A report from our friends in Croatia: “600 people attended the premiere of a the staged ballet performance, the “The Magician,” based on Rav Michael Laitman’s book, Together Forever. We are grateful for the support of the entire world Kli. The success was unprecedented even in the face of all the obstacles. All of you were with us, you filled our hearts and lit them up with flames of love, and it was felt by the performers and the audience alike. We sensed the quiet yet powerful strength of the friends of the world Kli. It is impossible to put all your love and support into words. A few magazine and TV journalists were present and the praise from the audience exceeded all expectations.”

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A question I received: Why is it that many people are ignoring the crisis? What is the spiritual root behind this denial?

My Answer: Clearly, those who have an interest in concealing what is happening are doing everything possible to mask the obvious. This is happening because they are afraid of the consequences, since no government is able to offer any realistic solutions, and there is a possibility of civil disturbances due to their inability to act.

This is why, at the end of the day, everything depends on the dissemination of Kabbalah, which is the method for the correction of man. Our success lies in awakening people to the realization that the crisis is not coincidental, that its purpose is to correct the connection between us, and that only by bringing the purpose to its fruition will the crisis end.

Today, for the first time in history, the general system of souls is being revealed in our world. Indeed, the current state of the world is not simply a crisis; it is a revelation of the connection between us. All human suffering is caused by the fact that this absolute and permanent connection among us is hampered by our egoism. Therefore, we have no other means of getting rid of our suffering other than by correcting this connection and gluing the pieces of the broken vessel back together.

But people must understand that no force exists in this world that is capable of bringing us closer and correcting our egoism. We reside within our egoism and we cannot come out of it by pulling ourselves up by our own hair. We are obliged to find the external force, which can convert our egoism to its opposite - the qualities of love and bestowal.

This correcting force and the Higher force that created egoism are one and the same. It is the same force that must correct egoism. Only the science of Kabbalah makes it possible for us to attract this Higher correcting force towards ourselves.

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A question I received: Can you please explain the question “What is the meaning of life?”

My Answer: The question “What is the meaning of my life?” can be answered on the level of our world by “With what am I filling myself?” Or on the level of the spiritual world, the question is addressed by asking, “Whom am I pleasing?”  “What should I do with my life?”  “Where should I go?”

I have to unravel the mystery of the “meaning of life.” These related questions deal with the source of life:  “What do we live for?”  “Why do we live?” “What is the secret of life?”  “How and why did life appear?”  However, questioning “the meaning of life” isn’t necessarily a question about the origins of life, it’s more of an inquiry about why this all happened and where it is leading me. The question “What is the meaning of life?” deals with all the unanswered questions of my entire life.

Humanity is now asking this question. However, how profound or purposeful is the question that is actually being asked? For example, if a person has a mishap in his life or feels even the slightest dissatisfaction, he may ask, “What is the meaning of my life?”

The answer is revealed only after that question has been examined and toiled upon by hard labor and exertion and which is precisely directed toward the goal.

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Humanity has been developing its educational system for thousands of years, and it consists of two parts:

• Education (mind, intellect, brain): a child is taught his future profession, since he can’t get along in life without it.

• Upbringing (senses, heart): in absence of a process that shapes a child into a human being, education has the potential to do harm rather than good.

Even while learning a profession, a child should not be given ready-made explanations, formulas, solutions or anything in that matter.  He should not receive anything in its final form.  First, he needs to discuss, test and analyze the subject to eventually reveal the truth on his own, feeling the thrill of discovery. Such an approach inspires him; he is independently reaching the conclusions that the teacher wanted him to reach.

Studying Torah has always been in the form of discussions and allowed an exchange of opinions. A student is intentionally confused, being dragged into researching a task. That makes him search for the solution, honing his independent arguments. Eventually, in the process of his development, he masters the problem, while he’s “opened the book” for himself and thus understands what is written in it.

A book needs to obligate a child to develop. He needs to discover the formula following the steps of the discoverer. One must attain knowledge, not be given it, such as occurs in mainstream education.

In that sense, the Talmud serves as an excellent example of a true text book. After all, we study it to develop and not to memorize data.

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In the news (from USC Annenberg): “Family time decreasing with Internet use” More and more of America’s Internet-connected households report erosion of face-to-face family time, increased feelings of being ignored by family members using the Web… By 2008, shared time had dropped by more than 30 percent, to 17.9 hours. Reports of feeling ignored, at least sometimes, by family members using the Internet grew by 40 percent over the same period.

My Comment: This is not something to look forward to!  Our egoism is forcing us to move away from one another and to forget about ourselves and others by immersing ourselves in the TV and the Internet.  In the space where our desires ought to be fulfilled, we feel emptiness - that is why we are distanced from others and ourselves. When one is on an incorrect course, there are two methods to discern the error and make the necessary adjustments to reach the goal:

1) Accelerate the speed in the wrong direction! In so doing one gains some time by recognizing the error of one’s course, since the time spent moving in the wrong direction is filled with suffering.

2) Instead of moving in the wrong direction, delve into the study of the process that is controlling us. In doing so, one will be able to recognize its evil, instead of revealing its wickedness personally, through corporeal suffering. This action greatly reduces not only the time spent on the wrong path, but also the amount, level and magnitude of suffering, by transforming the corporeal and emotional suffering to the suffering of love.

In this way, we move from suffering over our own miserable state and the fact that we’re feeling pain, to suffering over the absence of eternity and perfection that we have not yet attained. Therefore, the second method is preferable!

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In the News (from The Financial News): “Interview of Dmitry Medvedev American CNBC TV channel” Now, one problem arising at one place in one country, be that in America, Europe or Asia, is enough for the whole world community, for the whole global economy to catch fire. That is why, a very important conclusion that we should make and take as a basic one is that taking all kinds of domestic national economy decisions concerning inflation, issue of money and some other economic indicators, we are making a direct impact on other economies. This economic globalism is, maybe, the main lesson of the current crisis, which, at the same time, creates better conditions for development in the future, because we can create a much fairer financial and economic architecture.

My comment: See how suffering is helping us! It is well known that suffering cleanses. The correct interpretation of this is that suffering cleanses a person of egoism. This cleansing consists of two phases. Phase one is through the influence of Upper forces. The second phase is the realization that egoism is the cause of all evil followed by a conscious separation from it (from its use).

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In the News (from CNN Health): “Pucker up: Scientists study kissing” - Now, scientists are investigating the biological factors underlying that ubiquitous expression of love. The science of kissing even has a name: philematology. Research on the subject was presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago. Research led by Wendy Hill, professor of neuroscience at Lafayette College, looked at how kissing affects the hormone oxytocin, sometimes called the “love hormone,” which is associated with social bonding, and cortisol, a measure of stress.

My Comment: According to Kabbalah, there are three kinds of connection between a soul and the Creator: a hug (His left arm is under me and the right one embraces me), a kiss (spirit) and a merger (on all levels). Therefore, a similar interaction exists between bodies in our world. It is studied in the Talmud Eser Sefirot on thousands of pages with scientific description of causes and effects. The book is available and open for everyone.

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A question I received: How can one evoke his feeling toward his neighbor as to his own children? How will those who do not aspire to the meaning of life correct themselves?

My Answer: The study of Kabbalah and the correct environment helps us understand the nature of the Upper State (World) and the unity of all parts of the world.  We are given an opportunity to try to implement it amongst ourselves in our group and to therefore come to the realization that this is not possible, even though we are bound to each other and depend on one another. Today people are gradually beginning to explicitly sense the net that connects us all.

The current crisis is here to show us our harmful interconnection and our inability to correct it, although we recognize that mutual egoism is the cause of all our troubles.

The sooner this knowledge reaches the masses through the media, the sooner the evil will be recognized, and the shorter will be our path of suffering.

Our feeling of helplessness, of our evil egoistic interconnection will unite our suffering and our desire to find a way out and a solution to the problem.

As soon as each person feels his dependence on others, he will become interested in their condition and will care about their well-being. At first, the feeling of a united family comes from an egoistic interest; however, as we join and come closer to each other, we will reach the proper condition in feeling our commonality.

Everyone will learn to take his neighbor into consideration and to treat him as a relative, egoistically sharing everything with him evenly, until we reach full equality in the world.

With this kind of distribution, people will have everything that they need, since Nature will provide for everyone.

By egoistically following the law of similarity to the Creator, people will start to reveal their bond with the spiritual root, just as an arm or a leg reveals its bond with the brain.

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In the News (from Florida State University News): “Florida State study links ‘warrior gene’ to gang membership, weapon use” Boys who carry a particular variation of the gene Monoamine oxidase A (MAOA), sometimes called the “warrior gene,” are more likely not only to join gangs, but also to be among the most violent members and to use weapons, according to a new study from Florida State University that is the first to confirm an MAOA link specifically to gangs and guns. Findings apply only to males…

“Moreover, we found that variants of this gene could distinguish gang members who were markedly more likely to behave violently and use weapons from members who were less likely to do either.”

My Comment: So what reason do we have to sue the miserable carriers of this gene? Do we do this because we cannot judge Nature or the Creator? Kabbalah suggests using these predispositions for professions in the army and the police. Meanwhile, correction is possible only through the Upper Light, which created these predispositions.

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A question I received: A man who knows that the entire world is a single system can begin to correct himself. But what about people who know nothing about it and continue to act incorrectly within the system, harming all the rest?

My Answer: We have to continue our efforts to explain it to them, and the more they understand what is needed for the correct actions, the better off all of us will be.

You have to see the world as part of yourself that’s not yet corrected and therefore seems external to you. However, if you correct it, you will attach yourself to it and feel it as your own part. That’s how it is revealed.

If you truly feel how deeply you are dependent on others, then at that same instant, you will discover that all of them are parts of you, but still out of your control. They’re like your own children, whom you feel as an inseparable part of you, although they disobey you and don’t want to be together with you.

Thus you reveal that all of the souls, all of humanity are parts of your own soul. But you are being purposefully misled by feeling that they are apart from you, that they are strangers. Otherwise, correction would be impossible. If I had felt the entire world as part of me to begin with, I would not have been able to correct anything. My sensation of them being strangers, that there’s distance that separates us, is precisely the reason why it’s easy for me to correct them. If I felt these parts within me, it would be terrible and a very hard thing to do; I wouldn’t be able to touch them.

That’s why the Creator “pulled” them outside of me and gave me an opportunity to relate to them as to strangers. If I wish to bring them closer to me and to receive good influence back from them - that means I’m correcting them. Such an illusion of separation between myself and strangers serves the purpose of my correction, but in reality, they are my own inseparable parts.

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