Comment: Two young men, aged 19 and 23, were tried for stealing car radios in Odessa. They admitted their guilt. Yet instead of three years in prison, they were sentenced to probation. The judge heard the case and decided that although they are adults, they were actually still children in their development, with a primitive vocabulary and so on.

The sentence obliged them to read 5th grade literature including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, White Fang by Jack London, and Taras Shevchenko’s poem “Days Pass, Nights Pass.” The judge decided that classic literature would help criminals understand universal values and attitudes to private property.

Do such extraordinary human decisions mean something?

My Response: Yes. This shows us how much we lack the correct humanistic education.

Question: You are talking about humanistic education. What do you mean by that?

Answer: A kind attitude to others, that’s all. It is when your inner preparation does not allow you to be mean or rude or to cause harm and pain to another.

Simply put, it is when you care. Correct literature, particularly children’s literature, especially in childhood when children cannot feel this, should instill empathy for the other within them. This is the most important thing in birth and development, the feeling of the other, feeling what he feels, empathizing with him, and so on. There is absolutely no such thing in children by nature, and we must somehow teach them this.

Today we say the opposite: “If they punch you in the face, punch them back even harder!”—and so on.

This is our current education—TV programs and everything else.

Question: Would you want to turn it all around and provide only humane education instead?

Answer: Yes. Only empathy for others can bring us closer together and save humanity.

Comment: It seems like the judge might have had such a spark to educate in this way.

My Response: Maybe he is just a wise man and understands that nothing else will work on them. Young fools.

Question: Would it be even worse if they went to jail?

Answer: Yes, of course. They would go through the “school of life” there and will come out even bigger criminals.
[293655]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/28/21

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Question: How does a person wake up and constantly awaken the need for love for friends? How can a person stop thinking about oneself and think only about them? How does one do it?

Answer: And how did you start thinking about it now? Previously you did not have such a thought, but now you feel this excitement in yourself.

How did it happen? Because you connected with your friends and listened to me, you connected to the general state of mind that exists at the convention.

So I ask you to continue and not exit this state.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/9/22, “Asking the Creator to Fill the Place Between Us” Lesson 7

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Comment: If we consider the system of punishment that exists today, it has, as it were, two principles. One principle is more humane where the attempt is to instill some moral norms through forced physical labor.

The other principle only involves punishment for all misdeeds. This system has no so-called middle line or correction.

My Response: But it cannot be here because it is not demanded by society itself. If you ask ordinary people or even the same lawyers, they have a lot of theories and philosophies, but in principle they don’t even know what they want to build in general.

What society would they like to see? What kind of person should be in it?

They do everything not from practice or from a plan that is aimed at educating a person, at changing society, and at a vision of the future, but only from what interests them at the moment. What should we do to earn money for ourselves, to become famous, and to rise above others and show off how we work?

Everything is aimed at justifying their appointment as their source of sustenance and success. As long as the system is selfish, it will continue to exist.
[294027]
From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Presumption of Innocence” 3/10/10

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Question: Due to the spread of the virus, people have been closed in at home, they are not able to participate in society. There have been a lot of divorces and domestic violence. Children do not want to study and go back to school. People do not want to go back to work.

In America, the government decided to help the people socially by printing money and distributing it to people. Now there is a lot of unemployment and no one wants to work, everyone sits and waits for government money. It seems that here in America they want to build a particular socialism. Or is capitalism slowly coming to an end?

Answer: Indeed, capitalism is coming to an end because this is not the final phase of human development, and it will not end there. But the question is: What can the state do with the limited opportunities it has?

Comment: Not to encourage people to stay home and live for free. They print money, but there is no gold reserve, and money is only a piece of paper. It somehow starts to resemble the Soviet Union.

My Response: What can you do? It doesn’t matter if it is America or the Soviet Union. The laws of economics, the laws of shifting between classes, between society and people are the same everywhere—human! Not socialist, not communist, not capitalist, these are general laws of nature. But no one wants to know and observe them. That is what is happening.
[294384]
From KabTV’s “Meetings with Kabbalah” 1/5/22

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Comment: Recently, at a morning lesson, your student said with such pain that he needs the Creator more than friends.

My Response: Naturally. No one comes to us in order to find love for their neighbor. And no one in the world needs it.

Comment: It seems like you really need to start coercively to force yourself into it.

My Response: And here it will not work by force.

Comment: You have already answered this question more than once. But all the same, there are questions all the time, and they are in everyone.

My Response: Yes, they will be there until the very last stage. Until complete correction, there will always be the same question: “I don’t want to love the one I feel outside of myself. I can’t!”

Question: He says: “I can’t.” A need arises in the Creator as if there is a dialogue with Him, mechanically, internally, and ?

Answer: We are deceiving ourselves. In fact, the one who is outside of me does not matter to me, neither does the Creator or the friends. Because if I depend on the Creator, if He commands and everything else, then how can I do that?

Comment: But if it doesn’t matter, let’s get rid of our friends and work only for the Creator.

My Response: You can’t. You don’t have any image in front of you. You will draw whatever you want, as all religions do. So it won’t work.

We must act as it is written in the works of Kabbalists, the way they went, we must go the same way, not because we are dumber than them, but because there is simply no other way.

We must learn to need others. We must understand that everything around us is actually the manifestation of the same Creator, only in a form that more clearly shows me how much I am against it. That is, to the extent that I push people, humanity, and everything in general away from me, to the same extent I push the Creator away. And there are no differences here.

Question: To the same extent that I try to attract others, do I attract the Creator? How can we make it enter the heart?

Answer: Gradually, together with our efforts, the upper light influences us, and it is this light that creates a new system of relations in us.

Question: But you say it will be practically until the final correction?

Answer: No. We want to take at least a few steps. Each time it is necessary to take a certain step forward in this.

Question: But is such difficulty an indication, as you always say, of a lofty soul?

Answer: Yes. The higher the soul, the deeper its egoism, the harder it is, and the more difficult it is for a person to get out of himself. And so for heavy souls it takes decades.

Question: What is your practical advice?

Answer: Just don’t leave. Don’t let there be a single day without classes and not a week without meetings with friends. Do what Kabbalists, our teachers, advise. And everything else will be from the upper light, from the Creator, which surrounds us and includes everything.

Question: What is your advice to his friends, his ten?

Answer: Just continue and increase the sensitivity of communication with each other. Not in words but rather from within everyone, so that there is a need for this.

Question: And the revolution will take place?

Answer: Undoubtedly it will happen. And I also give all this in a gradual form. We have only recently started talking about love for the Creator. So the time has just arrived.

But before that, how long did we have to go and search, study, and generalize everything that is. And now the time has come. This is the last stage. From this only development proceeds—the real development of the soul in man. Was it not possible to do this before? It is forbidden. This is the type of instruction that I receive in this way, and therefore I can only send it in this way. And no other arguments or desires can be here.

Question: That is, must the student throw himself into this water and swim, swim, swim?

Answer: No, he is already prepared for this! It is no longer just blind movement forward.

Comment: But still there is so much pain in the question.

My Response: As in each of us, it will always be that he treats his friends differently than he treats the Creator. And in the end, the test lies precisely in the fact that the attitude toward the Creator should be as toward friends, and the one toward friends as toward the Creator: love your neighbor as yourself.

And accordingly, he will also check himself: in fact, do I treat others the way I treat myself? I, the friends and the Creator—all this should be part of one thing.

I think that we will still come to this in a relatively short time. I think that it will be months, not years, when we will begin to compare our relationship to ourselves, to the group, and to the Creator on a real scale.
[293933]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/13/21

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic “Winning the War (Against the Evil Inclination)”

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Peace in the World”

Selected Highlights

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My new article on Linkedin “The Chinese Leopard Has Leaped Down from the Tree”

China often conducts itself like a leopard that is sitting in a tree, waiting for the right moment to leap down on its prey. In the tug-of-war between Russia and the US over Russia’s invasion into Ukraine, China did not take sides. Until recently, when it announced that it will not join the sanctions against Russia, and has promoted “the biggest-ever natural gas supply deal” with Russian gas exporter Gazprom.

At the same time, China directly threatened the US regarding America’s attempts to embolden Taiwan. On two occasions, China sent offensive, almost vulgar warnings to the US. On the first occasion, they said, “We must sternly warn the United States that whoever plays with fire will burn himself. If it plays the ‘salami-slicing’ tactics on the Taiwan question, it is their fingers [sic] that will be cut off.” On the second occasion, a Chinese official stated, “If the US wants to embolden the ‘Taiwan independence’ … the US will pay a heavy price for its adventurist act. If the US tries to intimidate and pressure China … the so-called military deterrence [American army] will be reduced to scrap iron.”

On the face of it, China seems to have indeed chosen sides. But I would not draw conclusions prematurely. Like a leopard, they are very clever. In my opinion, they have joined the side they actually want to weaken.

Despite its audacious proclamations, the Chinese government has no interest in fighting against America. China is too dependent on American purchasing power to risk going to war with it. They would go to great lengths to avoid a military conflict with the US.

With Russia, the situation is different. China has its eyes set on the vast, ore and oil rich, and nearly empty lands stretching from Siberia to the Ural Mountains—an area several times bigger than China itself. With Russia’s current strength, China cannot conquer it. However, if Russia were to become weak and exhausted, it would be much easier for China to take over the land without much resistance. The longer it continues, the weaker Russia will become, and the easier it will be for China to bite off chunks of Siberia for itself.

Wars bring about changes. Big wars bring about big changes. World War I led to the creation of the United Nations and the Treaty of Versailles, which helped seat Hitler at the helm of Germany. World War II created the communist bloc under the Warsaw Pact, and the Western bloc under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which set off the Cold War.

The current conflict is not a world war, at least not yet, but its impact is nevertheless profound. The war in Ukraine is exposing the futility of ego-wars, and in the end, every war is an ego-war. The crisis in Ukraine proves that if we want to coexist peacefully, we must learn how to rise above our egos on the personal, social, political, and international levels.

Now, after millennia of serving our egos, we are on the verge of realizing that the only thing that is bad in our world is our own ego. The ego has promised us the world, but it has destroyed it. We must counter it with an equal force of positivity, or it will end us all.

This realization will have a profound impact on society. Until now, all our institutions catered to our egos. They attempted to moderate and streamline the interests of countries in a way that enabled them to coexist. Now that egoism has reached such levels where it cannot accept the existence or independence of others, we have no choice but to add another force: a positive force to counter the power and intensity of the ego.

In the coming years, we will witness the establishment of new institutions of a new nature. Their focus will not be on catering to the ego, or even on securing food and water supply. Rather, they will focus on creating social cohesion and solidarity. They will work from the understanding that if people are united, they care for one another and see to each other’s needs.

Instead of treating symptoms of alienation, these new organizations will work to eliminate it and create connection, bonding, and a sense of mutual responsibility. We are just beginning the transition, but the fact that the old world is falling apart means that we must hurry, so the new order is not born through more pain than necessary. The sooner we realize that in today’s reality we cannot let the ego set the tone, and we must balance it with caring, the easier and smoother will be the transition.
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Question: There is a stir in Japan. Princess Mako of Japan has married a man of common origin whom she met at university. Marriage to him deprives the princess of the status of a member of the imperial family. According to Japanese tradition, women are deprived of this status, but men are not.

Princess Mako is the first member of the imperial family to renounce the traditional ceremony of the imperial wedding and almost one and a half million dollars dowry. The couple is about to move to New York where the husband works as a lawyer.

Opinions were divided. Some say that this cannot be done; it violates all traditions; it is terrible. Others say: “What if it’s love?”

Whose side are you on?

Answer: I am on the side of the princess. Give up your happy life for the sake of some ghostly Japanese etiquette? I think they tested each other. After all, he is a lawyer and she is a princess. These are extraordinary people who understand what they are doing. And there are also a lot of politicians, advisers, and all the others around them. So I think the choice was right.

Question: In principle, are you for love—for these feelings?

Answer: I believe in love.

Question: Don’t you think she will regret it after some time?

Answer: Today I don’t think so. Today there are no such edges or distances or anything like that. They will accept her, she will visit them, and they will visit her. After all, what does princess mean?
[293556]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/28/21

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Question: How can we express mutual guarantee for each other right now?

Answer: With our thoughts, feelings, and longings of the heart.

Question: If I constantly miss the meeting of the ten due to many circumstances, but I think about them, is it called that I am in mutual guarantee with them?

Answer: I do not think so. I do not know all your problems, but this is not a simple matter. To miss meetings with friends is an extreme case.

Question: What should I do if I feel mutual guarantee with only one person in the ten and I do not see any possibility for it to be in the entire ten yet?

Answer: I think that you should still make sure that the connection in the ten is common and as heartfelt as possible. This is the responsibility of the entire ten. You should stop looking at each other the way you used to before, and start a new life, a new connection.

Question: Is there a way to find out if I am annulling myself correctly before the friends?

Answer: If you annul yourself correctly before your friends, then you will feel their influence on you. You will feel that they are inside you. We must aim for this.

Question: If I cannot ask for myself, then what should be the attitude to the request to pull myself up to advanced friends?

Answer: Through them. Only if you ask for them, you pull yourself up to them. And if you ask for yourself, you go down. These are the inverse laws of spiritual and corporeal states.
[294358]
From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/9/22, “Working in Mutual Responsibility” Lesson 6

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