Question: Romania has been shaken by collisions for a week now. In Bucharest they are becoming quite brutal. Our friends there are very worried. Overall, how should we view the suffering that the world experiences?

Answer: We must only disseminate materials about unity. And there are several rules in this regard:

- We do not mix with anyone;
- We are not “for” or “against”;
- As educators, we relate to people very considerately and unsophisticated.

That is how we approach the situation, according to the principle, “Love will cover all sins.” It is necessary to reach consensus, conciliation, unity. This does not mean that everyone calms down and goes home, since in that case we would be against the protestors. No, we are for change. However, in all of history, methods like this have never brought about anything good.

We have live examples before our eyes: Egypt, Tunisia, and other countries. For example, what was the use of the spontaneous disorders in London? This approach does not bring anything good to anyone. And Egypt has become immersed in devastation and is left with nothing. So, disorders won’t help.

That is why we have to release explanatory brochures with materials about mutual guarantee, including our advice: communication, round tables, and integral upbringing.

But first of all, we must concisely describe the current situation: Why is this happening?

And in doing so we do not speak out against the government or anyone else. We are talking about a natural process, a regular phase of our evolution where the world is becoming global and interconnected.

So what should we do? We have to adapt to the new conditions. After all, there is no other way to go. The integral network is already expressing itself. It’s simply that previously we adapted instinctively, whereas now we must reach harmony with the changed world consciously, with our own awareness. This is our new level of development.

Next, we have to explain how to do this: by means of integral upbringing, with the help of a good environment, which will convince every person of the need to unite with others.

Romania is a pretty homogenous country. It is not home to different cultures living side by side—it’s not America or the united Europe, so there it’s easier to talk about unity. This approach will appease the people, will revitalize the country, and will give people work. People will rise in their consciousness and will understand what is happening. They will see for themselves that this is good for them, their children, their country, and people.

As a whole, we are only inviting everyone to unite, and no more than that. There are no hidden “fees,” dirty tricks, or attempts to make money off of someone. On the contrary, let them do everything themselves. Let them organize the learning process and build an environment according to the laws of nature, while collaborating with psychologists.

This is what we have to offer, especially considering that there are many countries standing at the threshold of the same kind of strife.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/22/12, “Introduction to the Study of Ten Sefirot”

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We all are the consequences of the shattering of the first man’s (Adam HaRishon) huge desire. Adam HaRishon remained in the state of total perfection even though he was comprised of numerous desires and each of them wanted for itself. Desires always “think” of themselves; and yet the fact that the ultimate force ruled over them allowed the whole structure to stay within a condition that is called the world of Infinity. It maintained total adhesion with and stayed under the absolute authority of the power of bestowal and love.

It is similar to the sensation that we often feel when we are sitting and singing with our friends in a great mood, and hoping that this sensation of warmth and mutual love will last forever.

Of course, this is far from a spiritual sensation, but it gives us an idea of how the common soul felt before it was shattered. Then, some external force broke in and destroyed this sensation.

Where did this force come from in the first place? It was revealed within us; we never sensed it before and didn’t even suspect that it existed. All of a sudden we sensed hatred! It was always hiding within us and suddenly showed itself against our will.

The strength of hatred that hit us was so huge that each of us simply ran away from the beautiful assembly and thus ruined the connections among us. We all started to view it as something dirty and disgusting. We couldn’t tolerate staying within it any longer. This is how we happened to end up in this world and continue to live in it now.

Since then, this world kept developing under the guidance of the force of hatred. Throughout history, and to this day, we have been using the power of the shattering over and over again. But only today are we starting to realize that we have already reached the final implementation of hatred into our lives and that it doesn’t lead us anywhere anymore. Our hope to achieve the good life with its help has vanished.

The time of correction has come since we already understand that using the power of hatred and separation can only ruin our lives. So, our duty is to do something about it!
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/13/12, The Zohar

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You shouldn’t torture yourself because of your qualities or the bad things that you did or do. After all, it is the Creator who “trips you up” and arranges all the different states for you. This is how He brings you to the recognition of evil and actually does all the work. And you, instead of revealing the truth, reprimand yourself for your actions.

Question: But if you don’t pay attention to these things, isn’t it like running away from the struggle?

Answer: It isn’t a struggle at all. You are like a donkey in front of which an obstacle has been placed: He doesn’t understand how it can be bypassed, and tries to break through it. There is no point in that.

We have to rise above all the actions and feelings, above all the imaginary calculations, and through the group, connect with the Creator. It is the only way to reach the right decision. All the rest is a game, the show of life. It costs us great pain and suffering, but this is our evolution: It is impossible to avoid the mistakes here before we discover the opportunity to rise. One day it will happen.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/17/12, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Pure desire without intellect represents an original form that is derived from the root. If desire strives only to maintain itself without any other desires, it is called “inanimate.” It doesn’t change, but rather always wants by all means to preserve its existence one hundred percent as it is and continually resists any changes whatsoever. That’s why it’s called “dead.”

On one hand, it’s the most powerful force that keeps inanimate matter in its form and because it is inanimate, it is stronger than anything else. On the other hand, it has a deficit because it doesn’t develop at all, nor does it create any advanced form!

A plant doesn’t possess as much force for self-preservation as inanimate matter; it is weaker. But it does have an addition; it is able to change! It develops, alters, and grows. On the other hand, it still cannot remain eternal; that’s why it “acquires” life and death.

There is no choice, there is a price for the opportunity to continue developing. If you don’t possess stony steadfastness, but rather allow yourself to change, you go from edge to edge, from life to death; there is no other option. In other words, our development happens at the expense of immortality.

For a lifeless stone, life and death are the same. For a plant, life and death are different since plants can sense life. This is the root of any sensation, pleasure and affliction, one against the other.

Animals are much farther from inanimate nature; they undergo dramatic changes and experience tremendous growth. They acquire a higher intellect that accompanies their desires; so, during the process of development, animals acquire diverse forms. Naturally, animals are subject to an array of external and internal influences. Compared to inanimate and even vegetative levels, animals have a much more complex organization. Of course, animals sense their mortality very strongly as the difference between life and death.

The added ability to use intellect for analysis constitutes a distinction between human beings and animals. As opposed to an animal, a person has developed to the extent that he recognizes “time” in his brain: past, present and future. People can bring time closer by including it in desire. All of a sudden, we start envying someone who lived a thousand years ago or someone who will be born two hundred years from now.

We observe that at a human level, intellect enhances desire. The work of intellect upon the desire is directly related to the Light; actually, it’s the only work we ever do. The more we work on clarification and expansion of our desires, the more advanced we consider ourselves to be compared to our past, undeveloped states: inanimate, vegetative, animate and speaking levels within the human stage.

Naturally, humans sense life and death, the Light and the darkness, even more strongly. We become more dependent, delicate, sensitive and constrained. But this is the payment for our development.

At the time when our development at simple levels (inanimate, vegetative, animate and speaking) is complete, we approach the Creator’s level at which we gain new senses, a different kind of intellect and an alternative developmental force, all three components together, which we didn’t have before.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/6/12, The Zohar

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Question: I understand how an infant develops. But who knows what genes exist in human society? No one has ever seen how it develops, nor was anyone able to collect data and assert how it will develop going forward. Humanity is our only child, and this is how it grows.

Answer: We can analyze and examine the past, study the developments in philosophy, sociology, and psychology, and this allows us to detect a consistent process and its driving causes. We don’t see future prospects very clearly, but judging by our present state we can still deduce where it will lead us. As with all things, we’re always extrapolating the past into the future.

Nature demands that we observe its laws. Nature is the general organism, which encompasses the still, vegetative, animate and human degrees of development. Everybody goes through this development. First it was the Earth, followed by the plant kingdom, followed by the animals, and finally humans.

This development began with the Big Bang and has been continuing via increasingly greater unification. In every instance, the unification of various parts leads to the creation of increasingly complex and unique organisms, both in terms of quantity and quality.

At first there was only inanimate matter, but then its parts suddenly began to grow acquiring a kind of life, their own individual development. The development then reached the animate degree at which animals develop even more individually. The animate degree was followed by man. These are the results of Nature’s development.

Obviously, this development has its own laws, which we can see by looking at the past. The question is whether we understand them? It appears that we don’t, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.

As a scientist, I study nature and the way it develops, developing me as its component thereby. Indeed, even with all our scientific achievements, man can never be above Nature.

We exist in a certain closed sphere that we call “the Universe,” we study where we are and the kind of laws that act here within this sphere. This sphere is infinite, boundless, and filled with unlimited wisdom. And all we’re doing is scraping up paltry crumbs from this wisdom: This is what our entire science is based on.

We don’t study anything other than nature, and within this sphere we also learn something about ourselves. We see that we cannot take control of our lives, and for this, clearly we must study the laws of nature. It’s good that unpleasant problems push us toward attaining Nature; at least, the motivation is to improve our lives.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 1, 12/17/11

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The Book of Zohar, Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” Item 119: The lights of David’s Malchut depict the depiction to the degrees from Malchut’s Chazeh and below, where there is no face of a man. That is, the degrees from Chazeh and below rise and become included in David’s Malchut, which is the face of a man from Chazeh and above.

A depiction means a level of some degree. Depicting is like mating because in a Zivug, the degrees come out in the proper depiction according to the quality of that Zivug, to correct the depiction of all those who are included in the face of a man, in an inner depiction.

Within creation there are four types of desire: still, vegetative, animate, and human. They develop step by step because the Creator’s intention is to bring this creature through the still, vegetative, and animate levels to such a developmental degree that it desires to become human. After all, the creature doesn’t become human naturally, as Nature or the Creator would make it happen. No, the human depiction is revealed in this creature only as a result of preliminary understanding, comprehension, desire, efforts, and pleas—everything that stems from itself. That’s the only way it happens!

That is why this development is gradual. Little by little, over the course of tens of thousands of years’ worth of our development throughout history, on all our preceding and very distant degrees, we essentially “sow” within the inner qualities of perception, so that today in our generation, they would awaken and help us to realize our purpose. Indeed, at the human level we must resolve for ourselves the form and manner in which we must grow, why it must be this way and not that—to truly mold “from a piece of marble” something that didn’t exist before, something that has never been mentioned anywhere and lacks any kind of example.

I need to come to know the Creator, and then fashion out of myself, out of this “piece of marble,” the same form accordingly. And the Creator doesn’t reveal Himself in this process, for if He would reveal himself, I would only take from Him something superficial. Whereas I need to study Him, dig down to reveal the inner essence, from my very innermost desires and across the depths of all my degrees—still, vegetative, animate, and human. And then I am to decide whether or not to become similar to the Creator, for this is completely opposite to what I desire initially. Building a human is very hard and meticulous work that takes tremendous attention to every detail. This is precisely the work we study in the Book of Zohar, in the Chapter “Two Great Luminaries.”
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/12, The Zohar

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Question: It’s easy to imagine introducing integral education in America and other European countries where the country’s culture seems conducive to going through the process of self-knowledge; however, there are societies entrenched in ancient traditions where it appears the implementation of integral education will be difficult. In your opinion, what must happen in order for these people to start “gathering in a circle”?

Answer: Within the next 10-20 years I see such societies changing into something completely different.

Just look at what’s happening in India and China with their secluded way of life in villages far removed from all civilization. Just look at the way people are living: sleeping on a cot in a dormitory in a factory where at least 50,000 people work.

Everything has changed. Now these people are losing their jobs. Where will they go? A person loses his cot in a dorm and that is it, he has lost his corner and has no other place in the world. It is terrible what’s happening in these countries. China and India are enormous lands.

We must understand that changes can occur very sharply and suddenly. I see how fast the Gulf states are changing, the Arab Emirates for example. This is an educated country where the entire population lives at a comfortable level, but their way of life and their clan system is changing very quickly. All of a sudden they are losing the basis for it.

Closed societies still exist here and there; however, they are beginning to include themselves into the general masses that are living a more or less modern life.
From the Fundamentals of Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/11

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All corrections are done according to the principle of “from easiest to most difficult.” And this is logical: At first Light corrects the purer vessels, which are closer to it, and then with their help, it moves onto the coarser and more complicated vessels.

Every vessel has five categories, or ten Sefirot—the structure of HaVaYaH in other words. This structure divides into five parts according to the Aviut (coarseness) of the vessel: from part zero to part four.

The vessel is broken in a special way: The higher its parts, the lower they fell, while the lower ones, on the contrary, have suffered fewer changes. Now the reverse order of Lights and vessels determines the path of correction. Vessels are corrected by the Light, which returns to the Source or surrounding Light (Ohr Makif). It is activated according to the stable and invariable law of similarity of qualities.

Vessels are corrected one step at a time. The vessels, which awaken towards correction on their own—“light” vessels of bestowal—do not need any special system. They do not need any special instructions; they naturally are drawn towards unity on which the entire correction is built. These vessels of the zero and first degree of Aviut are called “forefathers.”

Vessels of the second and third degree of Aviut require a more methodic correction in the work of spiritual attainment. They are called “sons.”

And finally, the vessels of the fourth degree of Aviut, which cannot yet be corrected, are called “nations of the world.”

As Baal HaSulam writes, forefathers needed a “preliminary consent of the entire nation.” Their souls were neither coarse nor separated between them, and this is why it was enough for them to understand the need for unity without having to do difficult work on self-correction with Lights.

But sons are coarser vessels, which work with egoism. They received the method called the “Torah,” which allows them to correct themselves—at first in the vessels of bestowal (“forty years of wandering in the desert”), and then the vessels of reception the (“land of Israel”). Then, while they were mastering the “land of Israel,” they broke twice, as they fell from the degree of the first and the second Temple. In other words, they have created vessels with an altruistic intention, but they were not able to hold them.

Then the sons mixed with the nations of the world who did not participate in this process.

And today the time has come for a common correction. Accordingly, everyone who awakens towards ascent is called “Israel”—according to his aspiration towards the Creator (Yashar-El). In the past, forefathers referred to themselves as ‘Israel,” because they came out of Babylon and escaped to Land of Canaan—in other words they rose from the degree of egoism to the degree of bestowal. Then they fell into the state of Egypt and once again rose to bestowal, having passed Mount Sinai and having continued corrections in the desert and the Land of Israel.

However, after the final breaking, the notion of ‘Israel” disappeared, because no one had the intention for the sake of bestowal, except for separate Kabbalists who lived in every generation—the last islands in the ocean of egoism.

In our days, every person, who awakens towards correction, is called “Israel”—according to the desire, which the Creator has ignited in him, his future role. And the rest for now remain in the category of “nations of the world.” For now they neither want to nor are able to hear the message about unity. However, after thousands of years of mixing, everyone is basically capable of spiritual ascent.

Briefly speaking, this is what the process looks like. At first mankind was in the common state of “Babylon,” and then that state divided into two parts: “Israel” and “nations of the world.” Then Israel descended into Egypt from there, which means that it acquired the evil inclination, and four hundred years later it managed to ascend to the degree of the Torah, build a Temple on the level of its private end of correction.

Then a breaking took place, and the sons of Israel have fallen down, into a two thousand year exile at the end of which all of us will come to a common end of correction.

Our simple countdown begins at the point of the beginning of correction when the fallen qualities of Bina have combined and mixed with the qualities of Malchut: Whoever awakens is ready for the spiritual path. Correction happens according to the principle of “from light to heavy”—but not by the means of the Torah, which is the method of past generations, but with the help of the wisdom of Kabbalah, which is able to bring the Light to us, which returns to the Source (Ohr Makif), from the end of correction. This is why it is becoming revealed in our days.

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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/11, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Question: When we look at our life, we see that we have no control over it. How should we relate to this reality?

Answer: Actually we do have control. It all depends on our approach.

In this world, I am in a kind of a “bubble.” I keep the laws in this world and try to fulfill my desires. Eventually I work out the relations with the world. I have studied it in depth, I have created many technologies, and I feel that everything is fine. Apparently I should be satisfied with the world because after ages of development, I control it.

Suddenly something new comes up: New forces arrive and I discover that I cannot succeed in anything. I have built many systems in this world: family, work, education, science, etc. Everything “ticked like clockwork,” everything seemed perfect, and suddenly it seems that everything has become bad.

What happened? It doesn’t make sense. We know so much; we have the brains; we have been through so much, so what’s the problem? Are we really so foolish that we don’t learn from past experience? Are we destroying our future? Why are we getting divorced without thinking about our kids? Why aren’t we aspiring to advance? Why are we ready to destroy everyone around us only so that our neighbors will be worse off than we are? What is going on?

It is simple. We are not to blame. Today another form of control is being revealed, a new sphere of another nature that controls us. If it weren’t for this new control, we could live a wonderful life. But it has been revealed, and now we have a problem. We are not opposite from the laws of this world but from the laws of the upper world. They influence us and we are miserable, unable to escape it.

In our world we always managed somehow and we aspired to advance, to know more, to understand more, to feel more, and to develop. Eventually we meant to subdue this whole world. But today we discover something that we don’t know and that we have no control over. Like kids, we face this uncertainty afraid to move so that things won’t get any worse. We see this in the world’s leaders and decision makers who don’t know what to do. For every problem there are endless opinions and no one has a solution.

The reason is that a new leadership has been revealed. How will we manage with it? How will we manage with its forces? We are perplexed and we feel bad.

This feeling doesn’t come from the Creator, but from our lack of adapting to the laws of the upper nature. Today we have to harmonize with them. We have grown for a long time and have finally reached the beginning of the Machsom (the barrier). The crisis is the beginning of the Machsom for the whole world.

In the group, we transcend it a bit sooner from our own will, aspiring forward. We have a “point in the heart” (•), we understand and feel that there is something else and we want to break into it.

The rest of the world is also facing the Machsom, but it will need our force and the troubles that push them from behind. One way or another, we have to discover the upper nature and to keep its laws, in other words, to be balanced with it. This is the safest thing.

Nature requires connection, integrality, and mutual unity of us. It is totally interconnected, and we have to be that way as well. We are on the way to unity and wholeness.

There is no punishment here, but rather new forces that push us towards wholeness. These forces operate in nature systematically, and we shouldn’t think that the Creator is trying to fail us on purpose. He hasn’t changed anything either in the past or today—there is simply a development engine constantly working inside us. Thanks to it we grow wiser every day.

However, if we don’t operate our brain and our wisdom properly, in order to adapt to nature, we will suffer. We had to unite with nature and lead a wonderful life, but now we feel this treasure as a problem. One way or another, this is our choice.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/23/11, “The Peace”

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Baal HaSulam “The Peace”: Since Providence extends from the Creator, who undoubtedly has a purpose in His actions, since there is no act without a purpose, we find that anyone who breaks a law from the laws of nature that He has imprinted in us, corrupts the purposeful aim.

We exist in a global, integral world. There is no choice; we must implement all its laws. Once we kept them to a smaller extent since we had less desires, less contact with nature and the world. Today we are more involved with it, and that imposes greater obligations upon us.

When we don’t carry out all the laws of nature, we are incomplete and flawed. Thus our problems and sufferings will increase until they force us to obey them.

After all, we exist within nature. And from this comes the absolute need to execute its laws.

It is interesting that at the levels of still, vegetative, and animate all the laws of nature are executed naturally. There are no mistakes made. If there were a mistake, then it would be a sign that something was unwell. I once told a friend of mine, a veterinarian, about a cat who jumped unsuccessfully before my eyes, and got badly injured. He said that the cat was, without a doubt, ill. An animal doesn’t make mistakes since it obeys its instincts and its calculations are always correct because the laws of nature are at work and nothing more.

Man, on the contrary, can make mistakes in order to complete himself in awareness and recognition, until becoming similar to nature. And this also includes the small volume of our world’s nature, so that we will be able to advance forward and understand that it is not only this inner sphere that we need, but also we need completion until the level of the external sphere, the upper world where the laws of providence and management are.

We must carry them out and through them manage the whole of reality. When we include them within us, “we will pass to the side of the Creator,” and then we will manage the world with the attribute of bestowal.

“To know” these laws, is not simply to know of their existence without actively executing them. “Knowledge” in this case means adhesion, involving both the internal sense and reason, when you invert to be one with these laws and they operate in you exactly like in the animal world of the animate. This is called adhesion.

Thus, we need to unite with the entire world according to the law of love for others. The concept “others” includes the still, vegetative, and animate in nature, the levels that are found under man. After that, one needs to love the Creator. This means to merge into one with all of these laws, with all of these attributes. And then, there is no doubt there will be no error.

When you realize them as they are, in heart and soul, you reach Gmar Tikkun ( end of correction).

Thus, only for humans is there the ability to make mistakes and correct mistakes. Only in this way they develop. Through this, they complete their beastly existence via nature, or in other words, via the Creator, and acquire equivalence to Him.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/23/11, “The Peace”

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