A question I received: In your opinion, will the global world definitely come to communism, seeing as Marx is in style again, or is there a possibility it will return to earlier social orders, starting from the primordial time and on?

My Answer: The development of society has brought us to the realization that we are interconnected, and in the future it will make us realize that we have to live like one family, according to the rule, “from each according to his abilities and to each according to his needs.”

Marx recognized that this is possible only under the condition that people will see work itself as a vital need, an expression of their feeling of love, rather than a necessary means of existence (also see Baal HaSulam’s newspaper, “HaUma (The Nation”). When people’s attitudes change in this way and every individual’s egoism will be corrected, our productive forces will bloom and we will reveal all of Nature’s abundance through similarity to Its laws.

Marx explains that first a negative force destroys the former state, and then a positive force forms a better state, to the degree that the positive force becomes revealed in full. However, development under the influence of the negative force is lengthy and full of suffering. But if a person knows the path of development, he can elude the control of the negative force and take his development into his own hands. The benefit is that the time and the suffering are reduced.

In order to go through this path instead of the natural path of suffering, we need an artificial mechanism to help us develop, which can be controlled like an incubator that permits chickens to breed quickly and reliably, for example. But first we need to study Nature in order to construct this artificial mechanism according to Its principle.

Kabbalah gives us the complete template for creating such an “incubator” for all of humanity. This “incubator” is an organized, correctly structured environment or society. It’s an environment that influences every person in it, directing him toward the purpose and compelling him and all of society to change and take on the necessary form. See Baal HaSulam’s article, “The Freedom.”

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In the News (from The New York Times): The publishing industry struggles with declining sales amid a generally difficult economy.

My Comment: Baal HaSulam writes the following in his article, “Time to Act”:

Prior to the development of the printing industry, there were no false books as there were no irresponsible writers, for the simple reason that an irresponsible person could not be famous. And even if one dared to write such a book, no scribe would copy it, since there was no one to fund the scribe’s expensive labor.

However, ever since book printing became popular, books became cheaper and irresponsible storytellers were able to publish whatever books they please, for money or for glory.

Let’s hope the crisis will cleanse the book market of junk literature.

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A question I received: In the article, “The Revelation of Godliness (Matan Torah)” Baal HaSulam quotes the sages, “The Creator offered the Torah to all the nations and in all the languages, but they didn’t accept it.” What does this verse mean?

My Answer: Usually a person only feels and is controlled by his natural egoism. In this case he is called “the nations of the world.”

If the point in the heart surfaces in him (the embryo of his soul, the future quality of bestowal and love for the neighbor), then because of his goal, he is called, “Straight to the Creator” (IsraEl, in Hebrew).

So what the sages meant is that if a person does not feel the point in the heart (if he still belongs to the nations of the world), then he does not need the Torah, the Light of Correction, since he does not feel a need for correction.

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In the News (from Times Online): “New age of rebellion and riot stalks Europe” It is, some say, just the beginning: 2009 could become another 1968 – a new age of rebellion. The LSE economist Robert Wade warned that large-scale civil unrest was on the way, “It will be caused by the rise of general awareness throughout Europe, America and Asia that hundreds and millions of people in rich and poor countries are experiencing rapidly falling consumption standards; that the crisis is getting worse, not better, and that it has escaped the control of public authorities, national and international.”

In the News (from The Telegraph): “1,000 immigrants break out of detention centre on Italian island of Lampedusa” The immigrants marched out of the detention centre in protest at their treatment by Italian authorities. They headed towards the town hall in Lampedusa town, the main settlement on the island after forcing open the gates of the camp.

My Comment: In the article “The Last Generation,” written in 1930, Baal HaSulam describes how governments will use force to pacify the people, to repress hungry hordes moving from Asia to better-fed Europe, and use weapons of mass destruction…

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A question I received: I don’t know what to do. I feel as if I’ve lost all my energy and I am “hanging in the air.” Nothing interests me at work. Even though I do everything possible in my spiritual work, I feel despair as I’ve never experienced it before. I have no “fuel.” Nothing affects me anymore. I feel no desire for anything in this world, and the only desire I have is to escape to somewhere, but I don’t know where to. My heart tells me that this place exists, but I’m still not there. I have been studying with you for over three years and I can’t imagine life without Kabbalah. But I am getting desperate because I feel like nothing is happening to me. On the contrary, the desires of the external environment are affecting me, making me even weaker. What can I do? I can’t continue like this anymore! What should happen now?

My Answer: The reason you are feeling so weak on the spiritual path is that you lack a connection with the group. You aren’t receiving the importance of the goal from the environment, but this is the most important thing – it’s the foundation of our advancement!

You can read more about these states in the Shamati articles and the Letters of Baal HaSulam. There are Reshimot (information or the genes of our spiritual development) concealed in us, which constantly become revealed, causing our egoistic desire to constantly grow. And we must constantly ascend above these Reshimot using our intention to attain the quality of bestowal and love for the Creator. This is exactly why our egoism grows: to give us the opportunity to rise above it, to rise from our world to the level of the Creator.

And then we will understand Him, as it is written, “For they will all know Me, from the smallest of them to the greatest” (Yirmiyahu 31:33). But the process is always the same: the Reshimot that become revealed in us are always egoistic, and every time, we have to receive the force to rise above them by increasing our connection with the environment (the group).

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A question I received: What should my attitude be towards the Holocaust? Also, being that the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar” says that all of the nations could become Nazi regimes if Israel doesn’t fulfill its duty, and also given that everything in this world is pre-determined, how am I to feel anything but fear and hatred towards the Creator?

My Answer: See Baal HaSulam’s article “Matan Torah (The Revelation of Godliness)”: Kabbalah (the authentic Torah, Torah Emet,) was given to us in order to correct the egoistic desire “to fulfill only yourself” into the altruistic desire “to fulfill others.” Since the entire system of souls is built as a pyramid, similar to our physical body, the correction isn’t done by all the souls at the same time, but happens in a specific order. This order depends on the souls’ desire to break free from “pursuing things in order to receive.”

This concealed desire to reveal the Creator is called “the point in the heart.” The heart is all of a person’s desires, and the point in the heart is the desire for the Creator. This is how parts of the souls unite together and – within their unity – reveal the Creator. This is referred to as the “Reception of the Torah” (revelation of the Light, the Creator).

Also, see Baal HaSulam’s article “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: Receiving the method of correction (Torah or Kabbalah) is only the initial stage in the general correction of all the souls. Hence, the corrected part must fall into the common egoism, intermix with the uncorrected part – the rest of humanity, so together they can become corrected.

In addition, see Baal HaSulam’s article “Introduction to the Book of Zohar (item70)“: When egoism becomes revealed as evil in the world as a whole, this is the beginning of the period of the revelation of Kabbalah, the method of the entire world’s correction. But because this method is still in the possession of the group of people who have used it – the people of Israel, they must master it and pass it on to all the nations of the world. The destiny of the people of Israel and of the entire world depends only on this. When the method is not passed on in time, then all kinds of problems appear in the world – aggression, wars, extermination, and so on, including the Holocaust.

You cannot justify the Creator because the degree of the righteous (one who justifies the Creator) is still far above you. Therefore, I can understand what you are feeling, though I do not feel the same way.

Related News Story (from Associated Press): Israel’s chief rabbinate severed ties yesterday with the Vatican to protest a papal decision to reinstate a bishop who publicly denied that six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

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A question I received: Baal HaSulam says that our entire freedom lies only in choosing our environment. But if we were to choose our environment now, wouldn’t our choice be based on what we received from our previous environment?

My Answer: We choose a new environment under the influence of a new spiritual Reshimo: suddenly a desire for something “beyond this world” arises in us, and then we are somehow brought into contact with a new environment – Bnei Baruch. This is where your new path begins. And it’s the same for everyone. This is why we (Bnei Baruch) exist.

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In the News (from The Wall Street Journal): “His Empire in Tatters, German Billionaire Takes Life” Adolf Merckle, one of Germany’s wealthiest men, committed suicide. Mr. Merckle’s body was discovered Monday night near train tracks… In a rare interview last month, Mr. Merckle told the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung he had survived “many so-called stock-market crashes” but that he “couldn’t calculate a banking and financial crisis of this dimension.”

My Comment: He’s right: there’s never been a crisis like this in all of human history, because the current crisis is “qualitative.” It was caused by the human society’s opposition to Nature. Society has become global and interconnected like a “small village” where everyone is completely interdependent (“the Butterfly Effect”). However, our mutual egoistic hatred destroys all the connections. The effect of broken connections in a single system manifests as a crisis in the system – a crisis in all areas of our activity.

The crisis will not end until we find a solution – a way to be together, united by bonds of bestowal and love. This is what is required of us by the system that we have found ourselves in. We cannot escape these closed connections. We will have to observe the rule, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” We can do this through suffering (as we always have) or by realizing that it’s necessary (the method of Kabbalah). The choice is ours.

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A question I received: I am non Jewish, and I have been studying Kabbalah for several years. I am considering the path of conversion. However, I am trying to find information on the concept of Chasid Omot Olam. All I know is that this is a non Jewish person who lives his life according to the precepts and the cause of spreading Kabbalah. Is this correct? How can I find more information on this concept?

My Answer: There’s no need to convert. You have to correct yourself to “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and today this is required of all people. Nationalities and religions will vanish, and our world will disappear from our perception. The only thing that will remain is the one common soul, united with the Creator in the state of the World of Infinity, just as it was at the beginning of creation. Read the section about the three states in Baal HaSulam’s article, “Introduction to the Book of Zohar.”

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In the News (from The Associated Press): “Group of 6 arrested in western Ariz. fires includes 4 firemen” Four firefighters and two others have been arrested on suspicion of igniting between 15 and 20 fires in western Arizona to make money by fighting the very blazes they lit, officials said Tuesday.

My Comment: Egoism forces people to harm others in any way possible for the sake of their own benefit. The same can be said of doctors and others who manufacture food fillers, useless and harmful drugs, and so on. Our society is built so as to use people in every way possible. Instead of, “Everything for the people, everything for their benefit,” what we have is, “Everything for the sake of one’s profit, everything to harm people” (and this harms both those who do it and to whom they do it).

In the News (from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany): “Does persistent low fertility threaten the future of European populations?” Three stylized demographic facts are nowadays taken for granted by many Europeans: First, European birth rates are very low and further declining. Second, the currently low fertility will inevitably lead to rapid population aging and population decline in the future. Third, these trends are unsustainable in the long run… Perhaps no one summarized the fears of shrinking Europe more succinctly than Pope Benedict XVI: “…the problem of Europe, which it seems no longer wants to have children, penetrated my soul. To foreigners this Europe seems to be tired, indeed it seems to be wishing to take its leave of history” (Vatican 2006).

My Comment: Egoism doesn’t need anybody; it wants to feel special and unique. The same thing will happen in all the countries as their population’s egoism develops. But the emergence of the quality of bestowal and love in people will naturally make them desire to have children in order to continue their kind.

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