Question: Statistical studies show that a person with more friends has a greater chance of feeling happy. Why is that?

Answer: It would seem that friends should bring me even more trouble than happiness. After all, they pass their moods on to me, and I worry about everything that happens to them—good and bad. So I should actually be more upset because of them, since usually a person has more problems in life than joys.

But the point is that people tend to hide their problems and talk about their successes. Therefore, it seems to me that those around me live normally and prosperously. And even if others are not very happy, a shared misfortune is not as frightening. I see that others have the same problems as I do, and I no longer measure my condition against some ideal of happiness.

I understand that I am no worse off than others and that this is simply life. I accept this as a given and lower my standards to the general level accepted in society.

In addition, I see that commercial and industrial systems are built to make life easier for everyone. This is why we unite and create cities and factories. Together, it is easier to survive in this world, and we have more opportunities to enjoy life than each person on their own. Someone living as a hermit in a forest faces a very difficult existence, if they survive at all.

Clearly, connection among all of us benefits us. When problems arise, they become shared and are divided among everyone. By living in society, we learn from each other and take example from others. Therefore, the more I am included in society, the more support and sense of stability I can receive from it.

Everything bad and good that happens in life ultimately evens out. Even though in the end society may bring me more problems than good, these will be the same problems that everyone has, and so I will agree with them.
[154728]
From KabTV’s “New Life 242 – Happiness And Social Ties,” 10/17/13

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Question: All parents want to bring up their children so they would grow up to be good, successful, educated people. But you say that the old method of upbringing does not work and we need new tools. What is this new upbringing?

Answer: First of all, we need, not the “new” upbringing, but simply “upbringing,” because the old upbringing does not exist. Currently we do not have any upbringing; we do not form a person. Therefore we cannot call the education that currently exists in Israel and in the entire world as a system of upbringing.

We deceive ourselves by thinking that we send our children to school to give them upbringing. The school does not bring them up. In school, children gain harmful examples, and the school cares only about grades, while it is not teachers’ concern how a child will behave.

Everyone will agree that at home children usually do not receive bad examples with the rare exception of the most dysfunctional families. Where do teenagers get bad habits? It is either from the Internet or from school, meaning from an outside influence. Therefore we need to take care of external influences so they would be positive rather than negative.

School is not engaged whatsoever in children’s upbringing. We need new tools of upbringing in order to transform school into a place where a person receives upbringing and not simply a place that gives him knowledge. Then we will see how our children will change for the better and be able to connect with one another and build a better, more humane world.

They will be able to build a family and have access to any information on the Internet. We must give them more knowledge about human being, about the human body, about genders, but in a correct and open form.

At the same time as the child receives information from outside, it is necessary to add explanations so they understand why they get such desires and thoughts.

We should not shame them, but talk with them in an easy way without embarrassment, correctly and openly so the child doesn’t withdraw within himself not knowing how to control his nature. The mutual work of parents, psychologists, and specialists is required here.

Question: The department of education has all the resources: psychologists, teachers, parents’ support, and a huge budget. Why are there no good results?

Answer: Today I do not see such specialists in school who would be able to form good people from today’s generation. Where can we see the results of school’s education?

Comment: My daughter is in the 11^th grade and every day they keep her in school until 4 pm and occasionally until 6 pm. It costs the government a lot of money.

My Response: But there is no need for all of this. I need my daughter in the 11^th grade to spend half of the time she spends in school on studying how to form a person within herself, how to build her environment, her family, and how to become a person who feels good in a good world.

A school doesn’t deal with this at all. It only teaches math, physics, biology, meaning, it prepares a child for college, in other words, how to earn money. Therefore we receive such results.
[175543]
From the program on radio station 103FM, 1/8/16

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There is a special phenomenon in the influence of society on a person. If I face a problem together with a large society, it is divided among everyone and I do not feel that I am alone with it. If I were to fall ill with a rare and severe disease, I would be terribly anxious. But if it is an epidemic and everyone around is sick, then it is not as frightening.

The trouble is instantly shared with the entire society where I am simply one among all. Therefore, my fear is no longer the full fear of the problem itself, but it is divided among everyone else, reduced to one millionth. This happens regardless of my desire, because I am connected with others in one system. So, my relative part in the common trouble is only one millionth.

This does not mean that the trouble will not happen to me, it will happen. But the feeling of fear and threat is divided among everyone in the perception of people. To the extent that I am connected with others, I worry less about hardships.

But if joy comes, it does not decrease when shared by all. Because joy is felt together with everyone. Misfortune is felt within oneself, but joy is felt outside, between us. The benevolent force that created the entire world acts on everyone and is not divided. If joy comes, everyone rejoices in full measure.

Moreover, shared joy increases the joy of each one. For example, news comes of victory in a war. That joy is not divided by a million, leaving me with one millionth of happiness. On the contrary, it is multiplied by a million, and I feel joy a million times greater! I go out into the street, see everyone celebrating, and I am filled with happiness, completely differently than if I were alone at home.

The force of unity has a unique, wondrous quality. It divides misfortune among all, while multiplying joy and happiness among all. This follows from the very source of creation, from the fact that we emerged from the point of the Big Bang, from one single force.

Therefore, today we reveal that all of nature is one system. The closer we come to this force, the more we resemble the unified system of nature, the more we gain, and we gain greatly, instead of one millionth, we get one multiplied by a million!

If, through integral education, we learned to use this correctly, we would attain the pinnacle of happiness.
[154731]
From KabTV’s “New Life 242 – Happiness And Social Ties,” 10/17/13

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Question: Is it possible to alleviate a friend’s illness by taking part of it upon oneself? And how can I transfer a feeling of happiness to a friend?

Answer: If my system is higher than yours, it is more filled with happiness because it exists on a higher level of life and balance. Therefore, when you are in despair, it can pass some of its energy to you, a measure of happiness, to the extent that an inner connection exists between us.

From that higher system, you appear like a small child; it is greater than you because happiness is higher than dissatisfaction in its level of awareness and value. It doesn’t even matter what makes a person happy; it may be something very simple.

Question: How do we actually transmit happiness to one another: through words, feelings, thoughts?

Answer: We can transmit happiness even without any of these; it all depends on the level of our connection: inanimate, vegetative, animate, or human. Happiness flows from a higher system into a lower one depending on the quality of our connection and on how much, at that moment, I am able to annul myself before my friend.

All people are connected with everyone. We don’t need to build this connection or cut it off. We are already tied into one network, like neurons in the brain or like cells in a single body.

The whole universe is one system. The only question is how much we humans recognize this and wish to reveal, enliven, and strengthen this connection between us and all parts of creation. But the connection already exists. The degree to which we become aware of this connection determines the measure of our friendship.

Question: On whom does it depend whether my friend’s happiness will flow into me—on him or on me?

Answer: It requires mutuality; it cannot be done one-sidedly. You must at least slightly open yourself to such a transfer with respect to the friend. Suppose your grief is so great that you completely close off inside yourself and separate from others, then you cannot absorb anything from them.

Question: What does it mean to open myself to the influence of a friend?

Answer: It means to love him as yourself. This is about a true heart-to-heart connection where we do not feel ourselves as separate bodies or foreign systems, but feel so close as if we were one whole.

Our two systems become so intertwined that they function as one. Our connection is limitless; an infinite flow of information, feelings, and thoughts pass between us. These are two systems, but they are linked in the closest possible way.

Question: How should I open myself to a friend for his positive influence?

Answer: In the same way an infant behaves in its mother’s arms, completely annulling itself before her. The infant knows nothing about itself and understands nothing; it is tuned only to absorb everything from its mother. This is why babies develop so quickly; we transmit everything we have to them.

We not only pass on tender words and smiles, but energy, our attitude. A baby absorbs this energy through thousands of sensors it possesses.

We must become like infants, completely annulling ourselves, with all our problems, in relation to the influence of our friends. Then they will be able to transfer their happiness to us as much as they wish. Unlike misfortune, happiness does not decrease when shared; it only grows. The more we make others happy, the happier we become.

The energy of happiness has no limits. To the extent that we can give and fill others, we will feel an even greater desire and capacity to do so in ourselves. After all, in this way we connect to the source of the Big Bang’s energy, to the upper force that created and sustains the entire universe.

Question: Then according to this, people who work in service of others should be very happy. Why don’t we see this?

Answer: Because they give against their will, and therefore they constantly feel drained. A mother, however, who loves her baby, may become physically tired, but she never tires of caring for him or loving him.
[155893]
From KabTV’s “New Life 242 – Happiness And Social Ties,” 10/17/13

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Question: Professor James Tilley, a political scientist, identified five lessons that human politics can learn from the power struggles and social dynamics of chimpanzee groups. 

Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer.

Answer: Friends are friends. But you have to watch out for your enemies. And you can’t keep watch over them if you push them away. It’s best to keep them “in a cage” right next to you.

When building your alliances, pick someone weak, not someone strong. 

My Response: So that you can command them.

Question: And for humans, should it be exactly the same?

Answer: That is how alliances are made. We would like to create them that way too, but it doesn’t always work out.

It’s good to be feared, but it’s better to be liked.

My Response: Of course, it is more peaceful when you are loved. There is nothing better than that, it is the clearest protection. But at the very least, let them fear you.

It is good to be liked, but it is even better to be able to hand out goodies.

My Response: Of course, because then others become dependent on you.

External threats can shore up support (if they are real…).

My Response: An external threat can bring support because it forces you to realize all your internal capabilities, and then you seek partners.

An external threat mobilizes and helps; you can’t move forward without it.

Question: These are five chimpanzee principles. Could you name a few human principles?

Answer: A human has no principles; he is unprincipled. All his “principles” last only for a moment.

Question: Why do chimps have principles but humans don’t?

Answer: Chimpanzees act according to nature. Even their reason, whatever they have, comes from nature; it is the accumulation of various results.

But humans don’t have that because everything in them is constantly developing. Egoism develops, and that is why a person cannot solve today what he decided yesterday using the same method. Because the circumstances are completely different, the ego is different, the view of the world is different, the environment is different.

Question: Then what is “humanity”? People always say: “Be human, be kind,” and so on.

Answer: I believe it is a stance dictated by weakness. It can’t be otherwise, if our nature is egoism. What kind of “humanity” can there be? Only if I want to appear good, or want others to treat me well.

Question: So they are all just masks?

Answer: Only masks. If a chimp’s egoism is natural and everyone understands each other because of it, then a human wraps himself in so many forms that it is very hard to understand him. And on top of that, he uses kindness, reason, and everything else to rule over others, to control, to elevate himself above everyone. So in that sense, he is much worse than any monkey.

Question: What should one do, then? How can one come to light, to goodness?

Answer: There is a method of correction, but for that, a person must understand that he needs to be corrected.

Question: He has to feel that he is like this?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: And if a person comes to realize that he is completely egoistic, that this is his nature…

My Response: Then he must come to Kabbalah. He must study his nature and go forward from there. There is no other way; everything leads to this, and the sooner, the better.

For me, to become “human” means to become like the Creator. It is when a person begins to realize that connection with others is his personal, essential need, one that overrides all others.

Only by developing this completely anti-egoistic, meaning anti-natural, quality within himself can he not only survive, but rise to the stars. Only in this way. It is extremely difficult, impossible, unless you come to the right method.
[235402]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/13/24

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We must invest in education. Only education! Otherwise, nothing will change in the world.

Question: Are you saying the most respected job for a person is an educator?

Answer: Yes.

Question: What does one rear in others?

Answer: He must explain to people in every possible way what the thought of creation is. That only in fulfilling the thought of creation can a person achieve happiness.

Question: What do you mean by “thought of creation?” Should one attain this thought of creation?

Answer: He must attain it.

Question: The educator himself?

Answer: Yes.

Question: And then pass it on to others?

Answer: Yes.

Question: What is the thought of creation and what should he convey to people?

Answer: When a person does good to others, he becomes fulfilled and rejoices.

Question: What do you mean by doing good?

Answer: Doing good means filling the other with what he or she desires.

Comment: But one has many different desires.

My Response: No! It depends on the upbringing. One should be educated to be satisfied with a normal minimal fulfillment.

Question: We need to clarify this. To educate a person so he has reasonable requests, not needing something big, billions, and so on? And then what? So, I live like this, on what is necessary.

Answer: And to feel that if others come to this, it would be the ultimate happiness.

Question: For people to be happy with necessities, not asking for more or beyond? Is that what you call proper education?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Do you want to elaborate, say something elevated?

Answer: When I cut bread, I slice it. This is the first slice.

Comment: Then we will stop at the first slice.
[350119]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 11/19/25

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Question: What is the purpose of the whole huge system of upbringing and education?

Answer: It is spinning around us on its own, and that is all. We cannot do anything about it. You cannot instill anything into a child, just the surrounding, friends, and educators to some extent as well, can. All of this creates the child’s inner world who then enters life. And going forward he already begins to take from life.

Question: What is upbringing in your opinion? You have pushed the education part back a bit.

Answer: First of all, education and upbringing are not the same thing. Education is a filling of a child with all sorts of knowledge. Whereas, upbringing is an example from an adult to a child about how to behave in various situations.

Question: Is an adult an educator, a parent, the environment, and so forth?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Then it turns out that the correct upbringing is to submerge a child in an environment that gives the correct examples. What examples should we show to a child so this child would grow correctly and would be receiving the correct upbringing?

Answer: It is impossible to say. The child himself selects these examples and assimilates them.

Question: I show an example to him, but perhaps he takes from it something of his own from it, something only he understands?

Answer: Yes.

Question: How can I penetrate this world of a child?

Answer: There is no need to! There is no way to! Let him develop independently.

Comment: But I have to somehow direct him.

My Response: I think it is not so necessary. Let him run around the yard and interact with his peers, and he will develop this way.

Question: Is the child supposed to have an ideal surrounding so he would grow up within it?

Answer: Children and animals.

Question: So there are children and animals around, but where is the place for an adult?

Answer: There is no place for an adult there. Adults will impose all sorts of behavioral rules on children. There is no need for this. Gradually a child will grow and he will discover these rules for himself.

Question: Shouldn’t an adult intervene in children’s conflicts?

Answer: No, I think there is no place for educators here.

Question: Then what will grow from the child if you say he is surrounded by children, animals, and nature?

Answer: According to his inner world he absorbs everything that is possible to receive from the world.

Comment: There is drawing, dancing, and nature studies. It happens that the adult comes and says “Let me teach the child these things.”

My Response: There is no need to! He will learn by himself. All these disciplines imposed on him just limit him.

Question: I am talking about simple disciplines like dancing and  drawing. Will he master even this?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Can we draw any conclusions?

Answer: The conclusion is very simple: Leave the children alone, leave them free of your great thoughts and instructions, pedagogy, and everything, everything that is in you.

Question: Then what about parents? Parents and adults still exist. How should parents properly bring up their children?

Answer: After many hundreds of generations, I do not see in any generation that some generation has taken something useful and good from their parents, and achieved something useful and good. Every time we just relearn.

Question: So you learn from your own mistakes, you learn from your life, you learn everything by yourself. And you say that we should leave a person with this “yourself,” leave him to go his own way?

Answer: Yes, I hope that we will come to such a state when we understand how we should treat children in general. I hope this will be understood and realized in the near future.
[349858]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 11/9/25

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Comment: Dividing the world into “good-us” and “bad-them” is rooted in human nature and is the source of many conflicts.

Some research found that monkeys judge other members of their own species with the same degree of prejudice as people judge “newcomers”. Monkey populations form various social communities within their species. After migrating to new communities, the monkeys seemed to judge members of their species alien to their community with a degree of prejudice similar to human prejudices of “strangers.”

It seems that the nature of prejudice is older than the history of civilization and culture, and therefore it is impossible to get rid of biased thinking by appealing to human culture! The real reason for intolerance lies outside the problems of cultural (national, religious, political, etc.) differences, but is much deeper, and not a consequence of cultural evolution.

My Response: No problem of society can be solved at our level, but only by rising to the next level of our development, which is possible only through integral education, because it causes the highest energy of development (light, Ohr Makif) from our future level of “man” at our current level of “animal.”

Only an ascent to the next level of our development will rid us of all animal prejudices, and all other attempts to achieve agreement, understanding, or equality are useless. It is better to look at ourselves soberly, friends.
[71476]
From KabTV’s “Evolution Beyond Darwin’s Theory” 3/2/12

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Question: Today, children are also taught to share and to give in school, but when they go out into the world, they fall under the influence of different values. What should we add to the existing education system in order to form a human being and not just a specialist?

Answer: A typical contemporary school cannot raise a human being or instill the right attitude toward others because this is possible only through the proper environment (society) that must first be created around the students.

No school in the world sets this as a goal. Students everywhere are taught to achieve formal success in exams, to win competitions, and to step over others. The main goal in life is to succeed and to acquire a profession that will bring the highest income possible.

This was the right approach in a competitive society. But today, we have entered an integral society where the law is: “It is not the strongest who conquers all, it is the one who unites with others who win (along with all).” Therefore the need has arisen to cultivate a new kind of human being, not an adversary of all, but a friend to all.

Raising this kind of person goes against our egoistic nature. Therefore, a special method (the wisdom of Kabbalah) and a means (the force of correction) are required. Otherwise, people will once again distort the idea of unity into a form of “Workers of the world, unite!” and will again try to build socialism or kibbutzes. As long as we act from within our inherent egoism, nothing else will come to mind.

Therefore, education is the fundamental problem of society. Without solving it, society will never rebuild itself as required by nature. And such rebuilding is possible only through the application of Kabbalistic principles.
[4148]
From the KabTV 6/4/9

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Question: How is poor education related to a lack of connection between people? I don’t see the connection here.

Answer: What we call “education” provides education, but does not educate or develop. School does not build a human out of a child, but only gives him knowledge: in physics, chemistry, and so on.

We call the educational system a system of upbringing, but it does not provide upbringing at all. This is evident from the results as well as from the subjects that are taught there.

How many lessons and discussions in school are aimed at nurturing a person? Does anyone even care about that?

The schedule includes only physics, chemistry, reading, and writing, and then we wonder why we have such difficulties with children. School produces robots who have been taught to work at enterprises. This is the task of the school: to prepare a worker (an engineer, etc.) who will work on the “conveyor belt.”

And what kind of person he will become and how he will live, no one in the education system cares. Because it is not, in principle, a system of upbringing!

This system of education has never set the goal of upbringing a person. It arose during the Industrial Revolution, when it was necessary to turn peasants into workers.

That is when the modern school was invented to teach a little reading, writing, and so on, so that someone who had worked with cows and on the land all his life could work with machines, understand the simplest physical and chemical laws and could follow instructions.

This is what school was built on and it continues to exist in this form to this very day. But today we must move on to a truly “educational” system of upbringing, and that is something entirely different.

It is defined not by how much you know in physics or mathematics, but by how much of a human you are! A human being is someone who is connected with others! Only this connection allows you to be called a human, not the amount of scientific knowledge.

If you succeed only in science, it will help you only to create a more terrible weapon. After all, you will add the knowledge you acquired in school to your uncorrected ego and with its help you will go and use everyone else. And this will determine your success in life.

This is how people are raised today; the first questions: what major did you choose, and how much can you can earn it? And this is called education?!

If people see that a system has appeared that truly allows giving children an education, they will immediately respond. After all, this problem is clear to everyone.

Today, people don’t even want to have children, they have nothing to give children. They don’t want to bring them into this world to condemn them to meaningless suffering.

Therefore, it is necessary to convey to people that all the problems in society and in our private life stem only from the lack of connection between us. And this connection can be achieved only by the path of light.
[16201]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/28/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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