person was happy if he had half a kilo of bread a day and was satisfied with that, but about fifty years ago the “shopping” era began. Today it is coming to an end and not because of a shortage of money but because people lack the desire to shop. This is the problem—the desire is changing. Even if you offer a person a million dollars, it will not spur him like before; he doesn’t want anything anymore.

This is the natural inclination of our evolution that brings us to ask about the meaning of life. So what is left of life if not food, shopping, and recreation? There is nothing else that we can enjoy. It isn’t by chance that football and all sorts of distractions other are being promoted so much these days. This is the policy: to provide people with “tranquilizers” and other nonsense to give them something to fill their inner emptiness with. Otherwise, they would express their rage in the streets instead of in the stadiums.

A person who feels empty asks himself more and more: “Why was I given a life that I didn’t ask for, why am I being forced to do something that I don’t want to?” Why? He feels as if his hands and feet are chained.

This is why we need integral education today. Thanks to it people will understand that everyone is connected and that we depend on one another and that by using this integral connection correctly, we will be able to solve all our problems.

Good relations are generally the key to our success in every aspect. We could have machines replace physical work in every field and provide everything we need. But we don’t want that since it isn’t clear what a person would enjoy then. Even now, most people already have everything they could imagine except for a deficiency. A person is absolutely full, so what’s next? He can either kill himself or start killing others otherwise he won’t feel any pleasure.

We enjoy only when pleasure fills a deficiency. But the pleasure immediately neutralizes itself. So how can we prevent this? We have to constantly renew the desire.

This is exactly what the world leaders tried to achieve by building a modern economy and inserting new desires into people and satisfying them. But this is impossible, since our corporeal desire is changing in quality and eventually doesn’t want anything on the previous level. To chase our own tail in order to buy a new washing machine and a new television every year and to change the wall paper…? How much longer can we take that? A person suddenly discovers that his desires are gone.

Thus a whole philosophy of evolution has come to an end. It wasn’t just a way of making money but a way of making people happy. At the top people thought about getting richer providing all the basic necessities and keeping them in a close circuit so that people would buy light bulbs that burn out after a short while, printers with an integrated chip that stops working after a while, and other low quality products. They continued to supply incentives so that people will feel it is worthwhile to work, to live, and to buy. They continued to renew the deficiencies since without a deficiency that receives pleasure, there is no feeling of happiness.

They were right about that. It was indeed a time of prosperity in the West. The Americans saw that their new philosophy justified itself and everyone followed them happily. But in the meantime the desire grew, not only in quantity but also in quality, so a person doesn’t need all that anymore. He doesn’t see any point in investing his whole life in that. In the past people bought things without any advertising, but today more than half the cost of a product is due to advertising costs. On the other hand, in countries that are more economically developed, depression, suicide, and drug abuse are becoming more prevalent.

So where are we headed? A person cannot go on living without feeling happy, excitement, and the “ecstasy” that is felt when the deficiency meets the pleasure. But they immediately neutralize one another if there is no Masach (screen) between them. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah is about, the wisdom of how to receive correctly, since without a Masach, a person discovers only darkness.

If the decision makers were a bit wiser, they would accept that. But in the meantime, we are in the middle of the process, so in any case there is no other choice. The deficiency has to be in contact with the pleasure, but only if it doesn’t stop. Otherwise, it isn’t worth it. We are ready to renew only our animal deficiencies over and over again, but anything that is beyond that is questionable. So what we see on almost every TV channel today is mainly cooking programs or sex, because people are so narrow minded…

We hope that we will manage to explain the need for a Masach between the deficiency and the pleasure. Then the infinite pleasure will give us a feeling of eternal life.
[102338]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/8/13, “The Peace”

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A person aspiring to spiritual attainment begins to see that the whole world is one system. It is constant joyful work, and you become accustomed to it gradually. It becomes a necessity. You already exist at this level.

All the other levels are flat, one-dimensional, and it’s impossible to think of them as before. A person begins to get accustomed to thinking in the n-dimensional space which becomes compressed into a single force and purpose; therefore, it’s not difficult to feel the whole world connected with a single goal, with a single thought, with a single force, up to the point that you look at the starry sky and see what connects all the stars.

This raises some very interesting questions, such as, “How did the ancient astrologers associated stars in the constellations?” After all, if I look at the stars I’m unable to join them in all the signs of the zodiac, Orion, the Big Dipper and others. I don’t have such a great imagination as the ancient Greeks or the Babylonian astrologers because the stars are far away from each other and in different planes.

Let’s say that one star is hundreds million years closer to the Earth, and the other is millions years farther. But they saw them connected to each other as in a single plane. What is it: just primitive representations or human fantasy? Where there is a bear with four or five stars forming a square with a tail? How can one imagine this?

It’s a very interesting thing: The idea that links the stars in the zodiac signs is attained by a person through his influence on it.

The ancient astrologers had a feeling of the connectedness of these stars. Due to the development of egoism, we became detached from the universe, from perceiving it as a whole, but they had a sense of relative connectedness because they perceived it as a host of gods, of uppers forces that influenced them. And it was not because they were small or primitive; it’s simply not twisted, not coarse human perception without the number of filters as we have. That is, they had a much greater perception of the Light. If we begin to correct our egoism, we will now feel the Light many times more because we are much coarser than they were.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/4/13

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In the News (from The Verge): “Facebook admitted in its annual 10-K report that it might be losing ‘younger users’ to ‘other products and services similar to, or as a substitute for, Facebook.’ Teens are often an accurate barometer for what’s cool and what’s next, and recent rumblings seem to indicate teens are moving on. Telling your colleagues that teens are no longer into your product is far from an Irish goodbye.

“‘I think it has less to do with kids consciously looking for “the next big thing” than Facebook just no longer being a space that serves them,’ says Laura Portwood-Stacer, author of ‘Media Refusal and Conspicuous Non-Consumption: The Performative and Political Dimensions of Facebook Abstention.’ ‘I think kids are less self-conscious about trying to be cool than marketers would like to think,’ she said. When Facebook launched, it was cool to expose details about yourself, like what movies you like, what you’re doing right now, and who you’re in a relationship with.’…

“Teens have turned to sites like Tumblr and apps like Snapchat and Instagram to communicate. ‘Tumblr is mainly my obsession as of now,’ says 15-year-old Collin Wisniewski. ‘It just seems more intimate and it’s not really a place of bragging, but more of a place of sharing.’… Some data suggests that Tumblr may have already eclipsed Facebook as the most popular social network among 13-25 year-olds.”

My Comment: In our time, people’s desires, especially young people’s desires, change very quickly; so, in the future we will see them attracted to more inner communication, goals, and meaning. It is not the result of our education; it does not exist, but is the consequence of natural instinctive development of the desire in humans. New desires will trigger new needs and will lead to the need to find meaning in communication, instead of gatherings on social networks.
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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 3, Inquiry No. 5: The matter of the rising of the dead: Since the body is so contemptible, that immediately at birth it is doomed to perish and to be buried. Moreover, The Zohar said that before the body rots entirely, the soul cannot ascend to its place in the Garden of Eden, while there are still remnants of it. Therefore, why must it return and rise at the revival of the dead? Could the Creator not delight the souls without it?

Indeed, why should “the body” be revived? What about the soul? Will it come down from Heaven again?

Even more bewildering is what our sages said, that the dead are destined to rise with their flaws, so that they will not be mistaken for another, and after that He will cure their flaws.

Nothing remains of the body after it rots. So why does it have to revived? What difference does it make if someone says something?

We must understand why God should mind that they would not be mistaken for another, that for that He would recreate their flaws and then would have to cure it.

“A body,” which means the desire to receive, has always been holy and has always been in adhesion. The whole round we make is necessary only in order to rise higher towards the Creator so that we will feel all the 125 degrees, so that we will have the fineness and the sensitivity and will clarify and sharpen our perception in feeling the Creator, and will rise from the level of the created being to the level of the Creator by ourselves.

Therefore, the desire to receive has to go through this whole cycle and at the end of correction to come back and acquire all the flaws. Then we will be able to compare what it was at the beginning of creation and what it has become at the end of creation after it has been through all the levels and has rotted.

All this is fulfilled by our work at the end of which, after the “rising of the dead,” we acquire a new discernment of the desire and by it can adhere to the Creator.
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From the 4^th part of Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar“

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Question: Baal HaSulam says that in this era we have a chance to hasten the process of our evolution and reach the Creator. How can we identify this opportunity and fulfill it?

Answer: We are living in a special time and we are indeed given a chance. First, because the Reshimot (spiritual genes) that are awakening in us urge and push us towards the revelation of the Creator, the revelation of the essence of life. It’s because that’s the same cardinal question that awakens in people. After ages of human evolution a person really begins to look for the meaning of life, and doesn’t just try to live a better more comfortable life.

Fifty years ago we still thought that corporeal benefits were infinite and we believed that the prospects of the consumerist society were endless. “Everything is possible: We will fly to the stars, we will control the forces of nature, we will swim in affluence…” This was the direction of our ego.

But suddenly we have reached a kind of satiation, because our desire has begun to change; we have not filled all our desires; we have not provided everyone with a yacht, a palace, a private jet, a private island, or a personal planet to himself. No, we have not filled our desires, but the desires have simply changed, just as a young child’s desires change: A minute ago he asked for cottage cheese, but while you ran to the store to get it, he already wants a sausage.

There are many hungry people in the world today, people who are ill and needy, but the desire changes and while they lack something, it is clear to them that even if they get whatever they lack, they will not be satisfied. There is a filling and there is satisfaction. It is like the example that Baal HaSulam gives when the guest says to the host, “Even if you give me the whole world as a present, I will not be satisfied, since it is not mine.” There will be a filling but there will not be satisfaction.

We are speaking about two very subtle discernments, as a result of which on the last level of our evolution, despite the dissatisfaction, and the shortage we feel in our desires, a person looks for meaning in his life. A new desire emerges, and it is from this desire that a person expects to feel satisfied, even if he doesn’t have a filling in his previous desires and his previous hopes are not fulfilled; even if he only has the simple things left, he will look for satisfaction in what is important to him now.

So after money, after control, after technological prosperity, after the information age, we have risen to a new level, the level of meaning. People feel despair and commit suicide because they don’t find a meaning to life. This is the first sign of the era of redemption.

The second sign for being in the era of redemption is the awakening of the whole world, not only those who are looking for a meaning in life. The world is sinking into a crisis that is basically an inner psychological crisis. A person cannot manage his private life any more, and neither can he manage human society. Everything is destroyed and out of control since our ego has completed its development and has finished its work, and by that has nicely ended its role.

Soon there will be new very unpleasant diseases that stem from our overuse of harmful, poisonous materials that we have added to our food and to other products. On the whole, there will be all kinds of negative phenomena that are typical of the use of the negative effects of the ego. We fear a nuclear bomb, a meteor that may hit the earth, but in the meantime one virus can totally annihilate the whole world.

Eventually this world that needs to be corrected, we are striving for that and the means are being discovered; internally and and externally we are shown that we are in a time of opportunity.
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From the 4^th Part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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We are entering a new state where the “upper bar” that was set for humanity is changing. In the era that is coming to an end, it was information: Whoever has information rules the world. It isn’t by chance that the banks have become a kind of industrial enterprises: They are also making a profit, but directly, on the “information” level. And this is according to the laws of nature. Indeed, if I have information, I don’t need anything else. Information by itself has become an object that we manufacture, design, and sell, just like real merchandise.

Now this era is coming to an end, and whoever has more information cannot “move mountains” anymore. Before information was simply “linear,” it was made of a chain of “bits” that connect to an egoistic pipe. Now, however, we enter a “round” world, an era of an integral humanity, and the states don’t change smoothly but through a crisis. It stems from the fact that we don’t control this transition and don’t know what we are about to encounter.

Once, everything was clear and even revolutions fitted the framework of logical reasoning. People knew how to hasten the development of technology and science and worked full steam ahead. But today nothing is clear anymore.

Meanwhile, the next phase of the general human designation, the next key principle, the next main criterion of society, its intensity and development, is attainment. It’s the attainment of a new system. Whoever attains it will be a “great” person.

Practically, it means that in our times we have to change man and not the world. For the first time we have to adapt ourselves to the system that is being revealed to us. But this time it isn’t we who are building the system according to our ego from within. The Creator no longer urges us from within, but only reveals the deficiency to us and shows us an example ahead so that we will build ourselves according to the example. Humanity must become integral and “round” like all of Nature. The faster we understand this the less we will suffer.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/12/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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Question: When I meet people lately, I see that they are not looking for success like they did before and are not trying to achieve something. It is as if the ego has stopped growing and is even going backward; people agree to have less, why is that so?

Answer: It is not a simple question. Why has the ego stopped growing? Moreover, why does the ego “concede and give up,” growing weaker? Does it really grow weaker?

The point is the ego changes; it becomes “round,” integral. We are moving from one type of ego: the simple individualistic “straight” ego with the approach of “grab as much as you can” to another type that we don’t understand yet. It has not been fully revealed in us yet. It is a kind of an integral ego that is accompanied by a general mutual connection. We already feel it and don’t know how to manage and cope with it.

Up until now we have developed technologies, science, and knowledge, but now it is time for attainment, which is characterized by a new kind of desire. Once the world was dominated by power, then by technology, and then it was science’s turn, then information became the key, now the main thing is the understanding. All the previous methods will not help us anymore; they cease to be effective.

This has never happened before. All the previous levels used to support the new, more advanced levels, but today it is different. It is as if everything that we have achieved is gone, slipping away between our fingers, no longer causing any inner responses. It is actually so. It is because the “world” is vessels, desires, with the Lights in them. These vessels disappear and gradually turn into different vessels. For the first time there is not a discrete attribute that is revealed in them, of a vessel and another vessel, but the connection with the first ten Sefirot, the first spiritual level.

So we cannot identify this state. We don’t have the necessary inner pattern of perception, the “sensor,” the right sense that enables us to see the new reality. So people stop their chase and nothing attracts them anymore. They feel the outcome of the process: the vessel beginning to “round,” to connect to the ten whole Sefirot.

For the first time the first level of the upper world is revealed, for the time being in the vessels of posterior, but it is already being revealed. By being incompatible with it, we encounter emptiness, and the suffering will grow even if we don’t learn how to adapt ourselves to reality. This situation can actually make people feel helpless, not wanting anything, not wanting to work, as the soul feels hopelessness and a person feels despair.

The linear advancement allowed us to find a replacement for something we despaired of. The ego’s protective force still pushed us forward. But today, many don’t have the energy to get up in the morning and to start a new day, “I don’t need anything and whatever will be will be.” This actually stems from disorientation in the network of the global connection that is being revealed now. A person doesn’t feel the network yet, but he sees that the previous vessels don’t work any more. This is really a very sad situation…
[100226]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/12/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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