We wouldn’t have to go through this financial crisis if we had become aware of the previous crises. These include the crises of the family, upbringing, depression, drugs, terrorism, ecology, and many others, which began in the middle of the 20th century. All we had to do was to realize that a good connection between us would give us peace at home, good upbringing for our children, and a correct attitude toward nature and the ecology.

However, we did not discover that the cause of our troubles lies in the connection between us, and this is why we arrived at our current state – the financial crisis. Today it isn’t just the political scientists, economists, and psychologists that are starting to realize what the cause of the crisis is, but everyone is starting to see it.

However, if people will not be able to influence society and change their attitude from “looking out for number one” to “we are all a family,” then the distance between us (the breaking of the soul of Adam) will become revealed even clearer. This means we will not only harm each other in the area of finance, but we will literally eat each other. This will continue until we find the reason for our condition – our initial egoism, and then begin to correct it and rise above it.

This financial crisis will be followed by a stage where the connection between people will be revealed in an even uglier form. It will show our dependency on each other to an even greater extent, and we will be much worse off than right now. Even our imagination is unable to fathom what can happen. And all of this will happen in order for us to reveal the enormous egoism that separates people, because this is precisely where the breaking occurred.

However, correction is possible – it can be done with the help of the Light, by studying and using Kabbalistic sources. This study reveals our egoistic desires to us and gives us the strength to correct them and to unite with each other.

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In the News (from The Financial Times): “Germany warns on ‘crisis after crisis’” The world could face high inflation and a “crisis after the crisis” when the global economy recovers, Peer Steinbrück, German finance minister, has warned. Angela Merkel, chancellor, told The Financial Times last month that pumping too much money into reviving global growth would create an unstable recovery.

My Comment: Dear readers, let’s think together about how to help all the world leaders and all the people in the world understand that there is no crisis. Rather, there is a new reality and new social conditions, which we do not match yet. This is the crisis.

As soon as we understand the meaning of “a global and integral world” and realize that the new conditions require us to have relationships of kindness and consideration, the crisis will disappear!

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TV Program: “Ask the Kabbalist”

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In the News (from The Independent): “1,500 farmers commit mass suicide in India” Over 1,500 farmers in an Indian state committed suicide after being driven to debt by crop failure, it was reported today. Farmers’ suicides are increasing due to a vicious circle created by money lenders. They lure farmers to take money but when the crops fail, they are left with no option other than death.

My Comment: And what about their families – what will they do now? Moreover, since all of humanity is interconnected as a single, united system, this suffering will trigger disasters for all of us.

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In the News (from Interfax): “Fridman believes the Old Testament mentioned inevitability of economic crises” The head of Alfa Group Mikhail Fridman believes all economic crises, including the current one, were predicted in biblical times.

“Economics in general is a cyclical process linked to many parameters, mainly to cycles of human consciousness. It evaluates situations as improving and then suddenly it decides that everything is bad and it’s better to sell everything. Starting from the story of Joseph, who promised the pharaoh ‘seven years of plenty and seven years of famine,’ this peculiarity of human psyche and peculiarity of natural cycles were not questioned,” Fridman said at a session of the Russian Jewish Congress business club.

In the News (translated from Cursor.co.il): Regarding the Russian economy, Mikhail Fridman said he had good news and bad news:

• The bad news is that due to a lack of diversified sources of forming the GDP, the stabilization fund may be exhausted by 2009-2010.

• The good news is that the crisis will eliminate inefficient managers and businesses, replacing them with more efficient ones.

My Comment: I met with him two years ago in his office and told him my opinion of the crisis, but I don’t think he understood me at the time. The economic crisis was not apparent yet and he wasn’t interested in other crises.

Seven years of plenty are gone forever. Seven years of famine are here, and they will end with the “ten Egyptian plagues,” which will force us to come out of Egypt – our egoism. We will have to transform the entire economy from egoistic – based on maximum profit, to altruistic – based on maximum bestowal.

As a matter of fact, I did enjoy meeting him, especially when he recited his poems!

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In the News (from Ynetnews): “Fischer: Israel handled crisis well” President Peres expressed his proficiency in the Israeli economy and revealed that he reads articles written by the world’s greatest economist. “I was surprised to read important economists saying they have reached the conclusion that there is an economic factor influencing the economy more than anything else and which they have no knowledge of: The state of mind,” said the president, noting that there are ways to deal with a state of mind. “I think that in Israel as well it’s important not to sink into melancholy,” he said. “My impression is that compared to other countries we are above the average. …we are on the right track, at least in terms of regulation.”

My Comment: What these economists are calling the “state of mind” is actually the influence of the human attitude on the economy. This influence is, in fact, the defining factor, because the economy is a reflection of society’s relationships.

Because the relationships have become different – global, the economy must now account for people’s complete inter-connectedness. Economists should understand that in the future, those who will succeed and win are the ones that build business for the common good.

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Today, a new kind of connection among people is being revealed – a connection that is universal. Until now, our relationships worked by the Darwinian principle: the strongest succeeded and won, and one’s success always occurred at the expense of another. However, now this principle has stopped working.

Today, it turns out that the ones who succeed are those who work together with others. This does not mean just being partners, but rather, having a connection of kindness, where everyone is equal and one person does not surpass others. But who has the strength to act this way?

Much is being said today about the need to connect with each other, and this is what the situation in the world demands of us, because the whole world is one small, global village that functions according to the Butterfly Effect. But how can we put this into action? President Obama, all of his advisers and all the other government leaders are also aware that the world is global, and there are thousands of very smart people working to figure this issue out. However, they lack the Light, which can reveal precisely where the defect is. Thus, education is the only means that can make people understand the solution.

The billions of dollars that are being spent to help the banks and enterprises will have to be spent on a worldwide education system, which will raise a new kind of human being – one who’s global. This is where they money should go, instead of being put into banks or used to spur trade. Nothing else will save us.

We are facing this fact, this law of nature, which demands that we unite together as one. We don’t know what constitutes this unity or how to create it, but we must create the image of the corrected world within us. The minute people will begin to do this, the situation in the world will improve. And we don’t have to wait for everyone to be corrected, because as soon as people just begin to move in this direction, nature itself will support us.

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A question I received: Is the crisis Nature’s way of punishing us for our bad behavior?

My Answer: There is no such thing in Nature as punishment. The crisis is a reflection of our disparity with the new system of relationships, which is now being revealed among us. This is why none of the anti-crisis methods that people are trying to apply to the economy will work. These attempts will only accelerate people’s recognition that their egoism is evil.

We need an entirely new method – one that is altruistic and aimed at altering human consciousness. People all over the world will have to understand that we have entered a new system of human relationships.

Nature has trapped us, bound us together, and closed the lock – that’s it, we’re interconnected. We have developed for thousands of years to reach the height of our egoistic development, and we now find ourselves completely interconnected.

This is the revelation of the next, spiritual degree of humanity’s existence. On this degree, we are all one single body – and there’s nothing we can do about this!

This is why everyone will suffer, and not just in some parts of the world, but everywhere. After all, we are one body, and in a body, if the leg hurts, it’s impossible for the head to be ignorant of the pain.

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News Commentary (from The Guardian): “Money for nothing” Banks should be repositories for our wealth – and not be free to create money at will. We should take monetary reform seriously.

Nothing in that lengthy communiqué suggests the G20 is prepared to engage with the underlying causes of the financial crisis. Chief among these is the deeply flawed mechanism by which money is created.

Herman Daly wrote recently: “I would certainly advocate 100% reserve requirements for banks (approached gradually). All banks should be financial intermediaries that lend depositors’ money, not engines for creating money out of nothing and lending it at interest.”

Daly’s argument for movement towards a just and sustainable steady-state economy offers a comprehensive solution to the current crisis.

Cash comprises just 3% of the money supply. The rest exists only as entries in banks’ electronic ledgers.

If banks can create electronic money at will through the process of fractional reserve banking, why shouldn’t a democratically accountable central authority do the same? … central banks should determine the quantity of new non-cash money. Under their scheme, the central bank would credit new money to the government as public revenue which would then be spent into circulation.

Bryan Gould said, “Only governments have the capability and the duty to act in the wider interest” in respect of the money issue.

The objective of monetary policy should be to ensure that the money supply accurately reflects the quantity of real wealth being created in the economy, and is sufficient to provide funds for new investment in real businesses to keep the economy ticking over.

Related Material:
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A question I received: Over the past two weeks the NASDAQ has risen by 20%, which seems to suggest that the crisis is over. What do you think?

My Answer: The stock market is a game. It can jump up without any realistic basis or cause. Did the pyramid schemers stop building up their schemes? While everyone’s thinking that they are going bankrupt, they’re actually devouring the billions of dollars that the governments are giving them, and they continue building up their pyramids, only in a more subtle way.

For the time being, the ego celebrates victory. But there’s been no real cure, no correction of any kind. The ego continues on like before, cooking up the next disaster. So, if you think that everything is fixed and back to normal, you’re in the worst possible state. It’s like failing to see an enemy that’s surrounding you, getting ready to attack.

You can be sure that in the end, the ego will emerge on top and the situation will be even worse than before. But for now, it seems like everything is fine. In the end, everyone made a profit and no one lost anything.

The fact is, there is no regulator for people’s growing egoism. Economics is not a science – it merely follows man’s egoism. Thus, the whole economy is based on me giving you the least I can while getting the most I can, and if possible, I’ll charge you without paying you. So, the economy is more like legalized thievery. Just think: what is the agreement that exists between us? You and I exchange goods only because I can’t take them from you by force. I have to give you something in return because I have no choice.

The economy is a reflection of our egoism, and our egoism is always growing. It is unwilling to unite with anyone, and it spurns us to exploit everyone. So what regulator can there possibly be?

The way to create a regulator for egoism, for human relationships is to observe two rules: “Don’t do unto others what you don’t want done unto you,” followed by, “love your neighbor as yourself.” But this is certainly not the direction economists are currently taking when seeking a regulator, which is why they won’t find it. Meanwhile, the next disaster will be far more qualitative. It won’t necessarily come from the financial system, the stock market or the banks; it may come by way of epidemics, climate anomalies and so on.

The fact that we’re experiencing a respite, even though we haven’t corrected anything, indicates that the next disaster is approaching. This isn’t a break or the end of the problem, but it testifies to the speed of the process, which means that the second wave of the crisis is not far away.

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In the News (translated from Lenta.ru): The VCIOM (Russian Public Opinion Research Center) reports that Russians are worried about the rise in crime. Most say that life in their areas has become more dangerous.

My Comment: This is reminiscent of some Hollywood movies about the future civilization, where ragged gangs and outlaws roam the wrecked cities looking for food…

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