In the News (The Express Tribune): “Morimoto first offered his services in June 2018 after posting a tweet that read: ‘I offer myself for rent, as a person who does nothing. Is it difficult for you to enter a shop on your own? Are you missing a player on your team? Do you need someone to keep a place for you? I can’t do anything except easy things.’ …

“People rent him for various reasons, he says, but most are bored or lonely and simply want to be listened to. …

“Morimoto – who is married and holds a postgraduate degree in physics from Osaka University – told: ‘I’m not a friend or an acquaintance. I’m free of the annoying things that go with relationships but I can ease people’s feelings of loneliness.’ ‘I personally don’t like being cheered on by other people. It bothers me when people simply tell me to keep persevering. When someone is trying to do something I think the best thing to do is to make it easier for them by staying at their side,’ he added. In less than three years Morimoto – who used to work in publishing but quit to ‘do nothing’ – has published books about his career choice, inspired a television drama and acquired 270,000 Twitter followers.”

Question: What does the demand for this guy tell you?

Answer: This first of all says, unfortunately, that people are lonely, that they need someone to be there, but there is no one.

Question: To talk it out, to be with someone?

Answer: For everything. And probably, he justifies this hope. He knows how. He’s probably not a physicist, but a good psychologist. It’s good to be around him. He can do everything! Listen, talk, whatever you want. He can be anywhere and do precisely what is expected of him. It’s very difficult. This is not an obsession, but an addition to the person who hired you.

Comment: It would seem that this is such an easy job, but you say that it is not easy at all.

My Response: It’s not a very easy job. This is a psychological job and is very difficult . But apparently, people say it’s worth it.

Comment: This means that a person needs someone who will not put pressure on him, who will listen to him, and connect with him.

My Response: It’s not just submission, and as a role, I would say it’s a very lively one. Can you imagine, your name is called and you come on a date. From afar you wonder, let’s say, if this will be a woman or perhaps a man? And if an old man or an old woman? And if it’s a girl? And to just fit in like a clip, you have to fit into each case 100%,.

We have a huge request for this. Enormous!

Question: Is it because humanity is becoming more and more lonely?

Answer: Yes, especially in Japan. People don’t get married there, people don’t meet, and they don’t give birth much today.

Comment: The world is moving toward the fact that these services will be more and more in demand.

Answer: These services will actually reveal what we lack. And people will start gradually incrementally learning to become like that. I want such a person next to me, my addition in him and his addition in myself. And it will be happiness. It is the addition of people to each other.

Question: As a Kabbalist, what does this tell you? What is it?

Answer: This is called “love for one’s neighbor.” It is very simple. It is something you have to show to the other and the other will be happy to show it to you.

Question: What do you think would happen if you set up an experiment in which he is not paid for these services, would he continue?

Answer: I am sure that if he does his job well, it is not for the sake of money. Otherwise it wouldn’t have worked. And he wouldn’t have been hired.

Comment: And so the rumor went about him that there is such a person.

Answer: This is Japan. It’s not just a rumor, as it’s instantly recorded.

Question: Do you think that there is some element of love for one’s neighbor on his part?

Answer: Yes. This is when you adapt to your neighbor in a good sense of the word. And he is glad to see you and responds to you in the same way.

Question: And are you glad that he is happy?

Answer: Yes. This is effectively a kind of love for another.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/11/22

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Question: What can help people on the way to absolute love? Can you formulate some tips? What will help people?

Answer: An example, only an example. Nothing else. An example of how you give in to others, how you are ready to get closer to them, how you appreciate them. Moreover, you should be constantly talking about it.

Question: Imagine that several hundred people are sitting in front of you at a seminar on the topic of true love. What is the last, culminating question you would ask for the seminar?

Answer: “Why is love the highest feeling, the greatest force of connection between people?” Let them discuss this.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 8/5/22

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Question: Some researchers say that the secret to a perfect marriage is simple. You need six meaningful conversations, three long walks, and two fights every month. Two short and two longer vacations are mandatory. It’s important to say “I love you” up to 10 times a week, kiss three times a day, and embrace 11 times a week. Be proud of your partner in front of others, forgive bad habits, always concede to the other regardless of who is right. And very importantly, fairly divide household chores.

What do you think?

Answer: All these conditions make up a man’s prison. Hang up a big sign on the wall and set a reminder with a loudspeaker, announcing: “It’s time to talk about love!” 🙂

Question: So, “It’s time to kiss! It’s time to bring flowers! It’s time…” Won’t work?

Answer: You see, it’s a habit. It will work actually. If a person does it for a month or two, he will come to feel: “It’s been a while since I last brought flowers.”

Question: So the habit will become second nature?

Answer: “The habit is given to us from above.”

Comment: You were talking about the institution of men and women, the fact that upbringing is necessary.

My Response: It is education. It cannot be taken lightly as some sort of secondary schooling, but has to be nurtured within every family. Radio, television, all these things out there have to be incorporated in this education. Movies as well, anything really works, so it would be absorbed from an early age.

Question: So you support the statement we used to hear: “It is a healthy cell of a society. If the family is healthy, then the society is too…”

Answer: It must be so. You cannot replace it with anything else no matter what the times are! It evolves from human nature, the real one, which we have lost long ago. Who can take it? People live up to 100 years and 80 are spent with the same partner to whom you are constantly obliged.

Question: Maybe one can turn this obligation into a benefit? The fact that he is obliged to someone would be to his benefit?

Answer: Either way that’s very tough. We run away from our own mother after a few years.

Question: So these cells, these families, are falling apart because the individual cannot endure the pressure?

Answer: He cannot tolerate the limitations he is obligated to live within.

Question: Then the question is, how can they be tolerated?

Answer: By means of working out a number of variables. One of which is the necessity to do so given to us by nature, which we inhabit, and within this framework we attain our highest spiritual eternal state of being. So the family represents a kind of “production farm” in which we work on our higher self. This is the greatest opportunity, the chance for us to reach the spiritual state.

I don’t really talk about this during my lessons because it’s not for our present time yet. But it will happen!

Moreover, there is an absolutely clear distribution of responsibilities, opportunities, and reciprocal fulfillment in which children also play a significant role as they are included in the relationship between husband and wife according to their age and with the fact that they get to have their own children, grandchildren, and so on. That is, it is a “combine,” it is a whole system. It should be a huge complex “production.”

It will happen! Our world won’t be able to exist without it, but accordingly nature will lead us to it. So we are in for some tough years ahead.

Comment: You just spoke about children and their children.

My Response: It is all growing and developing. There must be and is obligatorily through three generations. Children should see their grandparents and parents and really feel them.

Question: What is an ideal family for you?

Answer: The ideal family is the one that will come to be and it will meet these requirements. At this point we are trying to lay some sort of foundation for this movement. But it is still very risky to talk about this. It appears as though we are loading the heaviest responsibilities upon ourselves.

Question: By whom, by you or the young people?

Answer: By everyone! At the point when one can actually see the inner essence of one’s partner and the years spent together mean nothing, the appearance means nothing, because everything is determined only according to their inner state.

It’s an extraordinary world that we’re going to build. And it will be spiritual! I won’t see the appearance of my partner, or their habits and so on, like I see today. It’s going to be a continuous renewal between us and within each of us.

Question: Are we renewing all the time? The same couple, but it is continuously renewed?

Answer: Of course. Not the same, but a new one in a way.

Comment: I’d like to live in a world like that.

My Response: 🙂 It has to be earned! We’re not there yet.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/6/22

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Should children be allowed to choose their gender?“

I understand that there is an inclination in some people to fervently yearn to feel themselves in a foreign body of the opposite gender, as I have known such people. However, they were individual cases that happened without any propaganda or coercion. But in terms of what is happening today, where such an ideology is fed to society regularly with a “So, who else is with us?” attitude, I think it is completely wrong.

On one hand, it goes against nature-given circumstances. However, on the other hand, every quality of nature has exceptions to the rules. We thus naturally have men, women, and a number of individuals with feminine traits among men, and those with masculine traits among women, i.e. people on such a borderline. There are indeed psychological nuances, and a lot goes on in nature, and each instance needs its own evaluation.

Nonetheless, what is promoted throughout society greatly affects our development, especially children’s. Influences in children’s social, educational and media settings shape the children. That is, children can go to school and get convinced of just about anything, including changing their gender.

For instance, children who have no proclivities whatsoever for changing their gender could reach the conclusion that they have to do it. Why? It is because of social influence and pressure: that such a topic circulates the children’s social influences, and children constantly consider where they fit in with others, in terms of their inferiority or superiority to them. They require the approval of their peers and their social environment, so they could go to great lengths for that approval.

However, despite today’s increase in the promotion of such influences, nature will sort everything out. The promotion of gender change to children is one of several scrutinies that humanity is undergoing in order to lead us to a point of helplessness, a dead end. We can already see how nature continuously guides us through many different paths, and each one results in a dead end, i.e. that we find no ultimate happiness or satisfaction through the various directions that we take.

In short, my advice on this topic is to simply advocate that whoever has no such inclination naturally should be kept in their own natural state of being.

Based on the video “Should Children be Allowed to Choose Their Gender?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do you explain war to a child?“

Children can understand war because they also fight with each other. The human ego, which makes us want to primarily enjoy ourselves without considering anyone else, operates from a very young age. So we need not hide anything about war from children.

Indeed, if we fail to raise children correctly, teaching them how to rise above the human ego and positively connect with others, then just as children play—wanting to take things away from each other in order to please themselves, and sometimes resorting to bullying each other—then this is how they continue into their adult years, which is why we end up with wars. Grownups no longer have sand shovels, sticks and toy guns in their hands, but weapons capable of doing serious harm.

Therefore, we should explain to children that they need to become accustomed to communicating, making peace and learning how to compromise. By doing so, they will not end up with terrible problems like those big people who go to war.

They should not be told about the enemy and the hatred in the conflict, and who is right or wrong, as they have no concept or basis for it. Rather, they understand words like giving and taking, wanting and taking, not wanting to give what they have to others, etc. and it is possible to explain war to children in such terms. Nevertheless, give-and-take relations are at the basis of war and all kinds of international relations. War is a dangerous and terrible outcome when these grownups could not reach any peaceful compromise in time.

Therefore, we should teach children from as early as possible that disputes should not be resolved by force, otherwise we will destroy each other. Disputes can be resolved by discussing how to reach peace together, with mutual concessions, rather than with an approach of “I am right and you are wrong, and now you will understand it.”

The most important aspect in education is learning how to compromise. Otherwise, what is all this education for? To teach how to hit first, harder and to inflict as much damage as possible? No, we need to learn how to stop and compromise. It is extremely difficult to do, especially for children, because they have a very direct and straightforward egoistic approach to life, shamelessly wanting things for themselves without any concern for others. Therefore, education should consist of explaining such concepts, learning them together with the children, and seating children in circles to engage in practical engagement on such topics. That is, if a dispute arises among children, then it is time to sit down and sort it out. They should develop such templates from their youth on how to not resort to fighting, but to resolve disputes through conversation and compromise. It is a very long process, but if it is not implemented at these early stages, then it will only get worse later.

Such education is not only necessary for children, but for teachers too, the adults. It is the same human ego in both children and adults, and it requires the same kinds of explanations and training in order to rise above it and realize that conceding for the sake of peace is much more worthwhile than going to war.

Based on the video “How to Explain War to a Child” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Comment: Psychologists say that each of us often wants to force other people to change their behavior or point of view. We know this very well. The boss wants to change employees so that they work more. Employees want to change the boss to have him or her be more flexible. We change husbands, wives, friends, and so on. And all attempts, most of the time, fail.

Some psychologists also propose that within four steps you can change almost anyone, and the first step is to change yourself. The first step is: to turn from a critic into an ally.

How can we turn from a critic into an ally? Can this advice be put into practice or is it a utopian fantasy? What do you think?

My Response: Why on earth would I agree with someone? Never! Then everyone will be taking advantage of me?! I do not agree to this in advance.

Comment: The second step is determine the result you want to get together. Can it be? I am against someone, but together we are building what we want to come to.

My Response: I agree with that. The vision of the future must be mutual. Despite the fact that I am against the other and I want to bend him and change him; nevertheless, we need to determine the future and then through gradual movement toward this future, we can already get closer.

Comment: The third step: to discuss together how to solve the problem.

My Response: This is correct. This is unrealistic, but correct.

Comment: The fourth: together build a step-by-step plan for achieving results.

My Response: This is very hard.

Comment: Hard? If we are in such a relationship, then as they say, everyone has their own plan.

My Response: Yes. And then, as this plan unfolds, you will see that you absolutely do not agree.

Question: Does it mean that the other one twists the plan for himself all the time and I twist it for myself?

Answer: Naturally.

Question: Then the question is: how can one build a relationship so as not to seek to change the other person? Psychologists say it can be done in four steps. What do you say? My natural state is to change the other for myself. How can I not do this, this is the guarantee of all wars, all quarrels, everything?

Answer: Just love the other. That’s all.

Again, we return to the first question. If we understand that the most important thing in our life is to be close to someone who understands you, helps you, loves you, and appreciates you, then we must really appreciate this and sacrifice everything for this.

Comment: That is, I practically really sacrifice my entire “I,” which requires conditions for itself. And say that, “I want to learn to love.”

My Response: Yes. I want to learn to love this person because I want to be with him. That’s all. It is good if he also thinks this way. Then it is a really really great, mutual, and very unusual feeling.

Question: Are you, in fact, addressing not only couples, but also potentially an employee, a boss, and even countries?

Answer: Practically, yes. This state of “learn to love” should shine above everything.

It needs to be taught. But, unfortunately, there is no such education. When we get old and understand, we no longer have the strength to do it. It does not work to approach the younger generation and try to pass something on to them. They ignore us and we try, but we cannot get closer. As Freud said, “If youth knew, if age could.”

Question: Do you think that everyone needs to receive blows? Are we simply unable to avoid them?

Answer: We need to demonstrate this intensively in all books and at schools. In general, we need to teach this to people. Moreover, to people at all ages. Then the entire society will be filled with this approach. We need to make sure that all this is up in the air, then it will become possible to love.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/27/22

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Comment: I read about some research about the impact on the neurotypical students of placing children with Autism Spectrum Disorder with neurotypical students. A researcher found that the neurotypical students picked up some of the behaviors of the ASD students.

My Response: The fact is that autistic people do not have awareness of their environment or the world around them. They interact only in a specific, limited way where they feel they are in control of the situation. Their contact with the world occurs within a very narrow range. Even their speech and actions are very restricted and inflexible.

We need to understand them. This is a borderline property of souls characteristic of our time.

If we look at humanity with different eyes, we would see a huge number of people who are mentally and psychologically not quite well.

After all, apart from twenty to thirty percent of autistic people and all others who are in various institutions, most of the people you see on the street also do not feel quite well, comfortable, or adequate in our world. They perceive themselves to be strangers in this world or the world as alien relative to themselves.

This is not a problem because in this world we all are truly strangers, like some kind of aliens. Our soul has descended from the upper world, and we must raise it back there during this lifetime in the material world.

At the same time, the body of both a healthy person and an autistic person, should we call him sick in this sense, remains animalistic. But the process of the soul ascending from our world to the upper world really gives a person such a sense of transformation that he sometimes feels mentally, emotionally, and psychologically unwell, that is, not as a normal animal but as existing between two worlds.

He feels that he belongs somewhere else, does not understand what is happening in this world and does not feels it as someone firmly rooted in this world does.

Today we are in a process when, in some ways, we are all a bit autistic and will only be more and more like them.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Special Territory” 5/17/11

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My new article on Linkedin “The One Thing AI Cannot Give”

A new pilot at a school in Tel-Aviv aims to overcome one of Israel’s biggest challenges in the education system: the shortage of teachers. Instead of human teachers, the pilot uses a virtual reality and artificial intelligence (AI) system that replaces some of the teachers. I have no doubt that AI systems, computers, and the internet can teach children anything humans can teach them, if not more. Providing information is not a problem today, and schools in general are not needed for this. The problem is not teaching, but educating, meaning raising children to be social human beings who can interact with their environment in a healthy, positive manner, and form a solid and safe society. AI cannot teach that.

Today, people’s main problem is not that they need to know more. It is easy to learn anything you want through online platforms or traditional ones. Yet people feel unhappy or insecure not for lack of knowledge, but for lack of positive, warm relationships with other people. If people have no one to trust, no one to love, and who would love them back, they will not be happy, they will not be positive elements in society, and they will not succeed in life.

AI cannot teach human relationships. It cannot be a role model that children want to follow. This task—raising children to be confident and happy adults—is the sole domain of human educators.

Although English often overlooks this nuance, the difference between education and teaching is that teaching means imparting people with information, while educating means turning individuals into confident people who realize their potential and contribute to society.

Education, therefore, is the single most important trade. Good education, in the sense I just described, is the basis of any stable and sustainable society. If we want a future where our children are happy and lead a good life, they need educators who guide them into being caring and connected human beings. No AI system can teach that, only educators who teach by personal example that children want to emulate can shape today’s children into tomorrow’s thriving society.

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Question: In the 1970s and 1980s in the Soviet Union, children born with autism and mental retardation were often not given to their parents. They were told that the child had died during childbirth.

How does Kabbalah view this issue? Should these children be left behind? What is the attitude of Kabbalah to everything living?

Answer: As a divine creation. We have no right to destroy anything.

We have the right to take food from nature—what we are supposed to in normal quantities without causing harm. For this, there are special laws of slaughter, cooking, and so on.

Just as animals eat animals, so we must eat them within reasonable limits, and this is not considered a violation of the balance of nature. Everything is created this way.

We must strive to do no harm or unnecessary pain to anyone. Any creature, no matter how it was born, has the right to exist. It is not for us to decide who should live and who should not.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Special Territory” 5/17/11

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What a Summer of Exclusion Feels Like”

A common form of bullying among children in Israel is exclusion. A few days ago, yet another sad story surfaced on Israeli media, describing the social exclusion of children who are going through the summer vacation without any friends because they were excluded. The story featured regular children, well dressed, articulate, perfectly normal children whose paths crossed with someone who did not like them and managed to turn the whole class against them. Exclusion has become the dread of many schoolchildren and parents, and the phenomenon seems to have no solution at the moment.

I think it is not the children’s fault. It is not the fault of the excluded, and not the fault of the children who exclude. It is the fault of the adults. Because adult society is deeply hostile, and alienation and ill-will prevail, it seeps into all parts of society, including the children’s society. As a result, children are excluded, abused, and bullied by their peers. The problem will not be solved until adults solve it among themselves, and that will mend the situation everywhere else.

With such a fractured society, it cannot be any other way. Everyone feels superior to others, and our egos make us inconsiderate and abusive toward others just to assert our superiority. From here to exclusion of others, there is a very short distance.

When this is the atmosphere in the adult society, it has to trickle down the system and reach the children’s society. But when children who had experienced exclusion grow up, the bitter memory of their ordeal will stay with them and impact their attitude toward society.

This is fertile ground for rearing misfits and psychopaths who seek to avenge society for the pain it had caused them. Because their world was ruined by the society, they will strive to ruin the society in return.

The only solution to the menace we are preparing for ourselves is to work on our cohesion and solidarity. Unless we strive to increase our unity in the adult society, above all the differences between us, we should not expect children to do the same. If we fight against each other, gossip, slander, and vilify others simply because they are different from us, we should not expect children, who learn by example, to be kind and caring toward their peers.

Children reflect their role models, and their role models are us. Since we exclude, so do they.

Once we change ourselves, we should also change our education system. Our games should change from fierce competition to collaboration and inclusion. Through games, we can teach children to find the benefit in togetherness, friendship, and solidarity.

There can still be challenges in games, but the challenges should be such that only when children collaborate, they can succeed. Gradually, they will learn that they are stronger together, and how the unique qualities of every child make the whole a stronger unit. We must do this, and do it quickly because our society is raising angry, vengeful children.
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