Every Tuesday from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM Israel time, I give free lectures to a wide audience at The Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education Center.
Before and after the lectures you can sign up for Kabbalah classes, purchase books, video tapes, DVDs and CDs.
You can listen to the live broadcast of the lectures in English translation at kab.tv, or download them from the archive at a later time.
A question I received: You once explained that anti-Semitism comes from the subconscious feeling that the nations of the world have towards Israel, since Israel isn’t fulfilling its function and is hence preventing the world from being happy. Is this similar to the way many secular people from the nation of Israel hate the Orthodox, since they don’t do what they are meant to do?
My Answer: The secular Jews of Israel hate the Orthodox because:
This phenomenon is typical only in Israel, where it emerged as a result of the religious, political and social pressure. It is certainly inflicting great harm to the religion, although the religion itself bears no relation to this phenomenon. Never in our history did the masses experience a religious dictate, because we never held national authority but were governed by other nations.
In countries where religion is entirely separate from the government, there is no possibility for religion to be imposed on its citizens as it is in Israel. Hence, in those countries, the relationship between the secular and religious Jews is amiable, or at least not hostile.
Based on the above, we can see that this phenomenon differs from anti-Semitism at the root.
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Questions I received on feeling empty, connecting with the virtual group, dealing with contradictions, and not wanting to study:
Question: Why is it that the more you disseminate and make efforts, the emptier you feel?
My Answer: The feeling of emptiness emerges when one does not realize the importance of dissemination as an act that’s favored by the Creator. By disseminating, you bring the world closer to Him. However, one’s constantly growing egoism does not feel the importance of this action. Egoism constantly grows, especially in those who study Kabbalah, in order to give them the opportunity to overcome it and to thereby rise to the level of the Creator.
You should compensate for the feeling of emptiness quickly by receiving the greatness of the goal and the Creator by connecting with books and friends. The Shamati articles explain this in great detail.
Question: How can you advance spiritually without being in physical contact with a group?
My Answer: If you keep virtual contact with the world group, then you are guaranteed to receive an impression and connection that are just as powerful. In addition, you can physically participate in the Congresses, as well as visit and train at our Israel center.
Question: How should one deal with the contradictions in Kabbalah? One day things are explained one way, and the next day – the opposite way!
My Answer: When you gain the right understanding, then all these “contradictions” will actually complement each other and connect into one whole. The contradictions lead to understanding, because they are an indication of your imperfection.
Question: There are days when I really want to study Kabbalah, and there are also days when I don’t want to think about Kabbalah at all, and instead I want to do the corporeal things that attract me. Does this indicate that I don’t have the point in the heart yet?
My Answer: During these days you receive an opportunity to advance independently, through your own efforts, rather than through the desire that you receive from above.
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A question I received: A recent news report stated that “Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has announced that he will be resigning, following the numerous scandals, investigations and failures of his term in office.” I would like to know what you have to say about this as a Kabbalist.
My Answer: The society’s leaders match the society. The leaders cannot be better than the society because they are produced by it. Moreover, their egoism is even bigger than a regular citizen’s – otherwise they wouldn’t be able to achieve their high positions.
The correction of society must happen from the inside out – it has to start with the masses rather than the leaders. The leaders will never understand anything except their own egoism – the desire to rule, and they will always use the people and the nation to satisfy this desire. History shows us that this law works in 100% of the cases.
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A question I received: In reference to your blog entry, Interview With Canadian Television, I am not surprised that people’s egoism is growing primarily in Israel and Canada. I see this egoism every day, and regrettably only 0.01% of the people actually ask themselves about it. Looking at this from a purely human position, it’s a pitiful state. Does Kabbalah explain why this is happening, and why don’t the world’s religions deal with this question?
My Answer: Egoism has to keep growing until people will realize that it is evil. So let it grow faster! It grows fastest in people who start studying Kabbalah. Their growth of egoism accelerates and reaches its maximum quickly, and then they see that it is evil and they have to get rid of it.
This is why Kabbalah welcomes the growth of egoism, while religions and all the “spiritual” methods strive to suppress it, since they don’t have the method to correct it. However, one way or another, egoism has to grow to the maximum, and therefore all the methods will prove to be incompetent. We’ll be left with egoism at its peak and Kabbalah as the method of correcting it and using it correctly, that is – filling it with the Creator!
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News Report (translated from www.YNet.co.il): The philosophy department is being closed down! Representatives of the Department of Humanities at Tel Aviv University have announced that they are considering not opening the registration to the Department of Philosophy for the coming school year.
My Comment: We are living in a truly remarkable time! For thousands of years our lives were ruled by human speculation about the essence and meaning of life, and now we are finally reaching the correct conclusion, which coincides with the opinion of Kabbalah – that philosophy has only harmed us all along.
I understand how cruel my words may seem to those who don’t know about the opposition between Kabbalah and philosophy, but I still hope that the closing of the philosophy department at a local university will rouse some interest in you to read Baal HaSulam’s article “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy.” To me, an event such as the closing of the philosophy department is a sign from above!
Baal HaSulam. “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy” (selected excerpts)
Philosophy has gone through a great deal of trouble to prove that corporeality is the offspring of spirituality and that the soul begets the body – and this is their primary mistake. The meaning of the word “spirituality” has nothing to do with philosophy. How can they discuss something that they have never seen or felt?
Philosophy loves to pride itself in understanding all about His essence. Philosophy has generally worn a mantle that is not its own, for it has pilfered definitions from the wisdom of Kabbalah, and made delicacies with its human understanding. If it had not been for that, they would never have thought of fabricating such acumen.
We will still have to regard only the tangible reality. This erring of separating the operator from the operation comes from the Figurative Philosophy, which insisted on proving that the spiritual act influences the corporeal operation.
The opinion of Kabbalah in this matter is crystal clear, excluding any mixture of philosophy. That is because it is the opinion of the sages of Kabbalah that even the separated spiritual entities, which philosophy denies having any corporeality and displays them as purely conceptual substance, although they are indeed spiritual, more sublime and abstract, consist of a body and soul just like the physical human.
Their thoughts are not our thoughts, for the way of the sages of the Kabbalah is one of finding actual proof of attainment, making its revocation through intellectual pondering impossible.
Philosophy fabricated that the different individuals are not combined materials (Kabbalah believes that everything consists of two forces, the vessel and the Light).
The old philosophy presents three opinions as obstacles before my explanation:
1. Their decision that the power of the human intellect is the eternal soul, man’s essence.
2. Their conjecture that the body is an upshot of the soul.
3. Their saying that spiritual people are simple and not complex.
Not only is it the wrong place to argue with them about their fabricated conjectures, but also their time has already passed and their authority revoked. We should also thank the experts of materialistic psychology for that, having built its plinth on the ruin of the former, winning the public’s favor. Now everyone admits to the nullity of philosophy, for it is not built on concrete foundations.
The old doctrine became a stumbling rock and a deadly thorn to the sages of Kabbalah. Where they should have subdued before the sages of Kabbalah and taken upon themselves abstinence and prudence prior to admittance to even the slightest thing in spirituality, they received what they had wanted easily from the figurative philosophy. Without payment or a price they have watered them from their fountain of wisdom to satiation, and refrained from delving in the wisdom of Kabbalah. As a consequence, the wisdom has almost been forgotten from among Israel.
For that reason we are grateful to materialistic psychology for having beaten it a deadly blow.
Therefore, there was not a salvation for Israel as at the time when the materialistic psychology appeared and struck theological philosophy on its head a lethal blow.
Now, every person who seeks the Lord must bring Kabbalah back to its throne – and restore its past glory.
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Questions I received on the role of Israel in the world and how Europe compares to the United States:
Question: You speak a lot of how Israel has to reveal the wisdom of Kabbalah to the ‘nations of the world’ but currently is not doing this. My question is: What happens if Israel does not do this sooner rather than later – does my spiritual development as a gentile become sacrificed? What happens if the point in the heart arises in others before it does in Jews?
My Answer: Then the nations of the world will use force and pressure to make the Jews reveal Kabbalah to them.
Question: How can it be that the economy of the nation of Israel is prospering unlike the rest of the world, considering that the people living there are responsible for the horrible crisis that the world is in?
My Answer: In our time the blows aren’t measured by hunger or money, but by inner problems and the sensation of emptiness – an unfulfilled Kli! The developed and wealthy countries top the charts when it comes to depression, drugs, and suicide.
Question: My question is about the European Union. Why hasn’t Europe succeeded in unifying as well as the United States? Is Europe more egoistic than the US?
My Answer: The problem of creating something new is that you first have to the destroy the old. We can abandon the old state and create a new one only when we recognize that the current state is so evil that it becomes impossible for us to remain in it. Europe hasn’t reached this realization yet. As for America, it was created out of nothing and by combined efforts, since people didn’t have any other choice.
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News Report (translated from mignews.com): “Recently a report was published by Dr. Richard Cravatts of Boston University, who analyzed the results of a survey on the world’s most hated countries. The survey, which was administered on college campuses around the globe, revealed that Israel is the most hated country in the world. No one was surprised by this, but Dr. Cravatts decided to take a closer look at the causes behind this phenomenon.
He reached the following conclusions: 60 years after the establishment of the Jewish State, its right to exist continues to be questioned. Jews are accused of stealing the Palestinian lands, and of brutal and unlawful occupation. Israel is considered the greatest threat to world peace.”
Why does the world view Israel this way? Why do the Palestinians have the right to personal identity, but Israel does not?
My Answer: This is happening because as long as Israel remains in its present non-spiritual form, it really does bring harm onto everyone, and the world subconsciously feels this. Baal HaSulam writes in item 71 of the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar” that if Israel does not fulfill its calling in our times, then it makes the nations of the world feel that it is unnecessary and harmful to the world. Israel must give the method of correction to the world, or else the world will enter the ultimate crisis.
We received an opportunity to establish the State of Israel in order to assemble the nation according to the Biblical rule – “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” and in so doing to provide the world with an example of the new society. However, instead we are showing the world the opposite of what it subconsciously expects from us.
If we do not change soon, then we will cease our existence as a “state” and a “nation.” I put them in quotes because neither actually exist right now. However, there is an opportunity to create them, provided that we let the wisdom of Kabbalah show us how to do it, as this was the conduct of our nation before it was destroyed.
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Baal HaSulam Article: “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” Item 71
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Two questions I received on whether it would be best for the world’s spiritual leaders to unite:
Question: If we were to gather all the people of truth in one place and tune into the general system, would we be able to influence the afterworld with our Light or information, as well as the development of our planet?
My Answer: We have to disseminate Kabbalah to all the people in the world, accept the world as a whole, and provide every person with everything they need for correction no matter where they are located. All the people in the world are sick with the same illness – egoism, which separates them from the Light of life. Hence, everyone needs the medication – the Upper Light. This is what we believe, and this is why we disseminate Kabbalah to everyone. After that, it’s up to the person to take the medicine now, or later on – when he will feel his illness at a more advanced stage.
Instead of gathering in one place, people have to gather in one intention, in spite of the physical distance separating them. This is the purpose of our world. Nevertheless, when someone wants to move to Israel to join our group, we don’t turn them away, and about 5-10 people move here every year. However, I don’t consider this necessary for spiritual advancement. There have also been cases when people moved here and found it to be too intense for them, and had to return to their previous location.
Question: Do the world’s spiritual leaders, such as Rav Laitman and the Dalai Lama, as well as their students, have a spiritual connection and do they help each other (I don’t mean the World Wisdom Council)? I get the impression that spirituality is just a game, where each person (or group) is for himself. Sooner or later people get tired of these games, because you start feeling like you’re the soccer ball and you don’t want to play for any team. If the spiritual leaders have a connection with each other, then why isn’t it revealed to us, the masses, in a material form and with a true final goal (again, I don’t mean the World Wisdom Council)?
My Answer: I don’t associate myself with any organization, including the World Wisdom Council, and I have no connection with any spiritual leaders. I only participate wherever I see an opportunity to disseminate Kabbalah. Kabbalah is so vastly different from other methods at the root, that we cannot unite or work together with any earthly method or religion.
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I had a conversation that was recorded with Israel’s leading criminal attorney, Sasi Gez.
Sasi was born and grew up in the country’s most criminal neighborhood – Pardes-Katz, but by a “lucky chance,” instead of learning to steal, be a pimp or a drug dealer, he became the defense attorney for his childhood friends. His “happy childhood” (mostly blood mixed with snot) turned him into a “mafia’s attorney” – a recognized criminal defense attorney of the state. It was amazing to see his “Don Corleone” manners, and to find out how much “the cops and the thieves” can have in common.
Sasi wrote a very thick book on criminal law. (In the picture above, it lies next to him on the table; and beside it, the somewhat more modest looking Book of Zohar with my commentary.) Sasi’s close work with his childhood friends and acquaintances (who include leaders of the underground business) and his ability to defend them in court have turned him into one of the most influential people in all social circles. It gave me great pleasure to meet a classic hero – the mafia’s attorney, face to face.
On his end, Sasi completely agreed with the fact that man in our world has no freedom of will, and that our world lacks the means to educate and reeducate people. He agreed that Kabbalah can help do this.
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