News Report (From NewScientist): “Artificial Molecule Evolves in a Lab” A new molecule that performs the essential function of life – self-replication – could shed light on the origin of all living things. If that wasn’t enough, the laboratory-born ribonucleic acid (RNA) strand evolves in a test tube to double itself ever more swiftly. Gerald Joyce, a biochemist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California hopes to imbue his team’s molecule with all the fundamental properties of life: self-replication, evolution, and function. Joyce’s team created its own molecule from scratch…

My Comment: Creation is an act of “something emerging from nothing.” However, it is not when we take ready made ingredients, tinker with them, and end up with some “concoction.” After all, if that was considered creation, then we would also be able to say that the act of conception is the same as an act of creation as well.

Of course, scientists understand that they are only using matter, and its laws and qualities. Still, I hope my comment will help people avoid the pitfall of thinking that we can create in a similar way as the Creator, whose act of creation was to create “Something from nothing” (esh Mi Ain).

Kabbalah reveals the beginning of creation to man: the Light created a desire from nothing, from non-existence, so this desire would desire Him and receive pleasure from being fulfilled by Him. All of creation consists only of these two: the Light and the Desire. The Light is the Creator, and the Desire is the creation. All the changes occur only in the desire, which changes from being opposite to the Light, to being similar to the Light. All the worlds and everything inhabiting them, including us, are parts of this desire.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Light Is Everything That’s Received In the Kli
Laitman.com Post: The Only Point of Freedom Is Your Reaction to the Creator
“Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” Items 1-5
“Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” Items 6-12

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News Report (from The Telegraph): A mind game where players guide a ball through an obstacle course using nothing but the power of their thoughts has been developed by toy manufacturers. The Mind Flex comes with a brain-scanning headset which measures brainwaves and turns them into energy. The aim of the game is to concentrate hard enough to generate enough energy to power a fan which in turn causes a ball to levitate and move through a series of hoops.

The toy made by Mattel, the world’s largest toy manufacturer and makers of the Barbie doll, has been previewed in the US. The game is expected to cause much discussion at the Consumer Electronics Show 2009 which is currently taking place in Las Vegas.

My Comment: Actually, there’s nothing supernatural about this, because thoughts are also forces that have energy, which is expressed on different levels of the brain’s function. For example, as electrochemical vectors, pressure, and the changes taking place in any parameter of an organism.

Nonetheless, all of these toys help us to realize that we are nearing a boundary, a threshold leading to a world that is currently concealed from us. And we are getting closer to revealing it.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Thought is the Most Powerful Force In the World
Laitman.com Post: A Call for Ideas – New Children’s Games
Kabbalah Today Article: “A Game Is a Serious Affair”
Shamati #153: “A Thought Is an Upshot of the Desire”

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News Report (translated from Israelinfo.ru): The more Israeli cities end up “on the front lines,” the more Israelis from other regions of the country offer their own homes to accommodate refugees from the south. Right now the number of those offering help is much higher than those asking for it.

My Comment: Common misery brings people closer and helps them unite, if they can’t manage to do it otherwise. Perhaps if we try to unite without the wars, then we won’t need any!

Question: Are the people who help others in this world also egoists because they receive something in return, such as a feeling of appeasement?

My Answer: Yes.

Question cont’d: Does that mean that in this world, altruism is impossible without studying Kabbalah?

My Answer: That’s right, because one is not drawing the force of correction.

Question cont’d: Still, aren’t the people who help others in this world behaving “better” than outright egoists?

My Answer: Yes, but only temporarily, until their egoism will force them to change.

Question cont’d: Then what’s the use of helping others in this world?

My Answer: We should help others, but at the same time we have to understand that this is not the solution. It only buys us time and the opportunity to study Kabbalah – and Kabbalah will provide the correction, the treatment of the problem at the root. Then, no one will need help anymore.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: What to Do If You’re an “Altruist”
Kabbalah Today Article: “Who Are You, People of Israel?”
Talk: “Perceiving the Desires”
Shamati #2: “Divinity in Exile”

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Questions I received on Maaser:

Question: Can we advance spiritually if we don’t pay a tithe (Maaser)?

My Answer: No.

Question cont’d: I bought the book Kabbalah for the Student and printed “The Introduction to The Book Of Zohar” from it myself. Is this considered as a tithe?

My Answer: No.

Question cont’d: With the obligation of paying the tithe, many people will be turned off to Kabbalah and this will not be a solution for them. At first they engage in Kabbalah with all of their desire, and after a while they understand that they have to pay Maaser in order to advance spiritually. I wonder, if a person is already above the Machsom, will he also be obliged to pay Maaser in order to attain the whole goal?

My Answer: Yes.

Question cont’d: Even on the last 125th degree of the ladder?

My Answer: Yes.

Question cont’d: But the poor won’t be able to advance even a millimeter.

My Answer: If they’re poor, their Maaser is also small, accordingly.

Question cont’d: I am very disappointed that one has to pay to attain spirituality. The Maaser has to be removed because it is a limitation to attaining the so called “new civilization.”

My Answer: Maaser is a law of nature, and no one can remove it. You are not paying anyone; you are merely deducting the part of you that is impossible to correct and giving it to the world’s correction through a different method. You are realizing your own Maaser for disseminating Kabbalah around you. You should read about it (you can also look it up on Google.com).

The Maaser is 10% of your desires, which pertain to Malchut and which you are incapable of correcting on your own. You can only separate a tenth of your income, which corresponds to them. Otherwise your soul will not be corrected; however, it’s not corrected by the money, but by your rejection of it. This is why you are able spend this money on all kinds of empty objects, but find it practically impossible to spend it on Maaser!

Question: I understand that we are to pay 10% of our net/gross income as our Maaser. Where do we make the contribution? Are we to do it once a month according to our monthly income or can we do it bi-weekly with our pay cycle? Are you saying that, if we do not participate in the Maaser, we will still advance spiritually, but we will hinder the whole from advancing quicker?

My Answer: You should look for the answer in previous posts on this topic.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: How to Calculate the Maaser

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News Report (from Phantoms & Monsters): The CEUFO (Center for Studies UFO) of Argentina received an email from a photographer (Fabián Romano) that claimed to have captured a strange being on his camera while taking some shots around the Macachín airport. The CEUFO analyzed the image and declared it to be that of a flying “entity.” They also said that the image was of a “high strangeness.”

My Comment: Spirituality consists of forces that are not clothed in matter. They descend to us from their source – the Creator, and they are called “angels” (in Hebrew “Malach” – singular, “Malachim” – plural). We cannot see or perceive these forces, but only their influences, their manifestations in matter. It’s similar to how we can only perceive the influence of a magnetic or gravitational field, but not these fields in and of themselves.

We perceive the Creator in the same way – in our desires of bestowal and love. That is how this force of Goodness, Love and Bestowal is revealed in us. Its revelation in us is called “the part of the Creator from above,” or the soul. To perceive one’s soul, to have a soul, or to perceive the Creator – is one and the same (Israel, the Torah and the Creator are One). The “Preface to the Book of Zohar” talks about our perception, explaining that everything is perceived within us, and not outside. Hence, this leaves no room for “miracles!” In this world, everything is prosaic and bleak. But once you reveal the Upper World, there you will discover true miracles.

And here’s another explanation: All the forces of our world, (the forces clothed in matter that we can perceive) are also angels. Even the still, vegetative and animate levels of nature, man included, are angels, because they are completely controlled by the Creator. So who isn’t an angel? Only a Kabbalist, because he becomes independent, a Man (Adam, one who is similar to the Creator), one who is independent from the Creator. A Kabbalist isn’t just one of the Creator’s forces or messengers, and hence, a Kabbalist is not an angel.

One time, Rabash and I went to a zoo to talk about the roots and branches in both worlds. When we got there, he exclaimed: “So many angels in one place!”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: There Are No Images In the Spiritual World
Laitman.com Post: Don’t Get Lost In All the Angels
Baal HaSulam Article: “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”
The Introduction to the Article “The Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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News Report (from Science Daily): All spiritual experiences are based in the brain, according to a University of Missouri neuropsychologist. …spiritual experiences associated with selflessness are related to decreased activity in the right parietal lobe of the brain. This study, along with other recent neuroradiological studies of Buddhist meditators and Franciscan nuns, suggests that all individuals, regardless of cultural background or religion, experience the same neuropsychological functions during spiritual experiences, such as transcendence.

My Comment: The science of our world can only discern the external manifestations of all phenomena, as in this case with physiological phenomena. However, it cannot say anything about their inner essence.

Kabbalah explains that at the very center of Nature, there is Light. Surrounding the Light is the desire It created. The desire and the Light create a system of interconnections, called the system of the worlds. The most external (the last) world creates a shell around itself – the matter of our world. We perceive just this matter, and based on it we reason about what’s happening. However, all occurrences originate at the very core of this great global system – in the “place” where God resides.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Scientific Theories Cannot Prove that God Exists
Laitman.com Post: We Are In the Center of All the Worlds
Laitman.com Post: Why Would Anyone Believe In God?
Kabbalah Today Article: The Tree of Life
Kabbalah Today Article: “Light”—the Kabbalistic Meaning

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News Report (from BBC News): A look of horror will grab the attention of those around you faster than a smile, US research shows. Individuals react more quickly to a fearful expression than to faces showing other emotions such as joy, a study in the journal Emotion found. … It is thought the brain has evolved to react more quickly to potentially threatening situations.

My Comment: This is because we perceive everything within our egoistic desire “to receive.” But if we switch to the desire “to bestow,” then our perception of the world will change: we’ll notice smiles instead of looks of horror, because the phenomenon of “danger” or “threat” will cease to exist for us. And that’s because we will reveal that Nature is absolute goodness. Baal HaSulam describes this wonderfully in the article “The Creator’s Concealment and Revelation” – whether we perceive the world as horrible or wonderful depends only on the qualities of the observer.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Heaven is the Feeling of Delight from Being Similar to the Creator
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Kabbalah Today Article: Why Do We Call the Creator “The Creator?”
Talk: “Perception of Reality”
Shamati #30: “The Most Important Is to Want Only to Bestow”

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A question I received: I heard you say that the goal of the crisis is to bring all humanity to one level, where every person receives his necessities and invests all the rest into society (like cells in a body). My question is: what’s so special about such a connection between people? Why does the Creator want us to reach it?

My Answer: Because then, instead of foolishly pursuing empty and illusory fulfillments of this world, we will consciously receive only as much as we need for our physical existence. And our entire existence will be solely for the sake of others. By implementing this principle, we will become similar to the Creator and will thereby feel like He does – eternal and perfect. That’s what’s special about such an existence!

By “necessities” I mean the kind of fulfillment where I don’t desire anything else. Moreover, I would gladly rid myself of this as well, but I can’t, because I was created as one who has to consume. The goal is to attain a state where one’s entire fulfillment doesn’t come from reception but from bestowal. Then, one perceives the life of the entire creation – the eternal organism of the single soul of Adam. In this case, the connection that emerges between people enables a person to perceive more than this connection, to feel a new quality – the Upper Light that created him, the Creator. This state constitutes the goal of creation. It is perfect, and that is why the Creator desires us to attain it.

Related Material:
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News Report (from Science Daily): “Our Unconscious Brain Makes The Best Decisions Possible” Neuroscientists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky received a 2002 Nobel Prize for their 1979 research that argued humans rarely make rational decisions. Contrary to Kahnneman and Tversky’s research, Alex Pouget, associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, has shown that people do indeed make optimal decisions – but only when their unconscious brain makes the choice.

My Comment: No doubt, our earthly mind does not feel the goal which the Creator sets for us at every instant, whereas the unconscious is closer to the truth because it is led by the by the instinct rather than the corporeal circumstances. When one’s consciousness isn’t bound by egoism, which desires and calculates everything to make a profit, then one sees the truth!

Hence, we must first rise above egoism and see the world truly objectively, outside of ourselves, of our “I.” Only then can we use our egoism to attain “outside.” This attainment will indeed be called the “Upper World” – a world that’s above egoism, above our nature.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: There’s a Grand World Outside Our Bitter Radish
Laitman.com Post: Kabbalah Is a Science About the Upper World
Kabbalah Today Article: Rising Above the Ego to a New Level of Consciousness
Article: “Kabbalah – The Key to Perceiving Reality”
Kabbalah for Beginners: “Stage One”

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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:
Laitman.com Post: Men and Women in Kabbalah
Laitman.com Post: Men, Women, and the Soul’s Correction
Laitman.com Post: On the Men and Women Inside Us
Man and Woman: Talk between Rav Michael Laitman and Kabbalah Academy Instructors

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