All of Israel became responsible for one another. Because the Torah was not given to them before each and every one from Israel was asked if he agreed to take upon himself the Mitzva [commandment] of loving others in the full measure expressed in the words “Love your friend as yourself” (Baal HaSulam, Article “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”).

Question: What does it mean “each one was asked”? Or is this an inappropriate question for us?

Answer: This question is always within you, in your soul. Every day you must answer it: Are you ready to move forward?

With this question, a person progresses: “Who am I? For what purpose am I here? Why? What goal am I heading to? With what means? What exactly must I do? What is the essence of each of my steps?” This is what organizes a person in the movement toward the quality of giving, toward the spiritual quality.

For us, the most important thing is to acquire the first spiritual quality. This means that we will begin to perceive the spiritual world.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”

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Comment: A “Doomsday Clock” was started in 1947 by the creators of the first atomic bomb. This clock shows how much time is left until midnight, which marks a nuclear cataclysm. This decision about the remaining time is made by a board consisting of 18 Nobel laureates.

Today, they say, there are ninety seconds left until midnight. According to their calculations they warn that we are approaching catastrophe and everyone needs to react. They assert that we are facing the most dangerous moment in modern history. They urge us to bear in mind that it could very well happen.

My Response: Yes.

Question: Why do we completely not care about these statements?

Answer: These statements are actually completely unimportant to us.

Question: So they gather there, they talk, they determine how long until midnight, and we do not care about it. Why? Why are we not afraid of this?

Answer: That is our nature.

Question: Will this always be your answer?

Answer: What else can be done? That is how I see it.

Comment: But I have children, grandchildren. I have my own life.

My Response: So what. Do you really want them to carry on this miserable life?

Comment: I do not want them to have a miserable life.

My Response: Suffering endlessly, from century to century.

Question: So will there be no Doomsday Clock ticking away in me, making me tremble and worry: “It is going to happen any moment now”?

Answer: No!

Comment: I am trying; I want to stop all of this!

My Response: If it ends, what difference does it make to them whether it happens today or in ten years?

Question: So all these calls to action mean nothing?

Answer: No.

Question: Then why do they call for action, sign treaties, gather at the UN and hold Security Council meetings? Why?

Answer: Someone has to do something and get paid for it. Nothing will change. This world will remain doomed.

Question: So what should we be doing then? If not stopping these wars, not working on peace in the world or anything else, what should we be doing?

Answer: Actually, the best thing would be if we all went to sleep. Really. If we invented a little pill: right now, at, say midnight, we all take the pill and wake up in 100 years.

What would happen during that time? The world would heal.

Comment: You saw what happened during the Covid period. Animals came into the cities, the environment improved. We were told that springs, lakes, and rivers were getting cleaner. The world would cleanse itself from our pollution.

My Response: Yes, that would be good.

Question: Not bad, of course. At least no one is killing anyone. But in reality? There will be no pill, we can’t sleep it away.

These people have found a goal for themselves—to warn the world about nuclear catastrophe. Others, on the contrary, are building nuclear bombs. Still others want to live peacefully, but are not allowed to. Ultimately, what should we all, as humans, come to?

Answer: We should come to the question: “What is the purpose of human life?” And, of course, not just to sleep through life and do nothing, but to get an answer to this question: “Why am I living?”

We all need to ask this question and receive an answer.

Question: Do you personally see your task in getting people to ask this question?

Answer: Yes.

Question: What answer will they come to if they ask the question?

Answer: Why I live.

Question: And why is that?

Answer: Why? That is for each person to understand: the purpose of their life.

Question: So this is the engine of life?

Answer: Yes, to push people toward the Creator. I believe there is no higher task than to rise to the level of the Creator.

Question: Will an ordinary person also come to this question?

Answer: Yes.
[329870]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/1/24

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Question: Is it possible to distinguish any stages from the moment a person first becomes acquainted with the science of Kabbalah to the moment when he decides for himself that he will correct his nature?

Answer: People consist of one egoistic desire, and nothing is unique about them. Although there are some combinations of certain qualities in each of them, they are all the same.

What could there be in them other than the usual animal desires to realize oneself, enjoy, and so on? In other words, calming one’s egoism at different levels is what a person desires at every moment.

With the same thoughts, he comes to study Kabbalah. He just wants to calm himself and his desires and reveal and fill them. But it is difficult here. First he enters a state of depression and despair and suffers from a lack of opportunity to attain the meaning of life. Without revealing this meaning, the whole world is unpleasant for him, and he does not know what to do with himself.

That is, a person is searching. He is led to understand that if he does not reveal the Creator, he will remain an animal and in general will exist in vain.

When does he start to learn it? Not right away. He must go through certain stages of accumulation of despair, aspiration, study, incorporation into others, and unconscious contact with the upper world because all this must somehow form in him. He realizes that there is no other way out. Not because he flies on some kind of wings—no, there is nothing else. A person comes to us out of despair and thus enters into the study of Kabbalah. Today, we see this across all of humanity.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/20, “Questions and Answers”

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People differ from animals in that in addition to desires for food, sex, shelter, and procreation, they also have so-called social desires for wealth, power, and knowledge, which can be satisfied at the expense of the surrounding society.

These additional social desires called the human desires of our world can be either directed toward subjugating society, suppressing it, being above it, or toward raising oneself, one’s development, in the likeness of nature, in adhesion with the environment, in connection with society for its benefit.

And here a paradox arises: when I act for the benefit of society, I begin to feel everything that is in it, inside me, and I enrich myself internally. And if I exploit people around me, then I do not rise above them, but on the contrary, being on my animal level, I suppress human qualities in them.

This is where the difference appears in what a man spends his additional desires on. He does it either to improve his corporeal life—create comfort for himself, supposedly take care of the environment, develop engineering, technology, and so on—or none of this simply matters to him.

For him, only internal development matters—how to realize himself. After all, how many years does he live on this earth? Anyway, his body will rot, his house will fall apart, etc. Why should he think about something that is transitory? He should think about the eternal! About what he can develop in himself and what he really can achieve the next stage, his eternal state, which is realized only in our world.

Precisely in contrast to his preferences: “What should I turn myself into: for the benefit of others or for their detriment? For the benefit of my animal or spiritual state? So that I reach the Creator and become similar to Him through love for my neighbor or so that I love myself and indulge myself in everything until the last moment of my life? This is the choice!

But the choice is precisely in relation to the desires that are beyond necessities. Nobody talks about how much I should eat or sleep. I should not live in a cave. I must have a family, normal food, and clothes. That is all. Nothing more is said about this. It is said: “Where are you heading other than this?”

Man’s freedom of will consists in preferring the choice of activities. This is what determines whether he is a spiritual or an earthly person.

People who strive for spirituality feel haunted by the question about the meaning of life. A person must answer it; otherwise, he feels no point in living. In other words, there is no point in using one’s qualities to become rich, powerful, or even smart. So what? I will die and that is it. Why waste my life on this?

And many do not want to. They either fall into depression, drugs, and even alcoholism, or they are still looking for a way out.

And here comes a kind of luck, a quality of fate that leads them to the method of revealing their correct realization.
[328802]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Dead-end Path of Human Development” 1/24/12

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If a person does not devote his life to pursuing any path, either he wastes himself on many different searches and ends his life with nothing, or he lives like an animal without any search for a purpose. All this is determined not by him, but by his desire.

I do not imagine myself pursuing wealth, power, or fame. After all, these things end along with my life. Why do this? I am already over seventy years old. Okay, let us say I will have another ten years. So what is next? Then nothing and that’s it, it’s over. So what should I do in these ten years?

Comment: Work in a garden, grow flowers, watch TV.

My Response: Yes, yes, also children, grandchildren… I’m not against it. Kabbalah obliges a person to take part in everyday life, but the purpose of life should still guide us forward.

Comment: There is a classic notion, I will have my children there to give me a glass of water in my old age.

My Response: What difference does this make in how I die? What is next if my children will bring water to me or not in old age? This is where everything ends. Let’s say I have a special five-star nursing home. Nurses and caretakers will be around me, pampering me like a small child. They will wipe and bottle-feed me until I happily fall asleep in their arms, soothed by eternal restful sleep. Is that it? Why did I live my life?

Today, a person only thinks about his life and its end, hoping to live out his last years more comfortably. There’s nothing to talk about here.

But the fact is that people who come to study Kabbalah understand that if they do not find the purpose of life, then this life is of no use to them; it would be better if it did not exist.
[329602]
From KabTV’s “I got a call, To Believe a Kabbalist” 1/28/10

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Comment: Generally, people who come to study Kabbalah are seasoned individuals who have experienced and tried many things or are ones referred to as the dregs of society, people who have not found their place in this world.

My Response: Of course, they are the dregs of this society. After all, what kind of people make up society? Energetic ones who know they should invest money in the bank; save in savings accounts, buy on time what television dictates to them, and participate in various demonstrations, elections, public works, and so on.

But those who come to study Kabbalah have one question about this: Why? They see that people in the world are doing things that are unnecessary, and therefore they ask, Why all this? If there is a purpose to life, then it is worth living and doing something; if life has no meaning, there is no need for anything.
[329606]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. To Believe a Kabbalist” 1/28/10

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Question: Usually a person is born and goes through a certain path in life. Most often, by the age of thirty, one enters into a stupor when all one’s plans begin to shake a little, and then he begins to think about the meaning of life.

You came to the wisdom of Kabbalah at the age of 30, and before that was there, so to say, a period of preparation?

Answer: Maybe, although I would not say that about myself. I wanted to come to the study of Kabbalah, it seems to me, at the age of six or seven.

Question: Does the current generation have such an opportunity?

Answer: It does not really depend on the generation. Of course, the current generation has it. But it also depends on how a person feels. As far as I can remember, I always felt that I needed it.

I am not an exceptional person. I just have such an attitude toward life, toward the world, that does not tolerate anything superfluous, everything must be neatly arranged; otherwise, this world is such a big mess that I simply do not want to exist in it. Not because “my head is small,” but because I do not want to tolerate disorder; I must put everything into a system.

In principle, the most important aspiration of such a person is to bring everything they feel in the world into a coherent structure, into a cohesive picture. Only then does the world make sense to them, and the person enjoys perfection, harmony, the interconnection of all things, and their mutual definition, what we on the human level call mutual guarantee.

For him, the system is something that encompasses our universe as its integral part. He must understand the structure of interaction, functioning, management, movement, and development. Without this feeling, he feels bad, he does not feel okay. He feels his connection to the entire system, to the entire cosmos (although it is more than the cosmos) that he cannot help but come to the perception of universal harmony.

That is the inner need I began to feel at four to five-years-old, and when I was twelve to thirteen years old, it became absolutely clear. Searches for the source of creation led me to study paleontology one moment, then astronomy the next.

It is very difficult for a person to navigate in our world where there is no flexibility. This compels him to seek inner harmony because it begins to help him perceive the world in its external rigidity as harmonious.

The lack of flexibility in the world leads a person to enter into the system of creation, to find integrity there, so that everything can be perceived well from the outside, and then he will be able to live. Otherwise it is very difficult for people seeking internal harmony in our world.
[328860]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Laitman’s Childhood” 2/14/12

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Bores can be divided into two classes; those who have their own particular subject, and those who do not need a subject (A.A. Milne). 

Question: Alan Alexander Milne wrote many things, but he is mostly remembered for Winnie the Pooh. In one of his writings he noted, “One never knows exactly when one person becomes bored with another. A stranger’s golf success story is intolerable, but how interesting one’s own seems. A person cannot view their own story with the impatience of an outsider.”

Can you please tell us how to see that we are boring?

Answer: I do not know if we need to see that. We just need to be silent. I am in favor of silence. It is normal for people to sit and be silent, or think about something in common, or even each something of their own. Why talk?

Comment: And they must agree: “Let’s sit quietly.” So, let’s sit quietly, think.

My Response: It should be clear without saying it.

Question: So we should not engage others?

Answer: We should not do anything! There is noise from all sides: information, music, who knows what and how. But, in principle, none of it is necessary.

Question: And we are not boring then? We just sit, silent.

Answer: Yes, we can sit and be silent.

Comment: But this is only if there are good or warm relationships between people.

My Response: Yes, understanding.

Question: So, is it necessary for us to have such relationships that we can sit quietly together?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: It is not that simple; it is already intimacy.

My Response: All conversations lead to arguments, to some troubles. Sit, be silent, and everything will be fine. When you start talking, inconsistencies arise.

Question: This principle definitely works among close people. But for this, we still need to be close.

Please tell us about being boring. There are directorial authors who said: “It does not matter to me how many people watch my film. Let them grow up to my film.” How do you feel about this: not “I am boring,” but simply “They have developed up to my level yet”?

Answer: It is indispensable. Every person who creates something has that pride of a creative person.

Question: And they cannot get rid of it?

Answer: Absolutely not!

Question: So this idea that people should mature to my work, do you accept it?

Answer: Yes.

Question: But there is another approach—Hollywood style. What I feed them, I know they will consume. And I deliberately feed them in a way that is low-grade or follows a known formula. How do you feel about this? I am not boring, millions watch me.

Answer: I do not know. I also do not really understand a person who creates something for the masses. It does not leave an internal, moral impression, does not touch the heart, but people need it.

Question: So, are all these approaches correct in your opinion?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Then here is a question. We return to the Creator one way or another, we never leave Him in all our roles. We have nowhere to go.

So what kind of director should He be, in your opinion? A director who is understood or one you have to develop to? What does His direction do to us?

Answer: He wants us to think, find solutions, and try to implement them.

Comment: Still He regards us as thinking beings.

My Response: Yes absolutely!

Comment: That is a lofty position.

My Response: Otherwise, our lives would have no meaning. He sets a certain level of our development for each moment for every person.

Question: So, with all His directing—and He is a great director, a great scriptwriter—we already see this, where is He leading us?

Answer: Toward realizing the need to rise above our nature.

Question: And this whole movie we are watching, is this practically its end?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Is that considered a good ending? After going through wars, suffering, catastrophes?

Answer: It is a good ending, of course! Because we agree with what we have achieved, and we hope for the final moment when I reveal Him in my nature.
[327163]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/4/24

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Dina writes:

What should I do with my hatred for this world? Many people feel this way today. People hate this world! They hate it! And many even ask: “Why was I born? Why bring a child into this world?” 

My Response: But it is true. The time is coming when a person will be utterly disappointed with this world. Human egoism is growing and it cannot be filled. People do not know what to fill it with. So every day they live feels forced and unsatisfactory.

Question: What can be done about it?

Answer: Nothing!

Question: Just sit doing nothing?

Answer: Do nothing.

Comment: But still living in this state all the time, I don’t know about that.

My Response: I understand this state. Especially in my younger years, I had many such states: what to live for, why live?

Question: Is the basis of this hatred toward this world, which you do not understand?

Answer: No, it is hatred for the emptiness that this world evokes in you.

Question: But still, first is there a reason for this happening in one way or another?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Today you are certainly relaying and understanding that something is happening to people. And people hate this world for a reason. Why?

Answer: It is to make this world better for you and for others.

Question: Is that what we need to come to?

Answer: The solution exists, but everyone must find it for themselves.

Question: So you are saying that that is why people are brought to such a state?

Answer: Yes.

Question: You also say that this world was given to us by the Creator. We see it this way because He wants us to see it like this?

Answer: Yes, the Creator desires our sound decision about how I perceive the world and how I want to see and feel it.

So that during my lifetime in this world I would make myself into such a being who approaches the Creator with my thoughts, aspirations, and so on. The Creator, having created this world, gave me the opportunity to reveal Him in order to rise above it.

Question: And what do I see? What am I revealing? For now, I am revealing this world that I hate.

Answer: To reveal the hated world in order to rise above it, from a doomed, dreadful, egoistic world to a kind, beautiful world.

Question: So, will I see it like that then?

Answer: Yes.

Question: So, if my aspiration is to turn this hatred into another state, to see this world differently, if I constantly, mechanically repeat this, will it work even mechanically?

Answer: It will work even mechanically. For this, I must radically change my attitude toward the world, toward people, toward everything.

Question: By force?

Answer: By force. It is not easy. This is the self-improvement work described by Kabbalah.
[328760]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/15/24

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Alexander writes:

I am not married, and I have never really had true friends. A year ago, I started watching your programs and realized why this is happening to me. I demanded too much from others when I should have demanded it from myself. But it seems too late to change now. I meet someone, things seem good, and then suddenly I feel intense irritation and I cannot control myself. I say something harsh or just disappear, avoiding meetings. I cannot overcome myself. And it all ends. I have been to psychologists, even to a psychiatrist and a fortune-teller, but it keeps repeating. I do not know what to do.”

Question: What advice can you give him?

Answer: The only advice one can give is to find a group that would support and involve him in connection between them, between all the group members and with the Creator. He should see examples of connection between people and how they rise toward connection with the Creator, and this will set him on the right path.

Comment: You are already moving toward connection with the Creator, such a group that seeks connection with the Creator.

My Response: Absolutely, yes. He must understand that this is exactly what he needs.

Comment: That is, at the level of our world: make friends here, be together here, and here…

My Response: No, that is no longer relevant.

Comment: To live normally, to meet someone, to finally get married.

My Response: Let him connect with those who are given to him from above and realize the correct connection.

Comment: So you are saying his connection should be with those who want to rise to the degree of the Creator, to rise above this world, and not with those who want to settle in this world.

My Response: Exactly.

Question: Will all this continue to expand further? Should we specifically seek such groups? There are sciences in this world, psychology…

Answer: We have to finish up everything in this world. Complete as much as possible and leave nothing for later.

To complete in this world means striving for connection between us and with the Creator and for all this to come into its correct form.
[328980]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/8/24

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