Childbirth
with Limor Soffer-Fetman, educational psychologist and psychotherapist,
and Eli Vinokur, education content manager for the Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education & Research Institute
Limor Soffer-Fetman: In the previous program, we discussed Kabbalah’s perception of fetal development inside the womb. You described the perspective of Kabbalah on the great perceptual ability of the fetus, the bond developing between it and the mother, through which it actually develops a bond with the surroundings, even when it is in the womb. Today, we would like to touch on the topic of childbirth.
Perhaps we should begin with the issue of contractions. Is there a particular, spiritual significance to contractions?
Michael Laitman: First, I’d like to complete one more sentence regarding the fetus’ connection with the surroundings through the mother. It is not just the surroundings, because afterward, through all his years of growing up he eventually comes to a situation, willingly or unwillingly, where he sees life through his mother’s and father’s eyes. In the end, he adopts his mother’s perception of the world and acquires his parents’ values after all. One cannot rid oneself of them. Afterward, the surroundings, the friends, and perhaps other things do impact us, but it is still mounted on that initial background.
Now, regarding contractions, the mother develops contractions, as if she wants to expel the fetus, but she wants to expel it on the condition that it is prepared for the outside world. That is, it excretes certain substances and hormones and is not simply positioned head down toward the cervix, pressing to get out. In Kabbalistic terms, there is a lot to it, the fetus truly wishes to exit the mother; it neither wants nor is capable of receiving its provisions through her anymore.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: Despite that amazing place called the womb?
Michael Laitman: At that point, it has become hostile and he must emerge from it. It is written that the host sends out the guest. The mother, being the host, actually pushes the child and sends him out. It is written that the doors open, two doors, and there are Tzirim [in Hebrew, Tzirim means both labor contractions and door hinges].
It is written (Daniel, 10:16), “My pains [also hinges in Hebrew] have turned on me.” These are the contractions. It is not pressure, but the womb opening and expelling. In other words, all of a sudden we find here opposite forces to what existed before, because to the extent that the womb was guarding the fetus and caring for it, keeping it inside, now it has become hostile toward it and must expel it. This is the first time we see that the force of love of the superior, the mother, toward the lower one seems to be reversed.
By that, the fetus acquires the strength to overcome. By expelling it, the mother provides it with the strength to overcome, and now he is capable of coping with being outside, precisely because he senses this push, when her force of love appears as pressure, seemingly hostile. By that, she establishes in it another “line” of approach, which seems to be a negative line, though the negative is still to its benefit.
The mother is also under immense forces and great pressures. It is written in The Zohar that the snake bites her in the womb, and then she gives birth. In fact, it is the addition of the evil, addition of our ego, precisely in that action of spiritual birth. Likewise, the child acquires an addition to his ego, and this is why he can be outside and cope.
Also, the child acquires the contractions and the attitude of the mother, her overcoming. This gives him a great addition of strength that makes him ready to exist outside.
Then the open channel [umbilical cord] closes and the closed channel [mouth] opens. The naval is also considered a mouth, the mouth of the fetus, and the regular mouth is the mouth of a child. That is, there are several places in our body where a connection between bodies are made, between the upper and lower. By that, they transfer fulfillment from one to the other. This is done through the mouth, through the umbilical cord, through the breasts. At that time, the fetus moves from the place called NeHY, between the mother’s legs, to her chest. It is considered that it ascended in degree.
In nursing, the child begins to bond with the chest, and the chest is another degree of bonding altogether, where blood turns into milk. In fact, it is the same blood, but because it ascended a degree from NeHY to HaGaT, meaning from a lesser degree to a greater degree, it acquired a totally different manner—of milk—but in the baby, that milk turns back into blood.
It is a very special system, the way the mother’s blood turns into milk, and back into blood once it is in the baby. According to Kabbalah, a child should be in that system of nursing for two years, until the age of two.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: Despite the development of teeth?
Michael Laitman: Yes.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: And the ability to walk and run, and to disappear?
Michael Laitman: Even so. From this we can draw several conclusions regarding childbirth, such as that natural childbirth is far more favorable than a Caesarean. We know that it’s very healthy for both the mother and the fetus, although it is an almost tragic situation for both.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: Painful.
Michael Laitman: Not only painful; it can be dangerous. When I was a student, I was present in a delivery room and I feel how much it affected me. I was 19, and suddenly I found myself in the delivery room, and there were all kinds of cases, I actually had a bit of a trauma seeing it. Nevertheless, it is extremely important for the body and the health of both of them, and they must go through it.
Eli Vinokur: What happens during this process?
Michael Laitman: I don’t know how to explain it in terms that we will understand, but it is the perception of another level. We can put it this way: a child who was not born naturally, but in a Caesarean section, it is as if in a sense, he hasn’t been born; he didn’t go through this process. And the mother, too, seemingly did not give birth; she didn’t rid herself of the fetus, didn’t pressure it and didn’t expel it. In other words, it is as though they are still in some type of faulty bond. It is too internal, and it interferes with the child’s development, as if continuing the mother’s attitude toward him.
There are actually a lot of writings about birth in Kabbalah, but they all speak in the language of Kabbalah and it’s very hard to “translate” it from the language of Kabbalah to the physiological or medical language. I have never done that, so there is a problem making the parallels, although it is possible. I once held talks with an expert in gynecology, but when I began to explain to him the whole process of the three days of fusion of the semen, the forty days of creating the offspring, and other similar issues, I saw that they still don’t know about it.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: That means that it is knowledge that hasn’t even been discovered.
Michael Laitman: Yes. You see, what happens at the level of the souls is at a much higher and subtler degree than what we find in physical bodies. Although it cascades from the souls and exists in the body, once in the corporeal world, it loses many subtleties, and many discernments are lost along the way. This is why we don’t need them so much.
Eli Vinokur: I would like to ask about Caesareans. Statistically, about a third of the women give birth through Caesarean section. What can mothers do in order to make that bond properly?
Michael Laitman: I don’t think the percentages should be that high. Although surely, the medical advancement is to our advantage, but we shouldn’t overuse it.
Eli Vinokur: Is there anything the mother can do afterwards?
Michael Laitman: No, no. The child somehow compensates for it later, but it is very hard. What the child did not receive at birth, he will not receive. That transition did not occur naturally. There is a reason why nature demands natural childbirth.
Eli Vinokur: Is there a reason why mothers avoid natural childbirth these days?
Michael Laitman: As a result of our general corruption, we don’t want childbirth. We don’t want natural childbirth and we don’t want to suffer. We want everything to go smoothly. If it could be done in an incubator, perhaps many people would do it. In a few more years who knows what will happen. Perhaps we will have some surrogate machine and that is what we’ll do. But it will really be deficient in us. According to the soul, any childbirth other than natural one is considered an accident.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: When a child is born, should he be separated immediately after birth, because there are all sorts of approaches to that question?
Michael Laitman: He must immediately sense the mother. Other than the hands assisting to take him out and fix him up, he must feel the mother immediately, to smell her, as quickly as possible. He should be cleaned up a little, washed, but perhaps he should be given contact with the mother even before that. He must have it. After all, it is the animate degree.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: Is there any reference to whether or not the child should sleep with the mother?
Michael Laitman: I recommend very simply to look at animals. Why don’t we learn from the animals? How are we different in that? In our bodies, we are at the animate degree.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: True.
Michael Laitman: So? In what are humans different? In nothing. It is best to take them as an example and this will be exactly right, according to nature. Therefore, of course a child should be near his mother, and she shouldn’t sleep next to her husband right away. That was never customary in human history in any of the cultures. The baby should be right next to her. Until the age of two, the baby needs to sense only the mother, and maybe her assistants.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: What about the father? What is the father’s role in the beginning?
Michael Laitman: It is only through the mother. He doesn’t impact the baby. Just as during the pregnancy, after birth he doesn’t have any connection with the baby, but only through his mother. Perhaps he is near her, but there is no contact.
Eli Vinokur: Is a man’s support significant during childbirth, in the delivery room?
Michael Laitman: No, Kabbalah doesn’t even think about that. We also know that there were always midwives next to her. A man would never come near it.
Eli Vinokur: When you look at a baby growing, the pace of changes, of development is breathtaking. Is there a spiritual root specifically for these early years?
Michael Laitman: Certainly. The more we grow, the slower the changes, until we revert to regression. So of course in the first year you can see changes every several weeks, even every several days. We also want to see these changes. Afterward, a slight change occurs once a week. Around the age of one to two years old, changes happen once a month. This is natural.
But we also see it in all of those degrees of Ibur, Yenika, and Mochin [conception, nursing, adulthood respectively]. If the first period was nine months, the second period is two years, then until the age of six, nine, twelve, thirteen, twenty, seventy, and one hundred and twenty. In other words, those are already longer periods.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: Are you describing periods as stages of development?
Michael Laitman: As stages of development or aging. In Kabbalah, it is all development. In our physical lives we decline, but in Kabbalah we constantly advance.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: Yes, may I ask a non-believer’s question?
Michael Laitman: Yes. There is no such thing in Kabbalah. Everything is subject to scrutiny. It is a science.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: When psychologists divide into age groups, they do it based on data gathered through observations and research. When you say that Kabbalah divides into age group, what proof, what tests does it rely on?
Michael Laitman: On the fact that Kabbalists experience it themselves. When you enter the spiritual world, you go through the first stage, called “conception.” You enter what is called “the upper Ima [Mother,” a kind of superior which you permeate and stay there as an embryo. And the way we develop are like a fetus in its mother’s womb for nine months. These are not nine physical months, but nine discernments that are called Hidushim [months], from the word Hadashim [“new” or “innovations”], meaning new discernments. The word Hodesh [month] comes from the word Hadash [new]. I see how I am being renewed.
Nine months represent nine Sefirot, and when the last Sefira arrives, Malchut, it is forbidden to be in Malchut, and this is why we are born. In spirituality, you go through these stages very clearly. I could be a man of 40, 50, or even 60 years of age undergoing the phases of spiritual conception and birth as a fetus, as a spiritual infant, and continue to develop.
The two years of nursing mean that now I nullify myself. It is not like the way I nullified myself before toward the upper Ima to be within her. Now I nullify the upper one in order to receive from it from the outside. In part of my spiritual life, I am independent and I grow slightly more independent with each phase. I also become more familiar with the surroundings, with my upper one, and this is how I grow. So a Kabbalist who goes through these stages examines them, records them on himself as though he is conducting a real experiment.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: So all those elaborate details are out of personal experience?
Michael Laitman: Out of the personal experience that he goes through. This is why they know it down to the smallest detail, and this is why they can write a thousand-page book about the nine months of conception.
Eli Vinokur: It actually seems that perhaps compared to psychology, where people didn’t actually go through the process themselves, observe and contemplate it, here it is very accurate.
Michael Laitman: It is not that I disagree with what they are doing; I actually respect their work. But perhaps if they took into account what the Kabbalists do according to the soul, they would have a certain approach, a direction of research, where to look. They would already know, “Here we should see this result, that phenomenon”; it would be easier for them.
Limor Soffer-Fetman: Fascinating. May I say one last sentence? I think it creates an amazing process between the man and the woman, the fact that a man can understand himself so well at such levels.
Eli Vinokur: If he studies Kabbalah...
July 12, 2010