News Report (from Columbia Journalism Review): Those hoping for a quick rebound are likely to be disappointed. Economists and other pros generally say home prices won’t bottom out before the second half of 2009, and some don’t see a bottom until 2011 or 2012. Even when they stop falling, prices may scrape along the bottom of the rut for years.

Dowell Myers, a professor of urban planning and demography at the University of Southern California, warns that the retirement of boomers over the next two decades is likely to depress house prices in many areas. … there will be a lot more sellers than buyers.

So how long will this crisis last?

My Comment: There’s an expression in Latin: Quantum satis – “as much as necessary.” For example, it can be used to designate an unspecified amount of dilution, where the intended meaning is: as much as can be absorbed, or as much as will suffice.

So, the crisis will continue until we realize that it is but an expression of our mutual, shared egoism, and that the only way to come out of it is by correcting our egoism. Hence, time won’t heal us, but will only bring greater crises. For instance:

News Report: 11,000 delegates from 185 countries have gathered at the The United Nations Climate Change Conference, where scientists are expressing the concern that mankind has a time table of only one year to develop a realistic plan to save the Earth from the fatal consequences of global warming.

My Comment: It’s possible that we will experience several different manifestations of the crisis at the same time. That’s because there is only one underlying cause for all the crises: our egoistic relationships, which can only be corrected by the Light that descends during the study of Kabbalah. So study and watch Kabbalah TV. This is not an advertisement, but advice! Kabbalah tells us about our corrected states. When you study them (whether by reading, hearing or watching), you come in contact with those states and draw energy from them onto yourself, or in other words, you draw the Light from those corrected states. This Light corrects you, and then the crisis disappears!

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Without a doubt, every kind of suffering comes from the concealment of the Creator. Therefore His revelation will be the answer to the crisis.

Kabbalah states that the revelation of the Creator fills a person with pleasure and the sensation of eternity. How does the Creator become revealed to a person? Gradually, through the influence of the Upper Light that is drawn during the study of Kabbalah.

And don’t be surprised that one person can cause an ascent or a descent of the whole world, for there is a law that states: “The particular and the general are equal.”

In our times there is a need for Mutual Guarantee between all the people in the world. Hence, a global education is the biggest priority compared to all other issues.

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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.

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News Report (translated from gazeta.ru): Economic and political calamities on the global scale have a way of making people talk about the fact that the current era is ending and the future will be radically different. The current financial crisis is no exception. However, this time around we won’t be able to think of any clear plan for “lasting universal happiness.” If anyone hopes to make such a plan, it will only demonstrate their arrogance.

Moreover, one of the most wonderful things in life is the impossibility of predicting the future, because it gives individuals and mankind the chance to develop.

The predictions people make about life after the crisis can be grouped into three categories:

1. Some people assume that we are dealing with a case of history repeating itself, that crises like this one have happened before, and therefore the global economy will be restored. At some point in time, mankind will resume life just like before the crisis and the world will be the same as before.

2. Others think that the crisis is not really a crisis of the economy, but a crisis of our value system, and that the human civilization has reached some kind of a threshold. We can’t keep living the old way and we urgently need to create a new plan for how to exist. We will never be able to go back to the “golden era” as before the crisis (whether or not it really was a “golden era” is a separate question).

3. Scientists warn us that if people won’t change their lifestyle, they will soon need another planet in order to survive.

…We must be honest to ourselves and admit that we don’t know how and when the current crisis will end. No one can take away our right to construct our personal and universal future. However, it’s important to realize that such constructions will always be founded on mistakes.

My Comment: Here are are my comments on points 1, 2, and 3 above:

1. With crises that happened in the past, it was fair to say that history was repeating itself because they all took place in the same egoistic, individual plane. However, the current crisis arose due to a transition from an individualized world to a globalized world. Hence, none of our attempts to return to the past, to the old laws and rules, will succeed. Moreover, we will not be able to envision a new world structure based on past experience, because the world will now be based on different laws – the laws of globalization. They are opposite to the laws of individualized behavior, regardless of whether it’s a person, an organization or a country.

2. This thought is correct. However, the future is known. We can and must study it. Then we won’t have to go through so much suffering! Kabbalah is open to everyone!

3. Scientists are correct in their understanding that our planet’s resources will eventually be depleted. According to their calculations, this threatens us with complete extinction in the next few decades. However, if we begin to correct ourselves, to become more balanced with Nature (the Creator), we will elicit Nature’s positive influence upon us, thereby restoring harmony. In addition, it will happen very quickly and take on forms that we have never experienced in the past!

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Three questions I received on balancing spirituality with this world:

Question: I heard you say at the children’s lesson that we should envy people who contribute to the group and love others. Should I lie to myself, telling myself that I envy those who contribute even though in reality I envy someone who has a new car, for example? Please give me advice on what to do according to Kabbalah.

My Answer: Continue studying; the group and the lessons will give you the feeling that other values are more important. This is better than surrendering yourself to accumulating things and later finding yourself disillusioned. The Upper World that will start being revealed to you will make you feel vastly more fulfilled than a new car. The car is important to you because society values it. But if your society will value other things, your preferences will change as well.

Question: Sometimes I get angry at the Creator, but in truth I get angry at myself because I ask myself, “Why is the process of correction so lengthy!?” And then I answer myself: “Because I don’t make enough efforts!”

My Answer: You lack the pressure of the correct environment.

Question: I’m having an inner debate: on one hand, I have a new job that’s interesting to me and gives me free time to improving my professional level in order to have a good permanent occupation in the future. On the other hand, I don’t have much energy left after the morning lessons, so I’m thinking of cutting them down, yet this bothers me. What’s the right attitude to have to this situation?

My Answer: You have to finish your professional education so you’ll be able to support yourself and your family, while keeping the study of Kabbalah “on a low burner.” However, in all other respects, devote yourself to the study of Kabbalah. If you keep this balance of time and energy, you’ll succeed in both.

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News Report (translated from prime-tass.ru): “Covering up the word ‘Crisis” Businessmen and mass media are avoiding the use of expressions such as “the global financial crisis,” “recession,” “financial instability” and “dead end.” They’re inventing terms that are more positive and vague in order to circumvent the crisis rhetoric. For example, instead of “a global recession,” they say, “a temporary instability,” instead of “crisis” – “a period of opportunity.”

My Comment: I understand them: the reliable world of money and power has suddenly became volatile and elusive. The future is uncertain, and for an economist, this is worse than death itself. As the financial experts are battling the crisis, they are still trying to:

1. Conceal the panic that engulfs the financial markets,
2. Support the economy in a time when there’s no credit available.

In support, the governments are extending credit to banks and large firms, buying out their debt securities – anything to revitalize the crediting process. However, it’s impossible to bring back the old relationships. Perhaps they can be brought back temporarily, but this will entail great expenditures and will be artificial, like resuscitating a patient who’s in a hopeless condition.

The solution to the problem lies in studying the integral, global world that we have suddenly found ourselves in. It operates by completely different social laws, interconnections, and contractual terms than our old world, which wasn’t globally connected.

How do we enter into agreements or create new financial programs while taking the universal interdependency into account? The system is starting to work in new, unfamiliar ways, and the interconnections between the financial structures are the “unknowns” in the equation. No one yet knows what they are and how to work with them.

This is exactly what Kabbalah explains – the world’s globality, because Kabbalah studies the Creator, the One Global Governor. Everything that’s happening is His way of leading us to realize that it’s necessary to get to know Him!

However, if we’ll keep trying to create a new, “positive and vague” vocabulary, it will cost us dearly and only drive the illness deeper inside us.

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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.

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Three questions I received on souls, death and life after death:

Question: How can I tell whether I’ll end up in hell or heaven?

My Answer: Hell is the feeling of being ashamed for your thoughts and actions. Heaven is a state of being in the qualities of bestowal and love.

After one’s body dies, one doesn’t “go” anywhere. Heaven and hell are felt right here, in this life, with respect to the Creator. They are your attitude to Him, what you feel within your soul.

However, you must first develop your soul through the study of Kabbalah. It starts as a point in the heart and then develops into the five spiritual senses, the five Sefirot of your soul or your spiritual body.

Question: If a person wants to commit suicide, is there free will in this, or does the Creator give the person such thoughts?

My Answer: All aspirations (including thoughts and desires) descend to us from the Creator; He is primary. However, everything depends on our attitude or reaction to what emerges within us. In spite of everything, we should proceed toward adhesion with Him through the path of equivalence of form.

Question: Recently someone close to me passed away. Is there a difference between the reincarnation of a person who passed away naturally and someone who was killed?

My Answer: You have no influence on the souls whatsoever, so relax and forget about them. Worry only about your own correction.

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News Report (translated from og.ru): The global financial crisis is bringing people all over the world to a state of severe hysteria. People cave in to panic, where they are prone to thoughtless actions in an effort to preserve their savings. The Germans are looking for an answer in socialistic literature, the Chinese are rallying against the Communist party, the Americans are suppressing their fear of losing money with antidepressants, and the Russians are going to psychics and fortunetellers for advice. People all over the world are suddenly drawn to religion.

My Comment: Man is a weak and fragile creature. When he feels afraid, helpless and uncertain, he needs support from the environment, whether it’s a therapist, a group of friends, a war, a family or so on. Or he disconnects from reality through drugs, mystical methods or religion. This is why Hollywood became popular during the Great Depression.

However, now the times have changed because we are in a period of transition from a world of individuals to a global world. The only salvation lies in the source that will tell us about this new world, and that source is Kabbalah – and nothing else. That is because we are now revealing the quality of unity in the world, which is the Creator’s quality. And the method of Kabbalah is the way to attain it.

Hence after all their quests and errors, people will come to Kabbalah. Alternatively, we can explain to people that the key to happiness is already in their hands, like in the Pinocchio story!

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Preface to the Science of Kabbalah (Pticha).
Items 10 – 12, summary:

10. Thus, the Light of Life emanates from the Creator and, passing through the Worlds of AK and ABYA, it separates from the Creator until reaching the smallest desire, where its source – the Creator – is no longer felt. This state is called “our world.” However, by studying Kabbalah in a group with the intention to attain the Creator, one evokes the Light of the Upper Degree, which pulls the desire upwards, giving it the opportunity to ascend the degrees of the worlds all the way up to the World of Infinity. There, one can receive all the Light prepared for him by the Creator back in the Thought of Creation. It is hence written: “The Creator wishes to purify (from egoism) those who aspire to Him; to this end He has given them the Torah (the Correcting Light) and Commandments (the correction of one’s intentions from “for my own sake” to “for the Creator’s sake”).

11. The difference between spirituality and corporeality is this: The intention “for my own sake” is corporeal and its state is called “our world” (Olam Hazeh). The intention “for the Creator’s sake” (or “for one’s friend’s sake,” which is the same thing) is spiritual and its state is called “the Upper World” (or the Worlds of ABYA). The Upper World exists above the lowest of all degrees – our world.

All the ascents, descents, changes and movements that transpire in the Upper Worlds don’t take place in some imaginary space. They are changes in the size of one’s intention “for the Creator’s sake” and the accompanying desire. The greater the desire, the closer it is to phase 4 and the lower it is.

12. The essence of all creation is the desire (to receive pleasure, fulfillment). This desire requires correction. We are commanded to “purify” it with the help of:

• The Torah (the Upper Light), and
• The Commandments (changes of the intention from using the desire “for my own sake” to using it for “for the Creator’s sake”).

Otherwise we will not be able to attain the Upper Goal – the Thought of Creation.

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