A question I received: Israel recently celebrated its Independence Day. In the midst of it, I suddenly thought, “Who are we independent of?” Are we independent of China and Turkey, whose clothing and goods fill our stores and our markets? Are we independent of America and its financial assistance and arms supply? Are we independent of European and Japanese cars and technology? Are we independent of Arabic oil and Russian gas?

And I am not only talking about Israel. I am talking about every country in the world! And this mutual dependency just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

So how can we celebrate any kind of independence? It is nonsense! Maybe we should  celebrate Dependence Day instead – our dependence on each other. This will help everyone understand that by reaching the state of globalization, we have a chance to develop in a better way. Don’t you agree that Independence Day will soon be gone from our calendars?

My Answer: I agree with you and I wholeheartedly await the holiday of “Global Dependence Day”!

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In the News (from The Telegraph): “Difficult day ahead?” Professor Allan Hobson is a leading psychiatrist from Harvard [and] his new model, called “protoconsciousness,” argues that dreaming is not an unconscious process, but a conscious one: not a way of working through unresolved issues, but of preparing for the day ahead. Dreams, he says, serve to provide us with worst-case scenarios so that we can practice our coping techniques in safety – a dress rehearsal for the mental and physical challenges of the waking world.

My Comment: Kabbalah considers dreams to be a process of sorting out data from the day that had passed, in order to make sense of and store one’s impressions of the events that occurred.

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A question I received: I don’t understand what will happen to society during the period of its transition from the will to receive to the will to bestow. People will no longer be satisfied by money or power, but they won’t yet know what bestowal is.  What will push or motivate people to make acts of bestowal? How will people be able to desire it without receiving any pleasure from this idea?

My Answer: People will feel fulfilled because society will encourage them to bestow. Society will respect and reward a person for his bestowal, and this will fulfill him. The goal of our development is to reach an interpersonal connection among us where just the sensation of this connection will give us the fuel to bestow and love.

At the end of the day, what a person really wants is not just money in the bank, success or power, but inner fulfillment, or a certain attitude towards him from society. All the pleasures that are above and beyond our vital, physical necessities are perceived as intangible, virtual fulfillment.

In addition, there is something we tend to consider more precious than being fulfilled by money, and that is the fulfillment we sense from the respect and recognition of society. This is what the rich and the powerful want as well, but they can’t get it, because when they do attain respect and recognition, it is false, attained through bribery.

The worst thing for a person to experience is criticism, humiliation and contempt from the society and from one’s own children. This is worse than death itself. The opposite of this are the qualities of respect, recognition and appreciation; these give us the greatest fulfillment in life.

Our task is to nurture a public opinion that will compel every person to change, to go from receiving from society to bestowing to society. Everyone will then feel the reward that comes from the opportunity to give to society.

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A question I received: What is Kabbalah’s stance on the development of artificial intelligence? Does Kabbalah support the idea that it is possible to recreate the human brain and consciousness? Could an artificial brain have a complex consciousness?

My Answer: It is possible to recreate anything about us except our spiritual make-up, the will to bestow. This is the Creator’s quality that we receive from above. Besides this, everything else about us can be recreated and improved.

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The seventh issue of the Spanish language publication, The Voice of Kabbalah, is now available:

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A question I received: If someone came to you from an international news agency such as CNN and asked you to describe the wonderful method that you have, what would you tell them?

My Answer: This method shows us how to overcome the crisis that is now being revealed and spreading into all areas of our lives. Our survival is at stake, so if we want to save ourselves from destruction by natural disasters, famine, epidemics, and other misfortunes, we have to realize that the correction of our global situation depends on one thing: the establishment of interpersonal relationships as though we are members of one family. I think this example speaks for itself and requires no further explanation.

Anyone can envision a family whose members understand that they are connected and interdependent, who take care of one another and live together. This is the kind of relationship that we must develop among all the people on earth!

To this end, we have to explain to everyone that we are all interdependent and can do nothing to escape this connection. This understanding will oblige people to unite. Everyone should understand that by uniting, they will eliminate all the problems in the world.

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My book From Chaos to Harmony in the store window of a Persian book store in Toronto, Canada:

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A question I received: If the solution to all our problems lies in correcting the relationships between people, then how does Kabbalah’s approach differ from all the other methods that say people should do good deeds?

My Answer: The science of Kabbalah explains that we all exist in a net that binds us together. Because of this, we have to treat each other as if we are in one boat, or like the members of one family. Baal HaSulam writes that the whole world is one family, and we must therefore build harmonious relationships of collaboration among us, instead of our present egoistic relationships.

The general connection among us that has been revealed obliges us to be in agreement with one another. This means that there must be agreement in our actions, thoughts, desires, and everything else. However, no one knows how to make seven billion people interact harmoniously with each other. And yet, the interconnection that is being revealed to us obliges us to accomplish this.

The revelation will continue to happen gradually, one step at a time. No one knows how the next stage will be revealed because this depends on how we realize the current stage. For this reason, Kabbalists propose that the entire society be taught about the law of interaction that is being revealed in the world. This knowledge will enable people to make the right actions.

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We exist within a law of nature, which is now being revealed and obliging us to follow it unconditionally. Since it is a law, it is therefore impossible not to follow it.

For example, take the law of gravity. When we know this law, we are able to build a plane that can easily move through the air, even though it is heavier than air and opposite to this law. However, if we were unfamiliar with this law, we would crash. This is how all of Nature’s laws work: if one doesn’t follow them, he kills himself.

We still don’t realize that we are now under the influence of a new law of nature – the law of universal interdependence between people. This law obliges us to completely unite with one another – to join our desires and thoughts. However, this is completely opposite to our current desires and thoughts.

Nevertheless, the law of universal interdependence or mutual guarantee is gradually being revealed to us, because we have developed to the necessary level. In the past we did not feel this law because we had not yet reached the final level of our egoistic development.

This is why we are gradually beginning to realize that we don’t know how to use everything around us. We don’t know what to do with our desires, thoughts and actions in order to receive even a small pleasure, the way we did before. Now, as soon as a person wishes to use others, he is crushed by a blow. And if this is still not evident to anyone, it will be revealed to them very soon. So what should we do?

In order to reduce the blows, we have to take a closer look at their cause. We will then see that these “plagues of Egypt” are there to separate us from our egoism, to enable us to understand that egoism is the source of all our suffering. But is this possible? Can we really separate ourselves from our very nature?

It is possible, because when we reach this state, we reveal the need for help from above. But until then, we can’t even suspect of this possibility. So it is none other than the affect of suffering that helps us reach the right inner demand: “Let the Upper Force come and correct me!”

We then see that the Creator did this on purpose – in order for us to feel that we need Him, and then to grow and become like Him!

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A question I received: I have heard you say many times that the desire is the only thing that exists, and only the desire determines everything. Then why don’t all the desires that I have in life come true?

My Answer: It’s because in addition to your desire, there exists the program of creation. In other words, there is a certain plan, and according to this plan the whole of creation advances towards its pre-determined goal. This advancement toward the goal is called Beito, which means advancement along time, where everything occurs in due time.

However, a human being consists of a desire, and therefore he feels the fulfillment of the desire as pleasure and the lack of fulfillment as emptiness or suffering. This is how he feels the affect of the program, which uses our desire for fulfillment or pleasure to control us. After all, we always aspire to pleasure and try to distance ourselves from suffering.

If you wish to realize the program of creation on your own and to achieve the goal quickly and pleasantly, instead of being driven to it by blows, you can do so by directing your desire according to the rule, “Make your desire like the Creator’s desire.” What is “the Creator’s desire”? This refers to His desire to bestow all of Himself and His state into your personal perception. As a result of this, you reveal a new level of desire, perception, awareness and understanding. And when this happens, you feel the gap between yourself and the Creator. Then, by intentionally eliminating this gap, you liken your desire to the Creator’s.

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