Three questions I received on women’s work in Kabbalah:

Question: What is a woman’s role in Kabbalah?

My Answer: Both in our world and in the society of the future, which will be corrected from egoism, a woman is a full fledged half and more, because all people complete each other in a single system. A woman can feel her own perfection and full value only through self-correction, by becoming loving and bestowing to the entire world. It’s precisely in her corrected state that the female part of the common soul feels equal, or even greater than everyone, because precisely the desire that’s embodied by the female part of the common soul becomes the reason for the revelation of the Creator (the Light).

Question: If Lo Lishma (לא לשמה) doesn’t push a person to attain Lishma (לשמה), then the group has to exert its influence on him. How can a woman elicit this pressure?

My Answer: With her desire, because she depends on the attainment of the Light by the men’s group.

Question: I want to open up a book, read it, and enjoy it. But ever since I started studying Kabbalah I no longer enjoy reading. What should I do?

My Answer: Learn to receive pleasure from the Upper Worlds!

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Two questions I received on relating to one’s environment:

Question: In one of your lessons in the United States, you said that people who are ready for a new worldview should voluntarily limit their needs to the minimum bodily necessities for food, shelter, leisure and knowledge. What should we do about the rest of our surroundings such as children, spouses, and parents, who are not ready to limit themselves? Is it sufficient to limit myself while giving those around me what they desire, and show them that my path is correct just through personal example? By the way, I have acted this way all my life, and in return everyone around me tacitly hates me and puts me down.

My Answer: If one’s head is “in the clouds,” then he naturally takes no more than the necessities from this world. He does not have to limit himself because this just comes to him naturally. This is the attitude one has when he realizes that the whole world is one family.

If the people around you hate you and put you down, it’s probably because you’re forcing them or prohibiting them from something.

Question: Can one person make another person feel a lack or need (whether spiritual or corporeal)?

My Answer: The environment can evoke or suppress any earthly desire in anyone (see the article “The Freedom”). Moreover, if a person has a point in the heart, the society can accelerate its development.

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I received many questions on the reason for our suffering and the current crisis. Here’s my answer:

Kabbalah states that there is only one reason for everything that’s happening: man’s failure to observe the law of balance with Nature, or in other words, failure to observe the law of equivalence to the Creator. Precisely this failure to observe balance on the highest level, called “Human,” to have interpersonal relationships according to the principle “Love your neighbor as yourself,” leads to a breach of balance on the lower levels. As a result, the animal and plant kingdoms are dying out, and the balance of forces on the still level of nature are disrupted as well. All of this is an outcome of our egoistic thoughts, desires, and actions.

It’s no accident that the leading financiers have correctly pinpointed the reason for the financial crisis: it is a crisis of moral values, where greed has given rise to an avalanche of irresponsible accumulation. But as we can see, the suffering teaches people, even financiers, to see the reason for their misfortunes. As a result, the great suffering (to the point of hunger and near-extinction) will force us to restructure our egoistic attitude to humanity and the world.

Kabbalah offers us a way to implement these changes voluntarily and pleasantly, before the crises will catch up with us. Otherwise they will only keep mounting, like the plagues of Egypt.

It is difficult to understand how our egoism can influence natural disasters and global warming. But here too, the suffering will help us figure out the reason for what’s happening. The storms all over the world will keep gaining momentum, and the melting glaciers in Greenland will cause tornadoes. When this happens, it will suddenly become clear to us that the reason for these phenomena is our egoism and unfounded hatred for one another. In this way, Nature will teach humans to become “Human,” to observe the law of equivalence and attain balance!

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On November 25, at the Foreign Press Association Media Award in London, Prince Charles stated:

Humanity has a natural tendency to consume and if there are no limits on that tendency we can become obsessed simply with satisfying our desires. The desire grows ever more potent as we consume ever more, even though we achieve very little of the actual satisfaction we desire…

We hear so many people admitting to feeling deeply dissatisfied. This reminds me of that wise observation about Gross National Product made by Robert Kennedy forty years ago, that it “measures everything except that which makes life worthwhile.”

…many do not even realize that we have lost something very precious – what I might best describe as that intuitive sense of our interconnectedness with Nature… I consider our problems today not to be an environmental crisis per se… nor a financial crisis. They all stem from this fundamental crisis in our perception.

…the denial of our real relationship with the universal truths through a deep connection with Nature and her laws has engendered a dangerous alienation. In denying or forgetting the invisible “grammar of harmony” we create cacophony and dissonance.

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Two questions I received on our connections with other souls:

Question: You say that before the destruction of the Temple, the entire nation of Israel, millions of people, all had spiritual attainment for centuries. What was their contribution to our civilization? What role did those millions of people have? After all, we only use texts produced by a handful of individuals from that nation. Did those millions leave nothing behind except for their gene pool?

My Answer: They left us their spiritual gene pool – their corrections in the common soul. Moreover, they continue taking part in the world’s correction together with us, now. It’s because the spiritual world is an entity that exists constantly, where nothing ever fades or disappears.

Question: The souls are corrected via the correction of egoistic desires and return to their source – the one Soul. Through our correction we build our Kelim, and after our physical death we retain the sensation of the spiritual world in these Kelim. How are our Kelim connected to the souls that have undergone their corrections through us?

My Answer: The soul is the quality of bestowal that a person can acquire only while being in a corporeal body in this world. All that he feels through the soul before the body’s death is what he’ll feel after. Through this quality of bestowal, a person feels connected with the other souls – with those who have undergone corrections through him, as well as those through whom he, too, had undergone corrections.

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A question I received: Lately we see parents doing awful things to their children, which shows that they feel extreme hatred for them. Why?

My Answer: This is an expression of people’s boundless egoism, which only keeps increasing. Lately we also witness many new relationships between the sexes and between generations. People want to curb procreation, they don’t care about creating a family and raising children. This is particularly apparent in large cities, where the native population is gradually being replaced by newcomers.

Another very difficult social and ethical problem that’s emerging is, “What should be done with the elderly?” The current economic crisis is going to destroy pension funds, and there will be no one to feed the senior citizens because the number of people working will be significantly less than those retired.

Furthermore, the young generation that’s able to work will find itself in a world that has completely exhausted its natural resources, a world that’s unable to feed them. As a result, there will be wars and hunger.

Or we can quickly correct ourselves and Nature through the method of Kabbalah, which will promptly bring people and the world to a state of harmony and balance!

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Two questions I received on how to talk to people about Kabbalah:

Question: How can a person who’s on the animate level understand that he needs to be corrected just from the blows he receives? If a person has never studied or even come in contact with Kabbalah, how is it possible to explain to him that all the bad things happen because we act incorrectly? People who experienced major tragedies change their outlook on life, but still, they don’t always choose the path of Kabbalah.

My Answer: We see great suffering in the world, sometimes even worse than death, and this has gone on for millennia. Sometimes death seems like redemption, yet our nature, our will to receive, does not let us give up our lives. And despite all of this, people do not aspire to Kabbalah as a means of fulfillment.

Why don’t they see that the method of neutralizing all the evil and acquiring the good is right under their noses? And even if we offer it to them, they won’t hear us! It’s because a person can “choose Kabbalah” only when a specific desire (Reshimo) surfaces within – the “point in the heart,” the desire to fulfill one’s soul.

But if the desires (Reshimot) surfacing in a person are still prior to “the point in the heart,” they are considered preliminary. His life takes place inside these desires and there he remains, despite all the suffering, and he won’t perceive that Kabbalah is the salvation. Perhaps he will throw himself into mysticism, religion, and other practices, but not yet Kabbalah.

Question: When is it best to talk to people about Kabbalah and when to keep quiet? I travel a lot and meet many different people, with whom I talk about Kabbalah. However, lately I started to understand that by talking to people about Kabbalah, I’m doing something wrong. Still, I know that this is the purpose of my life and of my travels. How can I do it better?

My Answer: You can talk about it, but in a simple, not overbearing manner, in a way that your listener will like. It would be good to give them a newspaper or a book with our website’s address on it.

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Two questions I received on the arts and spirituality:

Question: In a previous blog entry, in response to the question of whether works of art are spiritual, you said: “All art was brought about by man’s desire to express himself, or in other words, by the desire for glory, to stand out, to prove something (even if it’s to himself), to express his way of seeing things.”

But you have also said that “A desire cannot be bad if it is accompanied by the intention to bestow.”

My Answer: In order to acquire an intention of bestowal, a person has to study Kabbalah for at least three years. Then, as a result of the Upper Light’s influence, the quality of bestowal will appear within him. There is no other means to correct your original egoistic intention and transform it into a spiritual one.

Question: An actor is connected with the audience and they understand each other. He gives fully of himself to them, and in return receives applause (fulfillment). The audience applauds with great emotion, giving all of their feelings to the actor, and in return they receive fulfillment from his performance. It is a mutual, yet egoistic connection. Should our adhesion with the Creator be something like this?

My Answer: In the example above you’re exchanging different types of pleasure. However, when it comes to the Creator, you must become similar to Him through the quality of bestowal, and this will determine the degree of your connection with Him.

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Two questions I received on the financial crisis:

Question: What will happen to the American capital market? Is there any chance it will be restored?

My Answer: The restoration will not happen quickly. As we undergo a change in our consciousness, rather than perish humanity will change its entire worldview: instead of caring for their bodies, people will spend their time caring about spiritual fulfillment.

There is no going back or repeating the past. Either we will take “the Path of Suffering” and enter a period of Nature’s blows until we find ourselves on the brink of extinction, while a small part of humanity (which will incorporate all the souls) will attain the spiritual goal of humanity.

Or we will accept the method of Kabbalah and completely restructure our lives in accordance with it. In this case, the planet will nourish us and we will stop being punished through natural and social crises. This is called “the Path of Light.”

We must understand that the banking crisis, which has already been replaced by the economic crisis, will grow into a social crisis – and then into an ecological one (lack of food and water, which can happen within the next ten years), then into a military one (Nazism), and so on, until mankind becomes completely savage. Alternatively, we can correct our egoistic nature using the method of Kabbalah. There is no other method, because all other methods lack the Upper Force, which created us and hence is able to correct us.

Question: Everyone’s talking about the crisis, but it’s hard for me to feel it personally. What can I do share this growing concern?

My Answer: The crisis will catch up to everyone.

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Three questions I received on mental disorders, tattoos, and prostitution:

Question: You have said in a previous blog entry that “if a person is mentally sane, then Kabbalah will solve his psychological problems.” I suffer from conditions of ADD which moderately impair my abilities to retain much of what I read. Will reading and re-reading Kabbalistic materials help to alleviate this mental block? Also do you make appearances such as book signings, etc.? It would be an honor to meet you!

My Answer: The study of Kabbalah corrects a person, and therefore it definitely heals as well.

I sign books at every public lecture I give and at Congresses. That’s where you can meet me. I invite you to attend the congress that will take place in February 2009 in Israel.

Question: Is it wrong to want to display my respect and love of Kabbalah by tattooing scriptures on my body?

My Answer: Kabbalah says that we should only desire an inner change and inner observation, through which the Creator becomes revealed to a person. This leaves the externality, the bodily aspects, only their minimal (necessary) existence. The body is no object of concern, aside from the necessities.

Question: What is the spiritual root of prostitution? Why has it existed for millennia and continues to be so popular?

My Answer: Because it satisfies one of man’s primary desires, which are: food, sex, family (home), wealth, power, and knowledge.

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