Question: The Torah often describes how a shepherd herds a flock of sheep. What does this mean from a spiritual point of view?

Answer: Sheep represent the animal desires of man, which are closest to spiritual desires.

Herding sheep inside yourself means that you are building up such desires in yourself, which in the end will be the desires of bestowal, love, and good relations.

Question: The city of Sodom was located in the Dead Sea area. When Lot and his wife were running away from the destroyed city, Lot’s wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt. What does this mean in the spiritual?

Answer: Lot’s wife did not want to part with her past egoistic life and therefore, turned into a pillar of salt, which embodies constancy in her desires. They cannot be corrected because they are like salt.

Question: The Dead Sea is 400 meters below sea level. In Kabbalah, “400” means four stages of the development of desire?

Answer: Yes, this is the full depth of egoism, Malchut, which needs to be corrected. If we correct egoism in the inner by adding the quality of bestowal to the quality of reception, then this can also manifest itself in the outer: the Dead Sea will be filled from the inside with clean water, fish will appear in it, the desert will blossom!

Question: Why are there so many stories in the Torah related to Abraham?

Answer: Abraham is the founder of our world. Without him, the world could not exist. After all, it was thanks to Abraham that religious qualities, social principles and everything else appeared. He was a great philosopher, a great sage.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 6/11/21

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the best kind of equality?“

People are different by nature. As such, we should not demand the same effort from naturally lazy people than from hard-workers, nor the same results from highly intelligent people than from people with lower levels of intelligence, nor from people drawn to technology and from those drawn to education, culture and/or other fields.

People differ, and thus it is impossible to demand equality from everyone.

We are also unable to recognize and measure each person’s natural qualities by direction and size. By demanding the same results from everyone, we try to squeeze everyone into a Procrustean bed. In other words, we want to “shorten” or “stretch” every person, so that everyone will fit exactly one size. That is simply wrong.

Additionally, nations differ in culture, education, religion and development. Each nation has its own place, and should be respected in its place. After all, every individual is unique in their own way.

This is why we should take into consideration the limitations and the distinctive characteristics of each person. If we preserve such equality, i.e. the equality of every individual’s opportunity to express themselves in the most effective way relative to humanity, we will then abolish egoistic interrelationships and bring about altruistic and equal ones. By doing so, we will all discover our maximal individuality and uniqueness as beneficial members of humanity, and we will then reach a state where we will all live and develop in the most favorable manner.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the best way of evaluating a person?“

We should appreciate only the aspirations and efforts that are directed toward the good of humanity; not toward our own good, the good of our nation or our family—but only toward the good of humanity. If we respect this direction of aspiration and effort, we will then see the degree to which we overcome our egoistic nature for the sake of belonging and contributing to the world.

I think that all people must overcome their egoistic desire. If we each contribute in such a way, then we should merit gratitude and respect from society in response. Everyone should value and be grateful to people according to the degree of their social contribution.

We are created such that we need society’s recognition. This is how, in essence, we express our “self.” If we will arrange a society that respects and appreciates its members for their social contribution, then such a society will protect its members and respond to their contribution to humanity. By doing so, we will enable every person to become an active member of humanity. We will see only positive aspects from every person relative to the whole human society; we will see the kind of contribution every person adds.

This is why we must establish such laws in our society where we will each be evaluated only according to our contribution to humanity. If we evaluate people by these criteria, if we will each know that others evaluate and treat us precisely in this way—then we will have no choice but to become healthy cells in the general body, or in other words, we will each realize our maximal usefulness to humanity.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do we consider some lives to be worth more than others?“

We consider some lives to be worth more than others because we fail to see the general system of our global interdependence and interconnectedness.

We belong to a single system. In essence, we are all one organism. Each of us is like a cell in a single organism, a cell that needs to take care of the well-being of the whole organism. If we will see that humanity is ultimately one organism with different organs and parts, then we will understand that every person is immensely important.

In a live organism, it takes just one cell to become cancerous in order to set off the organism’s demise. Our egoistic nature works in the same way: by nature, we wish to “consume” others, i.e. use others for the sake of personal benefit. Likewise, today we all behave like cancerous cells. This dire situation is being increasingly shown to us in our era: the more we discover our global interdependence and interconnectedness, the more we also see how our egoistic nature does not let us enjoy our tightening connection, but on the contrary, we feel it in increasingly negative and threatening ways.

If we recognize the conflicting tendency of our current development, i.e. that the more connected we become globally, technologically and economically, then the more we suffer from our egos clashing with each other, then we will start realizing that we need to heal in our attitudes to each other—to reject our egoism, consumption and the exploitation of others, and shift to a state where we positively connect to each other above our egoism, developing new altruistic threads in our connections.

By discovering the crisis of our current development and the direction our development needs to undergo in order to progress to a better world, we will then see that life lies in enabling us all to contribute positively to society. If we encourage everyone in society to contribute to society, we will then discover our equality. Then, the life of one person could not be considered as more or less important than the life of another person.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is lacking in our education system?“

Education is what we receive from our environment.

We receive our education and culture by the example we get from society and our parents. Schools do not provide education, but only trades. Education, which is our inner culture, is determined not by knowledge, but by our correct inner development, when we reach perfection in our attitude to life and to the world.

This is why truly positive education means teaching knowledge about what the general law of nature demands of us all—to become harmoniously connected, and to take care of each other similar to how cells and organs of a human body each operate for the whole body’s benefit.

In our present times, from one day to the next, we discover how we become increasingly interdependent around the world. Society should thus provide examples of how to realize such interdependence in a balanced and positive manner to the younger generation by showing how caring for humanity as a whole is life’s highest value. By doing so, we will reliably educate our generation for living harmoniously in a growingly interdependent world, and then our future generations will truly be able to enjoy their lives.

If we will bring knowledge into the world about the fact that mutual consideration, responsibility and love will save the world, then we will be happy to open ourselves up in order to become positive parts of a whole system, and enjoy the fruits provided by that system. By doing so, we will discover that we are not like cancerous cells in an organism, but like healthy cells in the body of humanity.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Who was directly responsible for the AIDS/HIV epidemic facing Africa today?“

The spreading of AIDS in Africa is the culpability of the developed countries, which forcefully introduced their culture and values, and by doing so, corrupted the natural culture and the development by which African countries, as well as other countries, should have developed.

European nations committed a great injustice when they attempted to forcefully bring their values into other countries of the world, and therefore separated them from their own traditions, and from their natural evolution and development.

This is why they elicited such conditions in which AIDS, hunger, inequality and dictatorship develop, characteristic of the third world countries today.

This is why I think that by helping countries return to their nature, to their natural development, we can reach a favorable and harmonious development among all nations, countries and humanity as a whole, in a positive and equal manner. It is not that the countries themselves should be equal, but everyone should have an equal opportunity to develop favorably, each nation according to its own nature. This is how we could reach global harmony, and in the process, we will see such illnesses and epidemics as AIDS decrease.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is egoism?“

Egoism is the desire to attract life or forces of life to oneself. At its basis, the matter of our world is different levels of egoism.

We humans are unique because contrary to the rest of nature, we do not use our ego solely for the barest necessities. The still, vegetative and animate levels of nature receive for themselves only the amount of food and energy that they require for their existence.

Egoism has been inserted only into us humans, and it leads us to consume excessively. We derive enjoyment not only from having life’s essentials and even something extra—but we also enjoy when other people lack something and suffer, unlike us. This gives us the feeling of even greater fulfillment.

This is why we consider only the human ego as truly egoistic compared to the other desires in nature. With the exception of the human, egoism does not develop in any part of nature. For instance, a one-day-old calf is like a grown bull, that is, even the representatives of the animate level complete their lives just as they were born. Their ego does not develop, whereas we humans develop by means of growing egoism, over the course of our individual lives, as well as over the generations. Each generation progresses due to its egoism being more developed than that of the previous generation.

This egoism pushes us to civilizational progress. However, now that we have reached the last stage of human development, egoism is leading us to a dead-end. We no longer know where to progress, and we become immersed in a global crisis in all spheres of our activity.

In essence, the forces of nature comprise a single closed system—besides us humans, who in our egoism consume more than our life’s essentials. It is precisely us human beings who are the imbalanced elements within nature, since we use more than what we need in order to exist. This is why only we humans are the sole elements of nature that harm other people, as well as the other levels of nature.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What comes after capitalism?“

Humanity develops by means of the ego that grows in it. The human ego develops us such that we always think that something positive is in front of us. At least in the past, we always thought that something positive lay before us, and we ran to meet the future. Time after time, we develop like a baby who grows up to become a mature adult.

We thought that we were headed to a better culture, economy, and world, and if we felt off at the time, then we thought that our children would feel much better.

This is how our world unfolded according to the growing human ego, and it led us to our current times, when we no longer see ourselves headed to a better future.

Today, we have become disillusioned in our development, and find ourselves standing before a major dilemma: On one hand, if we continue developing by means of our ego, then Nazism will emerge globally as well as a Third World War.

Or we will implement altruism around the world.

The latter option is possible if we realize that altruism is the law of nature. In essence, altruism is nature itself. We will merit life and the forces of life, and we will be saved from destruction, on condition that we will observe this law. Similar to how observing the laws of physics, chemistry and biology brings us positive results, if we will observe the law of nature—altruism—in human society, like in a living body, then we will merit a positively-connected altruistic structure of society and achieve balance with nature, equality among human society, as well as happiness, confidence and safety.

If we fail to realize positive connections fueled with nature’s altruistic quality, then we can expect a very unfortunate future of suffering, with Nazism spreading throughout the world, and together with it, severe destruction.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do developing countries become developed?“

We can develop each nation beneficially by developing education that is inherent to all people in the world, such that the development and the culture will correspond to the nature of the nation.

We need to understand that, in general, there are 70 nations of the world, and they are all different. Analogously to the body’s organs, these nations are obligated to complement one another. Therefore, if we will express an equal and benevolent attitude toward everyone, and one that conforms to the nature of each, we will then see that they can create and add a wonderful contribution to humanity. Then, we will extract the maximal benefit out of each nation. It all depends on having a kind and sincere attitude toward each on so that it would be able to serve humanity precisely to the degree that corresponds to it.

We need to understand that nature divides among the nations and countries in such a way that leads us to the state where we each complement the others. As a result, we can find ourselves in an equal and perfect world, where each person complements the others and achieves global harmony.

We will then merit seeing that each nation plays a wonderful role in humanity. It is only thanks to mutual complementarity that we can merit perfect life throughout humanity—in love, perfection, respect and esteem for everyone.

Firstly, we need to reveal that every nation has its own place, similar to how bodily organs have their places. Until we see the unique necessity of each nation, we will be unable to value and elevate it to our own distinctive realization.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Are third-world countries destined to be poor?“

What happens to third-world countries is caused by European civilization replacing several of their local mentalities, cultures and traditions.

Foreign cultures and values were imposed on these countries, disrupting their natural development and bringing about their corruption. This is what led to their poverty and disastrous state of development.

However, if we feel that we depend on each other, on the general law of nature, love, altruism, global interconnectedness and interdependence; if we see that in essence each one of us is a cell in a living organism that depends on all cells functioning optimally; if we see that each and every one of us is extremely important because we are each cells of this living organism, and without the life of any one of us, then the world is incomplete; if we see the immensity of our interdependence—then of course we will know how to treat all nations and countries, including the third world, with love and understanding.

Peace in the world will then emerge, and there will be equality—but for each one of us according to our respective mentality, culture and all of the accompanying circumstances.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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