Question: What is your attitude to the fact that now the family is based on the principles of the marriage contract? Moreover, everyone tries to win at the expense of the other and run away from responsibility, if something happens to a partner, if he gets sick, etc.

Answer: So you come to me with a broken leg and ask: “How can I jump from the second floor?” and you cannot even walk. That is, you have come to me with a problem and are trying to solve another one with its help.

The initial problem is education. Today we cannot demand from a couple who is going to unite some unrealizable, completely unrealistic conditions when they are absolutely not prepared for it.

Nobody taught them this, nobody educated them, nobody raised them to the required level. They grew up on television shows, beer, cigarettes, and discos. Now they suddenly decide: “Let’s move in, we will live together. Okay, let’s get married.” And that’s all.

They act in accordance with the way they were raised. How can you demand something from them? Or what can they demand from each other? Of course, nothing. They do not ask each other the simplest life questions: “Where are we going to get money for living? How are you going to provide for the family? What kind of upbringing are you going to give our children?” Nobody talks about it.

Therefore, the problem here is not in marriage, not in the marriage contract or agreement, but in educating such people from infancy who will then come in the right way to creating a family. Yet, when they are going to sign an agreement between them or just decide to move in together, it’s too late to talk about it.

If a person was brought up to think only of himself, nothing is going to help him, and you will not force him to do anything. All the same, he will avoid alimony and you will not even want to deal with him.

There is absolutely no such concept as duty in the new generation. My place in the world, in nature, me as a father, as a husband, as a man, as a citizen, as a soldier; there is no such thing! No! And this is natural. Our egoism was developing all the time and we did not give it the appropriate framework, a program for its correct behavior.

Comment: We were constantly trying to restrain it.

My Response: This is all we did, we were constantly putting pressure on egoism and it broke free. In the end, it broke free. “You can’t do anything to me!” This is what any small child declares to his parents.

Indeed, try to slap him, he will go to the police (children already know that you can go to the police). That’s it. This is where it all starts, with absolute freedom. If you try to stop serving him, he will also go to the police: you owe him.

On the one hand, you have no right to put pressure on him with your education; on the other hand, you are obliged to completely serve him. Modern children know this very well. They are ready to use this without any sentimentality. You cannot command them, and you are not an authority for them.

This is egoism. I do not blame them at all. This is how our egoism grows within us. If I were in their place, I would be the same.

If we considered the evolution of egoism in us correctly, then in accordance with this we would give children the correct program of behavior so that they would be happy in the end. If we really took care of them sensibly, correctly, then all this would not have happened. However, today, when you already have a broken leg and tell me: “I want to jump,” you have to wait until it mends, you need to do something with it, treat it.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Marriage contract” 8/19/09

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Comment: Irina wrote: “How can I explain to my husband that he has no right to leave me? We have three children. I forgive him everything, all his infidelities, his lack of love, and so on. I told him: ‘Do whatever you want, just don’t leave.’ He’s leaving. And I realize that I won’t be able to manage without him and neither will the children. What should I do? Tell me. Beg him to stay or let it be? I don’t know.”

My Response: My rule in life is that anything can happen, but if children are involved, then one is obliged to live with them and raise them. It cannot be any other way!

Comment: What should this woman do?

My Response: Well, what can you do? You understand, you can’t keep him by force. There are no such laws.

Question: What is it about us, that is just so…?

Answer: Dumb male egoism, which is spoiled by the mother’s attention. So nothing is good enough for him.

But women, too, are not brought up to make a place for a man that he wants to call his nest, his home, etc., so that he wouldn’t want to leave. Not even to go to work or anywhere away from his home. A place that would be calming and inviting. This should be taught, and it is not.

Building a family should be a subject taught in middle school—a separate, serious lesson, held a couple of times a week, when all of this is discussed from an early age by both boys and girls. It should be discussed seriously so they will gradually get used to such relationships that they will build between them in the future. This is very important! It doesn’t exist. This is real home management.

It is amazing how much we are advancing in some things, but in this, we have an absolute regression. And we can’t replace it with anything. It’s not like creating another machine or a new technology to replace another. This is simply irreplaceable!

Comment: Well, they say that a person has become freer, he has become…

My Response: One becomes freer! From the duties necessary in life. And in the end…

I think this pandemic and a few more such waves will come our way. It will force us to create a home, home sweet home, as they say, for each of us. It sounds like an outdated, repulsive word.

But we will be forced by this pandemic and by some other things because in the end, it will turn out that a person will have to stay at home more, and he or she will need to be looked after. A man according to his ways, and a woman according to hers. And the children as well. Nature will put us in our place, but it will take some time.

Comment: So we would tell this guy who is about to leave to think many times about the children he is leaving behind?

My Response: Certainly! If he has such a wife and children. There is no better woman than the one you live with and have lived with for a long time. You have children and you raised them together. This creates a bond, of course, that is clear.

Maybe you already have grandchildren too, or something. This is all set up by nature and there is no substitute for it.

Question: This has to enter the heart right?

Answer: Yes. Everything happens in life, even things that are too difficult and shameful to recall or mention. But there should be one taboo: the family should not be broken up. Even a bad family, no matter what it is, should not be broken!
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/24/21

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Question: Is there such a thing as female intuition in Kabbalah? If so, how does Kabbalah influence it and help it develop?

Answer: Of course there is. In our world, a woman is much closer to nature. She is more realistic about everything than a man who remains a child until the end of his life.

It is due to the fact that a woman must give birth and educate children, she in some way receives from the higher system, from the Creator, His functions: giving birth, developing the next level of nature, the next generation.

Therefore, a woman in our world is more mature and more realistic than a man. But on the other hand, this is compensated for in men by such properties that women do not have.

I believe that the existing separate male and female groups, in principle, complement each other. Therefore, it is not necessary to put pressure on anyone, but let them develop freely.

We are only the first generation of the open development of Kabbalah in the world. And therefore, we must first study this phenomenon on ourselves, and then it will manifest itself, and we will learn how to proceed further.
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From KabTV’s “Videoconference” 7/28/21

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New Life 1313 – Parents’ Agreement On The Education Of Their Children
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

As parents, we want our children to lead serious, balanced lives and to know how to relate to other people. We need to set the right example of agreement and acceptance between parents, an example of mutual respect. Children need to see that their parents are as one, sharing the same views. It is a principle that stems from “a man and a woman, Divinity dwells between them.” This means that the connection between them is the strongest. As a result of the parents’ example, the children will learn that they too need to try to live in agreement and mutual support. As parents we try to be as one, to share views, desires, and our perspective of each other.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1313 – Parents’ Agreement On The Education Of Their Children,”7/18/21

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Comment: “I can’t conceive and give birth, and I really want a child. But we have already seen all the doctors and healers, and it has not helped. How does one maintain balance and harmony? They tell me that I have to accept it, but I want a child.”

My Response: No, you should not accept it in any case. You can continue to conceive a child in any way, through doctors, of course. Because naturally, you have already seen that this does not work in any way. This means that you should try to do this through any scientific, medical possibilities. Do not calm down until you are at least 60 years old. Today there are such cases.

Comment: This woman is told that she has to accept it, this is fate.

My Response: No way! And what is next? Take someone else’s child for upbringing? Maybe. Sometimes, by the way, this in turn helps to conceive. But still try to do it yourself. Don’t calm down.

Comment: You said an interesting phrase that taking an adopted child sometimes helps you to conceive yourself.

My Response: This excites additional internal, female systems in a woman, and then she is more capable of fertilization.

Question: And what is happening? What was sleeping in her, what was aroused?

Answer: Motherhood, connection, and attitude to the child, all this begins to be excited in action, in life. Then she is able to get pregnant.

Question: Why do they give a woman such a test?

Answer: It is impossible to guess. To this day, we see how everything is shrouded in such a supreme mystery that nothing can be done. Here one does not conceive and cannot conceive. Everything.

We see from the Torah that all our forefathers had problems with conceiving children.
But do not calm down in any case.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/18/21

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Question: How are responsibilities distributed between a man and a woman in terms of spiritual growth?

Answer: They are not. What kind of interaction can there be between male and female parts? Mutual complementing. as between everyone. Why distinguish between male and female parts? This relates to the animate level of existence, which we have already passed.

Kabbalah makes a very clear distinction between animalistic and human relationships. There is no room for love between a man and a woman. There is only rational existence for creating a family, procreation, as well as food and necessary existence in our world.

Question: Does it mean that in Kabbalah there are no family rules such as: a man should do this in order to get to heaven and a woman should do that?

Answer: There is absolutely no difference. Each one in accordance with their nature must reach complete correct interaction with everyone.
[284754]
From KabTV’s “Videoconference”

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Question: Today, when we talk about society, about people, the prohibition to marry members of other tribes for the people of Israel seems foreign to us. What if two young people fall in love with each other?

Answer: In my opinion in our time we already understand that there is no love. Love can be where there is a clear correspondence with the system of nature. Then people are not just looking for each other in the dark trying to determine who can somehow get close to whom.

It all depends on how much they can perform the highest function together. When they both connect to it and complement each other in this, because one cannot reach the next step without the other, then they are really able to be together and have found their correct state.

Question: Previously, people had such an opportunity to unite and get married. But the elders of Israel canceled this law. Why? What happened?

Answer: I can only say one thing: No one has ever canceled the laws of the Torah. And the fact that it says that young men and girls went out to vineyards outside the cities and got to know each other there, as modern youth get to know each other, is hard to believe, because it means completely different conditions, a different time, a different upbringing, and a different attitude of people to each other.

You can even take some of the current African nations who live according to their primitive, if I may say so, laws. They also do not have such a general permissiveness as the European peoples where there is an “exit to the vineyards” between the stone jungles in big cities.

This is not what is being said. All this is absolute allegory. There is none of this especially in the people where from an early age everyone was brought up only to maintain the correct unification with each other.

Question: Are we talking here about some kind of elevated spiritual states?

Answer: Of course. The state of attaining the light of Hochma is called the “vineyard.” This is a very high level. In order to achieve such a state, one must prepare for it and undergo a serious correction in the light of Hassadim.

Then, after the breaking, after the Ninth of Av, after discovering all your negative properties and qualities, you will be able to overcome them so that in a week, on the 15^_th of Av, you will go through the last correction and reach the state where you can really find contact with that level of the Nukva’s desire, the feminine quality, when connection with it gives you the opportunity to fully reveal the light of Hochma.

This is a very serious thing. Here we do not mean any carnal actions, but the appearance of the Messiah, that is, the light of the deliverer, which lifts humanity above its egoism into the spiritual world.

Question: So, this is not at all about what is written?

Answer: Do you really think that such a serious thing as the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks of how guys and girls meet once a year somewhere outside the city?

Nevertheless, much what is written in Kabbalah has, as it were, an erotic connotation since it is a matter of combining the desire to receive and the desire to bestow. The desire to bestow is masculine, the desire to receive is feminine, and therefore, it is described like this in “Song of Songs” and other primary sources.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States. Day of Love – Tu B’Av”

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New Life 1310 – The Reasons For Losing The Sense Of Closeness In The Family
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Connections in the family are fading away because the ego continually grows and doesn’t want to be dependent on anyone. This is a natural process. People no longer feel obligated to their siblings or parents.

We can still learn how to develop a warm human connection in the family if we teach our kids about the ego and how to work with rejections and envy correctly. We need to show everyone what they will gain from being connected to others by doing exercises like, for example, helping a different sibling each day in every matter that comes up.

We can learn positive competition by comparing who can ascend higher above their own egoism in order to get closer to the other family members and awaken love in them. Family should provide a sense of support, communication, commitment, and being closer on a new level when we rise above the ego together.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1310 – The Reasons For Losing The Sense Of Closeness In The Family,” 6/27/21

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Comment: A New York school teaches children a new language that does not have the words “mom,” “dad,” “boy,” or “girl.” All these words are considered offensive by the school administration. Instead of “mom” and “dad,” you should say “adults,” “relatives,” and “family”; instead of the words “father” and “mother” gender-neutral terms should be used: “parent” or “guardian,” and instead of “husband” and “wife” – “partner.”

A new language is slowly entering the world. Will it enter or not?

My Response: It will not. What is given by nature is given by nature! That’s it!

You can’t go anywhere! “Dad,” “mom,” to replace?!

Question: In principle, these words—”dad,” “mom,” and in Hebrew: “Ima,” “Aba“—are they taken from a natural state? So the baby’s lips begin to say: “dad,” “mom,” “Ima,” “Aba“?

Answer: Of course.

Question: And there is no way of getting away from it?

Answer: No.

Comment: Even if people want to change this language?

My Response: This goes against the degrees of nature, which thus determined us. And in man these degrees are given to him forever. But animals don’t, they disappear. After two or three years, cubs part with their parents. Or rather, with the mother, because the father does not define anything there at all.

Question: And if the cub meets its mother in three years, it won’t even recognize her?

Answer: It’s not that he doesn’t recognize, they start new offspring among themselves. That is, they are completely disconnected from the past.

The mother is only needed there to feed and train the cub for, say, two or three years, depending on what species, and that’s it. And then there is nothing.

Comment: And for a person remains for life.

My Response: For life, from generation to generation. We still want to know who was in our past generations. We are very interested in this.

Question: What kind of violence is happening now that a husband and wife are a partner, a father and a mother are a parent, a guardian?

Answer: All this mutilated the language, the relationships between people. These are all egoistic deformities that come out all the time that want to show themselves more and more right, acting. All this will pass. You don’t even have to fight with it, it will all die away. Give it a little time, and it’ll all be gone.

Question: And what will happen?

Answer: Nothing will happen, you cannot erase mom and dad.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/5/21

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Comment: Today, it is very popular to make marriage contracts, which are a bilateral agreement that regulates property relations in the event of a divorce. Before getting married, people are already dividing property and providing for the option that their family will break up.

My Response: It has always been that way. There is nothing to be surprised about here. The Jews, for example, have a Ktuba—a legal document in which they clearly state what and how much the wife is entitled to in case of divorce, and how the husband should provide for her in the event of a normal married life.

A marriage contract, like any contract between two parties, regulates everything, not only monetary relations, but also the husband’s obligations to his wife.

Comment: You are speaking specifically about Jewish law. But other nations are now also beginning to build their relationships with a marriage contract.

My Response: That’s good! Because earlier in Russia we went to the registry office and signed on a piece of paper that we were husband and wife. And then what? What are our responsibilities? Who told us about this?

I signed it with my wife, but what I signed, I did not know. After all, between us there are some responsibilities, some kind of relationship that the state accepts, approves, and takes responsibility for their implementation. If someone for some reason does not fulfill them, the other party can complain about him, and then the state will already understand in court what is happening.

But this is a very small part of what the contract should be. And the fact that serious agreements are being undertaken today is probably a good thing. I believe that everything should be built on a healthy, serious relationship.

I meet a woman and am going to live a long life with her, give birth to children, raise them, accumulate property, and be together in sorrow and in joy, in health and in ailments. I must somehow resolve this relationship. It cannot hold on to love alone, to some kind of feelings.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Marriage Contract” 8/19/09

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