Being a Hermit Keeps You from Becoming Corrected

Being a Hermit Keeps You from Becoming CorrectedA question I received: In the last two lessons you gave on the article “The Peace,” you mentioned that people who isolate themselves from society cause harm. So could it be that society is wrong to imprison murderers, rapists, drug dealers, and so on, and should imprison monks and hermits instead?

My Answer: According to the Torah, there should be special asylums and courts for people who cause harm. You can familiarize yourself with these laws – they are harmonious with human nature and the Upper Governance, which forces man to sin in the first place (to murder, steal, and so on), and also controls judges and all kinds of circumstances. However, it wants man to consciously enter this system that governs him through reward and punishment.

We see that forceful imprisonment only increases the number of criminals, and moreover, they perfect their craft while in prison. But as society becomes corrected as a whole, people will start using other methods of punishing and educating. A person who desires correction should not isolate himself from society.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: More Severe Punishments Won’t Make Things Better
Kabbalah Today, Questions & Answers: What Are Reward and Punishment?

One Comment

  1. Rather than the “punishment” related articles, I would like to read more about how a student of kabbalah should not be drawn to being a little more isolated than the norm. Surely some hermit-like behaviour is inevitable when one is in a “virtual group”, physically isolated from kli participants and not particularly interested in spending too much time in idle chit chat.

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