Opinion (Michael Poulin, psychologist at the University at Buffalo): “What makes some people give blood and bake casseroles for their neighbors, while others mutter about taxes from behind closed blinds? A new paper published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science finds that part of the answer—but not all—may be in their genes.

“The hormones oxytocin and vasopressin are thought to affect how people behave toward each other. For example, lab tests have found that people play nicer in economic games after having oxytocin squirted up their nose. ‘This is an attempt to take this into the real world a little bit,’ says Michael Poulin.

“‘What makes you think of one of your neighbors as a really generous, caring, civic-minded kind of person, while another is more selfish, tight-fisted, and not as interested in pitching in?’ asks Poulin. Those neighbors’ DNA may help explain why one of them is nicer. ‘We aren’t saying we’ve found the niceness gene,’ he says. ‘We have found a gene that makes a contribution, but I think there’s something cool about the fact that it only makes a contribution in the presence of certain feelings people have about the world around them.’”

My Comment: Kabbalah believes that upbringing must take place under the influence of the correct environment in which there is a harmonious combination of strictness and love.
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In the News (from Scientific American): “New research underlines the wisdom of being absorbed in what you do.

“The happy upshot of this study is that it suggests a wonderfully simple prescription for greater happiness: think about what you’re doing. But be warned that like any prescription, following it is very different from just knowing it’s good for you. In addition to the usual difficulties of breaking bad or unhelpful habits, your brain may also be wired to work against your attempts to stay present.

“Recent MRI scanning studies show that even when we’re quietly at rest and following instructions to think of nothing in particular, our brains settle into a conspicuous pattern of activity that corresponds to mind-wandering. This signature ‘resting’ activity is coordinated across several widespread brain areas, and is argued by many to be evidence of a brain network that is active by default. Under this view our brains climb out of the default state when we’re bombarded with input, or facing a challenging task, but tend to slide back into it once things quiet down.

“Why are our brains so intent on tuning out? One possibility is that they’re calibrated for a target level of arousal. If a task is dull and can basically be done on autopilot, the brain conjures up its own exciting alternatives and sends us off and wandering. This view is somewhat at odds with the Killingsworth and Gilbert’s findings though, since subjects wandered even on ‘engaging’ activities.

“Regardless of what prompts our brains to settle into the default mode, its tendency to do so may be the kiss of death for happiness. As the authors of the paper elegantly summarize their work: a human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.’”

My Comment: We like to be distracted only if our activity doesn’t capture us. That’s why it’s necessary to become interested in it initially. This is what Kabbalah recommends. If you don’t create a desire, you will not be able to process information thoroughly and properly, to understand anew, and thereby create a Kli (vessel) for fulfillment.
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“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.”
The New Quotable Einstein by Alice Calaprice (Princeton University Press, 2005: ISBN 0691120749), p. 206
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Question: What is the role of the group on our way to a true question?

Answer: A person who is in a complete isolation from the laws of an integral system can approach building this system and learning its lessons due to the group. Kabbalah is an integral science about a common nature. There is nothing artificial or alleged in it. In order to learn the general law of equilibrium of all nature’s parts, we have to create a laboratory and try building the system’s simulator. The same way things are done in other sciences as well. Even though our model is not real, we’ll begin understanding some laws of Nature and relationships among its parts to some extent.

The group is such a laboratory. Kabbalistic books are instructions to work with. And we are researchers, scientists, who do experiments not on themselves, but on the group to the extent of being united. What efforts are required from us? Under what conditions? What for? All our experimental activities are for this research and are concentrated just on the point of unity.

We are not different from other scientists who explore nature. Thus Baal HaSulam writes that materialistic psychology lays a practical basis for the popularization of the science of Kabbalah in the masses. Psychologists also deal with groups learning a human nature and a nature of society based on them. Thus, we also can formulate and explain our guidelines for working with the society, the whole of humanity, using the same terms. It is just necessary to find the right words clear to the wide audience.

Anyway, this approach is consistent with approaches of scientists and psychologists. We study higher, deeper, and at the same time, hidden laws of nature which a regular person can’t reach.

Physicists, for example, study elementary particles without having any knowledge of their weight. The massive Hadron Collider required investments of billions of dollars, tens of thousands of specialists, and the construction of a huge technological complex taking into consideration it being used for studying the foundations of the universe and not some immediate tangible benefits. Scientists want to learn what happened in the universe billions of years ago even though we don’t know what tomorrow will bring us and the situation in the world is getting worse day by day. Where is the logic? But still, the project keeps moving forward.

We deal with the most important and high science capable of saving the humanity. The subject of its research is the basis of the Creation, in nature itself, which commissions this “experiment,” because all our good future depends on it. Thus we have to find new words and new examples for people to understand what we are talking about. And it will happen—the point of contact between the science of Kabbalah and the masses is very close.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/10/12, Wiritngs of Rabash

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Question: What indicators will let us know that humanity has started to realize the integrality of the world?

Answer: The awareness of an integral and interconnected world has started in the last few years. Scientists were first to note it, and today the mass media is talking about it as something natural and self-evident. It turns out that the crisis is really global and really caused by human egoism, and the world is indeed a single system.

And as for scientists, they are already talking about a program inherent in nature and about different dimensions of existence. Leading quantum physicists speak of it in particular, and some of them are no longer afraid to declare that matter as we understood it previously doesn’t actually exist, and the world is built on quantum effects. At first we knew about certain substances, then we discovered atoms and believed they were indivisible until we revealed the world of subatomic particles. And now even these particles are making room for a certain “cloud,” which condenses into a picture of the world only under our gaze. There are no waves even, everything is “smeared.” It’s a scientific fact and nothing can be done about it.

As a result, scientists are talking about a single unified force, which in our perception appears as particles, waves, and all sorts of individual forces. It sounds almost the same as the section on perception of reality in the wisdom of Kabbalah. Essentially, traditional science has almost reached the limit of its capabilities, and this is why it’s in a state of crisis. There’s simply nowhere to develop further with the exception of the military field, which traditionally bathes in abundance.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/8/2012, Writings of Rabash

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Question: When will our work have a real impact on the reasoning of scientists and researchers?

Answer: We need to help them see the whole picture. They are already talking about the signs of an integral world, but they cannot gather individual observations into one system, into a unified methodology.

In addition, they are afraid to delve deeper into this topic because the idea of an integral world leads them to a confrontation with those in power. Current governments are still acting egoistically and individualistically, failing to realize that by doing so they are destroying themselves. Politicians lack an integral perception. Unlike them, scientists observe nature and speak about what they see. Who hears them is another story.

There is another problem: However wonderful the words spoken by various experts and specialists may be, no matter how much they pontificate about interconnection and the need to unify, they don’t have the means to implement it. Money and military might won’t help here. Even if all the people in the world exclaim, “Yes, we want to be one global village!” what will happen after this unanimous declaration of their will? Nothing, except for a world war. After sensing even more acutely the ties that bind them to each other, they will unleash a war in order to sever this connection.

Scientists do not have a solution; they don’t know how to change man. So why scream about how harmful egoism is if you do not have the remedy? In the past, doctors didn’t tell patients that they were terminally ill. There were no means to even slow down the progression of an illness, and therefore, a person was left in the dark so he would suffer less. “Do not put obstacles in front of a blind person,” says the Torah. Why reveal the truth if you are unable to help a person deal with it?

So without revealing the wisdom of Kabbalah, without the message of mutual guarantee proceeding from us, humanity doesn’t have a single chance to correct anything. And this is now our problem: How can we establish connection with people and explain to them that it is possible to correct egoism and thereby correct the world.

We are talking precisely about the correction of man. Nothing else will help here. Many already understand that all evil is contained in human nature. However, they throw up their hands: “A human being is egoistic and nothing can be done about it.” If we don’t supply people with the method of the correction of egoism, if we don’t explain that it is actually attainable, the world has no chance. So far, however, we’ve been working half-heartedly.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/30/2012, “Preface to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: Can we measure our attainment?

Answer: First, what do I actually attain? To the extent that I bring contentment to the Creator, to that extent I attain the attribute called the “Creator (Boreh)” within me, according to the principle of “Bo-Reh” or “come and see.”

I attain the Creator in my understanding and awareness. This is my internal image. In the same way I also “draw” other people in my perception, and thus I attain them. My attributes are built so that I can imagine certain figures. I don’t know who is on the outside. Forces act outside of me, which project into my perception the “holographic picture” of other people who only seem to me as external. Thus my whole picture of the world is put together.

So what can I measure or weigh? I weigh my bestowal with regards to everything that I feel. This general measurement is called the “Creator.” Thus the Creator “clothes” a person, the Light “clothes” the created being.

I perceive different forms thanks to the attribute of bestowal that operates on the desires and arranges them in a certain way. From that I feel who the Creator is. I imagine the Creator and those who surround me as my own reaction to a certain action.

I don’t know who I am and what the world is. I don’t know anything, but gradually I begin to draw the sketches of different reactions and feelings in me. This is how I am built: The forms are all depicted as if on the outside. This illusion exists only here, in our current state.

A sensory system is developed in me along with its logical understanding. I live by the mind and the feeling. This reality is divided into four levels, the four layers of the desire: the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking. By the right combination of the four I discover the origin of everything that happens, my source, the source of my feeling, and of my four-layer images. I discover that there is an initial reason for all that, which I call the “Creator.” This reason is revealed when I begin to relate to all four levels with bestowal. Then out of equivalence of form, I discover the attributes of the Creator, the Giver.

Therefore, don’t think that our world actually exists—it all ends within me. Later, when I ascend the spiritual levels, it’s as if I move from one class to another. Suppose I know that I am in the first grade now, but can I compare it with the eighth grade or even with the second grade?

Today the clear measurements are still unavailable to us. We only have vague feelings, but there are no accurate tools because the mind and the feeling are not tied in such a way that we can attribute quantitative characteristics to our sensations. In the meantime we are on the psychological level, which lacks the mathematical tool for measurements and comparisons. Such a tool is truly provided by the wisdom of Kabbalah.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/27/2012, “Introduction to TES” 

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Most religions consider altruistic behavior the main value of humanity. It is believed that altruism is the basis of virtue. According to Boris Krieger, altruism is selfishness at the level of family, community, kin, and humanity. Our altruistic behavior is dictated by conscience, religious beliefs, habits, and fear of punishment by fate or God. A truly unselfish act that has no moral, religious, or instinctive reason is impossible.

Altruism plays a special role in a group of people. They get the feeling of a “superorganism” (The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt, The Superorganism by Bert Hölldobler and Edward O. Wilson) when everyone is ready to sacrifice himself for the rest of the group. People are willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of the entire group to prevent a threat from another group. Team altruism is the basis for military training where people are taught to view the life of the country as more important than their own lives.

We can find evidence for this theory in Darwin’s principle of natural selection, under the assumption that “natural selection could act on groups as well as individuals, an idea known as group selection” (James Schwartz, “Death of an Altruist“), where altruism is considered a group’s egoism. Forming a functional unit in which everyone is ready to sacrifice himself for the benefit of the entire group in order to overcome difficulties or threats, usually coming from another superorganism, is the most noble and terrible human ability.

This is the secret of successful organizations working on the principle of a beehive or hierarchy. It is the purpose of basic military training. This is the reward for which people are willing to join militias, rock bands, and fan clubs. This is the dream of fascism. This may explain our love for adherence (temporarily, conditionally, or permanently) to something larger than ourselves.

However, the altruism offered by Kabbalah is born in a person under the influence of the upper Light (Ohr Makif), producing the desire to bestow to and love the friends in the group, the like-minded people, because only with them he can achieve the goal: adhesion to the Creator. It is a completely different method of “faith above reason,” not for the sake of fulfillment, but for the sake of bestowal. Try it and find the difference.
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What is the nature of Nature? There are more than 20 constants in nature, which determine what can exist and how. If the fundamental forces of nature were a little stronger or weaker, there would be no planets, stars, galaxies, or life—the universe would not exist.

Balance in Nature, established due to the operation of fundamental laws, is very fragile. A little malfunction—and life on Earth will cease to exist, and the universe would fall apart. We are forced to admit that life is the result of a very unique set of circumstances.

The probability of the emergence of the universe that can support life is 1:10000, but the chain of coincidences needed for the appearance of life is surprising and alarming. It is as if the universe was created to develop intelligent life forms in it. Do we live in the universe created specifically for us?
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In the News (from ScienceDaily): “When it comes to intelligence, the whole can indeed be greater than the sum of its parts. A new study co-authored by MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, and Union College researchers documents the existence of collective intelligence among groups of people who cooperate well, showing that such intelligence extends beyond the cognitive abilities of the groups’ individual members, and that the tendency to cooperate effectively is linked to the number of women in a group.

“That collective intelligence, the researchers believe, stems from how well the group works together. For instance, groups whose members had higher levels of ‘social sensitivity’ were more collectively intelligent. ‘Social sensitivity has to do with how well group members perceive each other’s emotions,’ says Christopher Chabris, a co-author and assistant professor of psychology at Union College in New York. ‘Also, in groups where one person dominated, the group was less collectively intelligent than in groups where the conversational turns were more evenly distributed.’ And teams containing more women demonstrated greater social sensitivity and in turn greater collective intelligence compared to teams containing fewer women.”

My Comment: But the level of unity depends only on men, although women push them towards it. It turns out that men form a group, but it is activated by women’s desires. In Kabbalah, desires belong to the feminine gender, but the force of their connection to the masculine.
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