A question I received from P.T. Thompkins in the Ask a Question section: How does one function in business when one has to set goals for profit? Profit is certainly an egoistic function but I get so perplexed because I want my desires to be altruistic. I’m confused because I want to change my ways to please the Creator, but how do I do so while still doing what needs to be done for my business?

My Answer: You need to be an honest businessman according to society’s laws.

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News Story: Gorging Gore “addicted” to steak

“According to the animal rights organization PETA, Al Gore’s love for steak and sausage is creating greenhouse gas emissions.

A gorging Gore, complete with potbelly and chicken drumstick is the latest PETA PR stint.
The take-no-prisoners animal rights organization has launched a campaign called www.offsetalgore.com.

’Since Gore’s addiction to meat is apparently stronger than his desire to secure a better future for our planet, we’re asking those who recognize that actions speak louder than words to help offset Gore’s greenhouse-gas emissions by pledging to go vegetarian for 30 days,’ PETA says on its offsetalgore.com campaign.

Just in time for Earth Day, Gore will see himself plastered on posters across the Internet, an embarrassing fate for a guy who claims to be saving the world from Global Warming/Climate Change.”

My Response: Until people come to realize that people themselves (their egoism) are the real reasons behind all the crises, they’ll seek out every other possible reason, overlooking themselves.

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News Story: What Follows American Dominion

Many are predicting a new non-polar world. The appearance of such power centers as regional powers, nongovernmental organizations, mass media, religious movements, terrorist groups and drug cartels are destabilizing America’s unipolar stronghold and dissolving the presence of a fixed power center. In the new world, it will be harder to react collectively to global problems and make any given mechanism work. Threats will increase, and it will also be harder to establish and maintain relationships. Richard Hauss, President of the Council for Foreign Relations and the article’s author, states that “only diplomacy that is more focused, creative and collective will prevent a non-polar world from becoming more disorderly and dangerous.”

My Response: Humanity will be left with no choice but to unite. Egoism, however, won’t allow for it: egoism will oppose unity to the point of an annihilation threat. Things will worsen until humanity realizes its evil – its egoistic nature as the source of all problems – and will be ready to hear that there’s a cure, a method of correction designed specifically for fixing this problem at its source. However, without realizing the bitter error of egoistic development, humanity will not achieve correction.

Related Material:
* ARTICLE: The Untold Story of a Consumer Nation – A new documentary, The Story of Stuff, shows how our entire lives have been taken over by “stuff.” And the wisdom of Kabbalah shows what we can do about it.
* ARTICLE: The Consumer Effect – The globalization of economics means that any local market is inextricably tied to the global economy.

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Today’s daily lesson mostly revolved around questions from students about the crisis in food and rising food prices. Here are some questions and answers from the first part of the lesson,* as well as a link to the third part of the lesson (see “About the World Food Crisis” at the bottom of the post):

A question I received: Food prices around the world are on the rise. Whether it’s corn, soya beans or rice – everything is getting more expensive, and it’s only getting worse. Can you explain this, and where it’s leading us to?

My Answer:

A question I received: Suffering brings people to ask about the meaning of life. But if the suffering is based on not having any food to eat, then how can one think about the meaning of life while being hungry? [Read more →]

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There’s nothing more criminal in the modern world than the falsehood and irresponsibility permeating mass media. Anybody can write, anything can be written, and it also costs next to nothing, reaching and spoiling everyone. A person’s destiny completely depends on the environment (see Baal HaSulam’s article, “The Freedom“). Crimes, crises and suffering are all results of the involuntary absorption of incorrect and harmful information. Mass media feeds us this information and gets us hooked on it, changing the way we think and ruining us. Thus, by changing mass media, we’ll change the world!

Mass media needs to change to the degree we change. However, it needs to lead the way, as a group helping us reach a higher goal.

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The very essence of the spiritual law is the love of others. In practical terms, it can be defined as “giving to others” so as to remember the intention.

The Necessity of Caution with the Laws of Nature

The safekeeping of creation extends from the Creator, who undoubtedly has purpose in His actions. Thus, one who breaches any of nature’s laws corrupts the goal, which is built over all of nature’s laws, put together. Hence, nature will punish him.

It makes no difference whether the supervisor is called “nature,” meaning mindless and purposeless, or is wise, knowing, sensitive, and whose actions are purposeful. In the end, we are obliged to keep the laws of Providence, i.e. the laws of nature. Moreover, we all admit that one who breaches the commandments of Providence – nature’s laws – should be punished.

Providence demands that we keep the law of giving to others in a way that each of us will work in the full measure required to guarantee the success of society. As long as we are idle in keeping this law in the fullest measure, nature will continue to punish us. And besides the blows we suffer today, we should consider the drawn sword for the future. We should draw the right conclusion: nature will eventually defeat us and we will all be forced to obey its laws in the fullest required measure.

The Wheel of Transformation

Although we see that bodies change from generation to generation, it is only so with bodies. The souls – the very essence of the body – do not disappear. Instead, they move from one body to the next, and from one generation to the next. [Read more →]

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A question I received: When disseminating Kabbalah in Arabic, should we hide the fact that Kabbalah is the Jews’ “property,” so to speak, so that we don’t arouse antipathy and repel them from it? What will Arabs in Israel and the world think about people who disseminate Kabbalah? How do you think we should disseminate to them?

My Answer: We have to disseminate Kabbalah in the whole world, to all nations. We are all children of the Creator, and we received this wisdom at a time when we were all one human race in Ancient Babylon. At that time, there was a sudden outburst of egoism, and one man, a Babylonian priest named Abraham, researched this phenomenon and discovered what was causing it.

Egoism, as Abraham found, was the cause of disharmony among people, and it had to keep evolving in humanity, constantly and gradually, through four phases (HaVaYaH), until reaching its maximum level, from the year 1995 and on. Humanity would then start finding out that egoism is an evil distinct from us, and would desire to eradicate it.

At that time, people would need the method of correcting egoism, and this is what Abraham had discovered all those years ago. This method is called “Kabbalah.” During his life, Abraham organized only a small group of students who adopted and practiced this method, and this group developed throughout history until the time when the method would be needed by everyone – the 21st century.

Throughout its history, this group went through many ascents and descents and collided with the nations of the world, in order to adapt the method to their evolving egoism. And this all took place in order to realize Kabbalah in our era. Now is the time for Kabbalah to be disseminated to the whole world, and applied by by those same ancient Babylonians who have settled all over the Earth since the time of Abraham.

The Zohar explains the collision between Jews and Arabs today, and these events prove the book’s authenticity. Bnei Baruch maintains a large website in Arabic. Its students include Israeli Arabs as well as Arabs from all the Arabic countries, and we receive many letters and questions from them.

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News Opinion Column: Mark Steyn: Guns and God? Hell, yes

“According to a global survey on optimism: 61 percent of Americans were optimistic about the future, 29 percent of the French, 15 percent of Germans.” The article’s author thinks that this is because Americans believe in God and are allowed to carry weapons.

My Response: Americans haven’t gone through everything Europe has. They are a young nation that still has the inertia of the consumer society and the cult of the dollar. The public doesn’t yet fully comprehend phenomena like the modern crisis, because it still has faith in its society and democracy.

Bernard Shaw wrote: “Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many [like in America] for appointment by the corrupt few [like in Russia].”

We learn from the collapse of the system of the spiritual worlds (Shvirat Olam HaNekudim), that the higher a level (Malach) is, the lower it falls when it breaks. But this action takes longer than on lower levels due to the level’s height and reserve power, and hence its inability to recognize and predict the forthcoming developments that threaten it…

Similarly, faith in God and the feeling of safety one gets from carrying weapons delay one’s recognition of the forthcoming crisis. If society continues developing egoistically, the crisis will be devastating to all.

Nevertheless, we can already see the influence of Kabbalah’s dissemination. I don’t mean its mechanical dissemination, the fact that people know about Kabbalah. Rather, I’m talking about the fact that little by little, people are starting to think in Kabbalistic notions, even without being aware of it. Most of the dissemination happens through thought, through the Upper field of forces, and I hope that it will bring about recognition and a change in people’s attitude to the world, God and weapons.

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Russia is planning to close down Protestant, Jewish, and other organizations. The Report: The Russian Federal Registration Service has gone public with a list of organizations to be liquidated. It includes Muslim, Evangelical, and Jewish organizations, the Missionary Academy, the Russian National Cathedral, the Association Against Racism, Xenophobia and anti-Semitism, and about 30 others.

My Response: That’s too bad. The more organizations there are, and the more diverse they are, the quicker people will realize that none of them can help in any way, and that help can come only from above – that it lies in changing one’s egoistic nature, which is the cause of all evils.

Hector Protector was dressed all in green,
Hector Protector was sent to the Queen.
The Queen did not like him, nor more did the King,
So Hector Protector was sent back again.
(a nursery rhyme)

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News Story: Number of Muslims ahead of Catholics, says Vatican

“The number of Muslims has overtaken that of Roman Catholics for the first time, the Vatican said yesterday.

Muslims account for 19.2% of the world’s population, while Catholics make up 17.4%, according to the Vatican’s new statistics yearbook, which is based on figures for 2006.”

My Comment: If anything, the Roman Pope should be concerned about this, not us. Egoism is growing faster, and it will force everyone to become brothers.

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