Two questions I received on development through Kabbalah:

Question: It says in a book by Rav Kook that there are two kinds of redemption: redemption that comes in due time (בעיתה – Beito), and redemption that comes in response to a person’s plea (אחישנה – Ahishena). Either way, redemption will come eventually. According to Kabbalah, we have to change from within, and then we’ll attain happiness. And by spreading the wisdom of Kabbalah, we will make everyone happy because they will receive the same Light. But then it would seem that Kabbalah contradicts the notion of the existence of time for correction.

Answer: You’ve mixed it all up! Kabbalah was given to us so that instead of progressing “in due time,” we will speed up time (progress through אחישנה – Ahishena). This means that we can develop without waiting for the suffering to come (without בעיתה- Beito).

Question: What do you mean by the point in the heart? Also, do you mean that fate – or circumstances in our life that might be difficult – push us to this point so we will discover our purpose?

Answer: Suffering and emptiness lead a person to the question about their meaning, cause and purpose. Gradually a person starts feeling that he needs to understand the cause of all that’s happening, and this feeling is a subconscious desire to reveal the Creator. A person then discovers the source of this knowledge (the books, group, and teacher), and reaches the goal.

The point in the heart is the desire to reveal the Creator, and Kabbalah is the method or means to reveal Him. The point in the heart is your soul’s initial desire, and your soul then begins to develop from this point. The point in the heart is similar to a seed: when it’s placed in the environment that’s right for its development (the group, books, and teacher), it begins to develop into a vessel of the soul – a desire in which a person begins to sense the Upper Force, the Creator.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Freedom of Will Lies in Acceleration
Laitman.com Post: The Path of Light Versus the Path of Suffering
Interview with the Future: “The Acceleration of the Reshimot”
The Path of Kabbalah: “The Awakening of the Point in the Heart”

Filed under: Suffering - 1 Comment →

Questions I received on Kabbalah’s view of this world:

Question: Would it be fair to say that Kabbalists are the Creator’s agents in this world?

My Answer: This wouldn’t be very modest, but that’s correct!

Question: Does Bnei Baruch plan on creating a virtual society?

My Answer: That is exactly what Bnei Baruch is doing: correcting ourselves and educating the world.

Question: I am Catholic. Do I need to change my religion in order to study Kabbalah?

My Answer: No.

Question: Does wearing the Star of David around your neck carry any significance?

My Answer: None that’s spiritual.

Question: What should be done if a person has cancer, suffers from terrible pains, and wants to commit suicide?

My Answer: They should receive medication.

Question: What is your opinion on self-defense and martial art? Does a person have a right to protect himself against violence? And do nations have the same right – i.e., are there “just wars?”

My Answer: Yes.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Kabbalah for Everybody
Laitman.com Post: The Kabbalistic Meaning of the Star of David, and Why We Should Respect Sports Stadiums
Laitman.com Post: What Do a Healthy Mind and Body Have to Do With Kabbalah?
About Bnei Baruch
Fighting Terror the Right Way

Filed under: Q&A - No Comments →

A question I received: What stages will we have to go through to get to the end of the crisis?

My Answer:
1. Economists and manufacturers believe that apparently, the crisis is necessary in order to “change” our world: to rid us of excess manufacturing facilities, to shift to new technologies and means of production, to raise the consumers’ qualification when it comes to assimilating the newest forms of production and services. This is why the crisis has to go through the stages that it does: restriction of production, optimization of business, implementation of new technologies, elimination of physically and morally outdated products, cautious growth and assimilation of new products.

2. Kabbalah says that the crisis will change our society: every person will assume his objective, rational place in the integral human society. This will happen by virtue of one’s desire to receive what one needs and to give everything that one can. One will enjoy the well-being of the society and the revelation of the Upper Source of fulfillment, the Creator, which is revealed through “love for one’s neighbor.” The path can be long and difficult, one of wars and famine (this is the natural egoistic development), or it can be quick and pleasant, by means of revealing the Creator and His plan, and by coming closer to Him (the Kabbalistic development).

See the article “Freedom of Will” and others.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Baal HaSulam Describes the Cause of Suffering and Crises In the World
Laitman.com Post: Baal HaSulam Describes the Society of the Future
Laitman.com Post: The Possibilities of Our Development – War or a Peaceful Transition

Filed under: Crisis - 1 Comment →

Three questions I received on the future of the world:

Question: You mentioned that the governing of the world must change to that of love your friend as yourself, one man with one heart. Why don’t you and your group start with a working model of such a system to serve as a beacon and inspiration for the rest? It would be easier to start on a smaller scale rather than a big one.

My Answer: Due to the current time and circumstances, we cannot close ourselves off but must devote all our energy to disseminating Kabbalah in the world, as it is the means of preventing the world from falling into the Third World War.

Question: What do you mean when you say that we are now entering Biblical times?

My Answer: I meant that we have to start observing the Biblical principle, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Question: In reference to your post, Unity for the Right Purpose Can Stabilize the Banking System, I hope you are not speaking of a new world order, one government, one bank, one currency, and everyone being monitored with chips implanted in their bodies.

My Answer: All of humanity is an integral (global) organism. Hence, everyone must submit to one law of total interaction on all levels of our activity. This means, as Baal HaSulam writes in the article, “The Last Generation,” that eventually there will be one spiritual government, which will regulate all the activities of the world’s inhabitants.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Baal HaSulam Describes the Conditions of Life in a Globalized World
Laitman.com Post: The Possibilities of Our Development – War or a Peaceful Transition
From Chaos to Harmony: “The Evolution of the Correction Method”
Article: “Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”
Baal HaSulam Article: “Building the Future Society”

Filed under: Unity - No Comments →

News Report: (translated from pravda.com): Excerpts from the article “The Crisis of Desires,” by the Ukranian Deputy Minister of Finance and presidential legal advisor, N. Poludenny: The desire and its satisfaction (pleasure) are the basis of man’s energetic-informational nature. We are woven of desires. Our crises will multiply, evolve and intensify until we realize that we must change our perception of the world. First and foremost this means altering the vector of our desires and acquiring the perception of unity between all people in the global system of our world.

Today everyone is talking about restoring trust – trust in the financial system, in the government, and in each other. People presume that this is a matter of an individual’s psychology or the psychology of the masses. In reality, however, trust is a spiritual category, whose root lies in a global spiritual state called “faith.” Confidence and loyalty are derivatives of this state.

These states are impossible as long as people realize their desires with a “minus” sign. And on the contrary, when a person changes the vector of his desire from “receiving for his own sake” to “giving for others’ sake,” he automatically enters the state of confidence, restoring others’ trust in him, and acquiring faith (at the very least, faith in his own abilities).

My Comment: Bravo! Let’s hope that everyone else will soon recognize the reason for the crisis as well! And when they do, people will begin searching for the means (the strength and the method) to correct our nature – and they will reveal Kabbalah.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: People Are Beginning to Open Their Eyes
Laitman.com Post: In His Holiday Greeting, President-elect Obama Speaks of Unity
Laitman.com Post: Pope Decries Self-Interest In Economic Crisis
Laitman.com Post: Gordon Brown, “Seize This Moment of Change to Create a Truly Global Society”

Filed under: Crisis - 2 Comments →

News Report (from Psychological Science): (By Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner of Harvard University) When someone steps on your toe on purpose, it seems to hurt more than when the person does the same thing unintentionally. The physical parameters of the harm may not differ – your toe is flattened in both cases – but the psychological experience of pain is changed nonetheless. Intentional harms are premeditated by another person and have the specific purpose of causing pain. In a sense, intended harms are events initiated by one mind to communicate meaning (malice) to another, and this could shape the recipient’s experience.

My Comment: This comes from the Upper Root of our relationship with the Creator: if we desire to receive without paying attention to Him, the Giver, then we perceive what we receive as this world – bitter, difficult, and temporary. However, if we desire to feel what we receive together with Him, the Giver, then we feel the Upper World, which is eternal and perfect. Then, when our world disappears (when the body dies), our perception – the sensation of the Giver we attained – stays with us forever, as do He and we.

For example, suppose I receive a present. I enjoy it. But then I begin to feel that it has a defect. This helps me to think about the Giver. My egoism cannot stop thinking about Him and asking, “Why isn’t this gift perfect”? As I think about the Giver’s action, I start to scrutinize this action (which is the thought of creation). I examine: what is happening to me from the moment when I started being aware of receiving something from Him, and what is His goal for doing this?

As I reveal His behavior, I begin to understand Him and see that He is kind, good and loving. I start to feel something new: I forget about (and lose the perception of) the gift itself – of our world and our life. What remains is only He and I (without the gift) and our relationship, the sensation of the Upper Life that emerged by virtue of the gift. But we don’t need the gift any longer.

Related Material
Laitman.com Post: Learning to Understand the Creator Is the Key to Happiness
Laitman.com Post: A Gift Is Appreciated Only as Much as the Receiver Values the Giver
On Roots and Branches
Article: “The Alternative of Our Life”
Baal HaSulam Article: “The Acting Mind”

Filed under: Science - No Comments →

The year 2008 ended with the financial crisis. But in truth, the crisis began decades ago – in art, science, the family (divorce), education, the general depression, drug abuse, and useless professions. However, like the true egoists that we are, we reacted to it only when it got to our wallets. The crisis was revealed through none other than the relationships we’ve created, which became global. We discovered that we are interconnected and interdependent – and full of hate for each other. When this happens in a family, the couple gets a divorce, but what are we to do? Therein lies the real crisis, and our future depends on its solution.

2009 will be the year when we will realize that we are all one family. People will recognize that their egoistic nature is evil; they will begin to open their eyes and to think differently. This will make it easier to live through the hardships. People will feel that Nature, which created the egoism within us, is forcing us to change. By correcting our relationships, we can accelerate and mitigate the course of the crisis. Suffering and the will to survive will force us to start observing the Biblical commandment of “Love thy neighbor as thyself” – and then he crisis will be replaced by a world that’s good and full of Light. This is what I wish for you in 2009!

Filed under: Crisis - 1 Comment →

News Report (from The Economist): The cimarrón is one of at least ten alternative currencies in different parts of Venezuela. … But none of these tokens can be exchanged for the bolívar, the country’s legal currency. Their use is limited to “prosumers” – you have to bring something to sell before you can actually buy anything with them. … ‘It’s magic,’ says Pablo Mayayo, an Argentinian who is advising Venezuelans on these schemes. ‘When you take away money… people relate to each other in a different way, by co-operating, not competing.’”

My Comment: Kabbalah states that progress is programmed by nature and determined by the egoism that continuously grows in us. Our egoism cannot be stopped, but it can be corrected. Then, instead of using it to harm others or for illusory self-benefit, we will use it to benefit everyone. This is the principle of a closed system, and today we are revealing that human society is just such a system.

Therefore, any movement backwards, our attempts to reverse history, are opposite to nature and will inevitably bring about an even greater crisis.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Is the Global Market About to Turn Into a Global Flea Market?
Laitman.com Post: How to Overcome the Global Crisis
Laitman.com Post: We Must Cure the Crisis by Any Means Possible
Kabbalah Today Article: Rising Above the Ego to a New Level of Consciousness
Attaining the Worlds Beyond: “Eradicating Egoism”
Introduction to the Book of Zohar: “Items 60-71”

Filed under: Economy - No Comments →

News Report (from Times Online): The Milgram experiment was one of the most infamous experiments in history, offering compelling evidence that almost everybody is capable of great evil. Almost 50 years on, it has finally been repeated by scientists – showing that people today are still willing to hurt others when prompted by an authority figure.

The new research [by Dr. Jerry Burger of Santa Clara University in California], published in the journal American Psychologist, suggests that little has changed since Professor Stanley Milgram’s work. … Dr. Burger found that 70 per cent of participants were willing to continue delivering electric shocks once the learner had cried out in pain at 150 volts.

My Comment: If the experiment was done under natural conditions, the researchers would find that the subjects are 100% willing to use others in any way they can, even for the tiniest gain, and even without any gain at all. It’s because we assess our situation relative others, “The worse off others are, the better off I am.”

The events taking place will force us to reveal our evil nature and to recognize its evil power over us so much that we will agree to change it to love and goodness. In principle, it doesn’t matter if we receive or bestow, because it’s all about fulfillment! If we were born with the quality “to bestow” instead of the quality “to receive,” we would similarly be completely unable to understand how it is possible to “receive” rather than to “bestow.” This transition is simply a psychological problem. After all, fulfillment is the most important thing! For the time being a person sees fulfillment only within himself and evaluates it according to the misery of his neighbor.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: We’re All Zombies Before Entering the Upper World
Laitman.com Post: Falling In Order to Rise
Laitman.com Post: The Difference Between the “Letter of the Law” and the “Spirit of the Law”
Article “Attainment of Unity of the Universe”

Filed under: Egoism - 1 Comment →

Economist Michael Khazin stated the following in an interview with Echo Radio: What is globalization? Globalization is a political, ideological, and cultural structure built over an absolutely material process – the global division of labor. Beginning with the 18th century, humanity started developing scientifically and technologically, and this was accompanied by a growth of markets where people sold their products. There were many “globalizations” in the 18th century; in fact, every large country led its own system of labor distribution.

My Comment: Many define globalization as the distribution of labor, production, and the market. However, Kabbalah defines globalization differently: it means that the world is global and integral, and all of its parts are completely interconnected like in a small village. In it, every part determines the fate of all the others, according to the Butterfly Effect.

The world has become like this due to progress. From this moment on, there cannot be any conflicts between different parts of the world because anyone who is against integration is also against progress, evolution, and the law of nature. We must recognize that the absolute connection of all the world’s parts is a fact. We must also recognize that our discrepancy with or failure to carry out nature’s law of Unity will elicit a negative reaction: the crisis will become more severe. And we will be the ones who created this reaction.

Here are some more definitions of globalization:

Globalization – a process of global economic, political, and cultural integration and unification. The main consequences of this are a global distribution of labor; migration of capital and human and industrial resources on a global scale; standardization of legislation and of economic and technological processes; and greater contact between different cultures. This is an objective, natural, historic process that is systematic. In other words, it encompasses all areas of social life.

Globalization – the process of a continuously growing influence of various international factors (such as close economic and political connections, exchange of cultures and information) on the social reality of separate countries.

Globalization in politics – an approach to the world’s formation, organization, functioning, and development that views the world as an integral economic, socio-cultural, and political super-system.

The concept of globalization – a theory stating that the evolution of financial markets and institutions leads to a state where geographic borders cannot limit contracts and other transactions. Usually the term “globalization” pertains to a growing international activity of banks and other institutions.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Talks on Globalization and the Financial Crisis
Laitman.com Post: Kabbalah’s Solution to the Financial Crisis Differs from the Common Sense Solution
Laitman.com Post: How to Create Contracts In the Age of Global Interconnection
Kabbalah Today Article: Globalization 101

Filed under: World - No Comments →