Two questions I received about the use of drugs:

Question: What are your views on marijuana? In my opinion, it is an herb, not a drug. Is it wrong as a student of Kabbalah to smoke and relax?

My Answer: Anything is good if it’s used as a medicine, even snake venom. However, if something’s used to disconnect from reality and correction, it’s not good.

Besides this, you have to take addiction into account. Overall, if one aspires to the Upper Goal, then he does not need this.

Question: You mentioned several times that as we progress in the study of Kabbalah, our need for addictive substances such as illegal drugs, and the need to abuse prescription drugs just goes away. I personally have experienced this. Is it the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif) doing the job or is it our friends helping us?

My Answer: It’s the Light and nothing but the Light!

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Symptoms: America is in agony. All people can think about is healthcare reform.

Medical history: Everything began with the money factor being introduced into the doctor-patient relationship, which threw greed into full gear. Now every player in the health care system is looking to save money. This is how the law of mandatory insurance came about.

The system is tried and tested: the first several thousand dollars must be paid out of one’s own pocket, and then an additional $20-30 for each visit (besides the insurance). Drugs are ridiculously expensive, and doctors are prescribing them by the dozen.

Doctors pay one third of their salary for insurance, in case their patients decide to sue them. And why shouldn’t the patients sue when there’s good money to be had? You don’t even need start up capital to sue a doctor. All you need is a lawyer who will sue and retain 30-50% from the award as his fee. And so the wheels keep turning on this well-oiled machine known as “The Healthcare System.”

Prescription: We must change our relationships with one another. If the pharmaceutical companies were to think about curing people, rather than maximizing profits by pushing drugs, if the insurance companies were to concern themselves with maintaining the public’s health, rather than expanding the business of being sick, if the doctors were to stop being afraid of insurance companies and of their patients, and start treating them according to the accumulated knowledge and experience of their profession, and if the patients were to regain faith in their doctors… well, there simply wouldn’t be any need for reforms!

But in order for that to happen we must recognize the evil and greed of our highly developed egoism. 51 million dollars have already been spent just on advertising for this reform. The greed clouds our vision and prevents us from thinking of our neighbors. But gradually, we will begin to understand that unless we change our attitude to others, we are bringing ourselves closer and closer to our collective demise.

(Sent to me by Dr. A. Angelov, from the Bnei Baruch group in Boston, Massachusetts)

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Questions I received concerning women studying Kabbalah, sensing eternity, the drinking of alcohol at Congresses and the legalization of marijuana:

Question: Yesterday a friend of mine said to me that we, women, should not study Kabbalah, because when we study, we draw demons (negative forces) instead of the Upper Light.

My Answer: Utter nonsense! Women, as well as men, must correct their egoism, connect their desire “to give and love the neighbor” into one common desire, and to reveal the Creator in this desire!

Question: Why is it that when I study Kabbalah, The  Zohar, or the Torah, I begin to cry involuntarily?

My Answer: It’s because you feel a connection with eternity and perfection.

Question: During meals and various events, such as Kabbalah Congresses, we always raise toasts with alcohol, as though it is not unhealthy and is permitted in the spiritual world.

My Answer: This was the custom with my teacher Rabash: to drink moderately, up to 50 grams.

Question: There are hard drugs and soft drugs. Marijuana is considered a soft drug. Do you have anything against its legalization?

My Answer: I am against it! That would lead to harder drugs.

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Filed under: Q&A - 1 Comment →

News Report (from La Rouche Pac): “UNODC’s Costa Warned on Mafia Being Only Source of Cash for Banks in November” United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime director Antonio Maria Costa already warned that the world’s organized crime had become the “only sources of credit” to banks, in his personal blog on the UNODC website back in 2008.

In his entry for Nov. 19, 2008, Costa wrote:
“Today, the financial crisis is providing an extraordinary opportunity for even greater mafia penetration of cash-strapped financial houses: with the banking crisis choking lending, these cash-rich criminal groups have emerged as the only sources of credit.”

My Comment: This is how the egoistic world dies, while “getting high.”

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In the News (from The Associated Press): “Group of 6 arrested in western Ariz. fires includes 4 firemen” Four firefighters and two others have been arrested on suspicion of igniting between 15 and 20 fires in western Arizona to make money by fighting the very blazes they lit, officials said Tuesday.

My Comment: Egoism forces people to harm others in any way possible for the sake of their own benefit. The same can be said of doctors and others who manufacture food fillers, useless and harmful drugs, and so on. Our society is built so as to use people in every way possible. Instead of, “Everything for the people, everything for their benefit,” what we have is, “Everything for the sake of one’s profit, everything to harm people” (and this harms both those who do it and to whom they do it).

In the News (from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany): “Does persistent low fertility threaten the future of European populations?” Three stylized demographic facts are nowadays taken for granted by many Europeans: First, European birth rates are very low and further declining. Second, the currently low fertility will inevitably lead to rapid population aging and population decline in the future. Third, these trends are unsustainable in the long run… Perhaps no one summarized the fears of shrinking Europe more succinctly than Pope Benedict XVI: “…the problem of Europe, which it seems no longer wants to have children, penetrated my soul. To foreigners this Europe seems to be tired, indeed it seems to be wishing to take its leave of history” (Vatican 2006).

My Comment: Egoism doesn’t need anybody; it wants to feel special and unique. The same thing will happen in all the countries as their population’s egoism develops. But the emergence of the quality of bestowal and love in people will naturally make them desire to have children in order to continue their kind.

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Filed under: Egoism - No Comments →

News Report (from Reuters): More than half of teenagers mention risky behaviors such as sex and drugs on their MySpace accounts, U.S. researchers said on Monday. In two studies of 18-year-olds, overall, 54 percent of the publicly available accounts contained information about high-risk behaviors: 41 percent mentioned substance abuse, 24 percent sexual behavior and 14 percent violence.

My Comment: It is an art to raise an animal that’s just been born into a human being. The world’s entire problem is that adults don’t understand that the world can only be changed through upbringing (education). Indeed, if we could raise just one generation correctly, the subsequent ones would be correct as well.

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News Report (from BBC News): “Is love just a chemical cocktail?” Writing in the respected scientific journal Nature, Professor Young argues that love can be explained by a series of neurochemical events in specific brain areas. … Researchers have found that oxytocin is involved in the bonding of male and the female prairie voles, which like humans, form an intense bond with each other that lasts for a very long time.

My Comment: Love, like any other feeling, brings about physio-chemical reactions in the organism. Otherwise, we wouldn’t feel it. However, these reactions are just an external manifestation, or the result, of our feelings.

Scientists are solving our problems backwards: they suggest influencing our feelings with drugs or chemicals. Science is approaching the situation from the only angle that it is able to.

On the other hand, Kabbalah explains that the foundation of all matter is the desire to enjoy. Furthermore, Kabbalah teaches us how to change our desires and control them. Then we will be able to control all other changes, which are just the results of the desires and the changes happening to them.

The division of nature into the still, vegetative, and animate levels is also nothing but a gradation of the desire to enjoy – “to preserve oneself and to develop,” or “to draw closer to what’s beneficial and move away from what’s harmful.”

Science cannot unlock the mystery of love – this cannot be solved with chemical means. Kabbalah, on the other hand, teaches us how to change our feelings, and even to ascend above them. In our transformed feelings, which will change from hatred to love for the neighbor, we will perceive “the world outside of us” – the Upper World, a state that’s eternal and independent of our bodies.

This is love, but not the corporeal type.

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News Report (from Health News): As many as one in eight teens in the United States takes a virginity pledge at some point, vowing to wait until they’re married before having sex. But do such pledges work? A new study suggests that the answer is no. According to a study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, pledge takers are as likely to have sex before marriage as other teens who are also religious, but don’t take the pledge. However, pledge takers are less likely than other religious or conservative teens to use condoms or birth control when they do start having sex.

My Comment: We always obey nature’s orders. We must discern where our free choice lies, and act only there, because everything else has absolutely no importance. Battling “windmills” won’t get us anywhere. We will only scold ourselves, and then fall further into drugs and depression.

Our free choice lies only in constructing the proper environment – one that facilitates the attainment of the goal of creation. When it comes to bringing up the young generation, the greatest priority is to educate them on how to distribute their efforts correctly, in order to attain the maximum, eternal bestowal in life.

News Report (from Time): “Are Romantic Movies Bad For You?” Researchers are beginning to ask whether the make-believe world projected in “rom-coms” might actually be preventing true love in real life. They found that problems typically reported by couples in relationship counseling at their counseling center reflect misconceptions about love and romance depicted in Hollywood films.

My Comment: We are all brought up, and later live, according to non-realistic standards that were invented by others. The only correct upbringing is to use Nature as the example, without believing in anything or fantasizing. This is what Kabbalah reveals to a person.

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News Report: According to the data of the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center:

• In January 2008 – 32% of Russians expected to see an improvement in the problem of heavy drinking, and 9% – a regression
• In November 2008 – 20% of Russians expected improvement, and 22% – a regression

The turning point in the public opinion took place in August-September of 2008.

The Russian authorities fear that due to the global financial crisis and the deterioration of people’s standard of living, the country will experience a drastic rise in the consumption of poisonous types of alcohol as well as the suicide rates related to this.

My Comment: This is inevitable, and not only in Russia. Hence, we must urgently create educational and social television programs for all ages and all segments of the population.

News Report (from The Observer): Scotland’s distillers are in hot water as they struggle to satisfy the world’s growing demand for whiskey. …meeting this extraordinary demand has forced manufacturers to launch an urgent construction programme that will see the opening of Scotland’s first major new distillery for more than 30 years. … A spokesman for the Scotch Whisky Association added, “Consumers round the world may be saying no to a new house and no to a new car, but they are continuing to say yes to bottles of whiskey.”

My Comment: Of course, this is better than drugs, but it’s not a solution to the problem, especially if people prefer whiskey (or vodka) over the vitally essential products.

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A question I received: I am taking the fall Ari Online course, and I have the feeling that Kabbalah is the only method that can explain what is out there. I am Cuban and now live in the USA, where I studied Chemistry and earned a Master of Science degree. I have a better material life than what I had in Cuba, and I can say that I am happy. But I am very concerned about the environment, the wars, terrorism, religious intolerance, drugs, and so on.

I am studying with Ari Online, and also watch the programs on kab.tv with great interest. I want to learn more, but I am worried because I don’t know that to do.

My Answer: You have to find the answer for yourself. I have no right to persuade you. It is precisely by searching for the truth that you will reveal the Creator. But this will only happen on one condition: don’t believe anyone and don’t follow anyone except your own heart, once you cleanse it of what you received in childhood and from those around you (once you cleanse it from all the “garbage”). It’s as if you were just born today and have never heard anything about this world yet. It is written that everyday a person should feel like he was born anew, in order to reexamine and check his attitude to the world and his path: “Let the days be new in your eyes” (Ve Ihiu Be Eineicha Ke Hadashim).

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