Comment: Scientists are sounding an alarm: an epidemic of perfectionism is spreading all over the world. According to psychologists, perfectionism is a belief that an ideal can be achieved. In pathological form, it is a belief that imperfection has no right to exist.

My Response: Then what remains?

Comment: What remains is to get rid of anything that is redundant and to straighten anything that may be deformed. Different studies have led to the conclusion that all this leads to stress, depression, anxiety, and suicide.

My Response: This means that high demands that cannot be attained actually kill us.

Question: What is this ideal in Kabbalah? What should we aspire for and never concede, never give up?

Answer: The attribute of love and bestowal by which we become like the Creator is ideal.

It can be achieved by a gradual, step-by-step method. But we cannot implement it with our existing senses and attributes inherent in us in our world. We need to acquire additional attributes, additional senses, and then we will be able to implement this idea in us.

The ideal is when we collect all the forces, all of nature’s attributes, together in the most explicit manner, connect them to the one single ideal system, and they complement each other to such an extent that there is nothing redundant that we need to get rid of, and there is nothing missing in it either.

This means that all the elements of nature enter this system, complement each other, and make a system that is one absolute round sphere, absolutely ideal.

Kabbalah actually teaches us how we can connect opposite attributes into what is called the middle line, and then everything begins to work perfectly.

Question: And what is imperfection? Imperfection in man and in society?

Answer: There are many different levels and sublevels of imperfection. The main imperfection is when a person considers himself whole.

Question: Does imperfection have a place in society?

Answer: Imperfection has a place in society. It is thanks to the feeling of imperfection that society can constantly improve itself. We cannot live without it. This is actually what makes humans different from animals—the fact that they constantly feel their imperfection, which forces them to develop all the time.

Question: Perfectionists want to cut it all off and smooth it out?

Answer: There is no need to cut off or throw away anything because nothing in this world was created without a reason.

Everything stems from the ideal picture of the world, which fell apart on purpose, and we must collect the pieces and put them together again like a jigsaw puzzle. So there is not a single redundant piece or particle.

Question: What is a spiritual perfectionist?

Answer: I don’t think that a spiritual perfectionist is a perfectionist. He is simply a person who truly aspires to put all the pieces of creation into one perfect picture. This state is called Adam, that is, a system that totally resembles the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/24/19

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