A question I received: Despite the numbers and facts you believe that the world economy is not getting out of the crisis, and this is the opinion of Kabbalah?

My Answer: I am not an economist and Kabbalah doesn’t do market forecasts. But here is my personal opinion:

We observe rising oil prices, rising market indices and rising stock prices. That’s why people talk about the end of the recession and the beginning of world economic growth.

However, it is not a reflection of real economic growth,  but an artificial stimulus of demand and new market speculations as a result of the infusion of government funds into the economy. Speculation in the oil market has caused a rise in oil prices, triggering a rise in prices on other goods. So new bubbles are being created, which will eventually burst and thus bring a new economic collapse.

The governments have provided funds to stimulate consumer demand and thus trigger economic growth. However, these funds have landed in the banks and instead of generating economic growth, layoffs continue, which in turn causes further decline in demand.

Governmental debts of the world’s leading economies are higher than their annual GDP, military expenses are on the rise, and the printing of money doesn’t stop.

Conclusion: We are in the next stage of the same crisis and we are heading towards the bursting of an even bigger bubble.

1. The cause of the crisis lies in the fact that we have reached the limit of our egoistic development through many centuries and we have now formed  a global, integral system.

2. The law of behavior of such a system is based on the common inter-connectedness of its elements. It is like the organs of the body, where each organ is working to support the whole system, and by this, insuring its own existence.

3. But in order to form such a connection (to love your neighbor as yourself), there must be a very evident revelation of our interconnectedness. Only in this scenario, will our personal egoism allow the possibility of taking the concept of caring for the whole system into account, .

4. Out of all doctrines, philosophies and religions, only Kabbalah talks about the revelation of the global connection between people – the Upper World, and not about suppressing the ego. Only the revelation of the concealed connection between us (which is the same as revelation of the Creator) will bring us to prosperity, according to His thought and our desire!

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Today the whole world is unwillingly starting to become part of one integral system, and people see that they are increasingly being governed by some sort of forces, yet they aren’t able to resist them. People are experiencing a crisis in all areas and are discovering that there is something concealed from them, yet they are unable to do anything.

We, humans, cannot control anything; we are subjugated to blind fate and we are unable to handle it. All this is making us reveal that the system of connections between us is flawed, and at the same time, that the forces governing us are concealed. We are discovering this out of our own inability to do anything ourselves.

But there’s an even greater crisis of government institutions still awaiting us. That’s because these institutions feel obliged to prove to us that they are supposedly in control of things and have power over something. People are yet to reveal that “the hearts of the kings and ministers are in the hands of the Creator,” and that none of the governments are actually able to do anything. This fact will become revealed to everyone.

If that weren’t enough, we are yet to face another powerful blow from nature, which will come in order to make us see that we are small and insignificant compared to its phenomena.

All of this will bring us to the realization that we really are part of one integral system and are unable to do anything. And then, out of this realization, we will reveal that even our thoughts and desires are not our own, but come to us from nature. Nature controls us from within and from without in every regard. We will then feel that we are bound in chains, and will start looking for a salvation.

This may happen under the influence of suffering, or through the wisdom of Kabbalah, which enables us to forestall the suffering. Either way, we will have to reveal the system of forces in which we exist, as well as what it is doing to us and what its purpose is.

So let’s already start by imagining that we are the experiment of the Upper Force, which is now revealing Its plan to us. Humanity will have to reveal this fact, either out of despair, because it is influenced by painful blows, or as a result of disseminating the wisdom of Kabbalah. Clearly, the latter is a much better path.

The revelation of the entire system of relationships, the entire matrix of connections between us and the Upper, Governing Force of Nature – the Creator, is what constitutes the wisdom of Kabbalah. The entire wisdom of Kabbalah talks only about this.

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In the News (from Time): Surging unemployment, tight credit and depressed housing prices are common components of a recession. But rarely do they occur at once, like now, and endure for so long. But it is hardly the only oddity. The rules for tough times are being rewritten almost daily. Here are some other ways this recession is rewriting the rules:

1. Soup: A Recession Staple No More
2. Organic Food Sales Remain Strong
3. Loan Rates Remain Stubbornly High
4. Movie Ticket Sales Are Booming
5. Intimacy Takes a Hit
6. Sin Industry Goes to Hell
7. There Are No Safe Havens
8. Trade is Getting Clobbered
9. Nail Salons Are Getting Nailed
10. The Rich Feel it Too

My Comment: Apparently people still haven’t figured out the fundamental difference of this crisis: that it comes from the lack of a benevolent connection between people, and not from the lack of any other connections, whether political, economic, or anything else. Meanwhile, people are still trying to pinpoint the external consequences…

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In the News (from India Today): “Unhappily harried” The Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF) comprises young, angry, “harassed” husbands… Their grouse: they were being “betrayed” by those who framed laws and enforced them; that the law erroneously assumed all wives were “innocent angels” who could only be sinned against, and are not sinners.

My Comment: So now the crisis has hit Indian families too! Apparently we will see the crisis being expressed differently in different countries and civilizations, but it will all lead to the same result – the necessity to rise above our world.

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People are currently trying to fix the economic crisis, and they’ll continue to play this game until everything tumbles down completely. They are like poker players who have lost everything, but can’t tear themselves away from the table. It is all a complete lie and a bluff, but people cannot tear away from it because they don’t know where to run or what to do.

Kabbalah is being revealed to humanity particularly in this state, because it is the only means to reveal the cause of the crisis. Suffering will not enable us to see the cause because suffering is perceived on the still, vegetative, and animate levels. Meanwhile, the crisis is taking place on the human level: it is the revelation of the breaking of the common soul. The suffering will bring people to the science of Kabbalah, which will reveal the cause of the breaking, and people will then realize that they have to correct their attitude to others. There is nothing else to correct but this.

All the causes are in the spiritual world, and our world is merely a consequence. Because we want to correct the consequences, the Creator sends us more and more disappointment. Everyone knows that all our attempts to unite and to achieve peace are always followed by an outburst of terrible hatred.

Even if the G20 gets together now and signs an agreement to create a single world government, a common bank, a pension for everyone, equal and fair distribution, then an epidemic or some other calamity will still hit us because we do not wish to correct the point in the system that was damaged: the connection between us.

The simple solution is to reach the state of “love your neighbor as yourself,” and Kabbalah gives us a piece of advice on how to achieve this: “I created egoism and I created the Torah (the Light) that corrects it.”

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A question I received: No new system is established in its pure form. In one way or another, it always makes a compromise with the former system, from which it develops. There is simply no other way. Do you agree?

My Answer: Yes and no. We are talking about a completely new level, qualitatively speaking, and therefore it will not develop in the traditional way – egoistically, from smaller to greater. We are talking about a qualitative revolution, which is changing from an attitude of consumption to an attitude of bestowal. People will begin to feel the world by coming out of themselves. They will feel the world beyond themselves. This model is inverse to anything that came before, because it is not built by development on the past.

People will continue to live in the world, along with all of their experiences and culture. However, when people begin to perceive and feel the inner, hidden connections in the world and the inner forms – the forces and souls, then the world will become transparent. The objects and actions of this world will then be seen as inanimate consequences of the Upper Forces, and the Upper Forces, a deeper layer of the world, will be clearly revealed to everyone.

Our current state of crisis is pushing us towards the need to attain this hidden reality, which contains the forces and actions controlling our world. Essentially, the present crisis is but a preparation, making us more able and willing to perceive something cardinally new, due to there not being any other choice.

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A question I received: What does it mean that everything a person does should be done for the sake of others? Say, for instance, I have a business. In this context, what does it mean to “align my actions with others”?

My Answer: Any person, including a businessman, must first reveal the evil in the world. One must become certain of the fact that the only evil in the world is the faulty relationships between people. Then, all we have to do is simply change our relationships from hate to love.

The crisis is not happening because of some financial or economic program that failed. Rather, the most fundamental cause of the crisis is the relationships between people, which, as we are now starting to see, are destroying the world. This is why people have to sit down and study. There is no other way to change anything. And the current crisis is leading us to realize this.

In addition, we must understand that a business such as DeBeers, for instance, which is the global leader in diamond production, will not be rescued from collapse if it decides to offer us 10% of their profits as Maaser and to implement some private corporate changes. There are many businesses in the world which are completely superfluous, and they will stop functioning altogether because humanity will only need the things necessary for existence. People will need only quality products that are healthy and will satisfy their essential needs.

This new program which is being revealed more and more with each passing day is what controls humanity, and it will not allow anyone to accumulate capital above and beyond what is necessary for a person to lead a decent, correct, healthy and safe life.

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A question I received: You have said that the crisis can cause people to ask questions about the meaning of life. But can’t a regular person, who has absolutely everything but still feels restless, ask the same questions?

My Answer: “The Creator’s ways” are unknown to us. Today’s crisis is only a minor scare. The real crisis is still ahead. It is yet to manifest in all sorts of ways that have no connection to money. The problem with money is no more than a minor inconvenience. After all, it doesn’t pose an actual, deadly threat, but merely an absence of security and food, which may possibly be overcome. This is not the kind of thing that looms over you like a terrible monster, ready to devour you whole.

So far, the state that is being revealed to us is not apparently the Upper Force, against which we cannot do anything. We still think that we can rectify our life. After all, the financial system is artificial, and so we think that we are capable of handling its collapse. So, you can’t really call this a blow.

The blow that will come will be “the finger of God,” as the Pharaoh’s sages once said. That is when people will feel that what’s happening is not accidental, that all the blows are purposeful. And this will be the beginning of the Creator’s revelation to the people of all the nations. People will then begin to perceive everything as part of the natural process, which cannot be solved through artificial means.

Therefore, today’s crisis isn’t real. However, we at Bnei Baruch still try to use it as an example to help explain that humanity has entered a new period of evolution.

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In the News (from The Wall Street Journal): “Pope Weighs In on Financial Crisis” You know the international financial crisis has implications in every aspect of global life when the Pope decides to weigh in. Today Benedict XVI issued his third encyclical focusing on the economy. It is widely seen as directed at G-8 leaders gathering in Italy this week. Here are some excerpts:

Economy and finance … can be used badly when those at the helm are motivated by purely selfish ends. …we must adopt a realistic attitude as we take up … new responsibilities to which we are called by the prospect of a world in need of profound cultural renewal, a world that needs to rediscover fundamental values … it is not the instrument [the economy] that must be called to account, but individuals, their moral conscience and their personal and social responsibility.

My Comment: All of the above is correct, but how can we possibly make people’s all-enveloping egoism budge? Only through Kabbalah! Maybe someone could tell the Pope about it…

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In the News (from Prlog Organization): “The Great Depression Ahead: An Interview with Harry S. Dent” Author Harry S. Dent, Jr. having successfully predicted the crash of Fall 2008 years ago, was also the author of The Great Boom Ahead, published in 1992, when he stood virtually alone in forecasting the unanticipated boom of the 1990s. And now he is saying that the party is over…

Among the predictions being made here is that we are at the end of an historic boom cycle, and so while the economy may appear to recover from the subprime crisis and “minor recession” by mid to late 2009, (given Obama’s deficit spending to aid infrastructure and create jobs), it is actually “the calm before the real storm.”

My Comment: Any anlaysis that takes into account our interaction with Nature per se supports predictions of deeper crises, or even the end of days. There is the possibility, however, of avoiding the path of suffering by choosing the path of recognition of evil of our ego and its correction by an external force.

All our methods, after all, view change as something we can do on our own. But our own forces are egoistical and can’t alter our condition.

However, if we decide that the needed correction is possible only with the help of an external force, then Kabbalah can help us understand, how to activate it. Then the solution will come.

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