Question: Psychologists claim that 20 to 30 percent of the people living in our society are categorized as mentally ill. They are not a special threat to society and are not harmful, and so they can live among us. What does this phenomenon mean?

Answer: We all know that people who need to concentrate in order to solve difficult problems or to perform dangerous missions undergo special training. They practice under special conditions and according to a special program. When they have carried out their mission, they are allowed to rest so that they can restore their powers and get back to normal life.

We, on the other hand, are in a constant race for survival all our life. A worrisome reaction sinks into our subconscious and penetrates different systems, is processed and kept in our memory. This relates to everything that comes from the environment and thus our natural systems cannot cope with such so many problems that continue to get deeper and wider in scope.

Comment: At the same time, we claim that the society is more developed and more cultured.

Answer: Our society has become worse and more egoistic. It is especially evident among children. In kindergarten children are already competitive. At the age of three or four they are as mentally developed as eight or nine-year-old children were in the past. If in the past a child needed the company of his peers at the age of six or seven, today kids play with each other at the age of two or three.

They already have social skills and habits and they begin to compete and to adopt the desires of others, not to mention what goes on in school. In the classrooms, there is the class queen and the class hero and those who are popular and those who are rejected. This didn’t exist 40 or 50 years ago when kids were much more naive.

Such phenomena are a result of the influence of television and the movie industry. It seems that kids today are used to it, but in fact they are under great internal emotional pressure and monstrous feelings, starting from kindergarten.

Question: What can we do about it?

Answer: Look at what psychologists do. They gather people in small groups so that the participants will mutually support one another. By this mutual effect, they establish a protective wall behind which they exist. People come like frightened animals and unite into a group by holding on to one another. Then they feel that they are safer

We establish a society that serves as a wall for everyone who is incorporated in it by holding lectures, workshops, and discussions at roundtables. In this society, we not only find protection, but also a positive influence.

Question: Our whole life seems to be an endless competition, a continuous chase, that we cannot escape. Can there be positive competitions and how can we fulfill this?

Answer: The ego pushes us to compete, but society is dependent on how we fulfill these competitions. We don’t need to destroy any natural inclination that we have. Compete with one another as to who helps others more, who loves, smiles, and makes others feel good. Everything depends on the ability of society to see certain values as higher than others. Competitive sports are also a good idea.

We have to think of how to fill these inclinations and not just let a person manage them by himself. The whole game industry can still be relevant, but in a healthy manner. The inclination to gamble and look for adventures is natural and stems from our animate level to hunt and bring home prey.

Therefore, we should allow people to compete with each other and to participate in games, but these should be beneficial games. This is the essence.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/21/14

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Question: Midrash Gadol tells us that Moses passed on the Godly reproof and instructions to the people. First he taught his brother Aaron privately, taking into account his high level of understanding.

Then he invited the sons of Aaron, and in the presence of their father, began to explain the Torah to them on a level that they could grasp. The elders joined them, followed by the men, and finally the whole nation of Israel, including the women and the children.

How does the descent to the people, when it is already possible to tell all of them about the Kabbalistic method, take place?

Answer: Considering the organization of our group and our pace of advancement, we see that it has been many years before we began to actually understand and feel the inner material, to speak about the meaning of unity and connection, and how it should be fulfilled among us and how it should be fulfilled among the masses.

Now we begin to gradually organize discussion circles among the people and to explain why connection and unity are the answers to all our problems. This is the idea of our dissemination.

People who have a point in the heart, like Aaron, his sons, and the elders can reveal a relatively deep meaning of the spiritual method.

Men (Gever – from the Hebrew word to overcome), which means those who can overcome their ego, can be taught a bit less.

It is only afterward that the people can be approached: the women, the elderly, and the children (which are all spiritual categories of people on different levels of development), those who cannot seriously work on themselves. But thanks to their mass and by joining all the other levels of society that are already corrected, it can be explained them so that they will also receive the Light of correction and become holy.

This means that the spiritual advancement is from the top down according to a pyramid hierarchy. First Aaron is taught, then his children, the elders, the men, and the rest of the people. Then all the layers of society work together.

It is impossible to develop a broad range of training without an increasingly deeper and tighter connection with the previous inner circles. Therefore, Moses and Aaron need to constantly increase and intensify the connection. not only between themselves, but also with the elders and the men, so that they will have the power to work with the people.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/26/14

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Question: How does the wisdom of Kabbalah relate to the concept of love?

Answer: According to the wisdom of Kabbalah there are two types of love: love of friends and love of the Creator. All the other types of love belong to the physiological level and so from a Kabbalistic perspective it is considered affection, mutual satisfaction, and a person’s obligation to his family and children, but not love.

Love refers to what is above our egoistic level and is revealed to a person when he attains spirituality. By restricting the use of his ego and ascending above it, a person exits himself, enters into the group and those around him, where he discovers love.

The fulfillment of love is expressed by caring about those around you. What is more, these are people who are strangers to me, not part of my family, not my relatives, and I am not interested in them at all.

But the moment I begin to discover them as an essential component necessary for my spiritual ascent, I realize that I must care for them and love them, since by the correct connection with them, I attain the Creator. Then from the love of those around me, I reach the love of the Creator.

Today love is nothing more than natural physiological actions that are also instinctively found in animals. In humans, however, love isn’t an instinct and it has turned into almost anything you can imagine.

In other words, we can regard it as a sport, exercise, or pleasure, but it isn’t the love the wisdom of Kabbalah refers to. It has nothing to do with the self-sacrifice for a sublime idea, like in the spiritual feeling called love.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, love is incorporating the desires of those who are strangers to me inside me and caring about filling those desires more than my own desires. This becomes the goal of my life. I am ready to dedicate my whole life in order to fill the desires of others since this is what the Creator expects of me.

Question: Can such relations in a family also be called love?

Answer: Only if I transcend above the corporeal unity with my family and regard them as total strangers. If not, my relationship with them is on an ordinary physiological level.

Thus, there should be a strict understanding and division between the spiritual concept of love and the corporeal one. On the corporeal level the question: “Do you love me?” means “Are you ready to satisfy my personal desires?” It is an ordinary display of the ego. Therefore today we are witnessing an increase in the incidence of divorce and breakups of the family. But this trend is a sign of a reassessment of this generation’s values.
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From KabTV’s “Short Stories” 10/23/14

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” section 71: The reason for their words is, as we have explained, that when all those who engage in the Torah degrade their own internality and the internality of the Torah, leaving it as though it were redundant in the world… by that, they intensify their own externality.

Also, the externality in the nations of the world—the destructors among them—intensify and revoke the internality among them, which are the righteous of the nations of the world.

Additionally, the externality of the entire world, being the nations of the world, intensify and revoke the children of Israel—the internality of the world.

In such a generation, all the destructors among the nations of the world raise their heads and wish primarily to destroy and to kill the children of Israel.

Each of us remainders should take upon himself, heart and soul, to henceforth intensify the internality of the Torah, and give it its rightful place, according to its merit over the externality of the Torah. And then, each and every one of us will be rewarded with intensifying his own internality, meaning the Israel within us, which is the needs of the soul over our own externality, which is the nations of the world within us, that is, the needs of the body.

Also, the internality of the nations of the world, the righteous of the nations of the world, will overpower and submit their externality, which are the destructors. And the internality of the world, too, which are Israel, shall rise in all their merit and virtue over the externality of the world, which are the nations.

At the end of the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Baal HaSulam emphasizes only one thing, what do we learn: internality or externality?

Together with this, our study is connected directly to realization. If we learn externality, then we realize externality, and if we learn internality, then we realize internality. And in this way, we really transform the world from its feet to its head or from its head to its feet.

Everything depends only on this. Learning correctly makes it possible for us to attract the Light that Reforms, and so we begin to understand more and to organize ourselves and the whole world according to the higher power.

Here the explanations of Baal HaSulam leave us no possibility of evading the answer. He puts things very clearly. So each and every one, as much as he is prepared, must be involved with the internality of the Torah, its inner message and realization by using The Book of Zohar and all the books of Kabbalah that Baal HaSulam and Rabash wrote so that we will influence ourselves, the whole world, and all of us together found in a single system.
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From the 5^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/19/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Today ISIS is attracting a great number of young people from different nations, including those who are not Muslims, but who have suddenly transformed their entire lives. What compels a young modern European to join such a strange organization having such absolutely different characteristics?

Could it be that its “power of attraction” is linked to the emptiness that encompasses the West? As far as it seems, ISIS is ready to provide a feeling of warmth, unity, brotherhood, family, purpose, and satisfaction.

By what means can we attract a young person to us? How could world unity in his eyes tip the balance towards our side instead of the ideas of these Eastern extremists?

Answer: It is necessary to recruit him to another army, an army in which he will fight for equality, a better life for all, and unity that includes a mutual basis for goodness. It is necessary to create special forces, which will be an organization that will overcome ISIS on an ideological front.

This is because we, in fact, are offering world revolution to a person, which is the transformation of the world into a garden of Eden where everyone is equal, happy, and provided with necessities and security for today and tomorrow. Everyone can be in a good mood and think of how to make things good and pleasant for others. There will be a line of balance among us where no one needs to be concerned about what will happen to himself at the present and in the future. Here, our health, children, and all aspects of our lives are okay.

Question: But for the young, sometimes something is required beyond the pastoral, a possibility of going wild, using force, pouring out their energy.

Answer: Well good, a person must fight, but instead of fighting enemies, he fights the ego itself that is not interested and doesn’t want any of this.

Basically I don’t want to unite and connect with others; I don’t feel a particular drive towards this. Yes, I am ready to receive the benefits that we outlined above, but to give something in return, no. So I must struggle with myself for this unity.

Question: Why does ISIS have such a power of attraction?

Answer: This is the power of security. Standing under a black flag, a person is sure that he has support and purpose. So he goes to conquer the world with his head raised proudly.

Question: How is it possible to create a similar positive pride about unity?

Answer: This is through an educational process that we must implement. It is possible to do this.

There is knowledge and there is education, and these two methods must be used here in parallel.

If terrorists are organizing tens of thousands for their own purposes, then we, with the help of various countries and international institutions, are able to reach billions, to hold `relevant conventions and get down to business everywhere in Europe, Africa, America, etc. After all, if we are open and our intentions are clear, we can mobilize enormous resources and support around the world for implementation.

In principle, we are saying to everyone: “There will be no more wars; there will be no more borders. This is one family, except for the terrorists, all of them. They are the only ones we have to rein in at this stage, until they disappear.”

Question: Is there some kind of significance to the fact that one force, one enemy, is threatening all of us, requiring us to unite against it? Will this be used to change global thinking?

Answer: I don’t think that the purpose of our unification must be a war with this force. Uniting against evil means learning some of its characteristics. Certainly the army must stand against the terrorists, but we don’t have any real possibility of stopping them once and for all through this.

So at the same time we, the citizens, must take care of ourselves and must unite with each other.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 9/7/14

 
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The Book of Zohar, “VaYikra,” Kedoshim, item 16: The chapter Kedoshim is the whole of the Torah and it is the seal ring of truth. In this chapter the upper secrets of the Torah are renewed in the Ten Commandments and in decrees and punishments and the upper commandments. And when the friends reached this chapter they rejoiced.

Holy refers to holiness, the attribute of Bina (complete bestowal).

And when the friends reached this chapter they rejoiced, since they reached a level on which all the attributes concealed in them are fully corrected in order to bestow and now they are facing a state of to receive in order to bestow. This isn’t some unstable state that is above the clouds but direct entrance and working within the land of Israel.

The chapter of Kedoshim is the whole of the Torah and it is the seal ring of truth, which means that the whole Torah is meant only to attain the attribute of bestowal. If you hold on to it, you can use it as a seal on different desires and use them correctly. Now you can be sure that you will not go wrong since you are led by bestowal.

Question: So why don’t we stop here?

Answer: No! You haven’t corrected yourself as yet, but have only reached a level on which you are ready to work with the desires that were shattered on purpose so you will be able to correct them in order to bestow.

Let’s suppose that the Creator created a car and shattered it to pieces and you can do whatever you want with those pieces now. There is a manual attached and the first part is theoretical, as usual, and only describes how a person should prepare himself for the work. In this part, you can find mathematics, physics, mechanics, electronics, in short everything you need to know in order to assemble a car.

Having learned that, you test yourself and ascend to the level of Kadosh. Now you can begin to put the car together properly. There will be problems along the way, of course, and you will make mistakes in one part or another, but on the whole you are ready to work.

Therefore, Rabbi Simon’s students, the authors of The Book of Zohar were so glad when they attained that level, since at that level, a person’s real work begins.

Until then, you are like a student who has graduated his studies but hasn’t yet  proven himself in any way. However, you already have a spiritual base with which to work.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/19/14

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The Upper Light, the Creator, made a desire, “something out of nothing,” that is completely opposite to Him. This desire is the only creation that was ever made.

Later, the desire expanded under the influence of the Light and at some point started acting on its own. It aspired to become similar to the Light and considered the Light to be a remedy for achieving this goal through the act of accepting the Light for the sake of bestowal to the very best of the desire’s ability.

The desire is called the soul (Neshama). The maximum amount of Light that the desire can receive for the sake of bestowal is called Nefesh–Ruach–Neshama. The desire cannot receive other Lights, as yet. Only later, at the end of correction, the Lights of Haya and Yechida will enter the desire. Now, the desire is called Neshama, as it bears the name of the maximum Light that it can accommodate.

It means that all of us represent one soul, one desire. In order to make this single desire act independently and acquire similarity with the Creator, it was shattered into many pieces. In essence, it is still the same common desire, but now it perceives itself as being broken into 600,000 splinters. We regard ourselves as one of the fragments of the common desire.

The pieces of the desire continued to splinter to the extent that each creation in this world bears a tiny particle that once constituted a big vessel. Our goal is to get people voluntarily to reconnect all the elements.

When connected, each of the fragments, every single person, feels as one common soul. Each one merges with the rest of the 599,999 particles, thus the entire structure to a full 600,000 is obtained. Through our relations with the rest of the particles, each one of us builds one’s general soul out of 600,000 pieces.

It applies to everybody who merges with other pieces or splinters, followed by one more fragment and then another. So, when we all reconnect, we recreate our soul and together we constitute just one common desire.

By reattaching, we reach a state when we constitute one vessel. Each of us has to correct ourselves completely, i.e., merge with the rest of the pieces. So far, we are trying to connect in tens, but in fact. the same approach applies to the entire vessel, all souls, all of creation, every single person in this world, to those who lived before us and to those who are not yet born and who will show up later, after us. It doesn’t matter when.

All of them are parts of one soul because we connect to them in accordance with our personal qualities. If each of us connects to the rest of the 600,000 parts, we’ll recreate the original unique soul. Each one of us connects with others in a way that nobody else can and every person merges with others in a way that no other particle can do in the same fashion. This is why each one of us is so important!

During the process of linking with each other, we have to constantly keep in mind that even though at this time we merge with a small ten, we still are preparing to bond with the rest of creation through our tens. This is called one soul.

If we act within our group of ten with this intention, it will be sufficient for attaining the revelation of the common soul within this group.
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From the Convention In Los Angeles “Day Two” 11/01/14, lesson 4

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After standing at Mount Sinai, the people of Israel began the process of internal self-correction called the forty years of wandering in the desert.

Forty years stands for a period of time (although it has nothing to do with actual time, but indicates a certain number of steps) covered while rising from complete egoism and correcting its portions to the point of attaining complete altruism.

However, it doesn’t mean that they were connected to the Creator. They reached a state of only standing in front of Him, but not yet merging with Him. Even though the property of mutual bestowal was already shaped in them, they didn’t ascend to the degree of reciprocal love.

At this point, they had to implement another tendency called mutual love, i.e., to transition from a condition of “not doing to others what they didn’t want for themselves” to “loving their neighbors as themselves.”

The first criterion was achieved in the desert and signified that all of them would never have a desire or a thought of harming others no matter how beneficial it seemed to them.

And yet, it is not the degree that allowed them to reach the level of loving thy neighbor as thyself, which is a prerequisite for the restoration of huge, universal, internal egoism and re-directing it towards altruism and connection with others.

This level can be reached in the process of conquering the land of Israel, where seven nations (seven gigantic egoistic qualities) had to be overcome and surmounted. This process is called the war of liberation. In other words, conquering the nations, making them leave the land or killing them stands for modifying​ the ​egoism that is associated with the last step of correction in the land of Israel.

By internally correcting, the Israelis attained the state called the Temple, i.e., they achieved the revelation of the Creator among them that kept them united for about 800 years before the Temple was destroyed.

This period of time was full of numerous twists and turns, rapid ascents and crucial downfalls, wars with Rome and Greece, and various local conflicts. The only reason for these events taking place was to enhance the connections among the people of Israel.

The people reached the state of correction and attained the Creator. They knew the purpose of their lives and realized that they existed in the eternal, perfect, infinite world. Their physical actions and spiritual attainment were inseparable. However, they began gradually sliding down from this height until they completely lost it.

The question is why was this situation created if they reached the state of complete correction?! It was given to them in order to correct the Babylonians throughout the world. They still remained at an egoistic degree of ancient Babylon, at a low, selfish level. The Babylonians had not gone through the stage of Egypt or did the stage of the golden calf.

This explains why the people of Israel, who stood way above their egoism, fell from their degree and reached the level of other nations, but still preserved a huge egoistic potential.

Here is the point when the antagonism between the people of Israel and the Babylonians (the rest of humanity) appeared. The nations of the world do not associate the people of Israel with this material civilization this people do not feel like they belong to this world. There is something strange, not like other peoples.

It can be felt through numerous tiny details. No matter how much some Israelis want to be similar to other nations that inhabit our planet, they just cannot be similar to them, since they do not come from this world. Instead, they fell from spirituality to this realm.
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From KabTV’s “Short Stories” 10/22/14

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On the spiritual path I will always discover how much my group, my group of ten is awesome and terrible.

I don’t agree with any of the friends; I am ready to tear them all to pieces, and together with this, afterward, with the help of the Light that Reforms, we merge to such a degree that there are no limits to our unity. Nothing separates us even by a hair; all of us are welded and consolidated together with one heart.

It is said about this in The Book of Zohar: (Psalms 133:1): Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity also. These are the friends when they sit together and are not separated from each other. From the start they seem like warriors who want to kill each other. And after that they return to being with love and brotherhood. The Creator, what does He say about them? “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity also.” The word “also” comes to include the Shechina (divinity) with them. (Zohar, “Acharei Mot,” Item 64-65, HaSulam Commentary).

The Shechina is the place where the Creator is revealed, the shared desire of the friends, their common heart.

“And not only that, but the Creator listens to their words, and He has satisfaction and is happy with them.”

About this it is said: (Proverbs 10:12) “…love covereth all transgressions.”  In the beginning it is necessary to discover all the oppositions and above them love, the Light, (Ecclesiastes 2:13) “…as far as light excelleth darkness.” Otherwise, without feeling the intensity of the separation first, we don’t feel the intensity of the unity.

We can see the result of this approach when according to the principle of the unity of the Creator, that (Deuteronomy 4:35) “…there is none else beside Him” and He is the “good and beneficent,” we begin to behave differently at work, in the family, with our children, with our neighbors. In general we begin to look at the whole world differently. In our group we hold this line permanently, and in other places as much as possible.

It is necessary to expand the circles of the right relationships to what is around us more and more such that ultimately in all of reality we will see only the Creator who manages everything, sends everything, and finishes everything.
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From the Convention In Los Angeles “Day Two” 11/1/14, Lesson 3

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Question: You spoke about money as an obsolete unit of currency, and that society is heading towards the creation of a new currency that will be based on the strength of mutual cooperation between people. One of the greatest concerns related to money is the fear that there won’t be any. How can this new currency help a person to overcome fears of this kind?

Answer: Fear doesn’t depend on the number of banknotes I possess. This is an internal, psychological phenomenon. A person always checks himself in relation to the environment, so he honestly believes that with a large amount of money covering him, he will feel more secure and less afraid.

For a large part of the world’s population it would be helpful if they could be released from this fear, with what is called a basket of goods necessary for living. And people would pay for all of the products that go into this basket, as is done now with health insurance and pensions. It could be that it will be possible to solve part of this question at the expense of those whose income is above average. But this action must be accompanied by an explanation to and education of the population.

Comment: Until now a person truly thought of money as a motivating force. Whereas now we are speaking about a new resource, which we apparently ignored and didn’t taken into account.

Answer: We always celebrate important events while we gather around a table. Here a person apparently generally gets respect. This is not just the generosity of the rich strata to the poor, rather it is an act of connection, with the participation of everyone. In this way we raise people to another level of understanding: How do we attain a life where money belongs to everyone and doesn’t belong to anyone individually?

On the other hand, this activity must itself be carried out cooperatively. I would absolutely put the reception of a basket of necessities as a condition for participation in integral education, lectures, and workshops.

All of our fears are derived from comparing ourselves with others. But if I am in the same situation as everyone else, then even in the worst of times, I can feel good about myself. In addition to this and through connection, we are ready to discover additional sources of power that are derived from the connection itself, the combining of opposites, and those that may be at a distance. We can find new wealth that we didn’t know existed.

By representing this educational program to the people, as a result, we receive positive energy and the ability to influence even the most indifferent strata of the population. As a result, they will also be compelled to change. Therefore, successful steps to popularize the idea about a consumer basket of necessities will serve as a key for general change within the entire nation.
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From the program “A New Life” 9/03/14

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