In the News (from NY Times): ”What Are Friends For? A Longer Life” Researchers are only now starting to pay attention to the importance of friendship and social networks in overall health. A 10-year Australian study found that older people with a large circle of friends were 22 percent less likely to die during the study period than those with fewer friends. A large 2007 study showed an increase of nearly 60 percent in the risk for obesity among people whose friends gained weight. And last year, Harvard researchers reported that strong social ties could promote brain health as we age.

My Comment: This is because the energy of life lies in the unification of individuals. To the extent people unite as one whole, in spite of the egoism that pushes them away from each other, they become similar to the Unified Upper Force, the Creator, who is the Source of Life.

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A question I received: Why must humanity be awakened? Why can’t it wake up on its own?

My Answer: Humanity is waking up on its own, but only when pushed by blows. This is how we have developed over the course of our entire history. Until now this was the only way for us to develop because our only quality was egoistic and we were forced to make progress by the suffering we felt inside our egoism.

Now, however, we have reached a state where another quality is awakening in us – the quality of bestowal. This gives us a new chance to develop – not only through the blows we receive that “push” us from behind, but also through our aspiration forward, toward the quality of bestowal. If we aspire forward in this way, we can avoid blows and suffering. We will then reduce the time it take us to develop and reach the designated goal – equivalence with the Creator – through a pleasant, comfortable path.

This is why we disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah instead of waiting for humanity to develop on its own. The natural path of development is forced: we are pushed to develop by suffering, and along this path, it took tens of thousands of years to bring us to the current level of development.

Now that we have undergone this development, we are preparing our children for life in the modern world. During the first 20 years of their lives, we impart onto them all the knowledge that humanity has acquired throughout history. We cram thousands of years of human progress into the child’s 20 year-long upbringing. And he in turn takes this knowledge and continues onward.

We should apply the principle of advancing down the path of positive aspiration when bringing up the new generation. This is the best way to express our love and care for them.

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The connection between us is governed by our egoism – the Pharaoh. We have to dethrone him, remove him from power. How?

This can only be done with the power of the Creator, who created the Pharaoh as the evil inside us. The Creator did this purposefully, so we would realize that we need Him and then dethrone the Pharaoh together with Him. This way, in the process of our cooperation, we grow close to the Creator.

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A question I received: What is Kabbalah’s stance on the development of artificial intelligence? Does Kabbalah support the idea that it is possible to recreate the human brain and consciousness? Could an artificial brain have a complex consciousness?

My Answer: It is possible to recreate anything about us except our spiritual make-up, the will to bestow. This is the Creator’s quality that we receive from above. Besides this, everything else about us can be recreated and improved.

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A question I received: If we convince the whole world to play a game for one day where everyone will do nothing but bestow, then humanity would feel the flavor of bestowal. Would this action draw enough Light to correct us?

My Answer: Any doctor knows that there is almost no medicine that can cure a person immediately. This can only happen by virtue of a miracle, but not a man-made medicine.

A person could drink a drop of poison and die, or he can use it to create a medicine. It is no coincidence that the symbol of medicine is a snake. It is a known fact that every medicine is poison, but not every poison is medicine. When poison is used as medicine, it is taken in very small dosages and over the course of a long time, until a person is cured. This is the law of correcting the animate body, and the same law holds for correcting the soul.

Why is it that a person can die instantly from taking a drop of poison, but he has to take it for months in order to be cured? This is the consequence of a spiritual process: the breaking of the unified soul into parts. This breaking was carried out from above, and therefore it is instant, whereas the correction, the re-unification, and the cure occurs slowly, depending on us.

Why did the breaking of our souls and the need for correction occur even before we came to this world? It happened so that in the process of our correction we would elucidate the cause, the process and the goal of creation, thereby forming ourselves in similarity to the Creator, the Upper Force of Nature.

And since a person had to reach similarity to the Creator (who is called in Hebrew Bore = Bo – come, and Re – see), this process takes so much time, namely 6000 years, from the first attainment made by Adam, to the last one.

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The Creator is the quality of bestowal that is revealed in a person’s corrected desire, in his intention to bestow. Our only task is to develop this intention to bestow by connecting among us. Then, we will reveal the Creator – the quality of bestowal and love found within this connection.

In Hebrew, the Creator is called Boreh, which is composed of the words Bo and Reh – “come” and “see.” What does this mean? “To come” means to change one’s desire from reception to bestowal. Then the desire to bestow that one has attained (or the desire to bestow in order bestow, Galgalta Einaim) and love (receiving in order to bestow, AHP) becomes his attainment and revelation of the Creator.

Stated differently, the Creator is the force that connects us to each other. Therefore, the connection between us is what reveals the Creator to us. If we connect through mutual love, then we will sense the force of bestowal inside us. This is the force of the Creator that is revealed between us.

The Creator is the force that connects us to each other. The Upper Light has endowed us with the power to bestow to each other, and by bestowing to each other and getting to know this Upper Force, we attain the Creator. How does this happen?

By bestowing to each other, we attain the quality of bestowal, and thus we attain the source of the bestowing force, because it contains its higher origin, Keter. This is how the Creator becomes revealed in us, or in our desire. He is revealed in the upper part of the Kli, which is why the revelation is called “a revelation from above.” The revelation happens in Keter with regard to the lower part of the Kli, Malchut.

For this reason, Kabbalists named Him “Bo–reh” – “Come and see.” When one ascends from below upwards by means of the Reflected Light, one ascends from one’s nature – “the will to receive” to the Creator’s nature – “bestowal.” One then attains the complete ten Sefirot of the Direct Light. One attains the Creator’s attitude to him as well as the Creator Himself – the root of everything.

It turns out that aside from one’s soul (which consists of 10 Sefirot), there is nothing else to reveal. This is all that was created, and one senses the Creator within this creation.

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A question I received: What should be the connection between the Jewish religion and the state of Israel?

My Answer: There shouldn’t be any connection between religion and state. Every person should be able to lead the lifestyle of his choice without coercion. Kabbalah states: “There’s no coercion in spirituality!”

People should only be influenced by the correct education. Sure, the upbringing in Israel should be conducted the spirit of the Jewish tradition, Jewish culture and all that we received from our forefathers. However, this should be done through a gentle, kind upbringing in the spirit of the nation’s traditions.

Through the dissemination of Kabbalah, today’s religion – a set of obligatory actions, will turn into true religion. This is what Baal HaSulam describes in the article, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose.” How will this happen?

The Upper Force that is being reveals to us today will change us, and people will then begin to feel and understand the Creator. His revelation will eliminate the need for the religious services of today and the need for intermediaries between man and the Creator, such as religion and its leaders. It is written, “And people will stop teaching about Creator, for all will know Me, from small to great.”

The revelation of the Creator will show everyone the principle of the entire Torah: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” which is currently absent even among the religious people. Baal HaSulam writes in “The Future Generation”:

The religious (ethical) form, determining the life of all nations, must first and foremost obligate its representatives to engage in bestowal to the fellow man, according to the principle, “love your neighbor as yourself.” And this will be the social consciousness of all nations… However, with this exception, each nation should be free to follow its own religion and traditions, and no nation should interfere with the affairs of another.

The science of Kabbalah explains that the main principle of the Torah, “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” indicates that the observance of the Mitzvot (precepts) and Torah means the correction of one’s egoism, where one reaches the level of love for the fellow man. So it is the correction of one’s egoistic desires that is called the observance of the precepts.

If a person engages in self-correction in order to develop an attitude of bestowal to the fellow man, this means that he is performing all the rules of Torah. This is what the great sage Rabbi Akiva said. When he was asked to explain all of the Torah while “standing on one leg” (metaphorically speaking), he cited the general rule of the entire Torah: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Another sage, named Hillel, who lived in the times of the Talmud (the beginning of the Common Era) states this principle as: “Don’t do to another what you don’t want others to do to you.”

Therefore, the entire institute of religion will definitely go through a big change, as it doesn’t stand by these principles.

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Wishing to prepare our children for a good life, we teach them the best way to “get ahead” in this world. To this end, we spend many years educating a child, gradually making his exercises more and more difficult, while hoping that the upbringing we give him will prepare him for life in the world that he reveals.

This is exactly how the Creator treats us: He demands that we go through a preparation for entering the spiritual world. We have a limited amount of time to go through this preparation, and we don’t have a choice – within that period of time, we have to learn to live in an integral world, in a universal and unified nature – the Upper World.

The sooner we understand what is required of us and the sooner we agree to be reeducated, the less suffering we will feel. This is because our suffering comes from the pressure of forces that compel us to change. By agreeing with the Creator, we will be able to change consciously, happily and voluntarily.

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A question I received: If we change our egoistic model of behavior to one of mutual friendship and consideration, wouldn’t this stop the development that competition brings?

My Answer: Competition will not disappear. Here’s why.

Today a person wants to maximize his profit, but he’s discovering that his success depends on the entire world. As he observes the growing connection between himself and the world, he will begin to feel how bestowal to others will eventually cause him to be successful. He won’t be better off because the world suddenly became wealthier and he got a share of the profit, but because he gradually started to feel that by making actions of bestowal to the world, he connects to something higher – a higher fulfillment and satisfaction. And this higher fulfillment is what starts to give him the sense of a meaning in everything taking place – a feeling of the Creator.

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A question I received: When a person first hears of “Mutual Guarantee” and universal dependency, this kind of talk annoys and repulses him. How do we explain that unification is beneficial?

My Answer: Imagine that this person has been in an accident and is on the verge between life and death. His entire body is broken and he lies lifeless on a stretcher. (This is not so far from the truth, since the shattering of the souls is like an accident.)

If he could feel that the only way for him to come back to life is with the help of his friends, he would no longer hate the idea of a mutual guarantee. He would understand that he doesn’t have a body of his own, but only a point. And his entire body – the arms, legs, brain and everything else – is something he can only get from others. He will only get these body parts if the others will sacrifice theirs for him.

This is a mutual guarantee. It is when in addition to the single point you start out with, everything else that you receive comes exclusively from your connection with others. This is because the desire to receive does not exist in the spiritual world; only the desire to bestow exists there. Therefore, one does not live at the expense of oneself, but at the expense of the sacrifices made by all of humanity. They constitute your body.

You are only a point, whereas humanity is the body of your soul. All these people must provide you with the organs you need. If you will love them, and if they will be connected with one another, then the force of the mutual guarantee will bestow all that is necessary to every one of us.

It’s good that people today are already beginning to understand that they do not want to be in a mutual guarantee with others. However, once they will learn that they cannot survive on their own, people will desire the mutual guarantee. And then they will realize that they do not have the strength to attain it by themselves. They will passionately desire for the law of Mutual Guarantee to govern them, but will only discover that they are unable to attain it or practice it.

That is when they will cry out so loudly that they will receive this quality from above. And from that moment on, they will become the Creator’s slaves rather than the Pharaoh’s slaves. This will happen by virtue of their desire to have another power, a different authority, rule over them. This authority is the force of bestowal, instead of their innate egoism.

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