In the News: (translated from RUMetrika): Pop-up ads are the most annoying type of Internet advertising. They irritate 78% of users, while banners irritate only 7.6%.

My Comment: Pop-up windows are perceived as a barrier to something desired. This is why they instigate hatred. It is a clear case of anti-advertising.

We need to know and understand egoism! If we want to get in egoism’s way, then we have to offer it something that it will find more attractive at the present moment – and it’s very difficult to guess what that is!

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In the News (from comScore): “Global Internet Audience Surpasses 1 billion Visitors” Asia-Pacific Region Accounts for 41 Percent of Internet Users, Europe – 28%, North America – 18%, Latin America – 7%, Middle East & Africa – 5%.

My Comment: This shows how united people have become by means of technology. People are joining different communities and the boundaries between them are fading away. Most important, this shows that the world is technologically ready for a global education, so we can become similar to Nature by having a universal, integral connection with one another.

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Two questions I received on virtual connections:

Question: I am living in Malaysia (a part of South East Asia) and here there is no physical group I can connect to. The only means for connection is through the virtual group, which is what I am doing now. But it is difficult to participate virtually due to time differences. How can I change my environment to influence me towards the goal?

My Answer: It’s enough to be virtually connected with us and to attend a Congress when you have the opportunity, such as the one that will be held in Philadelphia on May 15-17, 2009.

Question: Lately I have been finding people who think like me in different social sites on the Internet. Can I consider them a group? My problem is that the nearest Kabbalah center is 70 km away from me.

My Answer: Of course. If you connect with them because you are advancing together toward a common goal – similarity to the Creator, then you would be a group even if you had no Internet connection. The technological connections in our world were developed only in order to correct the inner connections between people, which happen “from soul to soul.”

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In the News: (from TNS): “Online news is ‘highly trusted’ by two fifths (40%) of those polled” Online news seems to be globally widespread with an average of two fifths (40%) across all 16 countries in the report trusting online news, while traditional press is decreasing (39%). 10% of respondents trust blogs, Wikipedia (24%) is as highly trusted as newspapers.

My Comment: In the future, as we will try to minimize our actions and expenses, the printing industry, including books, will become replaced by the electronic industry. The informational sectors of the Internet, such as Wikipedia, will become more objective and will gain people’s trust. But for the time being they are ruled by egoism, envy, competition and prejudice.

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Three questions I received on using the internet as a means to connect:

Question: Research indicates that 11 out of 100 global citizens have access to computers and Internet. How can we feel like one society when just a few of us in the world can actually connect virtually?

My Answer: Initially, the connection between people was not created by the Internet, but by the Creator. Our souls are rigidly connected in one system. Thoughts and desires pass directly from soul to soul, and not through the web. Regardless of having the Internet or not, everyone will feel that they belong to the entire world in equal measure.

Question: If the global crisis harms the Internet, what will happen to our dissemination and the virtual groups?

My Answer: We must do everything we can to ensure that our friends all over the world can stay connected to us. If the world will need us, then we will certainly retain the opportunity to connect to the world. Perhaps we will receive even greater opportunities to do so.

Question: I had an idea during the Blackpool Congress: I was thinking about old people, who are unable to use computers. I think it would be great to give them the possibility to feel unity. We could also tell them about reality, freedom of choice, and how to see the world from the point of view of Kabbalah. This could lead to more actions made by this group of “aware old people.” If I try to develop this kind of thing with the “old people group” of my town, do you think it could be useful?

My Answer: One’s age is completely irrelevant when it comes to studying Kabbalah, because the soul has no age. Uniting with the idea already corrects the soul. Try it! I hope that once we reach a certain level of success in our dissemination to the masses, the television channels will become interested in our TV programs.

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News Report (translated from MIGnews.com): Millions of people all over the world are immersing into Second Life – the new virtual madness that encompasses all areas of human life. In the past week alone, 1.4 million new members have become immersed in this obsession. There they construct themselves and seek adventures in the new, exotic reality.

My Comment: Actually, we’ve been doing this throughout all of human history. It just wasn’t as obvious as it is now, through a screen. Our culture is but a distraction from the purpose of creation, as is all the “exciting” entertainment we fill our lives with. They all have the same root – to run away from the question about the meaning of life.

The problem is that the old methods of “killing time” don’t attract us anymore. They’re too weak. In the virtual word, however, we can let our imagination soar, plus we get this illusion that anything we desire is within a moment’s reach. However, soon enough our egoism will outgrow this as well, and we will have to seek the true fulfillment – the Light, the Creator.

That’s because He created us, and our egoistic development will bring us to Him. This is why the Torah refers to our egoism (when speaking about the created woman): “Ezer Ke Negdo” – your helper, who is against you.

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Two questions I received on what will happen to the Internet during the crisis:

Question: In this great international crisis, plus everything that is apparently still in store for us, it is reasonable to assume that many different infrastructures will be affected, including the Internet. How do you think this will affect the role of the virtual group and our dissemination in the entire world, which happens primarily through the Internet?

My Answer: If we use the Internet correctly in order to correct the world, then it will remain, or be replaced by something even more suitable for this goal.

Question: Are you still working on materials to submit to the Google 10^100 project? At first everyone was excited about it and there was a lot of talk about it, but now it seems like everyone forgot about it. Will Bnei Baruch participate in it or not?

My Answer: We did what we could, and the rest does not depend on us. In the midst of it, the crisis struck. It looks like Google has forgotten about it, or perhaps something is still happening there, but since no one is contacting us, we are keeping quiet as well.

To be frank, I don’t believe that such undertakings have good intentions or integrity from the start, but I’m obligated to participate if there is an opportunity. In addition, working together on these projects helps us unite!

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News Report: The Telegraph reports that the UK Government intends to obligate internet providers to report every e-mail and website visited. This information will be submitted to a database, such that not a single phone call, e-mail or website visit will remain unnoticed. The bill is expected to appear in 2009.

My Comment: There is no doubt that this is the wish of every government in the world. However, they would be better off educating their people. According to the law “The general and the particular are equal,” the government must treat its people as parents treat their children, and that means not to just restrict and punish them, but also to take care of their education and upbringing. And it shouldn’t matter how expensive or difficult this is.

Kabbalah talks about the need to manage the public opinion. However, this shouldn’t be done in order for the government to manipulate the citizens more easily, but for the sake of creating a correct hierarchy of values in society – values that include the meaning of the existence of man, the family unit, the state, and humanity. We think that the masses cannot adopt such high values, but Kabbalah asserts that everything depends on the public opinion! See Baal HaSulam’s article, “The Freedom.”

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Two questions I received about the internet:

Question: The President of Russia decreed that there must be freedom of the mass media, and that information on the Internet and the TV shouldn’t be censored. What is your opinion?

My Answer: I’m not a political commentator, nor am I well versed in the political “kitchen.” Still, I can say that any actions aimed at creating a connection between people go in the same direction as the development of human society, in accordance to the law of Nature: “To bring humankind to a single whole.” Therefore, such actions are good for those who make them.

Question: Just as anything else, the Internet has a downside: it contains a whole lot of junk. Does everything depend on what we will choose and how much we will desire to correct ourselves?

My Answer: The Internet is a reflection of the society. I hope that society will soon become more corrected, and then the entire Internet will also change: it will be cleansed of all the “junk.”

That’s because the only things that will remain in our world will be the things necessary for our adhesion with the Creator. Everything else will gradually disappear. Then our world will also change in our perception, transforming to the World of Infinity – a world of unbounded existence that is the only thing in existence.

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News report (translated from Utro.ru): V. Makarov, president of “Russoft,” announced that the Russian segment of the Internet must be protected from the rest of the World Wide Web with a special gateway filter. Similar gateways are already operating in China and Singapore. The gateway consists of hundreds of thousands of servers that receive information from international sites and then filter it. The project is estimated to cost 1 billion dollars.

My Comment: According to Kabbalah, everything that goes against drawing closer together, communication, integration, and globalization, also goes against Nature. Nature’s objective it is to develop man and society, to bring mankind to unity, reciprocal love and bestowal. Projects like this will bring the people who implement them nothing but crises and miseries!

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