Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”: Because the purpose is undoubtedly built over all the laws of nature, none excluded, just as the clever worker would not add or subtract even a hairsbreadth of the necessary actions to attain the goal, he who alters even a single law harms and damages the purposeful aim that the Creator has set, and will therefore be punished by nature. Hence, we, too, creatures of the Creator must not pity him because he is desecrating the laws of nature and defiles the purpose of the Creator.

We live within a complex of forces of the laws of nature. From the world of infinity each being smaller than the previous one, they close the spiritual space in order to construct this world in its center, the place in which a person has free choice and from which he can begin the way toward his correction.

If we don’t abide by these laws that are active within the “spiritual worlds,” the Sefirot,  Partzufim—then, how can we rise to the level of the Creator? The ascent is possible only through keeping the Mitzvot or, in other words, through keeping the laws of nature. These are the same thing.

This is not talking about the physical laws of nature here: cutting down trees and drying up rivers, pollution, and destruction of the nature of the still, vegetative, and animate. Rather, the main thing is that we need to begin to be in balance with the spiritual nature, with the bestowal and love coming toward us.

In the past, until we reached a stage of correction of the self, we had no ability to destroy nature. Until the nineteenth century and even until the twentieth century, we used it without causing damage, without violating the ecology. However, after that, the Creator approached the world in order to show us that the world is global, that everything among all the levels of nature is linked with the level of Adam (man), and now, first of all, it is up to the person to correct himself.

The solution is not in limiting or reducing the utilization of the nature of the still, vegetative, and animate. Rather, this is speaking about the correction of the person on his level. By means of this, he corrects the relationship with all the rest and even between everything and the Creator. That is how we rise “from love for thy neighbor to love for the Creator.”

Certainly, there exist many laws linked to the nature of the still, vegetative, and animate, yet our service to the Creator is to resemble the Creator, for otherwise, if we don’t correct our speaking level and our relationship toward the Creator, we will not know how we need to relate to nature. Here, we must correct our ego. We cannot dictate for people the laws of conduct for every given state and arrange clear guidelines for all events. It is impossible to dictate to every person how it is up to him to behave from morning to night in order to build the right relationships with the nature of the still, vegetative and animate, with the environment.

It is only if the person will correct himself with the characteristic of bestowal, with “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” To this degree, he also will correct his link with the nature around him. Then, all the levels in nature will be included with him and will be corrected through him.

By themselves, they are not prepared to be corrected. There are a multitude of malfunctions, and as of today, we don’t know what the forms of their correct functioning are. However, then we will see that they are functioning differently. Even on the level of the still, we will see natural characteristics that we haven’t seen until now.

So, first of all, the person needs to correct himself and not the stones, the plants, and the animals. The goal of creation is to resemble the Creator, and we have something with which to practice: the relationships between us. Specifically for this, there was the shattering, the Babylonian exile, and population growth to seven billion human beings. Precisely in this way, we will correct the damage.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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As we know, it all depends on the environment and the environment of humanity as a whole is nature: still, vegetative, and animate. It is in its environment that we live and, perhaps without noticing it, are in a very clear and strict dependence on it.

Nature supplies us with all the necessities of life. Due to it, we breathe, drink, eat, and live. We are a part of it, I would say, the most sensible and sensitive part. It is enough for at least one parameter to go beyond its natural range and then we do not know what to do.

In short, we are highly dependent and the problem is that if the laws of nature are followed instinctively on the still, vegetative, and animate levels because of their identity with it, the human being who developed has found himself beyond these levels in transition from the animate stage to truly human.

This situation is very dangerous. On the one hand, the same laws of the still, vegetative, and animate nature act on the human, but on the other hand, the laws of human nature relating to the degrees of similarity to the Creator begin to affect him. As a result, people experience the effect of the Creator getting closer to humankind.

If a person does not balance these influences every time, then they are perceived as very unpleasant, adding up to the path of suffering, paved by the action of the laws of nature, which, leaving no choice, push us to equilibrium whether we want it or not.

Although the still, vegetative, and animate nature is included in the human degree—although it rises and falls with it—the Creator, the Upper Light, the higher, round, integral, global world, the one and unified, constantly is getting closer to the human being, and this presence is felt by us in the form of a complex of modern problems.

After all, we discover our own nature and every time it does not get along with our surroundings. As before, we live in still, vegetative, and animate nature, but we can no longer cope with it because we have not yet understood the aspect of human nature, the degree of the Creator, the property of bestowal, of love. We do not associate ourselves with bestowal and love, with globality, with general interconnection. We do not want this, and as a consequence, we suffer more and more.

Thus, Baal HaSulam writes in the article, “The Peace,” about the necessity of a careful attitude toward the laws of nature. Of course, he primarily means the nature of the fourth stage, the human degree. However, we can study it on the basis of the previous levels: still, vegetative, and animate.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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In the News (from BBC News): “Taking cocaine can change the structure of the brain within hours in what could be the first steps of drug addiction, according to US researchers.

“Animal tests, reported in the journal Nature Neuroscience, showed new structures linked to learning and memory began to grow soon after the drug was taken. …

“The place or environment that drugs are taken plays an important role in addiction.

In the experiments, the mice were allowed to explore freely two very different chambers – each with a different smell and surface texture.

“Once they had picked a favourite they were injected with cocaine in the other chamber. A type of laser microscopy was used to look inside the brains of living mice to hunt for the dendritic spines. More new spines were produced when the mice were injected with cocaine than with water, suggesting new memories being formed around drug use. The difference could be detected two hours after the first dose. …

“’This gives us a possible mechanism for how drug use fuels further drug-seeking behaviour.

“‘These drug-induced changes in the brain may explain how drug-related cues come to dominate decision making in a human drug user.’”

“Commenting on the research, Dr Gerome Breen, from the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London, told the BBC: ‘Dendritic spine development is particularly important in learning and memory. This study gives us a solid understanding of how addiction occurs – it shows us how addiction is learned by the brain.’”

My Comment: Changes in the structure of the brain lead to a complete change of personality; dependence on fulfillment from narcotics makes a person weak-willed and utterly unfit to work on himself, on spiritual evolution, and removes him from society. He is useful for the old, capitalist system as a vegetable who needs only a new dose, but for a new, altruistic social structure, he is completely unsuitable.
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In the News (from Nautilus): “It’s an odd quirk of the human mind that we tend to think we’re less likely to be affected a particular threat—be it the flu, a car accident, or a flood—than anyone else. Like the fictional town of Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average, this is a patent impossibility: Everyone can’t be less likely than the average person to catch a cold. But we persist in what psychologists call ‘unrealistic comparative optimism.’ Even when we have actually encountered a threat, or been in close proximity to one, this warped sense of the probability field persists, as a report published last year shows.

“In the study, researchers had a chance to test how people’s comparative optimism changed after a low-probability, high-impact event: a tornado that ripped across Iowa City in 2006, causing $12 million in property damage. And their results were faintly comical: Everyone they polled, from students to randomly selected Iowa City residents to people whose neighborhoods had been damaged, felt both soon after the tornado and a year later that they were less likely to be affected in the future than the average person. In fact, six months after the events, people in damaged neighborhoods were actually more optimistic that they would not be affected again than were those living in intact areas. After a year, their optimism returned to the usual level—but still, as always, holding that they were less likely to be affected than others.”

My Comment: We are within our egoism, and we cannot objectively evaluate anything before we exit it. Until then, we will perceive the world through the prism of egoistic error.
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Baal HaSulam, “The Peace:” Because the purpose is undoubtedly built over all the laws of nature, none excluded, … he who alters even a single law harms and damages the purposeful aim that the Creator has set, and will therefore be punished by nature. Hence, we, too, creatures of the Creator, must not pity him because he is desecrating the laws of nature and defiles the purpose of the Creator.

From here, it is clear to us that, if I see that someone is acting against the laws of nature, I must stop him for we are in one system, and if a person goes against one of its laws, then, necessarily, he has a bad influence on all of nature and on everyone.

Generally, all of your actions must be accompanied by an understanding of what you are doing. This is because you are influencing a great collective mechanism, the mutual connection of a multitude of parts, integrally and globally. If you don’t know the laws of nature, this doesn’t mean that you still won’t cause damage.

Nature accepts your action as it is, and, if the intention is good or bad or there is a lack of intention, this is already superfluous. However, whatever it may be from a materialistic point of view, we need to understand that we essentially are in a closed system, and therefore, all of us depend upon each other. No one can feel himself to be free of an obligation not to harm the system.

After that, it is possible to continue. Am I also free to benefit the system? And, if you think about it, well, you are not. This is because, in a closed system, each has its place and function, and therefore, each is obliged not to harm the system and is obliged also to benefit it, and no one has free choice about this. Rather, to the contrary, all of us are obliged to be corrected parts within it, beneficial to the system.

However, among all the parts of the system, there is yet another mechanism called a “clutch.” The more that we are pressed together—soldered together into the general system—and to the degree of our mutual adherence, this “pedal” is gradually released more and more, raising the mutual dependence, and we are obliged to act accordingly, doing no harm and bringing benefit according to the “negative commandments” and the “positive commandments.”
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Peace“

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In the News (from Discovery): “Wolves and grizzly bears would seem to be archenemies, but a new study shows how wolves are actually helping grizzly bears to obtain tasty, nutritious berries in Yellowstone National Park.

“The discovery shows just how tightly woven ecosystems are, and how the domino effect can both hurt and benefit members.

“The situation began to unfold back in the early 1900s, when officials had the short-sighted idea of moving wolves out of Yellowstone. It was called “predator control.” By the 1970’s, scientists found no evidence of a wolf population in Yellowstone, a verdant place that had previously been home to wolves for ages.

“In October 1991, Congress provided funds to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to start wolf restoration efforts at Yellowstone.

“The new study, published in the Journal of Animal Ecology, examined how the re-introduction of wolves is affecting other wildlife in the park.

Lead author William Ripple, an Oregon State University professor in the Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society, and his team found that, during the period with few or no wolves, elk herds expanded and over-browsed berry bushes. This was bad news for grizzly bears.

“’Wild fruit is typically an important part of grizzly bear diet, especially in late summer when they are trying to gain weight as rapidly as possible before winter hibernation,’ Ripple said in a press release. ‘Berries are one part of a diverse food source that aids bear survival and reproduction, and at certain times of the year can be more than half their diet in many places in North America.’

“Now, however, with wolves hunting elk again, there are more berries. Yellowstone is berry central for bears, with numerous types that they love: serviceberry, chokecherry, buffaloberry, twinberry, huckleberry and others.

“The new plethora of berries is additionally producing flowers of value to pollinators such as butterflies, insects and hummingbirds. Birds are eating the berries, as are other animals, both small and large.

“Since berries help bears put on fat before going into hibernation, it’s then predicted that grizzly bear populations will strengthen, adding a second avenue of control on elk and other wild ungulates, especially on newborns in the springtime.

“Achieving the right balance is important, though. Elks are critical to the ecosystem as well, so if their populations drop too much, more problems will surface. Taking a cue from history, however, park officials should probably let nature handle such matters on its own.”

My Comment: This conclusion can be extended to all human actions without exception: the construction of dams, drainage of wetlands, and many other interventions in nature. What can we do? After all, humanity has to develop. Against this, there is no objection, only that the development should be harmonious, without tragic consequences.

First of all, we need to correct our egoistic nature, attain the ability to feel and understand the surrounding nature and higher Nature, and then, based on the acquired feelings and qualities, mind and strength, intervene in the surrounding nature, preserving its balance: This will mean ascending to the levels of similarity, knowing, and unity with it—that is, with the Creator.
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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: But because of the descent of human nature to the lowest degree, which is the self-love that unrestrictedly rules over all of humanity, there was no way to negotiate with them and persuade them to agree to take upon themselves, even as an empty promise, to exit their narrow world into the wide spaces of the love of others. The exception was the Israeli nation because they were enslaved in the savage kingdom of Egypt four hundred years in horrible torments.

Our sages said, “As salt sweetens meat, agony polishes man’s sins.”

Question: The people of Israel suffered throughout its history and I don’t see how that helped. After all, correction is made by the Light, what do torments give us?

Answer: Indeed, that is how this is presented and we are guided by what we see. Each one of us has our own “eyeglasses” and nothing can be done.

You think the Egyptian exile was a period of physical suffering, but in my eyes it was a spiritual revelation of evil. You consider it to be Pharaoh’s attack, but I regard it as an outbreak of the evil inclination. Egyptians tormented you externally and me, internally. Under a hail of blows, you ran away from the geographical Egypt, and I from inner Egypt. The spiritual aspect is so strong that I experienced the Egyptian exile, not externally, but mainly as internal woes. The led me out of Egypt to attain the world of Atzilut. For you, it was enough to get rid of the Pharaoh’s physical oppression, from external enslavement.

The same distinction is characteristic of the contemporary world. In the current troubles and problems, I see an appeal, a trigger needed for us to move to the goal. You  perceive them as a curse rather than a means for advancement. You want to avoid them, and I, on the contrary, say that we should not be running away from them, but rather should self-correct so that instead of ills, we would feel comfortable, benevolent, and secure in the future world.

Today, when the process strives to attain the overall redemption, it becomes all the more clear that there is no place to run. This means that if the Jewish people don’t start the process of self-correction, they will face miseries on all sides, economic, emotional, and  physical predicaments, whatever, in Israel and in America and elsewhere.

The safest place is the land of Israel. Its people will have to fight physically, but mostly internally. That’s why we have to spread Kabbalistic knowledge in Israel, and above all we have to disseminate the methodology of integral education. After all, it depends on the extent to which we are able to transfer the Jewish people facing problems as conventional battles to a spiritual battles.

People must understand that if fight internally to unite, we will “soften” and “sweeten” negative forces. They do not  destroy them, which is impossible, but turn them into good and useful. Unity will allow us to get stronger, thus making our enemies retreat. We won’t have to battle with them and they will stop fighting with us. On the contrary, they will come to us to learn the ways to unite.

After all, separation will affect them even worse than us. In Israel, it leads leads to political conflicts; in other areas, every day dozens and hundreds of people are killed, and the chaos will only continue growing.

So, if we want harmony and peace, we have to start here. We have no choice. And it makes no sense to  dwell upon the physical afflictions of Jews in Egypt. In this case,  you don’t understand this, and all the other catastrophes that befell Jews throughout history, whether it is the inquisition, pogroms, or the Holocaust. Of course, this cannot be explained from our current level since we don’t see the entire reality or the whole system to understand what is happening or its causes.

In short, it is a qualitative deficiency and we are at a very important, crucial phase.

In general, subconsciously the nations of the world press the people of Israel to teach them the methodology of correction. And the pressure can take on various forms.

But what is surprising: Before the nations of the world will come to Israel, they will be fight and have conflict with each other. However, we can already see around whom the whole “plot” revolves. Israel is almost invisible on the map; nevertheless, it is the true center of events, and with time, this fact will appear more clearly.

Ultimately, the current processes obligate the Jewish people to unite, to give an example to the world, to bring all to global unity, and to raise humanity.

This is the simple “scheme.” However, in our world it is implemented in multi-billion dollar investments, requires huge resources, and directly affects millions of people, turning this world into an arena of uncontrollable trade.
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In the News (from BBC News): “The Obama administration has unveiled major changes to the criminal justice system, dropping mandatory minimum sentences in certain drug cases. Such terms will not be imposed for non-violent drug offenders with no gang or cartel ties, Attorney General Eric Holder said in a speech. …

“’The attorney general’s remarks represent a good first step toward scaling back the failed ‘war on drugs’,” Tom Engell, chairman of Marijuana Majority, said.”

My Comment: In fact, we cannot accept drugs if we want to reach the goal of creation, the revelation of the Creator. Drugs are enemies of building a better society, creating a family, raising children. In this case, we need intelligence, strength, initiative, all which are lost in an addict..

But if the government’s objective is to reduce the population so that it does not reproduce, does not live long, and is passive during its short life, then drugs are good and should be distributed. And to prevent such inhuman thoughts about the government, it is necessary at the same time to carry out a campaign against smoking …
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In the News (from Bloomberg): “India’s rupee sank to a record on concern recent steps to steady the currency will prompt foreigners to rethink investment plans amid speculation the U.S. will pare stimulus next month. Bonds and stocks plunged.”

My Comment: The specter of the crisis in all its forms, not just financial and economic, is spreading around the world until it “processes” the entire humanity to the state of necessity to completely review human attitudes towards ourselves and the world. But we, the carriers of the method of integral education, must help the world peacefully and quickly discover the cause of the phenomena and the only way of overcoming it through integral education.
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In the News (from NBC News): “The type of heat waves that wilt crops, torch forests — and kill people — are expected to become more frequent and severe over the next 30 years regardless of whether humans curb emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, according to a new study. …

“Since the 1950s, the frequency of these events has ‘strongly increased and right now they cover about 5 percent of the global land area,’ Dim Coumou, a climate scientist with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, told NBC News.

“If we look at the near-term, up to 2040, we see that this increase will continue and that by 2040 we will see about 20 percent of the land area affected, so about another fourfold increase compared to today,” Coumou said.

“If levels of carbon dioxide continue to increase in the atmosphere as they are today, the researchers find heat extremes might cover 85 percent of the planet’s land area by 2100.

“What’s more, even hotter — so called five-sigma events, which are virtually non-existent today — would affect 60 percent of the global land area, according to the research.

My Comment: It is not the human technological activity that creates the impact on the climate but humans general egoistic attitude to their own kind and nature, and only by changing ourselves, will we be able to create any climate of our choice!
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