When we come to a real crisis, we will realize that we are entirely controlled. This fact has already started to surface. Science, culture, education, family, and all other aspects of our life will come under serious scrutiny and reassessment.

As a result, we will come to the conclusion that we know nothing about our world, that we don’t have a clue about what’s happening and we are completely controlled. Together with that, we will sense the need to rise above this condition of slavery. That is the exact state that is called the “Egyptian bondage.” It’s indeed slavery, for a person sees that he is a slave to his egoistic nature, which corners him and does what it pleases with him, taking advantage of the fact that a person is obliged to obey his egoism’s every whim.

That’s when he feels the need to come out from under the yoke of his nature, and he then receives a spiritual force to counter the force of the corporeal. And in between the influence of two forces, he finds his free will.

This crisis is a turning point, when we cease being animals and become free. After all, animals are completely governed, so we are still animals, where there’s neither reward nor punishment. All of our development was intended only to lead us to the realization of our own futility, that we are nature’s slaves. When we realize this, we will cry out and come out of slavery to the level of “Human.”

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A question I received: Our family often watches your programs. My wife says that you often contradict yourself, even during the same program. For instance, in one of the “Ask the Kabbalist” episodes, you categorically denied that Kabbalists engage in predicting the future of our corporeal bodies. But later, in the same program, you said that in the 1930s Baal HaSulam predicted two world wars. This relates to corporeal matters, doesn’t it? My wife wants to know why is it that you always contradict yourself?

My Answer: What I meant is that Kabbalists know the way the future will come from Above, or in other words, what will happen if things advance along the path called Beito, meaning “in due time,” or when things follow the unchanging, rigid laws of nature. However, when we make corrections, we shift to the path called Ahishena, and thus we affect how these forces will manifest in our world and how they will be expressed inside us.

To the extent we correct ourselves and understand things better, we will feel good instead of bad. But no Kabbalist, or anyone else for that matter, can ever know how anything will actually turn out, because man has freedom of will to change his destiny. (See Baal HaSulam’s article, “The Freedom.”)

If you read the terrible prophecies of the future, keep in mind that the prophets were describing only the path of Beito. They did not know how corrected we will be, and therefore, how we will handle certain situations.

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A question I received: You talk a lot about upbringing and education. However, nothing was ever accomplished through persuasion.

My Answer: My organization and I do not want to persuade anyone who does not wish to listen to us. Actually, we don’t want to persuade anyone about anything. We are only addressing those who want to learn about the method of Kabbalah. We address those who feel a need to find a new way of life.

In fact, persuasion is contrary to the laws of nature. This is because a person’s only freedom of will is to change himself, and it is forbidden to deprive him of this opportunity!

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If we free ourselves of the unnecessary, extraneous activities which are not related to the correction of relationships between people, we would do what is necessary. This is the only action where we can implement our freedom of will, and we would see precisely what we need to do and where we need to correct ourselves.

This is only a small area, but it should be clear to absolutely every person that this is where the focus of our choice lies. If we correct our relationships, we will reach the end of correction and the goal of creation. However, if we do not clarify this, we have no choice in our actions and will remain like animals.

Nature will show us our corruption in all of its aspects: in the state of the economy, health problems, the system of upbringing and education of children and family relationships – in all the forms of egoism that are enclosed within us.

If we do not correct the relationships between people, everything else will be presented to us by Nature in a broken manner.

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Questions I received concerning freedom, balance and the meaning of the Egyptian plagues.

Question: What does a free person feel?

Answer: Man’s freedom lies in being able to maintain the equilibrium in all of creation, to sustain it and balance it “standing on one foot.” On the right side of the scale is the Creator’s force of bestowal. On the left side of the scale is the Creator’s force of reception. These are direct and opposite sides; the holy and evil forces. And if a person can balance himself in between them, he is given the freedom of will from the influence of both and can thereby express his free choice.

Question: How is it possible to balance on the tip of a needle?

Answer: You have to glue yourself to the Creator, draw Him to yourself with all your might and get close to Him, as a baby to his mother. The baby loves to feel himself under her protection, and from there can boldly look onto the whole world. Or, while sitting in her arms, he can point his finger  to where he wants to go – thereby expressing his will!

This is the correct way in which a baby develops. He knows that with his mother he is safe, and that she will use all her strength and every opportunity to fulfill his desires.  This is the correct way for us to work with the Creator!

Question: What do the Egyptian plagues refer to?

Answer: This is how the Creator teaches a person to battle with his nature, while hardening it and warning man against it. He provides examples of how we can fight our egoism.

This is the Creator, saying: “Go to Pharaoh! This is what you have to do. Take Me by the hand and hold onto Me. I will also hold you, but you have to learn how to cling to Me, so that you can resist the monster, which is revealed within you through his 10 primary unclean forces. All that is required of you is to sit in My arms and desire for this monster to be vanquished. I will appease the monster according to your instructions only if you glue yourself to Me.”

If a person performs this work, it means that he has freedom of will, since in this state, he has all the conditions needed.

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A question I received: If I feel pleasure from the fact that I subject myself to the Creator, where is my free will here?

My Answer: Certainly it brings pleasure, but pleasure is not the principal issue here. The main factor in your decision is the loftiness and importance of the attribute of bestowal per se. There’s pleasure, no doubt, but the importance of bestowal is a priority.

I am drinking green tea and feel pleasure. Can it be called pleasure, or not? No, it can’t, because I feel satisfaction by knowing that the tea is good for my health. In other words, my pleasure is a result of correction, not of my natural desire to receive that would never allow me to drink such a “disgusting thing.” It means that pleasure derived from the sensation of importance is a result of correction.

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A question I received: You always say that man is not free and obeys his genes, instincts, and influence of society. At the age of 20 he is fully formed, like a freshly minted coin, and all his actions are predefined in advance. So is it possible to be a free man, and what does it mean – to be free?

My Answer: To be free means to feel that you are 100% dependent upon the Creator, but “of your own free will,” meaning that it is your decision to be so.

Man feels free when he decides, on his own, that he wants to remain under the influence and authority of the Creator, instead of being slave to his egoism.

We can’t imagine what freedom means, because we think of it as the absence of any influence. However, that is an impossibility, as there is no such thing as an empty void free from any influence whatsoever.

Freedom is a balance of forces, achieved through one’s conscious choice and effort.

We can only become free if we rise above our egoistic desire.  This does not mean that we involuntarily and completely fall under the dominion of the Creator and the desire to bestow.  Instead, it is a choice we make to be governed by the desire to bestow instead of the ego.  It is then that we can reside in the balance between the attributes of reception and bestowal. Such a state is called freedom (Klipat Noga).

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A question I received: How can you explain the meaning of freedom to a person born into slavery and sitting in a cell? How does it feel to be free?

My Answer: You can feel freedom only when that you want to bestow, and you are given that opportunity. If someone doesn’t let you bestow, it means that he robs you of freedom and oppresses you. Lack of freedom doesn’t mean that you can’t do anything you want.

It’s written, that we will be a “free people in our land.” In our land means “in our desire” (land – aretz, from the word ratzon – desire). Freedom is prepared for us precisely within desire to bestow.

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The following was sent to me by Maxim Matushevsky, a Bnei Baruch member from Moscow:
Do you remember your first steps as you began to study music? You sit on an uncomfortable stool with your feet barely touching the floor. Before you there is a disobedient and stiff keyboard, above it is a music book full of scribble, unintelligible signs, and notes in Italian. Next to you there is a teacher.

You try hard to understand what is encoded on this printed sheet, while almost breaking the joints of your fingers as you attempt to place them on the right keys in the right order and with the right pressure. The cacophony of your efforts fill the room. Your teacher is displeased. You consider yourself a dunce and a loser.

You hate the composer. He must be a pervert: how can one compose this let alone play it? He must have had five hands. You are angry with your teacher, your parents, yourself and this stupid instrument. Meanwhile the sun shines outside, boys play soccer and laugh. No! I will never play this! Let me go!

Days have passed. Your fingers get used to striking the right keys. You can even discern some fragments of a melody (wow!) that sounds not too bad.

Weeks have passed. You no longer look at the music sheet, your fingers carry you along the keyboard. Suddenly you catch yourself enjoying this beautiful multilayered polyphonic melody! You are proud of yourself; you experience an ocean of emotions. So that’s what the composer experienced when he created this beautiful music! What if I put an accent on this place? And in doing so you hear a new sound and new emotions arise!

This music is beautiful and infinite! You feel an affinity with the composer. You are thankful to him for helping you to experience this excitement. You are thankful to your teacher, who did not spare you and made you learn to read music. You are free and happy!

But where is the freedom? You strictly play the music following what someone composed in accordance with the strict laws of harmony. However, now you can contribute your tiny part through the performance and interpretation of the composition, without breaking its plan and integrity. You become a co-composer! It’s your instrument, it’s YOUR music, and it is composed for YOU to play it!

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A question I received: Why can’t our human society reach the state of mutual guarantee naturally, while staying on the animate level like cells in a body?

My Answer: A human being is far too complicated a creature to connect with others this way. Here’s why.

Egoism becomes qualitatively bigger on each level of nature, going from the still level, to the vegetative, to the animate, and the human. The bigger an object’s egoism, the more individualistic it is, and the more incapable it is of uniting with others. Therefore, as one develops, one feels more separate from others.

Nowadays, it’s not only the psychologists and sociologists, but also the economists and the politicians who are discovering that the world has become interconnected and therefore we – humanity – must unite. However, they believe that they are able to do this using a corporeal method, and that everything will settle down if only we create a world bank, a world government, a world upbringing, and a world-wide connection.

However, after having a few more meetings like the recent G20 summit, they will begin to understand that they lack the method to unite. Unfortunately, before they realize this, people may have to go through great suffering, including a lack of safety, a feeling of disorientation, total powerlessness, and universal grief. People cannot bear to be in a state of uncertainty, since constant alarm is worse than death. Our minds cannot function under such circumstances. Yet all of this may happen in order for us to realize that the only way to achieve unification among us is to rise above our egoistic nature.

This is not so on the still, vegetative, and animate levels, where all of nature and its parts are instinctively, naturally interconnected. They supplement each other and interact with each other harmoniously, without any freedom of choice or any decision-making.

Unification between people, however, can only be achieved when each person does it consciously. Unlike the other levels of nature, the Creator did not just make us unite by giving us instincts for this. Our unification is possible only if we acquire the quality of bestowal and love, where everyone participates and joins with everyone. To do this, we have to rise above ourselves and our egoism, and achieve the Biblical commandment of “love your neighbor as yourself.”

This is how the quality of the Creator will be revealed among us, and we will become similar to Him. We will then understand why He acted this way in regard to us.

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