In the News (from Tribble Ad Agency): The Great Depression has reached Detroit… unemployment has reached 21%, and it’s expected to get worse… even the criminals don’t want to leave jail … some offenders, notably those without homes of their own, were now expressing reluctance to leave jail when their sentences were done.

My Comment: People won’t be able to save themselves by running away from their responsibilities. It’s necessary to teach the prisoners about the new world and the global connection between everyone, and to prepare them for a new life, so they could come out to freedom with a new, clear conscience! Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to put all of us through solitary confinement? (That’s a joke.)

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Media Must Help Turn Our World Into a Giant Classroom
Kabbalah Today Article: The Changing Nature of Humanity

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A question I received: You are a scientist, Kabbalist, philosopher, and practice religious observances, but your explanations of evolution are unclear. Do you agree with Darwin’s theory?

My Answer: According to Darwin’s theory of evolution, one of nature’s principles is, “the fittest survives.” However, this theory worked only during the initial stage of life’s development, when the simplest organisms were developing and before they began to unite into complex bodies and distribute the functions between separate organs in a body.

Darwin’s theory can justify any method of enslavement, exploitation, and extermination, which are all done to provide maximal enrichment and safety for specific individuals. This principle justifies our actions when we wage a battle against everyone else, and when we wage a battle against Nature, taking away everything we possibly can from It, draining It of all the natural resources.

Today we find ourselves globally and integrally connected and interdependent, and we cannot continue to behave “according to Darwin,” in a battle for survival. Just like the biological forms of life, humanity has already gone through the stage of the egoistic battle for survival, and now – when it has revealed its interdependence, it must recognize the need for everyone to unite into one whole. And this no longer happens according to Darwin!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: There’s No Going Backwards In Evolution
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Basic Concepts in Kabbalah: Chapter 4. Perfection and the World

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A question I received: You used to participate in many international conferences, but then you stopped. Why? Isn’t this a good way to disseminate Kabbalah? How can you give it up?

My Answer: We are facing global problems: a disruption of the climate, mass starvation, epidemic outbreaks, the threat of nuclear wars, fights over oil and water, religious wars and terrorism, environment pollution, and so on. In other words, the crisis is becoming so inclusive that we cannot afford to keep ignoring it. We are obligated to change the situation before we’ll have to start “solving it” with dramatic military measures.

The way out of the crisis is much simpler than we think. Initially I thought that it would be possible to gather scientists such as sociologists, politicians, businessmen, economists and other renowned people who feel responsible for what is happening in the world. I thought these people could come together in a big Forum that would solve the current problem, and in general, this Forum would have to work all the time.

However, the problem is that eventually all the participants will have to reach the conclusion that science does not understand the true solution nor does it have the means to implement it! And in so doing, they would have to negate their own importance. But people’s personal egoism does not yet allow them to overcome it. The suffering is still insufficient and people’s desires for fame and glory are still too great.

This is why I stopped participating in different international gatherings (such as in Arosa, Switzerland; Tokyo, Japan; Dusseldorf, Germany; Monterrey, Mexico, and so on). I also saw that I cannot speak as a representative of Kabbalah at these forums, because by speaking as a Kabbalist, I repel the scientists from this idea even before they can comprehend its essence. People’s preconceived notions and incorrect views of Kabbalah are still too great.

I hope that the widest dissemination of the Kabbalistic idea, specifically through the masses, through the environment that surrounds every person, will gradually cause people’s attitudes to Kabbalah to change. They will realize that Kabbalah is the initial, ancient source of all sciences and philosophies. Without revealing the fact that the solution comes from Kabbalah, we won’t be able to explain the solution to the crisis correctly and fully.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Crisis Is a Step Toward Eternal Harmony

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In the News (from Impactlab): “City Life Is Bad For Your Brain” The urban environment impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced self-control. “The mind is a limited machine,” says Marc Berman, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, “And we’re beginning to understand the different ways that a city can exceed those limitations.”

My Comment: Man was created to exist in balance with nature, to be a harmonious part of the correct eco-sphere. This can be achieved when everyone comes to an agreement, in two stages: “Don’t do to others what you don’t want done to you,” and then, “Love your neighbor as yourself. If we build the world and the environment based on these attitudes to everything outside us, then the environment will be optimal for man. Someday, we will get there; Nature will force us to.

News Report (from CNN): “Behavioral screening – the future of airport security?” Security experts say focus is shifting from analyzing the content of carry-ons to analyzing the content of passengers’ intentions and emotions… Developers say the combination of these technologies can detect a person’s reaction to certain stimuli by reading body temperature, heart rate and respiration, signals a terrorist unwittingly emits before he plans to commit an attack.

My Comment (a joke): One day they’ll invent a device that will be able to tell whether a person “loves his neighbor” or not. (They’ll also do this using the external signs, or maybe by one’s immediate reaction to something.) Whoever loves his neighbor is good for society, and whoever does not (whoever hasn’t attained it yet) is an anti-social element.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Influence of the Environment
Baal HaSulam Article: “The Freedom”
Kabbalah for the Student: “What Does Love Thy Friend As Thyself Give Us?”

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The global education system should include the theory and practice of attaining the concealed world. It should teach humanity “the attainment or perception of reality.” Scientists already admit this, but are yet to fully comprehend the fact that we cognize the surrounding reality only in our consciousness, and we cannot perceive the “objective” reality, or what lies beyond the limits of our consciousness.

We must cast aside theories that view the universe as existing outside the limits of our consciousness. Reality is composed of our general experience, including scientific experiments, as well as our thoughts, feelings, and intuition. In addition, to the extent we correct our egoism, we reveal a new world inside our corrected consciousness. However, this new world does not exist until we reveal it within.

Actually, our consciousness is a fundamental concept, and modern science already acknowledges this. We never attain anything outside of our consciousness. This is what the principle of “perception’s self-sufficiency” (autopoiesis) says: everything we perceive as our surroundings, the whole universe as it is perceived by man, exists only in the form that we reveal it.

Self-sufficiency does not come from the nature of the universe, but rather from the nature of our attainment, perception. We cannot suffer from lacking a sixth finger, because the sensation of a desire is the preliminary state, preceding the revelation. The Upper Level is first expressed in us in the form of a desire for it, and then It’s revealed in this desire.

Astrophysicists create new models of a “self-sufficient” universe and describe its structure and functionality as being similar to a living system. They are finding more and more evidence for the fact that the universe is alive and connected into one whole on all its levels. Scientists who study evolution agree that the Earth is similar to a huge living cell because of its global, interconnected system on all its levels of life and development.

However, we are still left with the problem of correction: simply studying and accepting the facts does not mean that you are being corrected and becoming similar to Nature. For this, it is necessary to study the next level of our existence, which is explained only in Kabbalah. It turns out that we are left with the same problem of disseminating Kabbalah in the world. At first this should be done without specifying “Kabbalah,” and only gradually, as Rambam suggests, we should reveal the Source of true wisdom.

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In the News (from Associated Press): “Removing cats to protect birds backfires on island” It seemed like a good idea at the time: Remove all the feral cats from a famous Australian island to save the native seabirds. But the decision to eradicate the felines from Macquarie Island allowed the rabbit population to explode and, in turn, destroy much of its fragile vegetation that birds depend on for cover… Removing the cats from Macquarie “caused environmental devastation” that will cost authorities 24 million Australian dollars ($16.2 million) to remedy… They have targeted dozens of islands over the past few decades with mixed success.

My Comment: Ecologists need to take a Kabbalah course in order to learn how to implement correct projects within a closed, harmonious ecosystem.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Financial Crisis Pales In Comparison to the Looming Ecological Crisis
From Chaos to Harmony: Chapter 10 “Balance With Nature”

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A question I received: The Vice–President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs said the following about the outcome of the financial crisis, “You can’t run away from the crisis. The world today is globalized, so it’s stupid to suppose that in the great ocean of instability, there are islands of prosperity that remain. First of all, people have to reduce ‘show-off spending.’ Over the last one hundred years, Americans have developed the notion of ‘noble behavior during a crisis,’ which includes charity.”

My Comment: This is not enough. What we need is a complete overhaul of human consciousness and attitude toward self, the world, and the Creator. Nobility and charity cannot correct anything.

Gradually the world is gaining a recognition of the “non-earthly” tasks it must now resolve, and people will then discover the method of solving them, Kabbalah. But for the time being the world is still comforted by thinking that it’s possible to go back to the past by making superficial changes.

Here is what Martin Wolf wrote in The Financial Times: “Choices made in 2009 will shape the globe’s destiny” Welcome to 2009. This is a year in which the fate of the world economy will be determined, maybe for generations. Some entertain hopes that we can restore the globally unbalanced economic growth of the middle years of this decade. They are wrong. Our choice is only over what will replace it.

It is between a better balanced world economy and disintegration. That choice cannot be postponed. It must be made this year. We are in the grip of the most significant global financial crisis for seven decades. As a result, the world has run out of creditworthy, large-scale, willing private borrowers. The alternative of relying on vast US fiscal deficits and expansion of central bank credit is a temporary – albeit necessary – expedient. But it will not deliver a durable return to growth.

Fundamental changes are needed.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Global Crisis Brings the End of Glamour
Laitman.com Post: Wishes for the New Year – 2009
Kabbalah Today Article: What Happened?
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In the News (from Science Daily): “Making The Most Of It: Study Reveals Motivating Factor For Enjoying The Present” According to a new study, thinking that we have a limited amount of time remaining to participate in an activity makes us appreciate the activity that much more and motivates us to make the most of it. These findings support the idea that “thinking about an experience’s future ending can enhance one’s present experience of it” and that “focusing on the fact that an experience is fleeting enhances enjoyment by creating a ‘now or never’ type of motivation.”

My Comment: At every moment in time, one has the opportunity to change oneself and the world for the better. If one has this attitude to life, then he is always enthusiastic about life. After all, “the world” is what you build and perceive within!

Question: I don’t understand: if everything is driven by thought, which begets the mind, then what’s the end result of it all? Is it to achieve the goal of absolute harmony and attainment of the Creator? But what for? And what’s going to happen once this is achieved? And what’s the point of creating the primitive creature that is man in the first place – to revel in our ego?

My Answer: The goal of developing our desire is to attain the sensation of the state of perfection inside this desire. The most rational, quick and easy method to bring oneself to perfection (to correct oneself) is demonstrated to us by the Creator through His work (Avodat HaShem).

Just as adults teach children how to live in our world by showing them examples of the proper behavior, so the Creator shows us examples of the behavior that’s necessary in order to start perceiving the concealed part of the world. However, if we act of our own accord, then we are like children who don’t have parents or the right environment, and are trying to grow from a primitive stage to a level of being able to understand life in the modern world. How can they possibly do it without being educated at home, in kindergarten, school, and so on!?

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Children Learn from the Examples We Set, Not the Hours We Spend With Them
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Question: In one of the lessons you said that America is built egoistically to unite more than other nations because it is comprised of different nations (is ethnically and culturally diverse), and that it is going to be okay in this crisis if the people unite. My question is: doesn’t this speak to some space in me? Some space inside me that egoistically would like to get along with the other people in my life?

My Comment: Of course, this is how we start correcting our nature: by searching for a better egoistic life. However, while studying Kabbalah we begin to feel the value of having a direct altruistic attitude to others; its independence, greatness, and the infinite, eternal sensations that become revealed in it. And then we discover how to attain this, and consciously aspire to come out of egoism.

In the News (translated from SvobodaNews): The Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Science (IERAS) reports that Russians are faced with a decline in income. They will have to take any job, save money, raise their professional qualifications, and support each other. At this time it is important to stay connected with family and friends, because people will have to come out of this difficult situation together.

My Comment: Indeed, this prolonged suffering will force people to unite – and not just within each nation, but all the nations together. Kabbalah enables us to understand what is happening, and then people will also be able to quickly understand what to do in order to attain equivalence with Nature, with the quality of bestowal and love. This quality is the basis for survival in the unified system of humanity.

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Lesson: “Attaining the Unity of the Universe”

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Questions I received on the Israeli Palestinian conflict:

Question: Why did Israel choose this time of all others to start a war?

My Answer: The war in Gaza started because of the falling oil prices. Hamas would be nonexistent without help from Iran, and Iran’s plan is to become an Arabic superpower, which is only possible if oil is expensive. Therefore, in order to raise the oil prices, Iran ordered Hamas to start the war.

Question: How is it possible to manage without the tunnels used for delivering goods?

My Answer: There are over 1500 tunnels between Egypt and Gaza, and these tunnels are the basis of Hamas’s socio-economic power. Hamas builds the tunnels and sells each one for $170,000. Hamas also receives $16,000 for giving permission for a tunnel to be dug. Moreover, the goods delivered through these tunnels are taxed by Hamas, resulting in millions of dollars in profit.

This is why Hamas reacted the way it did when its “economy” was shut down. And there is no other opportunity for them to make a profit in Gaza. The solution lies in replacing the terrorist government with a peaceful one, which will start building the economy and making its own living.

Question: If the quality of life improves for the residents of Gaza, will terrorism vanish?

My Answer: Any normal government takes care of its citizens and tries to provide them with jobs, safety, and national security. A terrorist government, on the other hand, tries to deprive its citizens of all these, in order to receive humanitarian aid and then distribute it by reselling it. Therefore, the more impoverished the nation is, the better it is for the terrorist government, because people think less and will agree to anything. This is why the Hamas government didn’t build bomb shelters in Gaza, and why the Palestinian terrorists always shoot from behind the backs of the civilians.

Question: But can’t the international community restore order?

My Answer: No one is interested in this; everyone profits off of it. Hence, when the terrorists are retaliated against, they appeal to the international community, shouting, “Look! They attacked us.”

Question: But isn’t it the UN’s mission to bring peace to the world?

My Answer: The United Nations profits from the world’s tragedies. The workers of the UN line their pockets with the money that “sticks to their hands” during the distribution of resources. This is why they’re interested in having the conflict continue and having Gaza remain impoverished, in order to steal from the resources released by their organizations.

As we can see, money is at the core of the whole conflict, and this is also why the current global crisis is economic in nature. This is exactly the kind of crisis that is capable of changing the entire world.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: How Do You Get the Wolf, Goat and Cabbage Across the River? (How Do You Solve the Global Crisis?)
Laitman.com Post: We Are Standing at the Threshold of an Extraordinary Discovery
Kabbalah Today Article: The Financial Crisis: Diagnosis and Cure
Fighting Terror the Right Way
From Chaos to Harmony: “The Crisis as an Opportunity to Restore Balance”

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