What you do affects the whole, and vice versa. A Kabbalah story from Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai perfectly brings home the point. One of several people in a boat suddenly began to drill a hole in the bottom. His friend asked, “Why are you drilling?” the person drilling replied, “What business is it of yours? I am drilling under me, not under you.”

Because all humankind is connected into one system, the irresponsible egoists subject themselves and all the others to suffering. It is the transformation activated by Kabbalah that makes us see the irresponsible egoists in ourselves and transform them into responsible adults, altruists in Kabbalistic terms. more…

p. 260, chapter “Cure Me,” part “Kabbalah in Today’s World,” in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Kabbalah by Rav Michael Laitman, PhD with Collin Canright.

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Quote from Baal HaSulam:
“Every basis for physical success is the measure of the unity of society, and the basis for the success of intelligence and knowledge, is the separation and disagreement among them.

It therefore turns out, that when mankind succeeds in the matter of success of the bodies, meaning by bringing them to the degree of complete love for the fellow man, all the bodies in the world will unite into a single body and a single heart. And only then will all the happiness intended for humanity will be revealed in all its glory.”

Baal HaSulam, in “The Freedom.”

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Quote from Baal HaSulam:
And he reasons all that “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah 11, 9)”. Thus we see that the prophet conditions peace in the whole world with the filling of the whole world with the knowledge of God, just as we have said that the tough, egoistic resistance between people, along with deterioration in the international relationships, all these will not cease from the world by any human counsel under any conditions.

Our eyes can see how the poor sick turn over in dreadful pain, and humanity has already thrown itself to the extreme right as with Germany or to the extreme left, as with Russia, and not only did they not ease the pain, they have worsened the malady and agony and the voices rise up to the sky as we all know.

Therefore they have no counsel but to come to the acceptance of His burden, meaning that they aim their acts to the will of the Lord and to His purpose, as He had planned prior to creation. And when they do that, it is plain to see that with His work all envy and hatred will be abolished from mankind as I have shown above thus far, because then all members of humanity will unite into one body with one heart full of the knowledge of the Lord. Thus, world peace and the knowledge of God are one and the same thing.

Baal HaSulam, “The Peace.”

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A Quote from Baal HaSulam:
The entire difficulty lies in changing our nature – from a desire to receive for ourselves, to a desire to bestow upon others, because those two things deny one another. At first glance, the plan seems imaginary, as something that is above human nature. But when we delve deeply into it we will find that the contradiction from reception for oneself to bestowal upon others, is nothing but a psychological matter, because in fact we do bestow upon others without benefiting ourselves. Because self-reception, though it manifests itself in us in various ways, such as property, and possessions for pleasure of the heart, the eye, the pallet, etc., all those are defined by one name – pleasure. Thus, the very essence of reception for oneself that a person desires for is nothing but the desire for pleasure.

Baal HaSulam, Peace in the World, section “Pleasure vs. Pain in Self-Reception.”

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A Quote from Baal HaSulam:
His operations did not come to be by many thoughts as is our way. That is He is One, Unique and Unified, and as He is Simple, so His Orot (Lights) extend from Him, namely Simple and Unified, without any multiplicity of forms, as it says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways.”

You must therefore understand and perceive that all the names and appellations, and all the Olamot (worlds), Upper and lower, are all one Ohr Pashut (Simple Light), Unique and Unified. In the Creator, the Ohr (Light) that extends, the thought, the operation and the operator and anything the heart can think and contemplate, are in Him one and the same thing.

Thus you can judge and perceive that this entire reality, Elyonim (Upper) and Tachtonim (Lower) as one in the final state of the end of correction, was emanated and created by a single thought. That single thought performs all the operations, is the essence of all the operations, the purpose and the essence of the labour. It is by itself the entire perfection and the sought-after reward, as the Ramban explained, “One, Unique and Unified.”

Baal HaSulam, Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 1 – Histaklut Pnimit, item 8.

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