In his article “The Freedom,” Baal HaSulam writes that according to the plan of the upper governance, a person must live in a society and follow its laws. And the law of the life of society is to “take after the collective.”

But does it really mean that one has to comply with the most primitive, ignorant, uncivilized masses, which prevail in the world? In many countries up to this day, people live exactly as they lived hundreds of years ago. They haven’t even been impacted by the technological progress that much; they learned to use only its external benefits and didn’t receive any internal changes from it, no internal culture.

In truth, however, the law to “take after the collective” obligates us to work namely on the collective fostering of the whole world. After all, the world needs to be elevated to the level where everyone will understand that perfection is reached only through total unification. And we don’t have a choice: It’s impossible to instill this by force from above, by some small group of people who wish to make a revolution.

In former times, the world lived under the power of its rulers, but that time is gone. That is how humanity existed during the period of exile. But now, as we are entering the era of correction, the epoch of the “future generation,” it is impossible to live by the old ways.

In the near future we will see that the masses will be increasingly decisive in making decisions, while state leaders and governments will only follow the people. After all, the world has become global.

Therefore, it is necessary to apply all our effort to educating the broad masses so as to raise them to the degree of the final correction regardless of their current level. And indeed, people don’t need to learn some complicated sciences; they only need to know how to relate to each other correctly. On the contrary, connection between people is established not by way of the mind, but through the heart. It is the wisdom of the heart.

The law to “take after the collective” means that we have to turn to the majority, and it is from these simple broad masses that all changes will come, and not from those who possess power, wealth, and scientific degrees. Sages said: “The Torah will come forth from the children of the poor.”

Transformation depends precisely on the degree to which we will raise our collective spiritual vessel (Kli).
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/11/2011, “The Freedom”

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Question: If all our work is to find the place of our breaking, what are we lacking then in order to do it?

Answer: You simply don’t want to reveal it! Why should you disclose your envy and hate? It is much easier and safer to remain apathetic.

A person feels that the friends, “the others,” simply don’t seem to exist. In Kabbalah, “the other” is a person whom I feel as being outside of me. I know that everybody is supposed to be within me if my perception of reality is correct, yet I feel them as outsiders in relation to me, someone who is distant and abhorrent. And it frightens me: Do I really hate the parts of my own soul this much?! That is exactly how the force of the breaking feels. I know that it is a lie, and I want to fix my distorted sight!

Try to attempt to see that all the friends are related to you. Even the whole world already sees how round and interconnected it is. But we don’t arrive at this conclusion from the external side due to the lack of choice. This is what the rest of the world does, by getting blows that point at people’s interconnectedness. Our path is internal and in this way, we gradually discover that all of us are one whole and are linked in an integral system.

Knowing all this, I look around and see people who are alien to me. I don’t feel what they are thinking about, what they desire. Moreover, I don’t even care about them; I am unable to keep focusing on them, let alone feel them. Not even one of them!

In other words, I realize that it is a total breaking: I am ill with a horrible disease. In fact, I see that I completely lost my sensitivity, my ability to feel all these parts that must become mine. I am disintegrating like a corpse. After all, death is when the life force leaves the body and it starts turning into dust. I feel as if I am losing my arms and legs. It throws me into a panic.

I can see and feel all of this in the organs of perception (Kelim) that evolve in me thanks to the study of Kabbalah and that in the future will become my properties of love and bestowal. But love starts with our revelation of hate towards the others, and we begin to hate it within ourselves.

And now I am living this hate, my inability to feel the other because I don’t care about him. And even worse than that, I measure my success by their failures. The worse they feel, the better I feel. What a perverted and distorted perception it is, and how blind I am that I think of the others in this way.

Rabash gives an example of a person who suddenly finds out that the child next door who annoyed him so much is in fact his son. It is possible to repair this picture only if you strive to see how everyone in the group is eager to correct this distortion together.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/2011, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Upbringing as we understand it has lost the meaning it had in previous generations when we used to raise children so they would be good, kind, cheerful, and pleasant, behave properly, and so on. Upbringing today is something altogether different and we are increasingly sensing that it is necessary to all. That’s because “receiving an upbringing” or “education” means knowing how to act with yourself, with the environment, with the country and the world, as well as in different situations that happen to us.

Stated differently, “upbringing” is a person who changes inside of me, while my parents and surroundings help me to build myself correctly so I would know how to live my life well, confidently, and securely. After all, everything we learn as children later becomes our nature, and then we can behave well effortlessly. This is also confirmed by the latest research which shows that children’s education from the ages two until six or seven is what serves as their foundation.

Our development throughout all of human history unfolded in the egoistic direction where every person thought only of himself: How can I succeed, how can I earn, and how can I swindle everyone without being harmed myself? This is the simple, egoistic formula by which a person was previously taught how to arrange his life. And this really was considered the right education.

Today this is starting to change as we feel that the world has become integral, meaning connected with all of its parts, on all levels, and in all elements. We are facing a very serious problem because we do not correspond to the new world that is now appearing and coming to us. A new governance is becoming apparent, a new method, and a new law of Nature.

Previously I didn’t care about anything. I could cut down forests over here, dry up lakes over there, and do anything I wanted in society. Each of us personally was able to do anything he wished without asking others.

However, now we have reached a world in which there is no freedom of the individual. Now you cannot do anything you like even in your own backyard unless it is for our good because whether you want it or not, through the common connection between us you evoke a blow upon everyone.

We do not know which of our actions bring harm and what the consequences are because we aren’t yet integrally connected with one another in our consciousness. And if I want to have some work done or make a deal with someone, then I have to take the whole world into consideration. But I am unable to do so. I cannot accept the fact that I influence the world and I don’t know whether the world will benefit from this or not.

Yet since all of us together make up a single organism, even a small tremor will later influence the whole system, just like in our animate bodies. If we don’t have the right attitude to the nature that is now being revealed, then what will happen to us? It means that I will not be able to succeed in business, nor at work, nor in upbringing, nor in my attitude to anyone.

Soon the connection between us will manifest to such a degree that unless I consider all of the consequences of calling the police or my landlord, for example, then I will definitely cause harm. In other words, as the science of Kabbalah explains to us, having reached the current level of development, we are already required to correct man’s nature. This correction is for all of us to unite “as one man with one heart” by the principle of “love your neighbor as yourself.”
From my lecture in “Kabbalah L’Am” Hall on 2/8/11

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Humanity has no choice: It will have to reveal its breaking and the need to connect. Back in the 30s Baal HaSulam warned that a catastrophe was approaching, but no one listened to him. I do not want to scare anyone with any prophecies, but we see what kind of state the world is in.

For now we are given time to seriously treat our mission and organize the world’s correction. But if we don’t do this, then all of the world’s suffering will come crashing down upon us, on the people who are capable of making corrections. But if we do not correct the world, then the suffering is transferred to us because what is everyone else guilty of if they don’t have the means to correct themselves? If you don’t hurry up with your correction, then the blow will shift to you.

However, for now you are looking at how they are suffering and you aren’t worried very much. Yet if you don’t even feel their suffering as your own, at least, and don’t correct yourself as if you are suffering as the whole world, then you don’t have a chance to attain correction. Only the group can give you this necessity.

The Book of Zohar has been revealed in our days in order to pull the world out of the abyss it is sliding into. The world is like a car that is riding down a good road, not even suspecting that somewhere behind the bend, the road ends and it will fall of the cliff.

And even the world itself already understands that it is sliding down into an abyss. The problems are mounting like a snowball and everyone is already talking about the fact that the world has lost balance. Yesterday I head that the Minister of the Russian Federation on Emergency Situations said that we are in imbalance with nature, that we have lost balance with it and have to get ready for the consequences. He really was using the words of a real Kabbalist….

We, those who have received a desire for the Creator (Isra-El), are now being given precisely the opportunity to organize the world’s correction and take all of its problems upon us. Without waiting for them to come on their own, we will already have the forces to correct them. We can correct them precisely now, while they are still somewhere in the external world, and we take them upon ourselves.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/11, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Question: How do we pass an additional view of reality to a person so that he would notice that there is something else out there, beyond his usual perspective?

Answer: Until a person has evolved to a certain degree and tried all types of philosophy and methodology that derive from his innate egoism, there is nothing you can do. To clarify, he must first arrive at a deep disappointment and dissatisfaction with the world he lives in.

1. First, I discover that I feel bad. This is a mandatory stage.
2. Moreover, I must clearly feel that it won’t get better.
3. Most importantly, I should realize that the cause of all evil is my own egoism.
4. Therefore, all my actions only make it worse for me, as it is written: “Sit and do nothing—better.” It’s better if you keep your mouth shut and don’t move since any move you make is rooted in your egoism and leads to more evil in the world.
5. Then, a person starts looking for a solution and how to continue living. Such discernments have to include all of the previously walked paths and experiences such as religion, philosophy, and science. After all, even science was developed egoistically, and it won’t help us step out of physical reality. Thus, we examine this all and conclude that nothing can solve it.
6. At last, we might finally be willing to heed the Kabbalists’ advice.

This is how long the path is, which definitely requires the existence of the Kabbalah circulation system. Otherwise, we will never see humanity undergo this evolutionary path and reach some positive result. One may wonder:

• How many times a person needs to feel pain before he decides not to take it anymore?
• How many times is one supposed to say that he or she doesn’t want to suffer any more until they finally admit that they have to change something?
• How many times does one need to understand that something needs to be done in that direction?

Thus, to achieve some result, we have to go through multiple actions that all bring us problems, pain, and suffering.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/10/2011, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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A person is faced with a big problem: How does he know what world he is living in? How is he supposed to view reality? What perspective should he choose? How does he detach from the inner deception and see not what he wishes to see in his egoism, but rather an objective view devoid of ego’s attributes, desires, and emotions?

We know that we judge according to how corrupted we are and look with subjective, biased eyes which fully distort our perspective of life. The world does the same. We witness how throughout history people were deceived in their perception of reality, their approach to life, unable to comprehend the world they were living in and why.

A person who studies Kabbalah has an opportunity to see the truth, but a person who is locked in the internal sphere of our world, bound by this small circle, cannot see anything that goes beyond its boundaries. Inside it, he sees everything according to his ego, based on his personal benefit, and is unable to think about anything else.

Either way, all his aspirations are aimed inward, solely toward his inner point. Hence, it can’t be that he can develop a desire or thought to see something outside of his own, innermost interest. He is made initially in such way so as to be unable to see or feel anything that does not correspond with his inner point. A person cannot even start thinking about it since it is completely outside the realm of his perception.

There may be another reality next to him that is billions of times greater and more powerful than the one he experiences in his inner egoistic point, but he has absolutely no interest in it and, therefore, can’t see it. His information genes (Reshimot) dictate that he should care solely about things that involve only himself, and that is exactly what he does.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/10/2011, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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We are experiencing a very unusual period in human history. Beginning now and onward, all generations will live guided by the attempt to go from perceiving reality within to perceiving reality outside of us.

This is why we feel such a great emptiness inside us, in our family lives, in our relationships with children and others, in everything that we do. This is not only observed in separate individual countries, but throughout the entire world as well.

The changes happening in the ecology and climate of the planet become a bigger threat with every year. But all of this happens in order to change the perception of reality within us, which evokes a very unpleasant sensation, to the ability to go out of our egoistic world and discover that we have now gone from perceiving evil to perceiving goodness.

And if we were to come to the desire to bestow, then, naturally, we would be happy because we would not be destroying ourselves in a global world where we are all integrally connected. On the contrary, we would succeed in furthering our advancement because it is the only possible way to live and exist instead of destroying one another.

But until we change our attitude towards us, other people, the world, and general reality, nature will not stop pressuring us because we have already crossed the designated line. Essentially, what does Kabbalah say about this? It says that if we want to continue to develop without suffering, we should come into agreement with the higher state of nature (we do not have a choice) and understand that our current state is very bad.

This perspective gives us an opportunity to develop beautifully, and rewards us with an existence in an eternal and perfect world which becomes revealed here, through the changes in our perception. For this reason, in everything that happens to us, we must see it as a great help from Above, from the entirety of common nature, which helps and directs us this way towards the proper advancement, even though sometimes it manifests through unpleasant influences.

But if we are sensitive to all the little signs of this sort, like a smart, obedient child who understands how to find a common language with the grownups, we will advance well. We really have a wonderful adventure ahead of us instead of a hard life.
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From the Introductory Lecture Series 12/28/2010 "Opportunities for Development"

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In the wisdom of Kabbalah, we study the upper world, how all creation is made, and what forces expand into our corporeal world. In the upper world, there are forces whereas in the physical one, there are objects that are affected by and are the product thereof.

The upper forces are called “roots,” and the lower ones (those manifested in our world) are “branches.” There is nothing else below our world and worse than it. That’s already good.

Everything that happens to us occurs under the influence of the forces that descend to us from the upper world, from the roots. There isn’t anything in our world that wouldn’t derive from Above. Therefore, it is pointless to blame someone for something: each other, other nations, the government, and nature since all of it is governed by the upper forces from Above downward. If we look at the entire picture logically and realistically, we will see that everything comes from Above.

It turns out that any problem we encounter, no matter what it entails, can be resolved only if we ascend to the level of these upper forces and start influencing them. Thus, we will be able to draw a different influence upon ourselves. That is, we will be affected not by the first forces, but rather by some type of their derivatives and the effect we instilled. Only in this manner will we cause changes in our world, and by no other means.

We tried, over the course of thousands of years by using all kinds of methods and practices, to affect our fate. And we see that it isn’t worthwhile. There is no point for us in appealing to the Creator: He (someone whom we imagine as the Creator) doesn’t hear us. And none of our actions in this world produce any results anyway. In the end, everything takes a course that it was supposed to take.

We, who have lived in this world long enough, see all this very clearly; therefore, we can agree with the wisdom of Kabbalah which states that at the level of our world, there is no solution to anything. Our world is the effect, and all the solutions are at the level where decisions are made: in the upper world.

Thus, namely in our time, when humanity, having arrived at the integral, global crisis, is realistically facing a serious problem, and when everything that is happening to us below is already part of this integral picture, only then do we receive an opportunity to influence these general forces by coming together.

Essentially, we have to affect only a single force since there is only one upper force which simply splits into its multiple sub-forces, the individual forces that impact us.
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From Lesson 5 Berlin Convention 1/29/2011

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From the world of Infinity, “State 1,” we develop (descend) down to this world, which is called reaching “State 2.” From this state we have to rise back to Infinity, into “State 3” which is identical to State 1. There is only one difference between them: We exist in State 3 being aware of this fact, consciously. Hence, it is considered to be 613 times greater than State 1.

We developed in State 2 over the course of billions of years in the still, vegetative, and animate forms. Until we descended down the worlds of Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya, time did not exist at all. Time appears when we reach this world and then develop over the course of approximately 15 billion years, finally arriving at the “human” degree.

The difference between the “human” and the still, vegetative, and animate states is that man does not exist in nature! From the beginning, a human being is essentially a beast, albeit a more complex one. He turns into man only at the degree at which he feels that he is a global, social being.

That is, he no longer lives in an individual, egoistic form as he did previously before reaching our current degree. Rather, he has to join in the spiritual development and climb the steps he once came down by. From the general, social development we have to transition to the spiritual development with full seriousness and responsibility. This is the essence of our work.

While we were developing egoistically, we did not encounter any problems because we evolved unconsciously, naturally. But since we have reached “the red line,” meaning the state whereby everything turned to be globally and integrally interconnected, it is a sign that we must assume another form of existence, in harmony with nature.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/4/2011, “The Study of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Question: How is Kabbalah different from psychology which also teaches people how to connect with each other?

Answer: In its practical study, psychology is correct and is included within Kabbalah. The wisdom of Kabbalah contains all the knowledge about the nature of this world. It talks about everything that is happening from the beginning to the end of creation, and for this reason includes in itself all of the sciences of this world. It is just that Kabbalah does not describe them in detail because it does not set such an objective for itself.

Psychology, as practical observation of certain types of behavior in our world, has been correct until today. But today its ability to hold the line is questionable since we are entering a completely new global world. A global system is starting to act upon us, which does not consider each separate individual or his personal relationship with another, but accesses everybody in connection to all others and all others in connection with each and everyone.

We do not know how to approach the world in this way. We have no science which could explain such an approach to us.

We couldn’t develop a science about the behavior of analog, global systems and about the laws of existence of all of their components because we ourselves were different inside. A person can only develop the forms which are present inside him, inside his nature.

But if I do not feel my connection to others, I will not be able to develop a science about it. This is the whole problem! And now we are entering a world we know nothing about. Absolutely nothing! And we will not find out anything about it until we organically feel connected to everyone.

So it turns out that now only Kabbalists are able to develop a science for us about this ordinary, earthly reality which is now being revealed to us, and no one else. Everyone else will seem to be completely helpless and will not know what to do with all of the problems and catastrophes coming up. No specialist will be able to offer anything: neither a psychologist, a physicist, a mathematician, nor a biologist.

We will suddenly begin to realize that our current science in its entirety will slowly cease to work in this new state. This is because a new, integral network of forces is acting upon us, which take into account the general connection of everyone with all.

Do you understand the difficult situation we find ourselves in? That is why we need to circulate the science of Kabbalah as fast as possible so that people realize what lies ahead. If there will just be a small urge forward, a minimal amount of agreement and understanding, at least some knowledge and desire to understand, this will change the whole picture and make life easier for the world.

And now, a typhoon is approaching Australia, and what can people do? Only cry. They are trying to fortify their houses, to hammer some more nails into the walls, but will that really help against the raging elements?
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/4/2011, “The Study of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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