Question: How should a person behave in order not to take away the freewill of someone else?

Answer: Love, but love can also be different, like a mother who smothers a child with her love. To love is to put the other’s desire and his way above your own.

Question: Let’s say parents build a child’s life according to their understanding of what is right and what is not. How can one determine the right path?

Answer: It is from the fact that you take the desires of the child and work with them, not with your own. That is why the Bible says to educate a child according to his way.

Question: How did you give such a foundation to your children?

Answer: I tried to ensure that they were more or less in a society in which they would not catch any viruses. Only this, nothing else.

They were brought up in normal conditions within the framework of a conservative education. I believe that this is how it should be with children; otherwise, you still fall under other currents that today have no direction, but just follow wherever the current takes them.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Find the Purpose of Your Child” 6/27/12

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Question: Do you think that in the process of education it is better not to put pressure on the child, not to impose your views on him?

Answer: What do you mean by not to put pressure on? As a father, am I obligated to raise him? Of course I am.

I have to give him a certain amount of knowledge, skills, foundations, and examples, and some of them will develop into habits with the help of which he will behave in a certain way all his life. There is no escape from this!

You are the result of the education you received no matter what it was, but you are the product of your environment in childhood and in youth.

We cannot get rid of it. The upper governance created such a system around us in this way. Everyone is born in a certain circle, in a certain environment and surroundings. It is foolish to object to this if everything is arranged so by nature.

Comment: Information received from parents remains for life: “Dad said,” “Mom said.”

My Response: You cannot do anything about this. This is how everything is arranged in the world. Therefore, first of all, it is desirable to educate parents so that they properly educate their children. That is all. After all, the problem of education is the only problem in the world.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Find the Purpose of Your Child” 6/27/12

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In the News (EurekaAlert!): “Researchers from Japan have found that young infants can make and act on moral judgments, shedding light on the origin of morality.

“In a study recently published in Nature Human Behaviour, researchers from Osaka University, in collaboration with Otsuma Women’s University, NTT Communication Science Laboratories, and the University of Tokyo, revealed that 8-month-old infants can punish antisocial behavior exhibited by a third party. Thus, the motivation driving punishment might be intrinsic as opposed to learned. …

“‘We wanted to know whether third-party punishment of antisocial others is present at a very young age, because this would help to signal whether morality is learned.’

“To tackle this problem, the researchers developed a new research paradigm. First, they familiarized infants with a computer system in which animations were displayed on a screen. The infants could control the actions on the screen using a gaze-tracking system such that looking at an object for a sufficient period of time led to the destruction of the object. The researchers then showed a video in which one geometric agent appeared to ‘hurt’ another geometric agent, and watched whether the infants ‘punished’ the antisocial geometric agent by gazing at it.

“’The results were surprising,’ says Kanakogi.  ‘We found that preverbal infants chose to punish the antisocial aggressor by increasing their gaze towards the aggressor.’ …

“’The observation of this behavior in very young children indicates that humans may have acquired behavioral tendencies toward moral behavior during the course of evolution,’ says Kanakogi. ‘Specifically, the punishment of antisocial behavior may have evolved as an important element of human cooperation.'”

Question: How do you feel about this? Do we have it in us? Can this point be developed in us?

Answer: Yes, but this is not because of the correction of a person. This is because people today are born with such developed qualities that they are more empathetic and understand empathy more. This is a consequence of the development of the soul.

That is, the suffering has accumulated and concentrated in such a way that people can feel the other.

We see this both in public relations and in what people write and say. People are learning. People are learning and they are ready to understand each other more. This is based on egoism; there is nothing altruistic about this.

Question: Does it mean that now precisely such souls are descending into the world that can empathize?

Answer: They understand empathy more because they are more interested in it personally.

Question: What should it develop into?

Answer: They will conclude that altruism is preferable to egoism.

Comment: You keep adding that egoism is the basis of everything.

My Response: Of course. This is already good. This is a form of developed socialism.

Question: How can we accelerate this? Should this be accelerated?

Answer: It can be through all kinds of examples and encouragement.

Question: You keep saying that it is necessary to create a society that will constantly encourage these good deeds. Do we then disperse this empathy more and more?

Answer: Possibly, yes. It is possible that this will accelerate it in some way.

Question: What is the final state of this point of empathy?

Answer: The final state is the creation of a good, correct, real socialist society.

Question: What, in your opinion, is true socialism?

Answer: It is an ideal social system when everything is done to make people feel good. But absolutely everyone.

That is, everything is built in such a way that you cannot do something in one way here and in a different way there, better for some and worse for others, and so on. This is a must for everyone!

Question: Do we have these presuppositions? If we just need to develop this, then we will reach such a society?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: Then a person is born in order to reach this socialist society in such a form.

My Response: Of course.

Question: Where is this upper force that you talk about all the time? Where is the Creator?

Answer: Without the upper force, they will not be able to do this.

Question: What do we have to tell the Creator to get there?

Answer: Allow our egoism to agree and come to such a result.

Comment: Otherwise, our egoism says: “I need more, not him.”

My Response: It will not allow us anywhere. Any step aside, either to the left or to the right, will mean death. Moreover, in such fanatical, ugly, and underhanded forms that with all our pre-thought-out and prepared beautiful intentions, suddenly we will see that I cannot dodge it in any way. I want to reach out and give, but instead, I suddenly see in the process that I cannot give, but only take.

Comment: I see. This is egoism.

My Response: Yes, it is such a fight within yourself, but it is beautiful.

Question: But is it really important for me to see this? To say that this is inside me.

Answer: Of course.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/13/22

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New Life 257 – Interdependent Relationships In The Neighborhood
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

How do we elevate relations between neighbors to a higher level?

A person of today generally wants to close himself off in his apartment and not be disturbed, but this doesn’t happen. Instead of building more walls and further isolation, one must begin to build relationships and connections. The only remedy for any problem, neighborhood problems included, is to build good relationships and connections between us. If we hire someone else to address problems, it will not help. Nature is pushing us to connect and integrate with each other.

Neighbors should gather socially to get to know each other better. Then they can share their mutual concerns and think together about how to address problems through building good relationships between them.

Games and activities that connect children can be an effective approach to also begin to connect their mothers. Ask “What do we have in common? What don’t we have in common?” Such discussions can lead neighbors to explore how they can improve their situation together. Shared classes, a shared picnic, or a shared barbecue will fill everyone with good feelings.

But above all, we need to change our attitudes to each other. In a perfect neighborhood everyone feels like one family: close, connected and concerned about each other and the fulfillment of each individual’s needs and our common needs together.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 257 – Interdependent Relationships In The Neighborhood,” 11/19/13
This summary was written and edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman

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Question: Children are like the next degree, the resulting derivatives. How can it be that a person does not have the data that parents received—you, for example?

Answer: How can he receive this? What does matter have to do with it? It does not exist at all. This is the most minimal layer that is revealed to us. All our other levels are much higher. Our world is the lowest. All Reshimot come from the worlds of Assiya, Yetzira, Beria, and Atzilut. So, nothing like that can even be here.

Question: But does your corporeal child exist at the spiritual level?

Answer: He has a Reshimo, nothing more! If he yearns, he will enter this system. I cannot really help him here even if he is my favorite child.

I will help another physically, a complete stranger, because he has a great desire to come closer to the Creator, to reveal the upper world. I will naturally help him based on my new data. That is, spiritual closeness is not physical closeness.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Invention of Cinema” 2/11/12

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New Life 256 – Good Neighboring
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

How do we turn from merely tolerating our neighbors to a loving connection with them? In a certain way, our neighbors are closer to us than any other people. They affect us in our homes when we perceive their noise, music, odors, arguments, conversations, etc. When we create positive relationships with our neighbors, our homes and neighborhoods become places of safety, serenity, and tranquility, enveloped in a cloud of goodness and calm.

Dr. Laitman offers a set of practices that turns bad neighbors into good neighbors so that it becomes a pleasure to be around them. It begins with a set of five or ten meetings between neighbors, perhaps twice per week, in which we introduce the principle of “Love covers all crimes.” Rather than focus on any complaint, we leave the crimes “downstairs” while we build connection above them. Even if it is far from our actual experience, we must imagine our neighbors as ideal neighbors. When I pass their door, I bless them and only think positive thoughts about them. And so on.

Within a month or two everything will change. It will start to hurt my self-respect to think anything bad about my neighbors.

We can evaluate the shift that occurs by asking: How did my opinions about my neighbors change? How much did unpleasant thoughts about them awaken in me? How much was I able or unable to overcome these thoughts? How many transgressions are now occurring compared to what was happening before? We will find that we not only have much better relations with our neighbors, but also within our family and work relationships. Our efforts will lead to warm embraces filled with mutual love, to good feeling and contentment in our shared environment.
This summary was written and edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman
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From KabTV’s “New Life 256 – Good Neighboring,” 11/18/13

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Comment: I’ve read very touching stories that lead to important questions. One girl writes on Facebook: “I am 13 years old. Six months ago, I started losing my hair and I lost all my hair. I refused to go to school because I was sure that everyone would laugh at me. But 12 of my friends came to me with their heads completely shaved. They did this out of solidarity with me. Three of them were girls. I burst into tears. I wrote about it on my Facebook. I was told in the comments that they didn’t do it from the heart, that they know that their hair will grow back, but yours won’t, that they just want to become famous, and so on. But I don’t want to hear them,” the girl writes. “They are still my best friends forever!”.

My Response: Of course!

Question: Tell me, please, even if this was done like what people wrote, with such an intention, what kind of act is this?

Answer: This is a high deed. It is compassion, it is empathy, and it means a lot.

Compassion is a very powerful force. As a result, they will show everyone at school how to act, what kind of relationships should be. And I think they will quickly stop paying attention to appearance.

Question: Do you think this is a step toward that?

Answer: Yes. Or maybe, on the contrary, many people at school will cut their hair out of solidarity.

Question: In spiritual understanding, what is compassion?

Answer: In the spiritual understanding, compassion is life in another.

Question: Is this an attempt to live in another, what we see with these children?

Answer: Yes, it is spiritual. This is a step that is close to spiritual.

Question: And living in another is my dissolving into him or taking him into myself? Can I say that, or does it matter?

Answer: It is in the other. I want to enter him, I want to exist in him, in all his problems.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/15/22

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There is a funny story about a seven-year-old girl Gili giving parking tickets to cars parked near her house. But she wrote on the infringement note: “Thanks for the great parking” and drew a heart.

Why do only children think about making others feel good? Apparently, children are smarter than adults. After all, it does not occur to us to give each other such cards and smiles at random passers-by. The egoism of an adult is very big because we have to rise on top of it, above all nations and countries.

Instead, we go along with our egoism. It controls us, not that we control it. It is good that we have such children next to us. Let’s hope that when they grow up, they will be able to change something in this world.

Although most likely, it is now, while the children are small that they can do such noble deeds from the bottom of their hearts. Later their egoism will grow, and they will join the common competition with everyone. Maybe they will even join some party, and then we will see them handing out completely different flyers.

At the moment children want to be guided by their good intentions. Cute children! But then their egoism will grow, and they will start distributing other leaflets, campaigning for some party or against someone. In such a way they will join in the squabble going on between everyone. Cute children will be corrupted and join the ranks of the fighting parties.

It is necessary to go by faith above reason and think that salvation is only in connection. Otherwise, this is the end. We can win and stand up against everyone, but not against our egoism, which will bury us.

To take control over your egoism means to appreciate something more than a sense of your own rightness. That is, you strive to cover all crimes with love and desire nothing but that. The main thing is connecting with other people. This is the only thing that counts.

But as a child grows, his will to receive grows and forces him to make larger and more far-reaching calculations. There is nothing one can do about it, what is left is only to accept by faith above reason that everyone is obliged to concede. Instead of trying to win and outwit the other, we need to think about how to outwit ourselves in order to be together with others. The war should be internal, not external.
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From KabTV’s “An Inside Look” 1/15/23

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can music be used in education?“

There are numerous examples of how music and songs are used in education in order to let students absorb the material more easily. Moreover, by learning various subjects through music, the students themselves learn how to teach others, their next generation, and so on. If students sing together in their learning, then they also add a component of a common bond and adaptation to their learning.

More importantly, however, than using music to better learn within the current educational frameworks, we need a different kind of education altogether, one in which the students would understand the need to positively connect.

In other words, as our world becomes increasingly connected, then we need a renewed emphasis in our educational methods on the need for positive connection. The first takeaway students should extract from their learning is that without positive connection in their society, groups and various interactions, nothing will help them in life.

Such an approach disregards the current educational approach at its core, which is primarily based on individual learning, development and achievements. Developing ourselves in individual competition against one another is an outdated educational approach that no longer suits our globally interconnected and interdependent world. All learning, development and achievements should then come after establishing the new emphasis in education—on the need to positively connect.

The world thus needs new kinds of educators who know how to enter the students’ hearts and generate a well-connected atmosphere. Doing so also requires that the educators themselves grow a positive connection among each other. Indeed, such a vision is distant from our current educational frameworks, and it seems impossible to educate teachers in such a way today. Perhaps it would become possible to reach some kind of an agreement where teachers first establish a positive connection among themselves in the teachers’ rooms, and then from a well-connected state that they reach, they pass that atmosphere over into their classrooms. Certainly, then, we would start seeing better results across the board: first in the more harmonious social atmosphere of kindness and care, then in mutual assistance and the desire to learn better.

There is a long road ahead to develop new educators—and thus a new educational system—based on the need to positively connect throughout society. Along the way, teachers would need to have both their material and ideological interests in such ideas piqued. That is, they would need to receive a satisfying paycheck for their educational work, and also learn the many ins and outs of positive human connection while exercising it among their fellow educators.

Based on the KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur on November 10, 2022. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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Comment: Nina writes: “The other day, the cat that lives with me gave birth to kittens. A few days later, it killed them. Tell me, please, is this a natural phenomenon among animals? If so, what is its root? Maybe this is a consequence of our terrible behavior?”

My Response: It is quite possible that the cat feels what is happening around, and this is how it acts with its children, with the kittens.

Question: Does it mean that this option is possible?

Answer: It is possible.

Question: So, we do not deny that there is such a natural phenomenon?

Answer: Of course there is. What is a natural phenomenon in us? People do not want to have children. In a way, it is also like a murder that I do not want to give life to another.

Question: That is, I can and I do not want to. Is this what you call practically like a murder?

Answer: How else? I do not want to give life to another.

Question: Why do we have this in us? Why do I not want to?

Answer: Because I do not see any sense in this for myself, for my egoism. Because it will obligate me. This is the first. I do not consider that I can give life and thus correct some other soul, another piece of the world. I do not think about this. I think about myself.

Comment: Going back to the cat, you say that such an option is possible, that the cat feels…

My Response: It feels the environment and thus the hatred that it feels around it transfers to its children and does not want their lives.

Question: What is the conclusion from all this?

Answer: If people correct themselves, animals will be corrected.

I am talking only about changing the attitude of man to man, which is the highest of all natural levels.

The attitude of man to man, man to animal, man to plant, man to earth, and so on—all this is included in the attitude of man to man. If we correct our attitude, then all of nature that is below these levels will be corrected, and everyone will be fine.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 9/22/22

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