The Zohar, Chapter “Shemot (Exodus),” Item 340: “And it came to pass in the course of those many days.” This was the end of their exile, when Israel were enslaved in any labor. “In those many days,” meaning many days of Israel’s stay in Egypt, when the end has come. And since their exile has come to its conclusion, it is written, “The king of Egypt died,” meaning that the minister of Egypt has been brought down and fell from his pride. This is why it is written about him, “The king of Egypt died,” since descent was as death to him. And since the king of Egypt – their minister – has fallen, the Creator remembered Israel and heard their prayer.

We have to reach a state when the entire Malchut of Egypt, meaning this world, all of its goals, our whole life and achievements, will lose their significance in our eyes. We will feel worthless, unhappy, and transient. We will ask ourselves, “What do I get from all this?” This world will become devoid of any importance to us.

This is called “The king of Egypt died.” We begin to ask ourselves, “Why do I need everything that I have in this world?! What for? What do I get from it?” This state marks the beginning of the exit from Egypt.

Today humanity is starting to understand that it doesn’t have any clear plan of development or goal, and most importantly, there is no purpose in life. We are yet to see the emptiness even in those who are still fanatically devoted to some meaningless goals and don’t realize the worthlessness.

When this becomes revealed, the real wars will be forged, and it will happen out of emptiness, despair, and helplessness. The most dangerous state is when a person sees that this life is empty. While he expects to accomplish something in life, he acts and even battles wars, and thus problems, revolutions, and wars that occur in the world, are purposeful.

On the contrary, when everyone sees that life is worthless and they begin to clash with each other, it becomes a big problem. Then everyone will turn their attention to Israel.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/10, The Zohar

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A true democracy is a correct division of society into the “head” (leader) and the “body” (nation). The head knows what is better for the body and makes decisions based on this. Equality is when everybody gives to and receives from the society whatever he or she has to. Those who belong to the head shouldn’t have any personal interest (the property of Bina, GE, absolute bestowal, Hafetz Hesed) but should only consider the desires of the body. The head is merely the intentions of how to benefit the body, how to fill it. (Note how opposite it is to our leaders!)

The head has to relate to the body as parents relate to their children. Parents clarify a child’s needs and how to fulfill them for the child’s maximum benefit. The government, too, needs to consider the nation’s desires and aspire to correct and fulfill them.

Exactly like we concern ourselves with giving developmentally beneficial toys to our children, the leaders need to give desirable “toys” to the nation. These toys should serve the ends of the nation’s development program.

So it follows that only the spiritual individuals can be the leaders of a nation. That’s why it is said that those who aspire to the Creator (Isra-El) and possess the property of bestowal can be society’s Head and rule the masses (body) correctly. Thus “Isra-El” also means “Li Rosh” – I am a Head.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/19/10, Article “The Freedom”

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A question I received: It is well known that progress holds us away from the Upper Force, God, and inner cleansing. In my opinion, Kabbalah, together with other religions, has to agree with this approach to progress.

My Answer: Progress is a law of nature. We cannot stop it; it is dictated to us by the growth of our egoism. Its task is to bring humankind to a “dead-end” that has only one way out: transitioning to a new type of society based on bestowal and love. No other solution is possible in a global, interdependent society.

We have to pursue similarity with nature in our behavior and become one with each other and nature in spite of our growing egoism. Specifically our egoism and progress compels us to transform ourselves.

It is impossible to make a natural transition to a new type of society as it is unfeasible to change human nature. Our attempts will only bring us more pain (natural cataclysms, wars, etc.) We can shift from egoism to bestowal only by applying Kabbalistic methodology. Kabbalah teaches us how to use the force that originally created egoism. Only this force can correct and transform our ego into bestowal and love for the other.

We are unable to stop progress. Yet, by applying Kabbalistic knowledge we can bring the world – with its growing egoism and progress – to a benevolent state. This is why dissemination of Kabbalah is so critically important nowadays.

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Two questions I received on unfortunate circumstances in our world:

Question: It really does seem that even as the computer/technological age affords us the ability to be with each other across many miles, to connect with all our friends no matter where we are in the world, there is a huge lack of soul connection between us! Why is that?

Why are we feeling so much fear, needing to grab whatever power or space or whatever it is that we need at such an alarming pace? Why is there so much anger, and mistrust in the world? Why are there so many despotic leaders with power gone awry? I’m sure that influence has always existed, for there has always existed those who “have” and those who “have not.”

My Answer: It’s because we follow the principle “Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we shall die.” Egoism forces us to close our eyes to tomorrow because people see no way out of the situation.

Question: Dear Dr. Laitman, I especially liked the way you described to us the way children should be educated in the future (but really now, as it is urgent). My question is: How long will it take for the kindergarten schools up to the universities and colleges around the world to catch up to the idea? Maybe 5 years? I am worried that it will be more than 5 years.

My Answer: I hope it won’t take longer. Otherwise, things will get worse.

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Until today humanity has been advancing by three policies:

1. Mercy, justice and peace, which it somehow managed to maintain;

2. The pressure of dictatorship, which didn’t ask people for their opinion and simply told them how to live; or

3. People were divided into slaves and masters and accepted this inequality out of hopelessness.

Those were people’s previous ways of development, but now they have reached a demand for global equality. People feel that “Everyone must be equal!” And on one hand, this really expresses their internal vision of justice; we feel that equality is right. However, our definition of equality is wrong – we are seeking external, instead of internal equality.

Therefore, we aim for equality between everyone in the external form, but over the last two centuries we have been finding out that external equality is a complete delusion. What we need is equality that is deeper, more internal.

To attain it, we will have to gain awareness of the entire system of our inter-connection and return to the principle of truth, where truth means that each person obeys the laws of reality due to people’s common, global and deep knowledge of Nature.

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In the News (from Political Lore): “Why is “Climategate” Getting Little to no Coverage?” In 2008 Dr. Roy Spencer wrote a book entitled “Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor.” Dr. Roy Spencer is the former Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. In this book he argues that the programs congress creates to “combat” global warming are rushed into law. Laws and policies are easily made when there is a “fear” that needs to be taken care of. Fear is a lawmaker’s best friend. Fear makes passing bills easy, with little opposition.

Why is “climategate” getting little to no coverage? It is all about the money. There is so much money to be made on account of the fear caused from global warming, just ask Al Gore. The more fear, the greater the reward, for congress, for anybody. Newscasters NEED apocalyptic stories to survive. It gives them this story they can add to here or there, whenever they need something to talk about. The people who are promoting global warming just want to put fear and guilt into the American people, and business. Fear produces money, and rushed legislation. How many scientists are funded due to the need to figure out why this “warming” is happening, or the need to figure out how to combat this “warming.”

My Comment: This is another sign of how people are gradually getting frustrated with all their efforts to make life better. Meantime, things are getting worse, and as a result, people are more prone to begin hearing Kabbalah’s perspective.

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It is impossible to achieve equal and fair distribution without knowing the inner nature of each person. This cannot be achieved in any other way, such as through different social support systems and other “crutches.”

Social systems might be effective for some time, but eventually the entire system collapses as soon as society becomes more interconnected. We have lost the ability to regulate it, since we need to establish equality and fairness on a global scale. Here the desires of mercy, fairness and peace cannot replace truth, and it is then that the crisis emerges.

The crisis in economics is a result of people wanting to receive without limit. They inflated financial bubbles beyond rational limits, neglected the formula that balances giving and receiving in a reasonable proportion, and forgot that it is necessary to give and do something for others.

It is now being revealed how much the situation is out of our control and how we are powerless to balance society. This is how Nature pushes us to the revelation of the truth and attainment of souls.

A soul is the inner part of a person, the basis of life. If it is possible to attain another person’s soul, one will attain all the properties of that person, and then will naturally relate to him knowing what he is capable of and what can be reasonably requested from him.

We are now coming to the great principle of the Torah – “Love your neighbor as yourself,” which is a means for us to connect together. We can then understand and feel each other and are are able to share fairly. Humanity will not solve the problem of its survival without learning and acting by this principle!

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For the first time in human history, now in the 21st century we have come to the point where we feel ourselves in opposition to Nature, the Creator. We have come to be connected into one global system of humanity.

Before this, the Light affected each of us individually so that each of us would grow within his own egoism. Today however, we have developed to the point where the Light has connected us together and is causing a different kind of development within us that will correct the connections between us.

Prior to this, we weren’t opposite to Him, even though He is one and there are billions of us. Today we are connected together, but involuntarily and not by our own desire; it is for this reason that we are opposite to the Creator.

We have finished our individual egoistic development and therefore we have lost the desire to develop further. The world has reached a point of presenting unprecedented opportunities, but people have lost interest in them because the desire has become different; the desires are no longer personal desires of an individual to fulfill his own egoism.

Humanity’s  egoism has reached its maximum limit and cannot find any new voids to fill, nor do we feel the need to fill those voids. The Light has stopped developing us and is now pressuring and forcing us to connect correctly with others and to become equivalent to Him (the Creator).

This is a different kind of Light that is aimed at our unification. We have therefore come today to the global crisis, which is the crisis of connection between us due to our non-conformance to the Light, the Creator.

We are experiencing a new phenomenon of the 21st century; one that has never happened before. Today all problems occur on the scale of the common system and the whole of humanity. That’s why we all feel we are all together in one boat.

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A question I received: What will be the place of innovation in the future society? Will all acts of creativity and inspiration be dismissed as excessive or surplus because they are innovations and as such, are frowned upon, or is there a place for innovation, entrepreneurial spirit and even creativity in the future society?

I give you the example of the mobile phone, an innovation no more than 25 years old. Would the attempts to create a similar product such as the mobile phone in the future society be seen as excessive or as a good thing? The reason for my asking is that my grandfather believes that the mobile phone is not necessary, while I could not live without one.

The elders of a future society could forbid the development of wonderful products and innovations based on their views of what is excessive, and possibly cause a state of oppression.

My Answer: In the future, only spiritual elevation will be a person’s primary work, since there currently is nothing for 90% of the world’s population to do.  All they do is make up occupations for themselves and pollute the world. Aspiration towards the Creator will by itself determine what professions will remain and how one will care for oneself within necessity.

Either everyone will work for an hour or two a day, or only some will work and the rest will be busy attracting the Upper Light for the benefit of everyone.

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A question I received: It is becoming increasingly clear that population surplus is a problem not only in the Third World, but also in the developed countries of Europe and North America. There are not enough jobs to go around. What do you think the job market will be like in the future?

My Answer: The crisis is bringing to light the type of production that is excessive. We must come to a state when we produce the essentials for a normal existence, but nothing more. When this happens most of the Earth’s population will be left with nothing to do.

We are already witnessing forced reductions in working hours in all the developed countries, with many companies switching to a four day work week.

The rationale is that this will reduce maintenance costs, as workers would be taking less vacations and sick days, while being motivated to work harder.

Let’s remember that it was the Great Depression of 1929 that led to the emergence of the five-day work week. Before that people worked six days a week, 12-14 hours a day.

By reducing work days and hours we’ll be able to provide work to twice as many people.

Question (cont’d): Either way one question still remains – what will one do in his free time? By increasing peoples’ leisure time, will we not disturb the balance with Nature that we must come to? After all, this imbalance is the reason we’re in this crisis.

My Answer: Nature is freeing us not so that we can have a good time, but so that we’ll achieve equilibrium with it by attaining the quality of love and bestowal.

Therefore, we must organize the free time we are given to study the Nature of man and our world, so as to equalize their qualities.

Therein lies the essence of the science of Kabbalah. We must establish national universities and other such education centers, which will serve to educate the people in their increased free time about their likeness to Nature.

We must explain that humanity’s increased free time is part of Nature’s plan, and is specifically intended to help humanity come to the realization of this plan.

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