Question: Does the wisdom of Kabbalah have a formula for a happy family life?

Answer: Of course, after all, the wisdom of Kabbalah tells us about the unity of people and the private level of unity is the family.

Question: Do you mean that people who educate society according to the wisdom of Kabbalah can replace family psychologists? After all, preserving the integrity of the family today is a great problem: There are domestic difficulties daily; life isn’t easy, and the nuclear family is starting to fall apart.

Answer: Families are not breaking up because of the daily troubles but because it is in the interest of industrialists, advertisers, and the like. While a couple needs one apartment, a divorced couple needs two apartments. Today’s global economy is interested in having more consumers, and divorce doubles the number of consumers. Moreover, the elite don’t need millions of people who procreate.

Comment: But the industrialists also live in families.

Answer: They are merely 1% of the world’s population and have no need for all the rest. Why do they need seven billion people! As far as they are concerned it is better to reduce the world’s population even without wars by simply reducing procreation. Thus they will be able to cut down the world’s population by half during one generation.

Question: Does the wisdom of Kabbalah know how to keep the family together?

Answer: It isn’t simple. The wisdom of Kabbalah gradually tells people how to interact with each other correctly.

Comment: I heard in one of your lectures that if one partner studies the wisdom of Kabbalah while the other partner is far from it, they don’t have many chances of keeping the family together.

Answer: Of course there are problems. If one partner is greatly interested in life on the spiritual level and the other is interested in life on the corporeal level, there are disagreements and conflicts and they feel that they have different impulses. But even then no one says that they should get divorced. On the contrary, it is necessary to keep the family together no matter what.

We try to do it by any means. I understand that it isn’t easy today. Still, it is better to keep the family together, especially if there are kids. First, I am against divorce. And second, one should somehow interest his or her partner and make it understood that you have a dream, something that you are really interested in. The right thing to do is to interest your partner in your field of interest, since by studying the wisdom of Kabbalah, a person begins to discover the real meaning of life.

Everyone is interested in this matter to some extent.
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From the Webinar on zahav.ru 2/10/16

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Dear Women!

You are a very important part of humanity!  It is through the connection between man and woman that man actually discovered the Creator. We all know that we wouldn’t have fallen from the Garden of Eden into the temporary life on earth if it hadn’t been for the woman. Now thanks to our being here, we can re-ascend to what is called The Garden of Eden but to a much, much higher level than the one we fell from.

The wisdom of Kabbalah tells us about what we attain when we ascend to the Garden of Eden after the sin of the “Tree of Knowledge,” which was committed by the woman. Everything is fulfilled according to a predetermined script: we ascend 125 levels higher than the level we were on in the past.

Therefore, we must first thank the woman for bringing us down to the earth so we would actually be able to acquire a greater upper spiritual level. Secondly, when Abraham first discovered the Creator he was told: “Listen to what Sarah tells you.” We also have three matriarchs: Rachel, Rebecca, and Leah who were all great prophetesses.

Throughout history since the destruction of the Second Temple to our very days, women were the basis that holds, nurtures, and sustains the people. The Torah says: “a woman is a home,” and so she is the foundation and the basis of all the people.

Today women precede men in their yearning for the goal of creation, the wisdom of Kabbalah, and the attainment of the Creator, and are ready to do everything heroically and with great dedication in order to bring the nation to the upper attainment.

I therefore thank you for your tremendous valuable investment that cannot even be measured in the development of humanity and the development of the wisdom of Kabbalah. Thank you for preparing us for the spiritual ascent. It is a special gift that you give us every day, us men and all of humanity. We should constantly be grateful for that and not only on March 8th, Women’s Day.

Good luck, good health, and higher spiritual attainment for all of us!
[178702]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 3/6/16

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Question: When one is creating a partnership, is it necessary to inform the partner immediately that you are studying the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: Yes, certainly. From the moment you get to know the person for the first time, you must feel his attitude toward this. It is even better to remember that, as a general rule, it is doubtful if a person “from the outside” will be compatible as a partner for you. It is preferable to choose him from our groups throughout the world.

Question: Why does a man need to provide for his wife?

Answer: That is customary in all cultures. A woman is the home. She must give birth and educate the children, and be involved with home economics, whereas a man must “go out to hunt and bring home the mammoth.”

Question: Does sex interfere with spiritual growth?

Answer: No.

Question: Why have men and women been compelled, as becomes clear in old age, to be involved with unimportant things for their entire lives?

Answer: It depends on how they carry out their lives. They can live on an animal level; they can live like angels.

Question: Can I unite with my wife without being present in a group?

Answer: You can, but this is not easy.

Question: According to what criteria should a Kabbalist choose a husband?

Answer: It is according to maximum purposefulness, loyalty to the group, studying, and things like that. If you are ready to choose, choose like that.

Question: If a man doesn’t provide for his wife materially but is involved with spirituality, must he provide for himself?

Answer: As a general rule, in our day, a man cannot provide for his family. We have been put into such circumstances that two salaries are necessary to provide for a family. There is nothing special about this. So, a woman doesn’t need to set conditions for a man to be involved with the wisdom of Kabbalah only after he provides for her. If a husband works normally and gets paid, you can’t demand more from him than this.

Question: If a man needs a woman in order to advance spiritually, does the Creator bring him to a partnership or is this a person’s choice?

Answer: No, a man himself must try to find a wife, a woman who is next to him. This is so that you will feel that you have obligations and concerns about someone and that, together, you constitute a couple. This is very desirable for spiritual development.
[177186]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/6/15

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Question: Researchers at the University of Syracuse, New York conducted a study and concluded that women in love become smarter, while men become more foolish.

Answer: The point is that, when a man sees a beautiful woman, he loses his mind. This is our nature, and there is nothing to be ashamed of or to be hypocritical and self-righteous about.

Question: Those who took part in the experiment were asked to perform simple exercises. The women did them quite easily, while the men sat with their mouths open and looked at the women.

Answer: When a man is flooded by hormones, there is nothing he can do. A woman looks at a man’s brains, while a man looks at woman’s beauty, at her body, and that attracts and tempts him. His only expectation is that she will suit his taste.

A woman, on the other hand, doesn’t look at a man’s externality. She assesses him either according to his money or according to his brains. A woman naturally can get used to any man, while a man doesn’t and must leap from one branch to the next all of the time since he is a hunter according to his basic nature.

A woman is a housewife from birth. She needs a home, a foundation. She should have children, a home to care for, and family.

This means that men and women have totally different internal foundations and perceive totally different messages, so it is absolutely impossible to compare them.

Our forefathers knew this ages ago, but we have reached a “unisex” perception lately, a unified sexual perception according to which we don’t differentiate between a man and a woman anymore. Now, we are returning to the initial stage by rediscovering who we are.

Question: What is “falling in love?”

Answer: It is a combination of totally external influences on a person, on hormones that suddenly awaken and control a person. It can be spurred by electrical signals, thoughts, waves, and in any way possible.

Question: What is love from a Kabbalistic perspective?

Answer: Love from a Kabbalistic perspective is the mutual complementation of one another that is built consciously by a man and a woman above all of the problems they may have and their correct solution.

This must be taught and aspired for. I hope that at least the next generation will be ready for that. People will begin to understand how to build relations between them called love that will not be affected by anything. They will begin to format themselves internally for the right mutual connection.
[177710]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 2/18/16

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Question: Why does it seem to me that women are smarter than men?

Answer: It is because they are more practical and more connected to our world. They feel it more and don’t float in the clouds like men do. So, I recommend that men listen to them.

Question: It seems that women understand the wisdom of Kabbalah much better?

Answer: Women are far from understanding the wisdom of Kabbalah more than the men. They simply feel instinctively what is better for them to attain maximum comfort, tranquility and harmony in life because the female body obligates them to this. So, if a man wants to reach the correct normal state of family life more rapidly, it is desirable to listen to a woman.
[177182]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/6/15

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New Life 693 – Love Of The World
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

All of us have been connected with each other since the moment creation began to evolve because we come from a single source. That single source wants us to evolve, like a father and mother, it wants us to attain everything good, love. Nature provides us with the example of a mother’s love, from the moment a new life comes to exist in her, a feeling of love is also born in her. Love is expressed through filling another with what is good for him, with what he loves, what he lacks. If we were to love many people and were able to give, we would have unlimited pleasure. Therefore we have been commanded, “And you shall love” (Leviticus 19:18).

We are all a single soul, but this is hidden from us. We feel estranged from one another and the connection between us has become rejection. Soon all the inhabitants of the world will have to discover the inner connection between them, and then above the rejection there will be love, as it is written, “Love covereth all transgressions” (Proverbs 10:12); the fire of love is ignited above the fire of hatred. Kabbalah teaches us how to achieve this. Natural love will probably not crumble within the family and among the people because a new connection must be born. Love is the peak of human evolution; from love of others we ultimately reach love of the Creator, the general force that connects everything.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 693 – Love Of The World,” 2/16/16

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New Life 692 – What Is Love?
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Our nature is a desire to enjoy and we love whatever gives us pleasure. We love many things depending on the hierarchy of our desires for: food, sex, family, money, respect, and knowledge. If there weren’t hate, there wouldn’t be love, and the intensity of love depends on the intensity of hate. Hate can be toward someone or something or toward a situation in which we lack something that we love. Human development means the correction of our definitions as to what is good or bad, what we enjoy and what we don’t. Man is a social creature so he can determine values not according to his own feeling but according to the well being of society.

So why is it important to me that I am loved? Because deep inside we are all connected to one another like one body, and because of this internal connection I greatly care about what others think of me or say about me, and just as I have a desire to be loved I also have a desire to love.

Children who grow up without loving parents are really miserable, because when we don’t feel a connection between us we feel lost. Love gives a person a feeling of internal abundance that revives him, and it is a much deeper emotion that we actually know at the moment. We have yet to discover what it is.

Today people draw away from family connections; love disappears and in its place, a new connection will be built. The secret of life is connected to love, to the connection between opposites, between love and hate. Without this there is no life.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 692 – What Is Love?” 2/16/16

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Question: Can a man and a woman be friends?

Answer: No, only people of the same sex can be friends because the strongest attraction is sexual attraction, which means that it is above friendship.

Question: So, what is meant by the expression, “When husband and wife are worthy, the Shechina is between them?”

Answer: If a husband and a wife connect spiritually, they can reveal the Creator in this connection.

Question: What is an ideal family for you?

Answer: An ideal family is when a husband and wife develop together in spirituality and in their corporeal life, trying to establish a mutual connection between them so that one unique whole will indeed appear between them in which they discover the Creator.

Theoretically, this is possible, but I have not encountered such examples in corporeal life, which is natural for the state our world is in for the time being, the state of shattering. We may reach this state in practice, and in fact, we must reach that since in the future this will be the foundation of the family.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/6/15

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Question: In the past every man had several women, is this considered unfaithfulness?

Answer: In earlier times it was not considered unfaithfulness or anything unusual, since a man did not neglect his family.

If we wish to understand this phenomenon, we should simply understand the upper nature of a man and a woman first, and then accordingly understand what we can demand from each of them.

A woman feels that she belongs to her man. This is how she is built psychologically, and so any expression of passion on her man’s part to another woman seems to her as unfaithfulness. Women’s sexual passion is related to feelings, to faithfulness, etc., whereas a man’s passion stems from sexual arousal, and he doesn’t feel anything toward the object of his passion other than the sex drive.

This is the reason that humanity needs to learn how to live and to relate to each other correctly according to nature.

Question: What if a man is in a long-term relationship with another woman?

Answer: Then it is not sexual attraction anymore but also a material connection. It was acceptable in earlier times for a man to have several families or one family with several wives and many kids from his different wives.

Today, there are cultures in which a woman can have several men; it is all a matter of culture.

Question: But is there anything that can harm one’s spiritual development? Isn’t it a transgression of the commandment “thou shall not commit adultery?”

Answer: Adultery refers to a woman who is married to another man. A married woman is a taboo, just as a woman has no right to seduce a married man.

But today we live in such a time and our life is so confused that the corporeal laws no longer match a person’s spiritual nature.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/6/15

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New Life 685 – Dealing With Criticism In The Family
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Our growing ego even causes us to criticize our children and demand that our children realize what we didn’t attain. But criticism should be minimal, maintaining boundaries that we define for our familial standards, and the child must learn how to activate his critical sense by himself correctly, keeping within the framework of the family. If he doesn’t criticize himself when he goes against the accepted rules of the family, then we parents criticize him gently to provide him with the tools to be self-critical.

A child needs to know that he has a family for his whole life, and that if he goes against the generally accepted rules in the family, he will lose the right relationship with it. The most important general rule is to be connected to the family; this is the highest value, and if he behaves in a way that is not acceptable in the family, he will lose the connection and security, and this will bring him back on the right track.

The family is the basic unit in nature and we must not destroy it. Parents give birth to new life, and if they divorce, they destroy the good familial relationship for the children.

We require preparation to know how to criticize each other with love and to receive it with good spirit. For example, how do we behave with a child who isn’t studying for a test? We express our familial expectation that he will succeed; we help him study, and it is also possible to promise him a reward.

To do this we must gradually build familial standards: everyone must say how he will contribute to the family, and the family will express its appreciation and thanks for all of his daily contributions at fixed times, even if this is artificial and contrived. It is important to open a new page every day without mentioning the events of the previous day. We could give each other a kiss when we meet, and so forth. That is how we set principles, agreements, and habits and provide examples, since personal example is the best influence, more than words.

If I have a criticism, I must restrain myself and only approach it gently and ask: “Did you do that on purpose?” With this I am not expressing my attitude about what he did. Instead I am clarifying with the child his attitude about what he did and his intention. I help him clarify what he did and what he meant by it, with love. In this way I am teaching him how to criticize himself.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 685 – Dealing With Criticism In The Family,” 2/2/16

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