Opinion (Michael Khazin, economist): “The feelings of the end of 2011 were optimistic. Everyone was confident that the crises would end in 2012. … But by the end of 2012, the situation began to change dramatically. The main example of that was the report of the U.S. intelligence community about the future of the world in 2030. The report itself is not crucial, what is important is that none of the reviewed scenarios considers the option of the U.S. dominance in that period. …

“It is not just an important event, it is in some ways a radical change in the conditions of human existence in the last 2000 years. … Since then, there was always a group of people who were ready to take responsibility for the entire humanity, offering universal “rules of the game.” Originally, they were built only on the basis of the Biblical values (Christian global projects and Islam), then, from the 16^th century, there were also projects that began to limit the Biblical value system (the global capitalist project). …

“Today, we see that the elite of the “capitalist” project … is ready to hold back and give up on imposing the rules of conduct and social behavior.

“But people in all the countries and regions are not ready to write rules for themselves. This means that they will be established spontaneously and not always peacefully and safely. …

“Unless someone takes responsibility again by proposing common rules. But there will be a problem because in any case this “someone” will have to be strong enough to explain to the nervous opponents that some things should not be done. …

“I think that it was namely the refusal of the elite of the “capitalist” project to dominate globally that became the main result of the previous year. …. The crisis that we faced was not only economic; it has already reached the systemic level.”

My Comment: For those who study Kabbalah, it is clear that with the destruction of connection with the upper world 2000 years ago, religion (the religious project) prevailed in the world, which was replaced during the time of Ari (the 16^th century, the beginning of correction of the world) with the economic project. All these are the stages of development of egoism that are manifested in the form of various “projects.”

In 1995, we actively entered the latest “project”—the correction of egoism, integral humanity, ascent to the upper stages of unity, bestowal, and love—unwillingly, through suffering, or knowingly, with joy. No one but Kabbalists wants and is able to lead us forward because we know the next states of humanity.
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In the News(from DailyMail): “A strong friendship is the secret to a long-lasting romantic relationship, new research suggests.

“Researchers found that valuing your friendship with your partner helps create relationships with more commitment, more love and greater sexual satisfaction.

“People who put more emphasis on trying to satisfy their personal needs or desires through their relationship are less likely to sustain the bond in the longer term. …

The psychologists wrote that relationship failures can lead to negative emotions, feelings of insecurity and reduced physical health. But they added that friendship is a ‘defining characteristic of love’ and suggested that understanding the causes of break ups could help couples avoid that fate. …

“The results indicate that valuing the friendship aspect of a romantic relationship is important to relationship quality. It seems likely that placing greater importance on the friendship component of the relationship relative to other components (e.g. sex) may promote lasting relationships. …

“People who had scored highly for investing in the friendship aspect of their relationship were also more likely to score highly on romantic commitment, love and sexual satisfaction.”

My Comment: Kabbalah defines love not as contentment in itself, but the fulfillment of the other by me, as a mother feeding the baby receives joy from the baby’s fulfillment. Such an attitude toward a partner is called love. And other relationships are explicit or implicit use of the partner.
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Question: How can I examine every action that I make more effectively in order to discover the reason for the awakening from Above that caused it?

Answer: Let me give you an example. Suppose the phone suddenly rings and an unfamiliar voice says, “Wait, I am coming to settle my account with you today,” and hangs up just like in horror movies. You don’t know who has just called and what it’s all about! You begin to look at everyone that you meet suspiciously and fearfully. You check and examine everything that happens.

This is exactly how we should look for the Creator. We need the concern, the anxiety, the fear, the insecurity, and the helplessness that force a person to remain sensitive and alert and to check everything that comes his way.

If the goal is very important to me, but I don’t see that I advance towards it, I worry about what is happening and have to find out what is standing in my way. What is the goal exactly and maybe I am not imagining it correctly. What are the means for attaining it?

Here I discover that my problem is that I simply have to turn my hatred into love. I have to check my state and my intention and to concede where I currently cannot concede. I have to pay attention to what I disrespect and consider as unimportant now and to try to feel it. Then I will regain consciousness and suddenly see the upper world. I don’t see it now only because I don’t want to see it!

It all depends on changing one’s principles according to which a person relates to reality. They determine what a person’s reality will be like.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/3/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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We are made of the desire to receive and we feel everything in it only as some gain for ourselves. Besides that, a person doesn’t understand or feel anything. The correction is in the fact that we tune the desire to be in order to bestow.

In the meantime, these are only nice words for us and we don’t understand what it is about. This means that we can penetrate someone else by using our desire to receive and feel what is happening inside him, which means to know how he feels and understands what is happening in us! And, we act accordingly.

This means that we shouldn’t examine the actual feeling, whether it is sweet or bitter, sour, warm or cold. I have very strong senses, but I examine everything from inside him and how good he feels. After all, everything that I feel comes from the Creator, so I want to feel how this operates in me according to the pleasure that the Creator receives.

It makes no difference what my senses or my tastes are. I value everything that happens inside me only according to what the Creator feels because of what I feel. We must be together, which means that I must be inside Him in order to know for sure how to tune myself, to adjust myself will all that is happening inside me.

Everything that is in my mind and heart comes from the Creator; the Creator is inside me. So, I must know how to perceive His feelings by my senses. I must yearn for the feeling that He is “the first”—He is inside me, and He evokes all my feelings and thoughts—and that He is “the last” since I must see by which response I bring Him more contentment. This means that I must examine how I should respond to what is happening in order to bring Him the greatest contentment.

If I act that way, it means that I yearn for the love of the Creator. It makes no difference what I receive from Him. I receive everything as “good and benevolent,” but I must make sure that it is really good, and in order to do that, I must connect to Him and in my reality, feel that the Creator enjoys. I examine everything only according to my feeling in Him, both in the beginning and in the end, and so I want to remain adhered to Him, to get close to Him and to discover Him since, without it, I cannot tune my responses to what I receive from Him.

In that case, both love and fear develop in me simultaneously. Love develops above the fear since the fear is the essential condition for love without which love cannot exist. I must feel constantly “in fear and trepidation” as to whether I receive all my feelings from the Creator and whether He dresses in me. What does He want me to feel? How should I respond in order to bring Him the greatest contentment?

This requires my devotion, self-annulment, adhesion, and the need to feel joy in Him since “For in Him, our hearts shall rejoice.” By that, a person becomes a violin that plays according to the responses and feelings he receives from the Creator.

I constantly tune and calibrate myself so that the Creator will be “the first”—as it is written, “There is none else besides Him”—and that He is “the last” and that “in Him our hearts shall rejoice.” A person is in the middle: On the one hand, he annuls himself, feeling the Creator’s attitude toward the created being and, at the same time, expresses in response the created being’s attitude toward the Creator.

Thus, absolute love only can exist in a vessel that tunes itself accurately in all its 620 attributes, its desires of “in order to bestow.” He doesn’t need anything for himself except for one thing that he discovered in the beginning, that “There is none else besides Him,” and ends with the “good and benevolent.” This means that he understands that he receives everything from the Creator that is dressed in the person’s image (“There is none else besides Him”). Then, he, himself, dresses in the Creator as the good and benevolent, wanting to bring Him contentment
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/29/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”: Who is the Almighty, all His deeds are to bestow and to benefit the other, and not at all for His own benefit because He, the blessed, has no lack that needs to be fulfilled, and also he has no one from whom to receive, also you, all your deeds will be to bestow and benefit the other.

Question: What does it mean “to bestow and to benefit the other”?

Answer: It means that I need to feel exactly what you want. And for that I need to be in love towards you, in an inclination toward you. Meaning, I need to do a “Tzimtzum (restriction)” upon myself and to assemble on all my desires a “Masach (screen)” and “Ohr Hozer (Returning Light).” Then in my qualities, that will be directed outward and not inward to myself, I might be able to understand and to feel you and reveal precisely what you want.

I need to receive all your “tastes” from you even though I don’t recognize them. And for me, you are some kind of alien that came from another planet. Still, I take upon myself your vessels in such a form I even receive what your mother fed you in your childhood.

How is it possible to feel this in my vessels, my desires, if I have no idea what you are made from and what inner reaction you feel toward anything? Here I really need to come closer to you, to love you. In the wisdom of Kabbalah we call it “nearing,” embracing,” “kissing,” “coupling,” and “adhesion”; these are concepts that symbolize measurement of connection through equivalence of desires and mutual fulfillments.

Question: I mean, what seems to me now that the other is lacking something, is it only how it seems to me?

Answer: You cannot interpret your needs in your current vessels. Yes it is true that in our world the means of communication and the influence of the environment make it possible somehow to bring the desire into a common denominator, but to really feel what is in the heart of the friend is the same as to feel the Creator. You need to make a Tzimtzum, Masach, and Ohr Hozer. Only in this way will you feel him as yourself and only in this way will you be able to exit toward the other.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: You have said that when we study the integral method, we begin to perceive the negative qualities of other people as positive. What does this mean?

Answer: This means that until I rise above my egoism, I do not see others, I only see myself. But when I rise above myself, I suddenly begin to appreciate another person the way he appreciates himself. In other words, I see that his actions are good and proper. I was wrong to appraise him the way I did from my prior egoistic point of view.

Comment: Then we have not only the collapse of the subjective “I,” but also the crumbling of all the ethics.

Answer: There are no ethics in our egoism, nothing but trying to take as much as possible and pushing everyone as far away as possible. I am speaking about our nature.

When we look at another person, we try to find faults in him, feel that he is beneath us, and that we are better than him. This is a natural defense response of our egoism. This is the way we regard the entire world.

I look at my child and somebody else’s child. My child is always at least better somehow in my opinion.

I always put myself in a more beneficial position; otherwise, there is no reason for me to exist. The egoism’s defensive reaction is directed towards providing me with support that I have the right to exist, and I exist.

But when I rise above me, I see others through completely different eyes.
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From KabTV’s “Integral World” 11/27/12

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On its own, what is the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah? Everything seems simple; people that want to study come and there is an expert that teaches. He sits and he talks, and whoever wants to hear comes and listens. There are many places like this in the world where people are studying all kinds of things.

But when a man comes to the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah, quickly he reveals that the students need to be connected to each other. So, ok good, there are even quite a few examples of this. People connect in frames of a group; it could be a class or a group, etc.

It is only that here, we tell them, ”You need to connect between yourselves in love.”

Already this looks like mysticism. Something similar to it exists in the wisdoms of the East and also religion is preaching about connection between people, “Love your friend as yourself.”

Later, the quality of this connection is spoken about. So it becomes understood that the issue is not only in studying and all the other things that accompany it, but the main thing is the connection.

How could it be? I came to study some kind of wisdom. I’m willing to do it together with others; I’m willing to join them in order that the connection between us will be in accord with the study. But no, I’m being told another thing, “You need to connect with them to such a measure that you will stop feeling your existence, only they will exist for you.” This I do not understand, but they demand this from me in order to understand the material, which on its own is not important in the meantime.

In this matter, a reversal of 180 degrees awaits me: Before the material of the study was important to me, I wanted to know something new, to receive wisdom, and now it is clear that the material is not important at all, rather the connection is. I hadn’t even thought about something like that.

So what has to be done? How can one understand that everything is attained in connection, that we will never understand the sources if we don’t begin to connect, because the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks only about the manners of connection and not about anything else?

We stumble on this problem. And that’s why the Rabash began his articles from this: love of friends, the purpose of society, the order of the gathering of friends, etc. Without this, we simply have nowhere to go, but we dismiss what doesn’t fit our desire and public opinion.

Even though it is hard for me to receive the importance of the love of friends, I need to convince myself that I am here only for one goal, to connect with the friends in such a way as to annul myself before them, to lose self-existence and to exist only in such a measure that I can bestow to them, only according to their desire.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/13, Writings of Rabash, “Love of Friends”

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The Writings of Rabash, 1984, Article 2, “Concerning the Love of Friends”:

1) The need for love of friends.

2) What is the reason I chose specifically these friends, and why have the friends chosen me?

3) Should each of the friends disclose his love for the society, or is it enough to feel love in one’s heart and practice love of friends in concealment, and thus not need to openly show what is in his heart?

These questions are obviously important. Indeed, on the whole, I don’t feel any need for the love of friends. Where will I find the powers? How can I convince myself? And most importantly, where is the reward here?

If I were promised something real, then perhaps I could convince myself, but I am only told that by love of friends I will get a reward that is above this whole world: not money or gold, not health, not different entertainments, but something that is much greater. But because I don’t see that reward, I don’t really value the love of friends.

It would be better if I were told, “Love your friend and you will feel good.” If I depend on someone, for example, who can take me out of prison, then I would clearly be ready to do everything for him only so that he would help me escape. But here too, I don’t see any way out of prison; I don’t see a real big reward for the love of friends. I am told about the upper world, but for some reason I don’t find it so attractive.

Later Rabash says that I have chosen the friends, and the friends have chosen me. But when did I really choose them? And really, would I choose them if I had a chance to choose from many other candidates? By what I see here, I would choose one or two, not more than that, so it turns out that no one has chosen his friends.

We haven’t chosen the teacher either. I am sure you would prefer someone more solid and respectable, so where is our freewill?

It seems that by the connection in the group I have to feel that each one is so special that from all of humanity, I would really choose only these friends. This stage is in front of us: to feel the friend, his soul, to get so close to him that he becomes the only one of the seven billion, and the same for every member in the group.

In addition, Rabash is asking whether we should express our love by some external means, for example, to act before one another, to give each other gifts, etc. Or should we rather work modestly, since the real work is internal, whereas the “decorations” as we well know are not worth much, because they can turn out to be flattery, hypocrisy, and false. I don’t really love anyone, so can I express something that I don’t feel? After all, this is a lie.

However, if each of them does not show the society that he is practicing love of friends, then one lacks the force of the group.

We must understand that we are small and weak, and since we lack the understanding, we are impressed by external acts and so we have to use them. Each one should behave in a way that the friends can see: He performs serious internal work, makes efforts for the love of friends, and indeed already attains a high level. Thus we advance forward.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/13, Writings of Rabash 

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I have to feel the friend as a part of me, as the main part. Just like a mother feels her baby as the most important thing in the world. She cherishes the baby more than herself.

In order to do this, I perform different actions in the group that draw the Light that Reforms so that it will form the new attribute in me, the attribute of bestowal. Then I discover love towards those I hated before.

There are several stages along this path: First I come to the group and study with the friends. It would be better if I could get along without them—for example, if I could pay the teacher to be taught privately and so that the friends would go away. But the teacher tells me, “You need them; to the extent that you connect with them, you will be able to hear what I have to say, otherwise you will remain deaf.”

What kind of a condition is this? The more connected we are, the better we understand the teacher. This is very strange… there is nothing like this anywhere else.

Then the teacher together with the sources tell us, “If you love one another, you will feel the material that we study. You will not only understand it, but you will feel it; you will discover a new reality in the connection among you. If you connect, like the fingers in one hand, you will discover the upper reality, the upper world!”

That’s strange! So what should we do?

“Try,” they tell me. I begin to try, and if I really try to connect with the friends, I feel an aversion. There are conflicts and problems, mutual baseless accusations, and it is impossible to overcome this. It seems that it isn’t so easy. What is the argument about? It is about a spiritual problem: whether to connect in order to advance towards the Creator, or to separate. This isn’t an argument about minor issues in this world, but a spiritual argument between “Moses” and “Pharaoh.”

As a result, I feel helpless, and instead of love of friends, I discover aversion, and then hatred. Then I begin to work more and more intensively.

If, for example I have 50 kilos of hatred and I cover it with 51 kilos of love. Thus, I acquire a spiritual vessel. After all, we have tried as hard as we could to overcome the hatred with the help of mutual prayer, and as a result we now feel love between us.

This is the path to the spiritual world that we discover only in the connection between us—there is simply no other place it can be revealed. I hear this over and over again, until after several months I realize that that’s the way it is, until I accept it internally.

But now I don’t accept this; just like a patient who is allergic to a certain medicine, I am allergic to real spiritual love.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/13, Writings of Rabash 

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The most unusual thing in the wisdom of Kabbalah occurs when a beginner hears the message about “love, unity, and mutual inclusion” that are totally contrary to our natural desires. In the beginning, Kabbalah appears to us as a conventional, hard science: “I want to understand the system, study phenomena behind the façade of nature, comprehend the upper force and the principles of Its work, learn the laws of universe, and find the hidden causes of history…” In other words, a person tends to study concrete formulas, and then he discovers that it is all about love.

Is there anybody who seriously addresses this subject? Hollywood? Serious people are sitting in Wall Street, whereas love is the domain for odd fellows and “Bohemians…”

It takes a lot of time to start understanding the message of love. It takes years to have this information “go under the skin” and reach one’s heart. Our egoism is not willing to accept things like love, nor does it allow the message that only through unity we reveal a new reality and that only due to love we rise to our highest state, become more kind-hearted and reveal new worlds. Our material experience doesn’t provide any examples of the above, nor does it prove these statements in any way.

Some people are more prone to accept these ideas; to others, this message is really hard to apprehend. It depends on the readiness of our souls and on the “depth” of the desire (Aviut). It also requires persistence, diligence, and a sense of utter necessity to achieve this state. If both factors, a strong rejection and an overwhelming attraction, force us to stay on our path no matter what, then, even before we reach love, we still discover that everything depends on our qualities. The upper Light influences us and triggers various impressions in us; thus, we begin realizing that our internal changes either shut or open the image of the upper world to us.

Something “clicks” inside us and we begin seeing much more and having keener sensations than ever before. We keep penetrating into the structure of reality; we acquire a clearer and wider understanding of it… Everything depends on our heart. It is the place where we sense and distinguish between everybody and everything that are within the field of our vision and sensations.

Then, the “door” shuts, as if a black cloud descends on our feelings and intellect, and now again, we stop understanding and feeling anything, as if we are walking in a dream and can hardly cope with our responsibilities. Time passes, the door opens again, and then, it shuts again. So gradually we begin realizing that everything depends on the level of openness or closure of our mind and senses.

And then we penetrate deeper into the core of the mechanism that closes and opens the doors. After we go through all these states many times, we realize that the “door” leads us not just somewhere outside us, but to others. When we feel extremely close to them, our eyes and ears open and we advance. When we are farther from them, everything shuts down.

This is the way the Light impacts us, thus gradually forming the connection between our feelings and mind and by building our attitude to our friends, adding more mutual care, deepening sensations and openness to each other, making us familiar with the upper world and the upper state. At this phase, a person realizes that this world is not somewhere in the clouds, nor it is behind the horizon, but rather concretely in our sensations: The more we open ourselves to others, the higher we rise.

Gradually, we approach the “edges” and start distinguishing the details of our desire to receive. We separate it into steps and levels; in view of that, we build the desires next to the mind.

It takes time. We have to include ourselves into the group as much as only we can; literally “throw ourselves” into the group as into the sea; “lose” ourselves in it, dissolve into our friends. Due to this kind of “self-annihilation,” one “soaks” in others and realizes that “it’s not important what we get from this connection and mutual-inclusion. Everything that comes from our friends is the territory of the Creator. Everything that is in me is the territory of the evil inclination, the “angel of death.”

When one realizes this much, the requirement “to love one’s friends” emerges. One feels that he needs them and strives to relate to them as if they were very close to him, as a mother who permanently internally embraces her children in order to protect them from harm.

From this point on, it gets much easier to advance, since one has already built one’s path correctly: One already knows that everything is inside him, inside his sensations, in his attitude to his friends and neighbors who in fact are the parts of his own soul. He understands that instead of seeing externality in the shape of inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature, he has to observe “external” details that are produced by his mind and senses as something that belong to him, but at the same time is separated from him by the “cloud” and “dust” that cover one’s perception of the world. It means that one has to return a clear picture even though there is a confusion created by the evil inclination; he tends to merge with the correct picture of the world and become one unified feeling and intellect.

This is the essence of our work. If we manage to do it, we gradually will ascend the ladder of the worlds. To the degree of our ability to return our “external” parts, we sense them as being filled with the upper Light.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/16/13, “Love of Friends

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