It’s a known fact that if you leave a small child alone in the woods, he will grow up into an animal. Similarly, if you place a child in a certain society, that is how he will grow up. A person grows and develops under the influence of his environment. The environment gives a person specific behavioral models and examples, and he does everything according to them.

How do we perceive our world? We do it according to how we have developed and what we have been taught to focus on. In other words, we do it according to our desires. This makes us see specific pictures of our world and to perceive them in a specific way, as well as to process them within and react to them.

However, when it comes to the spiritual world, we don’t have any behavioral models, images, sensations or understanding of what it is. So even if the picture of spirituality would somehow emerge before us, we wouldn’t be able to perceive it. And that is how things do stand: in fact, everything is already here in front of us, but we perceive only a small part of what exists, because we don’t have the appropriate models or images.

This is why Kabbalists write books for us telling us about the Upper World. They pull us up to that world, or to be more specific, they bring the spiritual world down to us so when we read about it and try to feel and understand it, we become filled with its models even if we don’t feel or understand them.

This happens by virtue of a special quality called Segula – miracle. We evoke these spiritual images upon us from afar even when we don’t clearly feel them. That is how we prepare ourselves for feeling them.

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A question I received: When a politician comes to power in our world, then even if he is motivated by compassionate goals such as a desire to do good for the society, he still can’t avoid getting mixed up in political power struggles and petty troubles that make him forget about the compassionate goals he had. On our spiritual path, how can we make sure that we don’t stray from the goal and fall for the tricks our egoism plays on us?

My Answer: Indeed, when we are doing spiritual work, we have to lie to our egoism. We are standing opposite the Creator whether we want to or not, and He is the one setting up all the forces that come our way, all the disturbances and all our inner discernments.

As soon as you forget about Him and veer off the path leading directly to Him, you start to feel suffering. And this suffering eventually brings you back to the right calculation: that all the forces must unite together into a single aspiration toward the Creator. This is how things work in spirituality, because the Creator controls everything that happens to a person.

The Creator is above and a person with the point in the heart is below, and there is a system of two forces between them: the right line and the left line. You advance from below upwards, toward the goal, which is the middle line. As soon as you deviate away from it in any direction, you start being affected by a force that brings you back, because only being in the middle line allows you to feel unity with the Creator, where unity is balance.

Yet, as soon as you attain balance, you immediately shift to a higher level. Then, the search for balance on that higher level once again forces you to research all the parts of the system and to ask for help from Above. After all, it is only by correcting your matter – your desires, that you ascend above them and perceive the new world in those corrected desires.

All of these forces come from Above in order to help you advance upwards. It’s impossible for anything to get “mixed up” here. The only thing that depends on you is whether to advance toward the goal by the short path or the long path. This is up to you!

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Presently we’re looking at the picture of this world as though it were a television channel. We’ve grown accustomed to it and cannot even imagine the existence of another channel.

Suddenly a desire (point in the heart) to change the channel appears in us. Before this we could not even imagine that this was possible, and now we begin to learn how it can be done and how we can transition to the new channel.

I begin to realize that I can change the channel if I truly have the desire to do so, and that my desire is that very button that can change it. In other words, I need the understanding of what I am I am changing and my purpose for doing so.

To that end I am given the right books, a guide and an environment of others, who are also striving towards this new channel. After all, my desire is tiny, and the right environment can increase this desire in me, impart to me its desire to watch this new channel, and the strength to make the change.

In the new society towards which we are striving, everyone will talk about bestowal,  the global interconnected network where everyone works for the benefit of society and the collective desire to change over to the new channel. Gradually, I also become filled with this desire.

With this desire I come to the lesson and demand Light, which is  the force of that very new channel towards which I strive. This force will evoke new qualities and discernments within me, and when I am ready to perceive the channel correctly, it will switch on automatically.

I desire this new understanding and the ability to discern this new world. This is what the Light teaches me. Otherwise I will not be able to see anything there.  It is  just as a baby looks upon the same painting as an adult, but instead of admiring its beauty, the baby tries to stick it in his mouth, because that is how he perceives the world.

The moment I am ready, the new channel will be switched on automatically. But the old channel will not disappear.  The new channel will simply be added to the first, and I will see the old channel against the context of the new one. This is how both worlds combine within me to form one unified harmony. I will see how all the parts of reality are connected and see reality itself not as matter, but as forces that set matter in motion.

Mankind is bored to death with the old channel, which is why societies are plagued with drug use and depression. It can no longer watch the same old picture of the world on the television screen; it longs to change the channel.

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A question I received: In Israeli society, there are various charitable events as well as donations made to help the poor. In the end, do these actions hamper the development of this part of the population or is this just another example of mutual guarantee?

My Answer: There is no good without evil or evil without good. We live in the period following the shattering of the common soul and this why in any piece of it, in any of our actions, there is some bad that consequently yields a positive outcome and there is some good which at some point leads to a bad outcome. And this goes on forever. Either in the beginning or in the end, it will be either good or bad. Good and bad go together until the end of correction when all evil turns to good.

When speaking of donations, helping others, volunteering in hospitals or  wanting to help starving people in Africa or other countries, we see that there is absolutely no benefit from any of these actions in the end. There are billions of dollars being spent on such things and there are thousands of people working in charitable organizations who enjoy their work. But the benefit is zero. I would even go as far as to say that it has the opposite effect.

Before people started seemingly to care and therefore began handing out food in Africa, the country created, produced and traded a huge variety of goods. Now that foreign countries are providing Africa with food and weapons, the African nations are only rebelling against each other.

In order to break a person, you only need give him the necessities so that he stops thinking and worrying about his own life. This is exactly what happened in Russia. They found oil and gas there and started to sell it, which led to the country’s collapse. Why do people need to work if they have money?

The same is happening with national insurance in Israel. If you are entitled to benefits you won’t want to come out of your house. “What do I need it for? I can buy a bottle of beer, watch TV and watch the time go by. Today everything is fine.” A person makes a sandwich, goes to the beach and spends the entire day there.

Nothing can be more destructive than these seemingly good works and care for others. It is better for a person to endure blows, as then he will be obligated to work or to study!

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A question I received: In the society of the future, if everyone works for everyone’s sake, then all the excess will go to the government treasury. But this means that everyone will be working for the government. So how will this system be any different from the system we have today, which forces everything away from everyone?

My Answer: Society and the government will be one whole, whereas today the government is a means of enriching and giving power to a small part of society.

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The society supplies a person with artificial behavioral models, playing off his ego. And it never asks the person whether he wants to live by these models or not. He is born in a certain location on earth, and this determines the general cultural values he will receive from childhood. This determines his upbringing and the kind of person he has to become. Whether he wants to or not, he absorbs these values and then continues to follow them for the rest of his life. In addition to this, society supplies him with promises of reward in the world to come, but this is done in order to use the person even more. In this regard, a person has no freedom of choice, no freedom.

But one day, a person’s “point in the heart” awakens and he starts feeling disillusioned with all of his previous life. It’s as if he begins life from a fresh, clean page. All of his previous values come tumbling down and disappear from the horizon, losing all their importance. His previous behavioral models become canceled because they no longer hold any reward or punishment for the person. The only things that remain are those necessary for one’s survival, the things without he cannot exist.

If a person is religious, then he also starts to have doubts about the world to come. Thus, the circumstances bring him to the group and the Kabbalah books, and then he has to make a choice: how much does he want to become part of this society and this path? He is not free to choose the path, but he is free to choose the speed at which he will advance, how much energy he will put into it, and how quickly he will absorb the right examples from this environment, in order to adopt the new behavioral models and the new values.

So, one’s only choice is in how much to become a part of the common process: to advance quicker or slower. In this regard, a person does have free choice: the choice to quickly absorb the new examples and models that are provided for him by the new society.

And even though he is only free to choose the speed with which he adopts these new examples, this is nevertheless true freedom. That’s because it is above his egoistic desire to enjoy. And in this way, he already begins to build a “human being” within.
(From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson)

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A question I received: Why is it that people who have millions of dollars and have seemingly achieved tranquility and complete well-being, immediately seek the next million? Why is it that even subconsciously the question about the meaning of life doesn’t arise in these people?

My Answer: First of all, the question about the meaning of life isn’t at all related to how many millions you have. There are billions of people in this world who are not even remotely interested in knowing the reason behind their existence, although many of them are in very difficult circumstances. A person’s lifestyle has no bearing on whether or not the point in the heart has awakened in him or her.

Each one of us has his own purpose in this life. One person is born smart, and another stupid. Someone will become president and someone will sweep the streets. A person does not choose his profession, or his purpose in life, or whether he will be rich or poor.

The point in the heart awakens in a person the moment he begins to reveal the evil of his normal existence. This happens depending on one’s development. A person begins to understand that at some point he will die anyway, and all the millions he spent his whole life chasing were just there in order to service the society, which imposed its values on him.

If the society he is part of does not consider him a human being unless he has ten million dollars in his bank account, then this will definitely influence him. He will strive to do whatever his environment dictates to him.

And likewise, if someone travels to India and climbs a mountain to meditate, then he won’t need much more than his daily bowl of rice. This is how a person is influenced by his surrounding society. Regardless, in both cases, the point in the heart may be awakened.

This depends on a person’s function in the general system of souls. If his time to wake up has come, then it is due to the fact that he belongs to a subsystem that is now due to perform a correction in the system of souls. Thus, he will begin to ascend spiritually. His material or social status bears no relation to this.

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A question I received: When society tells me that I must have a new condo or a can of Coke, I don’t have to make any efforts of my own to be influenced by them. Does the same principle apply to spiritual desires? All they have to do is tell me that spirituality is something that’s good for me, or do I also have to do something myself?

My Answer: You don’t have to do anything more! Whatever your environment considers important is what you, too, will start to respect, to desire, and to want to have. When the people around you repeatedly tell you about how important an object or an event is, then you won’t be able to stop thinking about it; it will not let you sleep. This is because it cancels your identity, your personal “I”!

You will struggle and ask: What do I live for if I can’t have this or that? I am wasting my life without it!” You are not the owner of yourself, because society determines everything. Whatever goal it sets for you is the goal you will pursue. With the right “aiming” of the correct environment, anything is possible, even attaining the Creator!

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A question I received: Many people today feel a sense of desolation that is not related to their lack of material possessions. What does a person feel in such a state? What questions about life does he ask himself?

My Answer: Every person wants to be safe, healthy and live a normal life. This necessity, along with its various internal and external fears and anxieties, is understood by all. Because our egoism prefers to avoid the problem, people try to calm themselves down. This is why, as we are seeing today, people either don’t want to talk about the crisis or they announce that it’s already behind us.

A person who experiences desolation asks himself whether tomorrow will be worse than today. Today, he is surviving somehow, but what about tomorrow? He is afraid of losing that which is his; he lives in fear of forthcoming losses.

The one who is employed fears losing his job. The one who already lost his job is dependent on the national welfare system. If the government runs out of money tomorrow, there will be no welfare system, as the system does not have a bottomless supply of funds. Where will the money come from to provide for all?

A few more thousand will be fired, the process will extend another few months and that’s it; the money will run out! What will we do? How do we feed ourselves, how do we pay for things? No one knows what will happen.

All of these questions are of great concern to society, but governments and the media are not addressing them. Another few months will go by and concealing the situation will become impossible; everything will come out in the open. Unrest is already flaring up in various places. What will it all lead to? Something unimaginable.

This is why the world needs the science of Kabbalah. Against the background of all these problems, people must know that there is a solution. The only solution can be found in the science of Kabbalah. For now, it’s fine if they just hear about it in a vague, concealed form. But when the blows hit, this information will suddenly become clear.

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A question I received: How can one come to hate his egoism without hating others at the same time?

My Answer: The problem with today’s world is that everyone blames everyone else. But if we are speaking of a closed, integral system, then everyone in it is to blame; no one is right or wrong. If evil exists, it’s a result of each and every one of us.

If all the cogwheels are connected with each other, there isn’t a wheel that can escape reward and punishment; they are all connected. You can’t say that someone must turn or force others to turn because of others; all move simultaneously. Therefore, our correction must be mutual. This means that we must all simultaneously decide: “Let’s stop turning in opposite directions and begin to turn the same direction, as one for the sake of the other.”

Everyone is to blame for what is happening in the world. There are no criminals or victims. We are all absolutely equally responsible for all that is bad and good. This is because we live in an integral world and the representation of an integral world is a “circle” which does not have a beginning or an end. So, there is no one to blame. Everyone contributes to everything that happens in human society.

We have to attain the nature of a whole integral system and to start treating everyone differently. If I reach the recognition of evil, I come to realize that I am the only criminal in the world.

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