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Did you miss me I was at the beach last week so I missed posting the Fab 5 on Friday, but boy do I have a line up for you this week!

I was interviewed for the first time this week (preparation for my Larry King interview). Alex, who also did a guest post while I was away, did a great job of capturing my spirit. If you want to find out more about how to change the world and how to jump into blogging, check out the interview.

Kimber on No Limit Ladies does a review of the book the Kabbalah of Money. She points to some interesting quotes that help reconcile the ideas of spirituality and material wealth. She also alludes to some of the ways that the book applies spirituality to building wealth.

Interested in climbing the corporate ladder? Check out these tips to become more effective at work. The most interesting tip: “Respect your unconscious decision-making skills.”

While I’m not an atheist, I do appreciate Lyman’s perspective as a spiritual atheist. He believes in the underlying principles that are common to most religions, but not any one supreme being.

Joyful Jubilant Learning kicks off its Love Affair with Books with a review of Made to Stick. The review was written by Tim Milburn. Be sure to tune in all month long for reviews on an eclectic range of books.

That’s it for this week. Do you have any posts that were just outstanding for you this week?

In Spirit,
Nneka

In the book Open Secrets, Rami Shapiro, a rabbi, gets to the heart of the Jewish traditon. It is a collection of letters written to Rabbi Shapiro’s great-grandfather by his mentor and Rabbi. He covers everything about Judaism from the perspective of a mystic: from the Shabat, holy days and Jewish practices, to the nature of God, spirituality, and evil. A few of the topics in the book are discussed in this six-part series. Last week, the discussion was about the nature of God as all. This week, it’s about the nature of evil.

Reb Yerachmiel ben Yisrael, the author’s great-grandfather’s mentor, explains that there are two types of evil: necessary and unnecessary. Under the umbrella of necessary evil, he places events like illness, death, and natural disasters. He considers these part of the natural course of life. In the unnecessary evil bucket, he counts things like war, greed, or theft. In other words, acts that are chosen.

He eventually came to the conclusion that necessary evil wasn’t really evil at all, but they are events that are a part of life. I agree with him in that we are transient expressions of a permanent being and so death is a natural part of life. I also agree that things like death, illness, and natural disasters shouldn’t be classified as evil at all. However, this is as far as I can agree.

What we see as evil is more a manifestation of our disconnection from Spirit. Disconnection is not even the word. It’s more like being unaware of our connection to Spirit. It is not owning up to our true nature as Spirit. We can never escape being Spirit or being connected to It, but we can be unaware of it, most of the times unconsciously.

Then there’s the issue of creating your own reality. Our bodies seem to have a particular timespan, so death, I agree, is a natural occurence. However, illness, to me, does not fall under that umbrella. If we can create our own reality, we can choose health. In additon to all of the practical measures we can take to become healthier and calming techniques like meditation we can use to reduce stress and mental contributors to illness, we can employ the Law of Attraction to manifest health in our lives.

How do you explain evil within the context of creating your own reality through your thoughts? How do explain natural phenomena such as tsunamis or hurricanes? Does evil even exist at all?

In Spirit,
Nneka