Question: I visited a tent city that young families started up in the center of Tel Aviv as a sign of protest against the high prices of housing. In the evening people there get in a big circle and take turns speaking everything that’s on their mind into a microphone. Any person is allowed to speak. If I sign up for the list of speakers, what would you advise me to say?

Answer: “The end of the action is contained in the initial plan.” First of all, what do we want to achieve? We want to achieve a solution to the housing problem for students and young couples – people who aren’t well-off yet and who are just starting out in life. We can do this only if we become a factor of influence and pressure on the government.

We think that the government has enough money for different needs. So let them express a sensitivity to our demands. A member of parliament receives tens of thousands of shekels a month, but a student does not receive anything and in addition, pays for his studies. It’s impossible to live that way. The government has to decrease its expenditures on its own self. I am not talking about the realms of safety, education, or healthcare. We do not intervene in these matters. Let’s suppose that everything is fine there.

We are talking about the government: The students should receive whatever amount they require. Young couples want to create a family and to live, so let them have a home. Let them be able to rent a simple family home at the initial phase of their life together, until they can buy an apartment of their own. Or give them an offer to buy a home right away at a normal price.

The government has land. A square meter of living space costs 500 dollars at most, even it’s not a mass construction area. Imagine: for $50,000 you could buy an apartment that’s sized 100 square meters. But today you have to invest say, $300,000 in it, which is sixth times more than it can really cost, all-inclusive.

Why does it have to be that way? How much can you make off of people who have no money?

Therefore, they are right. The only question is: How will they be able to organize together? They have to become a powerful lobby, a group that successively exerts powerful pressure until the goal is attained. Besides, they have to keep going beyond this as well. In this country, there are many other things other than housing that could be improved. But the government won’t improve them unless you obligate it to do it.

The government is constantly under pressure from coalitions and lobbyists. Therefore, unless you implant yourself in this system as a group of pressure, from the inside or outside, you will get no result.

That means the question now is: How can we organize ourselves so our protest won’t turn into a festival? I wouldn’t even be surprised if there are people there who are trying to do that on the sly. After all, the issue at stake is important and not simple because any government in the world takes great care of itself and takes the most diverse measures in this respect. This is natural because every authority has to stand its own ground. How else can it stay in power?

Therefore, the protestors need real, powerful, reliable, and serious organization, rather than just slogans said into a microphone. Of course, this is good and necessary as well, but if that’s where everything will end, then they will be even more looked down upon, and next time they or their followers will have a very difficult time. They have to understand what kind of responsibility they have. If people rise up for new protests in the future, their success will depend on today’s struggle and its outcome.

It’s necessary to use the services of good, real consultants in order to achieve unity and mutual guarantee among one another, in order to get organized correctly, in order to understand how to exert pressure, how to work with the public, how to attract new people to their side, and how to communicate with the mass media representatives and with the government. They need a very powerful internal organization and experienced advisers. Otherwise they won’t succeed.

I saw the same thing happen in Spain: Everything began very seriously. The protest action was joined by couples aged 30 – 40 who were left without work. These were well-bred people with higher education, who completed European universities. They included engineers, sociologists, programmists, and many others who were left jobless. It might be possible to find some kind of common labor job, but these kinds of people had no chances – they are simply helpless.

And so, at first they occupied the city square in Madrid. However, they were unable to get organized properly and gradually they dispersed. As a result, the protest disintegrated and their places in the tents were occupied by other people, who got used to living on the street anyway. The mass media stopped broadcasting the event, the government happily waved its hand, organizing free food, showers, and toilets. As a result, the government is demonstrating the presence of a “democracy,” while the homeless have a place to live until the winter comes. When it does, the tents will be abandoned and will unnoticeably disappear.

This is a very vivid example of a lack of organization. Here in Israel the protestors who have gathered are also well-bred, and that is their weakness. After all, in this kind of situation it is necessary to get organized and start exerting pressure. This is not the Egyptian revolution, it’s not a spontaneous uprising, and therefore it is necessary to have clear order. In this case it is more difficult to aim the protestors in a common direction, to organize them because they are more reasonable and individualistic. The shouldn’t take an example from Egypt and other countries because the people going out on the streets there are a different type. In this case we are talking about Israelis who are difficult to budge, separated, and egoistic. Here every person makes his own calculation. Taking all of this into consideration, it is difficult for me to say whether or not they will achieve success.

Perhaps they will nevertheless understand that they need a strong organization and a clear action plan: pressure on the government, publication of declarations, addresses to certain people or organizations. They have to stay on top of the headlines, and not just while the news is fresh. Otherwise they will be forgotten in a few days. At some point the tents on the public square will stop being news. A person will read the newspaper headline, “The 40th day of the tent protest” and will go on to the next article.
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/20/11, “Arvut”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: If a part of the nation does not want to keep the Arvut, but rather chooses to wallow in self-love, they cause the rest of the nation to remain immersed in their filth and lowliness without ever finding a way out of their filth.

Question: How can I correct my craving for filth and lowliness?

Answer: I act in relation to the friends, and the friends act in relation to me. Does this mean that they correct me? Yes, they do. And do I correct them? Yes, I do. How do I correct myself? I correct myself by means of correcting them.

This is what the mutual guarantee is. No one does this without others, and he depends on others in all his actions in the positive and negative sense, in joy and sorrow. He depends on their good and bad actions, and they depend on his good and bad actions.

Today, this is becoming a reality that will manifest itself in our world in a very unpleasant way. If something bad happens in one country, other countries will feel this right away. On the other hand, if something good takes place somewhere, others will change for the better as well.

This is a real breakdown for my egoism. I want others to feel bad and myself to feel good, to be a winner compared to them. I want what is worse for them rather than for me, and this warms my heart. But now, we see how the integrity of nature compels us to think differently. It teaches us that no one can benefit alone. If it is good for some, it will be also good for others. There is no such situation that it is good for some and bad for others.

Gradually, we are approaching this picture of the world. Look at what is happening in the developed countries. If there is a landslide in one, the rest do not know what to do, and they fall after it. We have reached such an economic order, meaning such egoism, that everyone depends on everyone else. This is mutual guarantee, and this is how it manifests.

I did not think that I would depend, let’s say, on France. What do I have to do with France? However, now I must take care that no default occurs there. If France goes bankrupt, then undoubtedly, it will affect my pocket two days later. Besides, it will affect it negatively. If I reaped benefits from it, I would let them go bankrupt. But it doesn’t work this way: It harms me as well.

Moreover, previously, the troubles of others brought benefits. Before the world connected into an integral system, everybody had acted in his own interests, not considering others. Each country cared only about its own gain. Every time, we made healthy, egoistic calculations to win at the expense of others. Even if this required starting a war against them and destroying the other side down to the ground, it was better for me.

Today, we would like to continue along the same lines, but we cannot. Soon, we will discover that a war cannot be started. We depend on each other to such an extent that I cannot provide anything for myself alone. I will lack everything that I destroy for others.

That is what we have come to. Wishing good for ourselves, our nation, our country with its structure and institutions, I must take care of everybody. Only then will it be good for me.

This mechanism works in bestowal between Partzufim, between people, and between a person and the Creator. I have to take the desire of my fellow human being with the goal of filling it and putting my desire to his service. Only under the condition that I fill and take care of it, will all the abundance flow through me and be revealed in me 620 times greater.

The world doesn’t yet understand what system we are entering. To make it do so, we need to tell people about this as soon as possible. Otherwise, their despair will bring them to war. They simply will have no choice.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/17/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Opinion: (Professor Robin Matthews, President of the League of Strategic Management and Accounting): “In the story of the Tower of Babel, Babylonians tried to create a consumerist Tower that reached right up into the Heavens. The project failed as the Tower crumbled and the people ceased to be able to communicate….

“In the Bible, people began to create a Tower that was to be a materialistic ladder to Heaven. The Tower crumbled when the communication mechanisms of finance were lost. In the last twenty years the global economy has undergone enormous economic growth. Europe and North America, created a consumer based, materialist Tower Babel made of debt and excessive leverage. This Tower collapsed as confidence in the language of the financial world (debt, securitization, leverage and antidotes trust, liquidity and interbank lending) collapsed. The extent of the aftershock is still an open question….

“Although the latest crisis appears to originate in the financial sector, the origins are much deeper. Capitalism and the relentless search for competitive advantage, has resulted in huge volumes and variety of goods and services. Demand has to keep pace with supply, which marketers seem to understand, but economists have ignored. Over the last twenty years, the manic search by firms for competitive advantage has been most marked in the speculative mentality of the financial sector, creating Towers of debt based on speculation….

“The recent Tower of Babel, like the archetypal one, was built on illusory foundations of symbols, or building blocks of assets that had value only so long as people continued to deceive themselves that they had value. It was bound to collapse at some time; the critical point occurring when the language of communication broke down. The builders, suppliers and managers of the Tower eventually ceased to communicate because they no longer believed the assets of their trade, debt and liquidity have any real value….

“Recent increases in wealth are founded on the necessary split, at that time, in the sixteenth century between languages of science and the spirit: between the language of science and the language of mysticism. One outcome, in addition to wealth itself, has been the confusion of spirituality and mysticism with superstition…. Perhaps understanding the collapse of the modern Financial Tower of Babel as signaling a critical point, opening up the possible emergence of new languages and new understanding of dimensions of Being.…

“Positive effects may be dormant within the complexity of the global financial network…. They arise from its complexity and independence. Perhaps we have reached a critical point where change on all scales is possible? Perhaps the change could be recognition that co-operation should be substitutes for competition, the search for competitive advantage and acquisitiveness? Perhaps new ways of being in the world will emerge: recognition of interdependence is a step towards realizing the need, at a practical as well as a spiritual level for compassion.”
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In the news: “The world’s population is projected to surge past 9 billion before 2050 and then reach 10.1 billion by the end of the century if current fertility rates continue at expected levels.” (Source: un.org)

“Food production must double by 2050 to meet the demand of the world’s growing population and innovative strategies are needed to help combat hunger, which already affects more than 1 billion people in the world.” (Source: un.org)

“Humanity’s Ecological Footprint – the demand people place upon the natural world – has increased to the point where the Earth is unable to regenerate renewable resources at the rate we are using them.” (Source: Footprintnetwork.org)

“Ecological overshoot means that humanity is living beyond the planet’s ability to sustain us. Today the focus is on carbon, but climate change is happening as we approach other critical limits as well, in fisheries, forests, cropland, and water.” (Source: Footprintnetwork.org)

My comment: We have crossed the limit and are already falling into the abyss. Our methods cannot stop the fall. But if we begin to build between ourselves integral, honest connections, if we seek similarity with nature, we will draw upon ourselves the influence of the integral forces of nature and carry on our renewal.

The integral forces of nature are billion times greater than the forces acting on us, but they are concealed from us by the condition of equivalence: Our properties do not match them.

However, as we desire to integrate everyone into a single system, we will begin to attract the forces hidden in this system. They will correct us in accordance with them, include us into this system, and bring about changes in the entire world, at every level: still, vegetative, and animate.

It is necessary to realize that the forces of the integral world induce all the symptoms of multi-crisis in our world, and only they can correct it.
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Opinion: (George Soros, billionaire investor, Chairman of Soros Fund Management and of the Open Society Institute, project-syndicate.org): “The process of European integration reached its apogee with the Maastricht Treaty and the introduction of the euro. But the euro was an incomplete currency: it had a central bank but no central treasury….

“German Chancellor Angela Merkel insisted that there should be no joint EU guarantee; each country would have to take care of its own institutions. That was the root cause of today’s euro crisis….

“As the largest creditor, Germany could dictate the terms of assistance, which were punitive and pushed debtor countries towards insolvency. Meanwhile, Germany benefited from the euro crisis, which depressed the exchange rate and boosted its competitiveness further.

As integration has turned into disintegration, the role of the European political establishment has also reversed, from spearheading further unification to defending the status quo. As a result, anyone who considers the status quo undesirable, unacceptable, or unsustainable has had to take an anti-European stance. And, as heavily indebted countries are pushed towards insolvency, nationalist political parties – for example, Finland’s True Finns – have grown stronger, alongside more established counterparts elsewhere in Europe….

“The European elite needs to revert to the principles that guided the Union’s creation….

“We should look for a European solution rather than national ones. ‘True Europeans’ ought to outnumber true Finns and other anti-Europeans in Germany and elsewhere.”

My comment: It is amazing how much money was invested in advertising the unification of Europe, and how little care was taken to educate Europeans about the spirit of integration. Egoism is growing, contradictions are being manifested, but there is no strong goal-oriented promotion of the need for integration. Obviously, the basis of this union has always been and still is the desire for individual, near-sighted profit.
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Opinion: (М. Khazin, financial analyst, mk.ru): “Jean-Claude Trichet, a longstanding head of the European Central Bank, has called for more rigorous budgetary control. He said that the EU had shown ‘gross negligence’ by not respecting the European Stability and Growth Pact which limits the size of budget deficits. Why? The pact infractions were necessary to continue welfare benefits.…

“But then, under conditions of falling demand, the standard of living will fall as well. In other words, his appeal is pure demagogy: He gives intentionally unrealistic advice to “keep his hands clean.” Why was he silent when the states and the citizens were taking knowingly bad loans? Trichet justifies himself by saying that he had nothing to do with it: “I told them, but they wouldn’t listen to me….

“Germany is the main exporter to the US from the EU and therefore, can afford more than the rest of the EU countries. However, with falling demand in the US, its condition will deteriorate. The EU has built a pretty model based on growing demand in the US, which is built on the dollar emission, not the euro. But now the “joy” is over, while the desire to save the model built in the EU remains. Yet, it is impossible.…”
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Question: What is happening in the world, and what do these developments require us to do?

Answer: A lot of things are happening in the world. Some people already understand that we are approaching a crisis or catastrophe. When speaking in Europe with those who are versed in economics, I felt a mixture of anxiety and fear. Learned people do not understand what is to happen next and have no idea how we will find a way out of the predicament we are in.

They say that in the last two or three centuries, humanity became trapped. Thirty years ago, the study confirming that the consumer society can develop steadily to infinity claimed the Nobel Prize. The human ego just could not see that one day the feast would come to an end.

But wait a minute, what about the natural resources? And what about human nature? Our ego was so blinded by its own “success” that we were unwilling to acknowledge the obvious.

A few years ago in our discussions with leading economists, they denied any possibility of a crisis. Such is the human ego; it is arranged so that it does not allow us to see it. Even the most brilliant experts take its bait, no matter how clever they are. The reason is human nature.

Today, many VIPs prefer not to think about tomorrow. There is no escape; nothing can be done; come what may. And this pain, this confusion, we cannot succumb to. After all, on one hand, they have billions in their pockets, while on the other, billions of people have nothing to eat.

As a result, there is talk of world war, that should get rid of half of humanity. They see this as a “solution.” Logically, there is no other solution: Sources of energy are depleted, and the economy can no longer stay on edge. Therefore, the revival is possible only after the mass destruction.

No one is acting in this direction intentionally, yet everything is headed there out of despair, by the nature of things. World War II was the result of a process caused by the Great Depression, and the same scenario could be repeated today. For example, today nearly all believe that the common European market is counting its days.

Under the circumstances, we, on our part, have to make sure that the name of the Good Who does Good emerges as a living sensation in all humanity, in all people, in the collective vessel, one common soul, which was initially created, in order to feel it in its original form and as quickly as possible.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/17/2011, Baal HaSulam’s Letter No. 13

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Opinion: (Andrey Kobyakov, Professor of Economics at Moscow State University and co-author of The Decline of the Dollar Empire and the End of Pax Americana with Mikhail Khazin, globoscope.ru): “This crisis is not going to be restricted, and already is not restricted to the financial sphere. Today, we possess a lot of figures and data indicating that it has seriously affected the real economy as well….

“Unlike the crises of overproduction, described by Karl Marx and other classical authors, the modern crisis emerges in 90% of the cases in the financial sphere, extending later to the real economy. Today, we live in an inverted economic reality. In the system analyzed and described by Marx, the real economy served as the basis of the socio-economic formation, while the financial sphere carried out the function of servicing it. But this design has subsequently changed….the financial excrescence has become self-sufficient….

“We are now facing a temptation to accelerate scientific research and industrial revival by military technologies as well. Some authors believe that military industrial corporations deliberately start wars in order to write off obsolete weaponry and get contracts for new technologies.”

My comment: Kabbalah doesn’t deny that a new world can emerge by means of a war. It does, however, send a warning that it will be impossible to localize a war since any war will escalate into a global one.
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Question: Baal HaSulam writes that the whole world has to enter the boundaries of the mutual guarantee. What does that mean?

Answer: Indeed, right now the whole world is entering the conditions of mutual guarantee. Stated differently, in our times all of the conditions have come together for mutual guarantee to be accepted in the whole world.

Obviously, this is a gradual process. Until now we have developed inside of our egoism, which increasingly grew stronger, and we operated only by using our environment for our own benefit. We constantly “modified” the external environment, while in the meantime, egoism grew bigger.

And today, a very curious occurrence has happened: the environment which we constantly wanted to change to suit ourselves became a rigid, fixed, interconnected, wholesome system. We cannot change it any longer. On the contrary, it is letting its temperament come through, is putting pressure on us and is ready to elicit changes in us by means of disasters and problems.

The external environment consists not only of ecological, natural factors, but it is also the human society, the interconnection between us in different areas and aspects: in economics, education, family life, healthcare, and so on. Every one of us lives in this environment.

Previously I changed it as I wished, in whatever way was most comfortable for me. Stated differently, I changed by nature, and I changed nature. But now nature is appearing as an integral system to me and I have to change myself. In the past I changed this natural system, but now it is pressuring me and changing me. It is becoming increasingly more integral, cramped, wholesome, and soldered together, and because of that, it squeezes me in its clutches, forcing me to take on its standard whether I want it or not.

After all, I am inside of it, and when it comes right up to me, “skin to skin,” I don’t have a way out and I suffocate. I have to change.

I perceive nature’s communication with me in the form of crises, suffering, and great problems. This is the path if we go through it by the pre-scheduled program. However, in nature’s globality and integrality, I can see something good and desirable ahead of time, and then I will be happy to take on its form and “put it on” myself, becoming similar to nature.

In any case, it is necessary to observe the law of equivalence of form between myself and the environment, between us and nature. In order to be similar to the form that nature demonstrates to me today, I have to be wholesomely connected with all humanity, and all of humanity—with the still, vegetative, and animate levels. This is the meaning of existing inside the single nature.

First of all, I have to take care of the human society, including its attitude to the ecology. And for that it is necessary to change man so that people, countries, and ecological circles would unite with one another, so upbringing would become unified, so equality would set in all over the world.

It’s not equality of religion or faith, culture or customs. They can remain the way they are. But above them there has to be a common equality in which everyone are united. And even though differences are preserved inside, they do not interfere with what’s important. It is written, “Love will cover all sins.”

Besides, we have to care for the still, vegetative, and animate nature so we don’t destroy the earth, which is intended for all of us, and so its important resources won’t run dry.

We have to think about the future, but we are not doing that today. We mine oil from the earth, which is the basis for 90% of our production, be it plastic parts, energy, or others types of production. If we simply burn oil for the wrong needs, then we are robbing our grandchildren. Nothing will be left for them. And therefore, we must already think about how to act.

Thus, unification should not be limited by the current moment, the short-lived desire to mollify the situation and avoid problems. Unification must involve a vision into the future, a program for the future, an inventory of what we are leaving to our children.

We have already passed “the oil peak” and have shifted to the phase of exhausting the remaining reservoirs. So what will we leave to our descendants for an inheritance? After all, oil is necessary not only for burning, but also as raw material for the production of various goods. And on the other hand, we don’t have any comparable source of energy.

Unification between us will bring us to unification with nature, and then we will understand how to properly use the natural resources, how to make the transition to equality, to a normal, balanced economy with fair distribution.

Otherwise there is such a great meltdown in store for us that we will not be able to come out of it. If we exhaust the natural reservoirs, we will be simply left with nothing, and we won’t have anything by which to keep living. We won’t have a wealthy relative who can help us in an emergency situation. We will not survive this crisis with the previous means because it does not have alternative solutions.

What’s at stake here is not just oil, but many other resources of the earth. We think that there is no end to their abundance, but that is not so. Over several decades of reckless high rolling, we have discovered the bottom of the “bottomless barrel.” The time has come to shift to a new, global approach.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/18/11, “Arvut”

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Opinion: (Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Prime Minister of the Kingdom Of Spain, International Economic Forum 2011): “If at various times one or another country faces challenges, the other countries support it. It’s a cooperative project; it’s just like living in the same country. This won’t lead to a universal system ruled by competition between countries….

“To be united and supportive. And the past teaches us that we must definitely change the future together….

“History teaches that as long as we are united, we can find better solutions to our problems, can maintain proper levels of prosperity, and can guarantee greater security for our future generations. These are the current conditions in Europe.”

Opinion: (Tarja Halonen, President of the Republic Of Finland, International Economic Forum 2011): “Every country has to do their own homework but together, Europeans are strong. And that is very important.

And that is why I said that I am very, very sure – I am convinced – that we will have the view and we will have the resources to do that. Because we know that in the future, European countries need each other. Only together can we be a global actor.”

Opinion: (Reuters, George Soros, billionaire investor): “The chances of positively resolving Europe’s serious debt problems are decreasing from day to day as authorities focus on ‘buying more time,’ not solving problems, billionaire Investor George Soros said in Tuesday.

‘You have a very serious problem in Europe, the over-indebtedness of some countries: Greece, Portugal and Ireland,’ Soros told an economic conference.

‘The authorities are not providing a solution but basically buying time.’”

My comment: Of course, the development of egoism in us will reveal a general system crisis: the discrepancy between our egoistic relationships and the integral system of nature that we are involuntary “driving into.” But to drive into it in a carriage instead of a hearse, we have to transform ourselves from egoists to altruists, from individualists to brethren. We hope that people will understand: We must unite, and only our egoism prevents us from doing this.

That is, the solution to the crisis is not on the economic level, but in education and the correction of human nature. However, even if they suspect this, still, they will not be able to find the solution to how to correct our egoism in each person so that we unite into a single system. This is realized through Kabbalah. Therefore, it is waiting for its application.
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