There is a joke about a man who falls from the tenth floor and passes by the window of his neighbour on the fifth floor. “What’s new?” the neighbour asks. “For the time being– all’s well,” replies the man who continues to fall to his death. The joke is on us, humanity.
The enlightened and progressive world, which suffers from a series of crises, is degenerating into oblivion, but is behaving as if there is no tomorrow. The clearest example of this is the strained relations between North Korea and the United States, which became worse after the hard-line North Korean regime conducted a sixth nuclear test earlier this week. This time, a successful hydrogen bomb test was carried out. The United States can flatten North Korea with the push of a button, but if it exercises its full military might, a third world war would erupt, no country would remain passive, and there is no need to be a great commentator or prophet to predict the consequences.
Baal HaSulam (Yehuda Ashlag, the great Kabbalist of the 20th century) teaches that the world is progressing toward one goal: unity as a whole. From here, there are two ways to solve crises, wars, and global problems, two ways to discover perfection: through connection or through agony. In the long and agonizing way, our egoistic nature, the evil inclination that compels all man’s actions from the moment of birth, leads us slowly toward destruction. The ego, which constantly prevails in every person, fills us with self-importance, inflates us with pride, and causes us to exploit others, perpetuating extreme detachment and separation from others, which leads to mutual hatred that ends in mutual destruction.
“If it is not yet clear to the world the general destruction they will bring about, all it needs is to wait until the third or fourth world wars, and then the atomic and hydrogen bombs will do their part.” There, at the final point of the end of the world, with inescapable suffering, man will realize that this was not the right way. Then, all civilization will seek desperately for advice on how to survive and escape war. Then, out of real danger of annihilation, the leaders at the time will do everything in their power to educate and encourage a proper connection between all people living in a globally interdependent world.
”Those who will remain after the destruction of the world” writes Baal HaSulam, “will have no other choice but to take upon themselves this task– that both individual and the nation will not work for themselves more than the necessary for their existence. And if all the nations of the world agree to this, then the wars will be abolished from the world, for they will not take care only of themselves but for the good of others.”
In other words, the alternative way to the path of agony is a path of connection, like the connection that exists in the system of nature. It is a way of realizing the lofty values of unity and love, a way of implementing an altruistic rather than egotistic perception. The altruistic awareness moves us towards giving to others by moving us above a narrow and earthly consciousness to an everlasting spiritual world.
The transition between the paths–from the tortuous one characterized by suffering to the fast lane of human connection–is what the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches. When the threats increase, the crises emerge, and the agonies are revealed, it is then that wisdom takes its place and becomes accessible. Kabbalah possesses the strongest weapon against all the bombs in the world–an out-of-this-world powerful spiritual energy. The wisdom commands a tremendous positive force that brings together and connects people correctly and as a result, strikes a balance between good and evil, reconciles between justice and mercy, and culminates in far-reaching positive change in the world. If nuclear fusion can cause a brutal hydrogen bomb, the fusion of the hearts can cause a blizzard of bliss. The choice is in our hands.
Posted on Facebook September 7, 2017