A question I received: You said that Baal HaSulam completely overturned how the science of Kabbalah was disseminated and directed it to a completely new level. Must dissemination come to a new level in our time also?

My Answer: As opposed to all Kabbalists before him, Baal HaSulam elevated Kabbalah to the level of a modern scientific method. He described it in modern language and as such, he gave us the opportunity to use it to change the world.

We have come to the complete destruction of the previous social system but still don’t know how to build a new system. It is this state of not knowing that could lead us into a world war.

This is why the science of Kabbalah is being revealed now.  It explains how we can correct all of what was built on the basis of human egoism. The only thing we have to do is to fulfill the method that will allow us to build new, appropriate connections between us. Then we will be aligned to the new integral, global world.

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A question I received: Recently you mentioned that a corrected society is like one family, where the profit earned by different corporations and industries will be used for the benefit of the entire country and the whole world. How will this affect our lives? Will the whole country work for the sake of the whole world?

My Answer: We are not talking about this kind of a connection among countries yet. However, Baal HaSulam says that this model can be built in one country. All the corporations that exist in that country and all the people living there would work according to the principle of brotherhood, without the aim of receiving a profit. In other words, people would work and then contribute their profits to the country’s common treasury, and the sages that head the country will determine how to distribute the surplus in the best way possible.

The law is very simple: each person receives exactly as much as he needs for a normal life. And it does not matter if we are talking about a single person or a huge enterprise.

In the article, “The Future Generation,” Baal HaSulam writes that we should first create a small organization whose majority will be altruists. This organization would include all the forms of government, and gradually the entire world will join it. This organization will be like the central point of the world, surrounded by nations and governments, and everyone will have one program and one leadership.

If you have trouble envisioning this, then just think of the whole of humanity as one family. This is what Nature demands of us. Our task is to organize ourselves in this manner as quickly as possible, and to explain to everyone that this is for our own benefit. This is the aim of Kabbalah’s dissemination around the world.

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In the past, Nature didn’t judge us by how strong the connection between us was. We were connected by Nature into one net (one soul – Adam), but Nature did not require us to implement this connection willingly and consciously.

Back in the 1940s, Baal HaSulam wrote in his newspaper “The Nation” that the world is actually one family, completely interconnected. However, this connection is only being revealed to us now. And today, everything depends on whether we will carry out this condition, set by Nature. The current crisis and everything that will happen to us in the future depends only on the quality of the connection between us.

Therefore, we must constantly envision the system of our interconnection as clearly as we can, in order to uncover our current disparity with it. This disparity is the cause of our troubles, and uncovering it is the first step to solving the problem.

If each person will reach a clear understanding of the cause of the crisis, this will solve the crisis! And then, all of our actions will gradually become consistent with Nature.

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A question I received: If every person affects the world positively or negatively with his influence, then what determines the general picture?

My Answer: The higher one ascends and develops spiritually, the more power he gains. The greatest power is the power of thought. Ordinary people influence the world with their thoughts, desires, and actions, but the extent of their influence is very small, even though there are six billion people.

The world is not static. One always sees it differently based on one’s changing qualities. When you realize that the world is your individual impression, you recognize that it’s necessary to change yourself, rather than improve the world. You must correct yourself in order for the world to change.

If you do so, then you will discover how the Upper Force affects everything that happens, and this will change your entire model of perception and your interpretation of what you perceive. Will people feel better? Will unemployment and hunger end? Will companies really bring their workers back to work? Yes! We will see this happen with our very own eyes.

Baal HaSulam writes in the article, “The Creator’s Concealment and Revelation,” that nothing changes in our world except the Creator’s revelation or concealment. Therefore, it will help us a great deal to stop viewing this world as a static picture that’s constant before us. We should instead understand that the world depends entirely on our perception, on our qualities and inner conception. We will then begin to correct our flaws, and as a result, to see the will of the Creator in everything that happens.

The science of Kabbalah helps us accomplish this. By definition, it is the method of revealing the Creator to the created beings in this world. In the meantime, this world is the picture that you feel today.

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In the News (from Washington University): “Imagine this: study suggests power of imagination is more than just a metaphor” A new study from psychologists at Washington University in St. Louis suggests imagination may be more effective than we think in helping us reach our goals. “The imagination has the extraordinary capacity to shape reality,” suggests the study’s co-authors, psychology professor Richard Abrams and doctoral student Christopher Davoli.

My Comment: Baal HaSulam praises materialistic psychology for being based on practice and experiments, unlike philosophy which studies abstract notions. Like the natural sciences, psychology leads us to the recognition that there may be another reality.

Kabbalah gives us the opportunity to enter this spiritual reality, and to then see that our world is unreal, merely rendered to us by our limited, earthly imagination.

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A question I received: During the lessons you often remind us that religious ethics is completely different from Kabbalah. But when Baal HaSulam wrote this, didn’t he mean the secular, Greek, or corporeal ethics? Aren’t the ethics of the sages passed on through the Light, in order to direct us toward the realization of evil, so we will know what to ask the Light for, and It will then bring us back to the source?

My Answer: Baal HaSulam uses the term Musar (ethics) to describe the opposite of one’s development using Kabbalah.

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The virtual lesson which took place on 04.12.09, from 4:00pm to 5:00pm Israel time, was the second in a series of lessons on Baal HaSulam’s article, “Peace in the World.” These lessons are translated from Russian into English, Spanish, French, German and Hebrew.

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A question I received: It’s possible that the Jews were the chosen people at one point, but I doubt this is still so. How are the Jews any better or worse than the other nations? This kind of thinking would be a display of egoism, wouldn’t it? Sure, you can quote the Torah, but the Torah also says that the Arabs were chosen by G-d, and G-d also promised to multiply them as the stars in the sky and put them above other nations. And we do see that they have multiplied as the stars and they also own oil.

My Answer: To be chosen means to be responsible for passing onto the world the method of the world’s correction – the science of Kabbalah. It does not mean to be superior to anyone. See Baal HaSulam’s articles, “The Revelation of Godliness (Matan Torah)” and “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee).”

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A question I received: Two months ago, my Rabbi approached me regarding my speaking to the congregation about Kabbalah at our weekly services. We generally have 10 to 15 people at the services. We are a very small Reform Temple in Northeast Pennsylvania. Could you please give me some guidance on this issue?

My Answer: You should speak to them and tell them that Kabbalah is the science about the correction of the world. Today the world is discovering how incorrect it is, and this is why Kabbalah is being revealed to the world for the first time in history. Everything that was said about Kabbalah in the past was a lie, but nobody knew about this since the Kabbalists kept silent about it.

The first man who revealed this fact was Baal HaSulam. Before him, Chassidut talked about personal correction, but they said little and did it in a concealed form. Therefore, instead of performing the inner correction, people started to focus on the external actions and rituals.

Kabbalah was revealed in Ancient Babylon by Abraham in order to correct humanity. At that time, humanity recognized that it was united together in one place, but then the people separated and broke the connection. Today this connection is again being revealed on the global scale, and therefore, people will inevitably understand it – either through recognition or suffering. They will then use Kabbalah to correct mankind’s egoism.

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Two questions I received about studying other spiritual writings while also studying Kabbalah:

Question: In your book Leben aus der Kabbalah (in German), you write, “One should not read other authors who write about Kabbalah, because they can influence the reader.” This statement scares me. I’ve had a craving for spirituality and for knowledge ever since I was a child. However, my soul also wishes to compare different methods and to search for the only real truth behind all the wonderful sources. For example, Buddhism also says that life must be used for spiritual development. So who is right?

My Answer: Rabash and Baal HaSulam write in their articles about the group and freedom of will that when a person is brought to Kabbalah, he should doubt and check everything. However, once he has made his choice – for example, if he chooses Kabbalah, he should then enter the study of Kabbalah completely and avoid confusing it with other methods, as otherwise he will not succeed in anything.

Question: I have read the Old Testament with Gnostic knowledge, as well as Dhammapada, Buddha’s quotations, and the Bhagavad Gita. They all talk about a single, unique God and the soul. I have also read the Upanishads. I don’t associate myself with any religion. Does this contradict Kabbalah?

My Answer: Only you can figure out everything for yourself, including whether you need a teacher, and if so – who that teacher should be. When I asked my Teacher about how could I be sure that I was in the right place for me, he said, “Search, check, and choose quickly, and then delve only into what you choose.”

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