What is the result of all our material development, which people value so highly? What have we achieved with all of our hard work, our “Egyptian labor with clay and bricks,” as one Kabbalistic text says about the Egyptian slavery, the exile from spirituality? The result is that we are now nearing the revelation of the spiritual world and are opening our eyes to the fact that people have been doing absolutely nothing of value in this world! People are doing things that are absolutely unnecessary to anyone! Yes, they invent all sorts of crafty gadgets, but could we really not live without all these things?

The more people develop, the more time they spend on useless activities, and the more they go beyond the bare minimum necessary for life. Today, if we reverted to spending time only on the things that are vitally necessary, most of us would be left with nothing to do. Only five percent of the population would have to work in order to provide all of humanity with the necessities. Alternatively, each one of us could allocate five percent of his time to provide for his livelihood.

All the leftover time would be dedicated to our spiritual development. And why not? You don’t get any benefit from spending all your time on material things. In fact, all you are doing by this is damaging the environment.

There is nothing more for a person to do in this world other than to work on his spiritual correction. Otherwise we would have the problem of what to do with the elderly who need to be provided for.  What would be the point of taking care of them if we believe that only the actively working people are of any benefit?

Indeed, our lives must follow the opposite principle. All we need is to give every person the method for his internal correction, and then there will be a place for everyone. Every person will carry out work for the sake of infinity, because the soul has no age. And it is precisely the elderly who will make some of the biggest corrections.

The more time we spend on “clay and bricks,” the more we advance toward reaching the realization that we are in slavery. And the weight of this realization will make people cry out to the Creator and thus rise to the “human” level. And that is the only benefit that we will get out of all our material development.

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A question I received: What can an average person do in order to speed up society’s advancement toward correction?

My Answer: Today it is becoming obvious that the entire world is a single, shattered vessel. Any person in this world, after hearing the right explanation, will agree with the fact that the world must be connected in a positive manner. Every person will know that this is the only way for him to have a good life.

In other words, it is imperative that we connect at the level of the soul in order to reach correction. The body is just an external shell. This is why today, no one can avoid or wouldn’t want to be included in this process. In every corner of the world, people have heard of the crisis and feel it one way or another.

There are people who feel the general crisis internally as well as externally: they feel that the connection between souls is devoid of internal (non-material) bestowal above the egoistic nature of man. But humanity is still not giving this any thought although they are closer to understanding that they must correct egoism and increasingly utilize each person’s positive forces.

No huge changes have taken place in the world. But now, there is a general understanding that before the crisis, humanity was advancing in complete opposition to spiritual development. The world was striving toward maximum realization of egoism while a few individuals with a point in the heart (Kabbalists) rose above egoism and utilized it for the sake of bestowal. Today, both processes are advancing in the same direction because the whole world is now starting to accept that egoism is evil and must be corrected.

Of course they are thinking of correction on their level. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that the direction is now the same. Before, there were some who were for egoism, others who were against; now, everyone is against. It is said that if we don’t control it, if we don’t find some sort of regulator, we will feel bad. Everyone is talking of a regulator. Some speak of a regulator at the material level and others of another, a higher kind of regulator.

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A question I received from my student: Can the Upper One pass on His desire to the lower one?

My Answer: This is exactly what He does, but only in response to our plea, “Give us the correct desires!” We pray only about our desire, for it to be like His: “Make your desire similar to the Creator’s desire.”

You don’t need anything else from Him, other than a new program for your behavior, for how to act. You have to receive a new mind, power and knowledge from Him, in order to be able to work with your “matter” correctly. More precisely, you have to recognize how flawed your current behavioral program is, because it is opposite to the program He is acting upon. And then, you have to ask Him to replace your program with one similar to His. That is when you will be corrected, made equivalent to the Creator.

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In the News (from Japan Today): “Jewish human rights group protests ‘anti-Semitic’ ad in Nihon Keizai Shimbun” In a press release also posted on its website, the Wiesenthal Center’s associate dean Abraham Cooper blasted the Nihon Keizai Shimbun for having “broken a longstanding commitment to desist from running advertisements that promote anti-Jewish stereotypes, by running an advertisement for two books that promote the canard of Jewish control over the global economy.”

The advertisement for “Why did the Jewish financial system collapse?” (author: Kotaro Nada) asks rhetorically, “Is it true that the Rothschild family controls the global economy?” and purports to explain what was behind the failures of Lehman Brothers, AIG, Citibank and Bear Stearns. The ad also touts a second work by Nada titled “Jewish Money: Why are they able to continue to move the global economy?” The Nihon Keizai Shimbun boasts a claimed daily circulation of over 3 million copies. It is often compared to The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times.

My Answer: Of course the Jews are to blame for it all, because they don’t disseminate the method of the world’s correction to the world. This is how they cause all the miseries in the world, and not only the global financial crisis. See Items 70-71 of Baal HaSulam’s “Preface to the Book of Zohar.”

Even though the nations of the world don’t know this, they subconsciously feel that “it’s all the Jews’ fault.” After all, the “light” in their lives depends on the nation of Israel, which holds the wisdom of Kabbalah. Moreover, from now on, if the nations of the world won’t receive the method of correction in time, they will “join together against Jerusalem,” as stated in The Book of Zohar and in the books of the prophets.

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A question I received: What’s the meaning of the words “the evil inclination”?

My Answer: The evil inclination is your desire that you define as evil. In Hebrew, the word inclination – Yetzer, originates from the word Ratzon – desire. And it’s not just one desire, but many desires inside you that impede you from attaining the goal of creation, that appear as obstacles on your path.

The stumbling block on the path to the ultimate success is found within you; it’s not anything on the outside. However, you can’t destroy it or get rid of it on your own, despite the fact that you see how much trouble it causes you, how it ruins your life and stands in the way of your success! That is why this quality inside you is called your evil inclination.

The “evil inclination” is evil only when you have made every possible effort to get rid of it… and failed. You then reveal that it has the ultimate power over you and everything you do. It always cheats you, but you forget this and endlessly follow its advice. Thus, the evil is a desire that coerces you.

The recognition of evil is not an easy process. You have to become a true judge of yourself and not give in to being “bribed.” You have to clarify what is your goal, who you are, what your qualities are, and to understand what you have to eliminate within yourself. And then you have to make the utmost effort to do this. And finally, whatever qualities remain that you just can’t change is what you call your evil inclination.

If you do this, you will be prepared for the correction to come from Above, and then the Light will come and correct you. Only once you have done everything in your power can you truly realize what evil is. This, in turn, prepares you to turn to the Creator with a plea and to entreat Him: “I want to get rid of this evil once and for all – but I can’t!”

And that is when you reach the realization that it was Him beneath it all. Inside the evil inclination, you reveal the connection with the Creator, His will in all that has happened. All of the problems that you can’t cope with are sent to you intentionally by the Creator, in order for you to build a connection with Him, to turn to Him.

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A question I received: Kabbalah bases part of its reasoning on a certain chronological order, scaled by the millennia of the Babel Kingdom’s existence and by the dates of Adam’s life in Babylon. However, the work of a modern mathematician in the area of historic chronology (Anatoly Fomenko, Professor of Mathematics at Moscow State University and member of the Russian Academy of Sciences ), casts doubt on the generally accepted sequence and the dates of events. For instance, he dates the Egyptian pyramids to the 11th-14th centuries B.C.E. as per the dates of Zodiacal images found in them. This means that egoism wasn’t growing for 2000 years. The dates of the books can also be wrong, with manuscripts mistakenly dated as being more ancient, when, in fact, they were written later.

Kabbalah, being an extension of science beyond our world into the spiritual, relies on the sciences of this world, including history and chronology. What if the actual chronology is radically revised: can it be possible that the Kabbalists are also mistaken in their descriptions of historic events (the dating of Adam’s life as well as the lives of other Kabbalists?

My Answer: Up until now, all doubts about the Bible’s validity have been proven wrong, historically speaking, which confirms the authenticity of the Biblical story. The Biblical calendar starts with Adam – the beginning of man’s correction in this world, and it concludes with the final correction of all people, throughout 6000 years.

Over the past 5769 years, everything predicted by the Bible (as we, Kabbalists, know) has come true. The Book of Zohar, written 2000 years ago, says that our times (from the year 1995 on) is the time of this book’s revelation. And this is coming true! There are more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. However, everyone has the right to doubt everything in the world. This is the right of every scientist.

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A question I received: Our family often watches your programs. My wife says that you often contradict yourself, even during the same program. For instance, in one of the “Ask the Kabbalist” episodes, you categorically denied that Kabbalists engage in predicting the future of our corporeal bodies. But later, in the same program, you said that in the 1930s Baal HaSulam predicted two world wars. This relates to corporeal matters, doesn’t it? My wife wants to know why is it that you always contradict yourself?

My Answer: What I meant is that Kabbalists know the way the future will come from Above, or in other words, what will happen if things advance along the path called Beito, meaning “in due time,” or when things follow the unchanging, rigid laws of nature. However, when we make corrections, we shift to the path called Ahishena, and thus we affect how these forces will manifest in our world and how they will be expressed inside us.

To the extent we correct ourselves and understand things better, we will feel good instead of bad. But no Kabbalist, or anyone else for that matter, can ever know how anything will actually turn out, because man has freedom of will to change his destiny. (See Baal HaSulam’s article, “The Freedom.”)

If you read the terrible prophecies of the future, keep in mind that the prophets were describing only the path of Beito. They did not know how corrected we will be, and therefore, how we will handle certain situations.

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A question I received: Kabbalists say that by making inner corrections, we also correct our externality. But can we advance this entire process by making external (physical) efforts?

My Answer: External efforts can trigger the internal corrections, but the actual correction happens from the inside out. Much can be learned from this rule. The key is not to try to correct the world, but to correct yourself.

You have to understand that Kabbalah does not oblige you to do anything. It only reveals the internality of things to you, and if you desire to use this knowledge, you will be able to correct yourself. By acting externally, you can only acquire other people’s desires, but not their corrections.

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A question I received: I have been a student for about seven months, and it has been an emotional roller coaster. I feel good and then I feel bad. I am immersing myself more into study and dissemination and I feel like I am becoming a different person, but it seems that it is affecting me more and more in a negative way. For example, I am constantly evaluating myself and seeing how my ego seems to be growing. I am also becoming judgmental of other people. I am beginning to see how their ego is ruling their actions. I am becoming angry at my ego and I am angry at other people for their ego, even though I know I have no right to judge others and should only work on myself.

I don’t know what to do at this point. I feel angry, emotionally exhausted, and unhappy, which is the opposite of what I am supposed to be. I am supposed to feel bestowal from the Creator.

My Answer: You are going through a period of growth of your egoistic desire. Inside of this desire, you will then start perceiving new pictures of the world and different connections between things. Be strong, don’t break the routine studies and unity with the group. Then you will quickly go through this period of accumulating the egoistic desire. Every step forward always consists of two parts: the growth of the egoistic desire (what you are going through now), and then the revelation of a new attainment inside it.

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Three questions I received on the breaking of the common soul from my student in Brazil:

Question: In the book Kabbalah Revealed , it says that only 600,000 souls were created, and they were subdivided because of the issue of selfishness. Is the result of the subdivision also regarded as a soul, i.e., a single spiritual entity?

My Answer: The souls do not subdivide or converge, but rather, each soul undergoes its own individual correction.

Question: What happens to the souls that have resolved the issue of selfishness: do they become extinct and cease to exist entirely?

My Answer: The souls simply descend to the level of our world, and then ascend back by virtue of our efforts. Their essence is eternal.

Question: Can a soul be extinguished?

My Answer: Nothing in the spiritual worlds can be destroyed – everything there is eternal. Things merely change their form.

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