Comment: Question from Natalia: “I have an adult son. When he was a kid, he was happy about everything. Every new discovery made him genuinely smile: books, camping, movies, and music. Now that he has grown up, it is like the world has dimmed for him. He looks around, but he does not see anything. His heart is closed as if he has lost a taste for life. I often wonder where we made a mistake as his parents? Perhaps we have not given him enough? Perhaps we have missed something important? I am scared to watch how my son is losing interest for this world! I do not know how to help him.”

Answer: Basically, our entire life is made so we would lose attraction to this world, to this life. This is a problem. But what can we do?

Comment: This is exactly what she is asking you: “I do not know how to help him.”

My Response: To help him is just to explain how the world is structured, how it should be transformed, and how we should see a different world.

Comment: But you understand that parents do not really know how to explain this to the child. “The child” is a grown young man.

My Response: So get used to it.

Question: is this the way he will go on and develop?

Answer: The way all people live.

Question: But do you think that everyone is losing a taste for life today?

Answer: Of course. They either disconnect themselves from the question, or they think that they are doing the most correct thing.

Question: So you think that precisely this question has matured in him: “What do I live for?” This is why this change happened?

Answer: Yes, the lack of goal-setting.

Question: Meaning, “Where to go and why do I keep going?” That is it, and the person lies down and disconnects?

Answer: Yes

Question: This kid’s joy, where did it disappear?

Answer: There is no basis anymore to be joyful about life. What should I do next? Nobody knows.

Question: At what point does this transformation within a person come? It is not necessarily at this age; it can be at any age. How does it come, at what moment?

Answer: It comes the moment a person seems to have everything, but there is no goal.

Question: Does the upper one, the Creator, take away the goal? Why does He do that?

Answer: So that a person would consciously understand what he lacks and would consciously seek the Creator in his life.

Question: Tell me please, people are asking: “Should the parents help their adult child, or is it better to give him freedom?”

Answer: Parents can shorten the child’s path by a lot!

Question: Do you mean the quest?

Answer: The quest, yes, but in general, it does not matter. It depends on the nature of a person. If they wish to help their child, they have to be good psychologists.

Question: Where to direct him? Here he is in this state. Natasha and her husband write: “We are unable to help him.” Where to direct him?

Answer: You are unable to help, but you still have to point him to that state, a place that can direct him. I think that we should give the child the maximum development, and he will find it. There is no way without that.

Question: Tell us please, how can parents cope with the sense of guilt? Natasha writes, and one can feel that there is a sense of guilt for what has happened to him. How is it possible to get rid of this feeling?

Answer: If the parents had a clear sense of the goal, they would not be disturbed so much. However, since they do not have it themselves, then the child does not have it either, and they do not know what to give him.

Question: Does it mean you think that this moment is the time for the parents to search in addition to everything else?

Answer: Yes, of course.

Question: Does it mean it is like he is directing them to search for the purpose of life?

Answer: Yes

Question: Can parents in their efforts to return this vital force to their children harm them?

Answer: Yes, it is necessary here to select some very fine middle line that will be directing the child to the search without pressure.

Question: But the most important in your answer is the search?

Answer: Yes, our entire life is like that. It is given to us for that.

The Creator is doing that so that the child would find the source in this life, the source of his states so that he would want to reveal this source. Then he will not have any more questions. He will be attached to this source, he will be revealing it more and more, and the source will fulfill him more and more.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 9/1/24

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Comment: One of the major issues in modern society is work-related stress. Regardless of the type of work, emotional exhaustion including burnout eventually sets in often more than physical fatigue.

Scientists suggest that to combat constant workplace stress, one should practice compassion and mindfulness. Burnout, chronic illnesses from unhealthy lifestyles, and similar challenges could be called the plague of the 21^st century.

The key to overcoming burnout and its associated ailments is compassion. The central message of compassion is: “If you feel bad, stressed, or exhausted, help someone else. Show compassion, and you will feel better yourself.”

My Response: This approach meets no resistance. In fact, the act itself will first and foremost heal you.

Question: To treat others this way, must one first show compassion toward oneself?

Answer: Without self-compassion, you will not be motivated to act kindly toward others. You need a foundation, a reason to suddenly develop a positive attitude toward others. For this, you must convince yourself that it is necessary for your own well-being, a form of self-preservation.

Comment: When we are stressed, our bodies activate processes and muscles for a “fight or flight” response. However, when we show compassion, the body relaxes and operates in an entirely opposite system. It calms down.

Scientists add that besides compassion, empathy is also essential; meaning, engaging with others and understanding their situations helps offset stress.

My Response: But this is not simple. The issue is that we do not teach people how to give correctly, which creates a significant problem. We are forced to give at any work: whether I am working on some piece of hardware on a machine, tending cows, or making money, it does not matter where or how. Even if I work with people.

We are not taught how to give. We are taught to quickly complete tasks and take what we need, but this is incorrect.

Such an approach creates a disconnection between the work itself and my desire to derive something from it. The work becomes a source of depletion rather than fulfillment.

If I approach my work in a way that allows me to feel fulfilled while giving, I will feel great at the beginning, middle, and end of the day. But teaching people this mindset is not easy. It requires the correction of one’s nature.

Regardless of my job or role, I should be able to work joyfully and feel that by giving, I am filling myself up. This is the art or the science of fulfillment, of reception—the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Question: What does it mean to “give”?

Answer: If I were working for the benefit of my children, would I feel depleted by giving to them? No, not at all, because I already work for their sake and do everything for them.

The issue lies in learning to feel others, strangers, as close ones. This requires education. People must be taught to understand the system we live in, that we are all interconnected in an integral network. In this system, anyone who fills others is, in turn, filled through them.

We need to uncover this system and begin to feel it. Then there will be no difference between giving and receiving or between strangers and loved ones. We will realize that we all exist within a unified system.

Question: You once explained the difference between animalistic and spiritual energy exchange. In the corporeal realm, one gives and the other receives, leaving one depleted and the other filled. In spiritual energy exchange, however, the energy flows through everyone, filling all without stopping at anyone.

How can we achieve this? What steps are involved in learning and applying this method?

Answer: I would advise people to attend our classes and learn how to work in a true collective where giving to others simultaneously fills oneself, and this applies to everyone. Ultimately, this leads to a state where the more people in the group, the greater the fulfillment each person experiences.

Such a person feels that when he comes to work tired after sleeping, and so on, he gets a lot of energy at work and leaves with bright eyes and cheerful after eight or ten hours of work. He goes home full of energy. In the evening, he thinks about how he will return to work. And all his relatives and family are delighted to meet and greet him like this.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/1/19

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Comment: In 5 to 10 years, CEOs will have to focus on issues of happiness. The positions they will be hired for will have various names, such as “Dream Manager” or, conversely, “Destruction Manager.”

But the essence remains the same: a person who must constantly drive the company toward change, and in doing so, dismantle the established order.

My Response: We need to work proactively.

The thing is, a person must feel happy, or their work will yield little benefit. That is why we need to ensure that they feel happiness, fulfillment, and connection with others, because happiness depends entirely on the atmosphere they exist in.

They must feel they are in an environment of kindness and mutual support where they can completely rely on their company and team.

This is perhaps the most important thing. To achieve this, we must work with the team. We need to create a communal, positive dependency within the workplace where people feel support and inspiration from their colleagues, where they feel proud and understand the happiness they gain from being part of this team, where their spouses, children, or other family members also understand and approve of this. It means a great deal.

I believe that if we fail to create such an environment in the future, employees will not stay. Their productivity will drop, and they will become indifferent to the company’s fate. Ultimately, you will not be able to “buy” them, not even with money.

What matters is not just money, but the atmosphere of joy, happiness, flexibility, and mutual help they feel. This requires education, a completely different approach, and a new organization of production and hierarchy, nothing like what existed in the past.

A person is an individual being, and they must feel both unique and entirely supported by the collective when needed.

In relationships among people, everyone must be equal. These are relationships between individuals, not between citizens or employees.

But the most important thing is for people to have a shared, grand goal—why they are doing this and what they are achieving through it.

We need to gradually help a person feel that this methodology brings them to an absolute state—absolute happiness and a sense of something vast, eternal, and perfect. This allows them to see a completely different world and to shape themselves, their children, and their families in an entirely new way.

This must be done gradually. And then they will realize that it is not just the company playing nice to extract more productivity from them, but an effort to transform them into a master of life, to help them feel the integrity of existence.

Question: What should a CEO, who is a professional dreamer, be it a “Dream Manager” or a “Destruction Manager,” aspire to in their dreams? What should they want to destroy and what to build?

Answer: One cannot exist without the other. They must first present a dream, a direction, and explain what they aim to achieve so that everyone begins to connect with this dream and embrace it as a truly desirable state. Then after having deeply understood its necessity, they would be ready to destroy the present for the sake of a bright future.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 8/17/18

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Comment: The aggression of schoolchildren and their parents exceeds all norms, expectations, and any rules of decency. Teachers complain that children have become completely uncontrollable, and their parents side with them. If teachers were respected in the past, now school journals are being burned, weapons are being brought to school, not to mention drugs. Teachers in Germany claim that such behavior has become possible due to the influx of immigrants.

My Response: I would not conflate one problem with another.

The modern school no longer suits children, contemporary families, parents, how parents are busy at work, how children spend their free time, or how life is structured. Modern schooling has long outlived its usefulness. It effectively ended in the middle of the last century along with the end of the industrialization era.

None of this is relevant today. Now everything can be done much more simply—with computers and in small groups of people while the rest are left out of the equation. Therefore, we should not be educating people for unnecessary professions only to later perpetuate unemployment. They graduate into the world with their diplomas, but what is next?

The school is an absolutely outdated experiment that was conducted 150 years ago and by now has long since “died.”

Question: Does the degradation of schools threaten us with a barbaric society in the future?

Answer: If schools degrade, they will indeed lead to a barbaric society. Therefore, schools need to be quickly replaced.

We need to seriously consider what is good for our children and focus on that. Society today is capable of doing this; we have plenty of resources, many people, and many idle hands and minds. We can do this if we only want to because we have nothing to do, we invent different professions for ourselves, we serve each other.

We need to pay attention to children. But not by forcing, pressuring, or over-structuring them, but by studying what is genuinely beneficial for them and within this context providing them with the right content. What kind of content? Perhaps they will choose it themselves from the Internet.

We must study human nature, the nature of the surrounding world, and how people achieve harmony. The most important human “profession” is understanding how to interact correctly with oneself, with society, and with the world around them.

Reaching such a level of integration where all these elements are balanced is the ultimate goal of education.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/31/18

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Comment: In Japan, there was a case where a little girl was growing up in a single-parent family. After she started school, she became withdrawn. It turned out that she was being bullied because her classmates teased her for not having a father.

The mother was deeply concerned. The teachers did not help, so she turned to an agency that provides “rent-a-hero” services. She chose one candidate—a kind, positive, and caring man. As an actor, he fully embraced the role of a father and played it for the girl for ten years.

On weekends, they went to the movies, parks, and walks, talked together, and even attended parent-teacher meetings. Over time, it was clear that the girl, once shy and withdrawn, blossomed and became more confident.

Thus, a new trend emerged: “fathers for rent”—fake fathers who, by taking on the role, provide both children and adults with a sense of security and supportive surroundings.

My Response: We understand how important this is for a child. At the same time, it can also be deeply significant for the woman—the mother of that child.

Interestingly, these relationships can sometimes be deeper and closer than natural family bonds. When something is “yours,” it can often lead to complacency and neglect. Who really pays attention to one another? You come home, kick off your shoes, sit down at the table or in your favorite chair, and life goes on.

But here, the emotional distance fosters a special closeness, one that is not just monitored, but actively nurtured and strengthened. This dynamic can be far more meaningful than relationships in a typical marriage.

As a result, a very interesting relationship can develop between them, not even intimate, but purely internal support, precisely due to the fact that they are not husband and wife, but simply “collaborators” to create a special family relationship.

Comment: The fake father told the girl he loved her, although inside he understood it was a conflict, that it really wasn’t the case. But what he told her emotionally, by getting involved at this state, helped not only their relationship,  but also the child’s development.

My Response: Do we have the right to treat a child this way? To lie to them?

Comment: Yes, because the consequences can vary. He said, “Ten years have passed, and I understand what might happen if the truth comes out. Eighty percent of me believes the girl will be grateful for all the care and attention I gave her. Twenty percent of me fears she will feel devastated, lost, and broken.”

My Response: He must stay with her until she gets married and he is “replaced” by her husband. He has to support her until she has another man in her life because, at the moment, he is filling the roles of father, man, and husband—everything. He cannot just leave her.

Comment: There is another trend where elderly men are hired as mentors. They are invited to accompany young people because they can pass on experience and wisdom.

My Response: I support this. It is something our society needs because no one in childhood receives proper guidance from their parents. This is a methodology, a philosophy of acceptance of life and the proper adaptation to it. Modern children do not have this. They have no source for it, not from TV, not from computers, not from school, nor from anywhere.

Question: What institutions should surround a person to help them grow into a well-rounded individual?

Answer: They need a clear and consistent educational program conducted by capable teachers, mentors, and educators.

When family, society, the peer group, and the media all work in harmony, only then can a person be raised properly.

Question: What values should they instill?

Answer: The right behavior within the “human pack.” Ideally, this should be taught at the instinctive level.

Question: What rules should exist in a “human pack”?

Answer: Homo homini lupus est, “man is a wolf to man,” only the other way around.

Teach people to live as a pack where everyone supports each other and understands the importance of each individual. Each person carries a social or family responsibility that makes everyone significant. Wolves, for instance, live exceptionally well within their packs.

Question: Could we conclude by saying, “Be a wolf to be human”?

Answer: Yes, being a wolf is great; you will know how to behave in a pack. It is a wonderful dynamic where there is a clear hierarchy, parents at the top, children below, grandchildren further down, and so on. But everyone takes care of one another, from the bottom up.
[238692]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/22/18

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If everything in the universe originates from the Creator, then what remains? What remains is a very intriguing component: my effort to sustain the perspective that everything comes from Him.

Let us suppose I have attuned myself to this perspective, but within a minute it disappears, slips away, or distorts. At one moment I might feel as if I exist independently, and the world around me revolves by the Creator’s hand. At another moment, it seems that all my parameters are shaped by the Creator within me, while the external world appears either stable or fluctuating, but somehow separate.

So if I want to reveal the Creator, I must continuously work within concealment. Concealment lies in recognizing that everything is conditioned by Him and that “There is none else besides Him.” My task is to properly perceive myself and the world, to separate what does not pertain to me from what constitutes my “self”—my efforts.

And even within these efforts, I must analyze what is truly mine in my efforts, and what has been created in me by the Creator. It may have seemed to me that something was my own doing.

Even if yesterday it seemed that I personally wanted to follow the Creator’s path, I must still correct myself and acknowledge that it was the Creator who granted me this opportunity and not my own doing.

Thus we see that the work within concealment begins to take shape as a clear delineation of where “I” ends and where the Creator begins. Does “I” even exist, and what is this “I”? It is evident that my physical body is temporary.

If my thoughts and feelings are not “me,” then it follows that only through correctly discerning our efforts to form a perception of “self and the surrounding world” might we find something that is truly ours.

Clearly, this “mine” will not encompass the fundamental parameters of the world or myself, as these were predetermined long before me. Therefore it is in my attempts to construct an internal view of the world that my “self” might be found, a result of my search for the Creator, for truth, and for the meaning of life. And this “self,” essentially, is what is called “my soul.” This is the essence of the work within concealment.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/4/19, Preparation for convention in Moldova “The Work in Concealment”

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Question: If you could step into the Creator’s place, how would you answer these children’s questions? Oleg, a 4th grader, asks: “Why did You make humans the main beings on Earth?”

Answer: That is a complicated issue. I made humans intelligent and gave them the ability to correct themselves. If they refuse to do so and remain foolish, I can only agree, stay silent, and wait.

Comment: Humans have been given intelligence, placed on this Earth. The Earth is really beautiful, nature and everything are beautiful. Yet, we ruin it.

My Response: Yes.

Question: Are we a mistake or not?

Answer: Of nature?

Comment: Let’s say, of the Creator.

Answer: Of the Creator, I think we are not a mistake. But we will only realize it when we begin to correct ourselves. For now, we don’t want to.

Question: Is our path programmed and someday a turning point toward correction will inevitably happen?

Answer: Yes, I am certain it must happen, and fairly soon.

Question: Will it be a shock, a sudden thought, or the discovery of a new kind of mind?

Answer: It will emerge from within us. We will begin to feel what the other world, the new world, the higher world, should be.

Question: And we will want to reach it?

Answer: Yes, absolutely!
[337076]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/4/24

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Intellectual role-playing games have become an alternative to traditional festive gatherings. Clerks, managers, doctors, and teachers enthusiastically prevent explosions at nuclear power plants, catch maniacs, and chase after secret submarine blueprints. In short, they fully immerse themselves in quests.

As children, we read books and watched movies about heroes, and dreamed of becoming like them. But later we realized that life leaves little room for cinematic heroism or even simple adventure. So why not play out the impossible?

But there is another side to this: a true hero should be an example to follow, should they not? And not just an example of parachuting from planes with umbrellas or performing stunts. No, a hero should be relatable to us. Moreover, beyond fighting enemies, societal problems, or disasters, they should overcome something within themselves—for the sake of helping others.

Such a hero inspires admiration, the kind that comes with goodwill, because they bring good into the world. More than that, they represent what we wish every person could be.

We all need a meaningful image of a hero who knows how to give themselves to others despite the challenges. And let everyone imagine themselves in their place; let everyone aspire to be like them. Then, when I step out of the theater or leave a role-playing game and return to real life, I will act the same way.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/29/18

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Comment: Broken relationships ruin people’s entire lives, and they can be confusing due to micro-misunderstandings. What is the right thing to do to prevent resentment and broken relationships, and conversely, to improve them?

Psychologists recommend trying to understand your counterpart’s point of view because the result of an action is not always intentional and that there is difficulty with some micro-manifestations because we all apply different standards to their assessment.

My Response: Where are the standards here? It is my standard: how I see others and try to measure myself in correspondence with them or how I see myself and try to measure others in correspondence with myself. This is completely wrong. It is like putting on a dress. If I put it on, my belly will stick out, my arms and legs will look thin, and the dress will seem ugly to me.

There are no general standards here. There can only be one standard: for the good of one’s neighbor. That is all. I do not perceive anyone in any way, neither myself nor anyone else. I am interested in only one thing: whether the phenomena that occur are for the good of man.

By “man,” I mean all of humanity, the general image of man. I do not in any way try to measure myself in correspondence with one person or another, then I will definitely get lost.

Question: How can we correctly understand the point of view of another person and determine whether it is correct or not?

Answer: I cannot understand another person. How can I understand him? How can I get out of myself in order to understand another person?

We simply must act in a way that is good for another person—for everyone! That is, in addition to what is necessary for my existence, in everything else that depends on me, I must act for the good of others.

This is natural. Very often due to our habits, we make some movements, gestures, or say some words or expressions that others may even find offensive.

We may not even feel or understand this. We must tune our hearts. The heart must be tuned to kindness to another person! Nothing else will work.

If a person is warmly tuned to another, it will still be perceived correctly. Even if he says something wrong and fails to express himself somehow, the other person will feel him.

Direct your heart to another person, to all people, to good! You need to get used to this. You need to educate yourself to do this. It is necessary to maintain the same attitude toward the environment, toward the surrounding society, and then everything will be fine!
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/28/19

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Question: The Riga-based writer Mikhail Dymov asked students from Riga schools, aged 6 to 10 to write to the Almighty and ask Him pressing questions and to ask for the most important things. And so the children asked the Creator.

If you don’t mind, I ask you to imagine yourself in the place of the Creator—what would you answer the children?

Lena, a first-grader—a first-grader—asks: “Why is the world without tenderness?”

Answer: Yes, this is how our world is. There is no tenderness in the world because people do not love each other.

Question: Then why was it created?

Answer: To bring the world as close to this as possible. That is something we must achieve on our own—independently and thoughtfully.

Question: What does it mean for life, for our world, if a first-grade girl is asking such a question? Please explain.

Answer: It means the world is already becoming serious and ready for corrective action.

Question: Even if such questions reach the youngest children?

Answer: Of course, yes.

Question: So do you believe that children feel more deeply than adults? Perhaps she sees this in how her parents interact or in interactions around her?

Answer: She sees it exactly as she sees it.

Question: And we fail to see it?

Answer: We do not see it.

Question: What is happening to us? Over the years does something gradually dim our vision?

Answer: We get used to and resign ourselves to what exists, and we do not want to see the bad because it feels unfixable. And so we live like that.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/4/24

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