News Report (translated from Welt Online): The financial crisis is depriving people of jobs, savings and homes. Meantime, religious institutions the world over are experiencing a surge of new believers. When a person experiences a deep shock, he opens his soul to God.

My Comment: The psychological support of “God, from Above” and the masses of people that believe in it, along with the chance to write off everything taking place as “God’s will,” have always been very appealing to people. However, people will go through this state and outgrow it, egoistically. They will then discover that they have to make their own actions, and then they’ll reveal their hatred for one another, which is killing humanity. They will stand face to face against it, and will clearly see that it is the main cause of this “life that’s worse than death.”

Appealing to God won’t help. Only when we recognize that it’s necessary to correct ourselves will we reveal that God doesn’t want our appeals about improving the world, but only our appeals for correction.

Related Material:
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News Report (from US News & World Report): A team at the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University followed 1,000 seniors in three Florida retirement communities for up to 15 years. They found that women with higher levels of anxiety at the start of the study lived longer than others. In contrast to women, men with higher anxiety levels at the start of the study were more likely to die earlier, the researchers said. “Our research indicates that anxiety may have a protective effect on women…,” Dr. Jianping Zhang, of the department of psychiatry and psychology at the Cleveland Clinic, said in a prepared statement. “In contrast, increasing anxiety over time is more detrimental to men.”

My Comment: Well, this just goes to show who’s the stronger sex! And the reason for it all is that a woman is naturally closer to nature; she is Malchut – all of nature. A man, on the other hand, does not have strong roots in our world, because he has to master them through becoming similar to the Creator. Only then will he find his place and become strong – stronger than the woman. So it’s true what they say: Behind every successful man, there is a woman. This is absolutely true in the spiritual sense as well, where one’s “woman” is one’s corrected desire.

Question: What is your view about Hillary Clinton being expected to accept the position of Secretary of State in the Obama administration? A woman is a powerful force; could this be a positive move?

My Answer: In our time, when everyone is feeling empty and revealing the need for correction, perhaps this is best, since women are more cautious and realistic, less ambitious and closer to nature. However, on the whole, this is contrary to our spiritual nature, where a person begins by correcting the “man” within and only afterward – the “woman” within.

Related Material:
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Questions I received on questions and answers:

Question: I am confused about how you can give one answer to many questions asked by different people. You treat them as if they are robots, and you give everyone the same answer: that they have got it all wrong and that their path will clear up with time. I agree that there is a lot of confusion along the way, but how can you assume this kind of authority? After all, every soul is different from the others, and their paths are also different. Just as there cannot be two identical people, there can’t be one answer for everyone. I think that you have to open up to people a bit more.

My Answer: Man is the desire to enjoy. Everything is determined only by the size and quality (type) of the desire. Generally speaking, everyone develops in the same way – just like it happens with children’s physical development. There is only one Law. And just like with children, the differences are insignificant. The method is the same for everyone, and I was not the one who created it. The Teacher (me) explains the method and the rules of spiritual development; he gives answers and advice, and the student applies them to himself. Through the searching and the confusion, called “the Creator’s concealment,” one seeks the opportunity to reveal the Creator by changing himself.

I understand your complaints about me and about the path, but you will have to accept the conditions of spiritual development – “from darkness to the Light.” Continue reading and you will see why it cannot be different.

Question: Sometimes people ask you simple questions on the blog, but your answers are so complicated that it seems as if you’re not answering the questions directly. Instead the answers always come with broad, lengthy and complicated explanations. Is there a reason for this? I sincerely hope that you will have the courage to post this question.

My Answer: It’s because I’m either unable to give a simpler answer, though I do try, or you don’t understand the depth of the question and the answer.

Question: When I have questions, should I look for the answers only through my study? Or should I ask them and make them public? Or can I combine these two alternatives?

My Answer: By making efforts, you evoke the influence of the Correcting Light (Ohr Makif) upon you. As a result of Its influence, you will start understanding and seeing through the matter of our world.

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Three questions I received on various spiritual practices:

Question: These days we hear many things about secret societies and their influence in our society – societies like the Knights Templar, Rosicrucians and the Freemasons. What does Kabbalah say about these brotherhoods? Are their teachings in accordance with Kabbalah? Are they a good thing to join? Or are they agents who only follow their ego ?

My Answer: I think of them as childish games. All of the secrecy is just for blowing up their importance.

There is a possibility to influence the Creator and thus to govern the world, and it is available to everyone – to the degree one becomes corrected so as to be good toward everyone.

Question: Is there only one school of Kabbalah or several?

My Answer: There are other groups that study Kabbalah. You can probably find them on the Internet.

Question: I am interested in the issue about the red strings. Some say that they have no relation to Kabbalah. Others say that they protect people from “the evil eye.” I understand that this could be explained as a psychological effect, but I heard that the red strings give one a connection with protective energy (due to being produced in a special ritual setting).

My Answer: They are no more than a psychological effect. Kabbalah forbids this because it is a deceit and distracts a person from the goal for which he and this world were created.

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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.

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News Report (from Science Daily): New research by University of Illinois psychology professor Jesse Preston and her colleague, Nicholas Epley, of the University of Chicago shows that a person’s unconscious attitudes toward science and God may be fundamentally opposed. Those who were asked to use God as an ultimate explanation for various phenomena displayed a more positive association with God and a much more negative association with science than those directed to list other things that can explain God, the researchers found. … The most obvious implication of the research is that “to be compatible, science and religion need to stick to their own territories, their own explanatory space,” Preston said. “However, religion and science have never been able to do that…”

My Comment: Faith is opposite to science, which is based on reliable facts and does not accept unproven data. A belief in God is a belief in something that others said. With respect to its attitude to facts, Kabbalah is science: a person reveals a new reality and then scientifically (experimentally) researches it. He obtains data and then passes it on to others, who also reveal this reality and research it. The results are compared over the course of millennia – and this is what comprises the science of Kabbalah.

The opposition between Kabbalah and religion has been demonstrated for thousands of years. Religious people hate Kabbalah and desire to replace it with their theories, to confuse people by any means possible by offering them their own fabrications under the name of Kabbalah (whether cameos, blessings, healings, or explanations). It’s clear why Kabbalah makes religious people anxious: it’s because Kabbalah comes to replace religion, to reveal the Creator – which is the subject of the science of Kabbalah by definition. Hence Kabbalah annuls religion, reducing it to mundane social and familial cultural traditions.

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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:
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About Bnei Baruch
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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:
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A question I received: Do the thoughts of someone who’s advancing in spirituality influence the world more than the thoughts of someone whose point in the heart hasn’t awakened yet?

My Answer: Our egoistic desires and thoughts (the heart and mind) don’t have any influence on the world, since they are entirely controlled from Above. So why is it written that all of man’s thoughts and desires affect the world? It’s because the world is influenced by the degree of one’s lack of correction, or one’s discrepancy with the Reshimo that surfaces in him. However, the world isn’t affected by one’s personal aspiration.

In other words, when one has uncorrected desires and thoughts, he influences the world with their lack of correction. However, the only conscious and direct influence we can have is through a desire that matches the Reshimo or the direction of our development. In other words, it’s possible only by realizing the Reshimo correctly.

Indeed, everything depends on the force of the screen, the quality of bestowal – only this influences the world. Thought is the most powerful force in the world. And generally speaking, the greater a force is, the more concealed from us it is. When a person rises spiritually, the power of his thoughts increases. Physical forces operate only in our dimension of time, place, and movement, whereas spiritual forces are not limited by space, time, and place. See Baal HaSulam’s article “Thou Hast Hemmed Me In Behind and Before.”

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From item 40 of the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” by Baal HaSulam:

“And I know that it is completely unaccepted in the eyes of some philosophers. They cannot agree that man, whom they think of as low and worthless, is the center of the magnificent creation. But they are like a worm that is born inside a radish and thinks that the world of the Creator is as bitter and as dark as the radish it was born in. But as soon as the shell of the radish [of one’s egoism] breaks and it peeps out [comes out of the egoism, of the intention, “for his own sake,” and enters bestowal and love for others], it wonders [in awe of the Upper World that it revealed] and says: “I thought the whole world was the size of my radish, but now I see before me a grand, beautiful and wondrous world!”

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