Prison Is Not What Reforms A Rapist

Question: Your Instagram readers are asking: “How can we accept evil?” You answered: “There is no evil. Evil simply points out to a person that he hasn’t reached perfection in goodness.

That is, concealed good is felt as evil. It is felt acutely so one will pay attention to what other possibilities exist for him to correct this property and turn it into good.”

One of your readers is asking: “What about rape? Abnormal behavior in our connections?”

Answer: This is egoism, it is excess. Of course, this is evil. But egoism must be corrected, and then there will be no evil. That is, this is an incorrect attitude toward another. The intention toward another is just intention. If it acquires either a positive or a negative form, then we have to discern and correct the “minus” into a “plus.” But the intention itself cannot be changed. In other words, we cannot castrate a rapist; we need to reform him.

Question: But how?

Answer: How to do it is another thing. Actions will not change the world. We have to delve into the root of the problem, into why some people treat other people in such ways, and correct that direction,or in other words, his intention. This is what the science of Kabbalah deals with.

Question: Suppose someone commits violence against others. What does it mean to correct his intention, that the same actions of the same person would be beneficial to others?

Answer: Did he intend to hurt others? No, he wanted to fulfill himself. So let him fulfill himself through different actions: acts of kindness toward others. He needs to be corrected, reformed, and educated differently.

He will then receive the same pleasure, even a much greater one than he would have felt while perpetrating violence. Kabbalah can give him pleasure that is 620 times greater. Instead of violence, it will be acts of kindness toward another person, as that person will be enjoying it together with him.

Question: What accounts for such transformation in a person?

Answer: The upper force, the upper light. This is not a simple matter. Nor can the rapist do much about it. A person must be changed, re-educated.

Question: But what can be done?

Answer: At the very least, do not imprison him. According to the Torah, there is no concept of prison. There is no concept of “isolating one from the society.” In order to isolate him—there were six cities of refuge. That is where one would get re-educated.

Question: What happens to a person when his intention changes, when his attitude toward others changes? At what level does this change take place: chemical, psychological?

Answer: On the spiritual level. On the highest, most inner level. He has to change his attitude, his understanding of where he is: in a society, in the world, his attitude toward life and death, toward the whole universe, everything has to change inside him. This correction takes place under the influence of the upper light.

Question: Suppose a rapist wants to change his attitude…

Answer: Even if he doesn’t want to change, we will gradually influence him in such a way that he will want to change himself, and will be changed.

Question: What does it mean to influence him in such a way that he will change?

Answer: Through examples, education. It is an educational system that has to influence him over a long period of time. People that were sentenced to the refuge cities could not leave. If a person killed or harmed anyone, he could find a refuge there, turn himself in and admit his crime, and then the societies in the refuge cities would work on him.

He was influenced in such a way that the upper light could affect him. One has to put himself under the influence of the upper light. A person cannot do it himself, he is completely corrupt. Therefore, he is aided in such a way that the upper light begins to affect him.

How is this achieved? By inclusion into society. The collective works on attracting the upper light, and a person, by being in the society, whether he likes it or not, receives a portion of the upper light through it, and the upper light reforms him.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/28/19