Questions I received on egoism and its correction:

Question: Almost every day we read news reports from different countries about parents killing their children, children killing parents, wives killing their husbands and husbands – their wives, grandchildren – their grandparents and so on. What is this? Is this one of the expressions of the global crisis?

My Answer: It’s the expression of the last stage of egoism at its initial stage. The prophets wrote that there will come a time when “compassionate women will boil and eat their own children” (Eikha 4:10). This is what will happen unless we heed the prophets’ warning and go through these times in a different way, in the Light of Kabbalah that corrects egoism.

Question: One way or another, the Creator compels us to develop through suffering. So a person doesn’t develop according to his free will, but out of necessity. But isn’t the Creator’s plan to create someone equal to Him, a partner? What kind of equality is this?

My Answer: The entire period of free will and independent development is still ahead of you. However, you can only be brought to it through suffering. Otherwise your egoism will push you to everything but spiritual development. Throughout all previous times, we developed only through the development of our egoism, but now we have been given the opportunity to develop under the influence of the Light. So now you have freedom – freedom of how to develop.

Question: “I want to be good to You in order for You to be good to me” – this is a quote from your book in Russian, To Be a Chosen Nation, p. 324. Isn’t this an egoistic intention? Or is it the corrected egoism?

My Answer: It is the corrected egoism. However, it isn’t always possible to understand the intention, because the words can only convey one’s desires. In other words: “I ask You to correct me and I will do anything for it.” And “good” means the quality of bestowal and love.

Question: Today every one of us egoistically feels like an individual. What will every one of us feel after the correction? Will each of us feel that the Common Kli is him?

Answer: Definitely, because this is how we were created: as parts of one whole. Instead of perceiving ourselves, we need to perceive the whole organism. The perception inside oneself is our world, whereas the perception outside oneself is the Upper World.

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A question I received: Are we done with this crisis?

My Answer: I’m not an economist, but in my opinion, the real crisis is still ahead of us. This opinion is based on real data and the fact that we still haven’t drawn the conclusion that we have to correct ourselves. After all, the reason for the crisis is to awaken us toward correction.

For now we’re observing the crisis at the stock market, but it may take another year for it to manifest in the economy. The tsunami wave of the financial crisis has not reached humanity yet. For now all the stock market plunges are mostly assessed by the anticipation of the financial crisis.

How will it manifest? There will be a wave of unemployment, wage reduction, the virtual disappearance of high-tech, a drop in real estate prices, growth of inflation, bankruptcies, nationalization of banks, and annulment of investors’ savings. And this will continue until we recognize the reason for this crisis – us!

News Report (from zibb.com): The Saudi Arabian King, Abdallah Bin-Abd-al-Aziz stated in an interview: “Monetary experts and the leaders of major countries which were affected by the crisis expect the crisis to end within a year and a half. According to them, they need to restore confidence and reassure people. I think that if these international gigantic economies cooperate, they will be able to get through this crisis, as they had done in previous crises.”

My Comment: Long live the king! He’s right, as long as he’s talking about true cooperation, as befits a small village or a family. This shows that man is starting to change.

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Excerpts from the morning lesson: A person has to ascend from the lowest level called “our world,” where everything is concealed, to the highest level called “the World of Infinity,” where everything is revealed. The levels of ascent are called “the worlds” and they reflect the degree of our desires’ correction.

There is no fulfillment without a preliminary feeling of emptiness. When each of us corrects his individual desire (emptiness), we give shape to the Upper Force, revealing it to the degree of our correction. This is why we ask this Force for correction rather than revelation.

The fulfillment of the desire does not happen through reception, but through bestowal. Otherwise it’s impossible to be fulfilled. To be exact, it’s possible, but the fulfillment will be limited to our world and our lifetime. Any more than that is impossible. This is so in order to enable us to arrive at another method of fulfillment – bestowal.

Then, a person is fulfilled by his love for his neighbor, by bestowal, rather than by something coming from outside. Suffering is a feeling of uncorrected desires. We perceive them as suffering because they differ from the Creator.

In Kabbalah we study our future states, and this enables us to develop. The development of one’s soul is analogous to the development of a child: by desiring to be grown ups, we draw the force of correction upon us.

One must perceive problems and suffering as a chance to advance by overcoming them. Everything happens only for one’s advancement. However, if one prepares correctly, then instead of perceiving the pain of the suffering, one will perceive its direction and move along it. In this case, instead of perceiving the suffering, one perceives the path.

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News Report (translated from K2Kapital.com): “The word ‘Socialism’ is no longer looked down on in the USA” The crisis on Wall Street, loss of savings and pension funds, the real estate market collapse and unemployment have raised the issue of economic survival. The crisis calls for an increase of government regulation and a rejection of liberal methods in the financial sector. The word “socialism,” terrifying to the American ear just a short time ago, no longer seems so scary. What’s so bad about socialism, anyway? Let the government care for its citizens instead of protecting the interests of billionaires.

My Comment: For the time being, the aspiration toward socialism is selfish and egoistic, but it cannot be otherwise. People are gradually starting to realize that globalization is the new reality in which we need to live, that the world is like a small village, like one family.

This concept is readily talked about, but not yet fully grasped. We haven’t yet accepted it as a fact, as a phenomenon that has suddenly manifested in our world, which we cannot escape, and which obliges us to completely change our lives.

It is similar to the feeling of a person who has been sentenced to life imprisonment: he gradually realizes that his life now has to undergo a major change, and how such a change requires him to adopt an attitude and behavior different from before.

Hence, a natural consequence of feeling the effects of globalization, global interconnection and interdependence, is the perception of socialism as desired and superior. However, we will need to correct the way we think about socialism. When we will feel that everyone in the world is one family, we will reveal the Upper Light, the sensation of harmony, delight and eternal life. But before this happens, people will have to go through the path of rejecting egoism. And in order to desire this, they will have to realize that egoism is evil. This can happen through:

• Actual suffering due to egoism (known as “the ten plagues of Egypt,” where the first plague is the financial crisis that is starting to develop as we speak), or

• Through theoretical recognition and the study of Kabbalah.

Either way, mankind will have to consciously arrive at the understanding that “everyone is one family,” where every person takes every family member into consideration. For more on this, see the article, “The Freedom,” and the newspaper, “The Nation.”

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Two questions I received on how to be sure that one is following the right path:

Question: I want to find out the Truth with a capital T, but everything I see looks like lies. How can I prove to myself and to others that Kabbalah is true? It’s not enough to say that everything is evil, and only “our Torah” is the truth.

My Answer: Progress and growth always come with the sensation of a mistake and its correction, just like in any tracking system that’s aimed at a particular goal. The feeling of uncertainty, the sensation that things are lies and are false, are all necessary, and you should be glad you feel them.

Only animals don’t make mistakes because they’re governed by nature, whereas man must develop of his own accord. Moreover, we mustn’t suppress these qualities in others; on the contrary, we should encourage them, even if these people end up leaving us. Let them verify and find their own path. Otherwise they won’t become human, but will remain “animals,” as it is written: “All are like animals” – all except those who draw the Light of growth and correction.

Question: There are many groups and schools that study Kabbalah. In your opinion, is every group that studies the authentic sources suitable to study Kabbalah with?

My Answer: Only you can tell which group and manner of study are best for you. Some people still need to go through various mysticisms, religions, and Kabbalah as knowledge (Baal HaSulam describes this when he writes about the “Kabbalists of Jerusalem”). After trying all of these (perhaps even in the next life cycle), they will come to the authentic study of Kabbalah, which is a reception of Light for the correction of one’s egoism. Indeed, this is the only reason for Kabbalah’s existence in this world, the only reason that the Torah (Kabbalah) was given. The Creator said: “I have created egoism and I have created the Torah for its correction,” or in other words: in order for people to attain the quality of “Love for one’s neighbor” – the principal law of the entire Torah and of the entire world.

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A question I received: According to Rabash, the chosen people are those who can shift from the externality to the internality, and one’s heart will change with the help of one’s actions. At the same time, you always remind us that the external commandments are no more than external signs, which have no connection with the soul’s correction.

My Answer: When Rabash speaks of “external observance,” he does not mean the physical observance, but the intention “for one’s own sake.” And “inner observance” signifies the intention “for the Creator’s sake.”

As for the physical actions, the Creator said: “I don’t care how you slaughter cattle; the commandments were given for man’s correction.” In other words, the entire connection between actions and commandments lies in one’s intentions, and not in the actions themselves. If a person knew that his actions have no results, he would be extremely grateful to Kabbalah for giving him the correct guidance in life!

The entire opposition between religion and Kabbalah comes down to their assessment of the importance of actions and intentions: What is more important, the actions or the intentions? Indeed, Kabbalah does not deny the importance of the actions (traditions) in forming and managing social boundaries. But religion also has to accept what is written, that actions without intentions are dead and don’t correct a person. The intentions can only be changed through the correct study of Kabbalah.

One has to start by admitting that he is not perfect – therein lies the stumbling block! It’s because religion’s primary goal is to grant man a sense of pride and perfection for observing the prescriptions. He thinks that by doing this, he serves the Creator and the whole world, and everyone is indebted to him.

Kabbalah, on the other hand, shows a person just how phony and imperfect he really is. He sees this in the Creator’s Light, which descends upon him during the study. A person then feels unhappy with the results of his study, but if he is able to rise above this sensation and elevate the truth above the anguish, he progresses. And if he is unable to do this, he veers off the path.

Item 66 of the “Preface to the Book of Zohar” discusses the necessity to make the intention more important than the physical observance. The entire contradiction between religion and Kabbalah lies in their claim as to what is more important.

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Questions I received on interpreting Baal HaSulam’s words and visiting graves of the righteous:

Question: In Shamati, Baal HaSulam mentions several times the “Masach de Hirik.” Would you please explain this phenomenon or concept?

My Answer: It is the correction of the soul in the middle line. One uses the egoism from the left line and the force of Light that corrects it from the right line, thereby building himself with the help of these two forces.

Question: What is the meaning of the word Yuli (יולי)?

My Answer: It is the initial material, from which everything developed.

Question: Why is the expression that Rav Ashlag uses, “What’s the meaning of my life?” and not for example: “What’s the meaning of life?”

My Answer: It’s because a person has to feel this question personally, to feel that his life depends on it completely. He has to feel that he is the only created creature (see the materials on Perception of Reality), and because of this, the purpose of life in general, of everyone’s lives, depends on his life.

Question: Where is the place in which the creature realizes his “I,” and on the other hand, realizes that there is none else beside Him?

My Answer: The place of realizing his “I” is in Malchut, and of realizing the Creator – in Keter.

Question: Does it help visiting the graves of the righteous and lighting a candle to sanctify the soul?

My Answer: Only psychologically!

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The unity of the society is the source of its well being
Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”:
The unity of society is the source of happiness and well being, whereas the separation between people is the source of all evils. All success and well being depend only on people’s closeness and unity in a global community.

The whole world is regarded as one big society
Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”:
In our generation, when each person depends on the world to provide his necessities, every person depends on the whole world as a small wheel in a machine. Therefore we can no longer speak of the well-being and security of one country or one nation, but only of the whole world, because the benefit or harm of each and every person in the world depends and is measured by the benefit of all the people in the whole world.

That’s because in our time, the well being of every person in the world depends on, and is measured by, the well being of all the people in the world. It’s because today we have come to a state where the whole world is regarded as one society. Today every person in the world is “nourished” by the whole world, and hence every person is obligated to take care of the well being of the whole world.

The peace of every person depends on everyone
Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”:
Good and evil are evaluated only according to the benefit one’s actions bring to the public. This shows us the place that needs correction, and that is for each and every individual to understand that his personal benefit and the benefit of the society are one and same. This is how the world will attain its full correction.

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Without a doubt, every kind of suffering comes from the concealment of the Creator. Therefore His revelation will be the answer to the crisis.

Kabbalah states that the revelation of the Creator fills a person with pleasure and the sensation of eternity. How does the Creator become revealed to a person? Gradually, through the influence of the Upper Light that is drawn during the study of Kabbalah.

And don’t be surprised that one person can cause an ascent or a descent of the whole world, for there is a law that states: “The particular and the general are equal.”

In our times there is a need for Mutual Guarantee between all the people in the world. Hence, a global education is the biggest priority compared to all other issues.

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Three questions I received on balancing spirituality with this world:

Question: I heard you say at the children’s lesson that we should envy people who contribute to the group and love others. Should I lie to myself, telling myself that I envy those who contribute even though in reality I envy someone who has a new car, for example? Please give me advice on what to do according to Kabbalah.

My Answer: Continue studying; the group and the lessons will give you the feeling that other values are more important. This is better than surrendering yourself to accumulating things and later finding yourself disillusioned. The Upper World that will start being revealed to you will make you feel vastly more fulfilled than a new car. The car is important to you because society values it. But if your society will value other things, your preferences will change as well.

Question: Sometimes I get angry at the Creator, but in truth I get angry at myself because I ask myself, “Why is the process of correction so lengthy!?” And then I answer myself: “Because I don’t make enough efforts!”

My Answer: You lack the pressure of the correct environment.

Question: I’m having an inner debate: on one hand, I have a new job that’s interesting to me and gives me free time to improving my professional level in order to have a good permanent occupation in the future. On the other hand, I don’t have much energy left after the morning lessons, so I’m thinking of cutting them down, yet this bothers me. What’s the right attitude to have to this situation?

My Answer: You have to finish your professional education so you’ll be able to support yourself and your family, while keeping the study of Kabbalah “on a low burner.” However, in all other respects, devote yourself to the study of Kabbalah. If you keep this balance of time and energy, you’ll succeed in both.

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