In the News (from The Independent UK): “Cocaine Britain: 25 percent rise in the last year” The number of cocaine users in Britain has risen by 25 percent in a year to almost one million. Martin Barnes, the chief executive of the advice charity DrugScope, said … the price of the drug has also fallen, which has made it more popular … “Cocaine use is now at its highest level among adults since 1996, with one in eight 16 to 24 year-olds reporting [they have] used the drug.”

My Comment: Man’s nature has remained the same since ancient times: he desires only “bread and entertainment.” But drugs can replace everything, and no one has the ability to revoke them. It is a vital necessity for people to escape the emptiness of life.

However, real fulfillment is only possible by attaining the Upper Level. This is what Kabbalah offers to anyone who desires it.

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What do we know about ourselves? We know that we are in a reality called “this world,” and that we are born into it, generation after generation. And this world continuously advances because man develops; that is, he becomes smarter, more egoistic, and desires more things.

This is how we move forward, every person throughout the course of his life and one generation after another. Contrary to all other parts of Nature (the still, vegetative and animate levels), we humans constantly develop. That is to say, our desire develops and compels us to improve our environment and our life, including education, culture, science, technology, and everything else.

But one person alone can never secure the life that he desires, and this is the reason we have to live in a society, so we can unite and profit off of each other. And we can see that over the course of history, the arrangement and structure of society have changed many times.

Thus, our entire life revolves around deciding, “how much will we give in order to receive as much as we want?” Or in other words: How can we establish a relationship between the receiver and the giver (where each of us is the former and the latter) so that everyone will be satisfied?

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Here is an interesting excerpt from the book, The Fourth Turning, by William Strauss and Neil Howe, published in 1996:

“We perceive our civic challenge as some vast, insoluble Rubik’s Cube. Behind each problem lies another problem that must be solved first, and behind that lies yet another, and another, ad infinitum. To fix crime we have to fix the family, but before we do that we have to fix welfare, and that means fixing our budget, and that means fixing our civic spirit, but we can’t do that without fixing moral standards, and that means fixing schools and churches, and that means fixing the inner cities, and that’s impossible unless we fix crime. There’s no fulcrum on which to rest a policy lever. People of all ages sense that something huge will have to sweep across America before the gloom can be lifted, but that’s an awareness we suppress. As a nation, we’re in deep denial.”

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Three questions I received on the new generation’s changing traits and values:

Question: In the last few years, psychologists have shown that younger people are much less able to focus their attention and to anticipate and build models for future actions.

My Answer: This is actually a positive phase of their development, because there cannot be anything negative in nature. People have to go through this, since all the positive properties and qualities originate from the negative ones.

Question: People who enjoy books, such as myself, are now being replaced by number-oriented people, who have completely different values and a different kind of perception. Because they are so different from people like me, they often just can’t hear or understand us. How can we communicate with them so they will actually listen to us?

My Answer: If this change is happening, it means that it is precisely these types of people that must start becoming aware of and sensing the spiritual world, rather than the philosophers and other thinkers of the past. Things just might work the opposite of how we expect them to: the awareness, logic, and ability to analyze and synthesize that the great, enlightened thinkers have, could actually be an obstacle that keeps them from entering the new, spiritual world.

Question: Then what type of thinking is preferable?

My Answer: Our thoughts arise as a result of our desires, because desire is the basis of our nature. Therefore, reason appears only according to one’s desire to attain something. If I desire to fulfill myself with something, then my mind develops accordingly. Otherwise, I would not have a mind (or reason).

The more I desire something and the more this desire is aimed at something higher, something new and unknown, the more my mind develops in new ways along with this new desire.

When Kabbalah speaks of reason or the mind, it is not talking about the egoistic kind of reason, which is handed down to us by various philosophers, thinkers and scholars. It is not talking about the kind of reason people are normally proud of, which they consider the human part of man. This kind of reason is not present in man, but in an egoistic creature whose mind works only for satisfying one’s egoistic desires, desires that are aimed at science and cultural values, but not bestowal. All of these desires are based on reception and egoism, but not bestowal.

This is why all the previous cultural and academic values will gradually decline. They will come down from the high pedestal they currently reside on will be considered insufficient. People will use them as a mere base to help them achieve the next, spiritual degree.

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Two questions I received about humanity during the last generation:

Question: How will the new kind of humanity live?

My Answer: The new kind of humanity will be organized according to people’s development, rather than according to orders. Baal HaSulam describes this in the book, “The Last Generation.” In addition, this will only last until humanity completely corrects itself and attains bestowal at the level of the Creator. Then the physical world we see today will vanish.

Question: If a person remains in his corporeal body, then all his desires must also remain, including his animate desires.

My Answer: Every desire has a use. Our desires are not considered egoistic if they are necessary for our existence. When they are used for this purpose, they start to be perceived as spiritual. This is because food, sex and any other desire are the means by which we come to be like the Creator. They are the means by which we are able to become part of the common harmony of nature.

People will reach a state where the purpose of supporting one’s spiritual and corporeal body is to exist in the realm of bestowal and love.

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Our civilization has gone through many transitions from one socio-cultural framework to another, but all of these transitions occurred on the animate level, the level of human egoism. This is why the frameworks were always changed in minor ways, but never in the way of an inversion. It is because they were all founded on egoism, where people’s end goal was “to get the most.” And because a person always “gets the most” at others’ expense, all our existing institutions were founded with the sole purpose of holding people back from annihilating one another.

Eventually, all these institutions will naturally transform to their opposite, because people will change inside. Once transformed, these institutions will support us in a way that enables us to complete each other, give to each other, love and fulfill each other.

However, none of these changes will be carried out “from above” – by the authorities, but rather, they will happen because every individual will go through an inner transformation. New ways of relating to each other will develop from the ground up, just like our civilization developed; this will happen in accordance with strict laws of Nature, guided by the development of informational data or genes – Reshimot.

The science of Kabbalah says that one way or another, we will reach the final state. It says, “You will reach a state of being in harmony with Nature and equal to the Creator. However, your path there can be good and fast, or you can be brought there through suffering and blows of fate.”

This is the same as the treatment that a child receives: If he is smart, he understands what is being demanded of him and sees that there is no other way to go but to become a human being and to learn. He then applies his own efforts to get there. But if he doesn’t acknowledge the need to change, then he will be forced to do so by way of “beatings.” Either way, he will have to change. Thus, the current crisis is Nature’s way of pushing us to advance and become human.

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In the News (from The Economist): The Nobel Prize Laureate, Dr. Peter C. Agre writes, “Rather than arguing that science will save us simply through new inventions, let me suggest that it is wisdom from our history that may save us. … Given proper investment, scientific development of renewable and environmentally friendly sources of energy is likely. Design of modern, livable cities with expedient forms of public transportation is feasible.”

My Comment: But will this make people happy and fulfill all their needs?

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Shamati #75 : “There Is a Discernment of the Next World, and There Is a Discernment of This World “

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Until our time, humanity’s development occurred within set boundaries and clear-cut hierarchies, such as religion. A person always knew what he would do with his life and how he would develop. If his father was a blacksmith, he would be a blacksmith. If he was in the tailoring business, he had to dress as a tailor ought to dress. Everything and everyone had distinct roles and functions, and people would look for these boundaries because they needed their relationships to follow a hierarchy.

What are the advantages of a hierarchy? Suppose I am on a particular level. It follows that I want the people above me to be as powerful as possible, so they will be able to protect me from those who are below me, who may pose a danger to me. In addition, whoever is at the head of this pyramid must be merciless and powerful; he must inspire fear and, therefore, love. The only thing that can be higher than him is the Upper Force, which protects him.

This pyramid always existed, until our generation. People have always guarded it, developed within it, and wanted to preserve it. These hierarchies, where one person is subjugated by another, were very important to people. For example: captain, lieutenant, sergeant, etc.

But today, the pyramid is in ruins. The former rules no longer apply. From now on, we have to move forward and build a new system of relationships. And the only way we can build it is through the study of Kabbalah.

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In the News (from The Daily Mail): “Live together before marrying and you’re more likely to divorce” Couples who set up home before getting hitched are more likely to divorce than those who wait until after the big day… A survey of more than 1,000 married men and women in the U.S. found those who moved in with a lover before engagement or marriage reported significantly lower-quality marriages and a greater potential for splitting up… Psychologist Dr. Galena Rhoades said: “There might be a subset of people who live together before they got engaged who might have decided to get married really based on other things in their relationship – because they were already living together and less because they really wanted and had decided they wanted a future together.”

My Comment: If a person wants to have a lasting relationship with someone, he shouldn’t try to go and change the type of relationship they have. If what you want is to create a family with someone, then that’s exactly what you should do. People should regard familial relationships just as nature had determined them to be.

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In the News (from Stuff): “Australia – a nation of ‘mummy’s boys‘” Australian mothers are breeding a generation of “mummies’ boys”, new data reveals…Social demographer Bernard Salt says new figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that 27 per cent of men aged between 20 and 34 are still living with their parents…A generation ago men generally left home at 18 and were fending for themselves managing their own households and budgets, he said…”If you’ve got mummy picking up your dirty washing at 27 you never actually learn those skills.”

My Comment: The absence of a correct upbringing, (meaning not organized as dictated by Nature) combined with an aggressive environment (uncorrected egoism) are responsible for this outcome where men don’t want to become independent. What is the point of leaving home?

Separation is absolutely opposite to Nature! For thousands of years, even after marrying, men did not leave their parents. What the modern family is missing isn’t independence to form a family but the ability to do it in accordance with advice from elders and in a close circle of relatives.

Nature is opposite to the modern concept of the “independent” family unit. In general, correction can happen only in proximity to others. In the future, we will reinstate natural relations between generations and then our men and women will want to create families and have children.

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