Questions I received on negative experiences along the path:

Question: I often feel as though I was doing better with confidence and connecting with the Creator before I studied Kabbalah - back then I relied on my instincts and followed my gut, and it worked. When I look back, I was doing the “right” things. Now, I analyze things more and find myself more critical than in the past. Please help. Is this part of the process? I feel I need to find more of a balance.

My Answer: You will find information about this in many articles: you are being taken out of your confidence and balance on purpose, in order to reach a need for the Creator’s revelation. See the article, “There is None Else Beside Him.”

Question: One moment I am joyful and the second I feel pain and sorrow. And I feel a burden on my back due to the responsibility I have as a member of the group towards the group and the whole world. What can I do to lessen this pain?

My Answer: Don’t forget that this feeling is awakened in you by the Creator in order to direct you toward correction.

Question: Is it normal that while studying Kabbalah, sometimes I feel hatred toward what I am studying?

My Answer: Sometimes this happens, and it is natural because you are studying how to hate your present qualities. Hence, as an egoist, you begin to hate Kabbalah and myself, who tells you about this.

Question: Massive layoffs are expected due to the global financial crisis. However, in the Bnei Baruch group, if a person wants to study, he has to work. If a student gets fired and is unable to find a new job, will he have to leave the group and completely devote himself to finding a job?

My Answer: No, but he is obligated to devote some amount of time to job hunting. Or, if he receives unemployment aid, like everyone else, then he should spend all day working at Bnei Baruch on materials for dissemination. This way he will be of benefit to people.

Related Material:
Laiman.com Post: We Can Develop Without Waiting for the Suffering to Come
Laitman.com Post: Why Does the Creator Give Us So Much Suffering In This World?
Shamati #4 “What Is the Reason for the Heaviness One Feels when Annulling before the Creator in the Work?”
Attaining the Worlds Beyond: Chapter 4 “Nullifying Our Personal Interests”

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News Report (from The Independent): “Year of the hungry: 1,000,000,000 afflicted” One billion people will go hungry around the globe next year … despite a second record worldwide harvest in a row. … The main reason has been that high food prices have priced the poor out of the market.

My Comment: As we can see, the problem is not a lack of food, but our inability to distribute it correctly. This is a result of our egoism, which controls us and does not allow us to consider others as we consider ourselves. Similarly, all the problems of our time will show us that they cannot be solved unless we do away with egoism.

There are two ways to correct egoism:

• Through suffering so terrible that one is willing to stop thinking about himself, because thoughts about self make him suffer, or

• Through connecting with others by bonds of love, above one’s egoism, and thereby revealing the joyous fulfillment of the corrected egoism.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: What’s On the Menu for Summer 2009?

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A question I received: I just read how you were able to defend your dissertation on Kabbalah by writing against something you believe, which is an interesting strategy. I am pursuing my PhD in Education at Walden University and after four years now, I have finally come in contact with a mentor who understands my goal in obtaining this doctoral; I can now approach my research in Education by designing a program of “Metaphysical Education: an Emphasis on Kabbalah Studies.” It is good to know you are so willing to assist those of us on this educational attainment path and should I need your help, I hope you will be there for assistance as well. I must say, your books, the articles, website links, etc., are a tremendous help.

My Answer: In this case, the goal justifies the means. The PhD title gives one the opportunity to give lectures at universities about authentic Kabbalah.

It also took me a long time to find someone who would supervise my dissertation, and I still had to “fix” things according to his instructions. It’s possible that you will also have to make certain “corrections” that your academic director will insist on. But there’s no sense prolonging it, since the dissertation materials will be buried in an archive anyway. Kabbalah is probably the only field where the student pursuing a degree may understand more than his academic director.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Where to Defend a Dissertation on Kabbalah
Laitman.com Post: First Become a Scientist, and Then You Can Speak Against Science
Laitman.com Post: The Irrationality of Kabbalah
The Path of Kabbalah: “About the Study”
Baal HaSulam Article: “Time to Act”
Baal HaSulam Article: “Messiah’s Horn”

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News Report by economics expert Reinhard Göweil (translated from the Austrian newspaper KURIER): In the USA, the holiday season sales decreased by 8%. The Japanese industry declined by 16% this year. Economists call this situation, “freefall.” In many European countries, economic leaders tried to hush up the situation at first. But now it’s time to put the cards on the table: the world is entering a financial crisis that will bring so much destruction of property and jobs that anything comparable has only been known to happen after a war.

The capitalism of Reagan and Thatcher that was set free in the 80’s has brought its own demise. We now need a complete transformation of our economic and social behavior. The economy must start providing people with the necessities and stop being an end in itself.

My Comment: Whether it will happen through this crisis or the following ones (it’s up to us how many crises will be necessary), we will be cleansed. In some countries, hundreds of types and brands of goods and products will vanish from the counters, because some people aren’t content with just making money - they have to line their pockets as well. Meanwhile, necessary products will appear in other countries. In a unified, global world, everything must be arranged differently: everything in the world, all the things existing in nature and on the earth (all the natural resources), is common property and belongs to everyone. Everything that is produced must be distributed among everyone by one global authority, according to each person’s needs, like in one family.

Until we establish this system of interactions, we will continue to oppose the closed system of Nature in which we exist. For the time being we are like cancerous cells in a body. Therefore, our freefall is not an ordinary freefall, like jumping off a plane with a parachute. However, if we open up the safety canopy of Kabbalah above us, we will be saved! (In the image above, the word “Kabbalah” is written on the parachute.)

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Forthcoming Stages Until the End of the Crisis, Explained by Economists and by Kabbalah
Laitman.com Post: The Peace of Every Person Depends on Everyone
Kabbalah Today Article: The Financial Crisis: Diagnosis and Cure

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Two questions I received on conversion to Judaism:

Question: Why would you say that Rabbi Akiva was not Jewish? How carried away can you get? He was 100% Jewish! I guess tomorrow Rav Ashlag will also be called non-Jewish!

My Answer: First of all, this doesn’t matter at all in relation to the Torah. We are all Babylonians by origin. The Jews started calling themselves differently because they differed from other people in that they based their lives on the law, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is what is now required from the whole of humanity, including the Jews, who have fallen from the level of following this rule.

I heard my teacher explain Rabbi Akiva’s origin. You can also go to Google.com, type in the words “Akiva proselyte” and read what it says. Please verify your knowledge. And you shouldn’t get so offended: it’s an honor to be a proselyte! After all, it’s an indication that a person went through correction. I wish for all of us to become proselytes as defined in the Torah! The Torah repeatedly states, “Love a proselyte.”

Question: Upon reading the text, “The Last Generation,” I came once again upon the reference to Jews and Gentiles. I am the latter in the physical sense and have at times felt exclusion from Kabbalah because of this fact. But I have read with much interest other texts where the dynamic has been clearly explained in the spiritual realm: the term “Jew” pertaining to an individual with the point in the heart. However, I still seem to feel that there are two definitions in various texts, some referring to the physical and others referring to the non-physical. Any clarity would be greatly appreciated on what is the correct way to view these two terms.

My Answer: There is no such nationality or people as “Jews”! It’s because this “nation” emerged from Abraham’s students, according to their spiritual quality. Kabbalah explains that there are 70 spiritual roots of the nations of the world, but there is no separate spiritual root for the nation of Isra-El! And that’s because anyone who aspires to the Creator can become Israel. Here is what we have today:

• A genetic Jew must study and disseminate Kabbalah (see item 70 of the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar”).
• A spiritual Jew (Isra-El) is any person who aspires to reveal the Creator.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Israel Is All the People Who Aspire Toward the Creator
Laitman.com Post: Being “Chosen” Means Having the Responsibility to Spiritually Serve the World
Kabbalah for Beginners: “Rabbi Akiva”
Shamati #72: “Confidence Is the Clothing for the Light”
Baal HaSulam Article: “The Love for the Creator & Love for the Created Beings”

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The International Academy of Kabbalah invites you to attend
The International Kabbalah Congress
Which will be held in Israel
On February 2 - 4 of 2009.
Information and registration can be found on the Congress blog.

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News Report (from BBC News): …many executives couldn’t resist the excruciatingly seductive call of easy money… And so, in America, with the temptation of the many renderings of mortgage-related profits before them, and with no discernible punishment in sight (indeed, with only praise from boards, analysts, and shareholders) it was a simple matter to take what was there and ignore the longer term consequences… As a nation, we seem to have forgotten that the most important goals take time to accomplish, and that lacking this perspective we succumb to what amounts to bribery and pandering…

Let’s hope the new administration can alter our frame of reference and lead us in a more distant direction… Showcasing the lost virtues of patience and persistence couldn’t hurt our national ethic.”

My Comment: This shows that people are already making the correct conclusions about the reason for the crisis. However, for now the conclusions are still made on the corporeal level, without understanding the true reason for the crisis: to force man to rise above egoism and attain the goal set by Nature - similarity to Nature/the Creator (the quality of bestowal and love). In addition, people are still far from understanding the needed changes in upbringing, the society, industry, the economy and finances. Nevertheless, this shows how quickly suffering “straightens people out.”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Suffering Makes Us Start Thinking Correctly
Laitman.com Post: The Reason for Our Suffering, and the Alternative Path
Laitman.com Post: Our Future Security Depends on the Dissemination of the Wisdom of Kabbalah

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News Report (from The Daily Galaxy): “DNA Found to Have ‘Impossible’ Telepathic Properties” Scientists are reporting evidence that contrary to our current beliefs about what is possible, intact double-stranded DNA has the “amazing” ability to recognize similarities in other DNA strands from a distance. Somehow they are able to identify one another, and the tiny bits of genetic material tend to congregate with similar DNA.

The recognition of similar sequences in DNA’s chemical subunits, occurs in a way unrecognized by science. There is no known reason why the DNA is able to combine the way it does, and from a current theoretical standpoint this feat should be chemically impossible.

My Comment: The forces of unity (bestowal, love, and mutual responsibility) come from the next, higher “intellectual” level than the level of the egoistic elements that unite. For example, every cell and organ in our bodies is egoistic, but by uniting together, each one annuls its egoism and they acquire the quality of complete bestowal and mutual interaction. This way they rise to the next degree of existence: a living and developing body.

The nature of attraction lies in recognizing those who are similar to you, according to the law of balance (homeostasis), or the law of similarity. Two opposite elements – whether cells or other structures - are drawn to each other according to the program of creating a higher mutual existence. This is the connection between all parts of the universe, including all the spiritual worlds. Any connection leads to the assimilation of the following level of existence.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Using the Sixth Sense, One Perceives Like the Creator
Kabbalah Today Article: Contradictory Phenomena
Article: “Above Reason In Divine Service”

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News Report (from International Herald Tribune): “On both sides of Atlantic, ‘08 was a year to forget, poll finds” As 2008 draws to a close, Americans are more inclined than Western Europeans to say Happy New Year, though both groups are rather pessimistic over all, according to a new poll. The survey, conducted by Harris Interactive, shows overwhelming gloom in Europe about the state of the economy, with the French adhering to their reputation: 5 in 6 people surveyed in France expressed pessimism. The average was 7 in 10 for the other European nations surveyed: Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain.

Stereotypes prevailed on the other side of the Atlantic, too, but even the famous American optimism failed to overcome the harsh reality of unrelentingly negative news, as the survey shows the United States divided almost exactly evenly between optimists and pessimists.

My Comment: Let’s see how our opinion changes throughout 2009. For the first time in history, the coming year depends on us. That’s because this is the first time in history that we’re reached the level of being able to correct our nature. All of our history until now was only an evolution or development of egoism, which unceasingly pushed us ahead. But now we have suddenly come to a halt: egoism has reached its full development, and we have revealed our absolute interconnection through its mutilated form of mutual hatred. The only thing that remains is to correct the egoism through force (the path of suffering) or through the Light (the path of Kabbalah). The choice is ours.

A question I received: What will be different about the epoch after the year 2008?

My Answer: We have revealed the breaking of the common soul into many souls, or in other words, we have revealed our egoistic connection with each other. We will feel greater and greater problems, but we will see that they are purposeful – intended to make us realize that egoism is evil, and to finally correct the connection between us.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Forecast for 2009: Let’s Hope for a Moral Revolution
Laitman.com Post: Let’s Pin Down the Outcome of the Crisis
“Babel - a Tale of Two Trails”
Kabbalah for Beginners: “The Common Soul”

 

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News Report (translated from Spiegel Online): The director of the UN World Food Program, Ralf Südhoff criticizes Western politics for being shortsighted: “The financial crisis hasn’t even turned into an economic crisis yet, but already everyone has forgotten about the starving people and the victims of HIV in third-world countries. But a billion hungry people are a real threat!”

My Comment: The authorities are afraid of having hungry people turn up at their own homes! Chances are that Africa will be completely forgotten during the crisis. After all, only an awareness of the common “body” (or system) and a vision of our clear interdependency with each other, can force humanity to think about the third world.

A question I received: What will happen to agriculture during the current global crisis?

My Answer: It will also experience a crisis.

News Report (from European Commission): The European Commission and the World Bank have released a new map of Travel Time to Major Cities, showing that:

• the global urban population is over 50%

• 95% of the people live on just 10% of the land

My Comment: Unlike the previous times of hunger, it’s no longer possible to survive by having your own parcel of land.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: When Will Hunger Start Affecting Us?
Laitman.com Post: How Will Hunger Affect the Earth’s Population?
Kabbalah Today Article: Mankind’s Growing Hunger

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