Question: According to Maslow’s pyramid, 90% of society’s members are at the level of development of basic desires: family, sex, security. When a consumer society dictates such values to them, then naturally, it falls onto fertile soil.

If this is created by nature, how can we change it? A person wants nothing but to satisfy himself or herself with the simplest natural pleasures. How does one instill new values in society?

Answer: A person with this level of desire can also direct himself or herself toward the same goal as the surrounding society, but his or her direction and progress towards it will be somewhat passive relative to others.

There are different types of people among us: choleric, sanguine, melancholic, and phlegmatic. You can’t change that. If a person is of this nature, given to him by nature, then he or she can hardly change themselves.

Comment: But you say that it is necessary to raise a person to the level of “human,” that we must take care of society and do everything for its good.

My Response: He or she will do it, only at their own pace, within the framework of their desires. Gradually, under the influence of society, these desires will change. But the pace with which it begins to move relative to the whole society toward the same goal as society will depend on the character of the person.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/7/20

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Comment: It is believed that the higher the quality of needs, the fewer people have it.

My Response: Naturally. This is the same pyramid of desires.

Question: Does it mean that not everyone needs to realize themselves at the highest level?

Answer: Of course. At the very bottom, at the base of the pyramid, are people who still have simple animalistic desires: family, work, sex, and hobbies.

Question: Is everything so deterministic that one cannot move from one level to another?

Answer: It mainly depends on the person, on the way one came into this world, so to say. Very little of it can be changed by the environment. Baal HaSulam writes about this in his articles on the influence of the environment.

It is possible to change one’s destiny, but to do this, a person must realize himself in a new environment, subjugate himself to others, bend his head, and then he will receive from others their desires, aspirations, and values.

Question: If I am, for example, on the third level of the pyramid and I realize myself there, does it mean that I reveal the meaning of life at this degree and I do not need more?

Answer: No! You only reveal the meaning, but you do not realize it yet. Realization goes further.

Eventually, all of humanity will reach the highest degree, which will turn into the center of a circle or of a sphere, and all people, that is, all souls, connecting with each other will form one common wholeness and exit the framework of our world.
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From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 6/25/20

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Question: Society affects us totally. Firstly, it promotes unrestrained consumption, and the individual has no freedom of choice. He just has to keep buying.

Secondly, public opinion affects people’s minds. For example, there were experiments where people were given cheap wine but were told that it was expensive, costing several hundred dollars, and they enjoyed it.

Do you agree with the statement that first we form our environment, and then it forms us?

Answer: The question is, are we shaping our environment? After all, there are many other factors around, such as family, friends, society, and time. Everything without exception pushes a person to some certain choice.

However, in general, if there is free choice, it is only in the choice of the environment. Therefore, we need to educate people so they understand how to use this choice.

Question: In our life, everything is determined by the scale of values accepted by society. These values, in turn, are determined by our desires.

What is the way to change social values if it all depends on desire and desire depends on nature and the time period in which we live?

Answer: I can nevertheless choose a certain society, a group in which I will develop, and it will be very different from other groups.

For example, there are people who acquire a certain profession and work on themselves according to a certain program, but they are all very different from each other. After all, society consists of many fractal mini-societies sometimes completely unrelated to each other.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/7/20

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Question: In order to bring oneself closer to observing the laws of nature, must one learn to receive from society only what is necessary and give as much as possible?

Answer: Not as much as possible, but to use all your forces and abilities to give, to receive necessities but only for ordinary, normal, human existence.

This means that I am in balance with nature, giving everything to it at the human level and receiving what I need at the animal level. The pandemic will lead us to this; if this one does not, then the next one will.

Question: In such a case, where is our free choice?

Answer: This is the free choice: “by the stick to happiness,” as they say.  🙂

This is obvious today from all that is happening. And you can try to equalize yourself with the state of complete, mutual, integral responsibility.

Question: Why should I believe this? Maybe this is all not true?

Answer: If we proceed from ordinary laws, there seems to be nothing special in this. But if you begin to logically calculate everything that a person does based on his egoism, you will see that this force simply drives us into the grave.

On the other hand, how would we act if we are on the same small globe and have become practically a single community? Get together and decide how we can coexist properly.

Question: Despite our inherently selfish nature, we can, under the influence of our environment, cultivate certain values that are opposite to our selfish inclinations. Is this freedom of choice?

Answer: Yes. Excellent wording, simple and clear to everyone.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 4/30/20

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Question: Once upon a time in my childhood, my grandmother told me that every person is endowed with freedom of choice because he or she was originally created in the image and likeness of God.

I remembered that if I use the freedom of choice, it means that I am the creator of my destiny and my life. It turns out that I already have this program? Or is it just my choice?

Answer: No. Your only choice is to take a step forward, which you must take. Either you make it your free choice now or you will be given a couple of blows and you will still be forced to make it.

But everything is absolutely predestined. The only difference is whether we go voluntarily or under blows; the difference is in sensations, in states, in perceptions. But the steps are the same.
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From KabTV’s “Together about Important Things” 7/14/20

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Question: Our nature is egoism, which works according to the program “maximum pleasure for minimum energy consumption.” We probably have some choice within this framework. However, this choice is not free because there still is a framework.

For example, I can say that now I choose to drink tea or coffee. But in fact, this decision has already been made by some predetermined conditions. Can a person choose something freely?

Answer: No. Absolutely nothing.

According to Kabbalah, the only thing we can do is influence the environment that shapes us. We cannot influence ourselves directly, but we can choose the environment and influence it so that it will be like this and not different. By environment, we mean a lot of factors that affect us, shaping who we will be.

Question: Let’s say there are rich people who send their children to study at Oxford. They sort of choose this environment. But is this really a choice?

Answer: Yes, this is some sort of a choice.

Question: Again, within a certain framework. What I am interested in is whether it is even possible for a person to choose neutrally?

Answer: No. On the basis of what data will he choose neutrally? There must be primary parameters.

Question: Then what does it mean that he chooses the environment? This is not a choice either.

Answer: No, it is still a choice from several possible options. Maybe we do not know why he chose this one. Some circumstances, hormones, genes, and so on prompted him from within.

Nevertheless, we are still not free to do anything. We are free only to direct ourselves to the most correct goal possible with the help of an appropriate environment.

Otherwise, I can choose a different environment, for example, some criminals, thieves, and thus ensure a completely different future for myself.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/7/20

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Question: How can a person who is totally managed reveal anything? It turns out that any revelation is from above.

Answer: This is true. The only thing that exists is what we feel and what happens in practice. As long as this discrepancy is maintained, we have the illusion of freewill.

By observing nature and its absolute laws and the total mutual connection that we reveal from one day to the next as increasingly more integral, is it possible to say that we are free to do whatever we want, free to think whatever we want? No! Only man can think this way since he lacks the true perception of reality.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 9/2/18

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Question: It is said that my environment today is me tomorrow. Do you agree with this statement?

Answer: Of course. We see how the environment affects us.

Man is born an utterly small, helpless, wild animal. Gradually, under the influence of parents, and then of a wider circle, he goes through educational institutions, school, the street, neighborhood, and so on.

He watches a lot of programs on television, on the computer, and eventually becomes the way we see him in society. If he did not receive this influence from the environment, he would not be fit to live in our world at all.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/7/20

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Question: The basis of conformism, first of all, is that the opinion of others is very important to us even if we do not notice it or do not recognize it.

Why do we care so much about the opinions of other people whom we neglect, and in fact do not care about at all? How can you explain this paradox?

Answer: This is indeed a paradox. On the one hand, I am deeply indifferent to others. On the other hand, it is very important to me that they approve of me. If even a small mouse, cat, or dog shows some gesture of disdain for me, I will get upset. This will hurt me very much.

It is arranged so by nature so that we would get into correct contact with the world around us. So that we will have good mutual communication. So that I will correctly influence the world and the world will influence me in global harmony.

Question: In principle, if I didn’t care about society, I would never be able to establish proper communication with it?

Answer: You would not be able to change yourself and feel the globality and integrality of general nature. This is the most important thing.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 4/30/20

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Question: How will the current pandemic affect our development? Does it promote human freewill? We see that it, on the contrary, kind of takes away our freedom of choice because we behave in accordance with the external circumstances in which we exist. Where is freedom here?

Answer: Actually, we have not had any freedom of choice. We never have been guided by it; we acted only in the name of our egoism.

Taking into account all kinds of restrictions that the environment imposes on us, we have acted only under the influence of one single factor—our egoism—in order to fill and satisfy it every instant.

Comment: In the past, at least there was an illusion of freedom of choice.

My Response: You are right, the illusion has disappeared. But precisely due to the fact that it does not exist anymore, we have the opportunity to achieve real freedom of choice.

It is to rise above our egoism, which fetters us hand and foot and does not allow us to be free in any way. That is, freedom of choice is, first of all, freedom from one’s egoistic nature, which is imposed on us from above.

Question: Why is it written in many sources that freewill is in choosing the correct environment?

Answer: This is already a means. If I believe that I am obliged to get out of the power of egoism that dominates me, then I am looking for a means to achieve this. And it turns out that this can be done only by building an appropriate environment that would correctly influence me.

Question: In any egoistic society, receiving from it brings me pleasure, and giving back to society causes suffering. I do not want to give to it, or I do want to, but to the extent that I receive from it.

But suddenly values in society begin to change and they tell me that giving is good. And I begin to work, as it were, against my egoism. Is this the freedom of choice that you are talking about?

Answer: Freedom of choice is to expose oneself to the influence of the correct environment in which the property of bestowing is considered the highest and prevails over the property of receiving.

Then by including myself in this society, like a small child with closed eyes, surrendering to it, I can change these two levels in me so that the property of bestowal would be more important, better, and greater to me compared with the property of receiving.

Question: So, on one hand, I am going against my natural property to receive. On the other hand, society provides me with certain values that tell me that it is worth giving back to it. And this conflict evokes a certain spectrum of actions in me in which I am free?

Answer: Absolutely right.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 4/30/20

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