Complete Transcript of the Introductory Lecture: “The Arvut – Mutual Guarantee”

We are going through some very rough times in the life of our country. The problem is that today people around the world, not just people in our country, do not know how to solve the problems that have risen. But the solution suddenly comes in the form of the people; this happens in different countries, and now we can observe this in Israel.

We do not yet know whether this is an epidemic of some sort or on the contrary, a certain good wave, which will bring the world to order. But people, living in different places around the globe, feel the urge to go outside and express their wishes and hopes.

This happens because for a very long time now, almost sixty years, there has been a tendency around the world, which points to the supposed end of our entire history: The world is becoming submerged in crises, which manifests in every area of people’s lives.

People are no longer able to create a normal family; this leads to the multitude of divorces, children not able to live with their parents, leave their parents’ homes early, and use drugs and alcohol. But the crisis does not only manifest in the family unit, it encompasses society, industry, economy, the education system, culture, and even science. Scientists themselves are stating that science has come to a dead end and cannot develop further. We really seem to have hit a wall.

Over the course of thousands of years, we developed from one generation to another with the assumption that our children will have a better life. We suffered, as it were, for our children in hope they would be happy. Our love for them forced us to develop and work hard sacrificing ourselves. But now none of this exists; today we are no longer convinced that they will have a better life than we did. This is why people no longer want to have and raise children: Who needs it and why? What will this unfortunate child be born for, to see this complicated and meaningless life?

And the understanding of the fact that there is no meaning or purpose to it literally penetrates our brain. We do not see a solution; we cannot find an answer. It is as if mankind were suffocating in their inability to somehow move. And the entire world feels this.

But the main thing is the financial and economic crisis because the common crisis manifests in it. After all, economy connects the entire world into a single net. Industrial, commercial, and interbank relations: These are the imprints of our desires and aspirations. In other words, our relationships are essentially measured with money. What can you do? Such is the world. This is why a crisis in economy is a special sign.

At the same time we reveal that our world has become small. Literally within 24 hours, a person can find himself in the most remote place without feeling much of a difference besides for the mentality of the people, which he can gradually become accustomed to. Things are approximately the same everywhere, everyone is connected with one another; people seem to lose their individuality. Besides the fact that the world has become small, all of its parts ended up being tightly connected with one another. And that led to special results: We saw that we depend on one another. For example, when something happens somewhere in Japan, the entire world suffers. And the same is true of the US, Europe, and any other place.

Everyone mutually affects one another. We cannot even imagine what would happen if the US were to declare fiscal default. And in general, can we even wrap our minds around it? The Common Market could fall apart in Europe, and this would naturally affect the entire world. Briefly speaking, we live in an unpredictable world, and on one hand, this causes pressure in society, but on the other hand, people are becoming indifferent towards whatever is happening, since they are not able to change anything anyway.

This indifference comes from the same connection that exists between all of us, because we all depend a lot on one another. But we did not build these connections; simply, the world has suddenly closed in on us. It was separated into a multitude of pieces, and suddenly it became closed in, suddenly we have become like a unified mankind on the globe, one family, and we depend on one another. This is a very big problem.

Today scientists, who study human nature, political and social scientists, already clearly see that we really exist in mutual total dependence to such an extent that no one can escape it. Scientists already started coming to these conclusions in their studies 50-60 years ago. But only recently every one of us started to actually experience it.

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Opinion (Stanley Fischer, Governor of the Bank of Israel): [Dr. Laitman’s comments are in bold.]

“The International Monetary Fund predicts 3.3% growth in the global economy this year, and when I was at the IMF ten years ago we considered 3.5% growth in the global economy as the borderline between normal growth and recession. We are on the brink of a global recession.”

My Comment: We have been talking about the crisis for years; there is nothing new. It speaks only of shortsightedness.

“The big question is whether there will be a recession in Europe or whether we are facing a financial crisis. If there is a financial crisis in Europe, then so many things could happen such as Greece going bankrupt, or actually leaving the euro bloc with other countries following after. It’s hard to know.”

My Comment: The crisis will be financial; so be prepared for the worst because today none of the “decision makers” thinks about the transition towards an integral economy.

“The good part of the story is that they realize that they too don’t know what will happen to them if they keep the current framework. I was certain when I returned from the IMF Annual Meeting that the situation was difficult and bad, and they that didn’t understand what was happening there. Meanwhile, the European Central Bank has taken creative steps to deal with the liquidity and debt problem. There’s an improvement, but there is still uncertainty.”

My Comment: They will do nothing and will be able to do nothing, as has been the case in recent years due to lack of understanding of the trend of human development.

“Yossi Bachar [Israel Discount Bank Chairman] wants to send me messages, and finds it more convenient to use this stage. That’s fine. He wants to tell me that the capital adequacy ratio must not be raised. So I say to him: The Bank of Israel must not avoid raising it. There is the question of the rate of increase; we are aware of the problem, and I’m not fond of the expression ‘choking credit’, because that creates an unpleasant feeling, as though I’m strangling something, and I find that distasteful. We are aware of the problem.”

My Comment: This might be possible for a different small country, but not for Israel because it has the method of correction of the world, and without its interference the world will continue to slide down towards a Nazi regime and a world war.

“I respect Judaism, but this must change, the situation in which the Haredim [ultra-orthodox Jews], the fastest growing section of the population, does not participate in the workforce. Fewer than 40% of them work. This cannot continue, and it must be stopped. If it continues in the long term, it will be very hard for the economy to provide what people expect: life at a respectable standard.”

My Comment: If they enter the market now, you will get another half a million unemployed people, which will cost much more than today. We need to restrict various “political” subsidies instead of inviting them to the labor market.
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Question: Many people in Israel support our message, so why doesn’t the whole country hear us?

Answer: The message cannot be heard in a vacuum. There must be “air,” the attention of the hearts, through which the sound waves are transmitted. Otherwise, you’re just silently opening your mouth and no sound comes out. The desire that can pick up your words and carry them to a distance isn’t ready yet. This is the whole problem.

So what can we do so that this desire will appear? We can distribute our materials in the streets and at the events we hold, which is what we do, but this is not enough. It isn’t by chance that Kabbalists kept quiet until our time, until the egoistic desire started taking on the form of the general crisis. It wasn’t even a prohibition, but simply an inability to communicate something to the people.

Even if the wisdom of Kabbalah were opened before them, they wouldn’t have seen anything. Using the example of current events, we have been talking about the problem of unemployment for a long time, but only now it is beginning to emerge. Everything is delayed; we are always ahead of things.

We can only make efforts to do our best in dissemination, making sure that it doesn’t turn into “unripe fruit.” Everything must happen all in its time, so that people will understand our ideas correctly. Otherwise they will have the impression that it is just empty talk.

Therefore we should wait a while. We don’t want them to suffer, of course, but still the serious problems must reach the headlines, so that we can come out with our ideas. People need to hear from us what they are ready to hear.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/1/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: Israel is facing the question of free preschool education, which will require great cutbacks in other areas. Each time we are faced with a choice between one thing and another and it is always one at the expense of the other. How can such conflicts be solved?

Answer: We don’t see things correctly. Actually there are such surpluses that we could build another state of Israel, but we don’t see them. The point here is not how to save, but to distinguish where our resources are being squandered uselessly and wasted.

On the whole, we shouldn’t touch the budget and increase the deficit. We only have to find the billions that are wasted, go nowhere, and help no one. It all stems from negligence and carelessness, from the fact that we aren’t concerned about the situation as a whole. Each one considers and loves himself and as a result great wealth is being squandered.

There is no secret here. Observe yourself and how you use electricity at home and somewhere else, how organized and thrifty you are when it comes to your property for which you pay dearly, and how indifferent you are to wasting at the expense of strangers. In another’s place we are happy to splurge, but at home we are happy to save. So if we treat the whole national economy like the home economy, we will find such excess that we didn’t even imagine.

If you really check things in the Ministry of Education you will find such breaches into which not just some but a great percentage of our resources are pouring. Sift everything that isn’t for the benefit of the students, shake the system, and you will see how much will “fall” out.

On the whole, the attitude is that we don’t have to sacrifice one thing for another. No aspect of life should be deprived in order to strengthen others. If our major concern is mutual concern for the state like as for our family, then by changing our attitude and as a result of our desire to be efficient, we sill discover such great surpluses that we will have to think of how to spend them.

But since we don’t do that, the crisis will do it for us. It will “shake” us against our will. If we don’t put things in order, it will be done for us.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/9/12, “The Freedom”

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Question: These days the tension between the Orthodox and the secular is growing. Your dissemination doesn’t pay enough attention to explaining to the non-religious community the essence of religion, its spiritual roots, etc. How do you help society deal with this “civil war” in a practical way?

Answer: We are busy explaining the next level of development to society in which everyone, every member of society, has to rise above all the differences and to unite by understanding the uniqueness of each individual.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, we have to put all the differences among us below the unity among us as nature’s law requires us to unite despite and above our differences.

This can only be achieved by gradually educating people to mutual guarantee as each one is given a chance to live according to his own laws and unity is achieved above the different groups in society and above their customs. We should know how to separate the different communities that live according to different laws, as it is done between the Muslim and the Jewish communities.

City planners and public transportation planners have to take this into account. The external media should exhibit mutual respect. In a young state such as Israel, it is simply irresponsible to build cities without taking into account future potential conflicts.
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Israel (Yashar-El) is a person who has a point in the heart, pulling him toward the Creator and forcing him to begin this work. The work comes down to acquiring a desire, because only it is necessary from man’s end. We usually look for fulfillment – this is our natural aspiration. But here we must change our approach completely.

In our world we always lack fulfillment because we always have a desire for material fulfillment: I want one thing, another, and a third, and I look for ways to satisfy my desire.

But in the spiritual world, everything’s opposite. The fulfillment is always present, but there is no desire! Therefore, I have to work on the desire, the necessity, instead of working on the fulfillment as in our world.

Therefore, Israel, called “A head for me” (Li-Rosh – derived by changing the order of the letters) is a person who understands that his work lies in searching for the desire, building it, and forming it correctly, so it would suit the second half – the fulfillment, which is already present. After all, the Creator already fills the entire earth.

100% of man’s work is called half of the perfect state, of the world of Infinity. The second half is 100% of the Light, which fills these 100% of desire.

On every level it is possible to attain a 100% desire according to that level, in order to be filled with 100% of the Light belonging to that level.

Therefore, first of all we need understanding and mutual support, realizing that we must work on the desire rather than the fulfillment. Years go by until a person changes his approach, leaving behind the one he got used to in our world.

It turns out that there is nowhere for a person to run, but only to delve deeper inside himself. That is why it is called “inner work” or one’s inner world. It’s because one has to delve deep inside one’s heart, instead of chasing some external effects. Everything depends on the desire in the heart.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/5/12, Writings of Rabash

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Question: I read the book The Kabbalist, which among other things talks about how Baal HaSulam tried to reach the world. He told people everything but they didn’t listen. Why should the world listen to us today?

Answer: Baal HaSulam lived at the beginning of the present era and really wanted to hasten time. Before WWII he tried to arrange for 300 Jewish families from Poland to come to Israel. He wanted to establish a special group in Jerusalem, whose members would work in a small factory in order to make a living and be together all the time, connect all the time. He wanted to unite the people with his newspaper “The Nation.” He went back to Poland when the workers’ uprising began, hoping to direct them all to unity….

Baal HaSulam saw that the next level, the next state, is global unity. There are no intermediate levels. We have to rise from here straight to connection. But in his time there weren’t the right conditions for that. People ridiculed the Soviet Union in which a new society was formed by oppression. As a whole, the world has advanced the American way, towards attaining the “American Dream,” and it was impossible to talk about correction according to the method of Kabbalah.

However, today things have changed. I would like to emphasize that we are not talking about our accomplishments. On the contrary, we are small compared to all the groups that preceded us. However, considering the state of the world, we have to succeed. After all, today the world is helplessly facing all the emerging problems. The world has never been in this situation which seems like a dead end. It’s now clear that we are sinking into a total economic crisis and that we can’t do anything about it. There’s nothing to hope for and there’s no way out.

This is why the method for correction is being revealed now. It turns to the world not by calling it to bestow upon the Creator, but by a message of mutual guarantee that’s being revealed very clearly on the part of nature itself. Everyone sees it, but they don’t know how to reach compatibility with the Creator; they don’t know that it’s by equivalence of form with Him that we can have all the abundance in the corporeal world.

We are working together on our level, aspiring for the upper force to be revealed in the point of unity between us. For us mutual guarantee is unification at the higher, spiritual level of Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE), thanks to which we, Israel, will pour the upper Light onto the world. All of humanity is actually one system, and hence, if the Light will be in us, it will certainly flow onto others.

This is exactly what our convention is for: We draw the Light from the Source so that it will be revealed between us. Then after the convention we’ll see great changes in the world. People will feel a special force: “Perhaps we can connect after all?” Suddenly this will be the real solution for them. There is no need to “escape,” there is no need to break up the common market and international relationships. On the contrary, with the help of all the present institutions, we have to change the approach and to aspire for unity and not for anything else.

The previous mechanisms are being destroyed and we have to provide everyone with a minimal reasonable standard of living and a sense of security. Everyone should receive the basic necessities. Humanity that feels so helpless now should adopt this approach. The developed countries are in a state of economic, industrial, and financial decline.

According to what is written in Kabbalah books, today, considering our investment in the world’s needs, we have a very good chance to reveal the upper force in order to correct ourselves. We only have to use our intentions as much as we can.

Clearly we are all egoists, and each of us thinks about his own well-being. Even in the group each one looks for his gain and not for bestowal upon the Creator. If we are lucky, we remember Him occasionally. But this doesn’t matter. All our efforts are accompanied by an egoistic desire “Lo Lishma” (not for Her Name), and we aren’t demanded to do more, just like babies. We try, we really make great efforts, and so the convention can really unite us.

Then we’ll be able to reveal the upper force for the first time, in order to correct ourselves and to pass on the correction to the whole world. All the signs and Kabbalistic writings indicate that it’s possible, and we simply mustn’t doubt that.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/1/2011, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee) (abridged version)“: The Torah was not given to our fathers because the commandment of “Love thy friend as thyself,” the axis of the whole Torah and around which all the commandments revolve, cannot be observed by an individual, but only through the consent of an entire nation. And this is why it took until they came out of Egypt, when they became worthy of observing it. And then they were first asked if each and every one of the nation agreed to take that commandment upon himself. And once they agreed to it, they were given the Torah.

We learn about the structure of the spiritual world, the creation of the soul, which is the only creature, and about the shattering of the soul that got divided into many parts from Kabbalistic sources like “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah (Pticha),” “The Study of the Ten Sefirot“, and the Ari’s “The Tree of Life”. We can say that these parts of the soul also existed before, but they were merged together in one intention, in one thought, in a special state.

In the first state there was the one notion of Infinity, which included the vessel that was equal to the Light. Their equality, connection, and adhesion were provided by the power of the Light. All the souls, parts, and desires were there previously, but the Light held it all together and so they remained imperceptible.

Then the second state was created: the shattered vessel that is totally different from the Light and exists under its own authority—the desire to receive in order to receive. Thus, the shattering of the vessels brought the creature to the state of “this world.”

Finally, as the third state, the vessel once again becomes equal to the Light. We reach adhesion, but by ourselves now.

Eventually, we go through this whole process consciously, we understand and feel it. The descent into our world was prepared from Above, and the present state of ascent is the time of correction. Therefore, today we feel that we are at a very special point in history, which Kabbalists designate as “1995.” It is the border after which the general spiritual ascent of humanity begins.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee),” (abridged version): The purpose of Creation lies on the shoulders of the whole of the human race. But because of the descent of human nature to the lowest degree, which is the self-love that unrestrictedly rules over all of humanity, there was no way to negotiate with them and persuade them to agree to take upon themselves, to exit their narrow world into the wide spaces of the love of others.

The exception was the Israeli nation because they were enslaved in the savage kingdom of Egypt. Because of these two forewords, they were qualified for it, as it is written, “and there Israel camped before the mountain,” as “one man in one heart. This is because each and every person from the nation completely detached himself from self-love, and wanted only to benefit his friend, for only then were they qualified to receive the Light that Reforms.

The correction of the world is done gradually. It cannot take place in one person, but must be divided among many souls. It cannot be realized in one time, in one generation, but rather in a sequence of generations. The correction cannot take place if everyone is the same. On the contrary, there should be different kinds of people. All these conditions were intended to ease the way.

The correction is always done by two forces: The force of suffering pushes us from behind, and the force of the Light pulls us forward. It makes no difference what kind of people are involved. Thus, we can understand why the souls are not the same. Some begin the correction first—they are called Israel, meaning those who aspire “straight to the Creator” (Yashar-El). They correct themselves before all the other souls join the process.

People who belong to the category of Israel feel the evil of their growing egoism, which is called “the Egyptian bondage.” They want to acquire the spiritual world, but encounter resistance: They are thrown backward, and weights are tied to their feet, which prevent them from rising. It is namely Israel who feel many interruptions on their spiritual pathway.

Accordingly, they are given a burning spark of the spiritual desire. Eventually, they find themselves between two opposing forces that pull them forward and backward, practically tearing them in two. On the one hand, they feel a pull upward and, on the other, the Egyptian exile.

This contrast is accompanied by difficult conditions in a difficult historical process, in hostile relationships on the part of the world, and so forth. However, all this helps us fulfill the correction faster than others and then help them. If it weren’t for the final goal, to perform the Creator’s actions in our world, one could only pity us. We can justify this way only if we understand the mission we have been given.

There are forces that push us forward, and there are other forces that won’t let us advance. We experience a very unpleasant development, “between the hammer and the anvil,” but we must understand that we are actually in the center of the corrections, and it all depends on us. Humanity already needs us.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Opinion: (Stanley Fischer, Bank of Israel Governor): “Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer believes the Israeli economy is in a ‘relatively good condition’ compared to the global economic crisis.

Speaking in a press conference he convened on Tuesday to discuss the recent economic developments in the world, Fischer said Israel ‘can ride through this period successfully if we run the economy in a responsible and organized manner.

“As for the global economy’s situation, Fischer said, ‘The situation in the US is reasonable. It’s not good, but there is growth and no foreseeable danger, at least in the short term, for the US to enter another recession. Talks are of a 2.5% growth in 2012 – that’s not impressive and not close to the potential growth rate, but it’s a relatively good growth rate.’

“‘The forecast for all of Europe hasn’t dropped much since the beginning of the year. The expectation for European growth next year is less than 0.5% – that’s not a recession, but an undesirable situation.’”

My Comment: I present a variety of “opinions” so that later we can see how mistaken a person is in the vision of the world he lives in.
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