Three questions I received on tither (Maaser):

Question: You wrote on your blog that one should pay Maaser from his net income. However, in one of your lessons you said that Maaser is paid from the total income before tax deductions. My question is: is it paid from the income before tax deductions or from the net income after tax deductions?

My Answer: The rule states that the Maaser is 10% of one’s gross income. Otherwise, the tenth part from your taxes does not get corrected! However, beginners get a “discount” in order to get used to the Maaser and to make the calculation easier for them.

Question: My question regards the giving of Maaser. I understand the spiritual meaning of tithing 10% of your income to disseminating Kabbalah. What is unclear to me is the method in which a person must give Maaser. For example, a person earns $400 a week working at their job (which comes down to $10 per hour). Considering how time equals money, if a person volunteers 4 hours of their time disseminating, they have given $40 worth of time. Is this a valid form of giving Maaser?

My Answer: It is written that a person has to separate a tithe (10%) from all of his income.

Question: I am retired. My husband, who is not “on the path,” still works and we live on the money he earns. I participate in dissemination whereas his main interest is football. We don’t spend money on entertainment, other than going on vacation once a year. How should I calculate the Maaser?

My Answer: It is 10% of your pension. For example, you can make an arrangement with the Bnei Baruch dissemination center to buy our newspapers or books, and then hand them out or distribute them to libraries.

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Shari Arison, the famous Israeli-American businesswoman (and the richest Israeli citizen), said the following about the financial crisis:

We are going through a difficult but extremely important period – important for the Jewish people and all of humankind.

We have a very important role, which is to raise the torch and set it afire. We will lead through awareness, humaneness, truth, values, love and peace. We must be united – only then will the turmoil, pain and hatred disperse.

The world today is on the brink of destruction. Anywhere you look there’s chaos, and it starts with something small – the relationships between people. The turmoil, danger and pain permeate all aspects of life: personal, interpersonal, ecological and economic. Today everyone understands this, and it’s a pity that we don’t see the solution.

I stand before you today and say to you: there is a solution, and it lies in our value system. The solution is concealed in the verse, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” We all want to change the collective situation, and we can do it. However, each and every one of us must assume the individual responsibility, the personal obligation.

My Comment: These are beautiful words, but there’s no way to implement them. I only hope that people will soon recognize that egoism is the cause of all their troubles, and then quickly realize that the only method of correcting it is by drawing the forces of Nature from the outside.

It is written: “I created egoism and I gave the Torah for its correction, because the Light that’s in it returns one to the Source.” This Light descends upon a person only during the correct use of Kabbalah – see item 155 of Baal HaSulam’s “Introduction to Talmud Esser Sefirot.”

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A question I received: When does the Surrounding Light influence me – only during the lesson or also during dissemination? (Considering that while I’m doing it I aspire to attain the Upper One through the unification with the group.)

My Answer: It influences you during the study, dissemination, and other group actions, depending on your intention to connect with everyone in order to reveal the Creator – the quality of bestowal and love. The Surrounding Light is the Light that will fill you on a higher level.

The fact is that you already exist in all of your future states. However, you don’t perceive it. You must attain these states yourself. By aspiring to them, you draw the influence of your future state upon you and it changes you, making you similar to it. Everything depends only on your desire, your aspiration to that future state.

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A T T E N T I O N!

Channel YES 66 in Israel

Is now showing non-stop broadcasts

of the “Kabbalah Channel.”

The same programs are also broadcast in Hebrew

On the Internet, on Kab.tv

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A question I received: In the last lesson on the article “The Revelation of Godliness (Matan Torah)” you explained that in reality the other religions do not contain the rule “love your neighbor.” You gave an example of wars that are fought over issues such as the right way to pray and the Caste system in Hinduism, and that these are all signs that religion do not follow the rule “love your neighbor.”

So how are we to understand the “wars against the seven nations” and the war with Amalek? I am trying to understand how these actions can be implemented while keeping the rule “love your neighbor.” I think that even if they are performed while keeping this rule, the future generations will make wrong conclusions about them and as a result, commit cruelty and destruction.

My Answer: Correction takes place precisely through wars and clashes between egoism and the Light. Take King David for example, whose Psalms are valued by the entire world because they are the highest manifestation of love to the Creator. He spent forty years fighting wars, and moreover, he was the aggressor. This is known as the “Conquest of David” (Kibush David), spanning from Egypt to Babylon, including Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and other territories that have Upper Spiritual roots (other territories don’t have such roots). Another example is Joshua, who conquered the Land of Israel and exiled seven nations from it. Moreover, it was the Creator’s prohibition to let them stay in that land. All of this is described in the Torah, and it happens in congruence with the correction of egoism and its replacement with “bestowal.”

In order to correctly picture the arrangement of people in our world, one must imagine the forces that govern them. If the actions happen according to the Creator’s directive, like the wars fought by Joshua and David in Biblical times, then it is equivalent to the correction of egoism (see Rashbi’s commentary on Beresheet). On the other hand, if the actions are based on man’s decision, then they are egoistic! Since those times, Israel has not fought any wars where it was the aggressor.

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Baal HaSulam begins the fundamental Kabbalistic text, the “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot,” with the following words:

1. At the outset of my words, I find a great need to break an iron wall that has been separating us from the wisdom of Kabbalah…

2. Indeed, if we set our hearts to answer but one very famous question, I am certain that all the questions and doubts about the study of Kabbalah will vanish from the horizon. This indignant question is a question that the whole world asks, namely, “What is the meaning of my life?” These numbered years of our life that cost us so heavily and the numerous pains and torments that we suffer for them, to complete them to the fullest, who is it that enjoys them? Or, even more precisely, to whom do I give delight?

It is indeed true that historians have grown weary contemplating it and particularly in our generation. No one even wishes to consider it. Yet the question stands as bitterly and as vehemently as ever. Sometimes it meets us uninvitingly, pecks at our mind and humiliates us to the ground before we find the famous ploy to flow mindlessly in the currents of life as yesterday…

In order to help you answer this question, Kabbalah is now being revealed to you! By answering it, you will become human; while it is still a mystery – you’re still not!

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Two questions I received on the role of this world in the soul’s correction:

Question: I read that when a person dies who hasn’t developed the sixth sense (a soul), which enables him to perceive the Upper World, he returns for another incarnation. Then why do we mourn someone who dies? From the moment I began thinking this way, I don’t see any point in life. Things happen all around me but I feel that they’re not important to me.

My Answer: This is wonderful, because it means that you nearing the recognition that the entire meaning of life lies only in attaining the Upper Goal – the Creator, and that there is no other meaning to life on the earthy level! The higher meaning to the earthy life is to attain the Creator while living in this world!

Question: Is it possible to correct the soul in between two reincarnations, when the soul is not in the body?

My Answer: No. Correction can only occur while you are in this world.

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News Report (translated from Evrazia.info): On November 11, in the Marina Roscha Synagogue in Moscow, the chief rabbi of Russia, Berl Lazar, met with the director of the Ramchal Institute, Mordechai Shriki, one of the world’s leading Kabbalah scholars, and Pavel Zarifullin, the head of the administration of the International “Eurasian Movement.” The discussion was on issues of reviving traditionalism in Russia.

Rabbi Berl Lazar expressed a deep concern about the sectarian and charlatan activities among the Russian Jews, such as the pseudo-Kabbalistic false doctrines of Berg and Laitman. He spoke about the danger of sectarianism and the need to strengthen the orthodox traditionalism.

My Comment: I perfectly understand Mr. Berl Lazar: his patrons have lost billions, and therefore he also lost his share. People are getting smarter and no longer looking into his eyes so naively, nodding to everything he says. Traditionalism is in crisis. The elite is leaving him for Berg – this is fashionable; while people of sense are leaving him for Laitman – which is correct. Meanwhile, our poor Berl Lazar may remain with nothing but a long nose, poor indeed. Time is working against him! And that’s because the revelation of the Creator brings religion to an end.

Religion exists due to the Creator’s concealment, and as soon as He will be revealed to all – which will happen in our days – religion will end! See Baal HaSulam’s article “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose.”

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We must come out of our world – “flatland,” where we perceive the universe through the quality of “reception,” and enter the next dimension, where we will perceive the universe through the quality of “bestowal” (outside of us):

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWyTxCsIXE4]

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On November 24, 2008, there is a new “Kabbalah” TV channel on Israeli television, an addition to Kabbalah TV content.

All the programs are broadcast directly from the television studio at the Bnei Baruch Education and Research Institute.

The broadcast happens 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on channel 66 of the “YES” television company.

Viewers of all ages can choose from a broad selection of programs that shed light on the events of our lives through the wisdom of Kabbalah.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjBDVwbNBEY]

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