A Talk with Dr. Michael Laitman

A New life

“Being Parents”

Talk 205

June 30, 2013

Oren: Hello, thank you for joining us here in our New Life educational series with Dr. Michael Laitman. Hello, Michael Laitman. Hello, Nitzah Massos. Hello. We want to learn from Dr. Laitman how we can take our life to a new, better place, improved place where we start to understand that enhanced life is the life where we know how to connect with people around us in a better manner in a way that does not cause us all kinds of conflicts and pain, place where we are in a constant state of survival, but a place where connections between us are connections that open channels, everything flows between us and everything arranges itself, we smile and we are happy to be alive.

So be with us. There will be a lot to take in today. Our focus today is a series of talks where we are trying to be parents, how as parents, we build the family unit in a new manner. Why in a new manner? Because with all the pain and sadness involved, we can say that the old family unit is falling apart. We are parents. We have two, three and four kids. We don’t know how to do it correctly. It puts us into a place of very deep emotional stress. We certainly want to learn from you how to do this properly, even though we are in a middle of life and we don’t have a clean page. But before life passes us by, we want to learn how to do it. Nitzah, tell us what we are doing today.

Nitzah: Today we want to talk about the role of the parent in the family and what correct education options there are for parents.

First of all we want to mention that the most important role in our life is to properly teach our children what life is, how to live properly, how to be happy and how to succeed in life. No one really teaches us these things in any framework, and therefore, the inclination is usually to act in an intuitive manner based on experiences in the past.

If we think we were educated correctly, we have the inclination to try to convey the way we were educated to our children. If we think the way we were educated was not correct, then we try to do just the opposite. We actually do not take into account many elements. I can say that personally what worked for me, does not necessarily work for my children, because I am made of certain material and the children are made of another material.

It is not just education; it is to learn all the elements making up a puzzle. It is a subject that is so complex. We see that in every aspect of life, it is clear that we need to sit and study, sometimes for a few years, to acquire this ability. It is such an important subject and we actually do not learn it anywhere.

Here we want to learn from you, and of course, take into account the changing reality around us today. We do not live like we used to We need to adjust ourselves, so maybe the first and most basic question is, “What is a parents’ role, according to your approach, the Integral Education approach?”

Dr. Laitman: The parents’ role is truly to teach children the wisdom of life, despite there being a gap between the generations. They say that each generation is something completely new, they have a completely different perspective of reality, an inner program, a viewpoint, and solutions that they reach in life. The parents need to take this into account. They have to be very educated and need to know how to approach this. In school, we do not receive any basics in being parents.

It is interesting how many times I have heard or read that in schools in Scandinavia and Europe, they teach about sex through sex education classes, but they never hear about how to be a parent, about family, nor how to build a connection between a man and woman, but rather they are treated really, as animals. If humanity would look at itself from the side in a slightly more objective manner, they would be in shock by what we are doing to ourselves. Therefore, we do not have the right attitude toward it.

We say a family is the most basic unit of society. What does that mean? That apparently, all the laws we have in society are also in Zeir Anpin, in the smallest way they exist in the family. If a person knew how to build a family properly, then from that, he would also know how to approach better solutions with strangers. He would already have the tools in his hand to somehow arrange his life in the correct manner. We do not learn this. And because this, all the other things happen.

I remember precisely that we had a history teacher in the last few years of school, who would actually teach us. He would say a person’s life includes seeing a nice movie, and taking a walk together with the family. We were in our teens, 15-16 years old, and this was also 50 years ago. But I remember there were a few sentences like that, that he would let out between history and all the other subjects that he taught, and they would really stay with us and help us. Those sentences would leave some kind of impression, a very strong impression. And we saw it later between us, between the kids, between the teens, that it was really missing. This impression was some kind of direction, even with just a few single sentences.

Today with everything that is happening in the family and happening in relations between a couple, between the parents and their kids and also between the kids, it is clear that it is all destroyed. Due to a lack of choice, people are getting divorced, kids are getting distanced from their parents and do not feel any connection to them. This is all because the kids are not receiving education.

So, we need to start with the parents and determine from where they will get the education. It actually all starts with the fact that the parents need to go through education and treatment. This means talks and workshops, where we explain to the parents how to behave. We need to give them examples of how, as parents, they can speak to one another between them in the circles in which they have gathered together for training. We can show how they can speak to one another, meaning the parents between themselves, and how they can speak with other parents and how they can imagine what it means to talk to kids in a roundtable discussion in the kitchen, in the dining room or in the living room, but in a manner where everyone sits and has a family meeting. Really we need to set up a time for that, once a week, Sabbath evening, during the day or in the evening. It does not matter, but there has to be a special time that is a holy thing where the family sits down and discusses all kinds of things, everyone has to talk about what happened and what he thinks. This has to be in a manner that they have patience for it and they put aside time for it. And first of all, we need to have this habit.

I heard from my son who has already been outside of the house for 25 years. He is 40, and at the age of 15, he had to leave the house. He is in Canada because of health reasons, the weather. From everything that happened, what he remembers was that on Saturday in afternoon, on the Sabbath, we all sat together in one room on mattresses on the floor. That was a tradition. Even though we each had our own room, the children had their own beds and everything, it was a tradition. We gathered in one room and we slept. Precisely like that. It was like an adventure. I am here and there are the kids, the girls and my son, and the mother. The parents were on both sides and the kids in the middle. This is what remained, this impression remained. Now he is 40-years-old. He says that this is what he remembers. We need this to remain with our kids so that when they are older, then we will be sure that they continue these things onward. This is how a person is built from only from an example. Therefore, in the family, we need to get used to such an organization that we have a meeting at least once a week.

We begin slowly. We start with a snack, but not something that will overcome the meeting itself. Something sweet and something to drink and that is it. The main thing is the talking, the exchange. And there we open up in a psychological manner where everyone discusses, everyone talks about the things that happened and their impressions from the week. And then each of us speaks about it, each of us with his viewpoint. There is critique of what happened, everyone expresses himself and hears what others think. The main thing is everyone can speak and also hear each other’s opinions.

At the end of the day, we need to reach some kind of agreement. Not a solution, but a single viewpoint, a single feeling about everything that happens. We need to get into everyone’s emotion, even if it is a 5 year-old telling us something about what is happening to her. We have to truly go along with her, with this whole story that she is telling. And then we go back to the togetherness and how it s right to look at the story, to get out of a situation, and that maybe we can balance out the situation and feeling with our minds a little bit in order to see things. From this she can learn how to get along with the other person. Little kids cannot do that. They grab something for themselves and they don’t see anything apart from that.

From examples like that, we actually begin to learn one another and at the end of the day, from all these talks, we need to come to something common, to some common feelings around this common table by which we are building something single that is called a family. This is where the mother, the father, our grandparents, and it can be our kids with our grandchildren as well. It does not matter what the format is, the main thing is that it is the family. It is not just that we are gathering together to put each other down and get old together, no. It is what we are creating around us, this gentle, common feeling and fun.

This common feeling and common thought, is like an image or a common area that is called family. And it is not that we are physiologically connected. Nor is it based on where we live. We want this feeling to guide us for the entire week until the next week, and we strengthen it more and more. The more we grow, the more that we and the world change This feeling has to get stronger and has to take on new forms. And this is called a family on the path. What kind of path? The path of life. It has nothing to do with each person’s personal development or their profession, even though it is all connected and influences everyone. But this feeling actually gives us some kind of anchor about life and belonging to a small society in which in a natural manner, you can even say primitive, we are connected to one another instinctively. It has some kind of basis. It is like I owe them and they owe me, and we do not have a choice.

From there we need to build that same term, the family. And we can learn to do the same thing with circles outside the family. But I am saying this as an example for each person in the family, that he already has a chain of reactions and he can start building these exits like this outside the family. And this is the result of learning, because we need to go out to the big world. And there and in every place we will have the strength, the art, the talent, the ability, and the approach to build units like this in how we relate to people in every place. This is how we teach our kids the wisdom of life. Not precisely in the family, and not just in their family life, but also in the workplace and everywhere where they are, they will know how to integrate with people, how to listen and be heard. To make a long story short, this is the main unit for the great transition in society and the entire world.

Nitzah: The fact that you began to start with that is truly incredible. Because what did you describe here? First, you list the subject of belonging. Meaning first thing, the highest priority, in order to educate his children and family properly, a parent needs to first and foremost to provide them with a feeling that they belong to a unit. That’s the first thing, that’s the basis.

Why am I saying that? Because usually the approach is that a parent has to educate his children and raise them to live their life correctly. Now a parent comes with his perspectives, with his experience and he tries to convey to his children, the correct approach to life. And here you did not start with the approach of a parent, you said that even before the approach, you create this togetherness, create this single unit, this feeling of belonging. And from there is the next stage.

Of course I’m going to see how we are going to build this feeling of belonging. But let us say we built this feeling and having succeeded in doing that, once a week we get together, have a discussion, talk about certain subjects and really this feeling has been created that I belong to a group. As a child, how does now this help me, how does this education help me to better understand life?

Dr. Laitman: I am integrated in my parents’, sisters’ and brothers’ viewpoints and perspective. I notice how they hear one another, they are integrated, can express, participate, be concerned, they be happy, and can understand what’s happening with me by my telling them what happened in school or in some place. Each of them gives advice and asks questions, they help me and crack me open to help me get my story out. I then look at my story through their eyes and ears and hear myself and get into their minds and hearts and see how they react to it. This is what happens from telling the story. I told them something, so they ask this and that and they discuss it. And they say they are for it, against it or something and so I learn from my relatives. I learn their approach, I learn our common feelings, heart and mind and how we reach middle ground, what we think about something that happened that each one in the family has to understand as a story.

Let us say we have to understand it all at the family meeting. And in that, we first of all calm everyone down; we give everyone the expansion of their mind and their heart, as everyone becomes integrated in everyone else. Altogether, from this integration, we reach that same common structure between us that is called the family which exists outside of us and between us. It is like it is lying on the table.

Nitzah: Now that you describe it, I felt, even as a mother, I felt some relief.

Dr. Laitman: Why relief?

Nitzah: Because I always had questions in my head concerning how I am to know that I am directing my kids properly.

Dr. Laitman: You don’t need to know. You can do this without learning in some place and or though some wisdom that you heard. This is what is written and the teacher said that. You have to speak like a child, similar to your daughter, but together. It is also good to have eye contact. You speak to your daughter as if you are also a daughter, but slightly smarter. You must be smarter with your wisdom and not in some great big theory from somewhere. It has to be from the heart and it has to be something from your, and you have to talk. As much as possible you have to throw out all previous opinions, convictions, laws, and procedures, what’s accepted, etc. It has to be as natural as possible.

Oren: I didn’t understand that. You said that I have to be like a daughter. Let’s say my daughter is telling me something in the family meeting. You said that I don’t need to be smart or anything, and that I have to be like my daughter and I have to try to get into that place, may be slightly above it. And then you said don not bring her ethics or anything, but speak from your heart. I’m not sure I understood. What is yes and what is no.

Dr. Laitman: I’ll say it in one sentence. The upper stage goes down to the lower stage and dresses in it. And this is how we need to speak. I dress in her at her level, just with an understanding of my own solution. And this way, she begins to understand and feel why I think like this, from where does this come to me, and on what am I basing it. She learns my thinking, my calculation, and how I balance my heart and the opposite; my mind with my feelings. I have to talk about, all these things and explain them to her. When I go down to her level and dress in her, together with her, taking her and hugging her, I begin to take her through my thought and feeling processes, so that I see the situation through my eyes. Afterward she will leave that and again we continue speaking. From there, I begin to see from the side, how much she absorbed from me, whether she got a correct impression or not etc., without pressuring her.

Oren: As much as possible?

Yes.

Oren: What do you mean without pressuring?

Dr. Laitman: I mean without obligating her to truly think and feel like I think and feel. Let’s say it is not working so far. Okay, it is fine.

Nitzah: You described two stages here. The first stage is to go down to her level, talk to her, try to understand, dress in her, and do this in simple words. What does that mean?

Dr. Laitman: Into her heart and mind, with the tools that I have, I try to solve her problems or see her story. I try to crack it open, solve it, and explain it with my mind and heart that is slightly higher than hers. That actually includes the apparent solution. I then explain to her what she saw. I explain to her the inner system that exists in the same phenomena that she saw and felt.

Nitzah: I’m trying to understand the girl, understand her need, what she feels. That is what I call joining her and then I’m leading her, taking her gently, not from a higher place, but rather gently. Now here, there is always a question of how to direct someone correctly. That is why I liked what you said before.

Dr. Laitman: What you think is as a slightly bigger girl only, but without any wisdom.

Nitzah: You need to explain this.

Without your wisdom, your education and that you are here as a master of coaching and all that stuff, we don’t care about. She is learning in grade four and you are learning in grade 6-7. It does not matter. From this mind a little bit to that mind, that is it. She needs to understand you and feel you and you need to be in it as her big sister. But her big sister is not controlling, but really more like a friend and slightly older. I do not have other words.

Nitzah: Now this conversation is taking place in the family. So I will say I am expressing my opinion.

Dr. Laitman: I am not so sure. It depends how much the brothers and the father, the male part of the family can take, and to the extent he can understand and identify the place that she is in.

Nitzah: If it is a little boy, if it is a son?

Dr. Laitman: Then the mother can always dress in anyone.

Nitzah: And a sister?

Dr. Laitman: A sister might not understand. It all depends how much the family is already on the path and how much they are advancing with this system. If they are advancing, then everyone is integrated in everyone else and there is no problem to feel everyone in the family, even the grandparents. Even the little girl will feel the grandparents as they are.

Oren: So let us say that in the process of advancement here, and let us say that we are just starting to work according to this method and the exercises you are giving. But with time we will develop these abilities, so in the exercising, it is important to make a round table where everyone tries to do this?

Dr. Laitman: It depends what family it is. Maybe we need to start with mother and daughters, the mother with the son and maybe be the father with son. Mother with the daughters has more complex things. With the sons, their inner world is a little bit less complex.

Nitzah: Let us look at the education. What is the right way to educate our kids through the parents?

First of all, we need to educate the parents. The parents need to take a continuing course. We need to do some basic course. And when we go through it and educate the parents, then we start to teach them how to do these meetings and workshops in the home. These family meetings that bring us an impression of what is happening, what happened, did not happen, whether they succeed or not, and what the difficulty was.

We are coming into this in the middle of life. Some people have 15-year old kids. To start with them is very difficult, so we don’t start with them, for example. And those kids that are 9 or 10, we do not start right away. First of all, we start with the little kids and we talk to them. And the others if they want to hear, they can listen. If they don’t want to listen, they can go, but gradually, we need to entice them that it is worth it for them to also sit and participate. That is so they will feel that we are closer to one another and they will have a big desire to connect. They need to feel that we are together and they are separate, but in a gentle way. It shouldn’t turn them off. It depends what ages. From the age of 14 and on, this is dangerous. For ages less than that, it will attract them.

So there really needs to be a gentle attitude here and not pressure or force them, but in use a gentle manner. You can order pizza, soda, or something family-centered, so it is nice and pleasant to be there, so they will also participate. To do it at a time when they are available, and it is not so important to them to kill the time for it. An hour or two.

Oren: I want to make a conclusion of what we learned so far. I’m going back to the question we began with, “What is my role as parent?”

Dr. Laitman: My role as a parent is to learn to be a parent. And with my partner, I need to build a family unit in which through family meetings, we reach reach a feeling, a common feeling that is called the family.

Nitzah: Why is that actually the foundation?

Dr. Laitman: Why? Because nature organized this in such a way that we must connect between us in order to build a family. That is how we are from nature. So we need to connect between us, build a nest, give birth to kids, and educate them. And not just randomly. Twenty years forward we are getting into the family burden. And all this is for us, from this unit being obligated from nature we will understand from this unit how to build all of reality, meaning all of humanity that will be as one family.

Nitzah: Do you have another question? Let’s try to understand this building of the feeling of belonging, this connection that you call a family. How does it cause the child to feel when he feels this belonging inside the family? What does it build inside him? What preparation does it give him for life?

Dr. Laitman: First of all, it gives him confidence. Once in a while it expands his mind, which includes brain and feelings together, Hochma and Bina. He is looking at life in a completely different manner, is more mature and always sees what is being born. Why? Because those bigger than he is, are coming down to his level and giving him their minds and feelings and he absorbs them and begins to see the world through their eyes. In other words compared to his friends he is already at a height of the next stage, of a more developed state. He already has experiences of life. The parents are giving him experiences of life. He is becoming mature, beyond his age. In other words, they are giving him a head inside his body, and with these family meeting, they are adding their head to him.

Then he understands what is wanted from him and how everyone wants to take advantage of him, and that he must distance himself from those friends. He begins to be smart and have means. He has the right means for advancing on his path in life, but even more so than kids his age or. It turns out that the lower one receives from the upper, one mind and heart at a slightly higher degree based on their advice. And then they participate in it, because it is impossible for a child to develop on his own. If he develops, he doesn’t develop by himself, but only through the environment and that is usually very bad, and of course does not think of his good like his family does.

Nitzah: So what advice can you give? Inside this process, how does the child gradually develop his uniqueness and independence inside the family?

Dr. Laitman: Precisely by integrating all the family members. In that he develops his uniqueness. Otherwise, he is drowning in this big group, the street, the school that fills him with such bad values and prejudices etc that ruin him and warp him for life. It is hard to get rid of those.

Oren: Educate a child in his way, because also...

Nitzah: Again, how does he build his independence and uniqueness in the family nest that is created? How does it actually happen? By absorbing the wisdom of the family, it builds confidence in him, it protects him, how does he feel a part of it and yet also independent?

Dr. Laitman: It also gives him moral strength. We are sitting at a round table in the dining room or living room, it does not matter where and we are all equal. Anyone can say what they want. Nobody is contradicting anyone; no one thinks that the other is smarter or less smart. In that we are each expressing, but at the same general level, we are expressing our opinion in a manner than everyone will understand. We have a problem, because we have a 5 year-old girl, a 10 year- old and maybe a 15 year-old. It is difficult, but still, the fact that we are all trying to explain in a manner that everyone will understand precisely in a small way. And this is something a 15 year-old can learn from us. He is receiving. Just like we came down from our degree to dress in a 5 year-old girl, this is how he feels: we came down and he is receiving it at his height. Even though he hears that we are talking to her, he receives greater insight from that on how to be a parent himself.

Nitzah: What does the parent receive from the family process? What does he absorb?

He is integrated in them. It is like a mother hen that puts all her chicks underneath her . This is how he feels: the entire family is with him and in him.

Nitzah: Does the parent get also some higher brain, precisely from working with little kids?

He is integrated in them and therefore he begins to think in a broader way. And he also changes because his deficiencies, his desires now are in accordance to what he receives from his kids. And they are different. In other words, they are not kids. He is integrated in what is called the family, that same mind and brain that we are creating together. So of course it expands his mind, his attitude to life and his attitude toward the family.

Nitzah: Inside this process that you mentioned, how does anyone, before a child and any person, learn from personal example? Apart from personal example, is there something else I have to give?

Dr. Laitman: Other than the example of parents or this terrible society around him? So something will influence him one way or the other, and whatever is stronger will influence him. But family for sure influences. It depends on when they begin, and how they succeed.

And here we need to understand that we are here, how can we put it? We are here in a struggle, in a constant struggle between us and our opinion that we want to have influence the family and the bigger environment. And here we have to learn in our course as parents, how we create the family opinion that will be stronger in its influence over all the members of the family than the influence from this great society. My dedication to the family, concern for the family, and the family’s opinion will be more than to what extent society can influence them.

Let’s put it like this. A mother is always concerned about her kids and she does not really care what somebody thinks or what they say about her, since she is in them, in a natural manner. This is how we need to be-- in a natural manner. We need to reach a state where we are concerned for the family and that it is the uppermost thing and more than any other thing in the world. And no one from the environment, other families or friends who may be outside can influence it. Dedication to the family is first and foremost. We have to provide education in mutual support and provide example of mutual support within it.

Nitzah: I want to ask. I have this picture in front of my eyes, which are two models of the family. Let us say a model that was accepted up to a few years ago, which is a model of a pyramid with the father at the top, the mother underneath him and the kids underneath her. In the past the kids did not have any rights.

Dr. Laitman: We cannot raise them like that.

Nitzah: That is what was accepted then.

Dr. Laitman: Until we developed through the ego. In the middle of the 1950s, we stopped developing with our ego and the world started getting rounder. And when the world started getting rounder, the family had to become rounder. And we who did not begin this process in the 1950s, we therefore got into family crises.

Nitzah: Now I want to say something. That pyramid model is broken and the circle that you explained didn’t happen. Because in my imagination, I see everything round and we are sitting in a round manner, but that didn’t happen. What did happen? We see that what happened is that if previously, the child was in the margins, in the reality of today he has become the center. He actually determines everything, since we are so attentive to his needs. He has become the one with rights and we have the debts, since we have to supply whatever he needs. That is the situation we are in right now. What is the difference between this situation and the situation of a circular model that you explained? How do we not become nor reach this state that the parents are some kind of supply source and the child is just taking? You described something else completely.

Dr. Laitman: We need to understand that what we are building what is called the family center between us, and each one is dependent on everyone else. This pertains to the little ones more than the big ones. Their success, their health, their happiness influences the family much more than the big people, the parents. Therefore, each and everyone is equal, truly equal. It is like in a usual society that wants to reach connection, but connection can only be within equality. The fact that the mother and father are bigger than the kids, and bigger at the living level since they give birth to them and have to supply them with everything that is at the animal level.

It is at the integral level that we are all equal; otherwise we cannot connect with one another. Therefore, if the father and the mother bring material to the family: money, security, decisions, food etc., it does not mean that the kids don not take part in it. They have to take part in what they owe to the family: good behavior, good grades, success in something, concern in some way, participation in the home or some kind of organization, organizing the house, etc. Everyone has to know that they need to participate in it and it is not because they know they have to, but it is because that through this, we are building what is called the family.

Nitzah: In other words, here you described a situation where kids also have obligations towards the family. How do the parents know how to arrange things properly that the child will understand his obligations and will implement them properly? It is also part of the role of a parent to teach members of the family what they need to do and how they contribute to the family.

I went to work when I was 14. My father was a dentist, my mother, a gynecologist. We were a Jewish family and we had money. We were far above average, and had a big house, a car, and a garden. We had everything and I had everything. We had a tennis court in the yard, everything. Everyone used to come and play at my house with my toys and games, but I wanted to advance toward technical things, and for that, I had to make some stash.

So I started working as an electrician. Of course my father arranged things for me. But I remember that I went to work and I received a salary that was just peanuts. I came home. My parents used to give me much more than I received in salary. So I got a salary, that was it, it was in my pocket. I thought it was nothing. My mother asked, “Why do you not give it to the family?”I gave her a few bills, and the change I thought I could leave in my pocket. What was the big deal? I had to travel. She said, “No, you have change.” I put the change on the table. It does not matter that afterwards I got ten times as much from them that month. That taught me. I remember the moment. I wasn’t limited in any way. But I remember how she related to it.

Nitzah: What’s the message she gave you as a child at that moment?

Dr. Laitman: You need to bring your profit to the family. Bring yourself to the family.

Nitzah: Don’t save anything for yourself, everything belongs to everything.

Dr. Laitman: You bring from outside and you give it to the family and then you do whatever you want. And afterward, I will be generous to you. But that belongs to everyone. I remember taking it, all the change and putting it on the table.

Nitzah: For kids today it’s very hard.

Dr. Laitman: It was not hard, but it was strange because I would not calculate money like that. It was the fact that suddenly I had received a salary and had to bring it to everyone. That is how it was.

Nitzah: It gives some kind of value to what you brought.

Dr. Laitman: That I belong, I have to bring it. And in those days and since, I have not received a salary that I did not always bring to the family, leaving myself with nothing. Truly. That taught me, this example, this one example.

Oren: I wanted to ask. At the beginning of the show you said something about family that I am waiting for you to expand on. When asked, “What is the role of the parent according to your approach,” and you answered, “To teach the kids the wisdom of life.” And later you said that you look at the family unit as some kind of small society where the parents have to develop in their children the ability to connect with other people so that later this ability will serve them anywhere they will be, whether it’s where they study, or where they work.

So in other words, in this small home laboratory the parents’ role is to teach the child to develop an ability to listen, speak, hear, receive, and to connect with someone else. And then this ability to connect, it is like communication studies that is the tool which allows him to go out into the big world and succeed with other people outside this unit.

So now I’m going back to the first sentence. You said that a parents’ role is to teach the kids the wisdom of life. What is the wisdom of life, how do we see it in the world today that I have to give to my kids? Everyone else has a different approach.

Dr. Laitman: It is connection to people.

Oren: Why is it the wisdom of life?

Dr. Laitman: Everything is based on that.

Oren: If you could expand on this a bit.

Dr. Laitman: Between a person and his environment of the inanimate, vegetative, animate levels and how much am I connected to them. I only have human society. I look at the world in a global, open manner. I have inanimate, I have vegetative, I have animal kingdom. Where am I connected to them? In my modern life, I am not connected to them at all. If I am not working with the earth, botanicals, agriculture, and am not a veterinarian or something, not working with animals, not growing crops or working with goats or cows, w here is the person? These things he learns in all kinds of courses, in institutions. But all of my connection, and throughout my entire life, I build my connection to people who are similar to me. And this we do not learn. Nobody teaches this to us. We learn all kinds of laws of physics. I remember them, and if I need it, I will learn. They are filling me with things that are completely marginal. And precisely in our time, when we are dependent on the global network of connections that is truly coming to us and threatening us, showing us that we are not suited the world, then we discover that we have no choice: We have to get along.

Nitzah: Maybe we should start with a few principles. We should start by describing the model, because the model you described, and the more you described, it is getting bigger and bigger and we are getting a more solid picture, a very clear picture.

I think we are going from one extreme to the other. Maybe one part of the pyramid where the parents were above and had the kids below, and now it is the opposite: the child is at the top and the parents are at the bottom. Because today, there is some kind of supply system to supply kids with everything they need without any interaction. And apparently, that is not right. And the right way to deal with reality today is to actually create a circle where the parent is responsible for this space, for creating this family meeting space and inside these discussions actually…

Dr. Laitman: Everyone is equal, and according to their ability, everyone must bring his two cents worth to the family.

Nitzah: To the center.

Dr. Laitman: To the center of the family. Even little kids, the father, the mother, everyone according to the extent they are capable. They are obligated to that at the end of the day. We need to build a need for it.

Nitzah: And, while we are doing that, all the kids in the family learn their role, they learn their obligations toward that same circle.

Dr. Laitman: May be a little girl is arranging her dolls, or she has to help her mother a bit with all kinds of things. It does not matter. Everyone has to participate with others. It is the participation. Why? Because it builds the connection between them. It builds a connection between them.

Nitzah: In other words, inside this model when I am trying to look at values and principles, there is a matter of creating a feeling of belonging, and participating, and equality. What other principles are leading this model?

Dr. Laitman: Integration and integration inside everyone. Identifying emotionally and intelligently. And also from everyone together we will build something that belongs to everyone, but that is between them. That is called a family. I am not connected precisely to the wife or to the kids, I truly I exist like this.

Nitzah: And then that same child that gets older and goes out to life at some point…

Dr. Laitman: ...and goes out. He does not know that throughout his childhood, he is also building some manner of integration with others, whether he likes it or not, this is how he is built. This is his approach. He wants to appear like this everywhere. That everyone will be revealed. And that is what will happen around him. What will this give him in life? For his whole life, he will be able to build life, like he built inside the family until the whole world will be as one family.

Oren: And what will that give him? How will this ability lead his life compared to a person that did not do this?

Dr. Laitman: He will always be surrounded by people always that like him, are concerned for him and no one will want to cause him distress. How it is in the family normally.

Nitzah: At the end of the day and the bottom line, parents want their kids to grow up and be happy. They want to give an example.

Dr. Laitman: If they want, they need to get an example. That is it, they need to give them an example. Nothing else.

Nitzah: How does this approach bring person happiness?

Dr. Laitman: It all depends how much we are integrated in one another, how much I feel that I am in this single body called a family, that here for sure, they love me, they complete me, and I complete everyone. It is a very important thing. I do not know how to put it. It is a feeling. There are no words. Everything stays in the family.

Oren: And with this sentence we need to finish this discussion. Thank you Dr. Laitman. Our time is up. Thank you, Nitzah. Everything stays in the family. All the best. New life.

(End of the conversation)