In the News (from Science Daily): “Making The Most Of It: Study Reveals Motivating Factor For Enjoying The Present” According to a new study, thinking that we have a limited amount of time remaining to participate in an activity makes us appreciate the activity that much more and motivates us to make the most of it. These findings support the idea that “thinking about an experience’s future ending can enhance one’s present experience of it” and that “focusing on the fact that an experience is fleeting enhances enjoyment by creating a ‘now or never’ type of motivation.”

My Comment: At every moment in time, one has the opportunity to change oneself and the world for the better. If one has this attitude to life, then he is always enthusiastic about life. After all, “the world” is what you build and perceive within!

Question: I don’t understand: if everything is driven by thought, which begets the mind, then what’s the end result of it all? Is it to achieve the goal of absolute harmony and attainment of the Creator? But what for? And what’s going to happen once this is achieved? And what’s the point of creating the primitive creature that is man in the first place – to revel in our ego?

My Answer: The goal of developing our desire is to attain the sensation of the state of perfection inside this desire. The most rational, quick and easy method to bring oneself to perfection (to correct oneself) is demonstrated to us by the Creator through His work (Avodat HaShem).

Just as adults teach children how to live in our world by showing them examples of the proper behavior, so the Creator shows us examples of the behavior that’s necessary in order to start perceiving the concealed part of the world. However, if we act of our own accord, then we are like children who don’t have parents or the right environment, and are trying to grow from a primitive stage to a level of being able to understand life in the modern world. How can they possibly do it without being educated at home, in kindergarten, school, and so on!?

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In the News (translated from utro.ru): Sooner or later the economic crisis will be over, and then life on our planet will be completely different. The experts of the World Economic Forum concluded that the era of swift development has come to an end, economic growth will slow down, the influence of the government will increase, and the global economy will change completely. The experts put forth four scenarios for the future of the global financial system: Either the worst will happen in the East, or in the West, or everywhere at once, or the world will somehow recuperate.

My Comment: Nobody knows the future, because it is for us to decide. However, there aren’t four, but two possible scenarios: either things will be good for everyone, or bad for everyone. It can’t be divided up into parts, because the world is integral and absolutely interconnected, and this is being revealed more and more each day.

There are two possible paths: the path of suffering, or the path of conscious development and a favorable connection between everyone. However, one way or another, we will have to reach one goal – to become an integral part of Nature.

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In the News (translated from Javno): This year’s traditional Vanity Fair will have no hint of glamour because of the global crisis. The traditional glamorous party Vanity Fair fashion magazine organizes every year after the Oscar awards will this year be far from the glamour attendees of the event are used to. As the global economic crisis is affecting all areas, the leaders of the renowned magazine decided to organize a rather humble party and reduce the list of invitees as much as possible. “We will curb expenses this year,” the magazine’s editor said, adding that the party would resemble the magazine’s first party 15 years ago which was pretty humble.

My Comment: Naturally, everything that was artificially created by humans will eventually come to an end. Only the natural existence will stay, along with spiritual development.

Glamour is often so tasteless, because people just want to “sparkle.” But this is already disappearing. Glamour has outlived itself.

The crisis does not mean that the world is falling apart, but that its false, shiny shell is. And just like a chick is born from an egg, this shell will break to reveal the birth of a new life – a new world that exists by the eternal laws of Nature, the laws of bestowal and love.

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In the News (from Environment News Science): “Global Warming Forecast to Leave Half the World Hungry by 2100” Climate change will desiccate crop yields in the tropics and subtropics by the end of this century, leaving half the world’s population facing a food crisis. The area at risk stretches from the southern United States to northern Argentina and southern Brazil, from northern India and southern China to southern Australia and all of Africa.

My Comment: These people will be forced to leave their lands and move north. But will the developed countries withstand such an influx? And if yes, how? Perhaps by using nuclear weapons, as Baal HaSulam writes in the article “The Last Generation”?

The source of all our problems is that we disconnect ourselves from nature, thinking that all existence is split into “man” and “the environment.” This view of nature makes us think of everything around us as a supplement to man.

Even when we do care for the environment, it is only for our own narrow gain, with no regard for the holistic system of nature. Violating this closed system of nature evokes its negative reaction to us. And since we are a product of nature, we end up suffering on all levels of our existence.

Therefore, we must replace all of our educational programs, such as “Saving the environment,” with educational programs such as, “Man is an integral part of nature.” After all, the solution lies not in cleaning water from pollution or restoring the ecosystem, but in creating a single system, where everything is “One Nature,” instead of “man and nature.” Hence, there must be only one educational program, just as Nature is one. We must imitate living organisms and use them as models for how to organize our lives as a single whole.

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Kabbalah on Education

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In the News (translated from vz.ru): NASA’s Absolute Radiometer for Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Diffuse Emission (ARCADE) has found an anomalously powerful noise, a power spectrum of relict radiation, penetrating the universe. This discovery may indicate that the Earth’s position in the universe is unique and pre-conditioned, which is why we can see what should not exist in the cosmos. This could support the geocentric model of the world, according to which the Earth is unique in the universe and did not originate by coincidence. The chances of proving God’s existence are greater than ever, reports CNews.

My Comment: We are revealing the truth: that we are alone in the universe. So there’s no use searching for other civilizations in outer space. There are no “little green men,” there are no aliens coming to visit us, and there is nothing in the universe except dead matter. Everything of importance exists only on our Earth, and man, who is at the center of this world, raises it to the spiritual world.

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Question: In one of the lessons you said that America is built egoistically to unite more than other nations because it is comprised of different nations (is ethnically and culturally diverse), and that it is going to be okay in this crisis if the people unite. My question is: doesn’t this speak to some space in me? Some space inside me that egoistically would like to get along with the other people in my life?

My Comment: Of course, this is how we start correcting our nature: by searching for a better egoistic life. However, while studying Kabbalah we begin to feel the value of having a direct altruistic attitude to others; its independence, greatness, and the infinite, eternal sensations that become revealed in it. And then we discover how to attain this, and consciously aspire to come out of egoism.

In the News (translated from SvobodaNews): The Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Science (IERAS) reports that Russians are faced with a decline in income. They will have to take any job, save money, raise their professional qualifications, and support each other. At this time it is important to stay connected with family and friends, because people will have to come out of this difficult situation together.

My Comment: Indeed, this prolonged suffering will force people to unite – and not just within each nation, but all the nations together. Kabbalah enables us to understand what is happening, and then people will also be able to quickly understand what to do in order to attain equivalence with Nature, with the quality of bestowal and love. This quality is the basis for survival in the unified system of humanity.

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Questions I received on the Israeli Palestinian conflict:

Question: Why did Israel choose this time of all others to start a war?

My Answer: The war in Gaza started because of the falling oil prices. Hamas would be nonexistent without help from Iran, and Iran’s plan is to become an Arabic superpower, which is only possible if oil is expensive. Therefore, in order to raise the oil prices, Iran ordered Hamas to start the war.

Question: How is it possible to manage without the tunnels used for delivering goods?

My Answer: There are over 1500 tunnels between Egypt and Gaza, and these tunnels are the basis of Hamas’s socio-economic power. Hamas builds the tunnels and sells each one for $170,000. Hamas also receives $16,000 for giving permission for a tunnel to be dug. Moreover, the goods delivered through these tunnels are taxed by Hamas, resulting in millions of dollars in profit.

This is why Hamas reacted the way it did when its “economy” was shut down. And there is no other opportunity for them to make a profit in Gaza. The solution lies in replacing the terrorist government with a peaceful one, which will start building the economy and making its own living.

Question: If the quality of life improves for the residents of Gaza, will terrorism vanish?

My Answer: Any normal government takes care of its citizens and tries to provide them with jobs, safety, and national security. A terrorist government, on the other hand, tries to deprive its citizens of all these, in order to receive humanitarian aid and then distribute it by reselling it. Therefore, the more impoverished the nation is, the better it is for the terrorist government, because people think less and will agree to anything. This is why the Hamas government didn’t build bomb shelters in Gaza, and why the Palestinian terrorists always shoot from behind the backs of the civilians.

Question: But can’t the international community restore order?

My Answer: No one is interested in this; everyone profits off of it. Hence, when the terrorists are retaliated against, they appeal to the international community, shouting, “Look! They attacked us.”

Question: But isn’t it the UN’s mission to bring peace to the world?

My Answer: The United Nations profits from the world’s tragedies. The workers of the UN line their pockets with the money that “sticks to their hands” during the distribution of resources. This is why they’re interested in having the conflict continue and having Gaza remain impoverished, in order to steal from the resources released by their organizations.

As we can see, money is at the core of the whole conflict, and this is also why the current global crisis is economic in nature. This is exactly the kind of crisis that is capable of changing the entire world.

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Fighting Terror the Right Way
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News Report (translated from Scepsis.ru): The recent years, dubbed the “era of globalization,” will not go down in history as years of prosperity. They will be studied (if there will be someone left to study them) as a time of bloody regional wars, the growing poverty of the Third World, and the crisis of the Western middle class; a time when technological progress and financial speculation brought outrageous profit to tens of thousands, while casting hundreds of millions to the bottom of the social ladder.

The current crisis will be no exception: as we speak, some are already making plans to ensure that the losses suffered by the financial speculators will be reimbursed at the expense of regular citizens and debtors from poor countries.

My Comment: It all depends on how you view the crisis. Kabbalah views it as the beginning of goodness – as the revelation of the evil that is our egoism, the revelation that egoism is the one and only source of evil in our lives. It is the reason why we only perceive a tiny, negligible fraction of our eternal existence. This revelation, that egoism is evil, will be followed by a renunciation of it, and then by the correction of human egoism to bestowal and love.

We will then feel our existence as eternal harmony, called the Upper World or Paradise. And we will feel it both during the life of our physical body and after it dies. So let us accelerate this process by studying the method of our correction.

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I had two conversations that were recorded for the TV show, The Butterfly Effect. The topics discussed were, “Changing Our Direction” and “The New Global Order.” Speaking with me was Zalman Shuval, one of the owners of the Bank of Jerusalem and former Israeli ambassador to the USA.

Related News Story (from Financial Times): “Turmoil needs more effective solutions” Huge bank rescue plans co-ordinated three months ago by many governments were meant to let confidence recover. But governments and banks have had to respond to a renewed outbreak of fear. Anglo Irish Bank, nationalized on Thursday, and Commerzbank, given €10bn by Germany’s government last week, are among the institutions all but overwhelmed as measures once seen as dramatic have proved insufficient.

My Comment: For now nobody yet understands the fact that we are now in a different “coordinate system,” where everything operates in an integrated manner. Now, the only things that will work are those aimed at bestowal and the good of everyone. The rest is doomed to fail, maybe not immediately, but in the near future. We can’t do it all at once, but gradually we must learn about the new world we now find ourselves in! However, for now, people don’t believe me.

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News Report (from The Times): “A tidal wave of discontent threatens China” The Chinese Government announced yesterday that exports had fallen at their fastest rate in a decade. China’s exporters are collapsing, pulling down other businesses with them. According to some serious statisticians, the unemployment rate may have already passed 20 per cent. This makes the severity of the economic crisis in China much sharper than in the US and Europe.

Following in the footsteps of the US Government, the Chinese Government in November announced a four trillion yuan ($600 billion) public spending package to get the country out of the slump. But this won’t work in China. If the Chinese Government does not take a New Deal approach, it risks the Chinese people revolting and overthrowing those in power. Across the country there is mounting evidence of popular discontent turning to violence.

My Comment: The crisis is unfolding completely differently in free countries and in totalitarian countries. The closer a country’s structure is to free development, the calmer the unfolding of the crisis will be, and the quicker its people will realize the cause of the crisis and how to come out of it: through free correction of every person and all of us together.

In the free countries, a person is used to taking care of himself, and therefore he perceives the need to change differently. He takes it as his personal concern, rather than transferring the responsibility for the needed changes to the government. Because the people in the free world have this psychological preparation, they have an advantage over the people who grew up in countries with restricted freedom (responsibility).

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