In the News (from The Jerusalem Post): “It is time for “Jewish” to mean hero; a hero that knows himself, that knows how to overcome his own ego and to love others, teaching others how to do the same.
“It is in these stressfully precarious times, with a growing, world-enveloping economic crisis and the looming threat of Iran, that I found myself in a very interesting meeting. A meeting so delicate and intensely profound that it brought me to wonder in awe about the future we are all about to be living.

“Maybe it will be completely terrible and chaotic, politically, financially, socially and ecologically – but maybe not. Maybe we’ll pull through and find it to be uplifting and transforming.

“I found myself sitting together with my old university professor, the big-hearted and wise psychologist Dr. Kalman Kaplan, an expert in Biblical Psychology and the author of the TILT: Teaching Individuals to Live Together model, and one whose depths I cannot fathom: Dr. Michael Laitman, scientist and…Kabbalist. It was not your ordinary discussion about where we are and where we are heading; there was a very pressing feeling that something big needs to happen, and that it can only happen through the collaboration of many.

“The topic was us. Jews.

“What is going on with us, our identity, our strengths? Are we aware? Are we awake? Are we tapping in to our great ancient wisdom and do we see how relevant it is to today’s issues? Sadly, everyone around the table agreed that the situation is less than favorable.

“So many Jews in America have lost touch with their biblical values and identities, Dr. Kaplan reported. The rich psychological wisdom that could teach us all how to live together is rarely made use of, he said. And what more do we need in a global, interconnected world, than to learn how to live together?

“This is the role and the light we were always meant to bring to the world, said Dr. Laitman. It is in these days of growing interdependence and a gradually revealing crisis of relationship that we can finally do our job. We talked about the trends of extreme individualism that were at the basis of the multi-faceted crisis. In such an intricately woven system of ties and interconnectedness, the lack of shared values followed by reckless self-concern results in dangerous imbalance, Dr. Laitman explained. Dr. Kaplan added that the Jewish tradition emphasizes the right blend between self and other.

“So yes, I thought, we all know that “Love thy neighbor as yourself” is the highest law, but how do we achieve it? How do we merge self and other in such a smooth way as to bring ourselves and the system we are part of into balance? How do we build a bridge across all our differences; our differing points of view, traditions and habits? I remembered the forces that enabled us to build the state of Israel against all odds, and realized that what we need is a powerful and deep shared purpose.

“RABBI KOOK wrote that “unity which comes from the demand of one’s own good, which is for the sake of each individual’s personal good, is a random unity, which is based on an individual’s self-love, and it will not last, for it has no true center. And even when this so-called unity grows, it will end up in the flames of hatred and civil war, since each individual pulls in the direction of his own fulfillment. But the unity that comes from the acknowledgment of the value of the higher purpose, which comes only through the good of others, is based upon the true love of all, and it will last, and the longer it does, the greater and stronger it will be.”

“It is interesting to note how hard times push us closer together; we manage to collaborate, to help each other and feel a togetherness that is uniquely powerful. It’s because of the shared purpose of survival that we can suddenly transcend our petty arguments and differences.

“Imagine how wonderful it would be if these pressures (Iran, the economy, our ecology) only served as triggers to remind us of our true, positive common purpose, of life as a unified, loving people, setting an example to all.

“I learned from Dr. Laitman that Kabbalah is the inner teachings of the Torah, and that it speaks exactly of this. It is all about knowing yourself, and learning to love others, to discover the power that is found in connection. It’s a sense of connection that we already know deep inside and need to reawaken; as is written, thousands of years ago it kept our nation strong, and its loss brought about the destruction of the temple and the great exile.

“I agreed with him that we would all benefit greatly if we could just remember what it is that we have, buried deep in our consciousness and on our bookshelves. Creating educational programs that would teach and remind us of the great treasures of our tradition and how to make them relevant to our daily lives, whether you are secular or observant, would assist in uniting us and bringing back our Jewish identity.

“It would not be the identity we may experience now, the one that so many have walked away from for more “modern” and “free” definitions. It would be a deeper, much more expanded and empowered one, an acknowledgment of our purpose and responsibility.

“The two scholars spoke gravely of how much we have forgotten. They said we need a shofar, a horn to awaken our sleeping brothers to collaborate for the sake of our higher, root cause. Dr. Laitman mentioned the Ari Institute, which has been creating programs that teach the laws of integrality, of how we all need to live in this new global world harmoniously with the natural, interconnected system we are part of; programs that teach the tools that we need to be ourselves, and to love others just the same.

“I was glad to hear that such options are already available. More than anything, our world needs love, connection and inspiration.

“I never would have believed it, but I discovered that these missing ingredients were always there, right under my nose, in my own tradition. Maybe I am the only one who is surprised, but what is certain is that these tools; this wisdom, needs to be actualized so that we could walk out of this crisis not as victims but as heroes. It is time for “Jewish” to mean hero; a hero that knows himself, that knows how to overcome his own ego and to love others, teaching others how to do the same.

“What a meeting it was. I left feeling somewhat concerned, because it seemed like there was so much to do. But I was also glad, because it seemed that there was so much we CAN do. And really, it would only take awareness to change things around.

“I know that the awareness and collaboration of the many great people who are reading this can make it happen. To stand up to the constantly rising trends of anti-Semitism, to give an example of the only true solution to our crises, to give hope to all – let’s remember who we are, let’s bring our nation, and the world some light.”
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Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article 11, “Joy With a Quiver”: Hence, where there is love, there should be fear as well, as fear is the hollow. It follows that when there are both, there is wholeness. Otherwise, each wants to revoke the other. Love is called existence, whereas fear is called dearth and hollow. Only with the two of them together is there wholeness. And this is called “two legs,” and precisely when one has two legs can one walk.

All our work concentrates on two lines: the right and the left, and the middle line comes from Above. Here below, we must first worry about wholeness. We should always turn to the right line first and deal with it: to think about wholeness as much as possible, about the Creator’s greatness, about the importance of the goal, and about the greatness of the friends and the group.

On the other hand, it is impossible to constantly be in a state of wholeness, since there will be no advancement then; if a person never leaves the state of wholeness, it is called Hassidism when everything is seemingly accepted with love and joy.

A person raises himself artificially to this kind of attitude, ready to rejoice no matter what happens. Thus he annuls the criticism in him. So it is possible to educate a person to adopt this kind of attitude. Education puts a person in one line, either the right or the left, and he follows this line and constantly holds on to one principle.

There are faiths and religions that keep a person in a state of joy, in constant elation, and there are others that keep him in constant weeping, forcing him to torture himself and to feel that he is a sinner, like a “fool sitting idly eating his own flesh.”

But the right way to advance and to build a human being has to be along two lines, and a person must build them by himself. He must develop the right line by the environment, by imagining the greatness of the Creator, as much as he can. He builds the right line to the extent that he can annul himself before the environment that provides the feeling of the Creator’s greatness.

This means that to be in the right line, he already has to have annulled himself, which means that the left line is included in the right line. If by that he subdues himself before the greatness of the Creator, which he receives from the environment, and he builds his right line, then it is already part of the spiritual work and not just in order to feel happy.
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From the 1^st part to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/17/12, Shamati #11

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Opinion (Dalai Lama, The 14^th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso): “All the world’s major religions, with their emphasis on love, compassion, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness can and do promote inner values. But the reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate. This is why I am increasingly convinced that the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics beyond religion altogether.”

My Comment: It is time to break away from faith in the unprovable and to follow only real knowledge drawn from the comprehension of Nature as the upper management system, while being limited to the understanding of matter and the form of matter, as stated in The Introduction to The Book of Zohar and nothing more, because anything beyond is part of what cannot be felt, and that is why it is unprovable.

Only by comprehending nature, its laws and trends of development, and only to the extent that it is revealed to man, as indicated by Kabbalah: “The judge has only what his eyes can see,” can we find the right solution to all our problems.
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Baal HaSulam, “A Handmaid that Is Heir to Her Mistress”: The sages of the nations of the world studied all the books of the children of Israel and turned them into delicacies to strengthen their faith, meaning their wisdom, called “theology.”

We see that all the religions took names, words and, concepts from the wisdom of Kabbalah and used it and turned it into something that is totally opposite from Kabbalah in order to prove that they are right. As if by playing with the words and definitions it is possible to change this world. Today it is gradually revealed, but in the meantime throughout history it brought about great destruction all over the world and especially the destruction of the people of Israel.

Until now all the religions were fueled by the wisdom of Kabbalah because without it they wouldn’t even know what to call the different forces and would remain at the level of ancient Greek mythology. By stealing the description of the spiritual system from the wisdom of Kabbalah, they pretended to understand its structure and thus grew very strong and lured billions of people who are attracted to that. Of course, it became a great flaw in the correction of the world.

But on the other hand, the flaw and the corruption takes us deeper into the matter of creation and by that we feel more clearly the oppositeness between the two forces: the evil force versus the good force. This path is actually necessary. There is no goodness without evil, and there is no evil without goodness.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/12, “A Handmaid that Is Heir to Her Mistress”

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In the News (from The Christian Science Monitor): “Atheism is on the rise in the United States and elsewhere while religiosity is declining, according to a new worldwide poll. “The Global Index of Religiosity and Atheism,” conducted by WIN-Gallup International headquartered in Switzerland, found that the number of Americans who say they are “religious” dropped from 73 percent in 2005 – when the poll was last conducted – to 60 percent. Those who said they were ‘convinced’ atheists rose from 1 to 5 percent. And 33 percent of the people polled said that they don’t consider themselves as a ‘religious person.’ …

“America remains way down the list of countries for self-reported atheism. China tops that list with 47 percent “convinced atheists,” followed by Japan (31 percent), the Czech Republic (30 percent), France (29 percent), and South Korea (15 percent).

“According to the poll, the following are the top ten religious countries: Ghana (96 percent of the participants that they are religious), Nigeria (93 percent), Armenia (92 percent), Fiji (92 percent), Macedonia (90 percent), Romania (89 percent), Iraq (88 percent), Kenya (88 percent), Peru (86 percent), and Brazil (85 percent).”

My Comment: This is a stage of the transition from mysticism to the true religion, Kabbalah, as Baal Sulam writes in his article “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose” that brings a person to the revelation of the Creator, the single highest force of nature.
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Baal HaSulam: “Time to Act”: For a long time now, my conscience has burdened me with a demand to come out and create a fundamental composition regarding the essence of Judaism, religion, and the wisdom of Kabbalah, and spread it among the nation, so people will come to know and properly understand these exalted matters in their true meaning.

We have to understand how difficult it is for a Kabbalist to act outside his framework. After all, there are significant restrictions on the revelations of the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Even now, when not much has been revealed yet, we see that humanity has acquired from the wisdom of Kabbalah the foundations of the animate level of existence in many aspects. It has enriched the world by different methods throughout history: by the Greek philosophers and by different students who leaked the wisdom. The religions were born as a result: first Judaism, then Christianity, and then Islam. Different beliefs stemmed from this in the days of Abraham among the people of the East.

Eventually everything stems from crumbs of the wisdom of Kabbalah, which speaks about the forces that operate in the world and which bring a person to the predetermined correction.

On this basis people have established philosophical approaches, metaphysical studies, different theological doctrines, etc. Later these patterns became a great obstacle on the way to the truth. People were confused since they took separate systematic descriptions from the wisdom of Kabbalah and they created different systems and concepts from them as they saw fit. Thus, they tried to confirm their own claim to truth and power, denying the accuracy of Kabbalah. We should learn from these examples: People have a systematic perspective from the wisdom of Kabbalah and turn it into something that is beneficial to them.

Because of this there was a ban on revealing the wisdom of Kabbalah. After all, if the Light is poured into an unprepared vessel, it is called “immature fruit,” and it is an obstacle in receiving the truth; it evokes hatred towards Israel and distances people from correction.

As a result the sages were very careful and didn’t reveal the wisdom of Kabbalah. Even if a person had heard about it he couldn’t get any information about it. Only in the last thirty years did Kabbalah books begin to appear in stores although not everywhere. Before, it was simply impossible to find them.

Moreover, Kabbalists set serious limitations regarding potential student and even spread negative rumors to keep the Jewish people from approaching the wisdom of Kabbalah. If a person is not intended for it, if doesn’t have a true burning desire, he shouldn’t deal with this wisdom. First he has to go through certain phases of development, since we are all parts of the general desire that ripens gradually.

Only today has the time come when there is nothing to fear anymore. On the contrary, we have to spread the wisdom of Kabbalah, which means to act in opposite ways.

On the whole, Baal HaSulam was the first Kabbalist to reveal this wisdom to the masses. He wrote a lot for the general public, including the newspaper The Nation and other articles. Who knows what thoughts, concern and efforts it cost him since he was in Warsaw at the beginning of the last century when he decided that there was no choice and that we have to turn to everyone.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/23/12, “Time to Act”

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Question: Why do you think that Kabbalah is the foundation of all religions and that religions appeared because Kabbalah was concealed?

Answer: Abraham’s religion is love towards everybody. On this basis he organized a group of students in Babel. This group existed in this quality (of course, not without the problems in realizing this condition, yet with the desire to reach it) until the final victory of egoism 2000 years ago. In the end, as egoism surpassed altruism, they fell from the relationships of love to the relationships of hatred. In the end, the sensation of the upper nature, the Creator, disappeared from them.

Having been left in darkness, they resorted to guesswork concerning the upper world, the goal, and the purpose, and this gave rise to the creation of far-fetched theories, which over time became religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

However, the biggest problem with the Creator’s concealment is that all religions separate people and evoke in them if not hatred, then at least rejection and disregard.
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Question: There is supposed to be a big Mitzva according to the commentaries if somebody takes baby birds from the nest when the mother bird is not there. I researched the subject a little bit more, and the commentaries say that it is because, when the mother bird comes back to the nest and doesn’t find her babies, she screams to Ha Kadosh Baruch Hu, and this draws the attribute of pity (Rahamim) on the entire world.
What does this mean in Kabbalah? There is a nest on the wall of my house with babies, and we see the mother and father running in and out to feed the children. I don’t dare touch them.
Answer: You shouldn’t!!! All this is decided on the spiritual level, not on the material one. There is a huge confusion in performing commandments in the physical world; see Rambam.
Question: If religion is for everyone, why doesn’t it accept people with non-standard orientations?
Answer: People create religions and exploit them. Hence, religions are turned and manipulated as it is convenient.
Question: I grew up as a Christian, and, since three years ago up until now, I have been studying Kabbalah. However, a couple of days ago, a friend of mine who is Jewish told me that Kabbalah was only meant to be studied by Jews, and that, indeed, it was a sinful thing for us non-Jews or gentiles to study Kabbalah, that it opened very dark portals.
However, I feel so comfortable studying Kabbalah. It really helps me find a connection with the Creator. I don’t want to stop practicing the religion of my parents, Christianity.
My question is: Is it possible to still believe in my parents’ religion or at least keep a certain respect for it, and be able to continue on the path of Kabbalah, or is it just something I should definitely do?
Answer: Please continue, and tell your Jewish friend that he doesn’t understand anything in Judaism.
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Question: Looking back on the way, I see how Pharaoh is constantly walking by me. Not long ago a new trend has emerged, systematic vector psychology, and many think it is very similar to Kabbalah. This means that Pharaoh is becoming more cunning.

Answer: The Kabbalistic method is very direct. It speaks about one thing only, but gradually it reveals more and more. A person discovers greater depth and motion in the Kabbalistic text ,and if he operates accordingly, he reaches a point of adhesion with the Creator, with the one force that manages everything. Everything else was invented by man.

But in order to direct us to Him, this force constantly formats us more accurately, more finely, until we become as sharp as the attribute of bestowal, in order to enter the “needle’s eye.”

Throughout history man has invented different methods. 3,800 different methods, beliefs, and religions have officially been counted, but there can be more or less since they disappear for lack of believers. New theories are constantly emerging. Since the middle of the 20th century there have been many new methods based on different scientific findings. In addition there have been many methods that are used by secret services, for example, the development of a person’s internal mental powers. People don’t even know about it.

All these methods are based only on the ego and its development. If it seems that it is a development above the ego, it is still altruistic egoism that characterizes 10% of the world’s population who want to do each other good, to preserve the ecology, to protect nature, the animals, etc. In other words they deal with the altruism of our world, yet it is still the same egoism.

There is a very thin border, a struggle, clarifications, and examinations: “So what is the pure method for attaining the upper Light?” It comes down to the constant internal clarification of our direction.

I believe that all the other methods are very helpful. Everything in the world was created in order to help “clean” people from different confusions and mistakes.

On this basis we have to clarify what the truth is. This means that you don’t clarify psychology, not different methods of intellectual training and not ESP, but rather resemblance to the Light, by drawing the Light upon you. This is the whole difference between the Kabbalsitic method and other methods.

All the new methods that seemingly resemble Kabbalah are given to us by Pharaoh or by the Creator through Pharaoh. It is written: “I have hardened his heart,” and this is in order to sift, to sort out, the people who may be a burden on our groups.

So we shouldn’t feel sorry about the many people who come and that later 90% of them leave. The wisdom of Kabbalah chooses only those who belong to the Creator, those who can really mediate between Him and the rest of humanity. The spiritual world is built on quality not on quantity.

We are happy about every person who arrives, but everyone is free to choose. We don’t underestimate anyone in any way, but if a person leaves, it is his free will. This means that he still has to work on himself on other levels and he isn’t ready to come yet. He received something from us; he will later process it, and after a while will return to us. If he doesn’t, then he has his own way and he will end it in his next life, while we want to finish it in this life.

The wisdom of Kabbalah spreads knowledge, like a farmer who plants seeds while walking in the plowed field, and if someone picks up what falls, that’s good. It doesn’t depend on our desire. We can only hope that as many people as possible will hear about it and then it is already the Creator’s work.
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From KabTV’s “Foundations Of The Integral Society” 4/08/12

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Question: Please answer my question: Does saying the prayer (Shema and Shema Yisrael) and putting on a Tefillin let you receive the light any faster? If not, please explain why Jewish tradition does this?

Answer: No. This is because these “traditions” are behaviors in our world that are identical to the higher correction that everyone must perform in his 613 desires, aiming them at “love your neighbor.”

Question: For centuries, Kabbalists have vigilantly complied with all the traditions and customs of its people. They emphasized the importance of their physical and spiritual performance. [Baal] HaSulam and Rabash were no exception. Why do we not apply spiritual importance to physical activities?

If physical actions are not so important, then why were the Jews fooled all these years? Why could everything not be explained clearly so that people do not lose time and hope in vain?

Answer: The time has come now to do that.
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