A question I received: If one asks to be brought closer to the Light, is that not an egoistic request? After all, he is driven by the desire to feel better.

My Answer: That doesn’t matter. This is what is called Lo Lishma (to desire spirituality egoistically for oneself).

One wants to sense the spiritual world, to receive the spiritual life, the sensation of true reality, and to see that his life isn’t being wasted. After all, life passes by and no one knows how much time they have left, so one doesn’t want it to go by meaninglessly.

Initially one cannot think of anything other than his own profit. Consequently, if one doesn’t desire spirituality egoistically by envisioning the benefit it will bring him, he will never turn to it.

Therefore, the spiritual path begins with egoistic attainment (Lo Lishma). But then, under the influence of the Upper Light (Ohr Makif), one’s egoistic attitude toward spirituality is replaced by an altruistic one (Lishma).

That is why one’s ego is called “help against him” (Ezer Kenegdo), since it brings one to a state where he suddenly realizes that it is precisely his ego that stands in his way.

The same ego that used to help him and push him forward must now be destroyed. What must be destroyed is not the desires themselves, but only their egoistic intention. This is how one is gradually changed by the Light.

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A question I received: Why doesn’t the point in the heart awaken in all people? Why does one person feel it at 20, while another feels it at 50?

My Answer: This is not our business, and we shouldn’t think about it. We have no freedom of will in this regard – everything depends on the common system, the enormous system of souls that needs to advance.

This is like our bodies which consist of billions of little cells. Each cell needs to develop, and they are all connected to each other.

Therefore, each person depends on the other in their correction – first one advances, then another, or two of them advance together.

It is the same kind of system as that of an embryo developing in a mother’s womb, where the head, the arms, the legs, the ears, the nose, and so on, develop in a certain order.

This is a very complex system. So how can we begin to ask why we were awakened only now and not ten years ago, given that we have limited understanding of anything in our material lives, and even less in the spiritual?

Do you know what part of the soul you belong to, and what part you are destined to carry out?

If however, a person strives to understand, he begins to feel where he is being led. Our freedom of choice lies in figuring out what work is placed upon us and then doing that which is dependent on us.

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Here are the links to the last lesson I gave at the Eurasian Congress:

Lesson #6 10.25.09

Lesson #6 10.25.09

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A question I received: When you give your lessons I don’t understand them. How do I feel them in the heart?

My Answer: I will tell you a secret – nobody understands them, and still they listen. They listen and don’t understand; they listen again and don’t understand again, over and over. Gradually however, the mind develops and a new sense arises in a person that allows him to begin to recognize and feel.

Babies also have no understanding at all in the beginning, but every day they grow, they start walking and talking and eventually they become like you and then grow older.

One never understands today what he will know tomorrow. A person lives, grows and listens, and slowly a possibility is revealed in his heart so that he can feel and understand more. A whole range of feelings are revealed in the heart and a lot of ideas appear in the mind. This is how his world becomes larger and larger.

But our world has a limit, and we want to get beyond this limit. We stand at the borderline and yearn to get out of our “bubble.” In order to become free, we have to listen a lot and try to feel; we have to build up big internal pressure directed against an invisible partition. We press against it again and again until it cracks and we finally break out into the big outer world.

And here is a small digression for adults: Our life in this world begins with penetration of a male seed into a female ovum, which represents penetration of a small quality of bestowal into the sphere or quality of reception. Thus, a new life begins developing within it.

Today however, we have to leave this “bubble” that inflated during our development. It’s time to return outside.

(From the Children’s Lesson at the North American Congress 10.17.09)

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A question I received: What do you think about Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize?

My Answer: I view it as “Forcing Obama to peace” – a desire to force upon him special peace politics as is desired by the old and weak governments of Europe.

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What is a human being? A human being is a mountain of egoism and hatred towards everyone. If the Light influences this mountain of hatred (the mountain of Sinai),  it raises a person onto the mountain.

Precisely due to the egoism, a person has something to rise above, then under the influence of the Light, the egoism is ready to receive pleasure, using itself for the sake of bestowal.

The Light does everything. One can be the most righteous person, who has ascended high into the degrees of the worlds, but if the Light stops affecting him, he will immediately fall into his initial egoism. There are no other alternatives – either we are controlled by our egoistic nature or we are controlled by the Light.

This will never end, since while I am in any spiritual state, I must always hold onto the Light in order for it to influence me. If I let go of it, I will fall immediately.

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Here are the links to Lessons 3, 4, the Children’s and the Women’s Lessons from the Eurasian Congress:

Lesson #3  10.23.09

Lesson #3  10.23.09

Lesson #4  10.24.09

Lesson #4  10.24.09

Children’s Lesson  10.24.09

Children’s Lesson 10.24.09

Women’s Lesson 10.24.09

Women’s Lesson 10.24.09

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Two questions I received concerning Jewish mixed marriages and Jewish ancestry:

Question: If there are any problems in mixed (Jew and non-Jew) families then religious representatives of Judaism say that these marriages were prohibited by the Creator. Why then did the Almighty create so many mixed families?

My Answer: I don’t see problems in mixed families. Today, most families in America and Russia are mixed. If one spouse doesn’t become religious then there are no conflicts. Kabbalah is above religions and talks about unification of all in one Creator.  Religions were invented by people and thus separate them.

Question: Recently I found out that I am Jewish from my father’s side whose ancestors lived in Portugal in the Middle Ages and were forced by the Inquisition to either convert to Christianity or leave the country. They were called “marans.” How should I relate to it?

My Answer: Don’t change anything; continue to live your life as before. There are millions of people like you in the world. All will reach adhesion and equivalence of form with the Creator and with each other.

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A question I received: I’m from Brazil, where people within Brazil and those from other countries like to disseminate psychological terror. The current trend now is swine flu, since people fear it so much. But there’s something strange in some aspects of this epidemic.  H1N1 is the ‘name’ of the virus (well… it has the number 11 in the middle of the name) and the popular name is swine flu (which has caused some havoc in Israel).

I have had contact with infected people and I haven’t developed any symptoms. What do you have to say about this swine flu?

My Answer: These are not yet all the “Plagues of Egypt” that will compel us to start thinking and to begin tearing ourselves away from egoism. We have entered this period that precedes the exiting  from the “Egypt” of our world.

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A question I received: What can we learn from the fact that President Obama awarded Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and an anti-Israel activist, with the Medal of Freedom, the highest and most prestigious civilian award in the U.S?

Robinson presided over the 2001 United Nations’ “World Conference against Racism” meeting in Durban, South Africa. The United States boycotted the meeting and the Israeli delegation walked out after it degenerated into a racist attack on Jews and Israel.

My Answer: This means that Obama is damaging the interests of his country, since the manifestation of anti-Semitism damages the interests of anti-Semitists.  I suppose that he will have to change his course or he will need to be changed.

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