Question: You are asked about shame: “You always say that shame is the most powerful means.” Is that true?

Answer: Yes.

Question: The writer asks: “In what way? To convince a person that they are wrong? To shame them?”

Answer: Shame is an assessment of a person much lower than he considers himself to be, and this is an assessment with which he cannot agree.

Question: Someone else evaluates them that way, right?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: It is such a blow to a person’s “self.”

My Response: Of course!

Question: What are they ashamed of?

Answer: The fact that they receive this message from their surroundings.

Question: What if they come to this conclusion themselves? Does it change anything?

Answer: Then they usually forget about it. If it is not under the power of others, then it is forgotten.

Question: So when I am shamed, that is a very heavy state. Does it bring something? Do I change because of it?

Answer: A person must change. Either he’s hiding or hiding himself, or he has to do something about it.

Question: And why does he get this? It is all one way or another from above, through someone obviously, but why are they shamed?

Answer: It is to change them.

Question: And when a person understands this, then?

Answer: Then it is a correction.

Question: Why do we blush when we are shamed?

Answer: It is the sort of animals we are; we blush when we are ashamed.

Comment: Animals do not blush especially. True, they have all sorts of movements showing shame.

My Response: We do.

Question: Why do I later hate the person who shamed me?

Answer: Not only do I hate them later, there were times when such people were killed, and so on. That is, the one who brings me some negative feelings, I am ready to annihilate.

Question: Shame and humiliation are they similar forms?

Answer: Yes.

Question: If a person has no shame, what does that say? There is probably not such a person. But suppose.

Answer: Usually it means they do not understand what it is about.

Question: This person?

Answer: Yes, they are undeveloped.

Question: So developed people live with shame?

Answer: Of course. There is a certain threshold. If you push them beyond this threshold with your statements, they cannot agree with it.

Question: So every person has this threshold. What does it mean that a person covers their shame?

Answer: Every person. Their main concern is to cover themselves from shame.

Question: In principle, that is how a person lives. Then there is another question. In the Bible it said that “they covered their shame with clothes.” What does that mean? They ask: was it normal for them to walk naked and exposed?

It was all normal until a certain point. And suddenly, as you say, some threshold happened. What was this threshold for them, for these first people? According to the Bible, and if possible, even the Kabbalistic meaning?

Answer: When the feeling of shame appeared. The feeling of shame is when a person feels naked before others, uncovered. And that is very difficult.

Question: And if we touch on your constant theme of egoism, we are one way or another covering it?

Answer: Yes.

Question: What happened with Adam and Eve that they suddenly became ashamed?

Answer: I do not think it is a problem of Adam and Eve; it was the first social problem manifesting that they had such inclinations they could not be proud of, but rather they were ashamed of. And they covered themselves. And when you cover yourself, that is it, no one knows or understands what you represent, what you are hiding from, and whatnot.

Question: Suppose they covered themselves even materially, with clothes. Over time, these clothes from covering shifted to an element of pride. They adorned them with gold, couturiers appeared. Clothes became not just a cover of shame but on the contrary, a demonstration of wealth. What is that? Can you explain?

Answer: It is a natural inversion, because what needs to be covered, if you cover it with something that hits the other’s eyes, it is clear that it is not covering you, but on the contrary—revealing.

Question: So, in principle, what does it say about a person when they look at clothes like that? Not seeing clothes as simple covering, but when they view them as “I am beautiful, I am this…”—what is it? Why do they do that?

Answer: To eliminate any possibilities for the other to somehow belittle them and so on.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/17/24

Related Material:
Destructive Shame and Constructive Shame
A Monument to Shame
Shame Is A Beneficial Quality

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