News Report (from Private Sector Development Blog): Martin Wolf, a columnist for the Financial Times and former chief economist of the World Bank stated: “Among the most important tasks ahead is to create a system of global finance that allows a more balanced world economy, with excess savings being turned into either high-return investment or consumption by the world’s poor.”

News Report (from UK in the USA): Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, believes that the world financial crisis can become the accelerator for the creation of a new kind of society, unique in its aspirations, and he encourages the leaders of the world to lay the foundation for the new global order, internationalism, and the rejection of protectionism.

My Comment: This way, we will gradually reach the awareness of our global system, and from there – the understanding of the quality of the Creator: love and bestowal. Life (Nature or the Creator) will force us to make this decision and implement it.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: What Can We Expect from the G-20 Summit in Washington?
Laitman.com Post: Specific, Practical Measures to Combat the Crisis

Filed under: Crisis - 2 Comments →

News Report: Over the last year the world’s bee population has declined by one third. At this rate, bees may become extinct in ten years. A dissection of the bees showed the presence of unfamiliar fungus and bacteria. In addition, cell phone radiation disrupts the bees’ orientation so they cannot find their way back to the hive and die.

Without bees, plants would cease to be fertilized. And without plants, man will also become extinct.

My Comment: Nature will force us to think about our balance with It! Balance can be attained only when man will become an integral element of Nature through the proper reception and bestowal, in nature and in society.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Global Warming – It Will Affect Tropical Insects but What Is Causing It?

Filed under: Science - No Comments →

A question I received: What specific, practical measures would you advise the governments to take to combat the crisis?

My Answer: Kabbalah says that the world’s integrality requires that each person receive what is necessary for him to exist, and give the rest for the benefit of the society as a whole. This shouldn’t be done forcefully, like in the Soviet regime, but should come from people’s understanding that it’s necessary to carry out the law of nature that states: “All people are one family.” Every person will be rewarded for this with the sensation of eternal and perfect existence (outside of one’s egoism), just like all of Nature.

The needed actions: In addition to establishing an educational organization, every person must be given whatever amount of money he needs to lead a normal existence. No one should be allowed to have more than this amount in his bank account. Everything else should go into the “common account.”

The result: It makes no difference how much funds or resources there are for this. What’s important is the action itself, because it is integral, global, and harmonious with Nature (the Creator). Hence, it will evoke a positive reaction from Nature upon the society.

Comment:
1. These actions must be carried out together with distributing powerful educational, explanatory material through all mass media channels (see my “Lecture in Arosa“). Bnei Baruch already has the material!

2. If humanity won’t act as described above, with understanding, willingly and voluntarily – through the study of Kabbalah, then nature will force us to do the same thing, but through a long and bitter path of suffering. The situation will be like a stubborn child who doesn’t want to do what his parents tell him to, and who’s only swayed by punishment into understanding that he needs to listen and do as they say. Only later will he come to realize how correct and good his parents were.

Related Material:
Transcript of my Lecture at the 3rd World Spirit Forum in Arosa, Swtizerland

Filed under: Crisis - No Comments →

News Report: The Telegraph reports that the UK Government intends to obligate internet providers to report every e-mail and website visited. This information will be submitted to a database, such that not a single phone call, e-mail or website visit will remain unnoticed. The bill is expected to appear in 2009.

My Comment: There is no doubt that this is the wish of every government in the world. However, they would be better off educating their people. According to the law “The general and the particular are equal,” the government must treat its people as parents treat their children, and that means not to just restrict and punish them, but also to take care of their education and upbringing. And it shouldn’t matter how expensive or difficult this is.

Kabbalah talks about the need to manage the public opinion. However, this shouldn’t be done in order for the government to manipulate the citizens more easily, but for the sake of creating a correct hierarchy of values in society – values that include the meaning of the existence of man, the family unit, the state, and humanity. We think that the masses cannot adopt such high values, but Kabbalah asserts that everything depends on the public opinion! See Baal HaSulam’s article, “The Freedom.”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: What Will Happen If Countries Draw National Boundaries on the Internet?
Laitman.com Post: The Internet Is a Reflection of the Society

Filed under: Internet - No Comments →

My old friend, journalist and columnist, Sergei Leskov, had a conversation with the director of the Institute of Philosophy at the Russian Academy of Sciences, academician A. Guseynov. Dr. Abdusalam Guseynov was present at the defense of my dissertation at the aforementioned institute. I am grateful for his position on this process.

His words are as follows (my comments appear in italics): Until now humanity’s fundamental conviction was that scientific and technological progress was good. But these hopes have proved to be illusory.

Philosophy was founded on the possibility of creating a heaven on earth by changing human nature. Now it is clear that the progress has brought about a deadly threat, and this fact requires us to take responsibility on a fundamentally new level.

The Kantian “ethics of goodwill” must be supplemented with the ethics of responsible action. This puts greater emphasis on the role of absolute prohibition, embedded in the ancient code of Moses – first and foremost on the prohibition on violence, or in other words: “Don’t do unto others what you don’t want done to you.” This rule is a stepping stone to the rule, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” For more on this, see Baal HaSulam’s articles “The Revelation of Godliness (Matan Torah)” and “The Arvut.”

On the other hand, the process of individualizing morals continues. In other words, the society delegates the right to decide what’s right and wrong to individuals. If these individuals are Kabbalists – those who have already attained “the future of humanity,” then they can be trusted, but those who “don’t live in the world of tomorrow” must not be trusted under any circumstances. They will be wrong, as they always are, because they are governed by their egoism.

Filed under: Crisis - No Comments →

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:
Laitman.com Post: Friends, Let’s Join Hands!

Filed under: World - No Comments →

News Report (from The UK in the USA): The Prime Minister of Great Britain, Gordon Brown, believes that the global financial crisis can become a catalyst for the creation of a new global society, one that is united through shared aspirations. He is calling upon all the world leaders to start laying the foundations for the new global order.

In his annual foreign policy speech to the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in London, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: “Historians will look back and say this was no ordinary time but a defining moment: an unprecedented period of global change, a time when one chapter ended and another began – for nations; for continents; for the whole world.”

My Comment: This shows us how suffering helps people to understand the things taking place. However, it’s also possible for everything to happen without the suffering, through conscious understanding of the world’s development. Then we would strive toward a good future ourselves, with a sensation of comfort, by anticipating a bright future instead of being “pushed to happiness” by the blows of nature.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: War Is No Solution
Laitman.com Post: What Will Happen If Countries Draw National Boundaries on the Internet?

Filed under: Crisis - No Comments →

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!

Filed under: Society - 2 Comments →

Two questions I received on people who don’t study Kabbalah:

Question: Those who feel the point in the heart are already receiving blows of fate in order to make them follow the designated path. But what about everyone else?

My Answer: Everyone is pushed toward the goal of creation by blows of fate because we go through a part of the path – before revealing the point in the heart – unconsciously, by means of blows and running away from the suffering. However, after the point in the heart is revealed in us, we still receive the blows, but gradually we discover the cause behind them and their purpose.

From that moment on, we must already aspire to the goal (the Creator) consciously and through our own additional desire – a desire that isn’t received from above, but from our environment (the group).

Question: As far as I can tell, there is no group in France that’s close to me. Are there any plans to establish one? I am new to Kabbalah and feel a bit lonely sitting in front of the computer screen by myself, even though there are other students in my country who feel the same way.

My wife is not against me studying Kabbalah. She says that it’s ok because it’s kind of “biblical.” However, I am already afraid that the community will influence her and she will blame me for engaging in “satanic” things. How should I react to this? I am sure that it will be a struggle, but I don’t want to stop studying Kabbalah.

My Answer: The global connection between all people that’s being revealed in the world, and the nonconformity (and opposition!) of human relationships to it, will bring about such immense blows of Nature upon humanity – from climatic to economic – that people will quickly discover that Kabbalah’s method to change the world for the better is unique.

However, we should try by all means to inform people today about the reason for the crises and suffering, in order to shift humanity’s development from the path of suffering to the path of conscious correction. Then the suffering will be replaced by Nature’s favorable treatment of humanity.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Let Others Mature On Their Own
Laitman.com Post: Who Can I Talk to About Kabbalah?

Filed under: Suffering - No Comments →

News Report (translated from Kursor.co.il): “Obama Will Soon Disappoint His Electorate.” People are putting great hopes on Barack Obama. He isn’t just a political leader, but the hope of the entire generation, a man who will bring prosperity to all, and first of all, redemption from the financial crisis.

My Comment:
The reasons why Obama was “elected”: In recent years, the world sees the United States as an international cop and overbearing teacher. It is fighting a war in Iraq, keeping prisoners in the jails of Guantanamo without trials or charges, and its arrogance sets it against regions such as Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Moreover, it is once again starting a cold war with Russia. In other words, the United States has earned an extremely unfavorable image. They are even accused of all the disasters happening in the world.

This unattractive picture has been augmented by the current global financial crisis, for which everyone blames the United States because it is the international center of the entire global economy and finance. The worse people all over the world will feel during this developing crisis, the more hatred and blame will be put on the United States. The world opinion is that the Anglo-Saxon white Protestant America has been ruling the whole world and arrogantly setting the standards for everyone, for too many years.

In order to relieve all of these negative attitudes and to alter their unfavorable image, Americans decided to bring the African-American Obama to the post of President. This neutralizes the hatred of the United States’ black and Hispanic population, brings about greater understanding and connection between the United States and the Latin American countries, as well as Asia, Africa, and even Europe. It also removes grounds for Russia to accuse the United States, since with a black president, there are many things you can’t blame America for anymore. The operation was accomplished professionally and just in time. However, apart from diverting accusations, anger, and the international community’s negative attitude to the United States, will it bring positive results?

The Solution: According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the global crisis is just starting and will keep growing. It will last until humanity brings itself to full equivalence with Nature (the Creator). Kabbalah explains how to do this.

Disappointment: Today, however, it is very unlikely that Obama’s advisers are ready to hear what Kabbalah has to say. Apparently, the world must suffer several more blows – like the Pharaoh in Egypt – in order to hear the truth. Hence all those who hope for positive changes have failed expectations ahead of them! The Creator gave this world a new leader – Obama, but he can only become that leader by starting a global reconstruction of people’s perception of the world.

The situation in the world can only be improved by studying the essence of the global world and educating all of humanity about a new attitude to the world – the world as one whole. If we create a system of global education about the global world, then the whole world will immediately feel that it is congruent to Nature (the Creator), and everyone’s hopes will come true!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Can We Avoid a Recession?
Laitman.com Post: America – Optimistic, and Why?
Laitman.com Post: Why Was America Hit First?

Filed under: Crisis - 2 Comments →