In the News (from The Atlantic): “Can 30 creative thinkers make a difference to a city in need? A Detroit economic and entrepreneurial development organization called The Collaborative Group is betting on it.

“Devastated by the collapse of the auto industry that fueled the region’s growth, Detroit has fallen into dire straits. The city, which has a poverty rate of 37.6 percent, is the poorest major city in America. Residents are moving out in droves: Detroit’s population has shrunk by a quarter in the past decade.

“The 30 Challenge Detroit Fellows are a mix of recent college graduates, artists, lawyers, urban policy specialists, and other innovators. As Fellows, they’ve received year-long job placements with local host companies from large businesses like Quicken Loans and Chrysler, to startups like ePrize and HiredMyWay. …

“Fellows work at their jobs four days a week. Each Friday, they join together to participate in ‘team challenges’ devised by local nonprofit groups, tackling a new project each month.”

My Comment: This sounds like the anecdote when the patient lying on the operating table before a serious operation asks the surgeon not to forget about the small wound on his leg. The problem is not in one city but in the world economy, in changing people’s attitude towards themselves, society, and the world. Instead of studying Kabbalah’s opinion and its application, humanity wastes time allowing the crisis to damage society more deeply.
[92716]

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In the News (from NewScientist): “Your attitude towards other people can have a big effect on your health. Being lonely increases the risk of everything from heart attacks to dementia, depression and death, whereas people who are satisfied with their social lives sleep better, age more slowly and respond better to vaccines. The effect is so strong that curing loneliness is as good for your health as giving up smoking, according to John Cacioppo of the University of Chicago, Illinois, who has spent his career studying the effects of social isolation.

“’It’s probably the single most powerful behavioural finding in the world, agrees Charles Raison of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, who studies mind-body interactions. ‘People who have rich social lives and warm, open relationships don’t get sick and they live longer.’ …

“Cacioppo reported that in lonely people, genes involved in cortisol signalling and the inflammatory response were up-regulated, and that immune cells important in fighting bacteria were more active, too.”

My Comment: All the latest studies prove once again that a human being is a social creature and his corrected state is in unity with society.
[92713]

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Today we are only beginning to suspect and discover that we are mutually and tightly connected, and are conducting research on the topic, and writing various articles about it on the Internet. But it wasn’t that way before.

Ten years ago I couldn’t speak about this. In 2005 I presented a document in Arossa, Switzerland at the World Wisdom Council, and they refused to agree with me. Four years ago I spoke with a Nobel Prize winner in economics and told him that the world was in a crisis and that everything will disintegrate rapidly, just like at the time of the Big Bang when the universe was created! He didn’t agree with me.

There were many such people. I gave lectures in the US at different universities, colleges, everywhere.

Five weeks ago, I met a representative of the EU in Italy. I told him about what was going on and he understood me—something that has not happened before. He wrote down everything, like a student, and asked me again and again, but his conclusion was: “I agree with everything that you say, but we cannot put this into practice; we cannot solve this, we don’t have anyone to turn to at the moment, no one will understand, although you are right.”

This means that gradually the world is advancing toward the recognition that we are in a closed space, under the influence of the forces of nature, not above them, and that we cannot do as we like as human society also has certain attributes that were given to us by nature.

We have to study these laws and to abide by them since otherwise we will feel bad. And most importantly, when nature is locked and becomes global there are mutual interactions of the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking components, and then our negative interactions can affect the world of the still, vegetative, ad the animate just as it is happens now with hurricane Sandy or tsunamis.

This means that all these levels of interaction are interdependent and it turns out that man by his wrong attitude to other people and to nature affects everything, since man is the highest level.

Here we need the wisdom of Kabbalah since it tells us how we should organize ourselves. If we don’t become round as our ego is, which means mutually interdependent, we will find that we are opposite from nature.
[92376]
From the Georgia Convention, 11/5/12, Lesson 1

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Question: Does a person really know what he wants?

Answer: He never knows. Ask older people and they will tell you, “We didn’t even notice how life passed by and what we did with it. And suddenly it slipped by. I remember myself at 20 and a little at 30, and the last three or four decades I don’t even remember.”

Question: But it’s possible to live in awareness. What prevents us? Let’s suppose that when I was a child my parents would have told me, “Pay attention to yourself, you are made of desires”?

Answer: If only they would have prepared us how to grasp the world in the correct way! If only the family and school would have prepared us, then it would have been different! Where are that family and school? They don’t exist.

My parents didn’t know how to educate me, they weren’t taught that at school, and they didn’t teach me either. The results are: I lived my life without knowing how to live it, and I educated my children also without knowing how to educate them, and they are educating my grandchildren also without knowing how.

In this way we go from generation to generation. If you look at humanity from the side, you see that our behavior doesn’t at all match our intelligence, our inner ability! Look at how we waste ourselves!

Thus, the main problem with humanity is education. If we would educate one generation correctly, then we would correct all of humanity, we would change all life upon the face of the earth.
[92027]
From KabTV’s “Talks with Michael Laitman,” 11/3/12

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Question: How can Kabbalah and Kabbalah books help the economy get out of the global crisis?

Answer: There is nothing that can help the economy except the restructuring of human society. Today, society cannot provide everyone with work and a good income that everyone dreams about. For this, there are not enough natural resources, energy, anything. Humanity must be restructured so that everyone has everything at the so-called level of reasonable consumption. The economy has to be changed according to this principle.

I have many students that are economists, and very serious ones, who are trying with great efforts to create the economy or reasonable consumption. It is not easy because we need to change the approach to life: to see everyone equal, to see everyone dependent; this is what nature requires from us today.

But how can we become like this? The first thing is to re-educate a person so he can see others in this way; otherwise he will be forced by immense suffering, a global nuclear war, etc.

What is happening in America now is only a small part of what we are shown. Yesterday on television, I saw mile-long lines of people standing to get water or a bowl of soup. And this is in New York!

This can happen all over the world and many times worse. At least in America, they can quickly clean the effects of the hurricane, although it will cost them $200 billion, if not more. They will find money, print it, and you will pay for it. But if it happens here, who will pay for us? This is a problem.

That is why Kabbalah advises how to prevent all this.
[92291]
From the Georgia Convention 11/05/12, Lesson 1

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Question: If we ask an old man whether he would like to be a magician, he would tell you, “I would like to, but I have no desires.”

Answer: Old people lose their desires. They feel repelled by life, they are tired and don’t expect anything from life. Young people are ready for anything, but they don’t have the mind, as it says: “If the youth knew, if the old could.”

This is how we live, and so the main thing is to present a person at the beginning of his life with the option to discover all of providence, then he would know how to behave, what to look for, what to be filled by, and he wouldn’t waste his life, but rather would aspire to enter the next eternal level.

Question: Can we say to an old man, “Come to the integral education group, this is where you will find a desire?”

Answer: Absolutely! But this isn’t the only way we can attract him. We only need to turn to a person with what he actually wants.

If he still has some similar desires, then yes. And if not, if everything is already dead in him, we can just draw him to come, to sit with other elderly folks, to have a tasty roll and a cup of tea. He will see, listen, and pass the time, and he will be pleasantly impressed by being in a certain society. Elderly people should be attracted by what we call old folks interests, but not by high matters.

It should suit a person’s needs. No matter who we turn to, we must first study this group of people and their desires and turn to these desires
[92085]
From KabTV’s “Talks with Michael Laitman,” 03/10/12 

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During these days, I am constantly asked questions about the hurricane Sandy that hit the east coast of America. Everyone wants to hear the answer as to why it happened and how we should look at it.

Baal HaSulam writes about this clearly and openly: We are in a single system of Nature and have come to the state in our development when it can no longer tolerate us. As soon as this system begins to show itself as integral, “round,” as soon as overall interdependence is manifested, we must behave accordingly. Otherwise disasters become much more qualitative because they originate not from the animate, but from the human degree.

In the course of history, we were evolving on the still, vegetative, and animate levels. Our egoism was growing, sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker, but more recently at an exponential rate until it has become satiated and “round.” So far, everything went as usual: The more egoistic a person was, the more he could earn and succeed. We thought that this trend would last forever. We were so obsessed with this idea that it obscured the limits of natural resources from us.

However today, when Nature shows itself as “round,” requiring us to become “round” as well, we have found ourselves in a completely different situation. Now it’s not enough to simply reduce our ego and be polite with each other. Today, we have to unite.

We are talking about a very different quality of relationships. If in the past, humanity could bend its ego slightly during wars and disasters, today it won’t help. We need an entirely new unity, and it can come only with the help of the Returning Light because this unity is against our egoistic nature and thus does not arise by itself. So, if our actions don’t help at least indirectly to bring the Reforming Light, then they bring only harm and misery.

Here we see the task of the people of Israel. It possesses the method of Kabbalah—the only means of attracting the Light that allows all of humanity to unite. This is a truly fateful, decisive situation. Today, humanity needs only the Reforming Light. If it doesn’t begin to integrate, it will cause disasters much worse than Sandy.

And the people of Israel are responsible for this. It determines the way forward. If it doesn’t have time to form itself into a connecting link between humanity and the Reforming Light, if it doesn’t carry out the task of Galgalta ve Eynaim, if it doesn’t become a “mediator,” then all evil can turn against it.

Therefore, from a selfish point of view and from the standpoint of the purpose of creation, we must please the Creator. From His side, this means to do good to His creatures, and from our side, to do good to Him. Let’s hope that our studies will help bring the Reforming Light that will correct us and flow through us to all of humanity.
[92046]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, The Zohar

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Opinion (Richard Duncan, chief economist at Blackhorse Asset Mgmt): “Richard Duncan, formerly of the World Bank and chief economist at Blackhorse Asset Mgmt., says America’s $16 trillion federal debt has escalated into a ‘death spiral,’ as he told CNBC.

“And it could result in a depression so severe that he doesn’t ‘think our civilization could survive it.’”

“Since the recession, noted economists including Laurence Kotlikoff, a former member of President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers, have come to similar conclusions.

“Kotlikoff estimates the true fiscal gap is $211 trillion when unfunded entitlements like Social Security and Medicare are included. …

“A team of scientists, economists, and geopolitical analysts believes they have proof that the threat is indeed real – and the danger imminent.

“One member of this team, Chris Martenson, a pathologist and former VP of a Fortune 300 company, explains their findings:

“’We found an identical pattern in our debt, total credit market, and money supply that guarantees they’re going to fail. This pattern is nearly the same as in any pyramid scheme, one that escalates exponentially fast before it collapses. Governments around the globe are chiefly responsible.

“’And what’s really disturbing about these findings is that the pattern isn’t limited to our economy. We found the same catastrophic pattern in our energy, food, and water systems as well.’

“According to Martenson: ‘These systems could all implode at the same time. Food, water, energy, money. Everything.’

“Another member of this team, Keith Fitz-Gerald, the president of The Fitz-Gerald Group, went on to explain their discoveries.

“’What this pattern represents is a dangerous countdown clock that’s quickly approaching zero. And when it does, the resulting chaos is going to crush Americans,’ Fitz-Gerald says.

“Dr. Kent Moors, an adviser to 16 world governments on energy issues as well as a member of two U.S. State Department task forces on energy also voiced concerns over what he and his colleagues uncovered.

“’Most frightening of all is how this exact same pattern keeps appearing in virtually every system critical to our society and way of life,’ Dr. Moors stated.

My Comment: Since we have found ourselves locked in a single integral network of full connectivity and interdependence, of course the overall crisis is global and penetrates all the levels of our work and life. Collapse will be simultaneous in all the areas of human activity in the world.
[91992]

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Question: Now that there is a storm in America and people are worried, can we convey our message to them through the heart and not through the mind?

Answer: Yes, it turns out that I don’t write romantic novels, and I can’t express feelings as I would like to. I am built differently, I can cry when I see a formula, when I look at its components, like in medicine when a patient who looking at his medical tests sees some catastrophe reflected in them. It may seem that these are just numbers, but they evoke a storm of emotions in him.

It is the same here. We are disrupting the basic law of nature, the law of balance, it’s like bending an iron rod—at a certain point it breaks, but in the meantime it seems that we still have some margin of safety. This is how it always happens: there is a limit as to how far you can go, but you mustn’t cross that limit.

We should explain this to people in different ways. Here is the root of all our troubles. We should tell them the truth: We could cry with you, but it won’t help. Crying is just a folly, and we have to locate the real problem. The real problem is that we are going against the laws of nature. It’s enough to look at the statistics of natural disasters even in the last year. It doesn’t matter that experts don’t always agree as to their anthropogenic character. One way or the other, they stem from the laws of nature, and so we have to aspire for balance.

We could have done it sooner and then there wouldn’t have been an economic crisis, a crisis in the family, in education, etc. But today one general crisis is being revealed in greater intensity in many aspects. Why? It’s because we haven’t corrected the imbalance when the first signs were minor. “Oh well, so what if there are more divorces? So what if the kids are undisciplined? So what if the media is corrupt? So what if we can buy and sell everything?” We don’t pay attention to the growing ego that increasingly distances us from balance, and the outcome of all this will be a total collapse. First it’s revealed in the economy, then in natural disasters, then in global hunger, etc.

So we mustn’t tarry. We have to explain to people scientifically why balance, homeostasis, is essential. There are enough articles about this and solid proof.
[91808]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/31/12, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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Opinion (Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund): “The head of the International Monetary Fund has urged world leaders to take immediate bold action to stimulate growth. Christine Lagarde warned that the global economy was decelerating and said both Europe and the United States were taking too long to come up with solutions to their debt problems.”

My Comment: People are beginning to become aware of fate, upper management, the lack of the ability to control events. Humanity is starting to bend down its head, “come down from the tree,” and lose pride and the sense that it is higher than what is happening.

Thus, humanity will gradually begin to feel that it is not above nature and can do whatever it wants, but that nature is above it and does everything according to its plan. Fear and uncertainty will quickly make people come around. It’s a pity, if this happens at the cost of blood and suffering. Similarity with Nature, the search for harmony with it, this is the only task of humanity. It will find itself in a new dimension through this search.
[91217]

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