Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the relationship between individual freedom and social responsibility?“

Society should feel, understand and decide on the boundary between the individual’s freedom and social responsibility, and not the individual.

The person mostly lives within society, and the life of a person should ultimately be for the benefit of society. This is why a major problem is to provide the knowledge that will let us feel social good as equivalent to the good of each individual. In other words, the goals of an individual and of human society as a whole should be the same: to reach a state of mutual benefit of each person to the greater circle of human society. We will then each live according to our loyalty to society.

In addition, society should influence every individual by raising the value of social responsibility and benefit to top priority, and rewarding every individual who acts to benefit society with respect, merits and appreciation.

We should thus understand the extent to which we are all influenced by society. Whatever society wants is what every individual wants, since everyone needs support from society. Our self, i.e. our ego, is activated by the values we receive from society.

If society pays no attention to egoistic acts that benefit individuals at the expense of society, and respects altruistic acts that benefit society, then everyone will strive to conduct altruistic acts in order to become respected, and feel that they are important and beneficial to society. We want others to support us, and to speak favorably about us. If we manage to instill an altruistic social influence, then we will all start realizing ourselves to our maximum in order to benefit society.

This is why society needs to be the factor that establishes the boundary between individual freedom and social responsibility.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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My new article on Linkedin “Meet the Press – David Rosenthal – Session 2”

Highlights from an interview with op-ed columnist and radio talk show host Prof. David Rosenthal

Below is the second collection of highlights from an interview recorded on July 12, 2021, where columnist and radio talk show host Prof. David Rosenthal asked kabbalist, scientist, and global thinker Dr. Michael Laitman about Kabbalah, current affairs, and his predictions for the future.

* Elaborated bios at the bottom of the page.

DR: Dr. Laitman, will there be a time when the wisdom of Kabbalah, The Book of Zohar, and all the other books are recognized and all of humanity studies them?

ML: I really hope so. We have published them in many languages and in every way we can. We have thousands of students in every continent, with free access to all the materials. Our sources predate even The Book of Zohar, and continue from The Book of Zohar through all the writings of the kabbalists throughout the generations.

DR: What advice would you give to the world, to humanity, and to the people of Israel in these days of uncertainty?

ML: Only that they should understand that we are within nature’s system, which requires that we become more connected positively until we truly become one mechanism, positively communicating among all of us. We have a lot of material about this on our site, for beginners and veterans, and it’s all available at no cost.

DR: I see, and what does the Jewish people need? Is it more prayers, more studying of Torah, or other activities to increase balance in the spiritual world?

ML: The only thing that the Jewish people needs is to understand that only through connection within the Jewish people can they become a good example for all of humanity, and this is the meaning of being “a light unto nations.”

DR: So what will be the position of Kabbalah in the future?

ML: I think that Kabbalah needs to be the basis of education, meaning that the world needs to shift to a state of “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and the wisdom of Kabbalah will explain about the system that we live in. We can become independent of our bodies. We can rise above it and begin to feel all of humanity and all of reality. We can attain this through the wisdom of Kabbalah, and we’re inviting everyone to come and learn it, as it is written, “My house shall be called ‘a house of prayer’ to all the nations.”

DR: Thank you. Do you think it’s important for Jews to return to Israel?

ML: The wisdom of Kabbalah does not attribute special significance to making Aliya [lit. “ascent,” but it means “immigrating to Israel”]. What is important is that people make a spiritual Aliya [spiritual ascent]. They may live in the State of Israel, but that doesn’t mean that they are truly in the land of Israel. The word Eretz [land] comes from the word Ratzon [desire], and Israel comes from the words Yashar-El [straight to the Creator]. So a person who has a desire straight to the Creator, to the quality of love and giving, is regarded as being in the “land of Israel.” But you can be in this state anywhere in the world.

I don’t think that people living in the current State of Israel are more spiritual than those living in Latin America; there is absolutely no connection between the two. Therefore, if we are speaking of the future of the world, the future of the world is that everyone will awaken to connection, and through connection become one world, one higher force, as it is written, “And they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them.” Therefore, one’s place of residence is irrelevant.

DR: On another topic, it seems as though the world is losing control over the environment, the climate, and even over governments and people as a whole. What’s going to happen?

ML: Climate is indeed one of the blows we are feeling, and will feel more and more. We need to wake up and start thinking about our future.

Through the climate, the pandemic, and other natural forces and natural disasters, nature will awaken us as it did before the exodus from Egypt. In those days, it was hail, locust, and other plagues. We, too, will feel plagues; I’m certain that there will be more natural blows that will eventually pressure us to the point where we will have to seriously contemplate why this is happening to us.

DR: Will there be more fatalities in the world and in Israel than we’ve already had?

ML: Many more fatalities the world over. I hope we can correct these states, but this is possible only through connection among the hearts of the children of Israel all over the world. If we don’t do this, these blows will bring upon us antisemitism from every direction so we don’t have a choice but to do it.

DR: In light of the hatred and egoism in the world, what is the main problem that the world needs to correct today, and what is the best way to do it?

ML: There aren’t many problems in the world. Our only problem is our ego. Human nature is egoistic, as it is written, “The inclination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth.” We can correct it only by learning what is this ego and how we can correct it by connecting among us. When we work toward it, we will make the upper force correct our ego. I hope we come to this very soon.

DR: Thank you. What advice would you give to the world, to humanity, and to the people of Israel in these days of uncertainty?

ML: Only that they should understand that we are within nature’s system, which requires that we become more connected positively until we truly become one mechanism, positively communicating among all of us. We have a lot of material about this on our site, for beginners and veterans, and it’s all available at no cost.

DR: I see, and what does the Jewish people need? Is it more prayers, more studying of Torah, or other activities to increase balance in the spiritual world?

ML: The only thing that the Jewish people needs is to understand that only through connection within the Jewish people can they become a good example for all of humanity, and this is the meaning of being “a light unto nations.”
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* Elaborated Bios:

David A. Rosenthal

Political scientist, analyst, researcher, journalist, and columnist in various national and international media outlets.

Host of “Sepharad’s Footsteps in the New World,” a radio show on Radio Sepharad about Sephardic heritage in America.

Michael Laitman

Michael Laitman is a global thinker living in Israel. Laitman has a PhD in Philosophy and Kabbalah and an MS in Medical Bio-Cybernetics. He is a prolific writer who has published over 40 books, which have been translated into dozens of languages. He is a sought-after speaker and has written for or been interviewed by The New York Times, The Jerusalem Post, Huffington Post, Corriere della Sera, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, Newsmax, The Globe, RAI TV, and Bloomberg TV, FOX Radio, among others. Dr. Laitman teaches live daily lessons to an audience of some two million people worldwide, simultaneously interpreted into English, Spanish, Hebrew, Italian, Russian, French, Turkish, German, Hungarian, Farsi, Ukrainian, Chinese, Japanese, and more than 20 other languages. For more info, visit www.michaellaitman.com.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Does freedom depend on where you live?“

Freedom does not depend on where you live.

The environment you live in is given to you from nature, i.e., from forces outside of your control. You do not choose your environment, just as you do not choose the society you are born into, the upbringing you receive, and the values you grow up with.

We can realize our freedom according to a single condition: freedom from our egoistic human nature. We can free ourselves from nothing else.

Freedom from our egoistic nature means living outside the laws and constraints that our egoism dictates to us at every moment, i.e., the urges of human nature from within. It is possible to realize such freedom if we prioritize benefiting human society over self-benefit. In other words, freedom comes from rising above our egoistic nature that automatically and constantly functions in the direction of self-benefit, in order to benefit others.

When we live in the desire to benefit others, we rise from the egoistic level of life to the altruistic one, and then we gain access to the flow of nature in its perfection and eternity. We thus also feel ourselves as perfect, eternal, and free.

Realizing this shift in consciousness depends not on where we live, our nationality or gender. It depends on how we each organize ourselves to rise above our inborn egoistic nature.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: If a person does not correct something himself and we do it for him, we rob him in a way. Why is that?

Answer: Because we are going against the general law of the universe.

Everyone is obliged to correct themselves. Everyone must go out into the infinite higher universe, achieve the quality of eternity and perfection. Absolutely everyone!

And therefore, if a person suffers, we must help him, and not quit, so that it would not be like in Sodom and Gomorrah. They had another philosophy: “Do not help. Since this descends on a person, then this is what God sent.” And that’s all.

We must help people, but help them in what they need. At the same time, we must help them begin to recover on their own so they do not sit without working just waiting until they receive something. Train them, give them a job.

The wisdom of Kabbalah says: make them sit and study. We don’t have a job for everyone. Today our world is slipping toward a state where everything superfluous will gradually leave. The person will lose.

We already see that young people somehow do not strive for luxury, for fashionable clothes. On the contrary, there is some kind of rag and that’s it, nothing else is needed. All these conventions, all excesses, except for what is necessary for normal human existence, will leave our lives.

When humanity gradually comes to this, then many people will be left without work. After all, ninety percent of the population today lives from creating and advertising unnecessary things, and reselling them. Humanity is busy with all the time consuming unnecessary things and throwing them away, consuming again and throwing them away again.

This vicious cycle is already coming to an end. A huge number of unemployed will remain. What to do with them? The wisdom of Kabbalah says: “Do nothing. It is very good. Let them sit and study.” The state will pay them. And ten percent of humanity that wants to work will work.

Or perhaps ten percent of our time will be spent on work and the rest of the time a person will be directed to develop internally and gradually enter the upper world, into the upper universe. The law of nature pushes us to this. Then everyone will be provided with an eternal sense of their life, and a material one.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Universal Law” 9/30/09

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Question: It is said in The Book of Zohar: “All the friends who do not love each other cause themselves to stray from the right path.” Moreover, they put a blemish in the Torah, since there is love, brotherhood, and truth in the Torah.” What does “blemish” mean? Why do we cause blemishes?

Answer: Because we enter into an egoistic relationship with each other, and this is called that we reveal blemishes. This is as it should be because blemishes show where we still need to correct ourselves. And we again need the upper light, the Torah, and so on.

All this is not so difficult. You just need to try to objectively understand it. The most unpleasant thing is that a person perceives everything very subjectively: is it better or worse for me, good or bad.

It is necessary to absolutely detach from oneself and draw the whole picture of the world without including myself or our world, nothing, as if I moved to some other galaxy and they tell me about their conditions of existence there completely independent of me and my earthly conditions.

If I begin to relate to the statements of Kabbalists in this way—and they are not even coming from another galaxy but really from another world—then I will be able to more or less plausibly paint this picture for myself.

And then if I clearly perceive it, I will be able to approach it and perhaps begin to interact with it in such a way that I will enter it relatively easily. The main thing is not to inscribe your interests, your egoism, there, as if only my spirit has moved there and now we are engaged in adaptating to a completely different system.
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From KabTv’s “The Power of The book of Zohar” #21

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic “The Ruin as an Opportunity for Correction”

Selected Highlights

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Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
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Prophets, Joshua, Chapter 4:1 – 4:3: And it was when all the nation had completely passed over the Jordan, the Lord spoke to Joshua, saying, take to yourselves twelve men from the people, a man from every tribe. And command them saying, Take to yourselves from here out of the midst of the Jordan, out of the place where the priests’ feet stood firm, twelve stones, and you shall carry them over with you, and leave them in the lodging place, where you shall lodge this night.

People take their basic desires and perform certain work because corrections are impossible without changing egoistic desires into altruistic ones.

To enter the land of Israel means to correct egoistic desires into love for one’s neighbor and through this into love for the Creator. And the Creator is the one common desire where they must fully unite in mutual bestowal to each other.

Therefore, they take stones (from the word “Lev HaEven”- “stony heart”), carry them across the Jordan, and put them in a special way on the other side of the Jordan in the land of Israel in memory of the fact that the crossing-over took place here.

Question: It is said that the twelve stones were taken from the middle of the Jordan where the feet of the priests stood firmly. Why are we talking about this particular place?

Answer: This is the boundary, the transition of the remaining egoistic desires into altruistic ones, which is carried out exactly in the middle.

Question: What do the priests within me mean?

Answer: These are qualities that can work not for themselves. There are several steps in this. Moreover, such desires are chosen that are suitable precisely for the severity of this transition.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 7/5/21

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Question: How do I correctly sort my desires and thoughts? What are the criteria for this sorting?

Answer: You should discuss this among yourselves, but only a little so as not to be confused. Of course you can read about it and listen to our lessons; we have huge amounts of material.

Read articles, process them systematically, and you will see that gradually a healthy and sensible attitude will begin to appear in you, solely and only through discussions between you and by reading the sources.

Question: Does this mean that I cannot sort out them by myself?

Answer: No, you will not be able to do it by yourself, but the group can partially. One says something, another says something else, and a third adds something more. In your attempts to achieve agreement between you, the Creator will guide you in an unseen way. Suddenly, by way of one person, by way of a second or a third, you will begin to see that there is some kind of higher logical thought that is revealed. That is how the Creator manages this.  You will feel it.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 4/14/19

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The Book of Zohar, Ki Tissa, Item 54: All those friends who do not love each other depart the world before their time. All the friends in Rashbi’s time had love of soul and love of spirit among them. This is why in his generation, the secrets of Torah were revealed. Rabbi Shimon would say, “All the friends who do not love each other cause themselves to stray from the right path.” Moreover, they put a blemish in the Torah, since there is love, brotherhood, and truth in the Torah.

Question: Is the Torah an objective reality, a perfect object?

Answer: There is nothing objective. Even the Creator is not objective. Everything manifests itself relative to us.

If I perceive the entire universe from my senses, from my mind and heart, what can be objective here? If I change, it means that everything will change relative to me because the whole picture is subjective in me. The Creator is also in me. The Torah is also in me. Everything is in me. Is there something outside of me? I feel, I perceive, I evaluate.

Look at how people, by changing, change their opinion about the Creator and the Torah, about themselves and the world, about everything.

And what does “permanent world” mean—the one that is outside of us? We do not know it, we do not feel it, and so there is nothing to talk about here. We need to clearly agree that everything is only relative to the observer. Just like in quantum physics, according to Einstein’s theory. So, there is nothing absolute.

The Torah is a method of correction. To the extent that I understand how to correct myself, I have my own Torah.

The Torah consists of four parts—PaRDeS. In accordance with the egoism that I am now correcting, I realize and implement one of its parts.

The Creator has degrees. It is the property of bestowal, the property of connection of the entire universe into one global system to the extent that I perceive it.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #21

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