A question I received: That a written agreement is in itself insufficient and requires the supplement of respect is already recognized by political leaders, such as Great Britain’s Gordon Brown, America’s Barack Obama, and many others. The question is where to find a regulator that would change people’s attitude to an agreement?

My Answer: I have often talked about the fact that a person advances from goodness to greater goodness under the influence of the society, the feeling of shame, and the realization that he has no choice but to act in a particular manner.

My society makes me feel that I am worthless if I don’t advance to a state it deems more successful. So, the public opinion is the factor that can change things.

The public opinion is, in turn, a consequence of upbringing. Therefore, the process of correction must begin with the proper upbringing. This is the only way we can reach a feeling of mutual interdependence.

When people realize that a lack of connection among them is tantamount to a food shortage, then they will also see interdependence is the only thing that can save us. People will reach this understanding under the influence of nature’s blows.

We should realize that everything depends only on whether we follow the law of the mutual guarantee that is currently being revealed in the world. If everyone will realize this, then society will require all of its members to follow this law. The people will simply expect this from each other.

In addition to the blows that come at us from above, from Nature, we should do our part and disseminate the knowledge about the development of egoism and the goal of this development – to make us unite.

The force of the mutual guarantee enables each person to reject his own egoism and to rise above it. This is how we all reach a common desire to bestow. And because of the quality of bestowal that we attain, we thereby attain eternal, perfect existence (see the section on “Perception”).

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Two questions I received about the Creator:

Question: Can individual souls attain the level of unity with the Creator or is this only possible with the help of all other souls?

My Answer: To unite with the Creator means to be similar to Him. Because He is the desire to bestow and to love, a person attains union with Him to the degree he attains the same quality or desire. The desire (or quality) to bestow and to love that develops within a person is called a soul.

Question: Why is the Creator characterized as Light or pleasure? Doesn’t this make Him limited and incomplete?

My Answer: All the limitations exist only within our desire to receive this Light, whereas the Light Itself is infinite.

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A question I received: Why can’t our human society reach the state of mutual guarantee naturally, while staying on the animate level like cells in a body?

My Answer: A human being is far too complicated a creature to connect with others this way. Here’s why.

Egoism becomes qualitatively bigger on each level of nature, going from the still level, to the vegetative, to the animate, and the human. The bigger an object’s egoism, the more individualistic it is, and the more incapable it is of uniting with others. Therefore, as one develops, one feels more separate from others.

Nowadays, it’s not only the psychologists and sociologists, but also the economists and the politicians who are discovering that the world has become interconnected and therefore we – humanity – must unite. However, they believe that they are able to do this using a corporeal method, and that everything will settle down if only we create a world bank, a world government, a world upbringing, and a world-wide connection.

However, after having a few more meetings like the recent G20 summit, they will begin to understand that they lack the method to unite. Unfortunately, before they realize this, people may have to go through great suffering, including a lack of safety, a feeling of disorientation, total powerlessness, and universal grief. People cannot bear to be in a state of uncertainty, since constant alarm is worse than death. Our minds cannot function under such circumstances. Yet all of this may happen in order for us to realize that the only way to achieve unification among us is to rise above our egoistic nature.

This is not so on the still, vegetative, and animate levels, where all of nature and its parts are instinctively, naturally interconnected. They supplement each other and interact with each other harmoniously, without any freedom of choice or any decision-making.

Unification between people, however, can only be achieved when each person does it consciously. Unlike the other levels of nature, the Creator did not just make us unite by giving us instincts for this. Our unification is possible only if we acquire the quality of bestowal and love, where everyone participates and joins with everyone. To do this, we have to rise above ourselves and our egoism, and achieve the Biblical commandment of “love your neighbor as yourself.”

This is how the quality of the Creator will be revealed among us, and we will become similar to Him. We will then understand why He acted this way in regard to us.

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A question I received: I have heard you say many times that the desire is the only thing that exists, and only the desire determines everything. Then why don’t all the desires that I have in life come true?

My Answer: It’s because in addition to your desire, there exists the program of creation. In other words, there is a certain plan, and according to this plan the whole of creation advances towards its pre-determined goal. This advancement toward the goal is called Beito, which means advancement along time, where everything occurs in due time.

However, a human being consists of a desire, and therefore he feels the fulfillment of the desire as pleasure and the lack of fulfillment as emptiness or suffering. This is how he feels the affect of the program, which uses our desire for fulfillment or pleasure to control us. After all, we always aspire to pleasure and try to distance ourselves from suffering.

If you wish to realize the program of creation on your own and to achieve the goal quickly and pleasantly, instead of being driven to it by blows, you can do so by directing your desire according to the rule, “Make your desire like the Creator’s desire.” What is “the Creator’s desire”? This refers to His desire to bestow all of Himself and His state into your personal perception. As a result of this, you reveal a new level of desire, perception, awareness and understanding. And when this happens, you feel the gap between yourself and the Creator. Then, by intentionally eliminating this gap, you liken your desire to the Creator’s.

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Questions I received on the commandments, the Hassidut, prayer and the Creator:

Question: Why do you teach that the 613 commandments are actually 613 desires?
My Answer: Because the only thing that was created is the desire, which was then separated into 613 parts. Our task is to correct the aim of this desire from “for one’s own sake” to “for the sake of others.” It is written, “I created evil (egoism) and created the Torah for its correction, because its Light returns one to the Source, to Goodness.”

Question: While you omit some commandments, you don’t reject others: you and your students wear Kippahs (skullcaps) and some of you have beards. Incidentally, wearing the Kippah is a relatively late commandment – given in approximately 1700.

My Answer: One’s appearance bears absolutely no relation to the commandments or the correction of one’s desire from egoistic to “love your neighbor as yourself” (the general commandment of the whole Torah).

Question: Why don’t you view the point in the heart in the same way as the Hassidut, which defines it as an awakening of the intelligent soul, which exists in the right part of the heart?

My Answer: The point in the heart is an aspiration to the Creator, which pertains to the quality of bestowal – “the right portion of the desires,” and the “heart” refers to the collection of all of a person’s desires. However, the physical heart lacks any desires whatsoever. What if a heart transplant was performed and a righteous man received the heart of a wicked person? Is this forbidden by the Torah?

Hassidut (the authentic one) comes from the word Hesed – goodness, which develops only in a person who studies Kabbalah. That’s because the study of Kabbalah is the only way to draw the Light of Correction to yourself.

Today the only thing remaining of Hasidut is the externality. It consists of rituals and the literal interpretation of the texts. This is why they interpret the statement, “Goodness lies in the right part of the heart,” literally. Kabbalah, on the other hand, explains the true meaning of these words.

Question: Why don’t you view a group of students as a Minian (traditional group of at least ten men) of those who pray?

My Answer: Prayer occurs during the studies, when a student asks the Creator for correction, and to help him attain the degree that he is learning about. Then, over the course of the day, he aspires for this transformation to take place, as it is written, “And he prays the entire day.”

Question: Some of the people who pray reach Lishma, even though they start out in Lo Lishma. This is exactly the same as your students! I am convinced that “all roads lead to Rome,” but apparently, you don’t think so?

My Answer: I don’t think, but I know, that no one reaches Lishma without studying Kabbalah thoroughly and correctly. And in order to understand my answers, you have to study it as well.

Question: If the Creator or the Upper Light is constant and does not change, then how could He have restricted Himself? And how is it possible that the Creator created anything?

My Answer: Constant and unchanging means that He does not change His intentions and actions – He is always “Good and does Goodness,” despite the fact that His actions seem contradictory to us.

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Three questions I received about the meanings of different Biblical references:

Question: I would like to learn the deeper meaning of the Book of Ruth. Is this possible? Can I read about it somewhere?

My Answer: The Book of Zohar contains a Kabbalistic interpretation of the Book of Ruth.

Question: How does the commandment, “love thy neighbor as thyself,” differ from acquiring the quality of bestowal?

My Answer: They differ in the same way that a quality differs from an action.

Question: Help me understand the meaning of the phrase, “Envy, passion, and honor will lead a person out of this world” (Avot).

My Answer: By using these qualities correctly, a person can leave the egoistic world and enter the altruistic world.

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In the News (translated from Expert.ru): The global financial crisis has forced the Germans to reconsider their role as the European Union’s milk-cow. The new German egoism can become a serious threat to European integration. “We are not planning on helping everyone,” said the German Minister of Finance, Peer Steinbrück, “Everyone has to take care of himself.”

My Comment: If the EU starts uniting precisely in this situation, if it becomes similar to the global design of the world, it will come out of the crisis faster than the rest of the world. Kabbalah calls this technique, “faith above reason,” which means that you act in spite of your illusory egoistic judgment, making actions toward union and bestowal.

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Filed under: Crisis - 1 Comment →

In the News (from Times Online): “Neo-Nazi violence on the rise in Bavaria” New figures from the German interior ministry show that neo-Nazi violence rose 30% last year, with a total of 11,928 incidents… Horst Seehofer, the conservative minister-president of Bavaria, said the right-wing extremist violence has reached a “new dimension.”

My Comment: The laws of nature are unchangeable, and they dictate that in all the developed countries, capitalism has to be followed by Nazism (Fascism). And this will bring about a third world war unless we start correcting our egoism to the quality of bestowal and love before this happens.

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Filed under: Society - 2 Comments →

In the News (translated from Infox): In times of crisis, the large social networks are having a harder time attracting investors. They haven’t had time to develop an efficient business model, yet it’s very costly to support support networks. Projects that still haven’t brought profit to the investors are having a tough time during the financial crisis. Even Facebook is on a verge of losing financing.

My Comment: People today need something different than what the “social networks” have been doing until now. If these networks don’t shift to integration and globalization and become a means of uniting humanity based on mutuality, equality, bestowal, and love – in other words, if they remain opposite to Nature and what It requires of us today – they will “go extinct,” just like the dinosaurs.

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In the News (from BBC News): “An atheist advertising campaign has been launched on buses across Britain” The campaign backers were exasperated at the excessive religious advertisement. The promotion carries the slogan “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

My Comment: There was a time when religion lulled the people, giving them psychological fulfillment, security, and hope. But for many centuries now, religion has exploited people instead of protecting them. The bureaucratic apparatus that it has created exceeds even that of the state.

The desire to rule over the minds of the congregation defines today’s religion, which is a political force. It does not matter whether there’s a God or not. Being free from the pressure of the psychological religious brainwashing is already a path to inner peace.

Kabbalah says that there is no world to come (or a world “beyond the grave,” waiting for us after our bodies die). There is only what we reveal in this world. If you attained or revealed more than the five bodily senses, then you will keep this perception even after your body dies along with its five senses. This perception will remain with you forever because bestowal and love are above egoism, and they raise a person above time, space, and change (motion).

The stages of one’s attainment of the universe are:

• Olam HaZeh – “This world,” which is perceived inside egoism, also called the level of Malchut;

• Olam HaBah – “The world to come,” in Kabbalah known as the level of Abba ve Ima of the World of Atzilut.” A Kabbalist ascends to this level during his life. And if a person doesn’t attain this level, then he has to be born again.

• L’Atid Lavo – “Coming in the future,” the level of “Arich Anpin of the World of Atzilut.” It also has to be attained during this life.

• Gmar Tikkun – “The End of Correction” (of egoism). It is when a person attains “the World of Infinity,” where everything is infinitely corrected.

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