Question: Some social networks help people become kinder. In this tense time, when the pandemic is raging, politicians fight for votes, and protesters demand racial justice, human communication is becoming more important.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed an automated method to make communication more polite. Scientists are sure that politeness and kind communication will do good for us. Now they have developed an automated method to make communication kind.

Can such algorithms really teach a person a different way of communication and a different line of thought?

Answer: In principle, they can, to a very small extent. It depends on how seriously we will relate to such a communication model, how much we would be able to follow all these rules: sorry, please, thank you—and all the time instill positive emotions in each other, and so on.

This can soften society in some way. But to a very insignificant extent because by this we deviate from the purpose of creation.

The purpose of creation is to bring a person to the awareness of his nature as evil. Therefore, we need to understand that no matter how good, white, and fluffy we are externally, outside of ourselves, inside we will still remain nasty, black, dark, and evil. So, it will not change us from the inside, but it will help us quickly understand who we really are inside. Just like when you turn on the light in a room, you can better see how dirty it is.

Question: Is it that all kind messages, all kindness, and politeness only help to reveal the negativity that lurks inside?

Answer: Of course.

Question: What happens to a person further?

Answer: We begin to feel who we are within ourselves.

Question: Is it necessary to have both internal negativity and external kindness, external politeness, a positive attitude toward each other? Or should there be only kindness, grace, positivity, and harmonious communication?

Answer: We must constantly struggle with our greedy egoistic nature, and not just manifest all this on the outside in a beautiful form in relation to each other, like all the methods—both those you are talking about and others.

We must understand that everything lies not in beautiful outer packaging, wrappings, bonbonnieres, but in changing ourselves, our nature. Only then can we really achieve a state when humanity will become different. It will become different from within itself—giving, loving, and sympathetic.

Question: What help does this evil in man bring? Why is it given to us at all?

Answer: This evil is necessary in order to reveal our nature to us. This is our nature, this is us, not something artificial, external, extraneous. This is how our nature is revealed.

It is not easy to reveal to a person how evil he is. Talk to people and you will see how they react when you tell them who they are. They will hate you; they will beat you. They will not agree with you. How can you accuse them of what is allegedly wrong?!

A person does not like it when it is pointed out to him. We need to reveal it—to reveal it each to himself and to others, and to help everyone together come to the conclusion that we are terrible beasts and have no other choice but to correct ourselves as soon as possible; otherwise, we will eat each other alive.

Remark: You had an interesting tweet that said it is hatred that gives knowledge of how to fill the desire of another person. Therefore, the basis of life is self-love and egoism and the rest is its spice.

My Comment: Yes. So, it is written: “I created the evil inclination, and I made the Torah as its spice.”

Question: Why does hatred help fulfill the desire of another person?

Answer: Because it turns into hatred of its nature, and thus inversely in the opposite direction, toward love for another person. It turns out that by turning my hatred inside out, I can hate it in myself and love another person.

Question: Can we say that this hatred, this evil that is in a person, should be treated as a sparring partner that helps us become better?

Answer: Yes. This is called help against Him.

Question: What would you say to all people who really expect kind attitudes, warmth, and harmony in communication from others?

Answer: Do not wait. Do not expect anything good from anyone. Just understand that everything depends on each of you. Change yourself—and the world will change.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/1/20

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is this world going in a right direction?“

The world has been through enough preliminary phases, including regimes tilted to the far-left and the far-right, and it has experienced a great share of turbulence, turmoil and mistakes.

Now the impending question is: What path will we take next?

Over the course of humanity’s history, we were constantly trying to work out what way to head next: to the right or to the left.

What are we left with today?

We have reached a stalemate in every field of human engagement, personally, socially, educationally, economically, ecologically and globally.

We worked with all the systems we could devise, and ascertained that there is no single system or plan remaining that could steer us confidently into a bright future.

We have entered a deadlock with no vision of a better future motivating us, and also nothing to goad us forward from behind either.

Our era is thus characterized by the end of our egoistic trials and tribulations. The human ego gracefully stood behind every human endeavor, and every prior breakthrough and progress, giving just enough fuel for it to unfold and reveal how it fell short in providing lasting fulfillment and happiness.

While engrossed in our ego, we can either receive egoistically or give egoistically. With an egoistic intention lying behind any act of receiving or giving, destruction is the inevitable conclusion.

Nazi Germany was a harsh example of a regime based on receiving egoistically taken to an extreme, and on the other end of the spectrum, communist Russia was also a harsh example of a regime based on giving egoistically taken to an extreme. Both led to devastation.

We have squeezed out all the juices from these egoistic forms.

We now need to leave our egos alone, acknowledge that they lead us to no positive outcome, and build a new level above them.

This new level should be one of giving above receiving, and connecting positively above detachment and estrangement to each other.

In order to build this new level, we need access to a new kind of fuel and motivation, which doesn’t emerge naturally in our egoistic desires and thoughts.

Such access can be granted via a new method of education—a method of connection—that shows us how we can develop positive connections above our egoistic differences and divisions.

If some person, organization or movement wishes to pull people to a certain direction, to the left or to the right, then it is bound to fail, and we have the examples of such failure in Nazi Germany and communist Russia.

Today, we have the additional advantage of such experiences—that we can see how our egos devise systems that ultimately divide one people from another, and that such systems are setup for failure.

Recognizing the failure of working according to our egos, we would thus be wise to accept a new kind of education: one that guides us on how to connect harmoniously above our egos.

Connection above the ego is the world’s only path left.

This path means that we accept the fact that humanity is a single whole, and that we are all parts of this whole, as cells and organs in a human body. If a single cell takes from other cells more than it needs to survive, then it becomes cancerous and spreads disease throughout the body.

Today, we experience such disease as myriad problems and crises spreading throughout humanity. And they all share the same root: each person locked in their narrow egoistic corner, acting in a tug-of-war battle with everyone else.

We thus need to conclude that the human ego, which has based all of our development until today, has reached its expiry date.

Using the ego unabated—with no inclination to acknowledge how it constantly operates on us, and with no motion to rise above it—delivers us all the problems we experience.

The days of moving back and forth between left and right have reached their dead-end. Today, our survival, at the very least, and moreover, our ability to draw motivation, happiness, success and confidence from a fresh new source of vitality, depends on us rising above our egoistic nature, period.

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New Life 1279 – The Code For Success In The New Year
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

In order to have a successful new year, Israelis need to discover the connection between all their diverse citizens such that they achieve Arvut or mutual guarantee between them. The coronavirus was sent by the Creator to arrange us in ties of mutual love and connection according to an evolutionary plan. Humanity doesn’t understand this so far and is busy hiding and trying to protect itself. Subsequently, we are frozen in terms of our international and cultural relations.

It is the role of Israel to show the world how to connect correctly according to the principle, “love your neighbor as yourself,” and therefore become a light unto the nations. It is not enough to be brothers in times of war, but Israelis must understand that they are locked into an integral system and that they have to change themselves in order to develop inner closeness between them.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1279 – The Code For Success In The New Year,” 8/31/20

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Purpose of Round Tables

Question: In ancient times, our ancestors gathered around the campfire to discuss conflicts, resolve serious issues, and simply to strengthen social bonds.

More than 2,000 years ago, during the Sanhedrin, the sages continued to solve state-level issues in a circle.

In the 5th – 6th century according to legend, the leader of the Britons, King Arthur, also used a round table to make the knights who gathered at it feel equal.

In the modern sense, “round table” has been used since the 20th century as the name of one of the ways to organize the discussion of certain issues.

What is the main purpose of using round tables?

Answer: The main goal of the round tables is to show that all participants are equal; each of them has their own opinion, which they can freely express.

Question: In which cases can a round table be used to resolve state-level conflicts, and in which cases can it simply be used to strengthen bonds?

Answer: If there are serious prerequisites, it is possible to organize round tables at the state level.

However, in the political environment it is very rare to gather people who feel equal corresponding to the concept of a round table. This is usually done to show that everyone seemingly aims for the same thing, although this is almost impossible between politicians.

Remark: When working in a circle, a special effect is formed that allows us to say that the circle is larger than the sum of its participants. This effect can be compared with such concepts as “wisdom of the crowd” and “collective intelligence.”

My Comment: The fact is that here the sum of effort is more than just the sum of the components. Since the participants who make up the round table must rise above their egoism, humble themselves in some way, and agree with the opinions of others, their joint efforts add up and sum up.

It turns out that the round table effect is not just an arithmetic addition, but much more. If the participants’ contradictions were very serious, then if they want to rise above them and reach the “round table” state, they achieve a major effect of connection, communication, and integration.
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From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 7/9/20

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Comment: On one hand, you say that you need to live by the laws of nature, and on the other, you welcome that everyone has finally stopped producing unnecessary things and they can stay at home with their family.

My Response: This is a temporary phenomenon. I don’t think people can spend all their time at home. In principle, this is not necessary because it is an unjustified waste of time and life. It is necessary to do what is useful for society, for nature, for maintaining homeostasis.

Question: How do you think household responsibilities should be distributed among family members?

Answer: In a natural way. A man should help a woman, and a woman should maintain the home.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/21/20

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Question: Can we assume that the instinctive love for children that nature instills in us can be used as an example of our relationship to other people?

Answer: It would, of course, be wonderful. This is what the science of Kabbalah calls for: a person should treat everyone as his family because the whole world is one family. But we are still far from that.

Question: Do you think that the family unit was created by nature in order for a person to receive at least some example of the instinctive love that is inherent in us and then he or she could go through life with this example?

Answer: In principle, in the beginning, the family was a unit in which several generations lived together in close connection with each other. This was how nature intended if man, with his or her egoism, which is constantly developing in him or her, did not break this connection and did not build something from the original good family unit that turned into mutual enmity and hatred.

We see that such examples are already embedded in us. Cain and Abel, although brothers, had enmity toward each other. In this example humanity shows how deep and kind family ties can produce a completely opposite result.

Question: Why is there no instinctive love between spouses? Then the family would be stronger and the upbringing would be better.

Answer: Because people feel a huge gap between themselves. They have a desire for each other based only on the sexual instinct. Therefore, one should not associate the reproductive instinct with the instinct of attraction. These are completely different levels of relationships.

Question: But why didn’t nature create such an instinctive love between partners as the love of parents for a child?

Answer: In order for us to create it ourselves. We must constantly learn this.

And our instinctive love for children is very weak. We also need to develop it and talk about it all the time. There should be normal examples around us. Unfortunately, this is not in man. Everything is suppressed by our personal egoism.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/21/20

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Question: During the Enlightenment, many Jews moved to cities. 70 to 80% of them were engaged in trade, worked in factories, enrolled in universities, served in the army, and created their own parties. There was a departure from religion.

Jews participated everywhere, even in the most anti-Semitic organizations. Among them were Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Bolsheviks, and even Black Hundreds.

A new division appeared, a religious one, which became one block, and the part that left religion. Why, from the point of view of the purpose of creation is such a withdrawal from the spiritual roots of the majority of Jews?

Answer: Neither Hasidim nor the Litvaks [Lithuanian Jews] suited people who needed a clear methodology. What is religion for? Where does it lead? What is its purpose, its meaning? Why is it given to the Jewish people?

This is a natural set of questions that arise among Jews who have gone through such long exiles, who emerged from the Middle Ages surrounded by other peoples, who also began to catch up, develop science, open universities, etc.

In addition, a vision about the Jewish masses was created as being completely intimidated, ignorant, very far from the modern, constantly developing world. Therefore, there was a very serious difference between the progressive Jewish strata who went into science, art, and those who remained in the Jewish villages, in their yeshivas [Jewish educational institutions devoted to Talmudic study].

Question: But from the point of view of spiritual development is it good that people leave their history and forget everything?

Answer: This story has outlived its usefulness since it existed on the ruins of the destroyed Temple. It had no opportunity to continue further. There is a time to scatter stones and a time to collect them.

But to this day, echoes of that period are felt, although in our time not so much because the leaders of the religious part of the people realized that something had to be done, to somehow develop further.

Therefore, in recent years, they no longer alienate people from approaching science, from acquiring normal occupations.

Earlier, if a person wanted to live a religious life, he condemned himself to a beggarly existence without a normal profession. His family lived on a level lower than the rest of the Jews that were engaged in civilian practices.

Therefore, having received the rights, the Jews rushed to the cities, to factories. When the Bolsheviks came to power, Jews became the bulk of the leadership in all parties and organizations. Not only men, but also women. Paradoxically, most of the Soviet leaders had Jewish wives.

For more on this topic, read my book The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord.
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From KabTV’s “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel” 12/28/19

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic of “What Is Preparation for Selichot (Forgiveness)” 

Lesson on the Topic of “The Law of Arvut (Mutual Guaranatee)”

Selected Highlights

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Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download:MP3 Audio

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Question: Currently there are preparations to reopen the schools and the kindergartens. Parents are afraid that their children will get infected and bring it home. Teachers are afraid that children will infect teachers and they will bring it home. Do you think that perhaps it is really possible not to open the schools, not to open the kindergartens?

Answer: I would not open anything now; I would just transfer all classes to the Internet. Children take it very easily. They browse all sorts of virtual pages all the time anyway.

Give them assignments and teach them via the Internet. There are great materials, whatever you want. Give them assignments, and at the same time prepare these assignments together with them. Have tests every day and so on. In short, everything depends only on us.

Question: What about the physical communication of children with each other?

Answer: Physical communication of children can be exactly like that, in order for children to meet and communicate physically with each other. They do not need this for the classes. Each one studies on his own with a notebook, with a blackboard, and with a teacher. All this they have on their computer.

Question: What should we do with kindergartens and nursery schools? After all, mothers do go to work.

Answer: It should be done very simply: teach children to exercise via TV or computer, to do some kind of homework, to communicate with virtual animals, people, and so on. That is, cultivate skills of virtual communication in them.

Question: Would you also put the children of kindergarten age in front of the screen?

Answer: Of course. Imagine a boy who you put inside an airplane! He sits in front of these switches, and the pilot sits next to him and teaches him how to operate them. What prospects opens up for him! Do you have any idea what you are doing for a child?

We can do the same with a ship, with submarines. This is not a movie that you show them about other people, but he, himself, interactively participates in it. He can even become a surgeon if he wants: he listens to the heartbeat and how it all happens.

Make it all interactive, make it so that it becomes his life! Then when he becomes an adult, he understands what this is all about.

Imagine yourself as a boy, how it would capture you!

It is up to you to choose what profession you want. You can go with them through all the professions this way. Show them everything there is! Make it interactive, as if they are in the forest running after a wolf or catching something, communicating with someone.

Question: Would you replace all these games of killing and capturing with the positive and educational ones?

Answer: Of course! You develop a person! He goes through all this and learns from this.

Question: Would you cancel all these wars that fill the Internet?

Answer: Absolutely! Absolutely everything that existed before today.

Question: Do you think that their effect is terrible?

Answer: There is nothing good about them! We need to make only interactive programs for children so that they would feel that they are entering life. These programs would have to be correct.

Then you would raise people the way you want them to be. I would show the girls how to take care of a baby, with diapers, and so on. How to take children for a walk. Here she goes for a walk with a baby, and she looks at herself from the side. Or even not from the side—she looks as if from within herself and sees all this. This is life!

Question: Then let us touch on the third factor, nursery school. Up to what age  should a mother stay with a child? Should she be paid for it, not to go to work, not to be sent anywhere? We usually send a child to a nursery school from the age of six months, if not earlier.

Answer: To the age of 12 to 13 years.

Question: Should we pay the mother to be at home with the child until he turns 12 or 13?!

Answer: Yes.

Question: To be with a child who is already an adult?

Answer: Yes. If it is a girl, she will be with her mother, will be helping her, and will know how everything is done. Then, when she becomes a young lady, a bride, a woman, she will be fine, she will know what needs to be done and how it is done, and she will not be calling her mother, “Mom, how do I make porridge?”

Question: Is it the same for a boy? Should he also stay with his mother until a certain age?

Answer: There will be a little bigger problem with a boy because he has to learn a profession.

Question: But it can be done interactively?

Answer: Interactively, yes. However, he should devote most of his time to this.

Question: Still would you also keep a mother with the child up to 10 to 12 years old for both boys and girls.

Answer: Yes. But they would still have, say, three days or even half-days allocated for walks. It should be when a person comes along and picks up the boys and takes them for walks, to a museum, or a sports field, etc.

Question: Should it be a coach, an instructor, or a teacher who picks up boys from an area and takes them to show the real, corporeal world? Does he also teach them how to communicate with each other?

Answer: Yes. Once a day, a walk for two to three hours, and another two to three hours of some games at the sports ground, and so on.

Remark: You have just painted a beautiful world.

My Comment: Why can’t we do that? What is there?! We do not need to build anything for this. We just need to reorganize ourselves and that is it. It is easy!

Remark: What you have just painted is so beautiful! But I do not think it is easy.

My Comment: It is not easy because of our character, because of our egoism, but it is in our hands.
[269665]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 5/25/20

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