Question: You explained that in the process of studying Kabbalah, a person goes through experiences where the left line constantly opens up and it is necessary to overcome it all the time. What holds a person? What keeps him from leaving?

Answer: The level of development. Of course, you can go somewhere to the village and live an ordinary life, or become a railway caretaker—20 km there, 20 km here, check the rails, tighten the nuts on the sleepers.

Can you live this way? There you have no Internet or newspapers, only radio. You sit and listen to something. That’s all. In exchange, you have a quiet, good life.

You will develop a small vegetable garden around you plus a salary; from a passing train you will sometimes be dropped the products you ordered. You will live quietly away from everyone. What could be better? Walk through the woods with a gun, fish in the lake, listen to the birds singing. What’s wrong? Why can’t you limit yourself to this?

Comment: First, it is a separation from other people.

My Response: Why do you need other people? What do they give you? Look at what’s going on here, will you? Why do you need to sit in this “dumpster”?

You just can’t do it any other way. Not because you didn’t grow up in a gatehouse, but because according to your inner development you can no longer live in such a state. This is how nature develops you.

Look at what is being done with cities. In one century, the population of a city with a million inhabitants has grown to 20 – 30 million, and there is no limit to this.

Today, a person cannot live away from others. This is how the program of creation is specially designed to force people to connect so that they work together on their common egoism in the right connection with each other and use the method of influence of the upper light to correct themselves.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Careful, Kabbalah” 10/19/13

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What does the Sabbath mean to you?“

The Sabbath is the state of the end of correction of the ego, the peak of our development where everything functions in an ideal manner, solely in a direction of bestowal, giving, fulfilling and loving others.

The prohibitions on the Sabbath discuss actions that we were allowed to do before the end of the ego’s correction, when it was still not entirely in order to bestow. We were once in a system called “the soul of Adam HaRishon,” where we were all tightly connected with threads of bestowal and love as one. The system shattered via an action called “the sin of the Tree of Knowledge.” It was an action where we started wishing to receive egoistically for our personal benefit alone. The connections inside that system and between its parts shattered, and everything that has taken place since that time is for us to reconnect the parts of that system to a state that they were in before the shattering.

There is a confusion between the parts because they fell and mixed with one another, and we have to scrutinize each and every desire of ours, which is an outcome of that shattering: What is it related to? Is it in favor of or against connection? What kind of connection is there between these desires? What kind of constellation should they be? This is our work over a period of what we call “6,000 years.”

The Sabbath is called “the day of the end of correction” where all desires interconnect in an ideal connection. It is a perfect restoration of the soul of Adam HaRishon to its corrected form that it was in before the shattering.

The prohibitions on the Sabbath stem from that in which the Sabbath is a completely corrected state, and in a perfect state there is no room for additional work because everything is already corrected. Adding in such a state could only bring ruin, which is why there are prohibitions to conduct all kinds of works on the Sabbath, whether small or great.

Based on the video “What Is the Sabbath?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Comment: You said that if a person did not realize his function in time, then in the future it becomes a burden for them, heaviness and inability to do anything. But there is also a kind of heaviness when he did everything possible, but he was again loaded with additional Aviut (desire).

My Response: A person is burdened, but understands why, how, and what to do next. He is like a jumper who has jumped over two meters and now he has added another two centimeters.

Question: And what is the difference?

Answer: He understands which way and why it is needed. If he correctly completed the previous task, raised himself, and developed himself, then he perfectly understands where he is going next.

Question: And what is the difference between the initially set burden and the one that is given as an excess profit?

Answer: First, he is happy with the burden. If he completed the previous state correctly, the next one is desirable for him. Like that jumper who knows that he has to overcome two meters and two centimeters.

But if he began to slack off because of the previous achievement, that is, he did not finish it, did it wrong or delayed, and so on, then for him the two and two, which in any case come to him, become negative and undesirable.

He experiences them as a huge stress, as a burden in life in the form of problems at work, at home, diseases, the environment, it doesn’t matter what, all together. After all, the integral picture begins to put pressure on him with everything he depends on. His egoism, his desire to enjoy, feels negative emotions instead of positive ones he should have achieved.

If a person moving forward with the help of an integral methodology is delayed and he does not do what he should have done at the previous stage, then all sorts of haters turn against him, harassment begins, and so on. This happened even to the greatest Kabbalists.

However, do not reassure yourself that you are big and that’s why you are being badgered, try to do everything you can.

Question: What would have happened if he had implemented everything in time?

Answer: He would move forward easier and faster.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Varieties of Suffering” 10/5/13

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are the things that are prohibited in the Torah?“

Prohibitions in the Torah relate to our inability to use our ego—the desire for benefiting ourselves at the expense of others and nature—in the variety of ways it can be used, when we are in a spiritual connection.

The most important prohibition in the Torah is “Don’t do to others what you hate.” Likewise, the most important commandment in the Torah is “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Based on the video “What Is the Most Important Prohibition in the Torah?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: If we look from the point of view of Kabbalah, why should there be the division into a huge number of people?

Answer: Because it helps the correction. The fact that everyone makes a small unconscious correction means a lot. Today, with the help of the tools that he invented thanks to his knowledge, one person can do work that was previously done by, say, a million people.

Give me an excavator and I will do work equivalent to, say, a thousand diggers, no problem! One dig and that is it. And that is how I can dig up as much in a day as a thousand people can dig up in a day. But I need a mind for that.

And if I cannot act intelligently, if I cannot use the forces of nature, then I need thousands of people who will do it unknowingly who are poking around like bugs, and that is the problem.

Therefore, in principle, there should be one Adam. Adam and no one else! But since he could not fulfill his task (purely allegorically), it turns out that eight billion are needed, eight billion who will pick and gnaw something.

As a result, something will turn out in a bad, problematic way, but people will come to understand and solve the riddle of what Adam did wrong, and how they would correct his mistake.

That is it, back to square one.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Collective Mind” 9/7/13

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What advice do you have for a mother who feels like she is losing her son?“

I received the following letter from a worried mother who felt like she was losing her son.

Hello, Dr. Laitman. I’m a worried mom. I feel like I’m losing my son. I raised two children. The young one I pampered and surrounded with love. But I feel that I didn’t give enough love to my elder son, who is sixteen now. I was a young mother who was very busy in a difficult economic situation. I made many mistakes. And I especially didn’t give him the warmth and attention that he needed. Now he’s moving away from me. He can’t even pronounce the word “mom.” Sometimes I feel that he really hates me. It really hurts me. And it worries me. I’m trying to fix things, but I don’t know how to bring him back to me. I wanted to ask you, Dr. Laitman, maybe you have some wise piece of advice on how to save our relationship. And how can I regain my son?”

She needs to show him that she loves, supports, understands and is there for him, that she is truly his friend. That is the main thing. She will find a way of how to support him, and he will understand that he has a mom, which is a bit different to what he thought.

In short, he needs to feel that he has no closer person that understands, feels, and is there to help him in any situation.

Based on the video “A Kabbalist’s Advice for a Mother Who Feels Like She’s Losing Her Son” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What does Jordan B. Peterson think about Israel?“

Jordan Peterson stated on his visit to Jerusalem that Israeli people “have a tremendous moral responsibility,” and continued…

“like you have, perhaps, for your entire history, for reasons that are very difficult to understand, and I think it is true, in some real sense, that the fate of the world depends on the decisions of the people of Israel.”

He is right. We have the ability to change ourselves, and by doing so, we change the world.

The change that we need to realize in Israel so that others will think that Israel is handling itself correctly is for us to start treating each other as members of a single family. It is as simple as that: to love others here just because they are the people of Israel.

We think that if the world were different, then we would also be different, but it is not the case. On the contrary, if we change, then the world will change in the same direction.

The world depends on the connections among the people of Israel. If we create positive connections among ourselves, then we will accordingly impact positive connections throughout humanity. In short, positive connection and world peace depend on positive connection and inner peace among the people of Israel, and the lack of positive connection and all the wars, conflicts and other forms of suffering in the world are due to the lack of positive connection among the people of Israel.

Based on the video “Jordan Peterson on Israel – A Kabbalist’s Response” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Does everything have an origin?“

Everything comes from nature, which is a quality that functions solely in a direction of bestowal and love. Those who discovered nature as a force of bestowal and love also called it “the Creator.”

We are created in an opposite form to the Creator. While the Creator is a quality of bestowal and love, we are made of a quality to receive for self-benefit alone. We thus perceive everything through a filter of whether and how we will self-benefit. This egoistic filter that makes us constantly calculate self-benefit over benefiting others and nature, which is the Creator’s quality, is the cause of our every misfortune and pain.

Therefore, in order to discover the force that resides in our origin, the Creator, we need its help to invert our intention from being constantly self-directed to being aimed at the benefit of others and nature, i.e. a direction similar to the quality of the Creator—one of bestowal and love.

Our desire to receive for self-benefit alone was given to us from the Creator because He wants us to receive absolutely everything, but on condition that we relate to the Creator in everything we receive, i.e. to intend toward others and to the Creator as the Creator intends toward us. Once we reach such an inversion of our intention—from reception to bestowal—we then enter into equivalence of form with the Creator and discover the final purpose for which we were all created: an existence of eternity and perfection through the intention to bestow and love, upon our innate desires to receive.

Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What qualities make a good politician?“

Before discussing the qualities that make a good politician, we need to understand that there is a higher force of nature determining and directing human development in order to guide us to aim for everything we think and do in connection with it. In the end, human connections will need to be glued together with the higher force of nature in order for human society to shift to a direction where we discover a new form of prosperity and happiness, perfectly adapted to our interconnected and interdependent world.

We thus need to place the attainment of the higher force of nature at the apex of human activity, i.e. at the heart of educational programs, decisions and laws. It should manifest on personal, family, social, state and global scales. By doing so, we will organize human society toward positive future progress, where we will discover the higher force of nature in our connections.

A good politician is thus one who aims to draw the higher force of nature into society, caring that connection-enriching education will fill society, and that people will gain the tools to positively connect and draw the higher force of nature into their lives. Good politicians will also not arouse hatred because they will be grateful to their opposition. They will use their opposition in order to show how correct their methodology is, because it will be the truth.

Based on the video “What Qualities Make a Good Politician?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: You said that until the age of 13, a person perceives the world only in feelings. Does the mind switch on after age 13 when it can analyze everything that it felt before?

Answer: Approximately, nowadays, it may be not at 13, but at 25 because the current generation is in delayed development. This is noted by everyone: psychologists, sociologists, statistics, and polls.

Our generation is more infantile. Young people want to stay at home, do not want to start families and take responsibility; they prefer to sit in a cafe, buried in their phones.

Comment: According to our development, each person is, in principle, a child. He does not perceive the world with his mind at all.

My Response: We perceive everything through feelings, although we cannot admit it to ourselves, we do not understand it because our matter is the will to enjoy, to be filled.

Therefore, first of all, we are sensory sensors, and only later do we become aware of what we feel. Our consciousness is secondary, and matter, which is feelings, is primary.

Our feelings control us so much and dominate our consciousness that we simply do not notice this fact, we do not recognize it. We cannot get out of this, observe from the outside, and investigate. I am not even trying to explain this to people.

Only those who begin to acquire a second feeling, the quality of bestowal instead of the quality of reception, can calculate, realize, evaluate, and weigh to what extent they are in the quality of reception, and in accordance with this, how they can control and evaluate themselves, and so on.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Mind and Feelings – What Is More Important?” 10/7/13

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