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Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam)

The Last Generation

The Solution

Throughout time and throughout the world, wise men have failed to come up with a solution that would be accepted by all. I offer a genuine solution that is both acceptable and unites them all.

The New Society

The acceptance of the religion of “love thy neighbor as thyself”, as simple as that, (meaning the religion is “love thy neighbor as thyself”!). A just distribution of the profits, so that each works according to his skills and receives according to his needs. Private property exists, but its owner must not profit from it more than he really needs. Property owners will be under public supervision, or under self-trusteeship, or through bookkeeping. The unemployed will receive their needs equally with the employed. People who live in communes will receive equally with the workers. Profits will be utilized for building public assets.

The Change of Form

The will to receive that's imprinted in each creature has a different form to the Creator's. Therefore the soul departed from Him, because a change of form in the spiritual is like an ax that cuts in two in the material. Thus it is clear that what the Creator wants from us is equivalence of form, by which we return and cleave to Him as before we were created. It is as the verse goes: “To cleave to His attributes: as He is merciful, so shall you be merciful”. Meaning that we change our attributes, which are the will to receive, and accept the attributes of the Creator, which consist purely of bestowal, in such a way that everything we do will be only to bestow upon our fellow man and benefit them to the best of our ability. By that we come to the purpose of adhesion with Him, meaning equivalence of form. And the things that man must do for himself, the minimum needed for him and his family, is not considered a change of form because “necessity is neither praised nor condemned”. And that will be discovered at the time of the Messiah. When that lesson is learned we shall attain complete redemption.

Two Paths to Discover Perfection

A path of Torah or a path of pain. This technique will bring about a total destruction of the world in a third world war. The survivors will decide not to work for themselves more than is actually necessary and dedicate the remainder of their actions for the good of others. And if all the nations of the world consent that no man should care for himself but only for others, war shall cease to exist.

The Torah of the Messiah

The Torah (also method) of equivalence of form. The Messiah will teach everyone to worship God through equivalence of form, meaning that he'll prove that if people follow his way they will be better off. However, if they do not take upon themselves the work of God, they will be led into a path of terrible pain and be destroyed by war. Then the nations of the world will seek advice on how to avoid wars, and they will come to the Messiah, to Jerusalem, and he will teach them this Torah.

The Religious Formation

The religious formation of all the nations should first and foremost obligate its members to bestow upon their fellow man the concept of another person's life coming before one's own, a formation of “Love thy neighbour as thyself”, meaning that one will not benefit from society more than the underprivileged. This is a comprehensive religion for all nations that will operate within the framework of the new society. But otherwise, each nation may pursue its own religion and traditions, and one must not interfere with the other.

The laws of this equal to all religion (bestowal) are:

Publicity

There are three foundations to the circulation of the religion:

  1. The satisfaction of desires: in every man there is an unknown spark that demands to unite with God. And when it sometimes comes to life and awakens to know God, or to deny God (which is the same thing), and if there is someone who can satisfy that need, he would agree to anything. In addition there is the matter of the afterlife and reward in the next world. There is also the matter of the pride of the individual and the pride of the nation.

  2. Proof – that the world exists but for Him, especially in the days of the atomic age.

  3. Publicity: hiring people to spread these words to the public.

There is no harder blow to the capitalistic regime than this new formation of society. We should not expect at all that the capitalistic regime would disappear by itself. Publicity: if one bears in mind that all wrongs are only amendable in the new society, it will not be difficult for him to devote himself to it.

Jews should present before the gentiles a novelty in the wisdom of religion, in justice and in peace. In that most gentiles are our disciples and this wisdom is attributed to us alone, and this is what they expect from the return to the Land of Israel. Israel is poor, its inhabitants are doomed to suffer and emigrate from the country. The only cure for that is the new society as it not only unites all nations as one in helping one another, but it gives strength and endurance to each and every one. And most importantly – the new society gives strength to work in such a way that the productivity of the work will compensate for the poverty.

If that religion is accepted, the building of the Temple is possible.

The basis of all this explanation is the discovery of both spiritual and material creation, which is no more than the will to receive, regarded as existence from absence, but what that substance receives is extended existence from existence. Thus we can vividly see what God demands of us: equivalence of form. For by nature our body has but the will to receive and none of the will to bestow, which is the opposite of the Creator, which is all bestowal and no reception. That difference of form causes severance from the Creator. Therefore we are obliged to bring contentment to our Maker through acts of Torah and Mitzvot, and bestowal to others, in order to receive that form of bestowal and once again cleave to the Creator as before creation.

The Leader of the Generation

People naturally believe a leader who has no private interests and no commitments for himself, who dedicates himself and abandons his privacy in favor of the benefit of the public, because indeed that is how it should be. And if the leader harms another person because of some private interest, he is a liar and a traitor and as soon as people find out about it, they will trample him to the ground. There are two kinds of private interests: physical and mental. There is not a leader in the world who will not fail the public for mental interests. For example, if one is merciful, and because of that he does not rid society of evildoers and does not warn about them, or that he is afraid of vengeance, perhaps even the vengeance of the Creator, and because of that refrains from making the necessary corrections. Thus, because of private interest, he demolishes the public. Even if he rids himself of material interests, he'll still not want to rid himself of idealistic or religious interests, although they are only his own without any bearings on the public, for they discern only the word “benefit”, for they have nothing, even the most idealistic that can stand in the way of benefit.

Good Deeds and Mitzvot (acts that prompt adhesion)

The mind cannot perceive something that the senses do not first detect. A person does not wish for something because it is good, but is good because he wishes it. The senses do not detect something that is not done first. Thus, action leads to the senses, which leads to understanding. For example: the senses cannot take pleasure in bestowal before they actually bestow, and it is impossible to grasp the great importance of bestowal before your senses get a taste of it. By the same token, it is impossible to take pleasure in adhesion before many good deeds that can bring to it are performed, provided they are done in order to please Him, that is to take pleasure in the contentment that He gets by your performance of the good deed. Once the pleasure in good deeds has been felt, it is possible to understand Him, to the extent of the received pleasure.

There are two aims to religion:

A. Not For Her Name, pragmatism, when he gets what he wants he is satisfied.

B. Religious, a mental need to cleave to Him, which is called For Her Name.

By action he can come from not For Her Name to For Her Name.

The Aim and The Purpose Of Life

To attain adhesion with the Creator so as to please Him alone, or to purify others so that they may attain adhesion with the Creator.

Two Servitudes In The World

To the Creator or to His creatures, one of them is a must. There is no taste of total freedom but to those who are servants to the Lord alone and to no other creature in the world.

Contact, Touch With Him

There is nothing more natural than attaining contact with the Creator, as the verse goes: “The whole earth is full of His glory”, but one does not know it and does not feel it. And the worshiper who is endowed with contact with Him, gains nothing but the knowledge. Thus he becomes more natural, simpler and poorer, until one can say that before he was endowed, he, and the masses too, were outside the simple nature, for now he is equal and simple and understands all people and is very much involved with them and no one is nearer and more natural to the masses than him and one must love him alone, for they have none closer and more brotherly than him.

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