Question: The main reason for divorce in Israel is love that has died out (36%), the second reason is financial problems (32.5%), and the third reason is unfaithfulness (11.2%). How do you relate to love that has died out?

Answer: I don’t understand what this means!

When I first saw my future wife, even when I was not religious or a Kabbalist, I asked myself: Is she the person I will be able to stand by my side for a very long time, and I realized that she was and that I would also be able to do so. She is indulging, hard working, loves to study, and was ready to follow me in the years when I was refused Aliyah. In those days it was dangerous even to speak about going to Israel!

But on our very first meeting I already told her: “I am going to Israel, do you agree to come with me…?” Since otherwise there was no point seeing each other anymore, and she agreed.

Question: But you haven’t said anything about love…

Answer: Love is an emotion that appears as a result of a long connection between people, when they support one another and are concerned about and care about each other.

At first it is only hormones that bring people together, just like in the animal world. You can see the same thing in nature films, but when it comes to animals, the connection is only at specific times, at a certain age. When it comes to humans, it is permanent.

I believe that poets and writers invented the term “love” in order to confuse people. I am sure that a couple of centuries ago there was no love and people simply connected because they thought “she is right for me,” or “he is right for me.” They matched each other, felt close, understood and supported one another, and that’s all.

Question: What do people mean when they say that love is gone?

Answer: What love?! Hormones cannot act for forty, fifty or sixty years, especially when it comes to men!

Question: Why do they act? Why do people live together for 50-60 years?

Answer: People live together because they have children; they have shared property, etc. There is nothing we can do about it, the habit was given to us from Above, but this is not love in any way!

Question: So what is love?

Answer: Love is a feeling of mutual understanding, of mutual connection and loyalty, of mutual commitment. It is a feeling of partnership, of an inner connection, of a “debt” to another person. You are not forced into it, but simply feel you are committed. What is more, a person feels that his partner treats him the same way. This is called love. We take this definition from the wisdom of Kabbalah where love is called a desire to bestow unto another and not the other way around, while in our world it is a desire to receive something corporeal from another person, to receive as much as possible and as soon as possible.

This is a totally egoistic interpretation of the term “love,” which is opposite from its true meaning,

Question: It turns out that you actually need to develop love.

Answer: Yes, but only on the basis of mutual understanding, by hard work between us.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/28/16

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New Life 743 – Declining Birth Rates And Human Evolution
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Every phenomenon, including the lack of the desire to have children, is a result of our attitude for our development. Technology eliminates the need for a family.

There is an internal program in nature that advances us. The steamroller of evolution pressures us and different processes take place whether we like it or not.

In the future we will not have to work so hard in order to survive and then the question of what are we living for will arise. Nothing that happens naturally is tragic. We simply have to explore where nature is leading us. On our next level of evolution man will want to penetrate the great “computer” of nature.

The future generation will desire to reproduce through internal and spiritual connection with all of mankind. This will be a new kind of evolution. By connecting our desires and our thoughts we will become one man. This will not happen by technology such as artificial intelligence and such but by our internal development.

In the future all our needs will be provided and all we will have to do is to find out what we truly need. An internal revolution!
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From KabTV’s “New Life 743 – Declining Birth Rates And Human Evolution,” 7/7/16

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New Life 742 – World Demographics
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Since our return to the land of Israel from exile, the world has changed; we need to build a “new man” here. In general, the world takes on different forms according to the rate of advancement of the people of Israel in their correction. Our progress or our delay in building the “new man” influences every aspect of human life.

The Earth can contain tens of billions of people if they would relate to each other in a proper way. It is impossible to isolate the demographic situation from the rest of the aspects of human life because everything is linked to everything.

The more egoism grows, a person cannot stand the obligations of family and children. He wants comfort. The growing ego obliges us to invest in ourselves and not in anyone else. In the past, a man’s home was his fortress. He needed a family to survive. But today there is an alternative for everything and a person wants to feel free.

We are standing before a new level of existence that requires personal change. We returned to the Israel and the wisdom of Kabbalah was discovered to give an example of how a person must accommodate himself to nature. A truly free person is someone who clarifies what correct development is according to nature and is prepared to implement it.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 742 – World Demographics,” 7/7/16

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Question: In Jerusalem an extraordinary Gay Pride Parade was organized as a protest against one of the Rabbis who called homosexuals, “perverts” and the additional 250 Israeli Rabbis who support him. How do you relate to pronouncements of this kind?

Answer: I consider the Jewish people to be a single family in which there are different children, including these. And even if someone doesn’t want them, there is nothing to do, they are our children .Of course, nobody chooses to be born with these tendencies. After all, they are given to us by nature. So homosexuals struggle with having their natural tendencies recognized as normal because they cannot get rid of them anyway. We know that sexual attraction is a most powerful factor, even more than a craving for food. Humanity is constantly increasing its sexual inclinations. We see this everywhere, even on the Internet. So one must respect this and not relate to it childishly.

It is necessary to stop all of the pronouncements “against” and “for” and to become organized as a single family, because the main thing is the unity among us. We cannot do anything about this issue; we need to accept it as it is and not make it any harder than it is for people in whom such an attraction is latent from birth. It is up to us to let them live in peace and find appropriate partners for themselves, unless otherwise impossible.

The correction comes from us. When we connect, we awaken positive forces, Light that can reform the relationships between us. In this respect, it is up to the LGBT community to reconsider the purpose of the Gay Pride parades, not because it is forbidden or permitted for them to be held. It is clear that in a democratic nation it is permissible to hold parades like these. The question is, do we specifically want to emphasize what separates and divides us? Or maybe it would specifically be better to search for what connects us among the differences?

As long as we don’t harm others or exploit the weaknesses of others, every person is allowed to realize the lifestyle that is appropriate for him in his private life, including religious belief or sexual orientation. But it is important to do this without cutting off the ways that lead us to communication and building a single, united people.

So I don’t agree with the pronouncements of the Rabbis. This is human nature and there is nothing to be done with this. In any case, it is necessary to get along and live in one nation. After all, it is impossible to live with mutual hatred all the time. We already need to leave the state of “exile” and gradually approach building the Third Temple.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/21/16

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New Life 522 – From A New Society To A New Family
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

In the last decades we have gone through a dramatic change. Outbreaks, fights, and family conflicts have become commonplace.

The solution to problems in the family will be found only when we know where nature is leading us, what the law of equivalence of form is, and we equalize our form with Him. All of us must become one big family. When we build a new society, families will get along, there will be love, consideration, and reciprocity; everything that we want to be in the family we must create in society by ourselves.

In the society we are building, every person will begin the day with 15 minutes of watching something about corrected interpersonal relationships. After that at work, the day will begin with a connection workshop about the right relationships between people.

At the end of the day we will move on to a workshop that will prepare us to return home and how to act calmly and to relate to the members of the family at home. Nationwide social education processes like these will bring us to the feeling of a wonderful life; we will be in the clouds. This will heal our connections with the members of the family and co-workers and will also buy security for us.

The direction is: each one must see how he transcends his egoism to a higher life. So that each one will have the forces to relate to the family at home nicely, social support is needed. This future state will be called the next world, a corrected world in which the force of bestowal and love will prevail among us.

Without a nationwide process of social education, no family will succeed in contending with the growing egoism alone. The growing ego will bring every member of the family to close himself off in his own corner without any connection to the others. It is worthwhile conducting a family workshop: Let’s talk about what a good family is, what will let us make concessions, and so on….

Only the education of the people will bring education of the family. The direction is: All of us are friends; all of us are family.
From KabTV’s “New Life 522 – From A New Society To A New Family,” 2/15/15

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Comment: In Britain there are close to 70,000 prostitutes who earn up to 2,000 pounds per week. The members of the Internal Affairs Committee of the National Parliament proposed making prostitution legal and not pursue prostitutes from a criminal aspect. They justify this with the claim that many are single mothers and are women who have been forced into the profession of prostitution to feed themselves.

Answer: Prostitution is the oldest profession that has existed at all times and in all nations. So it is pointless to fight it, but it is necessary to put it into a framework that is more or less decent so that families will not be destroyed. There are those who say that if the profession of prostitution is legalized, the family will not break up because a prostitute doesn’t try to “get involved” with the man and take him away from his wife for herself.

Prostitution is not the biggest problem of society. Sex is a natural need that is naturally awakened in a person. We cannot suppress it. So it is up to us to find a suitable outlet for the release of that sexual energy that grips young people and doesn’t let them live normally.

When hormones are “raging” in youth, they cannot learn and interact normally among them. Everything revolves around sex for them. So I would approach this question with compassion and kindness, humanely, and I would make it possible for men, youngsters, and teenagers to reduce the “pressure” when needed, but that it would not go beyond certain limits and take on ugly forms.

Today, both young men and women are not in a hurry to get married. So until they want to establish a family, they should have such possibilities to live in peace, develop, learn, and acquire a profession, in short, to go in accordance with nature.

I cannot imagine what would happen if we were living today in the conditions of ancient society and people did not want to communicate with each other, get married, or start a family . After all, starting from the ages of 12-13, the hormones begin to rage in them so they do not understand what is happening to them, so much it captures their hearts and minds.

So the best thing is to find simple and wise laws. It is of course necessary to explain and show practically that sexual attraction between people and the right mutual connection must be based upon understanding and mutual respect so that the person becomes dear and close to you for serious reasons and not just because a short sexual connection happened with them connecting them with reluctance.

It is necessary to differentiate between sex and the right mutual connection. In any case, life is moving toward this situation to show us that these two fundamental phenomena in our lives are not connected with each other. On the one hand, love, attraction, respect, and habit; on the other hand, there is the administration of sexual needs.

Just as with older couples who have lived together all of their lives, characterized by habit, understanding, and mutual dependence, so this is necessary even at a young age. This is because when there is more connection between us, we understand the dependence that there is between us and we feel loyalty to the family and children. So emphasis should be placed specifically on education. I believe that it is necessary to work with psychologists and experts on family matters. But there is a need for fundamentally changing relationships. Only then will mutual cooperation between people look different.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/3/16

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New Life 521 – The Magical Secret Of The Family 
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

The values and habits one gets while growing up in a family are engraved in him for a lifetime. The family is first and foremost the mother. A boy is connected to his mother for his whole life. From her, he moves into the hands of his wife.

If a woman envelops a man in an atmosphere like in the home of his mother, he will treat her with love like his mother. A woman who builds such an atmosphere for her husband at home, her husband will really be hooked to the family.

A woman’s nature is revolutionary, is adaptable and flexible, she adapts to everything. However, a man always remains a child who wants his mother.

Today the family is in crisis where we are about to move toward a new form of relationship between people, included in the new approach will be we are all one family. Evolution is forcing us to learn to develop love. In the future family, the upper force will dwell, the force of love, bestowal, and connection, a power that comes from above our nature.

People are getting divorced today because they feel an emptiness that nothing can fill. Something is missing for them. In the future connection, people will build a family together because they will feel that it brings them to a higher goal. About this it is written, “When husband and wife are worthy, the Shechina abides with them” (Sotah 17a).

This is the discovery of the upper force, eternal life. The upper force is the force of love and bestowal, it is higher than our natural egoistic attitude to those around us. In a family, a person will life without restriction, full of discernments, joys, and happy children.
From KabTV’s “New Life 521 – The Magical Secret Of The Family,” 2/15/15

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Question: How can my wife and I walk together toward the Creator, and in what way is the spiritual work in a family different from the work in a group? We watch the lessons together and read the writings of Baal HaSulam aloud. Are there concrete recommendations and sources that speak about this?

Answer: Studying with your wife is recommended and it helps. This is described in many of our materials.
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Question: Can a person be cleansed from the accepted standards and fashions that conform everyone to one size in order to hear his inner voice and understand what kind of a partner he needs?

Answer: I hope that today we will conduct an audit of everything we did during the last 100 years and will decide to ignore all the representations imposed by society in order to try and discern our natural internal aspirations and find a really suitable partner with whom we will unite for life.

A woman can be fat, short, and ugly, but she suits me according to my internal requirements. Perhaps we will even conduct this type of survey for men and women in order to understand what suits a person. And then our society will promote the development of true and natural couples.

This is a very important question, perhaps the most important of all because dissatisfaction with family life is reflected totally on everything: on the life of the country, economy, industry, security in each country and throughout the world. Family is a foundation of our lives.

If a person is comfortable in his family, he is calm and he can develop connections. Family is the foundation of society, and if we build this foundation correctly, we will build a world.

Today, the family is collapsing, but it will return due to a lack of choice; however, it will be on another level in the corrected form. As always, we destroy something until we come around, grab our heads, and decide to return to the old form, but in a new form.

Question: Nowadays, a person’s happiness is not evaluated by a happy family and relationships with loved ones but by one’s wealth, position, and power. Is this what a person needs?

Answer: Society is built so that it pushes a person to the various artificial values. But in reality, a person is interested in completely different things: not a profession and money, but a harmonious happy family, and a warm atmosphere at home next to his wife and children.

Of course a man can’t be limited only to the house and needs some more development, but only as a supplement. Because peace in the family will provide him with the right foundation, with which he will relate accordingly to his entire life.

He would want to build a society in such a form that it will suit his family and will support it. Thus the entire society will be focused on the family, not on conquering other countries and on insane enrichment. Building a correct family is the basis of the entire humanity.

Question: Is it true that for each person there is a partner that ideally suits him?

Answer: Certainly. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah we all came from one person who consisted of male and female parts, Adam and Eve. And when they shattered in the fall of the Tree of Knowledge, fragments were formed, which when combined fit together perfectly. Every Adam has his Eve that completes him entirely.

All the cycles we undergo throughout history are in order to finally find this half that is exactly opposite to me and suits me perfectly.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 4/5/16

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Question: What determines a person’s desires? Different men like different women, and different women like different men. Why does it happen this way?

Answer: It is less apparent in animals because they feel exactly what is the most suitable for them. A male chooses the healthiest female capable of giving birth to healthy offspring. And females also choose a mate on the same basis: the strongest and the healthiest that can produce healthy cubs and protect the family.

Actually, people unconsciously are guided by the same principles. And although it seems to us that this isn’t so and we hide behind nice words, but our attraction to each other is mostly due to just that.

And since there are all four levels in every creature: still, vegetative, animate, and human, all people are divided into four types according to their character: sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic. It also influences the choice of a partner.

In human society, this choice is affected by many factors: education, habits, and belonging to a specific nation and culture. And therefore the natural, indigenous desire of a person is greatly disguised. If we strip off all external influences, each one will choose a woman that his body requires who is also suitable to him in character.

A suitable partner is someone who completes me. That is, I would feel that I would be fine with her. After all, we are going to live together for a long time, unlike animals that meet only for a short time in order to produce offspring.

A man and a woman create a family in order to spend a life together, which includes everything: education, culture, work, creating a home, and raising children and grandchildren. It binds us in such forms of connection that we don’t select a partner according to the inner call of nature and according to natural instincts.

We follow the generally accepted opinions, standards, and fashions that varies in each generation. Throughout human history, it was believed that an attractive woman should have a full figure and be short in stature. And today, on the contrary, everybody likes tall thin ones. These are external qualities, but the internal requirements for a woman have changed too.

In the old days, a woman was only required to be able to do housework, to cook, clean, take care of children, and bear children. And today, her education, profession, cultural and educational level, social status, and the ability to integrate into society are important. These requirements have changed dramatically over the past century.

And they are not natural because although we are all different, we are measured with the same criteria. Therefore it works differently for each one, depending how close or how far they are from it. Each person is rich internally and has his own taste, unique opinion and views on everything. And we are driven into a very narrow frame and converted into a homogeneous mass.

In every class at school out of 15 girls five are valued and the rest are viewed as second-class citizens because they don’t conform to the standards and fashion. However, this never happened before.

There were no such stringent standards, and each one was measuring to his liking according to his heart. Some liked fuller-figured women, some liked thin ones, some liked tall ones, and some liked short ones, according to the internal program of each one. Also, a man likes a woman that reminds him of his mother, meaning is similar to her.

But today society is so tied to the generally accepted standards that it doesn’t allow a person to realize his inner, natural aspiration correctly. And this is the basis of all problems of our society because people meet, get married, have children, and then realize that they one they chose is not one that suits their inner desire. We act according to the models imposed on us by society and therefore we are unhappy.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 4/5/16

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