A question I received (my responses appear in bold): You say that that the massive crises – economic, ecological, and others, will eventually bring humanity to correction, though the path will be bitter. But don’t you think that if there won’t be any food left in the supermarkets, this will give rise to many informal power structures on the streets, who will try to survive at any cost – by stealing and killing for a loaf of bread? And all these crises will beget only more evil and hatred between people? I agree!

“Where there’s no bread – there’s no Torah,” – this is something you said. If a person is desperate, if his friends and family are dying from hunger and disease, and it’s too dangerous to show your face outside, will he really go and start studying Kabbalah? Keep in mind that there won’t be any Internet when there are no computers and electricity. I can tell you for sure that in this situation people will not study Kabbalah – neither now nor in 232 years (at the end of 6000 years). I agree!

Even if I understand that the science of Kabbalah is necessary, even if I have a point in the heart and I know about this science and the method of studying it, still, if someone in my family will be starving to death, then I won’t be sitting and reading books. And this is truer for the people who don’t even know about Kabbalah’s existence. I agree!

The point in the heart appears when you already have everything and realize that it hasn’t fulfilled you, and that there’s nowhere else to go. But when you’re thinking about how to get your hands on a glass of drinking water in order to survive, then no one will care about any points in the heart. I agree!

My Answer: I agree with you completely and I myself have underlined the rule: “When there is no bread – there is no Torah.” This means that there are situations when people are only concerned with survival, and then all the laws are abolished and everything is determined only by the necessity to survive (with the exception of murdering others in order to save your own life).

However, your arguments overlook the four phases of the development of desire. It is not the size of the desire that grows, but its ability to recognize the source of its emptiness and fulfillment. It’s because everything takes place under the influence of the Light. You will discover that your acquaintances don’t merely suffer, but they will suddenly begin to understand the reason for their suffering – that it is purposeful and has a final goal.

You should help them reach this realization quicker – then the suffering will recede. After all, it’s being revealed in us only to provoke this realization! This is why the dissemination of Kabbalah is so essential: when the masses understand the Creator’s plan even slightly, this will defer great suffering – and suddenly affluence and peace will appear in the world.

I suggest that you review the book From Chaos to Harmony, my lecture in Arosa, and the materials on the article “The Future Generation.” One spark of the Upper Light was enough to give rise to our entire world and the entire universe. And this one spark is sufficient to correct this world, which it had created in the first place! All that’s needed is our collective desire!

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A question I received: I read an interesting work by researcher A. D. Panov entitled, “The Crisis of the Universal History’s Planetary Cycle.” In it he uses the method of interpolating the times of civilizations’ revolutions and reaches the conclusion that the next and most significant crisis in the development of nature and man is scheduled to happen in the year 2027 (the Snooks–Panov vertical). After this crisis the entire development of human civilization will change fundamentally. What do you think about this, and that this will happen in 2027?

My Answer: There are many hypotheses about the crisis, and people’s premonitions are justified. However, do they understand the causes of the crisis, its process and its purpose? It is pointless to predict dates, because we cannot take into account our participation in becoming aware of the process and of our conscious self-correction, which will immediately introduce positive changes and accelerate the whole process.

This is because the “crisis” is the process of restoring our balance (similarity) with Nature – with the quality of love and bestowal. As soon as we reached the level of global egoism, we started being influenced by the general force of nature (the global interdependency between all of nature’s parts), which forces us to become similar to it (like parts of one body, to be in harmony all together).

If we recognize that this is what Nature demands from us and aspire to correspond to it, then to the extent we strive to become a harmonious part of the general system of nature, we will not need its negative correcting influence, which we feel as suffering (war, hunger, destruction).

Because it is impossible to calculate the degree to which we will participate in our correction, we cannot predict the flow of the entire process. The prophets – the Kabbalists of antiquity, described this process without incorporating the human constituent into it. This is why their descriptions are full of terrible suffering on the global scale. However, it is within our power to alter its flow, and this is why we’ve been given Kabbalah. This is also why it has been concealed until our time, and why it is now being revealed to everyone.

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A question I received: I saw an interesting headline in “The Marker”: “America is turning into something it spent many years fighting – a socialist nation.”

We see that our nature is pushing us to care for one another. America, which does not want its entire economy to collapse, understands that everyone is interconnected, and now it’s also beginning to understand the consequences of capitalism. Is this nature’s way of directing us toward the correct form of coexistence?

My Answer: Absolutely! I am happy that so many news articles on this have been appearing in the press lately. They already show an understanding of the cause of the crisis – man’s incorrect behavior in society. Moreover, some articles even indicate that nature itself is pushing us to correct our social relations.

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Questions I received on the economic crisis:

Question: Many of your students live in Russia. What do you think of how the economic crisis is progressing there?

My Answer: Russia will experience the economic crisis harder than Europe, America, or China. Russia will also experience its own crisis of self-love, ambition, separatism, and power. It will recognize that it is a part of the rest of the world, and that it needs to stop being hostile and aggressive. It will realize that it can’t survive any other way. Blaming America for the economic crisis will not solve the problem.

However, Russia can truly have its own “special path” if the people of Russia, with their inherent sensitivity and willingness to sacrifice material things for the sake of spirituality, will recognize the cause of suffering and the opportunity to rise above it. Then the Russian nation will really become special in the world.

By demonstrating to the entire world new social relations – the future of the world, not by order from “above” (from the authorities) but truly by order from above (from the Creator or Nature), by observing the law of love and bestowal, Russia will quickly become the leader in every regard. The choice is in its hands.

Question: Who will suffer most from the economic crisis?

My Answer: America will suffer least – not in terms of numbers, but percentage wise. Then Europe, and finally – Russia and China will suffer the most. There aren’t many consumers of Chinese products and Russian oil and gas.

Question: What will happen if Russia will close itself off from the rest of the world? After all, it has everything in order to be self-sufficient.

My Answer: The fact is that the current crisis is global, and no one can hide from it because everyone is fully integrated in the international economics. This is why political decisions cannot go against the economic decisions, and since there is only one economy, this also forces politics to become one! This has never happened before in the world. There were crises of a purely economic nature, or purely political, or social crises, but the present crisis is universal! This means that no one can separate from the rest of the world.

Question: Does the economic crisis affect only the finances in a direct manner?

My Answer: No, it also affects politics directly. I think that America is leaving the position of a “police officer” in the world. Now everyone will have to engage in this: Iran and Pakistan will advance toward the Caspian Sea, while China – toward Siberia. Islam will simply fill Russia – which is weakly Christian and halfway Islamic. To counterbalance this, Fascism may arise on the wave of patriotism.

Question: What is your organization doing during the period of economic crisis?

My Answer: We want to send our message out to the world – the method of correcting the economic crisis. We must therefore unite with the suffering of the world and share it. Only then will we will be able to correctly speak to the world and it will hear us.

What does it mean to suffer the suffering of others? Even though you personally don’t experience it, you are united with others, fully sharing their misfortune and helping them. This must happen according to the rule, “He who empathizes with the suffering of the masses merits mercy with them.”

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A question I received: How should we react to people who try to use us?

• Like parents with children, knowing that they wouldn’t act this way if they were on your level;
• To understand that children can be sly and lazy;
• This can help you say “No” firmly, if the situation calls for it;
• To ask yourself “What is the Creator teaching me here?”
• To realize that everyone has his or her role in this world.

I use these rules and find them very helpful.

My Answer: If it isn’t someone who must definitely be convinced of the authenticity of Kabbalah (a journalist, for example), then you should simply leave people with a good mood and a positive impression from interacting with you.

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Questions I received on the global financial crisis:

Question: Everyone is saying that the financial crisis was caused by the United States, but you say that it’s systematic and is happening because we are in a system of global interconnection. Who’s right?

My Answer: Both opinions are correct, because America – the most developed country in the world – was first to discover this financial crisis, which is global and not just local to the U.S. If it hasn’t reached some countries yet – such as Israel, for example – then it will reach them later on.

Hence, people shouldn’t scold America. In fact, Europe, China, Japan, the Emirates, and even Russia are all prospering thanks to the American economy, because America buys everything from them.

But now it will stop buying, and everyone will understand how good things used to be! You will be able to answer many questions yourself if you accept the fact that the financial crisis and everything else taking place is actually happening in one, single organism.

Question: Why did the financial crisis start with the banks?

My Answer: It’s because the banks are the foundation of the entire American system; they are an example of a free market. But now the government is buying them. Freedom of the market will become limited like it is in Europe.

However, precisely money or wealth is the equivalent of corporeal fulfillment. It “connects” people, helping us faster realize the common basis of the crisis – people’s egoistic attitudes, as well as the fact that it’s necessary to transform these attitudes, for the sake of survival, into ones of care for one another.

Question: But won’t the care for others be selfish and egoistic, just like today employers “care” about the health of their employees?

My Answer: The system of absolute interconnection between everyone in the world, both people and businesses, is being revealed so fast that soon each one of us will literally feel the vibrations of our attitudes to one another – first the national ones, and then the personal ones as well. This analysis of how our luck and safety depends on our attitudes (inner, not outer ones – what we feel in our hearts), will force us to search for the means to correct hatred and transform it to love.

Question: Who has an easier time living through this time of financial crisis?

My Answer: Those who are least connected with the rest of the world. It works just like an organism: when a leg, stomach, or arm are hurt, the pain is felt in the head. 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! Everyone will instinctively try to return to the past, but by doing so they will only slow down the process and receive even greater blows of fate. It’s like trying to sweep an illness under the rug by treating it incorrectly or taking sedatives instead of medication. After all, human society is a live organism!

Question: What kind of currency will remain?

My Answer: The post-crisis world will be radically new. Nevertheless, the United States has accumulated such great scientific and technological potential, and such an exceptional industrial base, that it will remain the world leader – the largest economy in the world. Even though it will fall more than any other country, when it comes to the numbers, people will still have enough to live (compared to others).

Everything will crash, with the exception of the American high-tech industry. The United States will begin real production; it will return to it from abroad, from China. This will cause foreign countries and China to “fall.”

Question: Why is everyone so afraid of the financial crisis? I personally don’t feel afraid.

My Answer: All previous financial crises were different – understandable and not general. However, this one is global; it is happening all over the world and it is unlike any previous financial crisis. There are no known remedies to eliminate it. People are trying to do the same thing they did in previous financial crises – to help the banks, but nothing will help. The situation will force them to reveal the true cause of the financial crisis: that the egoistic attitudes of the parts of a closed system bring about the system’s destruction.

Regardless of how our attempts to explain the true cause of the financial crisis are received, we should not despair and continue fulfilling our duty. We can only accelerate the world’s understanding of the cause of the financial crisis and the method of correction. It takes patience, but the suffering, attempts, and failures will teach people, forcing them to heed what we are saying.

Here’s a concise explanation of the crisis, including its causes and correction:

Part 2 of the book From Chaos to Harmony – Israel’s Role
Brochure: “Lecture in Arosa – The Crisis and Its Solution”

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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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I was doing some research on modern Kabbalistic sources, and came across a book called Kabbalah: New Perspectives, by Prof. Moshe Idel. In it he mentions a poem by Prof. Gershom Sholem (1897 – 1982) – the founder of the modern academic field of Kabbalah. But before I say more about this poem, here is some background on its author.

Sholem devoted his career to replacing the traditional attainment of Kabbalah with academic and philological research. For example, in one of his lectures, published in the book Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, this is how he describes Kabbalah in his time, “As a result of Kabbalah’s lengthy process of development, during which Kabbalah paradoxically influenced Jewish history, it has again become the same thing it was in the beginning – an esoteric wisdom of small groups of people, who are deprived of contact with life and have no influence on it.” Likewise, in the article “On the Possibility of Jewish Mysticism in Our Time,” Sholem writes, “There is no doubt that in recent generations there were no awakened individuals who could bring mystical teachings to new forms or start significant social movements.”

In this article, like in many others, Sholem denies modern Kabbalah, or Kabbalah of the 20th century. He points out that Kabbalah has ceased playing an important role in the Jewish culture of his time and that no original and innovative Kabbalistic methods have been created since the 18th century! This viewpoint is very obvious in the article “On the Possibility of Jewish Mysticism in Our Time.” Sholem’s attitude to Kabbalah in his time is also described by the modern researcher, Prof. Boaz Hoss, in the article “Don’t Ask All Questions.”

Considering all this, it’s important to point out that Gershom Sholem, the founder of the modern academic research of Kabbalah, and a scholar who’s renowned by the entire academic world, never says a word in any of his research about Baal HaSulam, the greatest Kabbalist of his time, nor of his works on Kabbalah. How can a researcher overlook something like this? This is an example of envy, dishonesty and petty egoism that do not allow a researcher to face the truth: to admit to himself and to the entire world that all academic research of Kabbalah, anything besides its attainment – is false!

When I was giving a series of lectures in American universities, I heard different comments about Gershom Sholem. In particular, I recall one distinctive comment from the Rector of the University of Illinois, who said, “Gershom talked about Kabbalah, but you are talking from Kabbalah. He urged people to research it with the mind, while you urge people to enter it with their feelings.”

The poem that appears below was written by Gershom Sholem shortly before his death, and it shows that despite everything, he finally admitted that he is in the dark and does not attain that which is concealed in the Kabbalistic texts. Yet, the superficial academic approach and the dishonesty in researching Kabbalah that he sowed continue to be practiced by his students.

“Death in the Professoriate” was a result of replacing research of Kabbalah “through oneself and inside oneself” (or in other words, by correcting oneself in similarity to the Upper One) with academic research that’s done “outside of oneself” (in conjunction with meditation according to Abulafia).

“Vae Victis” (Woe to the Conquered) or “Death in the Professoriate”
I threw myself into ancient books.
I was awestruck by their signs.
I spent too much time alone with them.
I could no longer leave them behind.

The glimmer of Truth is ancient,
Yet disaster is unforeseen:
Generations are weakly linked,
And knowledge is not clean.

I have brought back the blurred face
Of the fullness of time.
I was ready to leap into the abyss,
But was I really primed?

The ancestral symbols are here explained;
The Kabbalist was no dope.
But what transformed time proposed
Remains foreign, beyond our scope.

Time transformed casts us a fearsome glance,
For it is unwilling to turn back again.
Yet abandoned joys grow palpable
Once your Vision has dissolved in pain.

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Two questions I received on the economy and religion:

Question: How can you explain the fact that in the United States, the financial crisis is drawing more people into religion?

My Answer: We observe this kind of reaction throughout all human history. In fact, this is the reason why religion was invented in the first place – to comfort man for the blows of fate that seem to come at him for no good reason. Religion promises people a reward for their suffering in the world to come. Of course, it is difficult to give up on a dream, and people are even willing to kill others who kill their hopes (the way I do).

In contrast, Kabbalah does not tell people to believe in unrealistic things, but rather urges people to change themselves in order to feel “the world to come” while still living in this world. One can enter “that world” only by changing oneself in this world. When one’s animate organism dies, the soul can only return back into this life; there is no “world on the other side.” Hence one will keep reincarnating until one enters the Upper World – the world of bestowal and love, while still living in this world.

Question: One reason why I am not satisfied with any method or religion is that at the end the believer is rewarded in paradise, but in a new status. That is, he does not have the needs, desires and pleasures that he sought in his life. So the person who is tested or being prepared in this life is different from the one who is being rewarded. I feel that this is unfair.

My Answer: Why so? Precisely religion promises you all the pleasures of this world, including sexual pleasures, exquisite heavenly meals accompanied by heavenly music, and so on! If a person can still believe in what religion promises him, then he is not yet ready to come out of the spiritual exile.

Baal HaSulam said that between the religious and the Kabbalistic ways of life and perception, there is a secular, materialistic period. After that, the Kabbalistic, “super-materialistic” period is revealed, because one discovers that materialism is also a religion!

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