From the book The Essential Secret of the Jews, M. Brushtein

A Crisis Cannot Be Accidental

So, what have we learned? Initial theses:

1. We live in a world that is “accidental,” continuously integrates [References] or, if you like, compresses humanity.
2. Accidentally and at the same time regularly humanity finds itself in crises.
3. On the planet, there is a “strange” people that was created during the very first crisis. The principle of “love thy neighbor as thyself,” on the basis of which this people was created, everyone likes, but no one can realize it.
4. Anti-Semitism – an aversion to the “strange” people – is a phenomenon that has no rational explanation.

Now, each item’s details

1 We live in a world that is “accidentally” continuously integrates¹ or, if you like, compresses humanity.

“World history would indeed be very easy to make, if the struggle were taken up only on condition of infallibly favorable chances. It would, on the other hand, be of a very mystical nature, if ‘accidents’ played no part. These accidents themselves fall naturally into the general course of development and are compensated again by other accidents.”  (Karl Marx, Letter to Dr. Ludwig Kugelmann, 1871)

“The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired.” (Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time)

“Nothing in nature can happen by chance. Everything is subject to fixed laws. These laws are only the necessary connection of certain effects with their causes. One atom of matter cannot meet another by chance; this meeting is the effect of permanent laws, which cause every being necessarily to act as it does, and hinder it from acting otherwise, in given circumstances. To talk of the fortuitous concourse of atoms, or to attribute some effects to chance, is merely saying that we are ignorant of the laws, by which bodies act, meet, combine, or separate.” (Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach, French-German author, philosopher, encyclopaedist and prominent figure in the French Enlightenment)

2 Accidentally and at the same time regularly humanity finds itself in crises.

“It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put the existence of the entire bourgeois society on its trial, each time more threateningly.” (Karl Marx, Manifesto of the Communist Party)

“It appears that crises, like diseases, are one of the conditions of the existence of those societies where trade and industry are prevalent. One can predict them, alleviate them, delay them up to a certain moment, one can facilitate the recovery of economic activities; but it has turned to be impossible to eliminate them notwithstanding all the possible methods that have been applied.” (Clément Juglar, French doctor and statistician)

Crises accompany the entire history of human society. At first, they were manifested as crises of underproduction of agricultural products, from the middle of the 19^th century as “under-consumption,” associated with an imbalance between industrial production and effective demand.

Until the 20^th century, a crisis was confined to one, two or three countries. Later, it began to acquire an international character, as through competition and reciprocity, the development of trade created favorable conditions for spreading. (Economic Dictionary)

(To be continued in the next segment.)

¹ Integration (from Latin Integer – complete, whole, intact) is a process or action that has resulted in integrity, association, union, restoration of unity. (Philosophical Dictionary)
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From the book The Essential Secret of the Jews, M. Brushtein

The Crisis Is According To A Consistent Pattern  

The fact that the crisis is a regular thing has been known for a long time. Nikolai D.Kondratiev’s studies are widely known.

Kondratiev waves are long cycles of economic activity, the existence of which was predicted by the Russian economist Nikolai D. Kondratieff (1892-1931) who was killed during Stalin’s purges.

The cycle length is defined as about 40 years. The last drop in production accounted for the depression in the 1930s. (Academic Dictionary)

It is interesting that, according to Kondratieff’s observations, cycles consist of four phases. In their turn, Kondratieff cycles themselves are part of another four.

Economic cycles:

Kitchin cycle 2-3 years;

Juglar cycle 6-13 years;

Kuznets cycle 15-20 years;

Kondratieff cycle 50-60 years.

By the way, let’s recall that we talked about the four phases of development in Chapter 2.

We need to say the following with respect to the cycles. The point is not in what order and how economic crises pass. The problem is that even the most thorough study of the crisis brought us no closer to an understanding of their causes. Why do we need to know when the next crisis comes? It is better that it didn’t happen at all.

“A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.” (Albert Einstein)

The fact is that the causes of the crises are in the incorrect relationship between people, Abraham once said. Today, we are finally starting to understand it.

We do not develop harmoniously and our spiritual development is so behind that we are the victims of an avalanche of technological growth. We cannot emerge from this stream, even if we wanted to.

As a result, when humanity had a need for a new energy for technological development, when it discovered this energy, then morally it was not ready to use it to its advantage.

Then, in terms of historical development, we began to distrust each other so much, not to believe that we could help each other (although everything was done in order to survive together) that each of us personally, in fact, does not participate in public life. (Andrei A. Tarkovsky, Russian filmmaker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director)

We do not know how to solve this problem. Abraham solved this problem.

“He (Abraham) managed to create a great nation of the progeny. Unified, despite all the changes of places and vicissitudes.” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer and statesman).
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My second article, “What We Jews Owe the World,” published in The New York Times on October 10, 2014: 

What Jews Owe the World

By: Michael Laitman

Buying Our Way to Heaven

The holiest day of the year for Jews is Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), when they fast and pray. A key part of the prayer is reading the book of Jonah the Prophet. Interestingly, many observant Jews believe that buying the privilege to read the book will make them successful for the rest of the year.

Naturally, only the wealthiest in the community can afford to compete for it. The sums vary according to the affluence of the community, and in some cases, the privilege is sold for well over half a million dollars.

Cracking the Code

What people are not aware of, however, is the real reason why the book of Jonah is so important. Kabbalists determined that this reading is the most important in the year because it details the code for saving humanity, and this, in the eyes of Kabbalists, is more important than anything.

Jonah’s story is special because it speaks of a prophet who first tried to dodge his mission, but finally repented. Another special aspect of Jonah’s story is that his mission was not to admonish the people of Israel, but to save the city of Nineveh, whose residents were not Jewish. In light of today’s precarious state of the world, we should take a closer look at this story and its meaning for each of us.

Shape Up or Ship Out

G-d orders Jonah to tell the people of Nineveh, who became very mean to one another, to correct the relationships among them if they wanted to survive. However, Jonah bailed out of his mission and took to the sea in an effort to escape G-d’s command.

Like Jonah, we Jews have been evading our mission for the past 2,000 years. And yet, we cannot afford to keep evading it. We have a task that was passed on to us when Abraham united us into a nation based on love of others, and it is our duty to set an example of unity for the rest of the world. Abraham wanted to unite all of humanity, but back then he only managed to establish a small group. (For more on that, see my article,  “Who Are You, People of Israel”, published September 20, 2014 in The New York Times.)

That group, namely the people of Israel, must still become a role model to the world. Rav Avraham Itzhak HaCohen Kook (the Raiah), the first Chief Rabbi of Israel, put it poetically in his book, Orot Kodesh (Sacred Lights), “Since we were ruined by unfounded hatred, and the world was ruined with us, we will be rebuilt by unfounded love, and the world will be rebuilt with us.”

Sleeping through the Storm

In the story, Jonah’s escape from his mission by ship caused the sea to roar and nearly sank the vessel. At the height of the storm, Jonah went to sleep, detaching himself from the turmoil and leaving the sailors to fend for themselves. Gradually, they began to suspect that someone among them was the cause of the storm. They cast a lot and discovered that it was Jonah, the only Jew on board.

In many ways, today’s world is similar to Jonah’s ship: It has become a global village, as though we’re all in one boat, and the sea around us is raging. And the sailors—all of humanity—are blaming the Jew on board for all their troubles.

Like Jonah, we are sound asleep. Though we are beginning to wake up to the existence of hatred towards us, we have yet to realize that not carrying out our mission, just like Jonah, is the reason for the hatred. If we do not wake up soon, the sailors will throw us overboard, as they did with Jonah. In the words of Rav Yehuda Ashlag, author of the Sulam (Ladder) commentary on The Book of Zohar: “It is incumbent upon the Israeli nation to qualify itself and the rest of the people in the world… to evolve into assuming this sublime work of “love of others” (“The Arvut” [Mutual Guarantee]).

The Wake Up Call

The sailors on Jonah’s boat make a desperate attempt to calm the sea, and by Jonah’s order, they throw him overboard. Once he is in the water, the storm calms, but a whale comes along and swallows Jonah. For three days and three nights he introspects in its abdomen. He begs for his life and promises to carry out his mission.

Like Jonah, each of us carries within, something that is stirring up the world. We, the people of Israel, carry a method for achieving peace through connection. Unity is the very root of our being. This DNA is what makes us a people, and today we must rekindle it because wherever we go, this untapped power is destabilizing the world around us in order to compel us to unite.

The unity between us will inspire, even compel, the rest of the nations to follow suit, just as the current separation among us projects separation to the whole of humanity. This is the reason for all our troubles, including anti-Semitism. When we unite, it will endow humanity with the energy required to achieve worldwide unity, where all people live “as one man with one heart.” So the only question is whether we assume our responsibility, or prefer to be thrown overboard, only to subsequently agree to carry out our task.

Indeed, if we want to end our troubles and be rid of anti-Semitism, if we desire to turn judgment into mercy and have a safe and happy life, we must unite and thus set an example of unity for all the nations. This is how we will bring peace and quiet to the world. Otherwise the nations’ hatred toward us will keep growing. Now we can see why people are willing to pay so much for the privilege of reading the book of Jonah on Yom Kippur.

I’d like to conclude this essay with another quote from Rav Kook (the Raiah): “Any turmoil in the world comes only for Israel. Now we are called upon to carry out a great task willingly and mindfully: to build ourselves and the entire ruined world along with us” (Igrot [Letters]).
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A person faces many questions as to how to act, work, and speed up his development, that is, to speed up the revelation of the Creator. Revealing the Creator, the force that manages all of reality and our part in it, is the only thing a person does in this world.

In order to achieve it, we follow the advice of people who have already been through this process and who attained the revelation of the Creator. This is the reason that we study the wisdom of Kabbalah, which by definition is the method of revealing the Creator to the created beings in this world. All we have to do is to fulfill and implement what Kabbalists say.

Of course, the closer a Kabbalist is to our times, the more useful his advice is for us because he better understands us since he is lives the same lifestyle that and is as our contemporary.

Thus, we begin to study the system that includes, not only the system of concealment between us and the Creator, but also the system where the Kabbalists are, those who have attained the Creator. They revealed the Creator during their lifetime in this world, which means that they removed the concealment.

They are not in this world anymore, but the fruits of their work are not lost, and by using them, we can develop a special sense and recognition above our ordinary physical senses and mind.

Our physical perception of the world is even more limited than that of animals. All animals can feel a tsunami approaching three days in advance and flee to the mountains. It is only humans who don’t suspect anything. We don’t even feel nature and are the furthest from it compared to all the animals. However, it isn’t about the existence of the corporeal body but about our attitude towards the upper force.

The desire to attain the upper force awakens only in man and even that doesn’t happen in everyone. But in every generation since the existence of mankind there are people in whom such a need to reveal the Creator awakens and they fulfill this desire.

Besides revealing the Creator they also leave us their writings though books, letters, and articles. Each one writes in his own style about how to remove the concealment, the system of concealments, and how to use the system.

It is because it isn’t revealed all at once and not fully, but gradually. Thus we have to go through certain actions. Kabbalists tell us how to help each other do that if there are people in our generation with the same yearning for revealing the Creator.

There have been many generations of Kabbalists since the first man (Adam), who was the first Kabbalist to attain the Creator and who removed the concealment. We can use their legacy, and besides their writings, we can also use their help.

When we enter a system where the Creator is present, but invisible, we can use the help of Kabbalists who have already attained His revelation. They are actively incorporated within this system and sustain it on a certain level of revelation and attainment by bringing it closer to us and helping us become incorporated within it.

We only need to attain the sensitivity and the recognition needed to reveal it so that we can use the system correctly with the help of the Kabbalists.

We also have to carry out all their recommendations in this world. In our generation there are many people who want to reveal the Creator. We are living in a special time when there is permission to reveal the wisdom of Kabbalah to everyone. Anyone who wants to reveal the Creator can come and reveal Him.

Thus we have a unique opportunity. If we unite in our search for the Creator, it will be like looking together for someone who is lost in the woods. We can all go out together, many people, and search the whole forest. Everyone can go and cry out: “Hey, where are you??!” and so by helping one another, we will eventually find the one who is lost.

Similarly, we can look for the Creator together. Such a collective search is much easier than searching individually. It is actually impossible to find the Creator by one’s self, but together we will do it quickly and easily.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/5/14

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From the book The Essential Secret of the Jews, M. Brushtein

If you dig deeper in search of the perpetrators, the circle of suspects begins to narrow. Of course, it’s the Jews. Is there really a better candidate?

For example, famous Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis is sure of this.

American Jews are behind the world economic crisis that has also hit Greece.  (The Global Jewish News Source)

Surveys carried out in Europe indicate this. In seven European countries, 3,500 people were interviewed. About a third of those surveyed, 31%, responded that the perpetrators of the financial crisis are the Jews. (Lenta)

Surveys, done in the USA have shown the same results.

“In order to assess explicit prejudice toward Jews, we directly asked respondents ‘How much to blame were the Jews for the financial crisis?’… Among non-Jewish respondents, a strikingly high 24.6%  of Americans blamed the Jews a moderate amount or more, and 38.4% attributed at least some level of blame to the group.” (Boston Review)

A surprising paradox. On the one hand, the Jews are accused of all mortal sins, and on the other hand, “A Jew is a pioneer of culture. From time immemorial, ignorance was impossible in the Holy Land, even more so than nowadays in civilized Europe. Moreover, at the time when the life and death of a human being was worth nothing, Rabbi Akiva spoke against the death penalty which is now considered to be an acceptable punishment in the most civilized countries.” (Leo Tolstoy “What is a Jew?”)

Additionally,

“I admire the spiritual steadfastness of the Jewish nation, its manly idealisms, its unconquerable faith in the victory of good over evil, in the possibility of happiness on earth.

“The Jews—mankind’s old, strong leaven,—have always exalted its spirit, bringing into the world restless, noble ideas, goading men to embark on a search for finer values.” (Maxim Gorky, About Jews)

And finally.

“Some people like Jews and some do not; but no thoughtful man can doubt the fact that they are beyond all question the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world.” (Winston S. Churchill, “A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People”)

Is all this coincidence? Was the crisis an accident? Are the Jews blamed for the crisis by chance? Are the laudatory remarks about Jews random? Maybe, a brick falls on someone’s head by accident?

“‘A brick is neither here nor there,’ the stranger interrupted persuasively. ‘A brick never falls on anyone’s head. You in particular, I assure you, are in no danger from that. Your death will be different.'” (Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita)

It could take a long time to prove that there are no coincidences, and it is a meaningless activity. Let’s focus for now on the compromise proposed by one of the greats. An accident is a non-understood regularity.
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Question: Why does the holiday of Simchat Torah (rejoicing with the Torah) immediately follow Sukkot?

Answer: During the seven days of Sukkot, when I am in the Sukkah, which means surrounded by the surrounding Light, I being am corrected. This Light reaches me through Scach (branches that cover the Sukkah), which itself, is a whole spiritual mechanism.

I have guests every evening, such as  Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, and David, each of whom symbolizes a special attribute in a person. In other words, it is about forces that correct my attributes by turning them from evil into goodness.

I perform internal work on the entire path to perfection and use the Torah as the force of correction, and thanks to that, I am able to identify the evil within me and identify it to such an extent that eventually there is none left.

After this diagnosis, the Torah turns the evil in me into goodness and then I resemble the Creator, the absolute goodness. I am filled with love and bestowal towards others and through them to Him, since it is actually the same thing. Thus I discover what is called “the whole world is filled with His honor.” He is in everything that seems to me as being external.

Question: The holiday of Simchat Torah symbolizes joy. What is a person actually joyful about in this holiday?

Answer: It is that he has used the Torah correctly and has corrected himself in equivalence to the Creator.

Question: Why is it so delightful to resemble the Creator?

Answer: Since we reach adhesion and equivalence of form with Him, now we can bestow unto Him just as He bestows unto me. This is how we are made and there isn’t a more sublime state for us.

Question: But still, what is concealed behind that?

Answer: I was created as a desire to receive pleasure, so in a state of complete equivalence of form to the Creator, I receive pleasure from Him. By turning all the evil into goodness, into similarity to the Creator, I begin to receive all the goodness and infinite abundance from Him. It is because I also want to bestow infinite abundance.

Thus the festive symbolism of the month of Tishre describes the path to the end of correction, which results in the eighth day, Shmini Atzeret, after which there is nothing else to correct. The word “Atzeret” stems from the Hebrew word “to stop – Atsar,” which symbolizes the end of correction.

We compare this perfect state to a pomegranate. All my 613 desires are the seeds of the pomegranate that have finally changed from evil to goodness.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/5/14

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I feel immense joy in the fact that now most of my students in the world are beginning to understand and feel that the spiritual world is discovered in the connection between us.

Although we have been studying the spiritual system for many years, and in spite of all this, the heart does not want to hear about the shattering of the Kli of the collective soul, its descent and fall into this world, the division into a multitude of people, the expansion of the Kli, the equal distance from the center to the periphery all over the Earth, and the growth of the ego. Generally, this takes a lot of time, and many years pass before the heart understands and reaches the awareness that something is not okay, and it will then respond to problems with connection, with unity.

From the very moment that the person begins to hear this, he enters into the way towards the goal of creation and goes forward at a constantly increasing the rate, amassing experience and gathering the distant, scattered and shattered parts of his soul. He already knows that everything is concentrated only in his group of ten, in a hundred, in a thousand, and that the upper world, the Creator, and the completion and goal of creation are found precisely in this place.

If he automatically turns to the group, no matter what happens, this is a sign that he is standing firmly on his own two feet and is facing the goal correctly. I hope that the results of our convention will become a feeling like this for many who are here and those who are together with us throughout the world.

This is the most difficult starting point of the countdown. Nobody, anywhere was ever was able to attain this. Many have tried to do this through all kinds of conditions for thousands of years, but only individuals succeeded, even though people were ready to sacrifice everything for the sake of this. So a gradual approach, recognition and discovery of the starting point and investment of much effort required subtle and continuous work.

It seems to me that we are seeing its beginning. The sensation that everything begins and ends with contact, connection within the group, that everything is determined there and besides this there is nothing, will show us later how to operate in the world, and how to manage nature through our unification. This is because we are raising MAN, our desire for connection, unity, and correction.

The world will then advance forward towards harmony, unity, happiness, and fulfillment of the law of equivalence of form at the same rate as us. In this transition from  “me,” the yearning for the Creator that I imagine, to the we, where within this we is one single whole within our separated we, the general power of connection called the Creator is discovered.
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From the Convention In St. Petersburg “Day Two” 9/20/14, Lesson 4

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The revolutionary process in which we are participating began with the Big Bang and continued through stronger and stronger connection: from fundamental particles to atoms, from atoms to molecules, from molecules to more and more complex structures, until the appearance of the human body, including the cognitive system, the nervous system, and additional systems. Some of them are not known and some are not understood by us.

In general, this process evolved in two directions: extension and connection.

Everything aspires to connection, and only humans, their societies and their nature, receive an opposite form. In a society, we become more and more connected. However, on the other hand, we oppose each other because the ego separates us. As a result of this, we don’t build a cohesive society based upon mutual support, according to the principle of every living body, including our own. Instead of this, we build something very strange, and our society becomes like a cancer that ultimately devours itself and dies.

Essentially, we don’t know what to do. Scientific studies of the forces and mechanisms that move us have discovered that we have no possibility of avoiding  a third world war and chaos. Scientists know this and write that there is no real solution to this way of development, and what is left is only to submit to the mercy of the process that leads us toward an unknown future.

We are destroying the planet, depleting the natural resources, and doing with nature and ecology whatever we please. All this is not because this came to us, but because we don’t know how to build systems that consist of opposites that connect into a single structure. This union of opposites is precisely the essential law of complex systems.

Here, we come to the wisdom of Kabbalah. This problem arose even 3,500 years ago in ancient Babylon. On the one hand, its inhabitants were very close to one another and depended upon each other. On the other hand, they could not stand each other. They hated one another and felt mutual repulsion. And there was nothing they could do about it, the very structure of society was such that it was devouring itself.

It was then that a wise man by the name of Abraham discovered that the transition to a new level of development was concealed here. Essentially, there was nothing unique about that state. Just like the transition from the level of the still to the vegetative, or from the vegetative to the level of the animate, so also is the transition from the level of the animate to the level of the speaking. This transition requires us to attain the power of connection between opposites so that they can be connected and form a completely harmonious system. In spite of the polarities, in spite of the hatred and the rejection between us, we can utilize a unique force, a unique network in order to reach balance between one another and build a life.

We don’t really understand the significance of this step. We don’t understand what the source of life is and how two opposites can connect. However, it is precisely the absolute polarities between plus and minus that form the atom, a stable system in which they are opposed and yet simultaneously connect.

To continue, according to that principle, combinations are constructed that are more and more complex, possessing the ability to evolve. Plus and minus are combined between them in order to attract what is useful for development and the balance between them, and to emit what is harmful to that balance. Thus, by means of absorption and emission, life is created. There is more and more complex development, until there is a need for building a new system that the Kabbalists call the spiritual system. In other words, it is higher than the systems that are familiar to us.

Abraham discovered that there exists a universal law in nature that encompasses all systems, that maintains and develops them. It is possible to call it the power of Light, the power of the Creator, the higher power. However, it has one goal: to keep all parts of reality in harmony and mutual connection.

It is possible to attract and use this force even now, when we want to rise to the new level and become one system. Through this, we awaken the universal force, and it builds the long-awaited balance between us.

In Kabbalah, the law that Abraham discovered is called the law of equivalence of form. If I am personally attracted to the one force of equivalence of form, then to that degree, I arouse its influence on me and it builds the connection between me and other people to whom I am attracted. It builds among us a harmonious and balanced system between all of the parts.

Abraham discovered the deepest layer of that general integral law of nature that already was known and to which he called all of the Babylonians to join him.

Maimonides, the 12^th century philosopher, said that Abraham wrote a multitude of books and did great dissemination work so that people would understand what he discovered and that he was speaking specifically about a law of nature that one should not oppose. That is how we evolve, without a possibility of escaping from its flow, from the natural tendency toward balance, connection, and harmony.

On the level of the still, vegetative, and animate, we reach balance spontaneously, without free choice. However, on the level of the speaking, this no longer will succeed because we need to participate consciously in building balance and a universal human system. It is up to us to understand, recognize, want to invest effort, and choose to try to organize correctly in order to advance.

So, thanks to these efforts, we arouse the only universal force of nature, which is the Creator, the Light. It doesn’t matter what you call it. In response to our efforts, it will influence us and carry out the right action of connection on us. This is what Abraham taught people.

The subsequent history is known. Some of the people heard him and realized the method for a while, but later, and in spite of it all, dropped out of the process. It is impossible to build one harmonious and balanced system if all the rest of humanity is broken. That is why we have reached the situation today where the Babylonian crisis of separation has come back upon us.

Why is it specifically today? This is because humanity, as was the case then, is discovering that it is connected in one universal system. We are closed within one system, one society, one family, on the face of the Earth, and all of us are linked to each other.

Today, we don’t need to fight. It is enough to sever connections with some nation and it will not bear this isolation. Modern weapons are the same primitive, barbaric clubs in a sophisticated form. No one needs them in a worldwide global system that is like a global village. Today, commercial, industrial, financial, and logistical connections determine everything. If you sever these arteries for a nation, it is like disconnecting some organ from the body. It is clear that it will not survive on its own.

That is also what happened in ancient Babylon in Mesopotamia, the cradle of humanity, when it became one society. The same thing is happening today as.

The Kabbalists, students of Abraham in all generations, spoke about this and even made a calculation in a timeline according to the law of human development to understand when humanity would return to the same situation. The law of unification began to be clarified at the end of the 19^th century, and according to everyone, reached clarification at the end of the 20^th century. More precisely, the Kabbalists wrote about this as being since the year 1995.

This is the situation today. When I began to study the wisdom of Kabbalah in 1975-76, I didn’t believe that this would really happen. However, in reality, there was a very sharp transition, and suddenly there was talk about a unified system, a unified humanity, about a global village, and absolute dependence upon one another, and so forth.

Together with this, the evil of human nature was revealed showing how much we are the opposite to each other and not ready to connect in a correct manner. After all, in spite of the oppositions between us on the level of the still, vegetative, and animate, the universal force connects us such that the polarities are transformed into a dipole that connects us and keeps us in balance and harmony.

However, on the level of the speaking, in the human connections between us, it is up to us to awaken in ourselves the influence of the universal force and to participate in the balance between plus and minus, between the two extremes. This requires specific work from us.

First of all, it is up to us to understand and recognize the situation in which we are found and to continue to invest shared efforts in order to build the right environment. In Kabbalah, these efforts are called raising MAN, meaning making a request for connection. Through this, we awaken the influence of the universal force on us that will connect us into one system and into harmony for all of human society.

This is right for the present historical moment. Today, the wisdom of Kabbalah, the science that Abraham discovered, has been opened before everyone. This is because all of us must utilize the system that has been created and begin to correctly use the conditions that have been created for building the future society. Otherwise, humanity is liable to be destroyed.

So, the Kabbalists, the people who are involved with this problem and its solution, bring to our attention the truth about our situation and our future. They tell us that, in any case, we are reaching a collective balance. However, if we don’t awaken the only force of nature that brings our unification and the right connection between us, then it will nevertheless be revealed as the only power that connects and gathers us together, but without our inclination and desire. In that case, we will need to obey this law against our will, and this will bring us to very unpleasant situations through disasters, plagues, and wars.

This is a good force, for it connects the entire system into one. However, if we oppose it, then we awaken upon ourselves the influence of opposing forces that act upon us as disasters.

The Kabbalists try to bring this knowledge to all humanity and teach humanity how to reach the right understanding of connection, awakening in us an attraction toward it, and in accord with our yearning, stimulating the discovery of the one force without arousing disasters. As a necessity, we will come closer to the correct, integral singular state and advance in the best, most pleasant and desirable way. Such an effort is what is required from us.

The most difficult problems today are being discovered in human society, even though everything good exists in the world. Scientific and technological advancement has reached its peak, but they don’t dare show some of this modern technology to humanity. Otherwise, people will not need to work and there won’t be any need to invest effort.

Essentially, we already have gone out to a new level of development, but we still are not ready to realize it because of our inadequacy. We have the tools in our hands, but we are not ready to integrate them correctly on the new level because our approach is not integral, meaning our inner structure is not integral. On the contrary, we are egoists, and our tendency is to be distant from one another and not connect in harmony.

As a result of this, we look with fear at the future state of united humanity, and we don’t know what to do with seven billion human beings who won’t be working. We don’t have any concept of another form of existence and about a different connection between us while we rise to another level of perception, to a different life and way of living.

There are a multitude of surprises hidden behind the new situation, but we still are not ready to digest them because our perception is not integral.

The main thing in the integral system is to forego the individualistic view of me against the world. Instead of this, I must acquire an integral perception and see a whole picture where all of us are connected and completing one another. Only then do I discover the future state in which humanity must exist, and then I understand and feel this life that is expected at a propitious time.

It is up to us to reach this perception, and this is what the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us.
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From the Convention In Mexico “Day One” 8/1/14, Lesson 1

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From the book The Essential Secret of the Jews, M. Brushtein

While the force majeure affected individual members of humanity or even individual countries, this could be tolerated. But now, beginning with the 20^th century, the situation started to deteriorate. Now, forces majeures “catch” not individual countries, but whole hemispheres.

Let’s recall Chernobyl, the latest earthquake in Japan, the oil accident in the Gulf of Mexico. However, the mentioned disasters are rather random in nature, which we associate with reasons beyond the control of man. Thus we seem to wash our hands of and say that we are not to blame.

However, a long time ago things began to change. We have encountered forces majeures, that is, unpredictable events, in the systems, invented by us and managed by us in the financial, economic, health, education, and other systems.

Now we cannot say that irrational nature spoils our lives. It turns out that we are wrong somewhere. The problem is compounded again by the extent of the consequences.

The worst thing is that we cannot find the guilty and we don’t know what to do.

The heads of central banks have responded to criticism of their too aggressive monetary policy. They admitted that actually they run the economy blindfolded and just do not know what will happen next, writes the Financial Times.

Despite these statements, the perpetrators of the crisis are sought. There are not so many versions. Most often the West, or rather the USA, are accused. At the same time, it is difficult to imagine that the West is currently directing such things.

Leonid Nikas, director of a primary school in Athens, was was used to the fact that children in the school yard play, laugh and dream about the future. But recently a completely different picture, which previously he could not imagine, appeared before his eyes: children were looking for food in garbage cans; those who are in need, ask their richer friends to share leftover food, writes The New York Times.

The Director-General of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC),Yves Daccord, the German news agency DPA reports, compared the current situation in the Old World with the events of almost seventy years ago. Such a large-scale operation to provide food aid in Europe has not been seen since World War II. (Expert Online)

According to the study, ordered by the European Commission, only from 2008 to 2010, the number of victims of European slavers increased by 18 percent – from 6309 to 9528 … people.

According to official data, in theses three years, 23,623 people have been recognized as victims of human trafficking…

Two of the three victims were forced into prostitution, and the rest were used as cheap or free labor, were forced into illegal activities, forced to become organ donors. (Russian Germany)

Of course, we can say that Americans do not care about what is happening in Europe – their concerns are more important to them. We can say that they are villains. But they are not crazy though. Really, don’t they care what’s going on in their homes?

“Large U.S. cities that the rest of the world used to look at in envy are now being transformed into gang-infested hellholes with skyrocketing crime rates. Cities such as Chicago, Detroit, Camden, East St. Louis, New Orleans and Oakland were once bustling with economic activity, but as industry has fled those communities poverty has exploded and so has criminal activity.  Meanwhile, financial problems have caused all of those cities to significantly reduce their police forces. Sadly, this same pattern is being repeated in hundreds of communities all over the nation. … There are approximately 1.4 million gang members living in America today according to the FBI.  That number has shot up by a whopping 40 percent just since 2009. “ (Michael Snyder, “Large Cities All Over America are Degenerating into Gang-Infested War Zones”)
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Filed under: Israel, Nations of the World - No Comments →

Question: What do the four plant species (Arba Minim) that characterize the Sukkot holiday symbolize for us?

Answer: The Lulav (palm branch) is bestowal, consisting of myrtle and willow (three branches of myrtle and two branches of willow). This is the Yesod that we connect to Malchut, the Etrog.

This is combining the characteristics of the Creator—Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod—with our creature characteristics, Malchut. If we were to say this differently, it is a connection of the forms of bestowal that typify the Creator, all the various expressions of His love for us. However, this is not Him Himself. Rather, this is how we perceive Him in our Kelim, in our desires.

Question: Where exactly does a person realize this whole process of adapting himself to complete bestowal and love? Toward whom does he direct his love?

Answer: In order to attain the Creator, I must learn what bestowal and love are. So, I must build a group, acquire friends for myself, so that there among them, I can manifest my attitude. From love for the creatures, the person reaches love for the Creator.

I relate to friends with love just as I would relate to Him. My relationship to the Creator cannot be better than my relationship to the creatures, and only through the friend, through the other, can I attain the Creator.

Question: Why?

Answer: Because a relationship with others is the work that the Creator places in front of me. The entire surrounding world is His “theater” in which I can rehearse, practice, and try to attain the same attitude toward the world like the relationship to the Creator should be.

The way toward Him must pass through this world. Individually, I don’t discover the Creator. Rather, it is only within this world, through it. I practice in a group of people that are conducting a search all the time, and then we pass through the world, through all of its coarseness, in order to attain the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/5/14

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