Below are excerpts from the “Declaration of the Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy.” My comments appear in italics:

From item 1. …cooperation… to restore global growth and achieve needed reforms in the world’s financial systems.
Cooperation is possible only when it is absolute, like in one family.

From item 2. …reform to help to ensure that a global crisis, such as this one, does not happen again.
It’s unclear what kind of reform they are thinking of, because they still haven’t pinpointed the real cause of the crisis – egoism.

From item 2. …market principles… and effectively regulated financial markets…
Forced regulation will only push the system deeper into crisis (as it happened under the Soviet regime). This measure is incomplete.

From item 5. …actions… to stimulate our economies, provide liquidity, strengthen the… financial institutions … unfreeze credit markets
This does not correct the mistakes – it doesn’t even attempt to correct the mistakes, since this kind of stimulation only further develops the causes that led to the crisis.

From items 6 and 7. …Economic momentum is slowing substantially in major economies… Many emerging market economies … are still experiencing good growth … a broader policy response is needed … to restore growth … and support emerging market economies and developing countries.
Sounds great, but who thinks of others!?

From item 7, bullet point 1. …stabilize the financial system…
Or in other words – keep pumping it with money, which will lead to inflation.

From item 7, bullet point 3. …Use fiscal measures to stimulate domestic demand…
But whatever benefits the people, hurts the state.

From items 7 and 8. Ensure that the IMF, World Bank and other MDBs have sufficient resources to continue playing their role in overcoming the crisis …strengthen financial markets and regulatory regimes… Regulation is first and foremost the responsibility of national regulators…
It’s a refusal to create a common financial regulator! They aren’t discussing the creation of a single financial institution, common financial instruments, market transparency, and a change in the management of IMF.

From items 8 and 12. …support market discipline … commitment to free market principles…
Stated simply – they’ve gone bankrupt!

From item 13. …within the next 12 months, we will refrain from raising new barriers to investment or to trade…
In other words, they won’t limit the outflow of capital. (in the month of October, $50 billion were taken out of Russia alone!)

From item 11. …we will meet again by April 30, 2009…

Additional Comment: Obviously, I’m not a banker, and these are my impressions. Regrettably, the declaration that was agreed on, lacks understanding of the true cause of the crisis, and hence it lacks the correct solution to it. Nevertheless, it reveals an underlying feeling of not understanding what is going on, of being interdependent, and of needing to search for the answers together. This feeling will continue to grow as the problems will keep increasing. The world really lacks knowledge of how global and integral it is, and of the law of absolute interaction!

Related Material:
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Two questions I received on what will happen to the Internet during the crisis:

Question: In this great international crisis, plus everything that is apparently still in store for us, it is reasonable to assume that many different infrastructures will be affected, including the Internet. How do you think this will affect the role of the virtual group and our dissemination in the entire world, which happens primarily through the Internet?

My Answer: If we use the Internet correctly in order to correct the world, then it will remain, or be replaced by something even more suitable for this goal.

Question: Are you still working on materials to submit to the Google 10^100 project? At first everyone was excited about it and there was a lot of talk about it, but now it seems like everyone forgot about it. Will Bnei Baruch participate in it or not?

My Answer: We did what we could, and the rest does not depend on us. In the midst of it, the crisis struck. It looks like Google has forgotten about it, or perhaps something is still happening there, but since no one is contacting us, we are keeping quiet as well.

To be frank, I don’t believe that such undertakings have good intentions or integrity from the start, but I’m obligated to participate if there is an opportunity. In addition, working together on these projects helps us unite!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Internet Is a Reflection of the Society
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Shamati #72: “Confidence Is the Clothing for the Light”
Shamati #131: “Who Comes to Be Purified”
Kabbalah Blog Post: Make a Difference, Cause a Social Change!
Kabbalah Blog Post: Better the World Campaigns Strike a Chord
Kabbalah Blog Post: Will Project 10^100 Change the World?
Kabbalah Blog Post: Project 10 to the 100th by Google

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News Report (from Private Sector Development Blog): Martin Wolf, a columnist for the Financial Times and former chief economist of the World Bank stated: “Among the most important tasks ahead is to create a system of global finance that allows a more balanced world economy, with excess savings being turned into either high-return investment or consumption by the world’s poor.”

News Report (from UK in the USA): Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, believes that the world financial crisis can become the accelerator for the creation of a new kind of society, unique in its aspirations, and he encourages the leaders of the world to lay the foundation for the new global order, internationalism, and the rejection of protectionism.

My Comment: This way, we will gradually reach the awareness of our global system, and from there – the understanding of the quality of the Creator: love and bestowal. Life (Nature or the Creator) will force us to make this decision and implement it.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: What Can We Expect from the G-20 Summit in Washington?
Laitman.com Post: Specific, Practical Measures to Combat the Crisis

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Three questions I received on working with egoistic and altruistic desires:

Question: What are the “egoistic desires” and what does it mean “to be above them?”

My Answer: Egoistic desires are all the desires that are not to bestow to others, to love others, and to bestow and love the Creator. They are called egoistic because you desire to receive fulfillment inside them.

“To be above them” means to use them in order to be independent of them, and moreover, to use them for fulfilling others.

Question: You have explained that the “screen” is a rejection of the egoistic desires, an aspiration to be above them. When I want something and strive for it, but I don’t attain it, I tell myself that I don’t want to want it and that it doesn’t depend on me. Is this a rejection of the egoistic desires?

My Answer: No, because in doing so you egoistically don’t want to suffer. This is why you reject your desires: in order to stop feeling emptiness and pain in them.

Question: When one works with absolute bestowal in the corporeal world, despite the feeling of emptiness, the suffering caused by external factors causes a lot of heartache. What can be done about it?

My Answer: Read a lot of material about the global correction. The texts should evoke enough force of the Upper Light in order for you to start feeling the common desire and the Light within it.

Related Material:
From Chaos to Harmony: The Solution to the Global Crisis According to the Wisdom of Kabbalah

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News Report: Over the last year the world’s bee population has declined by one third. At this rate, bees may become extinct in ten years. A dissection of the bees showed the presence of unfamiliar fungus and bacteria. In addition, cell phone radiation disrupts the bees’ orientation so they cannot find their way back to the hive and die.

Without bees, plants would cease to be fertilized. And without plants, man will also become extinct.

My Comment: Nature will force us to think about our balance with It! Balance can be attained only when man will become an integral element of Nature through the proper reception and bestowal, in nature and in society.

Related Material:
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Editorial News Report (from Executive Intelligence Review): If the participants of the G-20 meeting won’t reach an agreement, the world economy will rapidly collapse, billions of people will die from hunger, and social chaos will begin in the G-7 countries.

My Comment: The participants of the G-20 meeting should at least reach a certain level of mutual trust in order to coordinate their actions in the economic (and perhaps military) spheres. The world needs to see a connection between different countries. It won’t help to simply exercise control over fiscal operations (banks, companies, equalization of different currencies, cancellation of offshore accounts, annihilation of monopolies) and to reach a consensus to refrain from military attacks. This won’t help because Nature is forcing us to become integrated!

Even if they won’t reach an agreement, they should at least agree to meet together in order to solve the problems of global reconstruction, according to the laws of the single system.

A Kabbalistic text says: “The hearts of the kings and their ministers are in the hands of the Creator.” And the Creator is governed by people’s desires to the degree they are similar to the Creator – to the quality of love for one’s neighbor. Therefore, everything depends on the dissemination of the knowledge about the world’s globality and our connection within one family. When we realize this, we won’t feel hatred for others, but for our own egoism, which is the only evil in the world. And after that we will also feel an aspiration for love of others.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Another Unfortunate Meeting of the G20

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A question I received: What specific, practical measures would you advise the governments to take to combat the crisis?

My Answer: Kabbalah says that the world’s integrality requires that each person receive what is necessary for him to exist, and give the rest for the benefit of the society as a whole. This shouldn’t be done forcefully, like in the Soviet regime, but should come from people’s understanding that it’s necessary to carry out the law of nature that states: “All people are one family.” Every person will be rewarded for this with the sensation of eternal and perfect existence (outside of one’s egoism), just like all of Nature.

The needed actions: In addition to establishing an educational organization, every person must be given whatever amount of money he needs to lead a normal existence. No one should be allowed to have more than this amount in his bank account. Everything else should go into the “common account.”

The result: It makes no difference how much funds or resources there are for this. What’s important is the action itself, because it is integral, global, and harmonious with Nature (the Creator). Hence, it will evoke a positive reaction from Nature upon the society.

Comment:
1. These actions must be carried out together with distributing powerful educational, explanatory material through all mass media channels (see my “Lecture in Arosa“). Bnei Baruch already has the material!

2. If humanity won’t act as described above, with understanding, willingly and voluntarily – through the study of Kabbalah, then nature will force us to do the same thing, but through a long and bitter path of suffering. The situation will be like a stubborn child who doesn’t want to do what his parents tell him to, and who’s only swayed by punishment into understanding that he needs to listen and do as they say. Only later will he come to realize how correct and good his parents were.

Related Material:
Transcript of my Lecture at the 3rd World Spirit Forum in Arosa, Swtizerland

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News Report (translated from gazeta. ru): Does the stock market have rules or is it governed by a divine whim? A great deal of research has been done on this question. A “divine whim” is defined as the difference between real prices and those set by the rate of return and liquidity. In other words: the stock market operates at a low return, but prices keep growing or dropping according to the prevalent opinion at the moment: “everything will get back to the good old times” or “this is the end of the Western civilization.” This would mean that the process we are dealing with, which is turning the world around, is accidental.

My Comment: There is no going back! Our egoism has grown and we have risen to the level of global interconnection. This is happening for the first time in human history, just as Kabbalah predicted thousands of years ago. I invite you to verify this by going into our old lesson archive and listening to our lessons from many years ago.

Nothing will return to the good old times. Everything taking place marks the end of Western civilization. Ahead of us lies a global, single, common world. We are all one family; we can’t run away from it and we depend on it completely. Even dying won’t help, because you will have to come back to complete the correction!

We need to create a stock market that will be based on the rules of the world’s global system. Everything has already been described. Study Kabbalah!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Present Crisis Is a Crisis of People’s Trust in the Egoistic System of Relationships
Laitman.com Post: My Article on Ynetnews – A Kabbalistic Interpretation of the Economic Crisis

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The Hebrew book The Two Great Lights is titled after the Biblical verse: “And God created the two great lights.” The book talks about the two great Kabbalists of the 20th century – Rav Kook and Baal HaSulam, who both desired to disseminate Kabbalah among the masses at the beginning of the last century.

They foresaw World War II as well as our global crisis. They understood that humanity is entering the final phase of development, when it is necessary for its survival to educate every person in the spirit of “love thy neighbor as thy self.” This book reveals their prophetic vision of our time and their advice on changing the world.

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Before the St. Louis Congress began, I gave several lessons on the topic: “The world in the epoch of globalization and crisis.” The lessons are based on Baal HaSulam’s article, “The Peace.”

I recommend watching or listening to them!

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