Two questions I received on how to talk to people about Kabbalah:

Question: How can a person who’s on the animate level understand that he needs to be corrected just from the blows he receives? If a person has never studied or even come in contact with Kabbalah, how is it possible to explain to him that all the bad things happen because we act incorrectly? People who experienced major tragedies change their outlook on life, but still, they don’t always choose the path of Kabbalah.

My Answer: We see great suffering in the world, sometimes even worse than death, and this has gone on for millennia. Sometimes death seems like redemption, yet our nature, our will to receive, does not let us give up our lives. And despite all of this, people do not aspire to Kabbalah as a means of fulfillment.

Why don’t they see that the method of neutralizing all the evil and acquiring the good is right under their noses? And even if we offer it to them, they won’t hear us! It’s because a person can “choose Kabbalah” only when a specific desire (Reshimo) surfaces within – the “point in the heart,” the desire to fulfill one’s soul.

But if the desires (Reshimot) surfacing in a person are still prior to “the point in the heart,” they are considered preliminary. His life takes place inside these desires and there he remains, despite all the suffering, and he won’t perceive that Kabbalah is the salvation. Perhaps he will throw himself into mysticism, religion, and other practices, but not yet Kabbalah.

Question: When is it best to talk to people about Kabbalah and when to keep quiet? I travel a lot and meet many different people, with whom I talk about Kabbalah. However, lately I started to understand that by talking to people about Kabbalah, I’m doing something wrong. Still, I know that this is the purpose of my life and of my travels. How can I do it better?

My Answer: You can talk about it, but in a simple, not overbearing manner, in a way that your listener will like. It would be good to give them a newspaper or a book with our website’s address on it.

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Two questions I received on the financial crisis:

Question: What will happen to the American capital market? Is there any chance it will be restored?

My Answer: The restoration will not happen quickly. As we undergo a change in our consciousness, rather than perish humanity will change its entire worldview: instead of caring for their bodies, people will spend their time caring about spiritual fulfillment.

There is no going back or repeating the past. Either we will take “the Path of Suffering” and enter a period of Nature’s blows until we find ourselves on the brink of extinction, while a small part of humanity (which will incorporate all the souls) will attain the spiritual goal of humanity.

Or we will accept the method of Kabbalah and completely restructure our lives in accordance with it. In this case, the planet will nourish us and we will stop being punished through natural and social crises. This is called “the Path of Light.”

We must understand that the banking crisis, which has already been replaced by the economic crisis, will grow into a social crisis – and then into an ecological one (lack of food and water, which can happen within the next ten years), then into a military one (Nazism), and so on, until mankind becomes completely savage. Alternatively, we can correct our egoistic nature using the method of Kabbalah. There is no other method, because all other methods lack the Upper Force, which created us and hence is able to correct us.

Question: Everyone’s talking about the crisis, but it’s hard for me to feel it personally. What can I do share this growing concern?

My Answer: The crisis will catch up to everyone.

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Shari Arison, the famous Israeli-American businesswoman (and the richest Israeli citizen), said the following about the financial crisis:

We are going through a difficult but extremely important period – important for the Jewish people and all of humankind.

We have a very important role, which is to raise the torch and set it afire. We will lead through awareness, humaneness, truth, values, love and peace. We must be united – only then will the turmoil, pain and hatred disperse.

The world today is on the brink of destruction. Anywhere you look there’s chaos, and it starts with something small – the relationships between people. The turmoil, danger and pain permeate all aspects of life: personal, interpersonal, ecological and economic. Today everyone understands this, and it’s a pity that we don’t see the solution.

I stand before you today and say to you: there is a solution, and it lies in our value system. The solution is concealed in the verse, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” We all want to change the collective situation, and we can do it. However, each and every one of us must assume the individual responsibility, the personal obligation.

My Comment: These are beautiful words, but there’s no way to implement them. I only hope that people will soon recognize that egoism is the cause of all their troubles, and then quickly realize that the only method of correcting it is by drawing the forces of Nature from the outside.

It is written: “I created egoism and I gave the Torah for its correction, because the Light that’s in it returns one to the Source.” This Light descends upon a person only during the correct use of Kabbalah – see item 155 of Baal HaSulam’s “Introduction to Talmud Esser Sefirot.”

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A question I received: When does the Surrounding Light influence me – only during the lesson or also during dissemination? (Considering that while I’m doing it I aspire to attain the Upper One through the unification with the group.)

My Answer: It influences you during the study, dissemination, and other group actions, depending on your intention to connect with everyone in order to reveal the Creator – the quality of bestowal and love. The Surrounding Light is the Light that will fill you on a higher level.

The fact is that you already exist in all of your future states. However, you don’t perceive it. You must attain these states yourself. By aspiring to them, you draw the influence of your future state upon you and it changes you, making you similar to it. Everything depends only on your desire, your aspiration to that future state.

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A question I received: Why doesn’t capitalism work in Russia like it does in the West?

My Answer: You are mistaken because Russia hasn’t experienced capitalism yet. However, today this is no longer necessary, if we do as Baal HaSulam wrote: provide people with an understanding of the world we now live in – a world that’s global and interconnected. In this new world, the competition changes from “who will receive the most?” to the spiritual competition “who will give the most in order to merit a greater connection with the Creator?” However, when it comes to technology and service, it’s still best to “learn what is good in the West,” as Vladimir Mayakovsky put it.

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News Report (from SafeHaven): Professor Antal E. Fekete of the Gold Standard University Live (also Professor Emeritus, Memorial University of Newfoundland) writes the following in the article “The way to resolve the credit crisis: Recapitalize the banks with gold”: …paper assets are subject to annihilation (e.g., when the bank is consolidated with its counterparts holding the liability side of that asset). Suppose we consolidate the balance sheets of the global banking system. Then all assets will be wiped out with the sole exception of gold. But since the global banking system as it is presently constituted has no gold assets, under any consolidation the banks will be denuded of assets while note and deposit liabilities to the public remain. This is why the regime of irredeemable currency is susceptible to collapse that could be violent, taking place with lightening speed. It can also be seen that trying to save banks from collapsing through consolidation, mergers, takeovers, and shotgun marriages is pouring oil on the fire: it accelerates the meltdown of bank capital, rather than retarding it.

My Comment: The salvation lies in universal and equal unity, in creating a single civilization where every person gives and receives according to the law of a confined system – for the system’s common good. If the banks will unite with this purpose, it will save them from the destruction of the entire banking system.

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UK’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown:
…the world financial crisis can become the accelerator for the creation of a new kind of society, unique in its aspirations.

…together we can seize this moment of profound change to create, for the first time, the age of the truly global society — one where people find that what unites them is far greater that what ever divided them.

These last weeks and months will be studied by generations to come. Historians will look back and say this was no ordinary time but a defining moment: an unprecedented period of global change, a time when one chapter ended and another began – for nations; for continents; for the whole world.

USA’s President-elect Barack Obama:
…our global economic crisis requires a coordinated global response.

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Globalization is the revelation of the law of connection among people. However, instead of being beneficial, it is causing problems in our society because every person desires to use the global system of people’s connection into one organism, for his personal gain, instead of the way the system is designed to be used: for everyone to use it together for the well-being of us all.

Today we are interconnected with each other like organs in one body, and the life of the collective depends on everyone. Under these conditions it is useless to be egoistically honest – to create a global government, a world bank, or a common regulator. This will not help us stop being opposite to Nature and its law of universal interconnection. Instead, we must change our relationships from commercial to integral, to be based on the consideration of others as yourself. Even the most honest relationships of “what’s mine is mine and what’s your is yours” and the politics of non-violence will continue evoking crises until we realize what we have to do.

Kabbalah proposes that we start seeing humanity as a single organism and learn about how to behave correctly in our new state. Even if we don’t change anything about our relationships in the beginning, by just studying the laws of communication and distribution in a single organism, we already stop being opposite to nature – and then we will immediately feel a reduction in the suffering.

The most practical solution to the crisis is to study its true cause. Or in other words, to learn to live in an integral society, where the benefit of every individual depends on every other individual. Moreover, we must teach this law of nature to our children.

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News Report (from Gold-Eagle): “Some Straight Talk On the Stock Market” …lots of bankruptcies in inefficient businesses are going to occur over the next year. … Businesses that do not or are unable to cut costs will simply go out of businesses. …there can be a huge wave of bankruptcies next year – especially when it comes to small businesses. The downturn is already wiping out people who don’t cut expenses.

News Report: (from SCORE.org): “Small Business Effects on the Economy” The estimated 25.8 million small businesses in the United States have generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs annually over the last decade, employ 50.6 percent of the country’s private sector workforce, represent 97 percent of all the exporters of goods, represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.

My Comment: The Creator will “get” everyone and will force all of us to understand what He wants from us! And what He wants is for us to desire to become like Him. All we need to do is just desire it, and He will make all the changes to us!

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1. The Light is the Creator. The Light is always the source of everything! In the beginning the Light created the creation, and hence creation is completely subject to the Light. If the Light were to disappear, then the creature would cease to exist. Every movement and change that takes place in the creation happens only under the influence of the Light.

Creation is lifeless and motionless when the Light influences it with the smallest possible force. If the Light shines stronger, then to this degree the creation undergoes a qualitative change, transforming from “still” to “vegetative,” where it starts to sense and perceive. And so on.

2. The Light is the Actor. The Light is always the source of everything! This is why it is written: “There is none else beside Him” and “The Creator is your shade.” You must “find” the Creator in every circumstance and definition, since He is the one who made this state happen.

3. I Control the Light! When you strive to change something in you, you must evoke the Light upon you, and It will change you. The Light can influence me and my Reshimot, and it will change me only in a way that brings me closer to the goal of creation. In other words, the only thing that I can ever do in my life is accelerate my spiritual development. Or, through my lack of desire to evoke the Light’s influence upon me, I can evoke the Light’s absence, and then I will experience all kinds of suffering – because the Light is life.

However, if my desires come from the Light, then I cannot exert a return influence on the Light with my desires. I must receive a desire for the goal from a source other than the Light, and then I will be able to influence the Light with this desire and evoke an additional influence of the Light on me, accelerating my path. This is why I am given the correct environment (the group), which is the only opportunity for me to evoke acceleration toward the goal.

4. The Woman’s Role. The group isn’t influenced physically, but through one’s desire. Hence, a woman who participates in the group’s work (by studying virtually and disseminating Kabbalah) and desires to receive the correct influence from the group, receives it and uses it to involuntarily turn to the Creator (the Light). With the exception of physically participating in communication with the friends and studying virtually, she does everything else just like a man and goes through the same states.

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