Two questions I received on relating to one’s environment:

Question: In one of your lessons in the United States, you said that people who are ready for a new worldview should voluntarily limit their needs to the minimum bodily necessities for food, shelter, leisure and knowledge. What should we do about the rest of our surroundings such as children, spouses, and parents, who are not ready to limit themselves? Is it sufficient to limit myself while giving those around me what they desire, and show them that my path is correct just through personal example? By the way, I have acted this way all my life, and in return everyone around me tacitly hates me and puts me down.

My Answer: If one’s head is “in the clouds,” then he naturally takes no more than the necessities from this world. He does not have to limit himself because this just comes to him naturally. This is the attitude one has when he realizes that the whole world is one family.

If the people around you hate you and put you down, it’s probably because you’re forcing them or prohibiting them from something.

Question: Can one person make another person feel a lack or need (whether spiritual or corporeal)?

My Answer: The environment can evoke or suppress any earthly desire in anyone (see the article “The Freedom”). Moreover, if a person has a point in the heart, the society can accelerate its development.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Influence of the Environment
Kabbalah Today Article: The Freedom Blues
Baal HaSulam Article: “Peace in the World”
Society as a Condition for Attaining Spirituality

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Three questions I received on souls and reincarnation:

Question: At some point you talked about how a single Soul descended into this world in different bodies throughout centuries: Abraham, Moses, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, the Ari, and Baal HaSulam. As I understand, you and everyone who has crossed the Machsom (or in the process of crossing it) are in contact with this Soul. Has it completed its mission?

My Answer: No, it hasn’t. We are all parts of one soul. Its “lighter” parts have already undergone correction and are now helping all of us (this is called Zhut Avot in Hebrew). Gradually, one by one, they help us to do the same thing they did – connect to the single soul of Adam. All of humanity are parts of this single soul, the only created creature.

Question: What is a “ Kabbalistic soul”?

My Answer: It’s a soul that compels a person to attain the Creator. Actually, there are no other souls, because if a person still doesn’t have the aspiration to reveal the Creator, he still doesn’t have a soul. However, this aspiration will be revealed in the future, or perhaps in the next life cycle.

Nevertheless, even if a person doesn’t have this aspiration, listening to or reading Kabbalistic materials will accelerate the revelation of the aspiration toward the Creator and the revelation of the soul.

Question: If one is born a genetic Jew, does this mean that one always reincarnates as a Jew?

My Answer: Yes, just like anyone else. It’s because our world is an imprint of the Upper World, and a person is a copy of the soul.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Immerse Into the Waters of Bestowal, and You Will Become Pure
Laitman.com Post: A Kabbalist Feels the Same Pleasure As the Creator
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Kabbalah Today Article: Soul Splitting
The Structure of the Soul

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I received many questions on the reason for our suffering and the current crisis. Here’s my answer:

Kabbalah states that there is only one reason for everything that’s happening: man’s failure to observe the law of balance with Nature, or in other words, failure to observe the law of equivalence to the Creator. Precisely this failure to observe balance on the highest level, called “Human,” to have interpersonal relationships according to the principle “Love your neighbor as yourself,” leads to a breach of balance on the lower levels. As a result, the animal and plant kingdoms are dying out, and the balance of forces on the still level of nature are disrupted as well. All of this is an outcome of our egoistic thoughts, desires, and actions.

It’s no accident that the leading financiers have correctly pinpointed the reason for the financial crisis: it is a crisis of moral values, where greed has given rise to an avalanche of irresponsible accumulation. But as we can see, the suffering teaches people, even financiers, to see the reason for their misfortunes. As a result, the great suffering (to the point of hunger and near-extinction) will force us to restructure our egoistic attitude to humanity and the world.

Kabbalah offers us a way to implement these changes voluntarily and pleasantly, before the crises will catch up with us. Otherwise they will only keep mounting, like the plagues of Egypt.

It is difficult to understand how our egoism can influence natural disasters and global warming. But here too, the suffering will help us figure out the reason for what’s happening. The storms all over the world will keep gaining momentum, and the melting glaciers in Greenland will cause tornadoes. When this happens, it will suddenly become clear to us that the reason for these phenomena is our egoism and unfounded hatred for one another. In this way, Nature will teach humans to become “Human,” to observe the law of equivalence and attain balance!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Analysis of the Crisis

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On November 25, at the Foreign Press Association Media Award in London, Prince Charles stated:

Humanity has a natural tendency to consume and if there are no limits on that tendency we can become obsessed simply with satisfying our desires. The desire grows ever more potent as we consume ever more, even though we achieve very little of the actual satisfaction we desire…

We hear so many people admitting to feeling deeply dissatisfied. This reminds me of that wise observation about Gross National Product made by Robert Kennedy forty years ago, that it “measures everything except that which makes life worthwhile.”

…many do not even realize that we have lost something very precious – what I might best describe as that intuitive sense of our interconnectedness with Nature… I consider our problems today not to be an environmental crisis per se… nor a financial crisis. They all stem from this fundamental crisis in our perception.

…the denial of our real relationship with the universal truths through a deep connection with Nature and her laws has engendered a dangerous alienation. In denying or forgetting the invisible “grammar of harmony” we create cacophony and dissonance.

Related Material:
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Two questions I received on “easy fixes” to the financial crisis:

Question: What you write in The Financial Crisis – an Analysis, is a new way to look at the unfolding crisis, and I appreciate the common sense attitude of the article. However, I take issue with the answer to the fourth question:

“Hence, countries will try to move away from globalization. However, this won’t help them, because then they will stop developing. Without full communication and exchange, they will cease developing and regress to feudalism!”

This country had development, communication and exchange before globalization. Globalization was a bad idea: America stopped developing. We stopped exchanging and took what the foreign recipients of our commerce gave us, and on their terms. We didn’t complain too loudly about industrial chemicals in baby food out of fear that they would stop selling us baby food and refuse our dollars. That’s not communication, it’s supplication.

My Answer: Everything taking place is governed by the law of development, so it isn’t a product of blind fate or a coincidence. We see that whenever something happens in the developed countries, the less developed countries are forced to follow suit.

We can’t change the laws of nature. We exist inside them and it’s our obligation to study and observe them. This is also to our own benefit. Nature has a goal for everything it does, which is to bring man to a special state: the highest level, called “the Creator.”

The development either takes place by means of pressure, which we perceive as suffering, or through man’s conscious understanding and cooperation with Nature. Kabbalah explains what to do to be on the second path.

Question: If the crisis is actually a crisis of people’s trust, then why can’t we stop it by advertising positive forecasts? The mass media should be forbidden from talking about bad news and instead made to tell everyone that everything is good.

My Answer: This won’t improve anything, because the illness will still keep developing until it will reach the point of being irreversible. We must first reveal the evil, and then correct it.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Financial Crisis Is for Our Own Good
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News Report: Unless the circumstances of human life and civilization change, its swift genetic extinction is imminent. Every subsequent generation is sicklier than the one preceding it. In the end, a sick generation will beget a completely nonviable generation. People in the developing countries will last a bit longer. The financial crisis will lead to a crisis of the medical service available to the public. The quality of life will decrease drastically, and in one to two decades the earth’s population will shrink to one billion.

My Comment: There are many tragic forecasts of humanity’s near-complete extinction due to various factors. The science of Kabbalah does not exclude these possibilities, including world wars. Yet at the same time it offers the general solution to any and all possible crises and their consequences.

Because the cause of all the problems lies in the opposition of man’s egoism to the altruism of Nature, correcting man’s egoism will make man similar to Nature and hence will draw the positive forces of Nature. As a result, all the factors will transform from negative to positive, and humanity will develop until revealing the quality of eternity and perfection within.

Related Material:
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The President-elect of the United States, Barack Obama writes in his book, Audacity Of Hope – Thoughts On Reclaiming The American Dream:

“In response, I would usually smile and nod and say that I understood the skepticism, but that there was – and always had been – another tradition to politics, a tradition that stretched from the days of the country’s founding to the glory of the civil rights movement, a tradition based on the simple idea that we have a stake in one another, and that what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart, and that if enough people believe in the truth of that proposition and act on it, then we might not solve every problem, but we can get something meaningful done.”

My Comment: Throughout all human history, from the ancient times to today, there were many people who realized and wrote about the cause of all the suffering and crises that take place in society and in nature as a whole. That cause is man’s egoistic nature.

However, in our world there is no means to correct man’s egoism. The only thing capable of correcting it is the Upper Light, which created it. And there is only one method in our world that can draw the Light’s influence upon our egoism – the Science of Kabbalah. Its intended purpose is to reveal the Creator – the quality of love and bestowal – to man in this world (see the beginning of the article, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”).

So if the new American President plans to make the world better, he has to familiarize himself with Kabbalah. Otherwise, things will turn out as they always have.

Related Material:
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Two questions I received on the arts and spirituality:

Question: In a previous blog entry, in response to the question of whether works of art are spiritual, you said: “All art was brought about by man’s desire to express himself, or in other words, by the desire for glory, to stand out, to prove something (even if it’s to himself), to express his way of seeing things.”

But you have also said that “A desire cannot be bad if it is accompanied by the intention to bestow.”

My Answer: In order to acquire an intention of bestowal, a person has to study Kabbalah for at least three years. Then, as a result of the Upper Light’s influence, the quality of bestowal will appear within him. There is no other means to correct your original egoistic intention and transform it into a spiritual one.

Question: An actor is connected with the audience and they understand each other. He gives fully of himself to them, and in return receives applause (fulfillment). The audience applauds with great emotion, giving all of their feelings to the actor, and in return they receive fulfillment from his performance. It is a mutual, yet egoistic connection. Should our adhesion with the Creator be something like this?

My Answer: In the example above you’re exchanging different types of pleasure. However, when it comes to the Creator, you must become similar to Him through the quality of bestowal, and this will determine the degree of your connection with Him.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Kabbalah Compared to the Arts
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Two questions I received on the financial crisis:

Question: What will happen to the American capital market? Is there any chance it will be restored?

My Answer: The restoration will not happen quickly. As we undergo a change in our consciousness, rather than perish humanity will change its entire worldview: instead of caring for their bodies, people will spend their time caring about spiritual fulfillment.

There is no going back or repeating the past. Either we will take “the Path of Suffering” and enter a period of Nature’s blows until we find ourselves on the brink of extinction, while a small part of humanity (which will incorporate all the souls) will attain the spiritual goal of humanity.

Or we will accept the method of Kabbalah and completely restructure our lives in accordance with it. In this case, the planet will nourish us and we will stop being punished through natural and social crises. This is called “the Path of Light.”

We must understand that the banking crisis, which has already been replaced by the economic crisis, will grow into a social crisis – and then into an ecological one (lack of food and water, which can happen within the next ten years), then into a military one (Nazism), and so on, until mankind becomes completely savage. Alternatively, we can correct our egoistic nature using the method of Kabbalah. There is no other method, because all other methods lack the Upper Force, which created us and hence is able to correct us.

Question: Everyone’s talking about the crisis, but it’s hard for me to feel it personally. What can I do share this growing concern?

My Answer: The crisis will catch up to everyone.

Related Material:
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A question I received: According to the Ari, the people of Israel were exiled to different countries in order to collect the “sparks” of the nations of the world into one large force, directed toward the Creator. Could it be that the Eastern meditations and teachings, used by many Israelis to come closer to spirituality, are these sparks, and therefore these teachings are necessary for us to develop?

My Answer: It is written that once Abraham revealed Kabbalah, he started teaching it to others who were interested in the opportunity to attain the purpose of life – the revelation of the Creator, adhesion with Him. These people became his students. However, there were others who still hadn’t revealed this desire, the question about the meaning of life – see item 2 of the “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot.” He gave these people another teaching as preparation.

Those who followed him – his students, are called his sons. Those who weren’t yet able to follow him, but listened to him, are called the sons of his concubines or slaves. It is written in Midrash Raba that he taught them religions and sent them to the East.

However, today we are only starting to rethink religions and beliefs. People must realize and feel that religions and beliefs were given to us temporarily, to last through the period of the Creator’s concealment in order to then be replaced with His revelation. When He is revealed, the only thing that will remain of them are folk customs and traditions. Meanwhile, all the nations of the world will unite under one Creator, and He will be revealed to them.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Everything Comes From Kabbalah
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Humankind vs. Human Kindness
Chapter from Book The Kabbalah Experience: “Beliefs, Mysticism and The Supernatural”
Chapter from Book Kabbalah Revealed: “Handling Desires”
Baal HaSulam Article: “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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