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.
[177999]
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.
[177994]
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.
[176897]
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.
[176719]
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.
[#177059]
From KabTV’s “New Life 685 – Dealing With Criticism In The Family,” 2/2/16

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Question: Why is there a prohibition on incest?

Answer: There is a prohibition on incest because there cannot be a connection between the upper Partzuf and the lower Partzuf in the spiritual body. The two Partzufim that are opposite one another mustn’t ascend to the same level since it leads to the shattering of the vessel.

On the whole this is also reflected in our world according to the principle of root and branch. Basically the Torah doesn’t speak about the corporeal states of the body in which we continue to keep the laws of the spiritual world according to the principle of “in His image and in His likeness,” but in the corporeal world, these are no longer laws but customs.
[176503]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/6/15

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Question: Must we get married for spiritual advancement?

Answer: No. Today this is no longer necessary.

In our day people have lost the desire to get married, raise a family, invest in a family, and the education of children is a big hassle for them.

Our generation was educated in a completely different way. Everyone had to get married, bring children into the world, educate them and give them a direction in life. These questions were always in front of us. But today, as a rule, parents aren’t very concerned about these things.

Comment: But in principle nature obligates us to live in a family.

Answer: That is how it once was, but for the new generation there is no need for this. In our day marriages are no longer necessary conditions even for those who want to develop spiritually.

My teacher Rav Baruch Shalom Ashlag obligated his students to marry and only someone who married was considered to be his student.

Unfortunately, I cannot demand this from my students because the wisdom of Kabbalah must extend and be disseminated all over the world. If I placed any conditions, we would not succeed in disseminating the wisdom of Kabbalah. The main thing is that people should hear and know at least a little about what the wisdom of Kabbalah is, and that is how the circle of those who are interested will gradually expand.

But someone who truly wants to be seriously involved with the wisdom of Kabbalah on one of the stages of spiritual development will need to think about solving the problem of the family. A person who learns about the nature of the spiritual world feels that he must himself be like nature, and so he is obligated to have a second half.
[175715]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/6/15

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