Entries in the 'World' Category

The Machsom: Numbers and Statistics

MachsomA question I received: You’ve been the leader and mentor of the Bnei Baruch group for nearly twenty years. Maybe it’s time to make a public summary? How many people have crossed the Machsom over this period of time, and how has the world changed as a consequence? Or is this no longer the objective today? Are you now simply trying to change the world without your students’ personal correction?

I understand that this question will be deleted, but at least someone will read it. But if you do decide to publish an answer, then please don’t beat around the bush: give us real numbers and results, and the actual improvement in the world.

My Answer:

  • Number of students in the world – around 2,000,000.
  • Number of groups in the world – 73.
  • Number of people who have crossed the Machsom – 19.
  • Number of people who are about to cross the Machsom – 210. The rest will cross it by the year 2012.
  • Annual growth of students – 700-900%.
  • Number of hopeless students – 1. It’s you.

Why Devote So Much Time to the Crisis?

What Do Villains and Prophets Have to Do With Bnei Baruch's Virtual Group?Three questions I received on the global crisis:

Question: Why do you devote so much time to analyzing the crisis? Why should we care about the suffering of these oblivious and egoistic animals (or why should we pity them egoistically, since we can’t do it any other way)?

My Answer: 1. These people are all close to me!
2. Just like everything else in the world, the crisis has a reason and a purpose. Its purpose is to bring out a need in mankind’s to reevaluate its behavior.

The suffering will not stop until we accomplish this, and accomplish it right. I do the things I do in order to help people choose the correct attitude to what’s taking place, which will reduce the suffering.

Soon enough this “oblivious and egoistic animal suffering” will affect you as well. When it does, please don’t forget to write to me about how your opinion changes regarding how much time people should devote to this problem.

Question: Does it make sense to think of the reciprocal hatred (or lack of reciprocal love) that’s being revealed in the world as a reflection of the state the Bnei Baruch group is in, or my personal state?

My Answer: The group and the world are interconnected, but are on different levels: the group depends on the world for its spiritual ascent, and the world depends on the group to reduce the force of the suffering that descends upon it (whether or not it wants to listen to the group).

Question: Why is the unity of the common soul being revealed today from its reverse side? Do we really need to feel pain from realizing our connection to all people in the world?

My Answer: This is the only way to convince people to correct their nature. Pain is the measure of our imbalance with Nature. And we’re the ones who establish its severity.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Reflections on the Crisis

How Will Hunger Affect the Earth’s Population?

Reaching Personal Gmar Tikkun Depends Only on One's EffortsA question I received: If hunger spreads all over the world, how will it affect the Earth’s population?

My Answer: The Malthusian theory says that the world’s population has always been limited by the natural fertility of the land and the development of bio-technologies:

  • with natural farming – up to 10 million people;
  • with extensive farming – up to 100 million;
  • with intensified farming – up to 1 billion.

However, all models expressing the dependency of the earth’s population on its fertility assume that the world’s population is a natural (egoistic) system.

In the past, a process taking place in one part of the world did not have a significant influence on the other parts, and even less so on the population. But the moment the planet’s population became one collective whole, the laws of the system changed. Today, despite cultural differences and physical distances, an intrinsic phenomenon of global interdependency of all people is becoming apparent.

How will this affect the earth’s population? Our planet can even feed 100 billion people, provided that they observe the system of interconnection in which they exist. If people obey the laws of nature and consume only what is necessary for their existence, in brotherly interaction among them, as parts of a single organism, then they will never have to fear a demographic crisis. After all, the only cause of all the crises is our cruel attitudes to each other. Nature destroys us to the degree we oppose it.

Take Russia for example: There is a huge difference between its level of  economic development and how the population uses it. Cruelty, insignificance of human life,  abundant prisons and concentration camps, alcoholism, and lack of decent medical service – are all contributing factors to a short life span and high mortality rate.

In countries that are less developed than Russia, the life span is longer because the attitude to people is more merciful. In Russia it’s almost as if the government itself is interested in the destruction of its own people! How else can you explain the encouragement and proliferation of the “beer and vodka culture,” as well as drugs? However, fighting alcoholism directly is always ineffective, and only increases the number of people in prison.

The attitudes of the government and of every person to man, society, and mankind must be changed. This must become Russia’s national idea. Quit the path of trying to “force respect” and “force peace,” and instead set an example of sympathy, bestowal, and love for everyone in the world. This will elicit well-deserved respect and honor.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: When Will Hunger Start Affecting Us?
Laitman.com Post: It Takes Just One Spark of the Upper Light to Correct the World

Hollywood Is Also Affected by the World Crisis

America - Optimistic, and Why?News Report (translated from Israland): Hollywood will be affected by the global crisis as well. Nevertheless, film studios feel better than everyone else because most people prefer watching movies to watching the market keep plummeting. This is what happened during the Great Depression in America 80 years ago.

My Comment: Man is a will to enjoy or be filled. His top two demands are “bread,” and “something to feast his eyes on” (a spectacle). It has always been this way throughout our entire history, when the ego was growing from one generation to the next.

Today, however, we’ve stepped up to a new level of development: We are no longer pushed forward by the quantitative growth of egoism, but by its qualitative change. Today egoism has become global. Hence we can no longer be satisfied with “bread and a spectacle.” The blows of fate are manifesting due to our global, egoistic opposition to the altruistic Nature. And the blows will keep getting bigger until we change the direction of our development, redirecting it toward the correction of our egoism, until we reach the point of “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Only then will we become similar to Nature and the blows will stop coming at us. Even Hollywood will have to change its “spectacles” from egoistic to altruistic if it is to survive!

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Latin America Has Discovered Kabbalah


Our friends from Mexico report that 2,000 newspapers were given out in half an hour at the Zocalo Square in the center of Mexico City, where a book fair was being held. People were eager to take the newspapers; they asked questions about the wisdom of Kabbalah and about where they can study it.

Latin America has discovered Kabbalah over the last several years. In every country and in every big city, there are groups of our friends and students, as well as many individual students who study on their own. Because of the enormous distances and expensive plane tickets, we are working on improving our virtual connection so it will create a total illusion of physical communication. Our souls are together anyway! By spring I hope to visit my Latin American students.

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Kabbalah Website in Spanish

The Lost Sons Are Disillusioned With the American Dream

A New Year's Wish to the WorldNews Report (translated from news.ru): Between the years 2000 and 2007, 3,500 people per year returned to Israel. In 2008, however, the number of people who have returned jumped to 7,000, and another 15,000 have submitted their applications to the ministry of absorption. In the last two months alone, as many as 2000 people returned to Israel.

My Comment: The return of the “lost children” marks the end of their wanderings in search of a heaven on earth, and the beginning of their search for the real heaven – the revelation of the Upper World. The Book of Zohar says that this precedes the return of the truly lost sons – the return of the ten tribes that were lost 3000 years ago. Today there are hundreds of millions of them in the world…

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Part 5 from the book Interview With the Future: Spiritual Exile

Russia May Lead the Way to Global Unity

RussiaA question I received: A new worldview seeking to shift the entire civilization to a new level of consciousness has been published on the site of the national movement “RUSSIA IS US,” in the section “A New Worldview,” on the discussion forum, and other places.

Your thoughts and ideas from different articles published on your Kabbalah Academy websites and the Internet at large, were used in building a foundation for the new worldview. We would greatly appreciate your comments and suggestions.

With deep respect,
Alexey Yurievich Bartunov
Leader of the national movement “RUSSIA IS US”

My Answer: Dear Alexey Yurievich,

I will be very happy to participate in an opportunity to build a better Russia. I have always said that the inner demands of the Russians are close to the Kabbalistic ideas. The search for a national idea, self-expression, self-realization in the world in the capacity of a special enlightening force that draws respect and praise – all this is possible precisely by correctly implementing the idea of unity of all the nations. Russia can come forth as the initiator of an organizational plan for the new humanity. I am completely together with you in this!

Additional Comment: Professor Dov Sadan writes in his book Spiritual Revival that during the revolutionary period in Russia, Baal HaSulam took part in Polish workers’ demonstrations and supported them by carrying a red flag! He explained that what was happening in Russia signified that the masses were coming closer to the ideas of Kabbalah.

Later, after moving to Palestine in 1921, when socialistic changes started taking place in Poland, Baal HaSulam returned to Poland again and tried to get in touch with the leaders of the Polish workers’ movement. He wanted the socialist changes to be implemented correctly.

Unfortunately, people could not hear him. After all, to do this the society should have been able to rise above its egoism and recognize that there is no path other than global unity.

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Spiritual Teacher

Is There Meditation In Kabbalah? A spiritual teacher is a person who shapes and molds you, sets your direction toward the purpose of life, sets an example for you, and helps you make your first steps in a world that’s completely new for you, the Upper World.

How much you can absorb from him depends on you. To the extent you incorporate in him, you will find your future degrees of ascent.

A teacher conceals and reveals himself as much or as little as necessary to give the student the ability to develop freely and along the right path. When the teacher is present, the student isn’t happy with him, but once the teacher is gone, the student isn’t happy with himself.

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Will China Be the Superpower of the 21st Century?

How Can We Stop Being Slaves of the Advertisement Industry?A question I received: How do you see the future of China in light of the current global crisis?

My Answer: Today China is the most dynamically developing part of the global economy. Nevertheless, although China isn’t losing capital, a slowdown in its development is inevitable.

It appears that the Chinese economy is suffering less than the other economies. After all, China is protected by a powerful political regime, a closed inner market, its own strong currency, a cheap labor force, and a weak connection with the international funds system. Compared to the international recession, China is revealing an opportunity for growth in internal real estate development and consumption.

The Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of China, Wen Jiabao, gave a speech at the closing of the Asia-Europe summit held on October 26, where he stated: “We need reforms that will aid in creating a fair and effective global financial structure.” Unlike any other country, with the exception of the USA, China cares about education in the scientific field. There are 500,000 Chinese students studying outside of China, of whom 200,000 are studying in the USA. It turns out that in the 21st century, the only countries that will be able to successfully develop a technical-scientific base are the USA and China.

However, in order to become a superpower of the 21st century in a multi-polar system of the world order, in order for the Chinese goods to find a market, considering that the country’s economy is built on direct international investments, China will have to consider the need to integrate into the single global civilization. In the future, the system of interactions will have no choice but to change under the influence of nature, and to become harmonious, interconnected, truly integral and global, like a single organism. Incidentally, the ancient Chinese philosophy also sees the world exactly this way!

Laitman.com Post: New Theories of the Financial Crisis

Reflections On The Crisis

crisisGlobalization is the revelation of a new level of connection between us. It should be beneficial, but as we can see, it only causes more problems.

Why is this happening? It is because we are using the integral global system backwards – aiming to suppress one another, instead of learning to work together. We keep trying to defeat each other, to put others down and be superior to them.

Even if we wanted to maintain the proper interconnection – the commerce principle of “I scratch your back, you scratch mine” – this would still bring us to a crisis today. It would happen even if we did not lie to one another and conducted honest commerce. That’s because nowadays we are all interconnected, like parts of one body. Under these conditions it is useless to be egoistically honest, just as it is useless to create a global government or a world bank – to seek a common regulator.

The world’s political and economic leaders want to arrange a joint meeting between the G20 (heads of the leading countries) to discuss a joint global government. However, this will not help us come out of the crisis, because we are in opposition to Nature and Its general law. The system must not just be based on the correct interconnection, on agreements and honesty, but must operate in accordance with the inner connection between the elements of a single system, at whose basis lies a consideration of others as yourself.

This is the root of the problem. Kabbalah warns humanity that if we continue to try building our relationships according to the corporeal, egoistic laws – even the most direct and honest ones, following the principle of “what’s yours is yours and what’s mine is mine” – then the system will not work and we will elicit an even greater explosion.

As we start to reveal that we are all part of a single global system, we must come to the conclusion that everything is collective, and everyone must take care of everyone else. The only things that are “personal” are those necessary for one’s existence, while everything else is the collective property of the whole world. This pertains to natural resources, goods and production, education, health care, and so forth. Everything must be collective, global property. Otherwise the crises will not stop, and no matter how hard we try to set things right according to our egoistic logic, we will continue experiencing one crisis after another.

Kabbalah warns us that nature has already elevated us – in terms of our development – to the level of a single integral system, which follows the law of absolute interconnection of all its parts. No one can escape this law. Essentially, this is the ancient Biblical principle of “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” And we must use our ego in order to establish the correct connection with others.

Even if we create a rational system of interaction between different countries, according to the egoistic principle, “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours,” then this quality of Sodom will actually bring about an even greater crisis. That’s because in doing so we will seek to use the interconnection between people in order to raise the usage of egoism even higher, instead of correcting it. In this scenario a crisis will arise which will reflect this pseudo-correction, in order to expose the error. And it will be stronger and more acute, in order to teach us a lesson of what not to do.

What does Kabbalah suggest? To already take into account the future form, the functioning of the integral system as one body, by the principle of “the end of an action lies in the initial thought,” and actualize this end state to the best of our ability right now, even if we do it gradually and fragmentarily.

Does “actualize it right now” mean “fair distribution”? No. However, even if we initially accept the distribution of “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours,” and at the same time begin to intensively teach all humanity the laws of coexistence, which are based on the discovery of our society as a single organism; if we teach people the laws of behavior and distribution – then we will already be on the right path. We will shift to the path of correction and will stop being opposite to nature. We will then feel an immediate reduction of the suffering.

Baal HaSulam has a parable that says: We have lost our way in the desert and don’t know where to go. Now that we’ve completely lost our strength, we’ve realized that it was impossible to avoid wandering in the desert. And now we are revealing the path that we must walk. At the end of the path lies a castle full of all the goodness in the world. We are desperate; we are ready to sink into depression and drugs. All of a sudden, in this situation, we receive a global positioning system (a GPS map or GPS navigator) from people who can see everything from above. If a person agrees and changes his attitude to the world, then he discovers that the whole world was created for this path, and he suddenly has the strength to reach the goal.

How can we implement this change? We can do it by revealing the goal and the method of attaining it. The method comes to us from Ancient Babylon, when this problem of civilization came to light for the first time: a closed civilization is like a single body and must function as one organism. That is also when Kabbalah was revealed, in order to change the use of egoism – to use it for the benefit of society. However, the people didn’t want to use Kabbalah, and solved the problem in another way – they scattered all over the earth and globalization receded.

Now we are faced with the same situation, but this time we must utilize it, because we can no longer “run away” from one another, just as we cannot destroy the interconnection between us. Should America, Russia and Europe decide to isolate themselves from one another, they will face the emergence of Nazism in their countries and bring the world to a Third World War – a nuclear one.

What is the most practical solution that we can offer people? They have to know about the world they are living in today. Today we must learn about how to live in an integral system, where we’re all together “in one boat.” In this boat, the salvation of all depends on each individual. This is what we must also teach our children. We are dealing with nature: a global ecology and a global human society. We must teach ourselves and our children how to be incorporated in this system, where every person must care for the others.

Related Material:
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