Question: From what has been happening lately, it seems that humanity already sees its next step, its next degree, but it feels that it will perish without connection. We have been thus squeezed into it. It is as if one foot is already lifted in order to rise to the next degree.

At the same time, the second foot remains on the previous degree. All military conflicts and all alliances against someone, and all the hatred—all of it is the previous degree.

The most important is not to be bound but only to live for myself. Humanity is slowly being torn apart: one leg is there, the other one is here. How not to break and topple over, but rather go to the next degree more or less smoothly? How can we do it?

Answer: Only by stimulating a good connection between us with all sorts of examples. We should arrange meals, all kinds of celebrations of unity and peace all over the world.

This is how we can do it.

Comment: You say this at a time when hatred does not just rule the world; it is the king and God here! All of a sudden you say: good relations, celebration of unity, connection between people. Where is it all going? To this humanity? It could be that we are being torn apart for generations here!

My Response: It all just seems this way to us. It is exactly out of the recognition of the atrocity of our nature that we can decide to change it. Because there is no other way. From good we will not come to something even better.

Question: Will we come to something better from terrible hatred?

Answer: Yes, because we will see that it leads to death. The next stage is death and mutual destruction, people will eat each other. If they do not even understand this, they will come to a state where they will really eat each other out of hunger. This is ahead of us, this is what the scripture says.

Question: Who turns this screw in the brain of the hater?

Answer: We do—our nature. It gives us the opportunity to make sure that there is no other way but connection. We are obliged—from the hatred we are in, from that renunciation, detachment, distance, and antagonism—to find a way to the opposite state.

I think it is possible. I see that according to what is happening today in the world between countries that it is possible. It is from such polar connections, great, powerful and historical that a solution is possible to appear.

Comment: It seems like everything is torn, everything is cut off, this string is cut.

My Response: No, there is none of that. All this can turn into its opposite in an instant.

This is all necessary for the recognition of evil. After that, we will come back to the correct interaction.

Question: This evil and hatred is it in order to come to correct interaction? Was it wrong before that, do you think?

Answer: Yes.

Question: What is correct interaction?

Answer: Mutual support when you begin to feel the other at least equal to yourself if not more dear than yourself. And then everything works out.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/18/22

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Comment: Michael is asking: “You said that there can be no love without hate. What if there is no hatred, but I really want to love?”

My Response: This is a big problem. It means that you need to look for such shortcomings in love (within yourself!) that prevent you from loving.

Question: Does it mean that I myself put these barriers for myself?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: It seems to me that I love.

My Response: No. You do not love. You must constantly take care to increase love, and this is not easy.

Question: So, can it only happen on the wave of hatred?

Answer: Something like this. Yes.

Question: Then should you and I be expecting a great love right now? Today, at this time?

Answer: When we reach true hatred and love is revealed above it, it will, of course, be a great liberation of humanity.

Comment: But an ordinary person does not think so. He lives in this flow of love and lives in it.

My Response: But as soon as he touches some kind of love, some kind of good relationship, he immediately spoils them because he is not ready. He has not prepared hatred, rejection, criticism, and everything so negative to constantly pile love above it.

Question: How can you increase love all the time or how can you maintain it all the time?

Answer: Agree to fight with a certain frequency.

Question: How? According to a schedule? That is, for example, do we fight on Friday?

Answer: It could be. I am being completely serious! There cannot be one without the other. To tease each other somehow, to poke a little, something like that. We do it subconsciously anyway.

It is natural. Nature itself pulls and pushes us to this in order for us to develop contact with each other.

Question: How can we control so that we do not fall into this hatred at this moment?

Answer: Keep the correct goal, the correct goal is connection, embracing and getting closer to each other. However, for the sake of this, we still need to step back a little, look at the other somehow. This is, in principle, a game.

Question: We were talking about a married couple. What about nations and parties?

Answer: Everything is arranged in this way. If we correctly develop married couples and then society, let’s say in the classroom, at school, which is completely not yet understood by our teachers, and then at at work, then we will constantly take into account these periods when we should be distancing from each other, and then coming closer to each other, distancing – coming closer.

Question: Can we say criticism and rising above criticism?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Do countries also exist in the same way?

Answer: Absolutely in everything. This is a reciprocating motion.

Question: What about the universe, is it the same?

Answer: It also goes along with the pulse. Our pulse works in the same way. Our heart, and our brains, and absolutely everything works in such an alternating state.

Question: Will this be the correspondence with nature?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Will love be growing all the time? Will there be a connection?

Answer: You can call one state negative, the other positive, or “one” and “two,” no matter how, but they must constantly alternate with each other, like day and night.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/14/22

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In the News (Hundredth Monkey Effect and Information Cascade): “The hundredth monkey effect is a hypothetical phenomenon in which a new behavior or idea is said to spread rapidly by unexplained means from one group to all related groups once a critical number of members of one group exhibit the new behavior or acknowledge the new idea. This concept is closely related to the information cascade model we learnt in class and demonstrates how it works in the animal world.

“The story of the hundredth monkey effect was published in … 1975. Some scientists were conducting a study of macaque monkeys on the Japanese island of Kōjima in 1952. These scientists observed that some of these monkeys learned to wash sweet potatoes in the water, and once a critical number of these monkeys was reached, i.e., the hundredth monkey, this previously learned practice instantly spread across the water to other troupes of monkeys on nearby islands without any contact between the troupes. This phenomenon correlates to the information cascade model in that it shows how ideas can spread quickly once they hit a certain level of acceptance. The certain level of acceptance matches with the tipping point in advertising we discussed in class.”

The researchers also observed the following pattern which suggests the information cascade process based on network structure:

1. The young monkeys first teach their contemporaries and immediate family, who all benefit from the new behavior and teach it to their contemporaries;
2. If the parents or their contemporaries (or their parents) are too old, they do not adopt the behavior;
3. Once the initial group have children, the dynamic changes from teaching previous and current generations, to the next generation learning by observation.

My Response: Yes, they say that on the neighboring island, the monkeys began to do the same. This is a normal transmission of thoughts at a distance.

In our daily life, we often encounter such facts. For example, in a newspaper, stories are printed with certain headlines. Over twelve hundred miles, at the same time, the exact same story comes out in another newspaper, although there really was no connection. Absolutely the same thing. Nobody stole anything. It is just that people are in the same field and spread all their thoughts in it.

It is the same with monkeys and in general with all nature at any level. We just need to take this relationship into account and understand that we, like monkeys, are interconnected. Let’s think carefully, then everyone will have good thoughts.

I should not criticize anyone, but first of all, think well myself, and then I will actually see how the world is getting better.
Thinking well does not mean selfishly, just to make everyone feel good. What does it mean to “love your neighbor as yourself”? Imagine that the others are your loved ones. There is no way to go anywhere if the world is global. Let’s hope this helps.

Comment: As a result of the experiment with monkeys, scientists came to the conclusion that a critical mass of people is needed who would be looking for an answer to the question posed, and then this will happen.

My Response: In Kabbalah, this is called 600,000 souls. This is a conditional name. Indeed, a critical mass is needed.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. The Philadelphia Experiment” 10/24/10

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All of nature is built on unity, mutual participation, mutual balance, and mutual support. Therefore, each participant in this inner closed picture of nature takes from it as much as he can and should take for his existence, and no more.

But man takes from nature without considering absolutely anything! And he not just takes. He robs it, destroys all other species without caring about giving them the opportunity to recover. We have developed within ourselves such a consumeristic attitude toward nature that there can be no question of any kind of balance.

In addition, man brings a huge imbalance into it with his thoughts, because they are the greatest forces in nature.

Thought is a great power. We see from the example of nature that the more powerful the force, the more imperceptible it is, as if more hidden like nuclear forces, subatomic forces, radiation forces, and radio waves. And we do not feel the spiritual world at all.

That is, rough mechanical forces operate at a short distance are here next to us. And the more powerful the force is, the more subtle and the less it is captured by us.

Therefore, Kabbalah speaks of the fact that the most powerful forces are the forces of our mind, our thoughts, and our relationships with each other. Even though it seems to us: “What difference does it make how I think about the world or how I treat others?!”

But in fact, these are also forces of nature and the most powerful in their impact because they are of the highest quality. They are not at the level of inanimate, vegetative, and animal nature, but at the level of human nature, and therefore, they bring in the greatest imbalance.

Thus, with our bad attitude toward each other, we simply destroy ourselves and our world. Therefore, both in the Bible and in humanity in general, we are given a humane basis: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Everyone agrees with this principle; however, no one fulfills it. If we followed this formula, then, of course, we would come to a completely different civilization.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Europe Today” 1/26/11

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Comment: According to economists, the impending crisis was anticipated by a number of American investment bankers, but they did not take any measures that could mitigate its consequences. Moreover, some of them openly tried to use the upcoming problems for their personal interests.

My Response: Of course! We cannot demand any other actions from people. Anyone in the world that sees that some kind of trouble or catastrophe is coming, but at the same time that some benefit can be drawn from it, will try to draw it. This is a natural impulse of our nature.

Therefore, you can’t blame them for this! And you can’t demand anything else from them. The smallest or biggest person in their place would have done the same. It’s just that people are envious that some were able to do something and the others were not.

We need to think about something else: “Where did the crisis come from? What can we do? What will happen in the future? Did it pass or not?” These are all absolutely open questions.

Naturally we are in a crisis. Gradually, it will nevertheless manifest itself despite the fact that we are trying to smooth it out in some way. But that’s not possible. Unemployment will rise and despite printing money and selling gold reserves, nothing will change.

Humanity will still find itself in a huge global crisis. This is not some kind of isolated crisis, but a universal one, a total crisis. It captures absolutely all manifestations of human society and all our activities.

Question: In some European countries, it is possible to receive unemployment benefits and not work, and then the country does not know what to do with these people because they get used to it and of course no longer want to work. Who is to blame here?

Answer: Of course, giving a person some benefits for free means educating them incorrectly. This is not how we should act in our society.

From the point of view of Kabbalah, this is a wrong approach to humanity, the world, and society. Each of us must have a balance between receiving and giving.

Such politics of governments regarding the reception of immigrants will bring these countries closer to the crisis even faster. But they can’t do it any other way! That’s the way society works.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Europe Today” 1/26/11

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Comment: In European countries, such as France and Germany, the birth rate is falling. Today, Europeans do not want to have children and openly talk about it.

My Response: This will be the case in most countries of the civilized world. We see no benefit, no purpose, in childbearing. “What do I need this for?! I live in such a way that I curse my life, I feel completely aimless in it, unfulfilled, and it’s all a burden to me. Why should I have children?! So that they live even worse than me?!”

Today humanity has already passed the peak of its development. For many thousands of years we have been climbing and climbing, and we always had the hope that the next generation would be better off. People had a dream, and it didn’t matter that it was incomprehensible, inexplicable.

So, both in Europe and in America, people hoped that they were living in order for their children to be better, and for their grandchildren to be even better. At the end of the twentieth century, the peak of such an attitude to life passed without being noticed. We don’t think like that anymore.

I have talked to hundreds of people all over the world and they all clearly understand this problem. Humanity has lost hope that it is developing for the better.

Why give birth?! For what?! I can allow one child for myself. Not for the child, but for myself. That is, we are egoists, we are ready to give birth to a child so that we have something to do, something to play with, to make life more pleasant for ourselves. But not for the child.

If we thought about them, about the unborn, we would not have given birth to them. After all, we see that our life, as a result, is not filled with anything good; it’s the pursuit of existence in a continuous struggle. And for what?

Even in ancient wisdom it is said: “Not by your will you are born, not by your will you live, not by your will you die.” So why should I do it to them? What would I suffer all my life for? Just to provide them with some kind of existence? What for? What’s the point?

Today, this issue is facing humanity more clearly, acutely, and realistically.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Europe Today” 1/26/11

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The state to which we are headed is predetermined by nature. It should be such that from the recognition of the inevitability and absolute helplessness, we would come to the conclusion that we have nowhere to run. What is left for us is only to jump out of our essence, out of our nature, to get out of it, to rise above it.

Egoism, which supplies all these problems for us, makes our life worthless, useless, and lately simply unbearable, is, as it is said in the Torah (Bible), “help against you.” Thus, it pushes us out of itself, like the Egyptian plagues that went through people and pushed them out of Egypt. This is how figuratively the development of humanity is presented in the Torah.

That is, attaining our egoism and revealing what an enormous problem it is for our existence will force us to abandon it and move to a different state where we will be connected with each other through other ties of brotherhood, mutual assistance, and kindness.

As a result, either by a good or a bad way, or through war, or through awareness, we still will reach the level of complete interconnection, will become harmonious with nature and absolutely balanced with it.

Then, in this ideal state of balance, we will find ourselves existing in a completely different form, at a level where eternity and perfection, like nature itself, are revealed to us. We will come to this anyway, but perhaps through bad development. Here is a very critical point in the development of humanity where Kabbalah may or may not play its positive role.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Europe Today” 1/26/11

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How could anyone abuse a child?“

In recent weeks in Israel, there have been several cases of children and babies being abused by their kindergarten teachers and caretakers. It is a phenomenon that has been shaking up many people.

Indeed, how is it possible to abuse defenseless children and babies?

The Torah speaks of even worse states that humanity could reach, where merciful mothers would eat their own children.

Our development is marked by our constantly-growing egoism, which has become overblown in our era. The ego, i.e. the desire to enjoy at the expense of others, has reached such major proportions that horrible cases of child abuse increasingly appear the more that we become more egoistic and detached from one another.

There is a method, however, called “the wisdom of Kabbalah,” which can teach us how to build a correctly-functioning society, where we learn how our egoism operates, and how to rise above it in order to develop positive connections to one another.

With the learning and implementation of such a method, we could reach a state where we feel other people’s children not only as our own, but even more closely than we feel our own children.

Why would we feel that way? It is because through a positive attitude to each other—and to each other’s children—we would become close with the positive force of nature that dwells in our connections. Our positive attitudes would let us connect to the positive force that dwells in nature, and such a connection would fulfill us with a much greater sensation of fulfillment than what we currently sense.

We need to start discovering how the positive force of nature dwells in the connections between all people, and we have the ability to reveal and connect to this force. Doing so can let us feel love toward other people’s children and babies, beyond even feeling them as our own children.

This is precisely why the wisdom of Kabbalah has become revealed on a mass scale in our era: Without the wisdom of how to positively connect to each other above our egoistic drives while our egos constantly grow, we would end up eating each other alive.

Based on the video “How Could Anyone Abuse a Child or Baby?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The War in Ukraine Is Changing the World”

The war in Ukraine is unlike any war that’s been. Although it seems local, this war is changing the world. In the end, after all the pain, the parties will establish new relationships, and new relationships will be established around the world. This war is the beginning of a formation of a new world order, where all parties unite against the one common enemy of all of humanity: egoism. It will take time, but everyone involved will realize, and the whole world with them, that they are not fighting against each other, but against an enemy within them. If we let the idea sink in, even a bit, it will make it happen even sooner.

The war that began in late February will not end soon. It will take many more months until everyone realizes that war itself, the very concept of it, is evil. In that sense, the war in eastern Europe is correcting all of humanity, transforming our perception and our understanding of good and evil.

The casualties, the injured, and the lost property are a terrible price to pay. Nevertheless, global processes always come at a cost. We should not blame others for the cost, and we should not think that there is nothing each of us can do to change the world. It is in the hands of every person to change the world for the better, and to make the atrocities of war, and all atrocities that humans are inflicting on each other, disappear. All we need is to realize that the only enemy lies within us—our self-centered attitude. It incites us against each other, demonizes and vilifies anyone who disagrees with us, tells us that we are the only ones entitled in this world, and thereby sets us off against each other. We are all like that, infected with a pandemic of narcissism.

Nevertheless, there is a lot we can do to change the world. First, we must accept that there is a good reason we are so different from each other. Each of us makes a unique contribution to the world that no one else can. If we were all the same, the contributions we receive from others, and on which our lives depend, would be absent, and we would not survive, in the most physical sense of the word.

We will realize that our ego is the enemy only when we realize that singularity is the wrong key word for happiness. Today, the key word for happiness is complementarity—mutual satisfaction of each other’s material, social, emotional, and spiritual needs.

We are living in a world where we are all dependent on each other. The food we eat, the clothes we wear, and the appliances and gadgets that we use are all made by people we do not know, in places we do not know, and reach us in ways we do not know. But were it not for this chain of myriad unknown individuals, we would not survive, since we cannot provide for our needs by ourselves.

The same goes for social ties. All our connections, communications, and interactions with other people are made possible with the help of countless people who serve us without our awareness. But were it not for them, we would not be able to work or socialize.

Despite this obvious fact, we behave toward others with as little consideration as possible, and when we are nice or considerate, it is because we have an ulterior, selfish motive. We do not have the prerogative to keep up this behavior. We are destroying the world and destroying ourselves.

Back in the 1930s, Baal HaSulam, a great thinker and a great kabbalist, wrote an epic essay titled “Peace in the World.” In it, he writes, “Man is inherently born to lead a social life. Each and every individual in society is like a wheel that is linked to several other wheels placed in a machine.” How odd it is that ninety years ago, before World War II, people already realized that we are all dependent on each other and must behave toward each other with consideration. Just think what we could have avoided had we been more attentive and open-minded.

Now, too, we are headed for a catastrophe unless we pay attention and begin to act like one entity, one global society that works like a single, united family. The war will change the world, but I hope we can change ourselves before the war changes us.
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Question: In ancient times there was a court of Kabbalists—Sanhedrin. How do you think such a court would assess a crime committed in a state of passion?

Answer: During the times of the Sanhedrin, it ruled, judged, and educated society.

It was a governing body, foundational in its laws and educated the population. The entire ideological tune of the society was focused on it. Decisions were made on how to pull the society to a higher degree, educate a new generation, and so on.

In fact, the court’s purpose was not to punish but to correct a person. According to the notions of those times, there was no such punishment as imprisonment. What can be achieved by this? Nothing.

Send the offender to some kind of forced labor, force him to live in a certain society that will correct him. At the time of the Sanhedrin, there were so-called cities of refuge or other places where a person would be under the influence of the most serious educators rather than supervisors, oppressors, or guards.

While today, we isolate a person from society, place him in a concentrated, evil, terrible society of murderers, robbers, and rapists. Naturally, he receives additional bad influences from such a place.

And after that we let him back in! So what is achieved by that?! Someone who is 20, 30, or 100% evil is released into a normal society.

Naturally, he will act as he was taught in prison. Therefore, all prison and detention systems are detrimental. It practically turns our society into one detention center. And there is no escape from it.

Although in many countries this system is called correctional labor, the fact is, they do not seriously set the goal of correction. While the Sanhedrin was intimately involved in this.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Outlaw” 12/19/10

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