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 entire life comes down to trying to fulfill our desires, or anticipating the moment when our desire will meet the pleasure, such as the first sip of water you take when your are dying of thirst. But we only feel the pleasure at that first moment of contact between the desire and the pleasure. As soon as the pleasure enters the desire, it immediately begins to nullify the desire, and consequently, the pleasure.

Even sexual pleasure, which is so powerful that it is considered the root of all pleasures, lasts for just an instant. Then the person must think of other ways to fulfill himself. Thus, we are always compelled to chase after something, because this encounter between the desire and the pleasure is what we call life.

Without this constant chase of trying to bring pleasure into one’s desire, a person cannot be considered alive, for he has nothing to live for. In fact, if a person cannot fulfill his desire, he will be willing to take his own life. Yet, humanity is bound to reach a point where people will feel this way, but they won’t even be able to take their lives and bring an end to their horrid state for lack of strength. So what are we to do?

Baal HaSulam says that there is only one solution: “Instead of egoistic reception, we must reach bestowal. Fill yourself with bestowal, because you will never be able to fulfill yourself by receiving. You have tested it and seen it for yourself. But I will tell you a secret: there is a method that can give you the ability to feel perfect, unlimited pleasure. It will give you fulfillment which includes everything, even that which lies beyond the boundaries of this life. But you must know that this fulfillment does not happen through egoistic reception, but through bestowal. It is because everything that pertains to your human qualities exists outside of you – in the desires or souls of others.”

This is what Baal HaSulam means when he says: “Taste and see that the Creator is good.” Try and see for yourself that bestowal (the Creator) is fulfillment, goodness, and perfection. And then you will feel an infinite desire and infinite fulfillment.

The sole purpose of the science of Kabbalah is to bring a person to this state.

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In the “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot,” Baal HaSulam writes about a person’s desire to clearly understand the meaning of his life. He says, “Yet the question, ‘What is the meaning of my life?’ stands as bitterly and as vehemently as ever. Sometimes it meets us uninvited, pecks at our minds and humiliates us to the ground before we find the famous ploy to flow mindlessly in the currents of life as yesterday.”

People will small desires are like small children: they want order. They set limits for themselves and live within confines that help them to feel safe. In addition, these people want their relationships with others to follow a hierarchy. They want to know, “This person is higher than me, and that one is lower. This one I have to fear and that one I have to respect.”

Many politicians, psychologists and sociologists use this to their advantage, and religion is also based on this. Throughout history, people have feared the forces of nature, believing that they are more powerful than they. They tried to smooth things over by treating these forces with respect, and thus, people built special systems by which they expressed their attitude to the forces of nature.

This is how religion was created. And religion was good for the people because it gave them a clear understanding of what was required of them. This institution was satisfactory to all, because people were able to shield themselves with religion.

Today, however, we are living in an entirely different era. Now the will to receive pleasure has outgrown all limitations. Whether people are secular or religious, they can no longer contain themselves within the previously set limits. They can no longer flow “within the currents of life as yesterday.”

In the past, people simply carried out predetermined actions without much analysis or debate. People acted in certain ways, and were contented by this because they knew that they were living their lives correctly. Today, however, people can no longer be satisfied by this lifestyle, because none of these actions give them the answer to the question, “What do I live for?”

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A question I received: How will they define what level (of consumption) is necessary for life in the corrected society described by Baal HaSulam? Will each one decide it for himself, or will those who will govern this society (the government) set a common standard for everyone?

My Answer: Apparently a world governing body (a world government) will be created, as it is said, “A capital city cannot be without a ruler.” This will be a government of sages who have attained the Upper World, that is, our next (future) state.  Due to their having attained our future today, they will be able to govern the whole of humanity unmistakably.

When I say “to govern” I mean “to educate,” or more precisely to teach a man how to change himself to become more similar to the quality of Nature (the Creator), which is the quality of bestowal and love. To the extent of this similarity, we will feel ourselves become more perfect, eternal and fulfilled. But everyone will have to make these changes within themselves on their own, voluntarily and independently.

Therefore all governance will be implemented through education. When we talk about a person’s free will to change himself in order to become similar to the Creator, then the environment (society and the government) will have to help everyone realize that each one must become corrected individually, and that the only way to change their life on this earth and their eternal existence is to correct themselves. The governing of the billions of people on the planet by the spiritual government will consist of educating and providing opportunities to everyone to change themselves at the individual level.

Education is the only “reins” that a government has. All other means are based on suppression of freedom manifested as failure of the system and harm to its citizens. This is why proper upbringing and education must be started from the first days that a person enters this world with consistent content included in all educational and social institutions, etc.

In other words, they have to bring a man to the state that when he experiences the blows and negative reactions of society, he will reveal these reactions within himself, thus changing and bringing himself to a more corrected state.

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On July 14, I held a public lecture at the Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education Center, discussing Baal HaSulam’s article, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah“.

The Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education Center hosts public lectures every Tuesday at 7:00 PM Israel time. The lectures are broadcast live on our TV channel “YES-66” and the Kabbalah TV website and are translated live from Hebrew into English, Spanish, French, Italian and Russian.

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A question I received: How can people determine what is a necessity today?

My Answer: The level of necessity of today is a medium level of well-being in the place where a person is living. There are many methods of verifying the actual mean level. Baal HaSulam covers that in detail in the article The Future Generation. He refers to creation of all kinds of committees that would check the actual needs of every person, and fulfill them.

All of that is measured according to the needs of an average person. Let’s say that each family must have a room for each of its members. Each person must have a job. The family must have a car to get to and from work and for other needs. All of that is determined in accordance with changes that occur in the world. Notwithstanding, a family must have everything it needs to exit normally.

As a matter of fact, the problem is not what you have, but your attitude towards it. After all, the Creator doesn’t want you to suffer. The purpose of creation is to delight the creatures. Therefore, you confine your earthly life to the needs of your physical body – no more and no less.

You have to fill your desires for food, sex, family, wealth, honor, power and knowledge. You should feel no lack in those desires, and they should be filled to the measure that is an essential necessity for the life of your animal body. Anything that is beyond a necessity should be used to bestow to your fellow man.

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Kabbalah is the method for revealing the Creator to a person (see Baal HaSulam’s article, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”).

Regardless of the fact that the science of Kabbalah was hidden from humanity over the course of thousands of years, by manifesting itself through sciences and social relations in an opposite, egoistic form, it prepared humanity for perceiving it (Kabbalah) as a necessary method in order for everyone to achieve a perfect existence.

However, under the influence of his natural desires and his natural mind, a person must first realize the erroneous course of his independent development. Precisely by moving through the stages of technological, scientific, religious, and social development, and becoming disappointed with them, a person gains the ability to understand the Upper wisdom and mind (higher than those given to him naturally). Having gone through all the methods and realizing their limitations and inability to correct the world, a person comes to reject them and chooses Kabbalah as the only true method of his development.

The reason for such a path of development is related to how the Creator is concealed from a person in order to give him an opportunity to develop on his own and realize the truth. In the same manner that the Creator is concealed in our surroundings, Kabbalah, the method to reveal Him, is concealed in the sciences of our world.

Similar to the development of sciences that lead to the revelation of the science of Kabbalah hidden within them, human development in our world leads to the revelation of the Creator. A person reveals our world through science, and later, with the help of Kabbalah, he reveals the Creator.

Therefore, just as the Creator’s concealment is the cause of all our misfortunes and suffering, to the same extent the concealment of Kabbalah is the reason for all of our suffering.

The science of Kabbalah is the method of revealing the Upper Light, the Light of Hochma which is revealed in the Light of Hassadim (the quality of bestowal) in the corrected egoistic desires. However, the penetration of a considerably weak emanation of Hochma directly into egoistic desires without first being clothed into the Light of Hassadim, gives rise to the sciences of our world.

Since the Light of Hochma that descends into our world (some revelation of the Creator in the sciences of our world, in egoistic desires), descends from revelation of the Creator in the Upper world (the clothing of the Light of Hochma in the Light of Hassadim), it is clear that all the discoveries of Nature that descend into our world are no more than a lesser revelation of the Creator in the science of Kabbalah in the Upper world.

In other words, a very insignificant portion of the truth descends to the sciences of our world from the science of Kabbalah, which is the Upper root of the corporeal sciences, in the same way that our whole world receives only the “Ner Dakik” (a spark of Light) of the Upper Light.

However, specifically from below upwards, meaning from the sciences of our world, can we come to the science of Kabbalah. This is the reason for the revival of all the sciences and, hence, the preparation of the world for revelation of the Creator.

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Our times are different in that the question “What is the meaning of life?” is becoming relevant to all of humanity. We begin to realize that life demands our mutual accordance, compromises, understanding, and coexistence. And we can create the kind of connection among us that is necessary for our survival only through the method of Kabbalah.

Therefore, today we see the disintegration of the iron wall between the science of Kabbalah and humanity, which Baal HaSulam discussed.  The wall has existed for 2000 years, and is now breaking. This is because questions have arisen along with the development of relationships among people, and therein lies the precise location of the breaking. It is here that the science of Kabbalah (and only the science of Kabbalah) can help.

Therefore, salvation will not come on its own. Humanity will not find any regulators to correct our fall, but will find that everything depends only on the development of positive relationships among people. Many people are talking about the need for proper relationships, but no one has the means for correction, the ability to draw the Light, the Upper energy, the force of Nature. If people need to connect to each other by rising above their egoism, they will be unable to do this without the science of Kabbalah.

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Two questions I received about happiness and Kabbalah as a science:

Question: As Kabbalists, should we always be happy?

My Answer: If a person feels miserable, he thereby curses the Creator. This has to do only with the feeling in one’s heart, and not the words that he utters. If a person is happy, he thereby blesses the Creator, without any words and without even addressing Him.

Question: You claim that Kabbalah is a science. Personally, I love science; it is one of my favorite subjects. I am also fascinated with the wisdom of Kabbalah. I know that there are requirements for a study to pass in order for it to be considered a science, and not a pseudoscience. One such requirement is that the study can be falsified (proven false). So, for honesty’s sake, is there any way for Kabbalah to be falsified?

My Answer: If Kabbalah is studied through the original sources such as The Book of Zohar, and teachers such as the ARI, Ramchal, Baal HaSulam or from a teacher who received his knowledge from a great Kabbalist of the previous generation, the rest depends only on the student.

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In the News (from Biocompare): “100 Reasons to Change the Way We Think about Genetics”

For years, genes have been considered the one and only way biological traits could be passed down through generations of organisms. Increasingly, biologists are finding that non-genetic variation acquired during the life of an organism can sometimes be passed on to offspring—a phenomenon known as epigenetic inheritance…The main question now is: How often does it happen? “The analysis of these data shows that epigenetic inheritance is ubiquitous …,” write Eva Jablonka and Gal Raz, both of Tel-Aviv University in Israel.

My Comment: This is precisely what Kabbalah states: our environment influences our thoughts and desires, which in turn influence our behavior, and our behavior alters the genes of the following generations. See Baal HaSulam’s “The Freedom.”

It turns out that our thoughts and desires shape our offspring, and over the course of many centuries a human being becomes a consequence not only of the original genes, but also of the way of life (the thoughts and the desires) that his ancestors chose for themselves.

Biology illustrates to us the fact that Kabbalah is not a theoretical science, like philosophy. It is a way to selectively change ourselves and the world.

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