A question I received: How do you remain true to the principle “love thy neighbor as thyself” when there’s a war going on and you have to fire a gun at your neighbor, who became your enemy for some reason and now wants to kill you?

My Answer: There are precise laws of behavior for this situation and they are described in the Torah. When the law states that you have to kill someone in a specific situation, then you have to do this, and you don’t have the right to avoid doing it. The reverse is also true.

There are states when the death of a person’s body is his correction. The principle “love thy neighbor as thyself” has to be understood in regard to the relationship between the souls, rather than the bodies.

[In the above photo: I am walking next to soldiers of the Chilean junta. By the way, “junta” means “group” – and it’s what our Chilean friends call themselves.]

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Do Kabbalists Need an Army?
Laitman.com Post: Neither Side Is Right In the Georgian War
Basic Concepts in Kabbalah: Chapter 3 “The Giving of Kabbalah”

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A question I received: Why is “the end of the world” such a popular topic today?

My Answer: You’re right. Instead of attaining immortality, people are building the Arctic Doomsday Seed Vault on Spitsbergen to store seeds of all the plant species, so they could restore the planet’s vegetation after a global war or a natural catastrophe. They are also thinking of storing a sperm bank in outer space, and other such ideas. However, people aren’t doing this because of the romantic notion of the end of the world, but out of the sensation of hopelessness. This sensation is alluring and tempting in a way, and this is why the idea of the end of the world is so popular in movies, books, and computer games.

So the answer to your question is that our egoism attracts us to death, lures us toward a catastrophe, and enjoys watching the tired old world disappear, according to the verse, “Revel and enjoy, since tomorrow we’ll die!” (Nuchal ve Nishte Ki Macharo Namut.) Since “tomorrow” is becoming more and more menacing, we are feeling more and more indifferent and indolent to “today.”

According to Kabbalah, if one isn’t on the path of correction yet, then this is actually the next best attitude to have toward the future, because one reveals hopelessness, the fact that there is no solution in our world, and thoughts that aren’t typical of an ordinary person living on the animate level. Later these thoughts and feelings will develop, because egoism will keep growing and it will demand fulfillment – a solution to these problems.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Writings of the Last Generation
Laitman.com Post: The Peace (Baal HaSulam)
Kabbalah Today Article:  “What’s Happening to Our Youth?”
Kabbalah Today Article:  “Better than the Virtual World!?”

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Questions I received on the role of Israel in the world and how Europe compares to the United States:

Question: You speak a lot of how Israel has to reveal the wisdom of Kabbalah to the ‘nations of the world’ but currently is not doing this. My question is: What happens if Israel does not do this sooner rather than later – does my spiritual development as a gentile become sacrificed? What happens if the point in the heart arises in others before it does in Jews?

My Answer: Then the nations of the world will use force and pressure to make the Jews reveal Kabbalah to them.

Question: How can it be that the economy of the nation of Israel is prospering unlike the rest of the world, considering that the people living there are responsible for the horrible crisis that the world is in?

My Answer: In our time the blows aren’t measured by hunger or money, but by inner problems and the sensation of emptiness – an unfulfilled Kli! The developed and wealthy countries top the charts when it comes to depression, drugs, and suicide.

Question: My question is about the European Union. Why hasn’t Europe succeeded in unifying as well as the United States? Is Europe more egoistic than the US?

My Answer: The problem of creating something new is that you first have to the destroy the old. We can abandon the old state and create a new one only when we recognize that the current state is so evil that it becomes impossible for us to remain in it. Europe hasn’t reached this realization yet. As for America, it was created out of nothing and by combined efforts, since people didn’t have any other choice.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Why Does Everyone Hate Israel?
Laitman.com Post: Israel Isn’t What You Think It Is
Laitman.com Post: America – Optimistic, and Why?
Article – “Why Kabbalah? Why Now?”

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Two questions I received on whether it would be best for the world’s spiritual leaders to unite:

Question: If we were to gather all the people of truth in one place and tune into the general system, would we be able to influence the afterworld with our Light or information, as well as the development of our planet?

My Answer: We have to disseminate Kabbalah to all the people in the world, accept the world as a whole, and provide every person with everything they need for correction no matter where they are located. All the people in the world are sick with the same illness – egoism, which separates them from the Light of life. Hence, everyone needs the medication – the Upper Light. This is what we believe, and this is why we disseminate Kabbalah to everyone. After that, it’s up to the person to take the medicine now, or later on – when he will feel his illness at a more advanced stage.

Instead of gathering in one place, people have to gather in one intention, in spite of the physical distance separating them. This is the purpose of our world. Nevertheless, when someone wants to move to Israel to join our group, we don’t turn them away, and about 5-10 people move here every year. However, I don’t consider this necessary for spiritual advancement. There have also been cases when people moved here and found it to be too intense for them, and had to return to their previous location.

Question: Do the world’s spiritual leaders, such as Rav Laitman and the Dalai Lama, as well as their students, have a spiritual connection and do they help each other (I don’t mean the World Wisdom Council)? I get the impression that spirituality is just a game, where each person (or group) is for himself. Sooner or later people get tired of these games, because you start feeling like you’re the soccer ball and you don’t want to play for any team. If the spiritual leaders have a connection with each other, then why isn’t it revealed to us, the masses, in a material form and with a true final goal (again, I don’t mean the World Wisdom Council)?

My Answer: I don’t associate myself with any organization, including the World Wisdom Council, and I have no connection with any spiritual leaders. I only participate wherever I see an opportunity to disseminate Kabbalah. Kabbalah is so vastly different from other methods at the root, that we cannot unite or work together with any earthly method or religion.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Disseminate Kabbalah on the Internet, But First Find Out How
Laitman.com Post: Religion and Kabbalah Are Opposite
Kabbalah Today Article: At Odds with Nature
Baal HaSulam Article: “The Peace”

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A question I received: What do you expect from the development of the Internet and other means of communication? I see how much you depend on them and their development.

My Answer: The Internet connection lets humanity progress inconceivably faster. However, I think that in the future the means of communication will rise to yet a different level, because our interconnectedness has to be even more evident. Very soon there will be new possibilities of unification, which will erase the sensation of distance between us altogether. Time and space will cease being obstacles between us.

This is necessary for egoism to develop and for us to recognize that it is evil. This is how Nature has arranged things, and this will soon become revealed to us. Interdependence and communications enable us to go through many experiences by connecting with others who feel them, without actually going through them ourselves. By becoming included in one another, we accelerate every person’s development and maturation. We are seeing with our very eyes how civilizations that were isolated from the whole world for millennia – Japan and China, are merging with the whole world within a mere decade. (From the lesson on the article “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose” on 21/07/2008.)

Related Material:
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Laitman.com Post: Loneliness – Inside and Out
Kabbalah Today Article: Facebook – What’s All the Fuss?
Kabbalah Today Article: Better Than the Virtual World!?
Kabbalah Today Article: You Have a New Message 🙂
Kabbalah Blog Post: The Internet Prison – the Influence of the Internet on Our Lives

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News Story (translated from www.ynet.co.il): Leaders of the industrial G8 countries have gathered in Japan to discuss global warming. These rich and developed countries disagree about many things, and no one wants to be the first to yield and lose. The leaders smiled for the photographers and then went their separate ways. They won’t save the world this time around either. It’s the same story all over again: the leaders gather for a discussion, and nothing comes out of it. By now, even the journalists are laughing at this. What has to happen for them to actually sit down and talk, and for something to change?

My Answer: The leaders are powerless to change anything. It cannot be done by their mental, moral, or physical power, because the world is governed from above, and our entire history shows us that we can only make things worse. Since we don’t follow the laws of nature, instead of feeling comfortable, we feel nature’s negative reaction, expressed as undesirable phenomena on all levels of nature: the still level (tsunamis, global warming, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes), the vegetative level (droughts, lack of water, harvest failure), the animate level (extinction of species, disturbed balance, spread of disease), and the human level (war, depression, drugs, suicide, fear).

The correction of the world depends on the correction of man, on his balance with nature. And to achieve this balance, we have to know the forces that govern us. Nature has arranged everything this way in order to elevate us (whether coercively or consciously, willingly) to the level of the governing forces – the Creator. And we can become corrected only by desiring to become similar to the Upper World, to the governing forces of Nature, the Creator.

Kabbalah explains the structure and laws of the Upper World, and this is why it’s necessary for us today – it is our only salvation. As for all the world’s leaders – they are no more than puppets in the hands of the Creator.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Pointing the Finger at Al Gore (Instead of Pointing It at Ourselves)
Laitman.com Post: Women As Leaders of Nations
Laitman.com Post: The More You Know, the Better You Sleep
Kabbalah Today Article: Global Warming – So What?

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On July 9^th, www.RadioKavana.info – a unique, one of a kind radio station hosted by the worldwide Kabbalah community, held its first live broadcast. The program’s highlights included news from the hottest dissemination spots today: Sochi, Gelendzhik, Crimea, and Bnei Baruch.

Your comments and suggestions for what to include in our broadcasts are welcome! Please send them to [email protected]

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On July 9, a Cairo daily paper published an article about Kabbalah, me and our International Kabbalah Education & Research Institute. It looks like the Egyptian intellectuals are interested in Kabbalah…

Related Material:
Kabbalah Website in Arabic
Kabbalah Website in Farsi
Laitman.com Post: Kabbalah for Everybody
Laitman.com: Interviewed by a Cairo Weekly Publication

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A comment I received: I’m shocked and moved to tears to find out that we are also potential Nazis. Why did great Kabbalists, who attained Gmar Tikkun (final correction), continue to take part in cruel slaughter and use of animals? How can it be possible that the exalted teaching of Kabbalah ignores cruelty to animals?

It’s obvious that it won’t correct anything in the soul if we were all to become vegetarian. But great Kabbalists corrected everything and did not become lovers of miserable animals. How can this be? Maybe there are 126 levels and the time of the complete Gmar Tikkun has arrived only now, when “love thy neighbor as yourself” will also include animals, plants and the still level of nature? As far as I understand with my simple mind, we must ultimately feel love for ants and bugs as well…

My Response: There are rules for how to act in order to correspond to the general law of nature, called Elokim. Man has been created opposite to this law, and our task is to change ourselves in order to be the same as this law. This is the purpose of our existence in this world. This change in a person, from our level to the Creator’s level, can be attained only by studying Kabbalah. Baal HaSulam writes about it in the article “Introduction to the Book ‘From the Mouth of a Sage’”: “Even if a person is completely righteous in this world, knows the whole Torah and has fulfilled all the earthly commandments, but did not study Kabbalah, then he must return to this world again in order to study Kabbalah” – because only by studying Kabbalah does he attract the Light of Correction to him, as written in the “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot,” item 155.

By correcting himself, a person unwillingly acts according to the Upper Laws. When this happens, how does he relate to the nature around him? He relates to it based on the degree of his equivalence of the Creator. And no matter what he relates to, he does so based on his equivalence to the Creator. But perhaps his actions and behavior won’t seem righteous to you, because you imagine righteousness differently to what it is in the spiritual world.

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Two questions I received on the masses’ participation in the method of correction

Question: Please let me know whether I understand you correctly or not: You’re saying that there will be a very small quantity of people serving the Creator through studying the science of Kabbalah in comparison to the whole of humanity?

My Answer: No. Everyone needs to understand that there is a method of attaining happiness. Until everyone comes to this understanding, then no one will actually achieve it. That’s the condition. People subdivide into four groups according to their natural development and the size of their desire. Those with the largest desire are Kabbalists, and those with the smallest desire are people who will merely understand that they need this method for survival; that they need to join the rest and do everything like everyone else, like in a herd. It’s the same way as the masses operate today, according to social influence and advertisement.

Question: You have described the main mass of society (99% of people) as being “individually and socially passive.” These are, apparently, people who don’t ask questions about the meaning of life, i.e. people without a point in the heart. Are all such people just flesh and bones made for the herding, or can they all be “awakened” in the foreseeable future for spiritual progress?

My Answer: Every single person has free will. The only difference is the extent to which one’s free will becomes realized within oneself. However, according to one’s soul, each one needs to completely and independently realize oneself. There are leaders and there are followers, but all are conscious!

Related Material:
Part 1A from eBook Interview with the Future: A Hidden World
Chapter 12 from the eBook The Open Book: Four Degrees in the Development of the Desire
Article: Freedom of Will

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