Question: In Israel, parents of small children aged three months to three years took to the streets to demand that the Ministry of Education and the government establish oversight over nurseries. We know of numerous cases where caregivers treated infants inadequately and abusively, and even lead to fatal outcomes.

Why does hatred arise toward what seems to be the kindest and most innocent thing in the world, a small child?

Answer: Firstly, these are other people’s children, not their own. Although even with their own such attitudes can occur.

The thing is, love and hate, life and death, are very close to one another, practically side by side. They accompany each other and sometimes literally replace one another.

This comes from human nature because the transition from love to hate is very unclear and fragile. The same powerful desires are at work, but they switch poles, a kind of polarization occurs, and this is the result.

We know that the same happens with parents. What about parents who forget their children in the car? They just erase them from their minds entirely. And what can you do about that?

And when we talk about caregivers for whom this is just a job, perhaps even one they hate, that they are forced to do because they cannot do anything else but still need to earn a living, those children become objects of their hatred.

To the extent that they hate their work and their miserable, underprivileged lives, they transfer all of that onto the children.

Today’s egoism, today’s intolerance is found in both women and men, and the attitude toward the world and toward children is unnatural. We live in a generation where egoism compels us to correct it; otherwise, we will not survive.

Question: You said the transition between love and hate is very fragile. How can a person regulate or recognize this moment of transition so they do not lose control?

Answer: There cannot be love without hate, nor hate without love, just as there cannot be a positive without a negative. They work together. But what to consider positive and what negative depends on the person.

Therefore if I love myself, then I see negatives in everyone else. But if I wish to correct myself and see my own flaws, then I can see positives in others.

And here arises a very serious problem. In our time, desires and traits emerge in us that we are obligated to correct into their polar opposites. If we do not do this, you see what happens.

I do not blame those caregivers in nurseries or daycare, nor people who exhibit various sadistic or abusive tendencies, because they just don’t work on them. The human masses need care, work, and education. Before becoming caregivers, they need to be nurtured, and this is not being done.

Question: Is it possible to become a teacher or caregiver not by vocation, not naturally, but through the education or training you are talking about?

Answer: This is very difficult. Because instead of a natural inclination to be a caregiver, if you do not want to be one, you will need to imagine a higher goal that you want to achieve, and therefore be ready to become a caregiver. This requires very serious work on oneself.

Question: A person is a cluster of hormones, chemistry, and so on. Education accounts for only 10% of who a person becomes. What else is added to a person besides these hormones and chemistry that causes them to shift from a state of goodwill to evil? How does egoism suddenly explode within them?

Answer: The fact is, we have become very close to one another, yet we do not work on ourselves. As a result, we negatively influence each other. Mass media, all of this has a tremendous impact. I constantly see bad images and examples before me, and it costs me nothing to imitate them. I imitate them involuntarily.

So everything we see on screens or smartphones enters us and forces us to act like those so-called “heroes” we see. Essentially, the entire problem lies with the media.

Question: Let us take someone who, on the one hand wants to be a caregiver, a teacher, a mother, or a parent. They treat a child or children well, but suddenly there comes a moment when they feel something rising within them they cannot control. What should they do?

Answer: Yes, they cannot control themselves because, again, their inner impulses are stronger than all the restraining factors. Even those they have heard or read about, like how people are punished for being like this, do not help. They cannot restrain themselves; their restraining mechanism shuts down. That is it. Nothing can be done.

The whole issue is that we must provide people with proper examples of behavior, both with each other and with children.

No fear or punishment can restrain or hold back anything—only a good example can.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 8/7/19

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Question: We live in the hustle and bustle of life, often forgetting our loved ones, family, colleagues, and friends. We forget to say kind words, to acknowledge that they are important and needed, that they are remarkable.

There is a saying: “Words can kill, and words can heal.” Why is it so important for a person to hear compliments?

Answer: Because a person is an egoist. That is why it is so crucial for them to hear good things about themselves. And if bad things are said, it hurts them in a different way, conversely.

Comment: But we know that when a person hears something good, they are immediately ready to meet others halfway and do something for them. And vice versa.

My Response: Of course. For them, it is a reward, so they are ready. It is a great incentive for their egoism.

However, if a person has a goal in life, sees that goal as true and correct, has decided on it, and acts accordingly, then others may say good or bad things about their behavior, goal, actions, or life, and it would not affect them at all. This is because they are confident they are acting correctly.

Compliments in our time are insincere interactions because they are always egoistic.

If I inspire someone, if I push them toward a goal, it should simply be my ongoing work—to help others rise and move forward toward the goal of life, to achieve it. And in doing so, I am not offering a compliment, but am providing a necessary element of progress.

Question: Does the soul require compliments?

Answer: Our egoism requires compliments. That is our entire foundation, that is who we are: egoists!

And so when someone tells me, “Wow! Look at you! You’re amazing!” and so forth, I feel important, gain energy, and can do something. I am ready to repay such a person the same way because they have inspired me. But fundamentally, this is all because we are egoists.

Strictly speaking, relationships should not be built on compliments but on mutual support, where every person supports every other person in their pursuit of life’s goals.

Question: What does proper mutual support look like?

Answer: It is setting an example of “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

People see that you are working on yourself to unite with others, to correct yourself, to help them correct themselves, to help them understand the meaning of life, where to move, how to complete life, with what result, what that result should be, and so on. When you act this way, you naturally provide an example to others, and they strive to act similarly.

Comment: In Kabbalah, there is a rule: speak of the greatness of the friends.

My Response: But that is not a compliment. It is a necessary element of our spiritual work. The difference lies in why I say it. I say it to give someone direction in their development, a goal, and strength.

A compliment, as a rule, is said to flatter someone, to give them a sense of self-importance. But in our study, in Kabbalah, importance is not in us but in our work and the goal—in the Creator, whom we are trying to reveal. So I would not consider these as compliments.

Question: How should one properly speak of the greatness of one’s friends? Can this serve as an example for others?

Answer: As a rule, we do not speak of the greatness of a friend directly to the friend. We speak of their greatness among ourselves to elevate them in our eyes so they may serve as an example for us. Because if we talk about the greatness of a friend directly to them, we essentially lower them by inflating their ego.

Question: Does that turn it into a compliment?

Answer: Yes, and such a compliment will have a negative effect on them. Therefore, I do not see it as beneficial. With a child, we can say: “What a clever boy you are, how smart! Look how well you have done everything, how beautifully!” And they puff up with pride.

But for an adult (I mean people within my circle), such compliments are unnecessary.

Question: What is your advice for people? How should relationships be built so that every moment they feel needed and important to each other?

Answer: By engaging in meaningful work. By moving forward together in a journey toward unity to reveal the upper force, the higher purpose of existence, and the higher nature. This is not a compliment—it is our entire life.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/27/19

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Comment: You say a person studies Kabbalah not to attain wisdom but to develop the ability to perceive the next dimension.

Answer: Of course, because we live through feelings. When they develop in us, we can analyze them: if it is hot, light, warm, and so on.

I have five senses, which I can explore and develop based on my perception. Such exploration creates science. In other words, all our sciences are data collected from our senses and devices we add to them like microscopes, telescopes, etc.

That is, first, we use the matter of creation, the desire. Then, in this desire we feel everything that happens in it, all kinds of disturbances and fluctuations; we examine them, record them, scale them, put them in order, and from this our science arises.

When I measure something, I do it relative to my qualities. But I cannot even imagine that I am exploring everything relative to myself. If other creatures were in our place, they would see and measure everything entirely differently. We just do not understand how connected we are and we act only from inside this box, from our body.

Therefore, when a person enters into the sensation of the upper world, the first thing he realizes is how subjective all his previous knowledge, feelings, and experiences were. But understanding this is only possible when he acquires one more system.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. The Development of feeling” 5/28/10

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Question: If you disseminate certain visual things to the whole world, such as dancing, they can reject a person a little. There are some dances that are incomprehensible to people.

Answer: There is no dancing at all in Kabbalah. The fact that people hold hands and dance in a circle is the most popular among all nations because this is how connection naturally manifests itself. It has nothing to do with any national or Kabbalistic peculiarities.

I personally do not see myself in it. Singing—yes. It depends on the songs: with deep content, when everyone sings together, it helps to connect thoughts, hearts, and desires. But dancing? It depends on how it is done. If dancing is some kind of general movement, if it goes in rhythm with the flow of inner thoughts, then yes.

When people hold hands, it is also natural because shaking hands is an expression of inner motives. If the movement comes from within people, it will not seem strange or artificial to anyone, and everyone will accept it as a manifestation of their inner feelings.

This often happens at our congresses, when thousands of people from dozens of countries gather, and it all seems natural to them.

If a person sees African or Indian dances for the first time, they may seem strange and unusual to him. I would say it is not the case here. These are universal movements. When people from many countries hold hands, dance in a circle (a circle is the epitome of equality), follow a common movement, sing a familiar song, and utter words expressing their aspirations I do not think it looks strange. It might be in the middle of Broadway or Tverskaya. But if it comes from within people, and such actions are accepted in our global culture, they cannot be misunderstood.

In all kindergartens worldwide, the teacher tells the children: “Hold hands, stand in a circle, start walking and singing.” Such human expression, when they play and express something together, is the most natural thing. These actions are not planned. They appear spontaneously.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Let’s Dance…” 5/22/1

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By reading Kabbalistic texts, we draw the upper force upon ourselves according to strict laws derived by Kabbalists from nature. They explain that this force originates from a system called the Rosh of the world of Atzilut, the head part of the system.

How can we attract this force? Through our unified desire, referred to as MAN. In the Torah, this is described as “manna from heaven.”

In Kabbalah, we engage in real spiritual actions, the results of which we must begin to sense within ourselves. This helps us understand our unity, to desire it and simultaneously not desire it.

In other words, our egoistic force must grow, and at the same time, the altruistic force above it must grow as well. Both develop within us—downward and upward—and form a spiritual vessel in which we begin to feel unity above our common egoism, known as Mount Sinai. The word “Sinai” comes from the Hebrew word “Sina,” “hatred,” symbolizing mutual rejection.

Like Moses, we must ascend Mount Sinai, this mountain of hatred, unite with one another, and reveal the Creator, becoming acquainted with Him. For this to happen, a massive mountain of mutual hatred and rejection must form beneath us. Despite this, we must rise above it in an effort to achieve unity and love.

When you reach this state, you undergo a phase of adaptation and self-correction, referred to as the “forty days on Mount Sinai.” This corresponds to the level of Bina, the quality of bestowal. At this stage, you achieve adhesion among all members of the community and begin to sense within it the manifestation of the upper force.

With the help of this force, you continue to correct yourself within the community, thereby progressing further. A real system arises between you, in which you interact and advance together like climbers. You know your goal, understand the path, support one another, and become spiritually “sighted.” This is what we must achieve.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalistic Meditation” 5/23/10

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Question: Have your students had spiritual attainments in previous incarnations?

Answer: No, but now there is, so to speak, a pilgrimage to the upper world.

Thousands and even hundreds of thousands of people are beginning to approach this. They rush, and gather on this crusade, just as pilgrims from all over the world flock to, say, Mecca.

So here too our movement begins to gradually transform from tiny drops of water into streams, from streams into rivers, and in the end, it will all come to a large flow.

Today hundreds of thousands of people are already part of this movement. It is personal and internal, not something public, state, or interdisciplinary. This is all just one’s personal matter.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Cycles of Life” 5/10/10

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Question: Have you had experience with spiritual attainment in previous incarnations before coming into this world in your current form?

Answer: Probably, yes, as far as I understand myself. Essentially, it was the so-called “Spanish variant.” But it does not matter. What is the difference? It does not change anything. After all, we all come from somewhere.

All souls have undergone countless incarnations of all kinds. In truth, we do not know why things turn out as they do. Personally, I can say that I have been “rewarded” with the responsibility to carry out the work I am doing now. Of course, on one hand, it is something honorable, special, and respected. But on the other hand, I feel heavily burdened by it, though I cannot argue against what has been placed upon me from above.

If I had the choice, I would have picked a different role for myself. I would have preferred to be a deeply introspective Kabbalist working in seclusion, without engaging in the minor details of everyday life like this current level of practical dissemination. Even though I understand that dissemination is the most important thing, it somehow does not align with my nature.

Perhaps I do not fully understand myself yet, as I seem to disagree with the Creator in this regard, but I would prefer to be a reclusive scholarly Kabbalist, someone who studies, attains, and develops inner processes. Yet here I am, put in a position like a traffic officer at a crossroads who directs pedestrian flows this way and that way. To be honest, I do not feel equipped for this role.

I do not know Hebrew or Aramaic as well as I should. In general I struggle with languages, aside from Russian, of course, even with English. But what does the Russian language have to do with Kabbalah? Absolutely nothing.

It feels as though I have been “decapitated” and placed, essentially unfit, in this role. And inwardly I do not agree with it. I feel obligated to do this because the importance of the goal compels me. But fundamentally I would never have chosen myself for this job. I would have chosen someone else: someone knowledgeable, understanding, strict, and strong, someone with immense capabilities and potential.

But as the saying goes, “Man proposes, and God dispose”; He disposes with power and might, and does as He sees fit. Of course, we must accept this, even though it is entirely unclear what is happening.

Baal HaSulam, clearly, was a great sage, a great philosopher, a great erudite, a multifaceted individual with a profound understanding of all of creation, from the lowest levels of our world to the heights of the spiritual world. He truly deserved to lead people.

And now, look at this world, this humanity, all these miserable, confused people wandering as if in a fog. And who am I? Essentially someone just like them, merely given the task of stepping ahead by one single step.

When you walk an uncharted path, you must proceed with a staff in hand following the one ahead of you, stepping precisely in the same spots they stepped in; only then can you avoid falling.

This is the rule: when treading untrodden trails, you must follow closely behind the guide, step for step, with a staff in hand. But here you practically have no staff, no guide ahead of you, nor their tracks. And this is natural because we are indeed traveling a new path. Perhaps it has to be this way: to move forward through trial and error, through searching. This is the path by which a new person is created.

We do not understand what the Creator is doing with us. Birth arises from nothingness, from emptiness. Even the books we have offer us nothing. Of course, we can seemingly understand a little with our earthly minds, and fill ourselves with some small amount of understanding, some little contentment. But all of this is absolutely unimportant.

It is all just to calm us a little, to persuade us to continue.

But in reality, the whole path lies only in rising above yourself, like a magnet lifting you with the upper light—above your sensations, your knowledge, and your understanding, above everything you have in all your feelings and intellect. Only in this way do you ascend, like a balloon rising into the air. And somewhere out there, in the unknown, after reaching some peak, another state opens up to you.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Why Am I?” 4/24/10

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Question: It is said the people of Israel are obliged to prepare themselves and all the people of the world for spirituality by studying the Torah and commandments.

I feel that we are intermediaries between the whole world and the Creator. How can we make our work better?

Answer: Every day we need to extract strength, a more precise direction, and a clearer goal from the material we read so we do not make mistakes and constantly feel that we are correcting our advancement from yesterday to tomorrow.

Question: We are constantly raising prayers, but so does the whole world. How do these prayers connect? Or do we gather together, and the whole world joins us later?

Answer: No, prayers are integrated into each other and uplift the mood. Only our unity helps all the nations of the world. We, as intermediaries, bring down MAD (Mei Dhurin) to the nations of the world.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/25, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”

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Comment: You once said that man’s purpose on Earth is not just development, but spiritual development.

My Response: Yes, man’s purpose is to ascend to the next level of existence, to enter a new matrix, a new dimension.

Question: Has humanity lost its way? Or was this all intentional?

Answer: Of course it was intentional in order to give us the opportunity to make this ascent independently.

By making an independent ascent from our world to the upper world while still living in this world and in this body, we begin to attain who the Creator is, His level, and we become equal to Him. We come to understand what He has done and why He created our world from the upper world in this specific way. Through this process, we know Him.

The Creator made a complete picture, then disassembled and broke it, and now I must put it back together. By assembling this picture, I start to understand what these pieces are, how they fit together, why they are made this way, and why He, having created the picture, broke it specifically for me. In doing so, I attain His mind and His intentions toward me.

As a result, I become similar to Him.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. The Purpose of Man” 4/19/10

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Question: Israel is responsible for uniting the world. What kind of unity is it? How can it be presented and explained to the whole world?

Answer: We must feel that all our friends in the world exist in one desire where everyone unites in it and are drawn to the center of their tens, and through them to the center of the world Kli.

Question: So when we say we are responsible for the whole world, we mean the world Kli and not the whole world, all people?

Answer: Of course.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/25, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”

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