In the News (from The American Prospect): Families went on a spending binge over the last 30 years because:

– women went into paid work,
– everyone started working longer hours,
– then, when these tactics gave out, everyone went deeper and deeper into debt.

But now families cannot work more hours than they did before and won’t be able to borrow as much, either. Americans are now discovering they can exist surprisingly well buying fewer of the things they never really needed to begin with. What we most lack, or are in danger of losing, are the things we use in common – clean air, clean water, public parks, good schools, and public transportation, as well as social safety nets to catch those of us who fall.

My Comment: This is an example of how a little bit of suffering makes people wiser. However, in addition to being satisfied with the bare necessities, we will still have to develop the inner qualities of love and bestowal to others. But these are subsequent stages, which will come after subsequent suffering.

Related Material:
Laitman.com: As a Result of the Crisis, Only the Necessities Will Remain
Laitman.com Post: We Are Standing at the Threshold of an Extraordinary Discovery
Article: “One Law”

Filed under: Crisis - No Comments →

In the News (from Yahoo): “McDonald’s posts sizzling 80% profit rise in 2008” US fast-food giant McDonald’s said Monday its 2008 net profit soared 80 percent from the previous year, lifted by a growing demand from consumers seeking low-cost meals in a deepening global recession.

My Comment: The government should open up public cafeterias with a “dollar menu” providing three meals a day for those enrolled in the system of global education (public courses for everyone, such as, “The Global World and Its Laws” and “The Rules of Conduct in the New World”).

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: What the Global Education System Should Teach People
Laitman.com Post: Laws of the Future Society

Filed under: Crisis - No Comments →

In the News (from The New York Times): “Iceland’s Government Collapses” Iceland’s coalition government collapsed Monday… There are also massive demonstrations in Latvia, Lithuania, Spain, and Greece. Disorder is beginning in France, Germany, and Great Britain.

My Comment: Our opposition to the global village is beginning to manifest as massive disorder. Mutual hatred is spilling over into international, class, and intergovernmental sectors, and the only way to repress this hatred is through global education, which must now begin throughout the whole world. Any country’s government that implements this global upbringing is sure to establish peace in all of that country’s activities.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Violence and Social Strife Can Only Be Averted Through a New Global Education
Laitman.com Post: The UK In a Recession
Laitman.com Post: War Is No Solution

Filed under: Crisis - No Comments →

In the News (from The Guardian): Eastern Europe is heading for a violent “spring of discontent.” Hit increasingly hard by the financial crisis, countries such as Bulgaria, Romania and the Baltic states face deep political destabilization and social strife. “We are fed up with living in the poorest and most corrupt country,” the Sofia protest organizers said.

My Comment: The only way to calm down the masses is by immediately implementing a new global education. And more than calming this down, this will give them an explanation of how to succeed in the new world; not just of how to survive, but how to turn around all of nature so it will influence us positively. We must set a condition that people will receive benefits only if they study. Like children, we all have to learn about how to live in the new world!

People shouldn’t think that the path to the new life is long, because as soon as we begin acting in agreement with the program of our development, according to Nature, we will feel the positive results in everything, including all our actions, the climate and so on.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: A Worldwide Hotline for Coping With and Overcoming the Crisis
Laitman.com Post: What the Global Education System Should Teach People
Laitman.com Post: The Media Must Help Turn Our World Into a Giant Classroom
Kabbalah Today Article: The Divine Conspiracy

Filed under: Crisis - 1 Comment →

In the News: (from Fayette Front Page): Senators Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., and Kent Conrad, D-N.D., today introduced legislation to create a Financial Markets Commission that will be charged with fully investigating the near collapse of the banking system and the loss of tens of trillions of dollars. “If our nation is going to learn from history, we must know exactly what happened and why. We need to take a long hard look at how our financial system spiraled downward so far so fast,” Conrad said. “The final report of this commission will help make sure this does not happen again.”

My Comment: We cannot understand any phenomenon in our world from our level. Even Einstein said that in order to solve a problem, it is necessary to rise above it – to its source or initial origin. I hope this commission will be created, and even more than one – that it will be created in all the countries, and that it will be common, international. And I hope these commissions will somehow hear Kabbalah’s explanation of the reason, course, and purpose of the crisis, as well as the way to control it.

Kabbalah reveals that if we want to control the crisis through our actions, there is only one single opportunity in our world for us to influence the events: by continuously creating a better and better environment (society) that will influence every person. This environment will change everyone’s priorities from corporeal (receiving and using others) to spiritual (bestowal and love).

There are no other free actions we can make, because the rest of our actions are dictated by our natural egoism. They are elicited in us by egoism’s constant growth and change, without any participation on our part. Therefore, the reason for the crisis is the qualitatively new egoism that is being revealed in us.

The goal of the crisis is to bring us to similarity with Nature, the quality of bestowal and love. The means of attaining this goal, which is mandatory for all, is to change the environment that surrounds each and every one of us, or in other words, to change the external influence on every person. And to do this, we have to engage all the mass media channels and begin a broad action of worldwide education about the new reality of a united humanity.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: What the Global Education System Should Teach People
Laitman.com Post: The Crisis Will Turn Advertising Into Education
Laitman.com Post: The Media Must Help Turn Our World Into a Giant Classroom

Filed under: Crisis - 2 Comments →

In the News (from Higher Education Center): New research examines how group processes alter the impact of alcohol on a judgment task requiring vigilance. Alcohol significantly impaired the performance of individuals, but not groups. Group members make fewer errors than individuals in the alcohol condition… The evidence highlights that group process can compensate for the cognitively impairing effects of alcohol on individuals.

My Comment: It turns out that “splitting it three ways” is not just a way to save money, but also necessary for spiritual unification!

In the News (from RT): As the economic crisis bites, Russians have started to prioritize spending, saving money on food and daily necessities. According to a survey by the Nielsen research company, about 95 percent of Russians have noted an increase in prices this year. 73 percent declared that they have begun saving on groceries and products of daily consumption while 10 percent said they no longer buy sweets and cakes and 8 percent said the have excluded meat and vodka from their shopping basket.

My Comment: If people correct themselves, then the world will be filled with abundance. Right now, even though there is more than enough of everything in the world, our corrupted connections create the crisis, and hence we are unable to exchange the products of our work correctly.

Filed under: Crisis - No Comments →

In the News (from The Wall Street Journal): “His Empire in Tatters, German Billionaire Takes Life” Adolf Merckle, one of Germany’s wealthiest men, committed suicide. Mr. Merckle’s body was discovered Monday night near train tracks… In a rare interview last month, Mr. Merckle told the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung he had survived “many so-called stock-market crashes” but that he “couldn’t calculate a banking and financial crisis of this dimension.”

My Comment: He’s right: there’s never been a crisis like this in all of human history, because the current crisis is “qualitative.” It was caused by the human society’s opposition to Nature. Society has become global and interconnected like a “small village” where everyone is completely interdependent (“the Butterfly Effect”). However, our mutual egoistic hatred destroys all the connections. The effect of broken connections in a single system manifests as a crisis in the system – a crisis in all areas of our activity.

The crisis will not end until we find a solution – a way to be together, united by bonds of bestowal and love. This is what is required of us by the system that we have found ourselves in. We cannot escape these closed connections. We will have to observe the rule, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” We can do this through suffering (as we always have) or by realizing that it’s necessary (the method of Kabbalah). The choice is ours.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: People Don’t Realize That We Are Living In a New World
A Conversation about the World Crisis
Article: “The Law of Love”
Kabbalah for the Student: “What Does Love Thy Friend As Thyself Give Us?”
Baal HaSulam Article: “Introduction to the Book, The Tree of Life”, Item 4

Filed under: Crisis - 1 Comment →

In the News (from The New York Times): “In Effort to Build Support, Obama Details Stimulus Plan” The White House envisions using loan guarantees and other financial support to leverage $100 billion in private sector investment in so-called clean energy projects over three years. The plan would help 8.5 million Americans keep health care coverage by providing workers who lose insurance with tax credits to pay for continuing coverage… The plan would modernize 10,000 schools, improve security at 90 ports and build 1,300 wastewater projects. It would bolster Pell Grants to help seven million students and offer a new tax credit for four million college students. And it would increase food stamp benefits for 30 million Americans and increase Social Security benefits $450 for 7.5 million disabled and elderly people…

In his speech, Mr. Obama said he knew that some worried about the size of his plan, “We won’t just throw money at our problems; we’ll invest in what works.”

My Comment: Investment alone will not work! What’s needed is a gradual change of the social consciousness, making it planetary, global, and integral. It must approach the rule, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” which is the condition of the global world’s existence.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Obama Will Have to Change Along With Life
Laitman.com Post: Obama’s New Energy Policy a Good Step
Laitman.com Post: In His Holiday Greeting, President-elect Obama Speaks of Unity

Filed under: Crisis - No Comments →

In the News (from The Herald): “We’re all in this together, Brown warns” British Prime Minister Gordon Brown yesterday warned against the “deglobalization threat,” saying countries faced with the worldwide recession should not retreat into economic protectionism. The Prime Minister said, “If what happens to a bank in one country can within minutes have devastating effects for banks on a different continent, then only a truly international response of policy and governance can be effective.”

My Comment: Separating from one another contradicts the process we are now in, which is happening under the influence of the forces of Nature. Hence, separation will lead us to greater and more diverse crises. We must understand that the only thing that can help us to overcome the current crisis is to draw closer to each other.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Gordon Brown and Barack Obama On the Crisis

Filed under: Crisis - 1 Comment →

In the News (translated from Lenta.ru): A hotline offering emergency psychological help for people affected by the global financial crisis is now operating in Moscow. People can receive free consultation from a certified psychiatrist over the phone. The phone calls will be answered by specialists from the national center of social and forensic psychiatry.

My Comment: In addition, there should be a “hotline” that will disseminate the global (anti-crisis) education for the whole world. Instead of just offering people consolation, it will explain that this problem is shared by all humanity, and that the transition from disconnection to unity is embedded in the foundation of Nature. We must go through it, either under Nature’s pressure (via the path of suffering) or consciously (by using Kabbalah). Moreover, we have to come out of the problem together. Then it will be easy, because it will happen in harmony with Nature’s movement, rather than by isolating ourselves and being opposed to each other.

You can start doing this on your own, without waiting for it to happen: just by thinking about everyone and about our common connection, while studying our materials (available free of charge online), you will not only feel more relaxed, but also cause an improvement in the world, as this will bring us closer to balance with Nature. As a result, it will improve people’s health and well-being.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Family Gives Us Consolation from the Worries of the Big World

Filed under: Crisis - No Comments →