Questions I received on how to correct our egoistic nature:

Question: What do I have to do to persuade the Upper Light to correct me?

My Answer: You have to reach the point where you discover that by hating someone else, you hate yourself, and you harm yourself just by thinking badly of someone, with your negative attitude to others! In addition, you won’t just desire for bad things not to happen to others because they will negatively affect you, but more than that, you’ll begin to discover that your bad, egoistic thoughts about others immediately return to you.

And then you’ll discover that another person and you is the same thing, and you cannot think of others badly as this would be equivalent to thinking badly about yourself. But at the same time, you cannot stop thinking badly of them.
That is when you’ll come to the necessity for the Upper Light, which will correct you.

Question: I hate successful people, and I feel good when others feel bad. I hate the entire world and the entire humanity. What should I do?

My Answer: Actually, you cannot be any different. Everyone feels this way, but most people just haven’t discovered the evil inside them. It is written, “I created egoism and I created Kabbalah for its correction, because the Light of Kabbalah corrects a person (returns him to the Creator).” So, keep on advancing!

Question: What’s the best way to deal with the hatred, envy and jealously that I feel toward others in the group?

My Answer: You will never be able to overcome them. Only the Upper Light, which affects you during the study of Kabbalah, will correct you.

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A question I received: Please show me practically, using examples from history, how do Reshimot change?

My Answer: The periodical change of our attitude to life is dictated by the changing “genes” in us (Reshimot, which comes from the word Roshem – “recording” in Hebrew). The stages of egoism’s changes are recorded inside each of us from the beginning, when the common soul divided into many souls.

Reshimot are revealed in us in an increasing, consecutive order: 0-1-2-3-4. Therefore, at the beginning stages of their realization in us, the Reshimot brought forth a small egoism in us; and in those lives we were “naïve” – slaves and masters. Then, as more advanced Reshimot surfaced in us, when we were born in the next epochs, we desired to be freer, to be workers, such as vassals or serfs. Women were married off without their permission, and this was considered “correct.” They loved their husbands because their small egoism did not get in the way. This was the accepted norm.

And after that, as more advanced Reshimot were expressed in us, we desired to be “free” workers for hire, employers but not masters. We desired freedom and equality (including for women), and so on.

Reshimot elicit desires in us, and the desires provoke the mind to achieve what we desire. Today we can see nations in whom different Reshimot were expressed in the same epoch, and therefore we don’t live in one cultural zone, but in different cultures and formations. However, globalization is bringing about a quick realization of Reshimot in every person and in everyone together.

In regard to choice:

• marriage (voluntary – through love, or forced – stealing the bride, paying a ransom, marrying by the father’s order, and so on),

• power (coercive – although later accepted and loved, like in Russia until today; by election; or inherited),

• place of residence (being attached to the place, having a residence permit, a passport system, free movement),

• and according to other signs, one can tell which Reshimot were realized in a nation or a civilization.

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In the news (from The Guardian): “Scientists open doors with the power of the mind” A mock-up of a home controlled by the power of thought has been successfully piloted by a hospital in Italy, promising new levels of independence for the severely disabled. Scientists showed that people could open doors or operate lights, a telephone, a small robot and even a robotic hand by wearing a strip of electrodes on their head to pick up brainwaves that signal “interest” and send them to a computer that interprets them as desired actions. Within three years such a system would be of practical benefit to the severely disabled.

My Comment: The power of thought is the greatest force in creation. It is only in our world that we don’t see how our thoughts affect everything that happens to us. Studying Kabbalah enables you to start discerning the net of forces that permeates our world, the matrix upon which our world lies and by which it is governed, and how we unconsciously influence these forces with our thoughts.

When you reveal this picture, you start interacting with Nature correctly. This is why it is so important to study the Kabbalistic sources.

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In the News (from Higher Education Center): New research examines how group processes alter the impact of alcohol on a judgment task requiring vigilance. Alcohol significantly impaired the performance of individuals, but not groups. Group members make fewer errors than individuals in the alcohol condition… The evidence highlights that group process can compensate for the cognitively impairing effects of alcohol on individuals.

My Comment: It turns out that “splitting it three ways” is not just a way to save money, but also necessary for spiritual unification!

In the News (from RT): As the economic crisis bites, Russians have started to prioritize spending, saving money on food and daily necessities. According to a survey by the Nielsen research company, about 95 percent of Russians have noted an increase in prices this year. 73 percent declared that they have begun saving on groceries and products of daily consumption while 10 percent said they no longer buy sweets and cakes and 8 percent said the have excluded meat and vodka from their shopping basket.

My Comment: If people correct themselves, then the world will be filled with abundance. Right now, even though there is more than enough of everything in the world, our corrupted connections create the crisis, and hence we are unable to exchange the products of our work correctly.

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In the News (from Science): American microbiologists have created a synthetic microbial system, wherein altruistic microbes that produced a resource beneficial to the public, at a cost to themselves, nonetheless benefited the most in the end, despite losing the competition to egoistic bacteria in each separate population. The affluence of the altruists is attributed to the statistical effect known as “Simpson’s Paradox.”

My Answer: This is taking place on an animate, egoistic level. This is not the altruism that’s above egoism, but rather one that helps egoism to continue existing in conflicting situations.

The altruism that Kabbalah speaks of, and the one we must attain, is above egoism and it utilizes egoism as a basis. This is only possible under the influence of the Upper Light, and only when one consciously uses one’s egoism, instead of the natural egoism of the animate body.

A Kabbalist’s body works by the same egoistic principle as the body of any animal! The confusion stems from the fact that all the books of the Torah, including Kabbalah, use the word “body” to allude to the body of the soul – or in other words, one’s desires. After all, the desire is the only thing that was created; it is the entire matter of creation.

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Two questions I received about the future:

Question: In the future, will there be a generation that will be able to see and feel the Light? How will they see It, with their souls or even with their eyes?

My Answer: The spiritual world is attained inside the intention “to bestow,” which is born from our intention “to receive,” as a consequence of the Surrounding Light’s (Ohr Makif’s) influence on us. This Light corrects our egoistic intention, turning it into an altruistic one.

Question: Will Kabbalists become the world’s leaders one day?

My Answer: Certainly: in the future, the only people governing the world will be those who have completely attained it, meaning Kabbalists. People will understand this and institute it of their own accord; in other words, they will choose it.

Today we see how wrong the “blind” leaders of the world are and how they “lead” the world through suffering. And lately we see that they aren’t even able to hide their own confusion any longer.

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News Report (from WebWire): “A Crowded World: Researchers use computer scenarios to study crowd behavior in time and space” The scientists at the School of Geographical Sciences at Arizona State University have created a model of crowd behavior. Their results were as follows:

1. There is rapid exchange of nonverbal information in crowds

2. The actions of a single individual can shape the dynamics of an entire crowd

3. Individuals who would never ordinarily engage in anti-social behavior such as looting might do so anyway when associated with a riotous crowd; and, conversely, anti-social individuals may see their bad behavior checked by other members of a well-behaved crowd.

My Comment: The science of Kabbalah has been explaining the same laws of individual and social behavior for thousands of years. It explains these and many other laws, how to use them to benefit the individual without infringing on his freedom and while enabling him to develop harmoniously, and how to use these laws for the benefit of society in a way that avoids conflicts between the individual and the society. It explains how the two can come to an ideal coexistence, where individual gain is equal to social gain. This is possible if the importance of the individual is equal to the importance of society as a whole, by observing the law, “The general and the particular are equal.” This observance is possible when everyone is equal and interdependent, and every person strives only to fulfill the desire of the single whole, seeing this as his mission and receiving absolute fulfillment from it.

This is the state we exist in from the very beginning. It is called the “World of Infinity.” We must desire to ascend (morally) from our present state, called “this world,” to the level of the “World of Infinity.” This desire will draw onto us the Light (feeling) of bestowal and love, which fills us in the “World of Infinity” – and this Light will then correct us, giving us the quality of “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” This isn’t inconceivable. Even scientists now prove that an individual’s qualities can change instantly under the society’s influence. Therefore, everything depends on our decision to create the right influence over each and every one of us. Therein lies our freedom of will.

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A question I received: In one of the lessons you were asked a direct question: Will Kabbalah studies improve one’s financial situation? You answered, “No.” I was waiting for an explanation, such as that there’s no use waiting for a miracle to happen overnight, the way people expect from amulets and holy water. I thought that you would talk about a simple principle that everyone can understand, such as, “Everyone should give according to their ability, and receive according to their needs.”

After all, Kabbalah does provide material prosperity to the people who search spirituality, but in addition, it gives them a way to open the gates to the spiritual world. But instead, you cut the whole topic off and said, “No.” Why?

My Answer: You’re right: of course, a person who works on his own correction sways himself and the whole world to the scale of merit, and to the degree he ascends above egoism, he feels the Light and abundance in his entire life.

However, I want to underline that Kabbalah is the method of revealing the Creator to man in this world, and not a method to get rich, be healed, know the future, cast spells, and all the other things people attribute to it. This is why I clearly tell beginners that Kabbalah studies do not give you any direct material gain. And this is true. It’s because initially a person must reach a feeling that he needs this, and then Kabbalah – the revelation of the Creator – is for him.

It is not a method to get rich quick, or to heal one’s animate body, and so on. If a person genuinely aspires to reveal the Creator, then the Upper Light influences him and elicits changes in this life as well.

Nevertheless, sometimes this may also manifest as it is written in the verse, “He is the righteous and unhappy.” Actually, this doesn’t mean that the righteous person is unhappy, but according to our criteria, he is not rich or healthy. This is because we are all interconnected, and hence sometimes a person who’s righteous suffers for the entire world.

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News Report (from The Wall Street Journal): Israelis have to discard Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s famous maxim: “War’s objective is victory – not prolonged indecision. In war there is no substitute for victory.” They will have to settle for a substitute because from their standpoint “prolonged indecision” is better than the alternatives – the annihilation of themselves, which would be unthinkable, or of their enemies, which would be unconscionable.

My Comment: We have to let time do its job, in order to bring the nation of Israel to its senses, so it will realize that precisely by correcting itself, it can amend the situation, both for themselves and for the whole world.

Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar”: If people use the science of Kabbalah – the method of correction, they raise the whole world and then suffering disappears. It is precisely through the use of Kabbalah that the world will come out of its crisis, toward the Light.”

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News Report (From NewScientist): “Artificial Molecule Evolves in a Lab” A new molecule that performs the essential function of life – self-replication – could shed light on the origin of all living things. If that wasn’t enough, the laboratory-born ribonucleic acid (RNA) strand evolves in a test tube to double itself ever more swiftly. Gerald Joyce, a biochemist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California hopes to imbue his team’s molecule with all the fundamental properties of life: self-replication, evolution, and function. Joyce’s team created its own molecule from scratch…

My Comment: Creation is an act of “something emerging from nothing.” However, it is not when we take ready made ingredients, tinker with them, and end up with some “concoction.” After all, if that was considered creation, then we would also be able to say that the act of conception is the same as an act of creation as well.

Of course, scientists understand that they are only using matter, and its laws and qualities. Still, I hope my comment will help people avoid the pitfall of thinking that we can create in a similar way as the Creator, whose act of creation was to create “Something from nothing” (esh Mi Ain).

Kabbalah reveals the beginning of creation to man: the Light created a desire from nothing, from non-existence, so this desire would desire Him and receive pleasure from being fulfilled by Him. All of creation consists only of these two: the Light and the Desire. The Light is the Creator, and the Desire is the creation. All the changes occur only in the desire, which changes from being opposite to the Light, to being similar to the Light. All the worlds and everything inhabiting them, including us, are parts of this desire.

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