A question I received: The objective of every government is to lull people’s consciousness. That way people will not fall under influence of any kind of extremism. This is why the mass media has to stupefy or brainwash the masses. Clearly, man’s inner resources are not being used in this case, since they become dormant.

In the modern systematic crisis (whose essence can only be seen by Kabbalists), the government is even more eager to lull the people, since it doesn’t know what to do and even admits that it’s helpless! What solution do you propose?

My Answer: Kabbalah offers the only solution that can awaken people to action, without the danger of breaking the fragile balance of forces within the civilization that still manages to hold the world back from complete destruction and chaos.

The most general stages of realizing the solution are the following:
1. The “background mode” of the mass media should be used to give people a subconscious understanding that everyone is connected with everyone and that humanity is a unified whole. In addition, people should be made to understand what is “good” and and what is “bad” – that altruism, recognition that all people are interdependent, and the corresponding actions are good, while egoism and petty pursuit of self benefit are bad, both for the individual and for humanity as a whole.

2. Once this will enter the public consciousness, we will begin motivating people to become conscious and start making altruistic actions. At first the motive will be to solve the obvious, simple, corporeal problems, in order for everyone to see the benefits of the new way of thinking.

3. Even during stages 1 and 2, it is necessary to introduce into the streams of information, thoughts about the existence of a single force, the final goal of universe:

a) At first this should be done in a complex manner, accessible only to the people who think;
b) When the active stage begins, this should be done through simple information that’s clear to the masses, making it obvious that this is the most appealing worldview for every person.

This will give us the opportunity to unite all of humanity in a single impulse to solve our common problem, and at the same time – in the process of solving the problem – the separated souls will combine to create a single system of humanity.

What is special about this proposition? Kabbalah is the only basis with the ability to create an ideological system that satisfies two mutually exclusive criteria:
a) The system must be so powerful that people’s consciousness will not grow disillusioned of it and reject it;
b) The system must stimulate the masses to transform their consciousness.

All the other ideological models satisfy just one of these requirements:
a) Either the system works well to stimulate people’s consciousness, but does not endure (for example, revolutions);
b) Or the system brainwashes people’s consciousness, but by doing so deprives them of the active, creative force that can change the world (for example, religion).

In addition, after going through a specific period of inner changes, man discards the boundaries of the proposed model and from then on, the path of his consciousness becomes unpredictable. Still, Kabbalah helps people build the model of a new world that’s guaranteed to work with all the changes, enabling an individual’s consciousness to develop without any limitations over the course of his entire life.

This is because Kabbalah uses a physical principle that was unknown before it: when the parts of a system are correctly unified, the system gains energy overall. In other words, without altering our material resources (food, water, oil, and so on), we can solve all our problems simply by unifying people altruistically rather than egoistically (see the example of the Wolf, Goat and Cabbage).

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I was doing some research on modern Kabbalistic sources, and came across a book called Kabbalah: New Perspectives, by Prof. Moshe Idel. In it he mentions a poem by Prof. Gershom Sholem (1897 – 1982) – the founder of the modern academic field of Kabbalah. But before I say more about this poem, here is some background on its author.

Sholem devoted his career to replacing the traditional attainment of Kabbalah with academic and philological research. For example, in one of his lectures, published in the book Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, this is how he describes Kabbalah in his time, “As a result of Kabbalah’s lengthy process of development, during which Kabbalah paradoxically influenced Jewish history, it has again become the same thing it was in the beginning – an esoteric wisdom of small groups of people, who are deprived of contact with life and have no influence on it.” Likewise, in the article “On the Possibility of Jewish Mysticism in Our Time,” Sholem writes, “There is no doubt that in recent generations there were no awakened individuals who could bring mystical teachings to new forms or start significant social movements.”

In this article, like in many others, Sholem denies modern Kabbalah, or Kabbalah of the 20th century. He points out that Kabbalah has ceased playing an important role in the Jewish culture of his time and that no original and innovative Kabbalistic methods have been created since the 18th century! This viewpoint is very obvious in the article “On the Possibility of Jewish Mysticism in Our Time.” Sholem’s attitude to Kabbalah in his time is also described by the modern researcher, Prof. Boaz Hoss, in the article “Don’t Ask All Questions.”

Considering all this, it’s important to point out that Gershom Sholem, the founder of the modern academic research of Kabbalah, and a scholar who’s renowned by the entire academic world, never says a word in any of his research about Baal HaSulam, the greatest Kabbalist of his time, nor of his works on Kabbalah. How can a researcher overlook something like this? This is an example of envy, dishonesty and petty egoism that do not allow a researcher to face the truth: to admit to himself and to the entire world that all academic research of Kabbalah, anything besides its attainment – is false!

When I was giving a series of lectures in American universities, I heard different comments about Gershom Sholem. In particular, I recall one distinctive comment from the Rector of the University of Illinois, who said, “Gershom talked about Kabbalah, but you are talking from Kabbalah. He urged people to research it with the mind, while you urge people to enter it with their feelings.”

The poem that appears below was written by Gershom Sholem shortly before his death, and it shows that despite everything, he finally admitted that he is in the dark and does not attain that which is concealed in the Kabbalistic texts. Yet, the superficial academic approach and the dishonesty in researching Kabbalah that he sowed continue to be practiced by his students.

“Death in the Professoriate” was a result of replacing research of Kabbalah “through oneself and inside oneself” (or in other words, by correcting oneself in similarity to the Upper One) with academic research that’s done “outside of oneself” (in conjunction with meditation according to Abulafia).

“Vae Victis” (Woe to the Conquered) or “Death in the Professoriate”
I threw myself into ancient books.
I was awestruck by their signs.
I spent too much time alone with them.
I could no longer leave them behind.

The glimmer of Truth is ancient,
Yet disaster is unforeseen:
Generations are weakly linked,
And knowledge is not clean.

I have brought back the blurred face
Of the fullness of time.
I was ready to leap into the abyss,
But was I really primed?

The ancestral symbols are here explained;
The Kabbalist was no dope.
But what transformed time proposed
Remains foreign, beyond our scope.

Time transformed casts us a fearsome glance,
For it is unwilling to turn back again.
Yet abandoned joys grow palpable
Once your Vision has dissolved in pain.

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News Report (translated from BBC): The head of IMF, Dominic Strauss-Kahn, announced that the world is “on the brink of recession.” He appealed to world leaders to act “quickly, decisively, and together” in order to overcome the global economic problems. On Friday the President of the United States, George Bush, is expected to speak to the American public about the economic situation of the US. What are we to expect?

My Comment: Relax, the world will never be the same as it once was. Accept it and don’t try to bring it back! Through our egoistic natural development (and no one’s to blame – such is the implacable dialectic of nature), we have reached the revelation of the integral, global system of human interaction in our world. Moreover, since man is the most egoistic of all creatures, he also incorporates all of the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature, and everything requires its own solution, or the proper regulation (balance).

In this case, we become dependent on everyone else. There is no way back, and there cannot be. The forces of the common and single civilization are now surfacing, and they will make us understand that different laws are at work here – the laws of a single organism. Those who will understand this faster will be able to come out of the collapse quicker. By becoming properly connected to the common system, they will be able to cure themselves economically, socially, morally, and so on.

I am not a prophet, but following Baal HaSulam’s texts, for the past six years I have been speaking and writing books and articles about the crisis. There was no way to prevent it, but there is a means to come out of it. I’ve spoken to important people about this, telling them that it is necessary to institute “global education,” or in other words – “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” because otherwise things will get bad. However, they laughed at my naivety.

Now we have to start the work of explaining the situation to people, and we are running late with this. While people learn how to change things, the blows of fate will keep on coming.

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Spiritual movement in unlike physical relocation from one place to another. It’s a movement in one’s intention, a renewal of qualities.
Baal HaSulam, Talmud Eser Sefirot, item 1

Time is a sensation of movement. The brain envisions images of movement, copying them in its imagination into the category of “time.” If man and his surrounding were in absolute peace, there would be no notion of time.
Baal HaSulam, Talmud Eser Sefirot, item 1

The notions of time, past, present and future, are man made notions and are not absolute. Everything exists in the Upper Force without any action on behalf of the Upper One. Everything that exists in the force later takes place in action. And those who come closer to the Creator – above the universe, ascend above time.
Rav Kook, “Letters. Volume 2”

The Book of Zohar does not speak of this world at all, but only of the Upper Worlds where there is no time like in the corporeal world. Spiritual time is a change in qualities.
The Book of Zohar, Vayatze, collection 2

Human egoism constantly prevails over man, unless the Creator helps him by bringing his soul closer to Him through shining His Light at specific times.
“Yesher Divrey Emet,” p. 35

All times and all actions exist eternally. The future receives influence from the past and from that which will happen afterwards. Time submits to forces that operate in the past, in the present, and in the future.
Ramchal, Adir BaMarom, p. 187

That which shines in alternation will shine constantly in the future, when all the past will gather into an eternal state.
Ramchal. Adir BaMarom, p. 18
[2125]

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A question I received: Why do you draw a connection between the financial crisis and a “global Kabbalistic revolution?” Isn’t this going a bit too far?

My Answer: There is a state of standalone objects, and there is a state when they unite into a system. That is when new and special laws are revealed – the laws of globalization, communication, interaction, and interdependence.

Standalone individuals in the animal kingdom are egoists, but as soon as they join together, a law is revealed that enables their system to survive. This law obligates them to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the system, for their society. Of course, in the animal kingdom this happens unconsciously; it is embedded in the animals by nature and they follow it blindly. The human level differs by man’s self-awareness. Man must carry out the same laws of nature consciously and willingly.

Hence, as long as we were not united, there was no need to take the system into account, nor to follow Nature’s law of “bestowal and love for one’s neighbor.” However, as soon as a tight interconnection emerged in Ancient Babylon – the first global civilization (global with regard to that time period, in a compact area), then a crisis was immediately revealed – our imbalance with the natural law of the human community, “love thy neighbor as thyself.”

In Babylon, we managed to solve this problem by annulling the very system or civilization. We separated from each other and scattered all over the world. However, today we are connected and there is no place to run. We can try, but by so doing we will only go back to the past. We can’t even imagine what comforts we will lose, because no country in the world today can be self-sufficient. This would be like going back to feudalism. Our development, its forms and pace are predetermined by nature and its integral law. Hence, if we go against it, we will perceive our opposition to it in the form of terrible suffering.

This is why Kabbalah says that the only option we have is to recognize the natural law of the human community, which is “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Of course, this type of relationship can be adopted only when every individual will be corrected from “for the sake of oneself” to “for the sake of others.” This can be done with ease if:

1. The society and the mass media will support and encourage this, and look down on those who do not do this (however, not by means of punishment);
2. People will study Kabbalah (for the masses, superficial familiarity with Kabbalah will suffice) and thereby attract our future state, which already exists.

I think that “procrastination is like death” – in the literal sense of the word.

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A question I received: What can every person do to change the situation in the world?

My Answer: No physical, political, scientific, or social actions can change our world. So if the world can’t be changed, perhaps we can change man. What will this give us?

Physicists are discovering that the results of scientific experiments depend on man’s presence, even though they still don’t know the degree of this influence nor its nature. Kabbalah studies how man’s consciousness and intentions affect reality, and how we can control this influence in order to change reality!

There is an initial, constant and absolute reality – the World of infinity. Besides, there is a reality that we create with our intentions. In our world, we have never before changed our egoistic intentions. We did not know that by changing our intentions from “for our own sake” to “for the sake of others,” we actually change all of reality.

We did not know that we can affect reality to the degree we become similar to the Creator’s quality – “bestowal and love.” Kabbalah tells us how to do this.

At the end of our spiritual development we will be convinced that the only thing we have to change is ourselves (rather than the world). By doing so we won’t just change our world, but all of reality will change from corporeal to spiritual, from life in the body to life in the soul.

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When I speak to economists about the crisis, I find that they and I are interested in different things. They are not interested in the cause of the crisis, and are willing to accept my explanation of it. What interests them is the evolution of the crisis, and what needs to be done here and now – by a bank or a family.

For now, my propositions that what needs to be corrected are the relationships between everyone – both organizations and people around the world, sound naïve to them, because they do not yet see the cause of the crisis – the lack of kind connections between people. These connections must come from the understanding that we are all part of one organism, and we can cure this organism only by mutually caring for all of its parts. That is the only way to solve this global problem and all the crises that are gradually becoming revealed in humanity today. They are being revealed because our egoistic development has brought us to the point where we are all united within a single organism.

With regard to the global crisis, the process has begun, but this is just the beginning. There is a lot to say about it, and we will talk about it much more in the future – its causes, progress, purpose, and possibilities of softening it – “the path of Light” that Kabbalah offers instead of “the path of suffering.”

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A riddle about a wolf, a goat and a cabbage: how do you get them across a river on a boat, without any of them eating each other?

The boat is very small and can only carry one object at a time: either the wolf, the goat, or the cabbage. If you take the wolf, then you will have to leave the goat on shore alone with the cabbage, and the goat will eat the cabbage. And so on.

Due to the primitive egoism of the animals, this simple situation turns into a non-trivial problem for a person with strategic thinking. It seems like such a simple riddle, but you need so much time and energy in order to resolve it!

This is a wonderful illustration of how the modern civilization is built. The simplest problem in our world becomes a difficult riddle due to the same principle. For example, you need to transport something from one place to another. It seems very simple – let’s take a truck and transport it. But what if it’s money, gold or diamonds? Then you need an additional twenty people for security, special buildings, an armored car, weapons and advanced technology. This shows that all the connections inside the meta-system called “human society” are extremely inefficient. 99% of our efforts are spent on the friction inside the mechanism! The system resists any altruistic action inside of it.

Caravans with food for dying people are robbed. Money intended for the poorest countries is stolen on the way there, and so on.

Nonetheless, until recently even the remaining 1% was enough for humanity to keep developing. However, now we see that our civilization is on the verge of extinction. The entire multi-millennial structure has exhausted its margin of reserves and is ready to fall apart like a house of cards.

We’ve got a funny situation here: scientists from the entire world are working to create a car engine, a light bulb, and other products that will be more economic. But what are they doing it for, really? It is all done for the same reason – to satisfy people’s growing egoism. We can’t force people to drive less, so let’s at least give them a more economic engine.

Now imagine that we could slightly change a person’s consciousness and expand his conception of the world’s structure and his place in the universe. Then every person who needs to drive somewhere will ask himself, “How can I do this more economically? Perhaps I can take other people in the car with me, or take a bus?” He won’t think about saving on his personal gasoline, but about saving the global oil reserves that are shared by all humanity.

And it will be this way everywhere! Humanity has a tenfold margin of reserves across all parameters: fuel, food, health, and so on. However, fuel is being used up for pointless trips, almost nothing is being grown in the fields because it’s unprofitable under the free market economy; people are ill and dying because they kill each other using every available means, from thoughts to atomic bombs…

The term “System Crisis,” which is so popular today, means that the crisis is not really about oil or food production or demography. It is a crisis of our perception of who we are and what world we are living in. So let’s start by becoming aware of these vital issues. Then the difficult trip with the wolf, the goat and the cabbage will turn into an easy and pleasant journey!

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A question I received: Why do you keep insisting that the current financial crisis can only be solved by changing the relationships between people?

My Answer: This question has already been answered in a previous blog entry.

Moreover, economists are also saying that the reason for the stock market crisis is people’s loss of trust in banks and companies. After all, the rise and fall of stock prices depends on the rise and fall of people’s expectations of companies and banks.

In addition, people suspect that even in a time of crisis, companies are putting away considerable “revenue” for themselves. The managers of the banks and companies that went bankrupt knew about the upcoming bankruptcy, and they made sure to give themselves and their employees salary raises in order to “stock up” ahead of time. Hence, the present crisis (and there will be other crises as well) is a crisis of people’s trust in banks, businesses, and in the future as a whole. It’s a crisis of trust in the egoistic system of relationships and its ability to continue regulating our life.

This is why Kabbalah views this crisis and humanity’s general state as the beginning of the world’s correction. We must realize that we absolutely depend on one another, and that it is impossible to get rid of this dependence. We are like members of one family who share common joys and woes. We must create an atmosphere of “familial” trust and care on the entire planet – only then will the systematic global crisis subside.

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It is written, “The only people one does not envy are one’s children and one’s students.” I am proud of my students. Hence I am proud to publish texts and clips that my students send to me. The following was sent by my student Tasha Fridkin from New York:

An analysis of the crisis
It is known that the laws of nature work regardless of whether we know about them or not. No one will test the law of gravity by jumping out of the window, since we know the result from our life experience.

However, few people know that besides the laws affecting our physical bodies, there are also laws affecting our souls. We don’t see the souls in our world, and the interactions between them are also concealed from us. Nevertheless, this does not make the laws any less strict – they still inevitably affect us even if we don’t clearly perceive their influence.

According to these laws all of our souls are interconnected into one harmonious and balanced system that is based on the principle of bestowal. Every individual contributes the most he can to the system, taking only the necessary minimum from it.

Humanity, however, has developed differently. It has reached the state where every individual desires to give the minimum and to use everyone else to the maximum to get personal gratification. Moreover, we have even stopped noticing this. Every person wants to win the lotto – to spend a dollar and win a million. But where does this million come from? It comes from a million people who spent one dollar. In other words, every individual wants to snatch from everyone else, for his own self benefit. And this is considered absolutely normal.

But there is an imbalance between our spiritual and corporeal existence. The violation of the spiritual law evokes the apparent and tangible manifestations in our physical world, such as the current financial crisis. This crisis is but a particular manifestation of the general crisis of all the social connections. The financial system is the most vulnerable one, similar to the blood in an organism, connecting and permeating the entire worldwide community. Nothing has changed in any part of the financial system; the crisis is purely psychological. We have revealed our incorrect usage of the connections between us, and as a result we have lost our trust of the system and the entire system has collapsed.

That is to say, we have reached a state where the externality – the structure and principles of our integrated systems, is losing importance compared to the internality – our thoughts and intentions when using these systems.

If every one of us will not change our attitude toward the people around us, adopting attitudes that match the connections between the souls, then we will continue to oppose the laws of nature. Then these laws will affect us more and more negatively. No one can run away from this; there won’t be any place on earth where one can hide, waiting for things to improve.

The world is crumbling. If you want to be saved, then start with yourself – with your attitude to the people around you. No one else is going to save you.

The world is built by every one of us. The world is our common home, and it is built according to the laws of nature. It can either bring us enormous, inconceivable abundance, or – if it is founded on egoism – it will bring us inconceivable suffering, which will nevertheless force us to change.

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