Murphy’s Law: Murphy’s Law states that if something can go wrong, it will definitely go wrong. This law has many variations: If you drop a slice of bread, it’s sure to fall butter side down; the change in the cash register will always end just before it’s your turn; if you just washed your car, then it’ll start raining, and so on. People think that Murphy’s Law is nothing but folk wisdom, which ironically portrays our perception of the world. However, this law stems from real “wrong” things happening to real people.

The Law of the Torah: How do Kabbalists feel about the law that they discover? In my blog post “Klipot (Shells) – Harmful and Helpful (Advanced),” there is an explanation about the role of evil (Klipot), stating that everything takes place with the aim of bringing humankind to correction, either by way of good or evil, i.e. according to how one perceives good and evil. There’s just one force operating in nature, but it manifests in different ways depending on how we act. When we aim our actions at the goal of creation, this force helps us. On the contrary, when we aim our actions in opposition to those of this force, it holds us back.

Moreover, this force (of the Creator) that helps everyone who aims themselves at the goal of creation, also creates disturbances for them, which helps them develop by motivating them to move faster toward the goal. In Kabbalah, Murphy’s Law, the law on the level of our world, manifests as the law of the Upper World: “There is none else beside Him. He is good and does good!”

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The very essence of the spiritual law is the love of others. In practical terms, it can be defined as “giving to others” so as to remember the intention.

The Necessity of Caution with the Laws of Nature

The safekeeping of creation extends from the Creator, who undoubtedly has purpose in His actions. Thus, one who breaches any of nature’s laws corrupts the goal, which is built over all of nature’s laws, put together. Hence, nature will punish him.

It makes no difference whether the supervisor is called “nature,” meaning mindless and purposeless, or is wise, knowing, sensitive, and whose actions are purposeful. In the end, we are obliged to keep the laws of Providence, i.e. the laws of nature. Moreover, we all admit that one who breaches the commandments of Providence – nature’s laws – should be punished.

Providence demands that we keep the law of giving to others in a way that each of us will work in the full measure required to guarantee the success of society. As long as we are idle in keeping this law in the fullest measure, nature will continue to punish us. And besides the blows we suffer today, we should consider the drawn sword for the future. We should draw the right conclusion: nature will eventually defeat us and we will all be forced to obey its laws in the fullest required measure.

The Wheel of Transformation

Although we see that bodies change from generation to generation, it is only so with bodies. The souls – the very essence of the body – do not disappear. Instead, they move from one body to the next, and from one generation to the next. [Read more →]

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How does Kabbalah view abortion? Abortion is opposed to natural development, and as such, causes imbalance with nature. It is physically and spiritually harmful, and if we sensed nature, we wouldn’t do it.

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A question I received: I’m worried about the environmental problems facing our world, such as the degradation of the environment and people’s declining health. From Kabbalah’s perspective, how should we change the laws regulating the use and preservation of the environment? What should the national and international environmental laws be? What approach should be used to develop the appropriate framework and regulations?

My Answer: We could command nature to change, or we could command man to change. But in any case, man is a part of nature, and our commands will only cause us greater separation from nature, which will result in further harm to nature and to its integral parts – us. None of our attempts to reduce humanity’s harmful influence on nature will yield positive results. The fact is that nature’s actions are purposeful. Its influence on us has nothing to do with how we treat the still, vegetative and animate levels of nature. Nature reacts only to our attitude to one another. Man incorporates the whole of nature within himself, and it “falls” or “rises” together with him. Everything is measured according to the highest level, called “man.”

Nature affects us in order to force us to change, and what we have to change is our attitude to other people, not our attitude to nature. We need to change our egoistic attitude to others to an altruistic one, like a father feels for his children. We will then become an integral part of nature, and our attitude to all its other parts will change as well.

This cannot be done by coercive methods – since we have to change ourselves! If we realize this, we will reduce nature’s blows coming to us and to its other parts.

The other problem is that even if we realize that we need to change, we have no idea how to do it. And that is why we have been given the science of Kabbalah, which originated in the very beginning of our egoistic path, when we separated in Ancient Babylon. It’s a science that shows us how to unite into one whole. Sharing it and inculcating it into the consciousness of every person is precisely what constitutes the laws of the new civilization. We only need to understand that “preserving the environment” means protecting it from our egoism. Let’s work together.

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A question I received: It’s been a while since we had the Kabbalah congress in Israel, but I still can’t shake off the feeling of how simple and open you are. I’ve always thought, like most people, that sages conduct themselves differently; that they’re overburdened by wisdom and need to evoke awe. After the congress, I find it harder to respect you, and without being able to respect you, I don’t have the same energy I once had to trust you and what you teach – that it’s the path to my future. What would you suggest I do?

My Answer: Baal HaSulam writes, in his Future Generation manuscripts: “The masses think that he who is in contact with the Creator stands above nature and they need to be afraid of speaking to Him or at the very least being near Him. For such is the nature of man: to fear what transcends nature’s bounds.

However, in reality, there’s nothing more natural than attaining contact with the Creator, for He is the master of nature. Truly, every creature is in contact with its Creator, although it neither knows nor feels it.

He who merits contact with the Creator merely obtains the knowledge of it, for there is nothing new in the universe, and it’s only that he was ignorant of it beforehand.

As a result, man becomes simpler and more natural, for he understands all people, maintaining quite intimate relations with them; he is close to the masses and loves them.”

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A question I received: How did man evolve on Earth? You wrote that millions of years ago a primitive man appeared on Earth. How did he get here?

My Answer: Well, he obviously wasn’t put together with clay. His mommy and daddy gave birth to him just like our mommy and daddy gave birth to us – the same as how all animals’ parents give birth to their offspring. So what’s the difference between this first man and his parents? The difference lies in the Reshimo (spiritual gene) that appeared within him, the characteristic of our world’s final, egoistic stage.

The Reshimo of the still, vegetative, animate and human natures (also called “the four degrees of HaVaYaH”) is the template according to which everything evolves. Darwin, as well as every other theorist, is mistaken in thinking that a following, higher phase can evolve from a phase that preceded it. It’s simply impossible to evolve in such a way.

However, as a result of the souls’ decent into our world, there exists information (Reshimo) about the following phase in the last link of the preceding phase. As such, it only takes one generation for monkeys to beget people.

The first people are pretty much indistinguishable from their parents. However, they gradually evolve over the generations according to what their human nature dictates to them. They thus separate from monkeys and become more and more evolved human beings. The Reshimo within them progressively continues to manifest new signs of evolution and unity, starting to make them experience more and more suffering on the human level. As a result, they become evolved human beings.

Everything is initiated by the Reshimo – the informational gene – and not by the evolution of blind nature, as Darwin thought.

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I have received many letters expressing concern about the future…

Our perception of the world depends on our understanding of what’s going on here. If we would understand the Creator’s plan, we will discover happiness, safety and perfection.

Prior to the 21st century, humanity didn’t have any free will! We had no free will in our development as it was automatically driven by our constantly growing egoistic motivation – until it had reached its peak.

Today, our free will is becoming apparent as we have the opportunity to rise above our egoistic nature and no longer depend on it. By realizing this opportunity properly, we will directly – with the least amount of suffering – exit our present nature. Then, we will enter another dimension of the universe, where we will experience a different sensation of life – one that is eternal and perfect.

Our egoistic nature imprisons us; it attempts to absorb everything into itself, and thus remains empty and ultimately dies. And even if we don’t choose the path of conscious transition to the altruistic dimension, nature’s plan will be carried out anyway – just as it has been up to this point – only by the harsh influence of its strict laws.

We are the only intelligent creatures in the universe. Everything was created for us, because only we have the ability to enter the higher dimension. This task is serious and its goal is marvelous. Currently, humanity is in a state that induces a search, which is good, and that is why I’m not afraid, but full of hope.

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It seems to us that nature is governed by the law of survival of the fittest. But in fact, this couldn’t be farther from the truth, because the interconnection among all species forces them to care about each other’s survival. Zoologists, for instance, know that the fierce fights between animals always end with peace, and never lead to death or even injury, because they fight only to establish the hierarchy within the pack.

An outside view on a living organism might suggest that it’s completely controlled by blind nature: it seems that hostile forces surround it as it struggles for survival. However, scientists are discovering that everything is dynamically balanced, and survival is based not on struggle, but on the mutual cooperation among all species, where both support and struggle complement and balance one another, thus creating equilibrium.

Even the roots of different plants coalesce and create a unified system, as plants with less developed roots receive additional support from stronger ones. When one species of plants is being replaced by another, it isn’t a struggle for territory, but a developmental process of the circle of life.

The interaction between plants and insects is no secret either: flowers give insects food (nectar), while the insects transport pollen, thus ensuring fructification. Even the size of insects corresponds to the shape of the flowers in a way that helps them with the selection of pollen. The interdependency among plants and animals is so strong that the extinction of certain types of plants leads to the disappearance of certain animals. And that, in turn, leads to the extinction of another type of plants and animals, because everything is interconnected within nature’s all-inclusive system.

As it happens, in addition to a struggle for survival, there is also cooperation in nature, both within the species and between them. And the reason for this is not anyone’s direct, self benefit, but simply because everyone’s survival is possible only through the interconnection with all the others.

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A question I received from Chanah, in response to the post Why Kabbalah Disgusts Us: I thought that existence in egoism is only a shadow of a far removed reflection of the Creator – so the Creator is not actually “making misery” … it’s our inability to sense correctly, right? What I sense as struggle is the fact that I cannot rely on most of my perceptions to navigate to the truth, yet I’m required to move forward.

My Answer: If we would continue progressing egoistically, remaining in our inborn egoistic nature, we would navigate ourselves with whatever we know in our familiar egoistic understanding of the world. However, if we want to progress toward spirituality, we need to exit our egoistic nature and enter into an opposite, unknown nature. As such, we need to progress “in the dark,” so to speak, in qualities and feelings that we don’t yet perceive, and continue progressing like this until we master these new qualities and learn to live in them.

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A question I received: Although Baal HaSulam writes that a spiritual person leaves for himself only what he needs to survive and gives the rest to society, for some reason you don’t advise anyone to act this way. Don’t you agree with Baal HaSulam? Or are you afraid that this will scare people off? For instance, even though I myself am in need of money, I’m still scared of this!

My Answer: All our actions must correspond to Nature’s law. Should that be the case, we would feel ourselves as Nature’s integral parts – in the World of Infinity, that is, in the state of eternity and perfection, just like Nature (the Creator) itself.

Kabbalah – the science of the whole of Nature – helps us reach this state not through blows and suffering, but through conscious development. [Read more →]

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