Preface to the Science of Kabbalah (Pticha).
Items 10 – 12, summary:

10. Thus, the Light of Life emanates from the Creator and, passing through the Worlds of AK and ABYA, it separates from the Creator until reaching the smallest desire, where its source – the Creator – is no longer felt. This state is called “our world.” However, by studying Kabbalah in a group with the intention to attain the Creator, one evokes the Light of the Upper Degree, which pulls the desire upwards, giving it the opportunity to ascend the degrees of the worlds all the way up to the World of Infinity. There, one can receive all the Light prepared for him by the Creator back in the Thought of Creation. It is hence written: “The Creator wishes to purify (from egoism) those who aspire to Him; to this end He has given them the Torah (the Correcting Light) and Commandments (the correction of one’s intentions from “for my own sake” to “for the Creator’s sake”).

11. The difference between spirituality and corporeality is this: The intention “for my own sake” is corporeal and its state is called “our world” (Olam Hazeh). The intention “for the Creator’s sake” (or “for one’s friend’s sake,” which is the same thing) is spiritual and its state is called “the Upper World” (or the Worlds of ABYA). The Upper World exists above the lowest of all degrees – our world.

All the ascents, descents, changes and movements that transpire in the Upper Worlds don’t take place in some imaginary space. They are changes in the size of one’s intention “for the Creator’s sake” and the accompanying desire. The greater the desire, the closer it is to phase 4 and the lower it is.

12. The essence of all creation is the desire (to receive pleasure, fulfillment). This desire requires correction. We are commanded to “purify” it with the help of:

• The Torah (the Upper Light), and
• The Commandments (changes of the intention from using the desire “for my own sake” to using it for “for the Creator’s sake”).

Otherwise we will not be able to attain the Upper Goal – the Thought of Creation.

Related Material:
Download PDF version of Pticha

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Three questions I received on finding contact with me:

Question: Do you have a personal page on the site odnoklasniki.ru (the Russian version of classmates.com)? I’m asking because there are currently two personal pages of yours on this site.

My Answer: I don’t have anything to do with these pages, as you probably suspected. Someone else is writing them using my name. My opinions are stated only on this blog and the official websites of the Bnei Baruch organization.

Question: If people ask you good questions that can’t be answered during the virtual morning lesson because of the time limit, can you answer them on this blog?

My Answer: If the questions are very peculiar, for example, on the construction of the worlds, then they can’t be answered on this blog because the blog is for everyone. However, if the question is general, then I always answer it here.

Question: Someone advised me to speak to a Kabbalist. Is there any time when you take visitors?

My Answer: I don’t accept visitors and I don’t give advice or blessings. According to Kabbalah, the only way to truly change your destiny is to change yourself, because you are opposite the unchanging Light – the Creator’s force of bestowal and love. Hence Kabbalah considers everything else no more than psychological reassurance, which in the long run only exacerbates a person’s illness: his imbalance with the Creator. In other words, it causes the illness (egoism) to be neglected.

Kabbalah gives you the method to change yourself, and the rest depends on you. We always focus on questions of self-correction. Good luck!

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I had a conversation that was recorded about the reasons for the financial crisis with Mr. Leonid Makaron, the Director General of the largest Russian media holding company “Pronto Moscow,” Vice President of the “The Russian Periodical Press Publishers Guild,” a professor and scientific adviser of the advertisement and marketing chair at the Moscow State University of Press.

He lives on five continents, stays on top of all the events happening in the world, and is very sensitive to the changes taking place in the world. I meet with him regularly, and our meetings help me feel what’s going on in the world as well as the opinions of people in high positions about it, and then to compare all this with Kabbalah’s opinion. I hope these opinions will soon converge!

Read a transcript of the conversation

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I received many questions on the reason for our suffering and the current crisis. Here’s my answer:

Kabbalah states that there is only one reason for everything that’s happening: man’s failure to observe the law of balance with Nature, or in other words, failure to observe the law of equivalence to the Creator. Precisely this failure to observe balance on the highest level, called “Human,” to have interpersonal relationships according to the principle “Love your neighbor as yourself,” leads to a breach of balance on the lower levels. As a result, the animal and plant kingdoms are dying out, and the balance of forces on the still level of nature are disrupted as well. All of this is an outcome of our egoistic thoughts, desires, and actions.

It’s no accident that the leading financiers have correctly pinpointed the reason for the financial crisis: it is a crisis of moral values, where greed has given rise to an avalanche of irresponsible accumulation. But as we can see, the suffering teaches people, even financiers, to see the reason for their misfortunes. As a result, the great suffering (to the point of hunger and near-extinction) will force us to restructure our egoistic attitude to humanity and the world.

Kabbalah offers us a way to implement these changes voluntarily and pleasantly, before the crises will catch up with us. Otherwise they will only keep mounting, like the plagues of Egypt.

It is difficult to understand how our egoism can influence natural disasters and global warming. But here too, the suffering will help us figure out the reason for what’s happening. The storms all over the world will keep gaining momentum, and the melting glaciers in Greenland will cause tornadoes. When this happens, it will suddenly become clear to us that the reason for these phenomena is our egoism and unfounded hatred for one another. In this way, Nature will teach humans to become “Human,” to observe the law of equivalence and attain balance!

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Two questions I received on “easy fixes” to the financial crisis:

Question: What you write in The Financial Crisis – an Analysis, is a new way to look at the unfolding crisis, and I appreciate the common sense attitude of the article. However, I take issue with the answer to the fourth question:

“Hence, countries will try to move away from globalization. However, this won’t help them, because then they will stop developing. Without full communication and exchange, they will cease developing and regress to feudalism!”

This country had development, communication and exchange before globalization. Globalization was a bad idea: America stopped developing. We stopped exchanging and took what the foreign recipients of our commerce gave us, and on their terms. We didn’t complain too loudly about industrial chemicals in baby food out of fear that they would stop selling us baby food and refuse our dollars. That’s not communication, it’s supplication.

My Answer: Everything taking place is governed by the law of development, so it isn’t a product of blind fate or a coincidence. We see that whenever something happens in the developed countries, the less developed countries are forced to follow suit.

We can’t change the laws of nature. We exist inside them and it’s our obligation to study and observe them. This is also to our own benefit. Nature has a goal for everything it does, which is to bring man to a special state: the highest level, called “the Creator.”

The development either takes place by means of pressure, which we perceive as suffering, or through man’s conscious understanding and cooperation with Nature. Kabbalah explains what to do to be on the second path.

Question: If the crisis is actually a crisis of people’s trust, then why can’t we stop it by advertising positive forecasts? The mass media should be forbidden from talking about bad news and instead made to tell everyone that everything is good.

My Answer: This won’t improve anything, because the illness will still keep developing until it will reach the point of being irreversible. We must first reveal the evil, and then correct it.

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A question I received: You have said that the current crisis is the first plague of Egypt. When will it end? Do you see an end to the decline and the layoffs?

My Answer: The crisis is not just a decline. Banks have stopped giving out credit loans out of fear that they won’t be returned. This is causing a rise in the unemployment rates, a halt in real estate and auto sales, a slowdown in production and a devaluation of resources. This trend can last for a long time, until people will learn the law of the global interdependence, which obliges us to change our relationships: to make sure that all our actions will have a positive effect on the whole world.

Here’s Hollywood’s depiction of the plagues of Egypt, which are an allegory:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F21hys4ZLXo]

Of course, we must “translate” what’s written in the Torah into its authentic, spiritual meaning, as Kabbalah explains it!

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News Report: Unless the circumstances of human life and civilization change, its swift genetic extinction is imminent. Every subsequent generation is sicklier than the one preceding it. In the end, a sick generation will beget a completely nonviable generation. People in the developing countries will last a bit longer. The financial crisis will lead to a crisis of the medical service available to the public. The quality of life will decrease drastically, and in one to two decades the earth’s population will shrink to one billion.

My Comment: There are many tragic forecasts of humanity’s near-complete extinction due to various factors. The science of Kabbalah does not exclude these possibilities, including world wars. Yet at the same time it offers the general solution to any and all possible crises and their consequences.

Because the cause of all the problems lies in the opposition of man’s egoism to the altruism of Nature, correcting man’s egoism will make man similar to Nature and hence will draw the positive forces of Nature. As a result, all the factors will transform from negative to positive, and humanity will develop until revealing the quality of eternity and perfection within.

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In the article, “The Future Generation,” Baal HaSulam describes the ways of a society that’s in harmony with Nature (the Creator):

The economic and ethical forms are the guarantees of the altruistic society and must be one for all the nations. With regard to other ethical matters, which do not deal with the economy, each nation can keep its own form.

First, a small organization of altruists should be established, who will work diligently according to their strength and receive according to their needs. This organization will have all the forms of a state government. Even if the framework of this institution will incorporate the entire world, and the brute-force government will be revoked, nothing will need to be changed, neither in government nor in work.

This institution will be a global focal point with nations and states surrounding it to the farthest corners of the world. All who enter this framework of the altruistic society shall have the same agenda and the same leadership as the center. They will be like one nation in profit, in loss and in expenses.

The framework of altruistic communism should ultimately encircle the entire world with an equal standard of living for everybody. However, the actual process is a gradual one. Each nation whose majority has already been brought up to bestow upon their fellow person, will enter the framework of the international communism.

All the nations that have already entered the framework of international communism will have equal standards of living. The surplus of a wealthy or diligent nation will improve the living standards of the failing or poor nation in raw materials and productive means.

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A question I received: I don’t understand the views of this world according to Kabbalah. You say that Kabbalah is against asceticism, and you also said that a Kabbalist has the biggest ego and wants to swallow the entire world. But in the Talmud it says, “The way of the Torah is to eat bread with salt, drink water from a cup, sleep on the ground, lead a life of hardship and labour at learning Torah.”

I also read this quote in Attaining the Worlds Beyond: “When a person, by means of his studies, reaches the level at which he wants nothing but spiritual elevation and at which he accepts only the bare necessities of life in order to sustain his physical existence, not for pleasure’s sake, this is the first step of his ascent to the spiritual world“ (Talmud, Psachim).

So, I’m confused by all of this. How are we supposed to behave in this world? Can you give me a precise answer?

My Answer: Before falling from the spiritual level 2,000 years ago, people could sustain themselves on the spiritual level (in love and bestowal) through restrictions and studying Kabbalah (the authentic, inner Torah). This way they were able to oppose the egoism that constantly increased inside them.

However, after the people fell from the spiritual level of “love for thy neighbor” into “unfounded hatred,” the sages of the Talmud made a special correction (addition) in the Upper Governance, as Baal HaSulam writes in item 11 of the “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot“.

Since then, only the “Light of the Torah” (Ohr Makif) can bring about a correction. This Light descends on a person who has gone through the proper preparation (in the group), during the study of Kabbalah with the right intention. It is written: “I created egoism and I created the Torah for its correction, because its Light returns one to the Source (to bestowal).”

Hence, only the correct kind of study will evoke the Light, which will make all the corrections and changes. So organize your studies – and relax!

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I’m receiving many letters that once people turn on our new Kabbalah channel, they simply stay glued to it and can’t turn it off. I’m certain that after a brief period of hearing Kabbalistic texts in the background, people will begin to feel a change happening inside them and in the world at large – a change toward Goodness. This won’t be an illusory change, but a genuine change of man and the world, since it will be performed by Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light) – the only force that can turn everything around toward Goodness!

24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Free of charge
Watch diverse programs about Kabbalah
For the whole family

By simply watching or hearing these programs, one evokes the influence of good forces upon oneself, as Baal HaSulam writes in item 155 of the “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot“:

“While one has not attained perfection, the Light that is destined to fulfill his soul is considered the Surrounding Light.

Hence, when one engages in the wisdom of Kabbalah, the Light immediately shines upon him to a certain measure, bringing him much closer to reaching perfection.”

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