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.

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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.

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Questions I received on spiritual advancement:

Question: I have been studying with you for three years through the Internet. I used to attend a local group and even came to one of your lessons. Ever since I started studying Kabbalah, I have become grave and withdrawn. It has become very difficult to communicate with people, including you. My girlfriend left me, nothing seems to be going right in life, and I’ve been planning to write you a letter for a few years already. On the other hand, I am doing better: I have registered on the forum and am writing you a letter. I hope that I’ll be able to keep in touch with you at least virtually. There are many times when I’d like to talk to you.

My Answer: If you’re drowning, you have to save yourself. And if you don’t have friends, then who will rescue you? Hence, success can only come by becoming included in the group, even if you have to force yourself to do it. Then the friends will support you and push you toward the goal.

Question: In one of your lectures you said that we shouldn’t forget that there are ups and downs and that they lead a person toward the goal only if they come from the right aspiration. What is the right aspiration? How can I know that I aspire to the right goal? And generally speaking – does my desire or aspiration really depend on me?

My Answer: If your aspiration emerged in you as a result of unifying with the group, then it is correct.

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News Report (from Press Room and SvobodaNews):Henry Paulson said during a press conference: “It is critical for governments to continue to take individual and collective actions to provide much-needed liquidity, strengthen financial institutions, enhance market stability, and develop a comprehensive regulatory response …

We must continue to closely coordinate our actions and work within a common framework so that the action of one country does not come at the expense of others or the stability of the system as a whole. In addition, in consultation with Brazil, the G-20 President, I am calling for a special meeting of the G-20 to discuss how we might coordinate to lessen the effects of global market turmoil and the economic slowdown on all of our countries …

We see evidence every day that world economies and financial markets are more connected and interdependent than at any time in history … This really is a global market and a global economy. Economic growth and strength of one country makes everyone else stronger, while weakness of one country makes all of us weaker. This is why we need to work together. This press conference is very important.”

My Comment: I was glad to read this news report, and I am happy that people are quickly recognizing the need for unity and mutual efforts. However, the proposed solutions are still out-dated, like trying to inject a prosthetic limb.

We need to treat the human society as an independent, live organism that lives by its own laws, rather than the laws we invent. It lives by the law of “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

We are once again entering the “biblical” times and their demands of man. We have come full circle. For now it is still ridiculous even to speak about observing this law. But nevertheless, even our thoughts about it will already start changing the condition of the world.

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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.

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Two questions I received on the virtual group:

Question: How does mutual guarantee work in a virtual group and what does it mean there?

My Answer: It’s the same as in a physical group, because you are not uniting through the bodies, but through your “points in the heart” – you must feel that they are together. I think that it’s easier to feel this virtually than during physical contact, when the externality overshadows the internality.

Question: On one of the virtual group websites, I proposed to create a Kabbalah Constitution, and to start working on creating it. However, this did not evoke any interest. Should I continue with it?

My Answer: Yes. Get in touch with those who are working on the development of a virtual community at [email protected]

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A question I received: The objective of every government is to lull people’s consciousness. That way people will not fall under influence of any kind of extremism. This is why the mass media has to stupefy or brainwash the masses. Clearly, man’s inner resources are not being used in this case, since they become dormant.

In the modern systematic crisis (whose essence can only be seen by Kabbalists), the government is even more eager to lull the people, since it doesn’t know what to do and even admits that it’s helpless! What solution do you propose?

My Answer: Kabbalah offers the only solution that can awaken people to action, without the danger of breaking the fragile balance of forces within the civilization that still manages to hold the world back from complete destruction and chaos.

The most general stages of realizing the solution are the following:
1. The “background mode” of the mass media should be used to give people a subconscious understanding that everyone is connected with everyone and that humanity is a unified whole. In addition, people should be made to understand what is “good” and and what is “bad” – that altruism, recognition that all people are interdependent, and the corresponding actions are good, while egoism and petty pursuit of self benefit are bad, both for the individual and for humanity as a whole.

2. Once this will enter the public consciousness, we will begin motivating people to become conscious and start making altruistic actions. At first the motive will be to solve the obvious, simple, corporeal problems, in order for everyone to see the benefits of the new way of thinking.

3. Even during stages 1 and 2, it is necessary to introduce into the streams of information, thoughts about the existence of a single force, the final goal of universe:

a) At first this should be done in a complex manner, accessible only to the people who think;
b) When the active stage begins, this should be done through simple information that’s clear to the masses, making it obvious that this is the most appealing worldview for every person.

This will give us the opportunity to unite all of humanity in a single impulse to solve our common problem, and at the same time – in the process of solving the problem – the separated souls will combine to create a single system of humanity.

What is special about this proposition? Kabbalah is the only basis with the ability to create an ideological system that satisfies two mutually exclusive criteria:
a) The system must be so powerful that people’s consciousness will not grow disillusioned of it and reject it;
b) The system must stimulate the masses to transform their consciousness.

All the other ideological models satisfy just one of these requirements:
a) Either the system works well to stimulate people’s consciousness, but does not endure (for example, revolutions);
b) Or the system brainwashes people’s consciousness, but by doing so deprives them of the active, creative force that can change the world (for example, religion).

In addition, after going through a specific period of inner changes, man discards the boundaries of the proposed model and from then on, the path of his consciousness becomes unpredictable. Still, Kabbalah helps people build the model of a new world that’s guaranteed to work with all the changes, enabling an individual’s consciousness to develop without any limitations over the course of his entire life.

This is because Kabbalah uses a physical principle that was unknown before it: when the parts of a system are correctly unified, the system gains energy overall. In other words, without altering our material resources (food, water, oil, and so on), we can solve all our problems simply by unifying people altruistically rather than egoistically (see the example of the Wolf, Goat and Cabbage).

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A question I received: What can every person do to change the situation in the world?

My Answer: No physical, political, scientific, or social actions can change our world. So if the world can’t be changed, perhaps we can change man. What will this give us?

Physicists are discovering that the results of scientific experiments depend on man’s presence, even though they still don’t know the degree of this influence nor its nature. Kabbalah studies how man’s consciousness and intentions affect reality, and how we can control this influence in order to change reality!

There is an initial, constant and absolute reality – the World of infinity. Besides, there is a reality that we create with our intentions. In our world, we have never before changed our egoistic intentions. We did not know that by changing our intentions from “for our own sake” to “for the sake of others,” we actually change all of reality.

We did not know that we can affect reality to the degree we become similar to the Creator’s quality – “bestowal and love.” Kabbalah tells us how to do this.

At the end of our spiritual development we will be convinced that the only thing we have to change is ourselves (rather than the world). By doing so we won’t just change our world, but all of reality will change from corporeal to spiritual, from life in the body to life in the soul.

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Interesting relationships may start forming between countries:

News Report (from MIGnews): The prime minister of Great Britain, Gordon Brown, has declared war (for now, diplomatic and economic) on Iceland, because Iceland’s bankrupt banks are refusing to return billions of dollars to their British clients.

Since the country’s actual default, forty billion dollars of British savings remain frozen in Iceland’s banks. The government of Iceland refuses to give guarantees on the investments of foreign clients in Iceland’s banks. In response, Brown has arrested the assets of Icelandic companies in Britain.

The British Telegraph reports that his actions were accompanied by the following statement: “We are freezing the assets of Icelandic companies in the UK where we can. We will take further action against the Icelandic authorities wherever that is necessary to recover the money.”

My Comment: All countries will find themselves in the same situation. But there won’t be anyone to fight, since everything is intertwined and there is no one to blame. Still, it’s possible that they will fight nevertheless before reaching the understanding that they have to move on to a different kind of relationship – mutual care for one another for the sake of survival.

And later they will come to the realization that they must “love one’s neighbor as oneself,” because everything that’s theirs depends on others. And later they will also attain the level of love for one’s neighbor, because others aren’t “neighbors” with regard to just finance or security, but in fact, we are connected by nature. Through the mutual guarantee (similar to the guarantee of a bank), people will attain the highest reward – the revelation of the Creator! Even Mr. Brown will be able to understand this.

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When I speak to economists about the crisis, I find that they and I are interested in different things. They are not interested in the cause of the crisis, and are willing to accept my explanation of it. What interests them is the evolution of the crisis, and what needs to be done here and now – by a bank or a family.

For now, my propositions that what needs to be corrected are the relationships between everyone – both organizations and people around the world, sound naïve to them, because they do not yet see the cause of the crisis – the lack of kind connections between people. These connections must come from the understanding that we are all part of one organism, and we can cure this organism only by mutually caring for all of its parts. That is the only way to solve this global problem and all the crises that are gradually becoming revealed in humanity today. They are being revealed because our egoistic development has brought us to the point where we are all united within a single organism.

With regard to the global crisis, the process has begun, but this is just the beginning. There is a lot to say about it, and we will talk about it much more in the future – its causes, progress, purpose, and possibilities of softening it – “the path of Light” that Kabbalah offers instead of “the path of suffering.”

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