In the News (from PBS.org): In an interview with PBS News anchor Jim Lehrer, President Barack Obama said: “The problem that I’ve seen, at least, is you don’t get a sense that folks on Wall Street feel any remorse for having taken all these risks; you don’t get a sense that there’s been a change of culture and behavior as a consequence of what has happened. And that’s why the financial regulatory reform proposals that we put forward are so important … to institute the financial regulatory programs that prevent them from taking some of the wild risks they took previously. And I also think that when it comes to issues like compensation, that at the very least, shareholders should be able to weigh in before these companies are giving these massive bonuses to high-level executives.”

My Comment: Too bad for Mr. Obama that these measures won’t help. What is needed is education of the people in order to change them in such a way that they won’t be able to inflict such irreversible harm to humankind and in addition, be able to recognize that they’ve made a mistake. This change of people’s consciousness in the global world, from individual to collective, is what is being required of us by the general interconnection between us that is now being revealed.

Humankind however, does not have the means to change itself and correct its egoism. Kabbalah offers us the means, according to the principle, “I created egoism and I created the Torah for its correction, because the Light in the Torah brings one back to the Source.” It is therefore possible to attract the Light onto yourself!

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Question: How can we educate children today, when they are surrounded by so many temptations? How can we help them avoid the influence of the environment on their small egos, and give them an education that will make spiritual development become the most important thing in their lives?

Answer: This is much easier than it seems. If we give children the right examples, then they will copy them onto their relatively pure matter. It’s written that educating a child is like writing on a clean sheet of paper, since he is still not damaged by all the social “garbage,” confusion and egoistical calculations, as is the case with adults.

Obviously, children are also egoists; they want to deceive one another in order to succeed. They make calculations very quickly and act for the sake of self-interest. But their behavior is natural and, therefore, it appears different than ours. With the same natural ease, they absorb our explanations about the system they exist in, about the world and the correct kind of relationships. Such explanations penetrate deep into their feelings, and thus you are able to build their inner system.

It can be compared to a computer system. By itself, the PC is nothing but a piece of metal that is incapable of doing anything. But when you install a program into it, the program determines how all of the computer’s components will connect and how they will function. If you install another program into the computer, then it will cancel the previous one and instruct the components to connect differently.

In the same way, when you install a new program into the child’s “hardware,” he will live according to the program’s instructions. This is called “raising a human being,” and the outcome depends on the spiritual level of the adults that are raising the child.

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In the News: (from America.gov): World Health Statistics 2008, published May 19, presents the most recent health statistics for WHO’s 193 member states on 73 health indicators.  Globally, cancer deaths will increase from 7.4 million in 2004 to 11.8 million in 2030, and deaths from cardiovascular diseases will rise from 17.1 million to 23.4 million, the report predicted. The report included road traffic accidents, saying deaths from this source will increase from 1.3 million in 2004 to 2.4 million in 2030.

My Comment: All the diseases come from… egoism.

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A question I received: In recent years, the Russian mass media has been extensively manipulating public opinion. Moreover, the influence brought about by the flow and density of this information exceeds people’s normal requirements as well as their ability to process and absorb it. This means that their perception is by definition distorted, wrong and unhealthy, regardless of the content. Would you care to comment on this?

My Answer: Only education and enlightenment can offset this. We have to act under the conditions we have, in the existing reality, without trying to destroy it. There is just one thing in reality that we have to correct – man.

Kabbalah’s view is the following: Let’s say we have a pill that we can drop into the city’s water supply, and when people drink the water, it will make them smarter, less prejudiced, and kinder. Well, even if we had this opportunity, we should by no means do this! What’s needed is a conscious correction in all regards.

Therefore, we should gradually help people feel the need to correct their qualities. A person needs to reach this realization on his or her own. It is because the entire reeking abyss of egoism has to be revealed first. It comes to us from Nature. Nature intentionally brings forth inner qualities in us that are opposite to spirituality, in order for us to realize that we need to ascend above this opposite state.

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In the News (from The Raw Story): “Worst of social, political crisis ahead: WTO chief” The worst social and political effects of the economic crisis are “still to come,” WTO [World Trade Organization] chief Pascal Lamy said Tuesday, warning these could push countries deeper into trade protectionism.

My Comment: Because the foundation of human nature is egoism, people naturally think that the antidote to the crisis is to separate from others and care for oneself, no matter how harmful the consequences might be later on. People are unable to see beyond their egoistic vision, and thus they drag themselves into greater collapse.

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In the News (from arxiv.org): “Testing the link between terrestrial climate change and Galactic spiral structure” We confront past suggestions of a close link between terrestrial climate change and the Sun’s transit of spiral arms in its path through the Milky Way galaxy. We use new information on spiral structure based on CO data that does not make simplifying assumptions about symmetry and circular rotation. Comparing the times of these transits to changes in the climate of Earth, not only do the claimed correlations disappear, but also we find that they cannot be resurrected for any reasonable pattern speed.

My Comment: All the changes that occur in Nature are influenced mainly by human behavior, or rather, by people’s thoughts and desires. The problem is that this influence is hidden from us and thus we erroneously focus on and measure our external influences, such as gas emissions and solid waste pollution.

However, even though the pollution on the Earth’s surface seems enormous, its influence on climate change is actually negligible. The greatest influence comes from our egoistic thoughts!

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Three questions I received on the new generation’s changing traits and values:

Question: In the last few years, psychologists have shown that younger people are much less able to focus their attention and to anticipate and build models for future actions.

My Answer: This is actually a positive phase of their development, because there cannot be anything negative in nature. People have to go through this, since all the positive properties and qualities originate from the negative ones.

Question: People who enjoy books, such as myself, are now being replaced by number-oriented people, who have completely different values and a different kind of perception. Because they are so different from people like me, they often just can’t hear or understand us. How can we communicate with them so they will actually listen to us?

My Answer: If this change is happening, it means that it is precisely these types of people that must start becoming aware of and sensing the spiritual world, rather than the philosophers and other thinkers of the past. Things just might work the opposite of how we expect them to: the awareness, logic, and ability to analyze and synthesize that the great, enlightened thinkers have, could actually be an obstacle that keeps them from entering the new, spiritual world.

Question: Then what type of thinking is preferable?

My Answer: Our thoughts arise as a result of our desires, because desire is the basis of our nature. Therefore, reason appears only according to one’s desire to attain something. If I desire to fulfill myself with something, then my mind develops accordingly. Otherwise, I would not have a mind (or reason).

The more I desire something and the more this desire is aimed at something higher, something new and unknown, the more my mind develops in new ways along with this new desire.

When Kabbalah speaks of reason or the mind, it is not talking about the egoistic kind of reason, which is handed down to us by various philosophers, thinkers and scholars. It is not talking about the kind of reason people are normally proud of, which they consider the human part of man. This kind of reason is not present in man, but in an egoistic creature whose mind works only for satisfying one’s egoistic desires, desires that are aimed at science and cultural values, but not bestowal. All of these desires are based on reception and egoism, but not bestowal.

This is why all the previous cultural and academic values will gradually decline. They will come down from the high pedestal they currently reside on will be considered insufficient. People will use them as a mere base to help them achieve the next, spiritual degree.

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In the News (from LiveScience): “Cancer Kills Wild Animals Too” Cancer accounts for about 10 percent of all human deaths. If you think that sets us apart, scientists have news for you: Wild animals die of cancer at about the same rate, and it threatens some species with extinction.

My Comment: Cancer is a result of egoism, because it is something that forms inside an animate body and kills adjacent tissues or its environment (as we do with the environment around us). As a result, the cancerous cells die as well.

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Two questions I received about humanity during the last generation:

Question: How will the new kind of humanity live?

My Answer: The new kind of humanity will be organized according to people’s development, rather than according to orders. Baal HaSulam describes this in the book, “The Last Generation.” In addition, this will only last until humanity completely corrects itself and attains bestowal at the level of the Creator. Then the physical world we see today will vanish.

Question: If a person remains in his corporeal body, then all his desires must also remain, including his animate desires.

My Answer: Every desire has a use. Our desires are not considered egoistic if they are necessary for our existence. When they are used for this purpose, they start to be perceived as spiritual. This is because food, sex and any other desire are the means by which we come to be like the Creator. They are the means by which we are able to become part of the common harmony of nature.

People will reach a state where the purpose of supporting one’s spiritual and corporeal body is to exist in the realm of bestowal and love.

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A question I received: You have often mentioned that man has to bring the entirety of nature to harmony. But wasn’t nature created in harmony?

My Answer: Nature dwells in absolute harmony, but this harmony lacks one element – man’s “I.” This is missing from nature’s harmony because of the egoism inherent to man, which was intentionally created within him. When Nature is seen through man’s ego, it appears chaotic and lacking in harmony.

There is a world and a Nature that are much wider and greater, far more integral and global than what we see. It incorporates the whole system of the universe, where all elements are ideally tied together. And this entire system is governed by forces that we can’t feel or see. The reason why they elude our perception and understanding is our egoism. Our egoism stands in the way and distorts Nature’s perfection.

Thus, we see the immense global and perfect system as imperfect, because it is distorted by our egoism. However, this gives us an opportunity to correct ourselves: Through our efforts toward correction, we become equal to the Creator.

Imagine that I bought a puzzle in a toy store. I bring it home, shuffle the pieces and give them to my toddler son to put back together. Why did I break the puzzle? It was for my son to learn and to realize how to assemble the pieces correctly.

Thus, our entire society, everything man has created throughout the millennia, our entire culture and civilization, are nothing but a game that we must master in order to become like Nature (the Creator). Then, this entire world will disappear from our perception and cease to exist. When we attain the spiritual world, then our entire universe, everything we perceive today through our five senses, including ourselves and the word around us, will vanish. This world will disappear like an old toy.

Instead of it, we will perceive another level of existence, another world, different kinds of interactions, and another layer of reality – one that’s eternal and perfect.

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