Questions I received on the Israeli Palestinian conflict:

Question: Why did Israel choose this time of all others to start a war?

My Answer: The war in Gaza started because of the falling oil prices. Hamas would be nonexistent without help from Iran, and Iran’s plan is to become an Arabic superpower, which is only possible if oil is expensive. Therefore, in order to raise the oil prices, Iran ordered Hamas to start the war.

Question: How is it possible to manage without the tunnels used for delivering goods?

My Answer: There are over 1500 tunnels between Egypt and Gaza, and these tunnels are the basis of Hamas’s socio-economic power. Hamas builds the tunnels and sells each one for $170,000. Hamas also receives $16,000 for giving permission for a tunnel to be dug. Moreover, the goods delivered through these tunnels are taxed by Hamas, resulting in millions of dollars in profit.

This is why Hamas reacted the way it did when its “economy” was shut down. And there is no other opportunity for them to make a profit in Gaza. The solution lies in replacing the terrorist government with a peaceful one, which will start building the economy and making its own living.

Question: If the quality of life improves for the residents of Gaza, will terrorism vanish?

My Answer: Any normal government takes care of its citizens and tries to provide them with jobs, safety, and national security. A terrorist government, on the other hand, tries to deprive its citizens of all these, in order to receive humanitarian aid and then distribute it by reselling it. Therefore, the more impoverished the nation is, the better it is for the terrorist government, because people think less and will agree to anything. This is why the Hamas government didn’t build bomb shelters in Gaza, and why the Palestinian terrorists always shoot from behind the backs of the civilians.

Question: But can’t the international community restore order?

My Answer: No one is interested in this; everyone profits off of it. Hence, when the terrorists are retaliated against, they appeal to the international community, shouting, “Look! They attacked us.”

Question: But isn’t it the UN’s mission to bring peace to the world?

My Answer: The United Nations profits from the world’s tragedies. The workers of the UN line their pockets with the money that “sticks to their hands” during the distribution of resources. This is why they’re interested in having the conflict continue and having Gaza remain impoverished, in order to steal from the resources released by their organizations.

As we can see, money is at the core of the whole conflict, and this is also why the current global crisis is economic in nature. This is exactly the kind of crisis that is capable of changing the entire world.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: How Do You Get the Wolf, Goat and Cabbage Across the River? (How Do You Solve the Global Crisis?)
Laitman.com Post: We Are Standing at the Threshold of an Extraordinary Discovery
Kabbalah Today Article: The Financial Crisis: Diagnosis and Cure
Fighting Terror the Right Way
From Chaos to Harmony: “The Crisis as an Opportunity to Restore Balance”

Filed under: Israel - No Comments →

News Report (from the International Herald Tribune): “The chance for a new world order” by Henry A. Kissinger The very unsettled nature of the international system generates a unique opportunity for creative diplomacy. … Every country will have to redefine its national priorities. An international order will emerge if a system of compatible priorities comes into being.

My Comment: Compatibility is being imposed on us by the very nature of the crisis. We have to stop picking fights with each other, like little kids. We must realize that we are faced with the question of mankind’s survival.

There is just one answer: for everyone to unite in one system, on equal terms; to be as one body or one family in order to attain balance with nature. This is the only priority, and we shouldn’t try to invent any other. Learn from nature!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Classical Wisdom of Kabbalah and the Evolution of the Urgently Needed Planetary Consciousness

Filed under: Crisis - No Comments →

News Report (from Physorg): “Reverse evolution in real-time” Evolutionary biology tells us that replaying life’s tape will not look at all like the original. Now, scientists provide the first quantitative genetic evidence of why this is so. In this study, to be published online this week in the journal Nature Genetics, scientists recreated natural selection in real-time, in the laboratory and provide the first quantitative evidence for natural selection on so-called standing genetic variation. The researchers used laboratory-grown populations of fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster)… some of the ‘reversed’ flies may be phenotypically identical to the ancestral flies, but they are genetically different.

My Comment: Creation descended from the highest level to the level of our world in order for man to consciously ascend – along with our entire world – back to the perfect level of bestowal, love, harmony, and balance. All movement is pre-programmed in advance, so as to advance only toward the final goal. This goal will necessarily be attained, and everything is moving along just one path.

However, man can either slow the process down or accelerate it. By doing the former, he evokes suffering and crises, and by the latter – abundance and comfort.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: We Can Develop Without Waiting for the Suffering to Come
Laitman.com Post: Creation and Evolution
Kabbalah Today Article: 125 Degrees to Happiness
Attaining the Worlds Beyond: “Spiritual Development”
Baal HaSulam Article: “Peace in the World”

Filed under: Evolution, Kabbalah Study - No Comments →

News Report (translated from InoPressa): An Internet store is selling stale products for a third of the price. This is legal in Great Britain, and the number of people willing to consume expired goods just to save money is growing at an enormous rate.

My Comment: Why eat food that has expired!? We have to produce the exact amount of goods necessary, so we won’t have to destroy them. The crisis will teach us the best way to treat nature, life, and the integral system of nature and society. It will teach us to produce and consume only what is necessary for the body, and to direct all the “extra” energy toward bringing all of humanity to one level of bestowal and love, both physically and spiritually.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Classical Wisdom of Kabbalah and the Evolution of the Urgently Needed Planetary Consciousness
Laitman.com Post: There’s a Grand World Outside Our Bitter Radish
Kabbalah Today Article: The Consumer Effect
Lesson on Fundamentals of Human Nature
Shamati #30: “The Most Important Is to Want Only to Bestow”

Filed under: Crisis - No Comments →

News Report (translated from Utro.ru): Just as everywhere else in the world, one of the consequences of the financial crisis in Russia is the rise of unemployment rates. During the days of the holiday vacation, unemployment in Moscow increased by 100%. Moreover, experts from the Social Opinion fund report that the actual number of Russians who have recently lost their jobs exceeds official data by 5-6 times.

My Comment: The same thing is happening all over the world. We must produce only what is necessary for a normal existence, and distribute the work among many people. As for our free time, it must be filled with education: we must all learn how to live in balance with nature. This is something we have to learn, just as a small child has to be taught how to live in our world. Similarly, all of us – the entire humanity, must get down to studying. This is what the crisis is pushing us toward.

We have found ourselves on a different planet, one with different external qualities. On this planet, the only thoughts, decisions, desires and actions that will prove successful are those aimed at the common good!

Therefore, the television should create and broadcast educational programs or “classes” that everyone will have to take. And then everyone will have to take exams, just like when we were in school. The whole world must “take their seats in the classroom.” We must use all means of communication to teach people how to live in the new natural (altruistic) conditions. The sooner society begins to understand and actualize this, the sooner we will begin to feel that we are living in a world that’s bountiful, safe and comfortable. Kabbalah offers you the wisdom of how to exist in the new world.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Excessive Production Is a Thing of the Past
Laitman.com Post: French Television Reform Is a Praiseworthy Initiative
Baal HaSulam Article: “Building the Future Society”

Filed under: Crisis - 1 Comment →

News Report (from Bloomberg): Barack Obama’s choice of a Nobel Prize-winning physicist as energy secretary will redefine the way policy is made… Obama plans to invest $150 billion in alternative energy technologies… In particular, how to store energy when the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining. Battery technology has to be improved, carbon sequestration has to be developed and cellulosic ethanol has to be made more affordable. …new nuclear and other power plants that would cut emissions of so-called greenhouse gases. “…He’s going to continue to keep an international portfolio, but the message this sends is we are going to have a science-driven, fact-driven energy policy…”

My Comment: Nature will pressure us to reduce our irrepressible demands to a level that’s necessary for a normal and optimal existence, without any excess. Hence, it’s a good idea to invest government capital into developing the above directions in science, technology, and industry. This will prove successful because it is harmonious with Nature. The criterion for success is balance with Nature.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: What Would It Be Like to Live In a Perfect World?
Kabbalah Today Article: A New Direction
Kabbalah Today Article: The Hurricane Within
Lecture in Arosa

Filed under: News - No Comments →

News Report (from The New York Times): “Project Created to Restore Ancient Babylon” A master plan is being developed for the restoration of the Mesopotamian site of the ancient city of Babylon, in present-day Iraq. The “Future of Babylon” project, financed by a $700,000 grant from the State Department, will map the city’s archeological sites, develop conservation plans and pursue possibilities for tourism and education.

My Comment: This is a landmark event because our global civilization is a replay of ancient Babylon. In the past, Babylon was a place with the same conditions as we have today – those of a “small village” and “the Butterfly Effect.” In other words, people’s egoism grew by leaps and bounds, and they stopped “understanding one another.” This is how we got the expression that “they began to speak different languages.” Yet, at the same time, people revealed that they were completely interdependent.

That’s when one of their priests, named Avram, began to examine the crisis and revealed its cause: it was happening because Nature (or the Creator) was pushing people towards unification. As a result of his research, he attained correction – the revelation of the quality of bestowal and love within him. He also realized what kind of connections are necessary in a closed system in order for it to survive and function correctly. He changed his name to Abraham, where the additional letter ה (Hey or “h”) designates the addition of the Upper Force (bestowal and love) to him. Thereafter, he wrote a book called The Book of Creation.

Abraham taught what he had learned, and thereby formed a group of students. He called them Israel (Isra – El = straight to the Creator), and together they went to what would become the land of Israel. As for the Babylonians who remained behind, they got rid of the crisis by breaking the connections between one another and dispersing all over the planet.

Today, just like Abraham’s science, Kabbalah,  predicted, from the end of the 20th century on, we have once again entered the state of “a small village” and “the Butterfly Effect.” However, this time we have done so on the global scale, so there’s no place to run in order to destroy our globalization. Hence, there are two paths before us:

1. Suffering, due to the discord in our civilization’s system, or
2. We can use Kabbalah as the method of correction.

Either way, we are obliged to correct ourselves so as to reach the level of observing the conditions of existence in a closed system, where every person will have to live by the rule of, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Foundation of the Wisdom of Kabbalah
Laitman.com Post: The Book of Zohar. Chapter “Avraham”
Laitman.com Post: The Book of Zohar. Chapter “The Letters by Rabbi Amnon Saba”
Baal HaSulam Article: “Building the Future Society”

Filed under: History - No Comments →

News Report (from Economic Times): “Antarctic mission runs into protest” An Indo-German expedition is currently sailing to Antarctica with 29 Indian researchers to conduct a two-month mega experiment that may help fight climate change… the LOHAFEX expedition involves sprinkling 20 tons of iron in the Southern Ocean… Pouring iron into the Southern Ocean, which is iron-deficient, leads to a proliferation of an algae called phytoplankton. The plant takes up CO2 from the atmosphere and, after it dies, probably sinks into the ocean depths trapping the greenhouse gas with it. If the dead algae sinks deep enough, the CO2 could remain trapped for centuries. With global warming becoming a major challenge for humankind, OIF holds the promise of taking out an estimated one billion tons of carbon from the air every year if applied on a large scale. … The green activists, however, say the 20 tons of iron sulphate that LOHAFEX intends to dump into the ocean could adversely affect the marine ecology of the region.

My Comment: None of the “scientific” methods are able to bring us into balance with nature, which is disrupted by man’s actions. Man evokes the imbalance through his connections in the society: Instead of maintaining balance in the closed system of society by having a kind attitude to one another, people are throwing the civilization off balance with their hatred for each other. As a result, the breach of balance occurs on all other level of nature as well. These disturbances cannot be corrected by any method, other than by correcting man.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Disasters and Diseases Come to an End When Humanity Unites Above Selfishness
Laitman.com Post: It’s All for the Best (But We Can Get to It Faster)
From Chaos to Harmony: Chapter Balance With Nature

Filed under: News - 2 Comments →

News Report (from BBC): “Mafia ‘boosted’ by credit crisis”
The Italian mafia, the country’s organized crime network, is making a profit out of the global economic downturn. …the mafia has a combined turnover of some 130bn euro ($173 billion) a year.

My Comment: While the government and banks are scared of lending, the mafia isn’t because people fear it, and this fear acts as their guarantee. However, under the conditions of decreased consumption, the economy won’t be helped by shady lending, and hence this kind of lending will eventually die out.

The solution: The entire economy must be reconstructed from being an economy of consumption to an ecologically correct economy – an economy of sensible consumption.

The words “Economy” and “Ecology” both come from the Greek word “Ecos,” meaning “household.” In other words, Ecology is the science about how to arrange our household on the planet Earth, and Economy sets forth the rules by which this household should operate. Therefore, we shouldn’t separate ecology from economy.

Economy and ecology both have their own natural laws. And if we’re building an artificial economy, one that’s based on our own invented rules instead of the rules embedded in nature, then we’re leading ourselves to bankruptcy.

Nature is a massive, complex, harmoniously designed, living household. By meddling in it and violating its laws, we induce the crisis. The crisis will rid us of all excesses, mafia included.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Reflections on the Crisis
Laitman.com Post: How to Overcome the Global Crisis
Kabbalah Today Article: The Changing Nature of Humanity

Filed under: Crisis - No Comments →

News Report (from BBC News): “Is love just a chemical cocktail?” Writing in the respected scientific journal Nature, Professor Young argues that love can be explained by a series of neurochemical events in specific brain areas. … Researchers have found that oxytocin is involved in the bonding of male and the female prairie voles, which like humans, form an intense bond with each other that lasts for a very long time.

My Comment: Love, like any other feeling, brings about physio-chemical reactions in the organism. Otherwise, we wouldn’t feel it. However, these reactions are just an external manifestation, or the result, of our feelings.

Scientists are solving our problems backwards: they suggest influencing our feelings with drugs or chemicals. Science is approaching the situation from the only angle that it is able to.

On the other hand, Kabbalah explains that the foundation of all matter is the desire to enjoy. Furthermore, Kabbalah teaches us how to change our desires and control them. Then we will be able to control all other changes, which are just the results of the desires and the changes happening to them.

The division of nature into the still, vegetative, and animate levels is also nothing but a gradation of the desire to enjoy – “to preserve oneself and to develop,” or “to draw closer to what’s beneficial and move away from what’s harmful.”

Science cannot unlock the mystery of love – this cannot be solved with chemical means. Kabbalah, on the other hand, teaches us how to change our feelings, and even to ascend above them. In our transformed feelings, which will change from hatred to love for the neighbor, we will perceive “the world outside of us” – the Upper World, a state that’s eternal and independent of our bodies.

This is love, but not the corporeal type.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Quantum Physics: A Journey to Flatland
Laitman.com Post: Some Quotes by Albert Einstein
Kabbalah Today Article: Love, Deciphered
Lecture: Unconditional Love
Article: “Kabbalah as Compared with Other Sciences”

Filed under: Love, Science, Spiritual Work - No Comments →