Comment: Two young men, aged 19 and 23, were tried for stealing car radios in Odessa. They admitted their guilt. Yet instead of three years in prison, they were sentenced to probation. The judge heard the case and decided that although they are adults, they were actually still children in their development, with a primitive vocabulary and so on.

The sentence obliged them to read 5th grade literature including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, White Fang by Jack London, and Taras Shevchenko’s poem “Days Pass, Nights Pass.” The judge decided that classic literature would help criminals understand universal values and attitudes to private property.

Do such extraordinary human decisions mean something?

My Response: Yes. This shows us how much we lack the correct humanistic education.

Question: You are talking about humanistic education. What do you mean by that?

Answer: A kind attitude to others, that’s all. It is when your inner preparation does not allow you to be mean or rude or to cause harm and pain to another.

Simply put, it is when you care. Correct literature, particularly children’s literature, especially in childhood when children cannot feel this, should instill empathy for the other within them. This is the most important thing in birth and development, the feeling of the other, feeling what he feels, empathizing with him, and so on. There is absolutely no such thing in children by nature, and we must somehow teach them this.

Today we say the opposite: “If they punch you in the face, punch them back even harder!”—and so on.

This is our current education—TV programs and everything else.

Question: Would you want to turn it all around and provide only humane education instead?

Answer: Yes. Only empathy for others can bring us closer together and save humanity.

Comment: It seems like the judge might have had such a spark to educate in this way.

My Response: Maybe he is just a wise man and understands that nothing else will work on them. Young fools.

Question: Would it be even worse if they went to jail?

Answer: Yes, of course. They would go through the “school of life” there and will come out even bigger criminals.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/28/21

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Comment: If we consider the system of punishment that exists today, it has, as it were, two principles. One principle is more humane where the attempt is to instill some moral norms through forced physical labor.

The other principle only involves punishment for all misdeeds. This system has no so-called middle line or correction.

My Response: But it cannot be here because it is not demanded by society itself. If you ask ordinary people or even the same lawyers, they have a lot of theories and philosophies, but in principle they don’t even know what they want to build in general.

What society would they like to see? What kind of person should be in it?

They do everything not from practice or from a plan that is aimed at educating a person, at changing society, and at a vision of the future, but only from what interests them at the moment. What should we do to earn money for ourselves, to become famous, and to rise above others and show off how we work?

Everything is aimed at justifying their appointment as their source of sustenance and success. As long as the system is selfish, it will continue to exist.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Presumption of Innocence” 3/10/10

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Comment: You say that a person can be corrected only by seeing from the perspective of what he is doing to his soul. That is, when committing an offense, I see what I am doing to my eternal part when I reveal the whole picture of cause-and-effect in its overall scope and not at some short period of life.

My Response: Even within a short period of life a person can feel that everything is interconnected, can understand that he is connected to a common system, and can begin to realize that all other people are part of him, that life is short, and he will soon discover—either in this life or after—that by harming others he basically harms himself.

Moreover, this is the most direct harm that he inflicts on himself because in reality, we all represent one whole. We just do not see this system because it is revealed to us when we leave our body.

A person begins to master the properties of leaving the body either during this life or after when the body dies if you give him the opportunity to somehow feel it..

But it is possible. This is what Kabbalah deals with—a method for mastering the feeling that we are one single whole. Only in this case will a person have a different attitude toward others, as toward himself. So it is written: “Love your neighbor as yourself” because in this way we come to the only correct state that actually exists in the universe and only is hidden from us.

The secret world—the one that we do not feel—includes all of us as a single whole, as cells of one body.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Presumption of innocence” 3/10/10

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Question: In ancient times in Israel, people who inadvertently harmed someone were placed in cities of refuge until the special jubilee year (Shmita Yovel). What happened if a person did not correct himself by that year? Was he still forgiven?

Answer: No. In the society where he lived, they would work on him. Punishment, of course, existed, but not in the form of imprisonment.

A person must be in an environment that not directly, but indirectly explains to him how to be a different element of society. And so, after some time, he receives a certain influence.

Give that criminal an opportunity to work and study philosophy, psychology, and other sciences; place him in a different environment so that he is in close contact with the others. This is the only way to influence a person.

And we, on the contrary, throw him into an environment of even greater criminals for whom perpetrating a crime is a brave deed. As a result, he comes out ready for new criminal actions.

Is this called punishment? This is called isolating him from society! You prepare him for more crimes. This is what we see.

We ourselves created such a society and systems of punishment. And according to Kabbalah, there should be a system not of punishment, but of correction.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Presumption of innocence” 3/10/10

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Question: Despite the fact that now schools are trying to separate boys and girls does this remain at the level of our bodies, our animal egoism, and in the end it will not work?

Answer: This will have some kind of effect, but it will not correct a person and will not make him right in society. It will not lead to the correct mutual relations between men or between men and women. They will get some examples. There may be fewer distortions, but there will be no corrections.

In any case, separate education is better. But we must be careful about what is presented within this framework that students will take an example from.

Question: Is it impossible to build something within the framework of our usual life correctly if there is no spiritual determinant?

Answer: It is still good. When a boy receives an example from adult men, this is a completely different world for him than if he looks at women and subconsciously captures their goals, their outlook on life, the world, and their relationships with each other. This involuntarily distorts him, affects him at all levels—genetic, chromosomal, etc. All his behavior becomes effeminate. This is not right.

Look at what’s happening with men today! They do not want to leave their mothers, they stay at home until the age of forty. Or they get married, have children, and quickly run back to their mother. And then they find themselves another mother in the form of a wife.

So until the end of their lives they themselves remain children. This is all because women are engaged in the education of men, young lads, and boys. Therefore whole generations and even the entire civilization today is such that the female image turns out to be dominant, influencing, organizing, and determining. And there is nothing we can do about it.

Unless we now begin to build the structure of our world with the help of Kabbalah, similar to the upper world that is revealed to us, we will see our generation even more distorted.
[293424]
From KabTV’s “Close-Up, Generation of “Lady Gaga”” 3/10/10

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Question: You have repeatedly said that we are at a transitional stage from the last generation of egoistic development and that the entire educational system is built in this way. How do you see the Kabbalistic system of education?

Answer: It should be carried out via the Internet, when from serious world centers where Kabbalistic educators are located, everything that Kabbalah does is taught: the methodology of changing a person, the perception of reality, freedom of will, the system of the universe, the interaction and connection of people with each other, the internal system of our communication, and so on. Kabbalah deals with the structural mechanics of the entire universe.

In addition, specialists should correctly teach children everything related to the natural sciences, which are taught based on the revelation of the global system of the universe.

A person is constantly given a general vision of the whole picture of the worlds as one world: where his place is, what his purpose is. And when this is revealed to the child, he begins to feel it and to work with the forces of nature and with society.

A little man (the soul has no age) begins to see what an important element he is in the global system, he has someone to take an example from, and he sees the realization of himself.

At a young age, five, six, or ten years old, when everything is explained to him, it really fascinates him. There is no system of punishments or rewards. The very revelation of the true world in which we find ourselves captivates everyone. That’s how we’re built. And therefore, the system becomes general, global, and kind.

I hope that soon we will come to such a need and do it.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Generation Lady Gaga” 3/10/10

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the most important thing as a teacher to teach your students?“

The correct worldview: a view of the world, life, a person and an epoch.

That is most important for me—to position a person toward the correct view of his life. To do so, I need to more or less explain the picture of the world we live in, where it is headed, how to change it in the best possible direction, and provide the means to do so.

The world derives from our perception. We do not actually live in the world; the world lives in us. I thus need to teach that we create our world, painting it inside ourselves. It is quite difficult to reach that point. Starting to relate to the world in such a way is a very serious and internal spiritual revolution.

Moreover, our attention needs to be drawn to the fact that the world is not what we feel. The world is a derivative of our attitude to it, i.e.. we can recreate and readjust ourselves to the perception of another world. The world has no shape or form of its own. It is a picture that we can program. Therefore, we can create the world we live in, and it will change according to the change in our wishes, qualities and efforts.

Based on KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” on December 9, 2021. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do I prevent social exclusion?“

Orphie, a 14-year-old girl who was socially excluded at her school, experienced violence for several years, and eventually became the head of a boycott patrol. The aim of the boycott patrol is to support others harmed by social exclusion. For instance, the patrol gave a girl, Elian, whose entire class shunned her, a birthday surprise, comforting her with the warm words that they are her family, and that she will not be alone anymore.

We have built a society where a lot of children and youth share this miserable situation, feeling that there is no place for them in the world.

I would advise anyone who feels the problem of social exclusion to work according to the lines of such examples as what Orphie’s group did for that girl, Elian, and to give rise to similar frameworks for helping children, as well as educating about the phenomenon. I would support their growth to become the most significant force in our society, so that no one feels worse off than others, and to show that the most potent weapon against hatred is love. If such a force strengthens, then we will be able to prevent social exclusion as we head toward a much more positively connected society.

Nobody needs to feel alone or excluded. To make that a reality, we just need to develop mutual support in society.

Based on the video, “The Solution to Social Exclusion,” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can you lose your maternal instinct?“

Recent research shows that mothers’ engagements with smartphones and magazines are harmful to mother-child communication, which in turn harms the child’s development. In the research, mothers using their phones to engage with social media, and also mothers reading magazines, spent up to four times less time talking with their toddlers (aged two to three) than when they were not on their phones or magazines. Moreover, the mothers with phones and magazines responded less to their childrens’ calls, had a lower quality response than when not on their media, and sometimes even ignored their children altogether.

What does it mean when we see mothers—symbols of devotion, love and care—pay increasing attention to their phones and magazines than to their toddlers?

It is a present-day example of how the maternal instinct lessens and the natural connection between mother and child weakens the more that the human ego grows. The phones and magazines add to the situation, but also emerge together with our natural development, which is a continual growth of the human ego that increasingly detaches us from each other, up to a point of detaching mothers from their children.

As a result of our egoistic development, less and less people today want to have children or grandchildren, and more and more people are becoming concerned solely with their individual lives. Such development needs to unfold until we reach a state of helplessness and desperation, where we will feel no livelihood or fulfillment in a life of growing detachment to one another.

However, together with the growing helplessness comes the opportunity to correctly diagnose the root cause of our growing detachment to each other—the overblown human ego that resides in each and every one of us—and to stop identifying our egoistic drives as being our “self” or our “I.” In other words, by realizing the ego behind our growing detachment from each other, up to a point of mothers losing their maternal instincts, we should accordingly stop listening to its demands, and stop relating to it as being a part of us. We would then be able to start correcting it.

At every moment, the ego prioritizes the fulfillment of our own desires over everybody else’s. The more the ego grows, the more it leads us to thinking of ourselves more and more over even our own families. In other words, the ego is self-love, and it directs us to love only ourselves more than we love our own children, spouses and parents, up to a point where we feel no love at all for anyone else.

After diagnosing the growing ego as the root cause of increasing detachment, which causes an array of problems in our lives, we should then organize our relationships so that we relate to everyone with loving and caring attitudes. In other words, by raising awareness of the need to enrich our connections with more love, consideration, support and encouragement, then the wider net of positive connection we cast over society will serve to positively influence us to reignite love at the family level. Mothers would then experience a revival of their maternal instincts, albeit on a whole new level: they will not be mere “instincts” but the mothers’ new drive to draw closer to their children, families and relatives would emerge from acquiring a higher level of consciousness, i.e. connection with the positive force of love and bestowal that dwells in nature.

Based on the video “How Mothers Have Become Detached from Their Babies” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Medium published my new article “Education — We Need to Build Back Better”

The past two years have been nerve-wracking for children, parents, and the entire education system. The recurring isolations and lockdowns have not only affected the children’s social relationships, they also left everyone uncertain about the future. It is clear that things will not be as they were until the beginning of the decade, but it is unclear what they will be like. Either way, since we are destined to shuttle back and forth between physical and virtual connections, we might as well learn to make meaningful connections in both settings.

The current situation has already shifted us from our previous mindset about connections, but it has not yet established new ones within us. It is still hard to see what our new manner of connection will be like since we are not machines; it takes time to grow into a new mode of operation.

However, since nature never goes back, but always forward, one thing is clear: that which was will never return.
Whatever form we eventually take, it will be one where we are not only connected in new ways, but also more positively than before. Nature’s evolution is always moving toward increasing complexity and integration. Everything is becoming more interdependent, not less so, and this is true for humanity, as well.

Yet, while all other species accept nature’s dictates without questions, humans are disconnected from nature and have their own will. Nature still forces us to go its way, but it has also given us our own will, which grows in the opposite direction: While nature drives us to incorporation, we strive for separation. This is why animals accept what nature gives them and adapt, while we suffer and resist, but to no avail.

The suffering we feel is a clear disadvantage compared to the rest of the animal world, but human beings have an advantage that no other living being has: Instead of being forced into connection, we can think about it, compare it to separation, and finally choose it. Although we have no choice but to ultimately choose connection, since this is the course of all of creation, choosing it of our own volition means that we understand the logic behind it, the “thought of creation,” if you will.

There is no comparison between the pleasure and depth we experience when we choose to do something as opposed to doing it instinctively. This is our unique advantage, the merit of human beings over all other beings.

All the blows we have suffered since the beginning of time have led us to evolve from hunter-gatherers into clans, towns, countries, empires, and finally to a global village. The increased incorporation always happens against our will and at the cost of countless lives and indescribable suffering, but it need not be this way. If we understand where we are going and what we are destined to acquire at the end of the road, we can go there willingly and help each other transcend our individuality to form a conscious and unified humanity.

Our education systems should focus on instilling this awareness in us. This education should apply to all ages, countries, and cultures. If we make unity our top priority, we will begin to see the differences between us as welcome diversity, and our different perspectives as enriching our knowledge. If we want to stop suffering and enjoy the road we’re on, we need to rebuild our education system in synchrony with all of nature: toward connection, cohesion, and integration.

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