Two questions I received on choosing the correct environment:

Question: After reading the article “The Freedom” and other articles about the environment, I came to the conclusion that the environment is pivotal to one’s development and attainment. What should I do if I’m not sure that I’ve chosen the right environment and the right group?

My Answer: Keep studying and discerning this! Don’t rely on your own opinion nor the opinion of those around you. The answers should come on their own, from within you (from the Creator), without any external influence and without you eating yourself. Read Baal HaSulam and wait for the answer!

Question (from a woman): I would really like to understand what it means to “build your environment.” Should I look for the correct environment within the Kabbalistic group, meaning an environment within an environment, based on the principle that those who don’t give me joy and inspiration are not advancing along the right path and it’s best to avoid them?

My Answer: For a woman, there’s no such thing as a group; there’s only the environment. In it she interacts with the women she feels closest to. And she isn’t obliged to do anything more than that.

Related Material:
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Three questions I received on how to relate to the past and future:

Question: I’ve been studying Kabbalah for six years already. In the last year I’ve started feeling haunted by memories of bad things I did to others in the past. Can you give me advice on how to get rid of this?

My Answer: Everything that happened to you in the past was “set up” for you by the Creator. But from this moment on, you are like a newborn baby. So start with a blank page in “the book of life,” where you will write your desires, thoughts and actions.

Question: If I don’t open Kabbalah books or listen to your lectures for a few days, why do I feel that I’m regressing? Where does everything I “earned” in the past go?

My Answer: Your egoism always keeps growing. This is why you must constantly keep recharging it with the method of correction. Otherwise you’ll regress for sure.

Question: How can we predict our next spiritual state and physical action?

My Answer: The next spiritual level is unpredictable because it will be felt in your new desires and qualities.

Related Material:
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Chapter from Book Kabbalah Revealed: “Up the Ladder”
Talk on Baal HaSulam Article: “Finding the Creator Within”

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book of Zohar”, item 19:
When all human beings agree to abolish and eradicate their egoistic will to receive for themselves, and have no other desire but to bestow upon others, all worries and evil in the world will cease to exist. And we will all be assured of a healthy, complete and secure life, since for each and every one of us there will be a whole world ready to satisfy his every need. However, when everyone has only the will to receive for himself, from here originate the pains, the wars and slaughter which we cannot escape. They weaken our bodies with all sorts of sores and maladies.

Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”:
Evil is nothing other than self love, called egoism, since it is opposite to the Creator, who hasn’t any will to receive for Himself, but only to bestow.

Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”:
The shared quality of all the people in the world is that each and every one of us stands ready to abuse and exploit all the other people for his own private benefit by every means possible, without taking into consideration that he is going to build himself through the ruin of his friend. And it doesn’t matter what excuses each of us invents for acting this way.

Baal HaSulam, “The Revelation of Godliness (Matan Torah)”:
It is a natural law for a person to regard anything outside his own body as unreal and non-existent. And any movement that a person makes to love his fellow man, cannot be considered “love of a fellow man” because it is judged by its goal: to benefit from this action. It is not in man’s nature to perform any action out of love for one’s neighbor, without expecting a reward, and hence such an action is completely impossible.

And only the revelation of the Creator (the Upper Light,Ohr Makif) is able to change us.

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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:
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Questions I received on women’s spirituality:

Question: Does the word “man” used in Kabbalistic books also apply to women? For example, “if a man feels a Reshimo, then he’s worthy of attaining spirituality, of feeling the Upper World, and comprehending the reality” (this is a quote from the book Kabbalah for the Student, Introduction to Pticha).

My Answer: Without a doubt, all people – both men and women – must attain adhesion with the Creator. The only difference is that men must perform more corrections than women, according to the structure of their souls.

Question: I heard that you don’t approve of women studying at night. Is this true?

My Answer: Anyone can study whenever it’s convenient for him or her. However, since it’s necessary for the men to unite, the best and most effective time for them to study is together with us.

Question: A man’s egoism and difficulties are revealed in relation to the group. How, and in relation to whom, does a woman’s egoism become revealed?

My Answer: Her ego is revealed in relation to a man, or the men’s part of the group, in the sense that the men are the source of a woman’s spiritual advancement. By making efforts to advance spiritually, a woman realizes that she can only do so through the men’s part of the common group.

Question: You say that spirituality has no connection to our bodies. Then why is it important for us to dress modestly when we come to the Kabbalah center? Shouldn’t the men overcome their ego and stop looking at women as sexual objects, but as their equals in correcting the world?

My Answer: You have to help the men disseminate Kabbalah to the world, instead of showcasing yourself to them. This is why you’re permitted to come to the center! Do you want to be a person who’s of benefit to the world, or a “woman”? When you have to do work together with the men, it’s important that there be no difference among the participants.

Related Material:
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“A Talk About the Spiritual Advancement of Women”

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Man is created out of a desire to receive pleasure – a desire to be filled by the Light. This is why he feels pleasure or its absence – suffering. A person is inside the all-enveloping Light of the Creator. To the degree he is similar or dissimilar to the Light, he feels either pleasure or suffering. This is how he determines the state he’s in.

Kabbalah explains how one can reach the maximum equivalence of form with the Light in order to obtain maximum fulfillment, to the point of receiving infinite (or unlimited) fulfillment while being fully equal to the Light or the Creator.

The global nature of the current suffering is moving all of humanity toward uniting into one whole creation that is completely equal to the single Upper Light. Man implements similarity to the quality of the Light – “Good and Does Good” – by implementing the law of “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Suffering will force us to understand that it is necessary to fulfill this law, but the science of Kabbalah will help us to understand Nature’s plan quickly and without the blows, and to consciously aspire toward fulfilling this law of similarity to Goodness. This will replace the suffering with pleasure and shorten the time it takes to attain a state that’s infinite, boundless, and absolutely good.

Related Material:
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A Parable: Once upon a time, in a small American town, a businessman decided to open a bar. The problem was that the bar was on the same street as a church. Obviously, the church officials weren’t happy about this, and at every sermon they called upon the citizens to protest the opening of the bar and to pray for God to punish the immoral businessman.

The day before the bar’s Grand Opening, there was a tremendous thunderstorm. Suddenly, lightning struck the bar and it burned to the ground.

The church officials rejoiced, but their festivities did not last long because the bar owner sued them, demanding a compensation for his loss. Of course, the church officials denied any responsibility for the matter.

After hearing out both sides, the judge noted: “Based on the evidence, it appears that the bar owner believes in the power of a prayer, but the church officials do not!”

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Editorial News Report (from Executive Intelligence Review): If the participants of the G-20 meeting won’t reach an agreement, the world economy will rapidly collapse, billions of people will die from hunger, and social chaos will begin in the G-7 countries.

My Comment: The participants of the G-20 meeting should at least reach a certain level of mutual trust in order to coordinate their actions in the economic (and perhaps military) spheres. The world needs to see a connection between different countries. It won’t help to simply exercise control over fiscal operations (banks, companies, equalization of different currencies, cancellation of offshore accounts, annihilation of monopolies) and to reach a consensus to refrain from military attacks. This won’t help because Nature is forcing us to become integrated!

Even if they won’t reach an agreement, they should at least agree to meet together in order to solve the problems of global reconstruction, according to the laws of the single system.

A Kabbalistic text says: “The hearts of the kings and their ministers are in the hands of the Creator.” And the Creator is governed by people’s desires to the degree they are similar to the Creator – to the quality of love for one’s neighbor. Therefore, everything depends on the dissemination of the knowledge about the world’s globality and our connection within one family. When we realize this, we won’t feel hatred for others, but for our own egoism, which is the only evil in the world. And after that we will also feel an aspiration for love of others.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Another Unfortunate Meeting of the G20

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A question I received: The great Kabbalist Baal HaSulam calls upon people to not violate the laws of nature, as if laws of nature are like traffic rules where a person can cross the street in the wrong place or drive onto an oncoming lane. For example, humanity has been violating the law of gravity since the times of the Wright brothers. Nonetheless, this law is still in effect; we simply go around it. And so what?

Is it possible to make a list of nature’s laws, or are they known only to Kabbalists?

My Answer: Every time man violates the laws of nature, his actions evoke a negative influence upon him, to the point of death. The law of behavior in the global community did not manifest as a law of nature until our times, but it is now starting to manifest because we are now entering the final phase of our development, the level of “human,” whereas before we were going through lower levels called still, vegetative, and animate.

The laws of nature are stricter than traffic laws because nature has no pity and demands the “exact payment.” We cannot go around the laws of nature, but we can study them and learn to use them correctly. Globalization obliges us to unite in order to match the governing forces of nature. If we will do this, then we will be using the laws of nature to our advantage. But if we won’t act as a global community, then we’ll crash like the poorly constructed original airplanes, until we learn how to use the laws of nature correctly!

Related Material:
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A question I received: What is ”The New Society” written by Rav Ashlag? This is almost word for word the Communist Manifesto:

1. The acceptance of the religion of “love thy neighbor as thyself” (meaning the religion is “love thy neighbor as thyself”!).
2. A just distribution of the profits, so that each works according to his skills and receives according to his needs.
3. Private property exists, but its owner must not profit from it more than he really needs.
4. Property owners will be under public supervision, or under self-trusteeship, or through bookkeeping.
5. The unemployed will receive their needs equally with the employed.
6. Profits will be utilized for building public assets.

Question: Why does Kabbalah preach Communism when it has been proven that it does not work?

My Answer:
1. “Love thy neighbor as thyself” is the general law of nature, since nature is a single organism.
2. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” is the law by which any interconnected system operates.
3. The owner benefits from realizing himself for the sake of the society because he receives respect and dignity.
4. He remains under the supervision of society until he rises to a degree above his egoism in every respect.
5. Those who are unemployed for reasons that are not in their control will receive the same as everyone else.
6. All the profits, except those necessary for every person to live, are collective and will be used for the benefit of the entire system.

The difference between this and the Soviet structure is that every person receives the Upper Reward for the common unity – adhesion with the Creator, an eternal and perfect existence! This is the reason why people will observe the commandment of “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” with everything it implies.

However, humanity will come to these conditions gradually and willingly, not by force. That’s because the revelation of the concealed world gives people the strength and the desire to exist in it!

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