Questions I received concerning freedom, balance and the meaning of the Egyptian plagues.

Question: What does a free person feel?

Answer: Man’s freedom lies in being able to maintain the equilibrium in all of creation, to sustain it and balance it “standing on one foot.” On the right side of the scale is the Creator’s force of bestowal. On the left side of the scale is the Creator’s force of reception. These are direct and opposite sides; the holy and evil forces. And if a person can balance himself in between them, he is given the freedom of will from the influence of both and can thereby express his free choice.

Question: How is it possible to balance on the tip of a needle?

Answer: You have to glue yourself to the Creator, draw Him to yourself with all your might and get close to Him, as a baby to his mother. The baby loves to feel himself under her protection, and from there can boldly look onto the whole world. Or, while sitting in her arms, he can point his finger  to where he wants to go – thereby expressing his will!

This is the correct way in which a baby develops. He knows that with his mother he is safe, and that she will use all her strength and every opportunity to fulfill his desires.  This is the correct way for us to work with the Creator!

Question: What do the Egyptian plagues refer to?

Answer: This is how the Creator teaches a person to battle with his nature, while hardening it and warning man against it. He provides examples of how we can fight our egoism.

This is the Creator, saying: “Go to Pharaoh! This is what you have to do. Take Me by the hand and hold onto Me. I will also hold you, but you have to learn how to cling to Me, so that you can resist the monster, which is revealed within you through his 10 primary unclean forces. All that is required of you is to sit in My arms and desire for this monster to be vanquished. I will appease the monster according to your instructions only if you glue yourself to Me.”

If a person performs this work, it means that he has freedom of will, since in this state, he has all the conditions needed.

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A question I received: You always say that man is not free and obeys his genes, instincts, and influence of society. At the age of 20 he is fully formed, like a freshly minted coin, and all his actions are predefined in advance. So is it possible to be a free man, and what does it mean – to be free?

My Answer: To be free means to feel that you are 100% dependent upon the Creator, but “of your own free will,” meaning that it is your decision to be so.

Man feels free when he decides, on his own, that he wants to remain under the influence and authority of the Creator, instead of being slave to his egoism.

We can’t imagine what freedom means, because we think of it as the absence of any influence. However, that is an impossibility, as there is no such thing as an empty void free from any influence whatsoever.

Freedom is a balance of forces, achieved through one’s conscious choice and effort.

We can only become free if we rise above our egoistic desire.  This does not mean that we involuntarily and completely fall under the dominion of the Creator and the desire to bestow.  Instead, it is a choice we make to be governed by the desire to bestow instead of the ego.  It is then that we can reside in the balance between the attributes of reception and bestowal. Such a state is called freedom (Klipat Noga).

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Today, all of humanity is operating in a global system. If we correct the ties between us in that system, it means we correct the souls to reveal the Creator here within that bond, in this world and in our lifetime.

The science of Kabbalah states that the breaking of the souls happened in their descent from one of the exalted spiritual degrees. Before that descent, all of the souls represented one common soul, called Adam.

Adam split into many separate parts, and absolutely all of them fell into this world, giving rise to all of humanity. There is no difference between the common soul and any person in this world. All we need to understand is that we are inside a closed system, where everyone is stuck in his ego. Thus, there are now seven billion separate parts. Each of them has been growing, influenced by their own unique ego until this time, a special time when the broken connection between us is being revealed: billions and billions of connections – linking each person.

People say that each person knows everyone else in the world through no more than five or six degrees of separation. However, we have yet to reveal that everyone of us is literally connected to everyone, since the link is corrupted and each one relates to the others based on his ego. It’s not our fault that ego is inside us – we had it to begin with. However, the fact that it has become revealed means that we must correct it. Besides this one task there is nothing of greater importance or meaning that we must do in our lifetime. For if we correct the ties between us, we discover the World of Infinity itself.

To the extent that a person reveals the true bond with others by his correct attitude towards them, he begins to feel the Upper Force – the force of bestowal and love. He then transcends the boundaries of his perception of the world and begins to see the world around him as it really is outside of him, and in this way, he reveals the Creator.

That is precisely what we must achieve in this generation. All the conditions are laid out before us; Kabbalists wrote about it and outlined the entire method for us, and all we are left to do is to realize it. We have been given every opportunity to do just that.

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Three questions I received on the correction of the world:

Question: Sometimes even avid followers of Kabbalah and students of Bnei Baruch have simple but “fundamental” questions they feel are necessary for further advancement and understanding. My question is: it says that the wisdom of Kabbalah can help correct the world. But why do we have to correct the world?

My Answer: It’s because the world does not exist independently of you or outside of you, but  only inside you and its existence depends on your qualities. So, by correcting the world, you correct your qualities.

Question: Correction can be brought into the world only by the people with a point in the heart, even though they are not corrected yet. Is it true that once people with a point in the heart become corrected, they will receive the quality of Bina from the Creator, which is the quality of bestowal toward the entire world, including the still, vegetative, and animate levels? The world, on the other hand, has the quality of Malchut and cannot correct itself on its own. So, the only ones who can correct the world are people with the quality of Bina, those with a point in the heart – Bnei Baruch.

My Answer: You are absolutely correct!

Question: Is there a critical mass of Kabbalah students that has to be reached in order for positive changes to take place in the world?

My Answer: You are that critical mass!

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A question I received: Wouldn’t you agree that Kabbalah is very similar to Marxism? Are you really endorsing Marxism, when it had failed so miserably in Russia?

My Comment: Marxism failed because the method of transitioning to an altruistic regime is comprised of two conflicting processes that were not handled correctly. According to Kabbalah, you must first restrict a desire, and then acquire a screen (the intention to bestow) over it.

The first part of the transition is to end the old egoistic social regime. The only way to move away from it is by either hating it or the people in authority.

The second part of the transition is to altruistically develop the masses in order to move closer to creating an altruistic society. Marx knew that the tactic must shift midway from an egoistic destruction of the past to an altruistic creation of the future. After all, an altruistic society is only possible if it is built on an altruistic foundation, and in order to do this, it is necessary to prepare (educate) the masses.

What happened in Russia was that Marxism only completed the first part – the dethronement. But it could not educate the masses so as to replace the egoism that was instilled in the initial dethronement, and to transform it to altruism – the foundation for a collective regime.

The only way to change people’s behavior diametrically, from egoism to altruism, is by educating the masses and nurturing the realization that this change is necessary. Only after that can the new society be implemented.

Do you remember how the entire world held their breath, waiting to see a successful establishment of the Soviet regime – the second part of the correction?  If they would have succeeded in this, then the entire world would have adopted the collective regime by now. However, the egoistic direction of the first part of the transition became destructive for the collective regime of the second part.

Conclusion: In our times, the revelation of Nature’s laws is making the need for a collective regime more and more apparent. By failing to observe Nature’s laws, we only draw greater suffering upon ourselves. Therefore, we must give practical and scientific examples to people and an explanation of the fact that egoism is destructive. This must continue until the masses begin to understand. We should not oppose mankind, but its egoism. In the end, our message is unity, bestowal and love!

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A question I received: What does it mean to reveal Nature?

My Answer: To reveal Nature means to reveal the general law of Nature in which we are included and to reveal ourselves at a different stage.  In other words, it means to reveal reality in its true form, as opposed to its perception in our five corporeal senses. In that sense, we are no different that animals.

What makes us different from animals today is our egoistic desire to use all of Nature for our own benefit, the petty and narrow profit. But we have to learn to rise above this egoistic force that is within us all.

If we turn this egoistic force into a force of bestowal and love of our  neighbor, we will rise above our nature, attain bestowal, and become similar to the Creator, which is the general and the Upper Force of Nature. It is called “to reveal the Creator” in everyone. By that, one reveals the Upper Quality of bestowal in oneself and reaches an eternal and perfect life, as the Creator and as all of Nature.

Even when one loses his material animate body, he does not feel that he lacks for something, because this corporeal life is the smallest, worst and most insignificant form of life.

Rabash used an example of cutting the hair or nails.  Because the hair and nails represent the vegetative part on the animate part of the body, a person does not feel pain when he cuts them because the vegetative part is one level below the animate.

In the same way, when we rise above the animate level of Nature to the level of the Creator, we will stop perceiving the loss of our material life as an important and meaningful event.  But, until we have risen to this higher degree, we will continue to attach importance to it.

Once we rise to this next higher degree, we will realize that the only reason for us to remain in this life will be for the necessity of disseminating the knowledge of Kabbalah and the need for bestowal, in which case this opportunity will still exist. If this was not necessary and our corporeal body was to die, we would feel its death no more than what we feel when we cut our nails or hair.

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A question I received: We know that the path of spiritual development isn’t easy, and an individual is constantly thrown to the left and the right on it. When all of humanity begins to rise spiritually, how will it go through this process, given that it is not a very smooth path?

My Answer: First of all, those who engage in spiritual development are not the only people thrown in different directions in life. However, when all of humanity embarks on the path of ascending spiritually, it will not be thrown from state to state, but will instead rise calmly and orderly.

The fact of the matter is that the whole world will begin to rise as one man, a huge mass that will have a better appreciation of Nature. This will cause people’s thoughts to change, and little by little their desires will change in the direction of drawing closer to one another.

Humanity as a whole will not experience spiritual rises and falls and will not feel the inner resistance of the force of bestowal against the force of reception, where a person either adheres to his attributes of bestowal or to the egoistic desires of his heart.  The resistance of forces is what causes the experience of ascents and descents.

Conversely, all of humanity as a whole will have just one common desire, and it will join with Nature, merging with it more and more, tuning into Nature and rejecting itself before the common Nature. This will be a beautiful and smooth advancement and revelation – a wonderful path!

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A question I received: The notion that the individual’s welfare depends on the society’s welfare is the foundation of any upbringing. Unfortunately, at the end of the day this rule is never followed…

My Answer: So as to not get confused in the concepts of “integral, global humanity,” “the butterfly effect,” “the mutual guarantee” and “mutual bestowal,” it’s best to picture just one image: we are all one family. And in a family everyone is dependent on everyone else; if one member is unwell, this feeling is shared by everybody.

Similarly, today the welfare of each individual is dependent on the welfare of everyone. That is why we must devote ourselves to the care of others, since each one of us is a member of one family.

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The general purpose of the whole universe is for humanity to reach the state where all people will be as one family. Everyone will take others into consideration and will be a guarantor for everyone else.

One of the causes that will bring this about will be the pressure coming from Nature’s Upper Law that is being revealed now. It is the law of everyone’s universal connection and dependence on each other.

But this won’t be the only cause. It will also happen because when people reach the level of mutual bestowal, they will want to shift to the new type of relationships, those of “love for your neighbor.” People will desire this consciously, on their own.

Nature governs the still, vegetative, and animate levels and balances them so they stay in mutual harmony. This is why all things in Nature consume only what is necessary to sustain their lives. Man, however, has to reach the same mutual balance with Nature by means of a conscious participation. Man has to study the structure of the universe and its unity in order to become similar to Nature. He will then be truly worthy of being called “man” (Adam in Hebrew, originating from the word Dommeh – similar to the Creator).

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People have to create industries and businesses that will consume only as much as they need in order to complete their activities. These businesses will then be operating without an intention to receive additional, excessive profit.

Such a business will resemble the nonprofit organizations that exist today, where all the employees receive salaries, but the business as a whole does not aim to make a profit. Its goal is simply to provide products to people at the minimal cost. This business will be similar to a cell in the body that consumes only as much as it needs to carry out its function so as to service the whole body.

If all the organizations in society acted this way, no one would produce unnecessary, excessive products, and no one would compete with one another. Instead, everyone would receive whatever they need in order to live.

It is not easy to change, but we have no choice! We will find that this is the only way for us to survive. Moreover, we will suddenly discover that by making this inner change, we will not only attain salvation, but also a new, perfect and eternal existence.  This is not a change that will take place in our animate bodies (the way we perceive ourselves through our egoistic desires), but in our souls (the way we will perceive ourselves through the property of bestowal).

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