In the News (from The Guardian): “America may be one of the richest countries in the world, but its people are less healthy and more likely to die early from disease or accidents than those in any other affluent country, a damning official US report has found.

Even the best-off Americans – those who have health insurance, a college education, a high income and healthy behaviour – are sicker than their peers in comparable countries, says the report by the US National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine. …

“For many years, Americans have had a shorter life expectancy than people in almost all the comparator countries and for the past three decades the gap has been widening, particularly for women.

“The US does badly in nine specific areas. It has the highest infant mortality rate of any wealthy country and also does poorly on other birth outcomes, such as low weight babies.

“Deaths from injuries and homicides are far higher than elsewhere and a leading cause of death in children, adolescents and young adults. US adolescents have had the highest rate of pregnancies of affluent countries since the 1990s and are more likely to acquire sexually transmitted infections. The US has the second highest HIV rate and the highest incidence of Aids among the 17 countries.

“Even taking out drunk driving, Americans lose more years of life to alcohol and other drugs than people in other affluent countries. The US has the highest obesity rate and, from age 20, one of the highest levels of type 2 diabetes. The death rate from heart disease is the second highest in the 17 countries. There is more lung disease and more deaths from it than in Europe and older people report more arthritis and other limitations on their activity than in Europe or Japan.”

My Comment: Nature makes no exceptions to anyone, and everything has to be paid for, even a feeling of superiority, which leads to such disastrous results.
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In the News (from Royal Meteorological Society): “Rapid climate change in East Africa about 2 million years ago may have influenced human evolution according to researchers from Rutgers University and Penn State, including Professor of Geosciences at Penn State, Katherine Freeman and Clayton Magill, graduate student in the same department.

“’The landscape early humans were inhabiting transitioned rapidly back and forth between a closed woodland and an open grassland about five to six times during a period of 200,000 years,’ said Clayton Magill ‘These changes happened very abruptly, with each transition occurring over hundreds to just a few thousand years.’ …

“According to the researchers, many anthropologists believe that changing experience and challenges can lead to advances in evolution.

“Magill stated that ‘Early humans went from having trees available to having only grasses available in just 10 to 100 generations, and their diets would have had to change in response…. Changes in food availability, food type or the way you get food can trigger evolutionary mechanisms to deal with those changes. The result can be increased brain size and cognition, changes in locomotion and even social changes – how you interact with others in a group. Our data are consistent with these hypotheses. We show that the environment changed dramatically over a short time, and this variability coincides with an important period in our human evolution when the genus Homo was first established and when there was first evidence of tool use.’”

My Comment: Rather than going the way of his internal development, putting on the clothes of the Reflected Light (OH), acting anti-egoistically, the human being preferred external development, creating around himself the environment (houses, clothes, courtyards, and walls) that isolated him from Nature, the Creator.

Today, we find that this tactic has not led us not to freedom, comfort, or security; Nature becomes more and more aggressive, and no shelter can help us. On the contrary, instead of isolating ourselves from Nature, we must change ourselves to become similar to it, changing our desires from egoistic to bestowal, connection.

Thus, we reach harmony with the fundamental law of Nature, the Creator, and will perceive all His actions on us as good. That is, if until now the acts of Nature, the Creator, made us detached from Him, then today we must begin to bring ourselves to conformity with Him.
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In the News (from Journal Gazette & Times Courier): “What are you doing to keep your relationship alive? A University of Illinois study highlights the importance of five relationship maintenance strategies that couples can use to preserve or improve the quality of an intimate relationship. …

“The research showed that openness, positivity, assurances, shared tasks and a shared social network are strategies that couples can use to make their relationship better.

“To ‘open up’ your relationship, we encourage not only talking about your feelings, but getting your partner to talk about what she is feeling as well. Positivity entailed being a ‘fun’ person and acting upbeat and cheerful as you interact with each other.

“It’s also important to assure your partner that you’re in the relationship for the long haul, to divide household chores and responsibilities equally, and to make an effort to include your partner’s friends and family in some of your activities.

“The study showed that a person who practices one of these five strategies is likely to practice the others as well. And a partner who notices that one of the strategies is being used is apt to be tuned in to their partner’s efforts in the other four areas.

“Persons who use any of these maintenance strategies will not only be more satisfied with and committed to their relationship, they are also likely to continue to love and, yes, even like each other throughout its duration.

“Although these strategies work, challenges may arise when couples don’t see or value each other’s efforts in the same way. These approaches had the most influence on the quality of the relationship when persons believed their partner was also performing relationship maintenance.”

My Comment: An environment determines the future of everyone and every couple. Regular talks, discussions, and family workshops are the key to understanding and inclusion into each other and this is a guarantee of the life of a couple as a whole.
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In the News (from National Science Foundation): “Drug resistant bacteria are a problem in many environments, especially healthcare institutions. While the ways in which these cells become resistant are understood at the cellular level, until now, the bacteria’s survival strategies at the population level remained unclear.

“A new study by James Collins and colleagues at Boston University and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University reveals that a surprisingly small percentage of bacteria actually become highly resistant ‘supermutants.’ In fact, most of the bacteria in their study survived without being resistant to the effective dose of antibiotics in the environment. That is, the individual types of bacteria were not as resistant to the antibiotics as the entire population was. …

“Further experiments revealed that, in addition to being drug resistant, the rare supermutants produced high levels of indole, a signaling molecule produced by healthy bacteria. Indole can also promote survival in harsh environments. When bacteria experience antibiotic stress, the dead and dying cells stop producing indole, which likely contributes to further cell death. By overproducing the chemical, supermutants can protect the more vulnerable bacteria by making enough to support a larger population of cells.

“However, this indole production is costly for the supermutants, who grow more slowly than mutants that do not produce it. ‘This altruistic behavior supports a growing body of evidence that suggests single-celled organisms act as communities. We think study of these population-level behaviors will provide important new understanding of evolution dynamics,’ Collins explained.

“These results confirm observations made by health practitioners everywhere: treatment of drug-resistant bacterial infections is more complicated and challenging than anyone thought. According to Collins, ‘Bacterial communities have an extensive arsenal of techniques to deal with antibiotic assault. By understanding the various strategies they use to survive, we may be able to develop more effective medical treatments.’”

My Comment: Nothing will help people against diseases; they are all the result of our separation. Until we start acting as bacteria, together, we will not overcome them. And it is so in our world with everything. Unity at every level is the trend of development of all the parts of nature, and if we do not agree with it, we lose in all the areas of our lives. Antibiotics will not help! To help our health, we need to become more united than bacteria. After all, any manifestation of evil is intended to help us rise above ourselves.
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In the News (from Financial Post): “The widening income gap between the rich and poor and burgeoning government deficits are the risks most likely to have a global impact over the next decade, according to experts surveyed by the World Economic Forum(WEF).

“Climate change, water shortages and aging populations rounded out the WEF’s top five risks.”

My Comment: When it is projected as a chronic state of the next decade, it is a threatening state not just global risks. Each of them will develop into a system failure. Any of them can result in a terrible conflict. We must look for a common cause of what is happening to humanity to find the solution, which Kabbalah talks about.
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In the News (from the Max Planck Society): “Many processes in the brain occur automatically and without involvement of our consciousness. This prevents our mind from being overloaded by simple routine tasks. But when it comes to decisions, we tend to assume they are made by our conscious mind. This is questioned by our current findings. …

“The researchers found that it was possible to predict from brain signals which option participants would take seven seconds before they consciously made their decision. …

“This suggests that the decision is unconsciously prepared ahead of time.”

My Comment: A decision is made outside of us, above, but not only in our case, but in the case of all the objects of the world according to the principle: glass begins to break before the bullet hits it. Everything in the world happens in a way opposite to what we think; our thoughts, decisions, and actions do not come from us to the world but in the reverse order, they come from “somewhere” to us… The Creator passes through us a series of sensations, and we have to learn to respond to them correctly, recognizing Him in each of them… and then our life will become conscious!
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In the News (from BBC News): “The Institution of Mechanical Engineers said the waste was being caused by poor storage, strict sell-by dates, bulk offers and consumer fussiness. …

“According to the report – “Global Food; Waste Not, Want Not” – from the UK-based institution, as much as half of the world’s food, amounting to two billion tonnes worth, is wasted. …

“The report said that between 30% and 50% of the four billion tonnes of food produced around the world each year went to waste.

“It suggested that half the food bought in Europe and the US was thrown away.”

My Comment: From Above, we are given everything, enough in all the areas of our lives, and only our egoism turns all the good that descends from Above into evil, in the form of health, education, food, weapons, culture, science, etc.—all that we do, we do to our detriment because there is egoism at the heart of our actions, as it is said in the Torah, “help against you,” which in any case turns everything against us.

That is why the only method to correct the omnipresent “distortion” is to replace our egoism with its opposite property—bestowal and love. It is not difficult at all if we do it together. The only problem is to start, and it is purely psychological!
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In the News (from The Province): “Teachers have flocked to a Utah firearms training programme to teach them how to tackle an armed assault like the Sandy Hook massacre, which left 20 children and six teachers dead earlier this month.

“More than 200 teachers responded to the Mass Violence Response Training course offered by the Utah Shooting Sports Council, a week after the National Rifle Association (NRA), the powerful national gun lobby group, launched a controversial campaign to put armed guards in every school in America.

“Utah is one of two states in America that allows licensed teachers to carry concealed firearms on school premises.”

My Comment: Egoism develops, satisfaction diminishes, frustration and stress grow; so, it’s not surprising that this kind of shooting will occur more often if no attention is paid to people changing by means of integral education; no laws will be able to restrict similar incidents.
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Opinion (Daniel Innerarity Grau, Spanish philosopher and lecturer in philosophy at the University of Zaragoza, Spain): “Power is the ability to define the situation, that is, to impose, by force and manipulation or argumentatively one’s vision. … In the EU, all the members participate in that.

“The euro crisis has caused break up of the weak union that was formed around certain shared goals and equally shared fears. But this union was fragile and yielded to the powerful voice of some states. …There is no solution to the institutional crisis of the EU until all the member states become convinced that they are not autonomous, but interdependent and hence are obliged to cooperate as a whole. ….

“An understanding and acceptance of these duties require a sense of co-belonging that no historical distinctiveness or administrative body seems able to provide. …

“The European Union is a real challenge to the idea that a national state is the only form of political community and identity. A uniform national identity is not a requirement either for democracy or for solidarity. … The European democratic experiment is precisely an attempt to share rights and responsibilities, costs and benefits, but without the guarantee of a national interaction of the old style.

“Consequently, Europe is established not only through institutional reforms, but also through shared practices. … Governments have to end up accepting, however reluctantly, the fact the European Commission will have more power.

My Comment: An egoistic approach by each country to the EU tears this union apart, and it is quickly heading towards its collapse. Salvation is only in intensive integration. But this is possible only under the condition of educating all the EU members in the spirit of unity. Its absence before the creation of the EU brought about all their problems. But this defect has not been corrected yet. It is necessary to implement integral education for the EU; otherwise, we will witness its collapse …
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Opinion (Roger B. Myerson, American economist and winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Economics, author of Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict): “The nature of the financial crisis, the war in Iraq, democracy in Russia, endless military conflicts and terrorist attacks, cures for depression, the presidential election … all these are games, which humanity has been playing for centuries. …

“So our lives are—the game. To win, you just need to follow the rules. A game is a process that involves two or more participants. Working in teams, shopping, negotiations, conflict and war… . Everyone wants to realize his own interests and uses a special strategy. … Game theory studies general rules that will reduce stress and facilitate peace.”

My Comment: Kabbalah views everything that happens as a game because without imagining the future state, it is impossible to reach it. I often talk about this in class and always cite the example of children who develop due to games. But a game should be carried out as by children, according to the rules of nature. In children it happens instinctively, but in adults only under the laws of development that Kabbalah reveals.
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