A question I received: It follows from the articles “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)” and “The Future Generation” that from the economic point of view, a Kabbalistic society is one of collectivism or communism, and that this is a necessary condition for everyone to receive the Torah and reveal the Creator, since only then can people stop thinking about themselves completely. Are there plans being made regarding new economic relations within the framework of the “Virtual State of Kabbalah?” Or is it still to early for it? Maybe we can implement transitional economic schemes and incorporate them into the modern capitalistic global economy? Generally speaking, how do you think the world economy will develop toward the ideal state?

My Answer: We should not change society and its institutions artificially, but rather we should correct the connections between us from egoistic to altruistic, by means of the Upper Light. The wisdom of Kabbalah explains how we can become similar to nature. Hence, by studying it we evoke upon us the Light of correction (the Surrounding Light, Ohr Makif) from above. It changes us, giving us the desires, thoughts, and forces to change everything in us and between us.

If we won’t change under the influence of the Light, but will instead change in whichever way we want to, then we’ll create a big mess all over again, like what happened with socialism in Russia and with the Kibbutzim in Israel. America is now compelled to nationalize businesses, and thus it is becoming socialist instead of capitalist. However, this is not the kind of socialism (or communism) that Kabbalah speaks about.

We, the members of the International Kabbalah Academy (the Bnei Baruch group), must do the following:

1. Provide ourselves with the necessary level of existence;
2. Correct ourselves by studying Kabbalah in the right environment (in our environment – see the article “The Freedom,” which explains what lies in our power of action).

The rest is done by the Light.

Our objective is to create a virtual society, which will serve as an example for the entire world.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Creator Will Become Revealed Inside the Unity of Our Virtual Meeting Space
Laitman.com Post: The Condition of Entering the Upper World Is Mutual Guarantee
Baal HaSulam Article: “Building the Future Society”
“Freedom of Will” – Lessons

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A question I received: You say that Kabbalah has nothing in common with religion. Then why don’t Christians, Muslims, and followers of other belief systems have books on Kabbalah? Didn’t they all come from the Jewish religion?

My Answer: Baal HaSulam writes that all people may keep their respective religions even after reaching the final spiritual correction – adhesion with the Creator. This is a sign that the external actions bear absolutely no relation to spirituality, even though many people want to attribute this to them.

Kabbalah was developed by Abraham in Babylon 4000 years ago. The Jewish religion as we know it today appeared after the downfall of the Jewish people from the spiritual level 2000 years ago. Kabbalah then became concealed (when The Book of Zohar was written), and all that remained is a corporeal, egoistic “imprint” of the previous, spiritual way of life. This is how Judaism was formed in the way it exists today. Later Christianity and Islam also originated from it.

The Jewish religion divides into the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform branches. However, they differ only by having greater or smaller limits of observing the physical commandments. Hence they understand each other, are on the same side of egoism, and work to preserve it. In other words, the aim of one’s actions is inside a person, in the intention “for oneself.”

Kabbalah, on the other hand, summons people to observe the intention “for bestowal” (for one’s neighbor or for the Creator – that is, “outside oneself”), rather than to observe physical actions. It deals with the internality rather than the externality (see item 61 of the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”). Hence Kabbalah is opposite to all religions.

This is why all the religions understand each other, but they consider Kabbalah absolutely unacceptable. Humanity will receive many more blows of fate before it will uncover the Creator’s Plan – to come close to Him through one’s intention.

Today Kabbalah is coming back into use, in order to correct man. We have to add it to our lives by beginning to correct ourselves. There is also a place for religion: to remain as a form of culture. This is because Kabbalah reveals the Creator and the Upper World to a person, leaving no room for suppositions about them. In this case, all that remains of religion are customs or traditions.

The reason why the religions are hostile toward Kabbalah is that Kabbalah gives every person an explanation of how to reveal the Creator, and in doing so it negates the need for religion. By giving people a personal connection with the Creator, Kabbalah strips the religious leaders of their power over the people.

Nevertheless, Kabbalists are in favor of preserving religion as a tradition or culture, as a nation’s framework and way of life. At the same time Kabbalah says that we should complement this way of life with the attainment of the Creator – which is the purpose of man’s creation and his perfect state.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Religion Is a Cultural Tradition, Kabbalah Is the Method of Correction
Laitman.com Post: The Writings of the Last Generation
Kabbalahblog.info Post: 2 Ways to Achieve Perfection
Baal HaSulam Article: “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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Faith isn’t in the mind or a feeling, but a revelation within of the inner level of the soul’s essence, when its natural development is not distorted.
Rav Kook, Articles “HaRaiyah,” 70

All pessimism comes from uncertainty and doubt, when one thinks that our corporeal life is all that exists.
Rav Kook, Articles “HaRaiyah,” 69

There is one commandment: to attain the Creator’s greatness through examining the works of the great Kabbalists, in order to attain all the worlds and everything inhabiting them.
Rabbi Chaim Vital, Otzrot Haim, Chapter “Shmot,” p.57

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News Report (translated from RB.ru): The global financial crisis, which has brought bankruptcies and countless job losses, has revived the European people’s interest in the ideas of Karl Marx, the founder of scientific communism. Book publishers in Berlin say that The Capital – Marx’s main work – is becoming a best-seller.

Recently the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, was seen reading this book. The German minister of finance, Peer Steinbrueck, said positive things about the book, and even the Pope in Rome praised it for its “deep analysis.” The longer the financial crisis continues, the more confused people become. They are asking, “Why did this happen to me?”

My Answer: I hope that they will come to the idea of Kabbalah just as fast. Universal equality, the idea that everyone deserves to receive what they need and are expected to give according to their natural skills, the idea of mutual guarantee and brotherhood – these are all good things, but only as the means and not the end. They should be a means to make us similar to the Creator, come closer to Him, and attain adhesion with Him. Otherwise these ideas – they way they are usually used – will once again lead to terror regimes and a world war.

Bringing the communist idea to life was a failure because in theory everything is nice and true, but it is impossible to transform man’s egoistic nature into altruism. (See Baal HaSulam’s newspaper “HaUma (The Nation)”). This is where the entire humanity will “stumble.” The crises and globalization will reveal to us that we are tightly interconnected, and hence we must observe the rule of “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” However, our nature won’t allow us to do this. We are ready to destroy one another and the entire world, because we can’t live in a mutual guarantee (See the article “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee).”

Hence, only the method of correcting human nature from egoism to altruism – Kabbalah – will help us survive. That’s because Kabbalah draws the Upper Light on a person, which created us and is the only thing capable of changing us.

Kabbalah will change man, as seen in practice, and will enable us to observe the law of brotherly community within the closed global system of mankind. This is why it is natural for people to be interested in Marx, but his theory cannot be realized in practice. To do this we need the Upper Force that corrects man, and only Kabbalah can provide it for us. I hope that people will soon realize this and will desire to actualize it the good way, instead of inflicting much more suffering on themselves.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: My Article on Ynetnews – A Kabbalistic Interpretation of the Economic Crisis
Laitman.com Post: The Remedy for the Global Crisis
Laitman.com Post: The Beginning of Enlightenment
Lesson on Baal HaSulam’s Article: “Exile and Redemption”

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Two questions I received on soccer and Kabbalah:

Question: Soccer draws the attention of many people. What is its spiritual root? I heard that you once drove by a soccer field with Rabash, and he said that it is a special place because it brings joy and pleasure to people. Soccer is full of corporeal, egoistic desires of the fans. What kind of ascent did Rabash see in this place? Maybe his words were a joke or a parable, or is there really a spiritual root to soccer?

My Answer: What’s important is not the game of soccer, but that a person receives pleasure from life. And this pleasure, of course, comes from the Creator. There are many parables like this.

If a person’s point in the heart – the yearning for the Creator – hasn’t surfaced yet, then he exists in exile from spirituality,even without being aware of it. As long as he is in this state, he enjoys the small pleasures of this world, called “a weak glow.”

Here we are talking about people who are not yet ready for spiritual work. The Light gathers people together and gives them some contentment – and hence it is a special place. By being there, they don’t harm anyone, but on the contrary – unite with each other.

Question: What if I want to be a soccer player and a Kabbalist at the same time?

My Answer: Give it a try!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Olympic Games Should Be Played Like Giveaway Checkers
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Laitman.com Post: The Soul Is the Property of Bestowal, and Without It We Are Animals
Lesson on Shamati #2: “Divinity in Exile”
Chapter from the Book Attaining the Worlds Beyond: Transforming Egoism to Altruism

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A question I received: What Is your opinion on the negotiations to divide Jerusalem? Are you for or against its division?

My Answer: I don’t have an opinion of my own; I accept the opinion of the great Kabbalists. Baal HaSulam writes: “If the people of Israel will accept the laws of Kabbalah, then it will be possible to build the Temple and bring back all the past glory. And of course this would prove to all the nations of the world – even the Arabs – that the people of Israel have the right to return to their land. This will be very different from the present secular repatriation, which does not impress the nations of the world. We need to act quickly, or else they might sell Israel’s independence for their own needs, not to mention giving away Jerusalem.”

He wrote this 93 years ago, when there was no talk of  repatriation yet, or the state of Israel, or our Jerusalem, and moreover – its current division. I am neither “for” nor “against” it, because I know that the only thing that will help us is our correction. Hence correction is the only thing I am “for.”

It is also written: “If you follow the path of the wisdom of Kabbalah and accept the Creator’s teaching – things will be good. And if you don’t accept it, then you will still advance toward the goal He has set, but your path will be one of suffering. In other words, wars will break out in the world, fought with atomic and hydrogen bombs, and all the nations of the world will search for counsel on how to avoid the wars. And they will come to the Messiah in Jerusalem, and he will teach them this wisdom.”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Third Temple and the Coming of the Messiah
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Baal HaSulam Article: The Last Generation
Chapter from the Book The Kabbalah Experience: The Messiah and the End of Days
Chapter from the Book Interview with the Future: A Spiritual Task

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A question I received: I read an interesting work by researcher A. D. Panov entitled, “The Crisis of the Universal History’s Planetary Cycle.” In it he uses the method of interpolating the times of civilizations’ revolutions and reaches the conclusion that the next and most significant crisis in the development of nature and man is scheduled to happen in the year 2027 (the Snooks–Panov vertical). After this crisis the entire development of human civilization will change fundamentally. What do you think about this, and that this will happen in 2027?

My Answer: There are many hypotheses about the crisis, and people’s premonitions are justified. However, do they understand the causes of the crisis, its process and its purpose? It is pointless to predict dates, because we cannot take into account our participation in becoming aware of the process and of our conscious self-correction, which will immediately introduce positive changes and accelerate the whole process.

This is because the “crisis” is the process of restoring our balance (similarity) with Nature – with the quality of love and bestowal. As soon as we reached the level of global egoism, we started being influenced by the general force of nature (the global interdependency between all of nature’s parts), which forces us to become similar to it (like parts of one body, to be in harmony all together).

If we recognize that this is what Nature demands from us and aspire to correspond to it, then to the extent we strive to become a harmonious part of the general system of nature, we will not need its negative correcting influence, which we feel as suffering (war, hunger, destruction).

Because it is impossible to calculate the degree to which we will participate in our correction, we cannot predict the flow of the entire process. The prophets – the Kabbalists of antiquity, described this process without incorporating the human constituent into it. This is why their descriptions are full of terrible suffering on the global scale. However, it is within our power to alter its flow, and this is why we’ve been given Kabbalah. This is also why it has been concealed until our time, and why it is now being revealed to everyone.

Related Material:
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This was sent by my student R. Tzarev:
The financial crisis in the United States is conducted forcefully and is controlled. Russia, Iran, China and the Emirates possess the world’s largest gold and foreign currency reserves. Russia, Iran, Venezuela, China, India and Brazil have begun creating their own alternative global economic system. Together they are beginning to pressure Europe, which is dependent on energy resources, causing it to break away from the US. By now Germany, Italy and France are lobbying for Russia’s interests, speaking out against the US. The European countries, Russia, Iran, Venezuela and Kuwait are using the Euro instead of the dollar in their business dealings related to energy products. This rejection of the dollar in the energy dealings will bring about a catastrophic drop of the entire US economy. The US must not allow this to happen. America must not allow itself to be bullied or bankrupted. There’s your reason for the “crisis.”

This was sent by my student O. Yahalom:

In our world there is a system of interaction of two opposite forces – positive and negative, altruistic and egoistic. Otherwise there would never be any growth, change or exchange. Of course, in our world the altruistic force is also egoistic – giving for the sake of greater profit. The dynamics of the current events can be explained by the interaction of these two forces in the world.

The entire global economy is structured in such a way that a person does not hope to receive from a specific source, but from the system as a whole. This leads to the formation of long chains of exchange: one person exchanges with another, the other with someone else, and if the end of the chain gets lost somewhere, man’s animate egoism can no longer motivate him to work, because he no longer sees when he will receive the reward and from whom. The only thing left is a vague “altruistic” intention to receive something from someone. But it gets weaker, because egoism constantly grows – and that’s how an economic crisis starts.

An economic crisis cannot happen within the boundaries of a city, state or other kind of region, because even if the end of the chain is not seen physically, a person still feels that it’s there. However, economic crises take place regularly in the context of a country, yet none of the economists know exactly what causes them. The fact is that they are caused by the undulating changes of balance between egoism and altruism in large groups of people. When egoism recedes – business flourishes. But when egoism continues to grow, altruism grows weaker, and egoism suddenly takes over the people’s consciousness, telling them that they shouldn’t trust the system, but instead receive more and “to the point” – the more the better, and all for themselves!

The first true crisis of altruism on the level of a country happened in the US, in 1929. Back then the American economy came out of the crisis because Roosevelt pumped all the foremost leaders of production and economy with optimism.

The first true crisis on the global level happened in September 2008. The true causes of the crisis lie on the spiritual level, on the level of the opposition between egoism and altruism in every single person and in humanity as a whole. Accordingly, the solution, the way out of the economic crisis can only be found on the spiritual level – humanity’s work towards evoking the Light that corrects egoism.

The Baal Shem Tov (a great Kabbalist who lived in the Russian empire at the end of the 18th century, founder of the Hassidut movement): “If only the Russian Tzar knew how beneficial the study of the Torah is for his country, he would set a guard with a sword beside every Jew, who would stand over him and keep repeating: “Study the Torah! Study the Torah!”

The countries that will lose most from this crisis will be those with energy resources. All of the earth’s resources, no matter where they are, belong to all humankind (see Baal HaSulam’s newspaper, “HaUma (The Nation)” and the article “The Last Generation”). That’s because the Upper Force sees us – humanity – as one single body, the creation. And to the extent that every country (every organ of this body) acts against this unified altruistic organism (reveals that it is ill), to that extent it will eventually be punished (be influenced by negative, correcting feedback, which brings the system to harmony, to recovery) or rewarded (be successful in this world and reveal the governing force).

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Humanity Is One Integral, Interconnected Organism
Laitman.com Post: The Financial Crisis – an Analysis
Kabbalah Today Article: Humankind and Human Kindness
Article: “On Roots and Branches”
Article: “A Kabbalistic Interpretation of the Economic Crisis”

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A question I received: How should we react to people who try to use us?

• Like parents with children, knowing that they wouldn’t act this way if they were on your level;
• To understand that children can be sly and lazy;
• This can help you say “No” firmly, if the situation calls for it;
• To ask yourself “What is the Creator teaching me here?”
• To realize that everyone has his or her role in this world.

I use these rules and find them very helpful.

My Answer: If it isn’t someone who must definitely be convinced of the authenticity of Kabbalah (a journalist, for example), then you should simply leave people with a good mood and a positive impression from interacting with you.

Related Material:
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Kabbalah on Education
Kabbalah for Children

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Mutual Guarantee (Arvut) is the condition for life, for the existence of any living organism. When all of an organism’s forces and actions are coordinated and aimed at a common goal, then the negative correcting forces (crises and illnesses) do not emerge in the organism, and the system exists in permanent balance (homeostasis).

The current events (the financial crisis, general depression, drugs, breakdown of the family unit, emptiness, aimlessness, the global crisis, the ecological crisis) are revealing to us the single and general reason for everything taking place – that we are all an integral part of Nature, that all of Nature’s parts are interconnected, and hence they must behave accordingly. However, we – humanity – do not behave this way. We are akin to a cancerous tumor in Nature’s single, harmonious organism.

Mankind must realize that it constitutes one whole organism, and the law of the common mutual guarantee – of care for every person and for everyone at once – is the essential condition of our collective survival. The Biblical principles, “Do not do unto others what you don’t wish done unto you” and “Love your neighbor as thyself” are laws that determine the general balance of nature and our society. If we don’t abide by them, we will perish.

Baal HaSulam’s article, “Arvut” (Mutual Guarantee), describes how we can attain balance with Nature using the Kabbalistic source texts. The book, Kabbalah, Science, and the Meaning of Life talks about my meetings with American scientists who research the scientific fields bordering the Upper World.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Why Isn’t Spirituality Attained Individually, but Through Mutual Guarantee?
Laitman.com Post: Equality and Brotherhood Are the Means of Attaining Spirituality
Laitman.com Post: Correction Lies In Unity
Lessons: Article “Arvut”, 17.11.05 – 23.11.05

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