Question: Research in the US and Europe shows that one out of five women in big cities does not want to have children. Forty years ago, on the other hand, one out of ten women did not want to have children. What is the reason that the number of women who don’t want to have children has doubled?

Answer: Women have lost the motherly instinct and don’t want to have children. Even if they do, it is only later when they are nearing forty, so that they can enjoy life some more with children.

They take into account the fact that once they have a child they become trapped in obligations for life! It isn’t only financial obligations, but also their commitment to their child. This is simply unacceptable for the growing ego. Today everyone wants to be by himself, totally free, without even having to work. A person is connected to the Internet, he has a smart phone, and people don’t want to be close to anyone. Having a child is an instinctive connection to someone who depends on me and I depend on him.

The moment a woman becomes pregnant, she immediately begins to think only about the life that is being formed inside her and about the fact that she has to totally dedicate herself to it. Her world narrows and all her attention is focused on the embryo that is developing inside her. What’s next? She looks ahead and thinks about spending the rest of her life giving birth, raising, and bring up this creature. Will he live in 100-200 years? No he won’t. He will probably have his own offspring. So why take part in that and dedicate her whole life to that?!

Question: Does she think that a child will deprive her of pleasures in this world?

Answer: Of course, what is more, she feels that a child puts her in prison, that he makes her committed as if he ties her arms and legs and doesn’t allow her to think about anything else but him. The child will be stuck to her and pull all her attention. This is indeed how nature works.

Nature gradually increases a man’s and woman’s ego and allows them not to act automatically as earlier generations did. In the past a woman had to get married very early in life and have children, raise them, build a home, help them with their education, do whatever possible for them, and die. They will cry for her when she is dead, but is this what her life would come down to?!

This is a healthy scrutiny that the ego invokes in her, and she doesn’t want it. She doesn’t care where she will be buried, how, and by whom. She already pays taxes and has different obligations. All she wants is to live and not to owe anything to anyone, and especially not to bury herself while still young.

It is only if a person cares about the goal of creation enough that it obliges him to have a family, to have children, to raise them, and to take care of everything else; he will do it, but only when it is profitable.  .

And it will only be advantageous when he knows that he has to act the way that most people in this world do, which means to have children, to raise them, to care for them, to support them, and to help them stand on their own two feet, in order to attain the goal of creation. At the same time he has to correct himself and thus correct the world too!

When a woman has a child and raises him, she actually makes him perform his correction! This is going to be the only incentive to have children in the future. Otherwise, if at the moment one out of five women doesn’t want to have kids, in a couple of years one out of two women will not want to have children and the world population will diminish to half a billion people.

Question: What can a woman think about the goal of creation in order to have a child in the ideal state?

Answer: Our sufferings force us to find a clear answer to the question about the meaning of life. This is the only goal that a woman should have in order to attain the upper management and to see where nature or the Creator is leading us.

When we discover that, we will reveal how we should behave in every aspect of life in order to attain the eternal upper goal, which is considered upper in relation to our temporary life. Then we will feel the benefit in our ego and will have children, bring them up, and dedicate ourselves to the family.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 3/2/16

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Comment: In the framework of studies that were conducted for two years by the Adler Institute on the subject of education, a poll was conducted in which it was clarified that around 48% of Israeli parents don’t talk to their children. In an additional poll that was conducted among 300 Israeli teenagers aged 13-18, around 40% of them confirmed that they are not in communication with their parents and are not familiar with their history and roots.

Answer: This is understandable because today we are rising above the level of corporeal development where everything was built upon a traditional household in which parents and children were strongly connected to each other. For the most part, the son was heir to his father’s profession, built a house next to his father’s house, and so on.

But for some time now we have not been in this situation. With the development of industry, everyone was drawn to the cities, and through the development of a variety of professions, the connection between “fathers and sons” was broken.

When the generation develops with such turbulence and rapidity, when the perspective on the world is changed entirely in a few years, then not only the children, but also the parents don’t recognize themselves compared to what they were five years before. While in the past children would leave the home of their parents at the age of 18-20, now, already at the age of 11-12, the child doesn’t want to feel that he owes something to someone, his parents are the ones who owe him something while he doesn’t owe them anything.

We have reached a situation in which it is up to us to begin to rise above the corporeal level, where people are connected with each other only from a physical aspect, according to the household in a traditional manner. As of today, what else can parents give to their children?! They can no longer convey their education to a child because it differs from what the present generation requires.

Not even the present education corresponds to the needs of a young person so that he can develop in his life. Everything is changing rapidly and children don’t feel the need to communicate with their parents. The parents also don’t feel any attraction to their children because they are no longer realizing themselves through them.

We are found in a very interesting situation. So that the need for a link between the generations will appear, which is generally what happens in the transition from one generation to another; there must be a common aspiration, a common flow of life, in which gradually the purpose of life now becomes clear.

The wisdom of Kabbalah gives that to us. The attainment of the purpose of life and the purpose of all of creation is the same purpose. Then the children will be able to be “nourished” by their parents. In this situation, the parents can give their children home schooling beginning from a tender age, instilling in them the right foundation for all of life. Both of them will be found within the same internal and external orientation, current, and movement.

They will have something to talk about with each other, something to convey to each other. In this way, the link between the generations will appear, no longer on the corporeal level as it was throughout the history of humanity, but on the spiritual level, on the level of the connection of the soul.

Then they will begin to discover the deep and spiritual connection between them; they will discover why specifically these are their parents and these are their children, why specifically contacts like these are happening between them, including physical contacts on the corporeal level, and then a transition to the level of souls will happen.

Question: What kind of goal will be determined?

Answer: The goal of humanity is to reach an inclusive mutual connection. The connection will also be directed toward familial connections that will become strengthened thanks to the spiritual connection. The physical connections will remain on the same level, and there will even be more independence.

This will be a completely new system of mutual connections, supported by the entire society. And so new mutual relationships between parents and children will prevail; the connection will be new.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 2/29/16

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Question: Why is a person’s birth always in great pain?

Answer: It is written in the Torah, “…in pain you shall bear children.” Spiritual birth cannot take place without pain, so giving birth in our world is painful; this is the root and branch.

Even elementary particles that connect feel pain in the creation of a new connection. Each particle must diminish its influence and obey the opposite particle and thus create a kind of conglomerate, a connection of opposite attributes.

If a new life is created—which means that the transformation becomes you are for me and I am for you, alternately—it turns out that everything is based on painful concessions.

When it comes to the birth of the next spiritual level, it is always painful since you must ascend above yourself, above your ego.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/3/16

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New Life #614 – A School For Life
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel.

Summary

The educational, military, and medical systems are conservative, they don’t like change; what was, will be.

The school is an institution that began around 150-200 years ago laborers and industrial workers needed to be trained.

I suffered a lot in school during my childhood; eventually I went to study at a night school; I also studied at a university. In the last forty years I have been involved in the investigation of Kabbalah and ontology because it interests me. And I see how our egoism has evolved and we can not sit and study only because we must; it must really interest us.

It is necessary to take children to see a variety of workplaces, creating a real “university of life.” Children should be allowed flexibility and diversity so that they can study what interests them. Studies show that teaching boys and girls together disturbs the children a lot and arouses a great deal of pressure and tension in a class.

Today a school doesn’t build a person and hardly imparts any knowledge. Children are dissatisfied, parents are dissatisfied, teachers are dissatisfied; the system has stagnated. Today the educational system doesn’t educate, it doesn’t build a person, and it doesn’t teach correct relationships between people.

To better prepare our children for life, we must first imagine an optimal life. To do this requires interesting and relevant teachers of life.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #614 – A School For Life,” 8/25/15

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New Life 615 – Learning To Be Human
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

We don’t build schools that are suitable for children; we treat them like bottles on an assembly line. So the school is not a good place, a place full of anxiety, pain, arguments, aggression, and competition.

We don’t build human beings; we don’t teach them how to relate to one another or how to choose a profession that is right for them. We don’t create a sense of togetherness and connecting to each other at the time of study, and thus we see the outcome in our society.

The value we should educate children according to today is to be a human being. We have to teach them about relationships between people and social psychology.

We need to start by training parents so that our children can receive a new education. Through discussion circles, joint discussions, and games children should learn proper social interactions. The school of the future will look very different from today’s schools. One third of the time will be devoted to discussion circles. Another third of the time will be devoted to visiting different places, while the last third will be devoted to classic studies of elementary subjects like mathematics, etc. When children visit different places outside the school, they will learn different things that they will perceive differently.

The most important thing a child should learn is how to become a human being who is part of society, a human being that can communicate with everyone. A good student will be one who learns how to get along with others everywhere and who has the right social relations. A person who knows how to properly connect to others will succeed in life in everything he does everywhere. In the future the most highly demanded profession will be a social guide, an expert who can teach people how to get along with each other.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 615 – Learning To Be Human,” 8/25/15

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New Life 623 – The Software Of Life
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

If we knew from the previous New Year that this would be our year, would we have accepted it?

But it doesn’t depend on us, for “Against your will you live” (Pirkei Avot 4:22). In addition, we don’t know what will happen in another moment. Toward what are we developing? We are living within a general program that acts on us at each and every moment. The wisdom of Kabbalah investigates this program, the forces above our universe.

Throughout our lives we develop unconsciously. Negative forces push us forward. The goal that nature has prepared for us is our unlimited development, and this requires a transformation of characteristics.

Our general characteristic is a desire to receive for ourselves; we run after all kinds of things and exhaust ourselves. In fact we are now living in hell, and paradise, another world, is really close to here. To enter into the second world, it is up to us to learn to open our heart to others and connect with them.

The final objective of development that nature has defined for humanity is the acquisition of a new characteristic, a desire to bestow. Nothing will be changed for the future human except relationships with others. He will feel that what is outside of him is as he is. The future human will develop through internal technology. He will learn how to accept the higher state. There is a psychological hurdle that one must go through to feel the new world. Israel is the place where the future human will begin to develop.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 623 – The Software Of Life,” 9/8/15

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New Life 693 – Love Of The World
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

All of us have been connected with each other since the moment creation began to evolve because we come from a single source. That single source wants us to evolve, like a father and mother, it wants us to attain everything good, love. Nature provides us with the example of a mother’s love, from the moment a new life comes to exist in her, a feeling of love is also born in her. Love is expressed through filling another with what is good for him, with what he loves, what he lacks. If we were to love many people and were able to give, we would have unlimited pleasure. Therefore we have been commanded, “And you shall love” (Leviticus 19:18).

We are all a single soul, but this is hidden from us. We feel estranged from one another and the connection between us has become rejection. Soon all the inhabitants of the world will have to discover the inner connection between them, and then above the rejection there will be love, as it is written, “Love covereth all transgressions” (Proverbs 10:12); the fire of love is ignited above the fire of hatred. Kabbalah teaches us how to achieve this. Natural love will probably not crumble within the family and among the people because a new connection must be born. Love is the peak of human evolution; from love of others we ultimately reach love of the Creator, the general force that connects everything.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 693 – Love Of The World,” 2/16/16

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Comment: Modern genetics can now enable scientists to change the genes of babies so that they will be healthier, more beautiful and clever when they are born and thus augment all of humanity.

Technology will also allow us to control the genes that are passed on to the next generation. Is it right to program the future child?

Answer: Science offers us many options and the question is how we use them.

Comment: Parents don’t want their child to suffer.

Answer: If we are given this option, I am in favor of determining in advance whether a child is healthy in the first place. If we could discover the gene of happiness and luck, it would be quite good. But that is not in our genes. Happiness is on a level higher than the level of biological research. When we have the chance to make people healthier physically and mentally, then of course we should use this technology.

People may object to this, especially religious people who claim that everything stems from the Creator, but if this is the case, what is the point in taking any measures and why should we go to the doctor, etc? It says that a doctor is given the permission to heal people since the treatment includes both a diagnosis and other elements that affect our body, and so we should determine and do it. If we could determine in the early stages of pregnancy that a baby has certain defects that cannot be corrected, the pregnancy should be terminated.

First, there is the time during which the embryo is formed and we should determine his attributes before it is formed. First there are the three days of the absorption of the semen and then another forty days of the creation of the embryo during which it is not considered an embryo yet. If we can determine what will happen to it during this time, then from a Kabbalistic, medical, and religious perspective it is not considered murder or the termination of life. This is the reason that we should use these technologies. I don’t mean that we should go against the upper nature in any way! On the contrary, I believe that after forty days, when the embryo receives its soul based on the roots and branches in our world, it is forbidden to intervene with its development. But we can determine all its attributes before that.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 2/15/16

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New Life 692 – What Is Love?
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Our nature is a desire to enjoy and we love whatever gives us pleasure. We love many things depending on the hierarchy of our desires for: food, sex, family, money, respect, and knowledge. If there weren’t hate, there wouldn’t be love, and the intensity of love depends on the intensity of hate. Hate can be toward someone or something or toward a situation in which we lack something that we love. Human development means the correction of our definitions as to what is good or bad, what we enjoy and what we don’t. Man is a social creature so he can determine values not according to his own feeling but according to the well being of society.

So why is it important to me that I am loved? Because deep inside we are all connected to one another like one body, and because of this internal connection I greatly care about what others think of me or say about me, and just as I have a desire to be loved I also have a desire to love.

Children who grow up without loving parents are really miserable, because when we don’t feel a connection between us we feel lost. Love gives a person a feeling of internal abundance that revives him, and it is a much deeper emotion that we actually know at the moment. We have yet to discover what it is.

Today people draw away from family connections; love disappears and in its place, a new connection will be built. The secret of life is connected to love, to the connection between opposites, between love and hate. Without this there is no life.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 692 – What Is Love?” 2/16/16

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Question: Scientists who studied 42 babies came to the conclusion that babies see things that adults cannot see.

Answer: This is typical not only of babies. I remember that we were having lunch once, and my wife was serving the meal to everyone around the table when our little daughter who was about two years-old pointed at an empty chair and asked her mother why she didn’t serve him anything, as if someone was sitting in the empty chair.

Question: In the above study, scientists refer to the same things. Babies from the age of six months to three years notice different small and “unimportant” things that a grownup wouldn’t notice. Babies also can see mysterious figures.

Answer: This assertion has a strong basis. Babies have the feeling of the upper world. A small child suddenly can begin to pray, although he doesn’t understand anything, is not connected to the Creator, is not raised in a religious family, and has not read or heard anything about it yet. However, he already feels that since his internal nature pushes him toward the upper level, so young children have this inclination until it gradually disappears because of the external influences of our world.

Question: Does this phenomenon have a Kabbalistic basis?

Answer: Of course, the Reshimot (reminiscences) are the basis of a person’s nature, and it develops for a while. If a person continues to develop it, he continues to grow naturally into the spiritual world, but since we don’t develop it, it remains in us in its embryonic phase, and only our ego and our body develop while the spiritual part remains inside us.

Question: Do people who begin to engage in the wisdom of Kabbalah seemingly return to the phase of infancy?

Answer: Not only that, they return to their embryonic phase, and when a person goes through spiritual levels, he feels to some extent as if he were in his mother’s womb and then as if he is born and develops.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 2/12/16

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