Question: Why is the entire system of our activities of daily living based on punishment? For example, the traffic rules are built in such a way that if a person crosses some line, he must be punished.

Answer: Our egoism does not understand anything in any other way. How else can it understand what is going on? If it is not punished, it will not know where its boundaries are and it will do what it can do to hurt itself even more.

Comment: But if we send people to prisons, they become even worse people there.

My Response: According to the Torah, there should be no prisons at all. There is no such punishment as a prison. Jews have never had them. All countries had different punishments, but the Jews did not. They only had compulsory re-education, not detention or deportation to remote places. That will not make things better. We can see it.

A person should not be isolated from society. If society can correct everything, then why isolate a person?! This is why we never had this. Only the nations who do not know the wisdom of Kabbalah and what is happening to humanity and to the world had this.

Question: How were people punished in Judaea before?

Answer: They were not punished! There were six cities of refuge in the country (Arei Miklat),where those who committed involuntary manslaughter could go to flee from revenge. In principle, no one was going to take revenge on them because people then lived according to spiritual laws.

In the cities of refuge everything was the same as in ordinary cities. There was what is called intense “brainwashing” meaning intense education conducted with them.

Question: Then, where did the prison as such come from?

Answer: For egoism, prison, in the literal sense of the word, is the easiest punishment that can be. We just get rid of a person. Basically, it is like death, but much sweeter.

Let’s say you would execute a criminal, but what is the use of it? Here, however, he is alone, gradually dying, realizing what you did to him. That is, society treats people with special cruelty.

Most importantly, prison is not correction. Therefore, there should not be such a condition. People come out of prison as even greater sinners and monsters than when they entered.

It is due to the fact that, on the one hand, they are released from prison according to their term of imprisonment, and not according to the willingness of a person to be in society. After all, what does the term of imprisonment matter? If a person has improved after a year, let him go back to freedom. If he has not improved in ten years, then do not release him in any case, he will only do harm. What does prison give? Well, he formally served his sentence. It is ugly, it is stupid, and it doesn’t make any sense.

Let’s say a judge passes a sentence, then what happens? If I was sentenced to jail, then the punishment should purify me, correct me in some way. If I came out after some time and did not correct myself, and did something again, then what do you want from me? Put the prosecutor and the judge in jail! They were the ones who gave me this kind of correction that did not work.

I am just a human being. It means that I was wrongly detained, sent away somewhere, and something was done to me. Wrongly! Therefore, those who ascribed this kind of punishment to me should be jailed. Punishment should be a correction! And there is none of it.

From the point of view of spiritual laws, our world is utterly small and completely irrational.

There should be no punishment, there should be correction. The punishment is that a person has committed a crime. This is his punishment. Now he must bring himself to a corrected level before himself, before society, before everything.

Question: Will the society of the future be a society without prisons?

Answer: Undoubtedly! Without any prisons. What is the point of keeping people in them if they do not correct a person?
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From the talk “I Got a Call. Crime and Punishment” 1/21/14

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My new article on Linkedin “China Lockdown: Food Shortages Anger Aplenty”

China is running out of food and people are growing desperate. That’s no small problem when more than 190 million residents in some 23 cities are living under full or partial lockdowns enacted as part of the official “zero Covid” policy following record numbers of cases, particularly in Shanghai, the epicenter of the outbreak.

Shanghai, China’s most populous city with 26 million residents, report thousands of new Covid-19 infections daily, the worst increase since the virus appeared in the central city of Wuhan in 2019. China is one of the last remaining nations still committed to eradicating the pandemic, unlike most of the world, which is trying to live with the virus in its Omicron variant.

Shanghai’s strict lockdown impacts millions of people who are suffering from food shortages, some say they are already starving. Parents are forcibly separated from their children who have tested positive for the disease. As living conditions continue to deteriorate with no end in sight, the anger of the population grows. The normally disciplined and obedient Chinese defy authorities through street protests and warn of the consequences, including potential civil unrest.

Indeed, the food shortage could have a major impact on Chinese society. There is nothing more important than food. It is the basic sustenance of any society, literally. Food is our most important need on the scale of human desires, followed by sex, family, money, honor, and knowledge. Rational thinking does not work on an empty stomach, and what controls the mind is the way to satisfy basic needs at any cost.

As a result of the pandemic, the Chinese are certainly going through great changes. They are a people with a very strong foundation and tradition, so any change they go through could be an example for the rest of the world. But can popular social pressure bring about change in China’s governance? Governance is a problem everywhere in today’s world. Countries that expected full hegemony over others are realizing that it is no longer as easy when large masses are poised to oppose.

Governing would be easier if there were a king who ruled according to family heritage, could lead the people, and the people would accept his mandate as part of an agreed lineage. But that is not the case, so people must understand that nature acts as the supreme king. Humanity must get away from expecting great changes from governments and politicians, the earthly level of governance, and realize that there is a supreme realm, the realm of nature, that controls our lives, the virus and everything in reality.

We will be able to abide by this dominion when we realize that we can solve our supply and health problems when we come to terms with the power of nature. We must achieve a balance with it by recognizing that there is a price we must pay for overpopulation and exploitation of our limited natural resources.

More importantly, we need to understand that we cannot continue to exploit others only for our own personal gain without consequences. In the not-too-distant future, both Western and Eastern cultures will have to discover that what humanity is lacking is a sense of mutual responsibility.
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Medium published my new article “Total Escapism”

I already shared with you that I get emails all the time from people who have questions they cannot resolve. In one email, a physician wrote me the following question: “Lately, I’ve noticed that people are in distress. There is high demand for prescriptions for antidepressants; people feel insecure and uncertain about their lives, and besides drugs, I have nothing to offer them. They’ve tried coachers; they’ve tried trainers, but nothing seems to help. So my question to you Dr Laitman, is what can they cling to in order to move forward?”

I can understand why people feel this way. For thousands of years, people’s lives changed very little. They lived in small towns and villages, had a craft or a plot of land to till, and they knew their surroundings and the people around them. They were close to their families, married within the town or village, so everyone had the same way of life, culture, and tradition. People knew what to expect. Their lives were hard, but they had a sense of direction, a clear set of values, and therefore, peace of mind — the very thing people do not have today.

Today, material life is very easy, but people feel lost because they do not understand the world around them. They no longer live in small villages because the whole world has become a global village. Even farmers cannot till the land without seeds and machinery from other countries, and the price of their crops depends on global commodity markets. In other words, to be a farmer, you need to understand global systems of supply, demand, markets, climate, and fuels. You need an internet connection, contracts with shipment and supply companies, and accountants to understand your own balance sheet. Is it any wonder that people feel lost?

Because they feel this way and cannot find answers, they have no choice but to try to forget. They dream about the moment they can get away from it all. They take up hobbies, play computer games, and exhaust themselves in sports.
They travel, vacation, and meditate. They drink and do drugs, convert and become extremists, and do whatever they can to avoid dealing with their inability to understand the world they live in. In their effort to suppress their disorientation, they turn to total escapism.

Everything that we have built — the entertainment industry, professional and amateur sports, shopping, tourism, art — we have built them in order not to think about our lives.

But we have run out of gas. We have used up our energy — our own and what we can pump out of the ground — and we are running out of ideas for escapism. Soon, there will be only two options left: a war that will annihilate everything, or to learn about the world we live in.

Assuming that we choose the latter, we will have to learn how we all affect each other, how we are connected around the world, and how we are dependent on each other. As a result, we will realize that we must care for one another.

And if, at the moment, we do not, we will acknowledge that it is harmful to others and harmful to us. Only when we accept that the world has changed for good, and we must embrace the changes and welcome the connection with all of humanity, we will be able to reap the benefits of progress and feel comfortable both physically and emotionally.
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Question: The Theater of the Absurd or absurdist drama originated as a concept in the twentieth century. In absurdist plays, the world is presented as something existing without meaning or logic and our actions or spoken words lead to nothing.

Is there is a lot of overlap between absurdist theater and our life?

Answer: Most likely, that is why the idea to portray what is happening in our world on stage was born. The theater somehow reflects our thoughts about the world, our aspirations, disappointments, and hopes.

The twentieth century is characterized by this. In the middle of the twentieth century, humanity began to feel it was entering some kind of meaningless period of existence. The Club of Rome appeared, then the Club of Budapest, and so on.

Scientists, social scientists, and political scientists have begun to realize that the world is losing its rosy perspective people once had. They always tried to imagine a happier, better, easier future.

If they were not interested in spiritual fulfillment, at least they were interested in material ones. People had some artistic and cultural interests. They tried or hoped to change the social order, to safeguard their future and old age.

In other words, they had some needs from this life, from this world. They believed that someday they would be fulfilled and, most importantly, they would be happy as a result.

While egoism was constantly growing, they were constantly trying to fulfill it. So, they ran like a dog after its tail. But now, the rosy prospects are gone. The tail has disappeared from the dog’s field of vision, it no longer knows where to run, it is in confusion—this is our humanity, this is our current state.
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From KabTV’s “Close -Up. Theater of the Absurd”

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Medium published my new article “The Folly of War”

There has been a lot of talk lately about war crimes. The definition of war crimes is very broad, so there are many injustices that fall under the category of war crimes. What used to be customary for past conquerors is now often considered a war crime. To eradicate war crimes, we must abolish war. Since this is currently unrealistic, we should at least spare those who are truly uninvolved, namely children, women, and elderly men. That would be a first step in the right direction.

In ancient times, a victorious king would plunder and take for himself everything his rival king had. It was considered an inalienable right of the triumphant king, and a reward taken for granted.

As humanity’s morals evolved, it determined that such behavior was unacceptable. Since a large part of the population does not make any decisions or take part in the fighting, that part should be excluded from punishment. Particularly, this referred to children, who do not even understand what the war is about, women, who do not participate in the war, and elderly men, who cannot participate in the fighting. All in all, some 70–80 percent of the population should be exempt from punishment or retaliatory actions. This population is also the main focus of the rules that define war crimes, in order to protect those vulnerable and uninvolved populations.

In previous times, wars were largely over territory, since land meant crops, and crops meant provision and wealth. Today, however, territory does not have any role in determining a country’s wealth, so the only incentives left for war are prestige and self-glorification.

While it is understandable that someone would win renown for being a great commander on the battlefield, today’s wars are often fought in cities, in civilian areas, and the majority of casualties are precisely the populations that have nothing to do with the war: children, women, and elderly men. How will a rocket that demolishes an apartment building help the one who fired it win the war?

The self-centered mindset that paying soldiers to fight my wars and blowing my budget on high-tech weapons proves that my ideology is completely irrational. What connection is there between my ideology and killing other people, who may believe something else or believe in nothing at all and want only to live, have children, and lead their lives in peace?

If anything, such a mindset makes my ideology fundamentally flawed. After all, if the result of my ideology is the aspiration to annihilate all other schools of thought and wipe out the people who believe in them, then my ideology is inherently unjust.

The solution to the folly of war will come only when we overthrow our king: our own egoism. We are gradually approaching the realization that egoism is leading humanity to the edge of a cliff. The question is whether we will realize in time that if we let it keep ruling, it will destroy all of us, or wait until we see with our own eyes that there is no limit to what the ego can do. If we wait, the atrocities we have seen so far will be heaven compared to the hell that the ego will bring upon us.
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Question: Today everyone is demanding punishment; this cry rises from all sides. What really is punishment?

Answer: I don’t think there is an understanding of punishment in our world at all, as people think. There is no such thing.

I believe that a person should reach such a state of empathy, critical empathy, so that all his aspirations and prayers are only about becoming similar to the Creator. And with respect to this similarity, he would measure himself. And the revelation of the difference from the Creator would cause a state of repentance in him, and only this he would like to destroy.

Question: So the punishment is that I do not come closer to equivalence of form with the Creator? That I’m not moving in that direction? Is this the punishment?

Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/7/22

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According to the design of creation, people constantly play some roles without realizing it. Man automatically follows what nature evokes in him.

This has been the case throughout history, and this paradigm is ending today. Today we have to enter a completely different stage of development and begin to move forward realizing, understanding, and engaging in this process. This is where the problem is.

By receiving such calls from nature, that is, emptiness, I myself must fill it with content, why am I doing this, in the name of what? I must reveal all the plans of nature, maybe agree with them, maybe not, but explore them and act accordingly.

Today nature requires me to consciously intervene, participate, and partner with it. And then it turns out that I do not know what to do. I have to deal with this somehow.

That is why the science of Kabbalah is being revealed now; it explains the program of nature to us: the predetermined flow of all matter, information, and energy in a vast space that we do not understand and do not yet know what it is filled with around us. We have yet to reveal it.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Theater of the Absurd” 7/18/10

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Question: Psychologists say that the feeling of our own power makes us more determined and allows us to make decisions autonomously. Do you agree with this?

Answer: No. The higher a person is in his scientific achievements, the more he doubts, the more he asks all sorts of questions, he has a lot of concepts that he cannot connect with each other in any way and he is not confident in himself.

If he is confident in himself, then he is not a real researcher, not a real scientist and expert. The more a person knows, the more he doubts.

Comment: People vested with power have less doubt about the correctness of their actions even if they condemn others for the same action.

My Response: Yes, this is correct. Power destroys everything logical in us. Power is suppression, power is control.

If I have power over someone, then that person has neither freewill nor freedom of thought. It is no longer possible to ask him for advice, he is not in doubt because he is forced to obey me.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 3/22/22

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Question: Psychologists say that people who are endowed with power have pronounced tyranny, stubbornness, and mental imbalance. Scientists have found that power changes the structure of the individual and even his brain. Do you agree with this?

Answer: Absolutely agree. The fact is that we are all arranged in such a way that we are between two forces of nature (reception and bestowal, pressure and release), which must constantly be in balance.

All nature consists of two opposite forces, and in whatever way they are revealed, they must be balanced. Only in this state can we achieve correct results. We need both forces. There is no darkness without light and no light without darkness.

We must choose the golden mean in everything. If a person loses the opportunity to hold on to it and he is given permissiveness: do what you want without a limit, then we will disfigure him. He will not grow up to be what he needs to be. He must necessarily be within a framework and feel that he is given the opportunity to act in a narrow range, in the balance of two forces.

An animal has no problems in this regard. It understands what it needs and does not overeat, overdrink, or oversleep. It does whatever its body requires. The organism in the animalistic state always requires the most normal and rational things.

This is not how it is in a person. The problem is that a person is always ruled by his egoism.

Question: How does this fit with what Baal HaSulam writes: It is necessary to give freedom to the individual?

Answer: The freedom of the individual lies precisely in the fact that we do not force him, but teach him. To the extent of this learning, he gains freedom, knows how to restrict himself correctly, how to limit himself, and how make a man out of himself.

That is, freedom is a conscious restriction of one’s egoism, when a person understands how he should educate himself, meaning to be “above himself” and from “above himself” to control his animalistic nature.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 3/22/22

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Medium published my new article “Why We Cannot Stop Fighting”

When you reflect on the history of humanity, you see that people have always been fighting one another. It seems like there is never really peace, but only a pause between battles. Man’s disposition for constant fighting seems even more perplexing when you compare it to nature, where there is fighting only in order to eat, to avoid being eaten, or for the purpose of mating, but then animals rarely hurt each other. Why do humans fight when there is no existential reason that forces them? Moreover, even when a battle is not fought with weapons, we are still at war: We argue, debate, and fight to win the public’s opinion. In short, our entire existence consists of fighting.

There is a good reason for it. It may seem like there is no existential reason that impels us to fight, but in fact there is. While animals fight for their physical survival, we fight for our spiritual survival. Our egos drive us to exceed and triumph, since without feeling superior, our bodies may exist, but we will not feel alive. Nothing is worse for the ego than humiliation; people take their own lives because of it.

In other words, we feel alive only when we dominate someone else. This is the only assertion to our existence that the ego accepts. This is why we are compelled to fight against each other even when there appears to be no reasonable cause for it. Since all our communications, on every level, are battles of some sort, we seem to be condemned to a life of endless battles until we are exhausted and pass away.

But there is a profound reason for it. The endless fighting forces us to ask about the meaning of everything — why we fight, why we hurt each other, why there is so much meanness in the world, and in the end, why we exist.

These questions eventually lead us to realize that there is not only one (evil) force in the world, but rather two forces — one positive and one negative. The positive force creates life, warmth, growth, and connection, while the negative force generates death, cold, decay, and separation. If there were only one of them, we would not exist. It takes both to create life, and it takes both to generate development and change. It turns out that, ironically, it is war that makes us feel alive.

As a result, if one country wants to dominate, there must be other countries, too, so it will have whom to dominate. Also, if one country dominates all the time, the sensation of domination wanes, the high-handed country loses its drive, weakens, and another country takes over.

The battle between the positive and negative forces enables life, so it must exist. However, it is up to us to determine whether it becomes a war or not.

In order to enable existence and development, yet keep them peaceful, we need to understand the meaning of peace. The Hebrew word for peace is shalom, from the word shlemut, which means wholeness or complementation. In other words, there is life only when both sides exist and complement each other. Also, the power of one determines the power of the other, since the struggle between them continually drives them to evolve.

To end wars, we need to understand this process and embrace it. It will not stop the struggle between the forces, but it will make it constructive rather than destructive.

When athletes want to improve their achievements, for example, they train against greater and greater resistance. They understand that only if they challenge themselves will they become better.

Likewise, only if the competition among nations and people intensifies will we all improve. However, only if we remember that the purpose of the competition is not to control, defeat, or humiliate others, but to improve everyone involved, we will be able to both compete, yet welcome our challenges and challengers, for were it not for them, we would stagnate.

When we shift to a mode of mutual complementarity, there will not be anyone who is stronger than the other. Instead, there will be mutual commitment to cater to everyone’s well-being. Our understanding that we are mutually dependent and our perceived adversaries are in fact the guarantee of our development is the key to building a thriving, evolving, and sustainable society around the world and in every country, whose members live peacefully and happily.
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