On April 22, 2008 a rather negative review of the book Meeting Kabbalah, published in Hebrew by the Bnei Baruch organization, appeared in Israel’s most elite newspaper, Ha’aretz. Meeting Kabbalah is a collection of my talks with Israeli writers, actors, musicians, singers and social activists.

When we asked the newspaper’s editorial staff about the negative review, its reviewer, Tomer Persiko, responded with five questions, in which he disagreed with our statements. Here they are:
1. You assert that all methods besides Kabbalah are based on lowering a person. Have you tried all these methods? If not, then what are you basing your statements on?
2. You insist that Kabbalah has existed since the times of Abraham, but modern researchers say that it was founded in the thirteenth century and their works confirm this. Do you have proof of your opinion?
3. You insist that The Book of Zohar was written by Rashbi in the second century CE, while modern researchers say that it was written by a group of Kabbalists under the guidance of Rabbi Moshe de Leon in the thirteenth century, and they produce proof of their assertions. Do you have proof of your assertions?
4. You assert that Kabbalah is a science, but in what sense is it a science if it is based on metaphysical assumptions (for example, the existence of the Sefirot), whose existence cannot be proven?
5. You insist that “the only way a person can reach a connection with the Creator is through a group,” meaning – a Kabbalistic group under your leadership. But you are not willing to accept homosexuals into your group, and advise them to reach a connection with the Creator on their own. How can you respond to this contradiction?

How would you respond to these five questions?

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The Israel Book Week, an event in which most cities and suburbs of Israel host community book-selling exhibitions, is starting today and will continue until June 7.

The entire Bnei Baruch organization is preparing to meet with its many readers, as well as see many new faces, at this special event. Our stands will display all of our publications in all available languages, including Hebrew and English. Anyone who is in Israel during this period can check out where the Book Week is being held in their area, and come receive a free gift at our stand: a book of selected articles written by Bnei Baruch writers in the last year.

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A notice in Ynet, a popular Israeli online magazine: Good Deeds Day

“On Tuesday, June 17 2008, we invite you to stop for a moment in the flow of life and take part in an Israeli community effort. You can volunteer in your area together with you friends and colleagues in a way that suits you. Each one of you can take part in the day when tens of thousands of Israelis will open their hearts to one another, and we will all feel what mutual responsibility toward each other is. What do you think?”

My Response: This is a wonderful initiative, but in order to produce results, it needs to be connected to the Governing Force, the Creator. Even without mentioning Him, we must explain to people that everyone is interconnected and dependent on everyone else. The whole world exists according to the rule of “love thy neighbor,” and only humans break this rule with our egoism, which is why we suffer.

We can ascend to an existence of mutual responsibility and love for all eternity, and not just for one day. With this aim, we should continue explaining how to achieve harmony with nature, which operates by the principle of interconnection, and we are willing to work together with you in this endeavor. However, without such an explanation together with your efforts, they will be empty. There have been many initiatives like yours, and they all turned into nothing more than a national party.

Related Material:
Article: Rising Above the Ego to a New Level of Consciousness
Article: Cracking the Happiness Code

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A question I received: What is the spiritual root of the Holocaust?

My Answer: When the discrepancy between the nation of Israel and its spiritual root reaches a critical point, it produces an impact effect from the correcting, reforming force of the Light. Baal HaSulam writes that even in our time, by not wanting to fulfill our task of correcting ourselves and the world, we are attracting upon ourselves the next blow.

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Questions about an article I wrote in 2000:

1. Did this interview really take place?
2. If it did, do the below quotes accurately portray what you said?
3. It’s hard to understand how a Kabbalist – someone who is a complete altruist – could recommend military rule, preemptive strikes and abandoning the peace process. For example, you said:

“It is not a government of national unity that we need, but a military rule that will have absolute power, assume the responsibility and come forth with an intense preventative strike against Syria, our main enemy. Then we would completely destroy its military machine and the camps where terrorists are trained.”

In other parts of the interview you recommended the following,

“These days we don’t need a Knesset (parliament) whose seats are filled by our natural enemies – the Arab deputies (who don’t hide this fact), and the peacemakers who have paralyzed the people’s will to live on this land.”

4. Finally, even if we agree, and accept the fact that we can’t see the proper course of action because we haven’t yet crossed the Machsom (barrier), shouldn’t a Kabbalist understand that such statements won’t influence Israel’s politics? Did you truly expect people to pay attention to your advice?

My Answer: This wasn’t an interview, but an article I wrote called, “The Threat of Destruction,” and yes, I am for preventative actions, like what Israel did in the Six Days War. It’s obvious that if you’re being attacked, you have to defend yourself. But the question is: Who will be the first to strike? The aggressor? Or the party for whom the strike is intended?

Imagine that a group of criminals have surrounded your son and are about to kill him – and you’re advising him to wait for peace. Or that your daughter is about to be raped! Would you stand around and reason about it, or would you take all the necessary measures to prevent the attack?

Evidently, in our case, you don’t feel close to the victims, the way you would with your children. Egoists, who can’t perceive others as themselves, are calling for inaction and hence are the evil of this world, allowing the killers and rapists to multiply.

King David spent 40 years in continuous warfare, killing and at the same time writing Psalms, which are recognized as the height of love for humankind and the Creator…

And as to no one taking notice of my advice, you’re incorrect about that. People, just like you, took notice back then and are taking notice now. And I didn’t expect anything less. Reactions such as yours bring understanding. You can love only once you acquire power, severity and mercy – in equal measure. It’s because love is the most corrected property – the fourth phase of the Creator’s revelation.

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A question I received: Why do you reveal all of this secret knowledge to gentiles?

My Answer: I suggest that you familiarize yourself with the original sources: Baal HaSulam’s articles “Messiah’s Horn” and “The Arvut.”

A mutual guarantee (Arvut) among a single nation is capable of initiating the correction of the whole world. Likewise, all nations are incapable of carrying out this correction simultaneously. It is as the sages said: The Creator offered the Torah to all nations (through Abraham in ancient Babylon), but they declined the offer, because the magnitude of their egoism, their self-love, made it impossible for them to accept it.

Thus, Abraham created a group of Babylonians (people with desires for spirituality) who were ready and willing to renounce their egoism, and this group became known as the nation of Israel. The only difference between the Babylonians in this group and other Babylonians of that era was that Abraham’s group accepted upon themselves the method of rising above their egoism. Moreover, Abraham, who was a Babylonian priest, became the first Kabbalist. Therefore, by accepting upon themselves the required guarantee (Arvut), the nation of Israel was obligated to be the chosen people among all other nations.

In any case, the correction of the whole world will take place when all nations unite in their aspiration toward the Creator, and the Creator will reveal Himself to all nations. It is as it is written: “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Creator, and all of the nations will flock to Him.” As such, the nation of Israel holds the responsibility for leading humanity to love for thy neighbor, and ultimately, to the goal of creation, which is to merge with the Creator.

My Current Mood: energetic

Related Material:
* ARTICLE: Who Is to Blame? – Selected pieces from a discussion on Baal HaSulam’s article “Introduction to the Book of Zohar”

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News Stories:
* Food Prices Rising Across the World – Food Crisis Looming
* Bats Perish, and No One Knows Why
* Chinook Salmon Vanish Without a Trace

Apparently, we should get used to these headlines, as we’ll be seeing more and more of them, coming from all directions. Only then we will understand that there are no direct methods that can stop or even delay this downfall.

The only thing we need to do is balance ourselves with nature. Some say that we need to restore this balance; however the problem is that it had never existed in the first place. While our egoism was still small, this lack of balance wasn’t that dangerous. And even if we wanted to, we could never compensate for it, as we didn’t have any means to do so. [Read more →]

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Report: Anti-Semitism, Anti-Zionism and hatred toward Jews, supported by a number of governments, have become a growing tendency worldwide over the past decade, says a report on Contemporary Global Anti-Semitism, prepared by the Office of the Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism and presented to the U.S. Congress.

My Response: As a matter of fact, this is how it should be, because the UN represents all nations of the world, which, according to Kabbalah, consists of Israel and other nations.

Baal HaSulam. Introduction to the Book of Zohar, item 66:
Everything divides into two parts: internality and externality:
Humanity: Israel and the nations of the world.
Israel: the workers of the Creator and those who don’t work for the Creator.
The workers of the Creator: Kabbalists, and those who merely carry out the actions of the Torah.
The nations of the world: the righteous and the destroyers.
Everyone from Israel: the “point in the heart” and the “heart.”
If a person from Israel elevates his externality above his internality, he causes the nations of the world to overcome Israel.
If a person from Israel elevates his internality above his externality, he causes the nations of the world to recognize the value of Israel.

Therefore, in this situation, everything depends entirely on the Jews. If they begin to fulfill their mission toward the world, which is to disclose the method of spiritual and corporeal attainment, then the world will value and love the Jews. Otherwise, the more the world suffers, the worse it will act toward them.

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News Story: Recently, Israeli representatives in the UN discovered a map on the official UN site, showing Lebanon bordering the state of Palestine. “The mistake” was corrected, but the map reappeared on the site only a few days later as a result of “a technical issue.” Israeli diplomats in the UN say that they are constantly forced to defend Israel’s right to exist, and this incident with the map of Palestine is by far not the only one.

My Response: The world feels that Israel and the Jews don’t need to exist; that they are a source of tension. Besides Israel, no other nation in the world asks about the purpose of its existence. As a carrier of the method of correction, Israel has the right to exist only if it fulfills its mission: to disclose Kabbalah to the world.

The “Introduction to the Book of Zohar” (item 70) says that if the Jews do not fulfill their mission, then the whole world will not only see them as unnecessary, but also harmful, and that everybody would be better off without them. The world’s explicit and closeted support of Nazis is clear proof of this. It stems from the egoistic nature of every single person.

Israel can prove its need to exist and its usefulness to the world only through the spreading of Kabbalah – the method for improving the world. Then Israel won’t need to defend its right to exist before anyone, not even UN officials!

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Question: Michael! As far as I understand, God’s decree to come to know yourselves only applies to the people of Israel? Here’s the quote: “This means that every man from the nation of Israel is guaranteed to ultimately acquire all the wonderful attainments with which the Creator intended to please every creature in the Thought of Creation.” Why then are you preaching Kabbalah around the world? Am I missing something?

Answer: After the exile from the spiritual level (which happened in the beginning of our era), when Kabbalists attained the Light and mixed with the nations of the world over a period of two thousand years, the sparks of that Light, which was present only in the souls of Kabbalists, have also spread into the souls of the nations of the world, as it is said: “Israel has gone into exile so as to unite with the souls of the nations of the world.” This mixing takes place through existence on the egoistic level, which is common for all nations, and not through mixed marriage as some may think.

Today, this mixing of egoism and the sparks has been completed, and all that’s left for us to do is correct the egoism of every person who has a spark of Light, and ascend to the level of the Creator. This happens gradually, in those who already ask themselves the question about the meaning of life. These are the ones called “Israel,” which stems from the words “Yashar” – straight, and “El” – the Creator, that is, “Straight to the Creator,” according to their aspiration. Obviously this no longer has anything to do with nationality.

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