News Report (from Reuters): “UK advertising budgets cut at record rates” British marketing budgets were revised sharply lower in the fourth quarter… The Bellwether Report said companies had cut back on spending after seeing their financial prospects deteriorate at a record pace. Hardest hit in the fourth quarter were main media advertising.

My Comment: Consumption will continue to decrease; there’s no going back to the rampant pursuit of excess. Besides, the essential goods don’t need any advertising.

What we do need to advertise is the correct global behavior and the explanation of the new interconnected world. In other words, we need educational advertising. This is what people will need, and therefore advertising will develop in this direction.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Purpose of the Crisis Is to Bring Us to Perfection
Kabbalah Today Article: We Want Change

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News Report (translated from Utro.ru): Just as everywhere else in the world, one of the consequences of the financial crisis in Russia is the rise of unemployment rates. During the days of the holiday vacation, unemployment in Moscow increased by 100%. Moreover, experts from the Social Opinion fund report that the actual number of Russians who have recently lost their jobs exceeds official data by 5-6 times.

My Comment: The same thing is happening all over the world. We must produce only what is necessary for a normal existence, and distribute the work among many people. As for our free time, it must be filled with education: we must all learn how to live in balance with nature. This is something we have to learn, just as a small child has to be taught how to live in our world. Similarly, all of us – the entire humanity, must get down to studying. This is what the crisis is pushing us toward.

We have found ourselves on a different planet, one with different external qualities. On this planet, the only thoughts, decisions, desires and actions that will prove successful are those aimed at the common good!

Therefore, the television should create and broadcast educational programs or “classes” that everyone will have to take. And then everyone will have to take exams, just like when we were in school. The whole world must “take their seats in the classroom.” We must use all means of communication to teach people how to live in the new natural (altruistic) conditions. The sooner society begins to understand and actualize this, the sooner we will begin to feel that we are living in a world that’s bountiful, safe and comfortable. Kabbalah offers you the wisdom of how to exist in the new world.

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The weekly virtual lesson on 01.18.09, held from 16:00pm to 17:00pm Israel time, was the 8th lesson on Baal HaSulam’s article, “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot.”

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News Report (from Bloomberg): Barack Obama’s choice of a Nobel Prize-winning physicist as energy secretary will redefine the way policy is made… Obama plans to invest $150 billion in alternative energy technologies… In particular, how to store energy when the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining. Battery technology has to be improved, carbon sequestration has to be developed and cellulosic ethanol has to be made more affordable. …new nuclear and other power plants that would cut emissions of so-called greenhouse gases. “…He’s going to continue to keep an international portfolio, but the message this sends is we are going to have a science-driven, fact-driven energy policy…”

My Comment: Nature will pressure us to reduce our irrepressible demands to a level that’s necessary for a normal and optimal existence, without any excess. Hence, it’s a good idea to invest government capital into developing the above directions in science, technology, and industry. This will prove successful because it is harmonious with Nature. The criterion for success is balance with Nature.

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Lecture in Arosa

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News Report (from WebWire): “A Crowded World: Researchers use computer scenarios to study crowd behavior in time and space” The scientists at the School of Geographical Sciences at Arizona State University have created a model of crowd behavior. Their results were as follows:

1. There is rapid exchange of nonverbal information in crowds

2. The actions of a single individual can shape the dynamics of an entire crowd

3. Individuals who would never ordinarily engage in anti-social behavior such as looting might do so anyway when associated with a riotous crowd; and, conversely, anti-social individuals may see their bad behavior checked by other members of a well-behaved crowd.

My Comment: The science of Kabbalah has been explaining the same laws of individual and social behavior for thousands of years. It explains these and many other laws, how to use them to benefit the individual without infringing on his freedom and while enabling him to develop harmoniously, and how to use these laws for the benefit of society in a way that avoids conflicts between the individual and the society. It explains how the two can come to an ideal coexistence, where individual gain is equal to social gain. This is possible if the importance of the individual is equal to the importance of society as a whole, by observing the law, “The general and the particular are equal.” This observance is possible when everyone is equal and interdependent, and every person strives only to fulfill the desire of the single whole, seeing this as his mission and receiving absolute fulfillment from it.

This is the state we exist in from the very beginning. It is called the “World of Infinity.” We must desire to ascend (morally) from our present state, called “this world,” to the level of the “World of Infinity.” This desire will draw onto us the Light (feeling) of bestowal and love, which fills us in the “World of Infinity” – and this Light will then correct us, giving us the quality of “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” This isn’t inconceivable. Even scientists now prove that an individual’s qualities can change instantly under the society’s influence. Therefore, everything depends on our decision to create the right influence over each and every one of us. Therein lies our freedom of will.

Related Material:
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Baal HaSulam: “Introduction to the Book of Zohar, Item 68″

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News Report (from The New York Times): “Project Created to Restore Ancient Babylon” A master plan is being developed for the restoration of the Mesopotamian site of the ancient city of Babylon, in present-day Iraq. The “Future of Babylon” project, financed by a $700,000 grant from the State Department, will map the city’s archeological sites, develop conservation plans and pursue possibilities for tourism and education.

My Comment: This is a landmark event because our global civilization is a replay of ancient Babylon. In the past, Babylon was a place with the same conditions as we have today – those of a “small village” and “the Butterfly Effect.” In other words, people’s egoism grew by leaps and bounds, and they stopped “understanding one another.” This is how we got the expression that “they began to speak different languages.” Yet, at the same time, people revealed that they were completely interdependent.

That’s when one of their priests, named Avram, began to examine the crisis and revealed its cause: it was happening because Nature (or the Creator) was pushing people towards unification. As a result of his research, he attained correction – the revelation of the quality of bestowal and love within him. He also realized what kind of connections are necessary in a closed system in order for it to survive and function correctly. He changed his name to Abraham, where the additional letter ה (Hey or “h”) designates the addition of the Upper Force (bestowal and love) to him. Thereafter, he wrote a book called The Book of Creation.

Abraham taught what he had learned, and thereby formed a group of students. He called them Israel (Isra – El = straight to the Creator), and together they went to what would become the land of Israel. As for the Babylonians who remained behind, they got rid of the crisis by breaking the connections between one another and dispersing all over the planet.

Today, just like Abraham’s science, Kabbalah,  predicted, from the end of the 20th century on, we have once again entered the state of “a small village” and “the Butterfly Effect.” However, this time we have done so on the global scale, so there’s no place to run in order to destroy our globalization. Hence, there are two paths before us:

1. Suffering, due to the discord in our civilization’s system, or
2. We can use Kabbalah as the method of correction.

Either way, we are obliged to correct ourselves so as to reach the level of observing the conditions of existence in a closed system, where every person will have to live by the rule of, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Foundation of the Wisdom of Kabbalah
Laitman.com Post: The Book of Zohar. Chapter “Avraham”
Laitman.com Post: The Book of Zohar. Chapter “The Letters by Rabbi Amnon Saba”
Baal HaSulam Article: “Building the Future Society”

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I had a conversation that was recorded about the role of women and children at the upcoming Congress. Speaking with me was Gilad Shadmon, coordinator of the women’s and children’s divisions of Bnei Baruch.

Read a transcript of the first part of the conversation, “Children at the Congress”

Read a transcript of the second part of the conversation, “Women at the Congress”

In addition, I had another conversation about how children all over the world should prepare for the Congress. Speaking with me was Gila Itsekson, coordinator of the children’s groups worldwide.

Read a transcript of the conversation

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News Report: An article that appeared in today’s The New York Times, called, “2 Years After Campaign Began, a Different World,” shows how different the world was when Obama became the Presidential candidate in February of 2007. It was before the economic crisis, and the situation in Iraq and the Middle East was just beginning. The article poses the question, “While the world has changed, has Mr. Obama changed along with it?”

My Comment: Life will force him to change. However, I wish for him to go through the change as quickly as possible – after all, he is the Creator’s angel.

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News Report (from Economic Times): “Antarctic mission runs into protest” An Indo-German expedition is currently sailing to Antarctica with 29 Indian researchers to conduct a two-month mega experiment that may help fight climate change… the LOHAFEX expedition involves sprinkling 20 tons of iron in the Southern Ocean… Pouring iron into the Southern Ocean, which is iron-deficient, leads to a proliferation of an algae called phytoplankton. The plant takes up CO2 from the atmosphere and, after it dies, probably sinks into the ocean depths trapping the greenhouse gas with it. If the dead algae sinks deep enough, the CO2 could remain trapped for centuries. With global warming becoming a major challenge for humankind, OIF holds the promise of taking out an estimated one billion tons of carbon from the air every year if applied on a large scale. … The green activists, however, say the 20 tons of iron sulphate that LOHAFEX intends to dump into the ocean could adversely affect the marine ecology of the region.

My Comment: None of the “scientific” methods are able to bring us into balance with nature, which is disrupted by man’s actions. Man evokes the imbalance through his connections in the society: Instead of maintaining balance in the closed system of society by having a kind attitude to one another, people are throwing the civilization off balance with their hatred for each other. As a result, the breach of balance occurs on all other level of nature as well. These disturbances cannot be corrected by any method, other than by correcting man.

Related Material:
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Laitman.com Post: It’s All for the Best (But We Can Get to It Faster)
From Chaos to Harmony: Chapter Balance With Nature

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