"How Should I Go On Living?": Letter and Reply Inside Bnei Baruch
Email text:
Re: How should I go on living?
One message
September 7, 2016, 10:41
Michael Laitman <michael.laitman@gmail.com> To: igor aljeshin <aljeshin@gmail.com> Bcc: alonrozbb@gmail.com
Now say that everything you see, you see in your own distorted egoism, while around you is the Creator, who through the friends shows you who you really are.
On September 7, 2016, at 6:45, igor aljeshin <aljeshin@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello, dear Rav.
It is now almost the tenth year that I have been getting used to the lies happening around me throughout our entire Bnei Baruch system. As you mentioned today, it is like a nursing home where everyone tries to be good and simply lies disgustingly to one another.
I did not find, neither in Baal HaSulam nor in Rabash, a single word saying that we must lie. We must play, but not lie! By nature I do not know how to lie, and I do not want to. Because of this I am becoming an outcast. Rav, how should I go on living: should I lie the same way as the whole environment?
With love and deep respect for you, your student, Igor Aleshin.
Among internal Bnei Baruch emails, this letter stands out because it is not an outside polemic. The writer is someone from inside: almost ten years in the system, a respectful appeal to Laitman, and a request to explain how to live among lies. The reply reduces his question to his own “egoism.”
A Person From Inside
On September 7, 2016, at 6:45 a.m., Igor Aleshin writes directly to Michael Laitman. The letter opens calmly: “Hello, dear Rav.” There is no challenge in it, no insult, no blackmail. It is the voice of someone who has been inside for a long time and still speaks to the leader as to a final authority.
The central sentence is stark: on September 7, 2016, after almost ten years inside, Aleshin writes that lies have become part of ordinary life throughout the Bnei Baruch system.
Aleshin does not demand that anyone be punished. He does not threaten to leave. He asks how he is supposed to go on living if the people around him lie and he neither wants nor knows how to lie. He adds that he found no justification for this in Baal HaSulam or Rabash. For a believing student, that is the central problem: he sees a gap between what is preached from above and what is practiced below.
Four lines instead of an answer
Laitman replies the same day, at 10:41. Four lines, and not one question about what is actually happening inside the system. No request for clarification. No sign that the substance of the complaint interests him.
Instead of an answer on the merits, Aleshin receives a formula: “Now say that everything you see, you see in your own distorted egoism, while around you is the Creator, who through the friends shows you who you really are.”
Laitman is not arguing with the student. He turns the complaint back onto the person who wrote it. If you see lies, then the issue is not the lies. The issue is your vision, your inner instrument, your egoism. After a formula like that, there is nothing left to verify: no need to ask who lies, why they lie, or why the man has become an outcast. That collective conversion of doubt into obedience is explained in “The Creator Speaks Through the Teacher”.
Blame Instead Of An Answer
The reply turns a request for help into a diagnosis of the person who asked.
Aleshin writes about what is happening around him. Laitman quickly moves the conversation inside Aleshin himself. The source of the problem is no longer the environment, the people, or the constant lying, but his own “distorted” perception. The move reads as spiritual advice, but it works as the system’s defense.
After that, no one has to discuss facts, check the complaint, or even pretend it was heard. It is enough to make the sender doubt himself.
Why the Bcc matters
One detail makes the episode sharper: the blind copy to alonrozbb@gmail.com. Formally, this is a personal appeal from a student to a teacher. In practice, another person is already in the channel: Alon Rozenfeld. The student does not see him.
This is where the broader correspondence archive held by the editors becomes relevant. Laitman does not simply receive personal letters. Such appeals pass through a trusted staff channel: a person writes as if personally to the “Rav,” while the reply is already formed in a channel where someone next to Laitman sees the letter and receives his reaction.
After that, the reply reads differently. It no longer looks like spontaneous sincerity. The complaint arrives, a trusted person is placed in blind copy, the leadership sends a short formula, and the episode is closed.
How should I go on living?
Aleshin’s question, “How should I go on living?”, remains unanswered. He receives a reason not to trust himself.
The force of the letter is its simplicity. A question about lies is not checked; it is returned to the sender as a problem of “egoism.” A personal appeal almost immediately enters a staff channel: the blind copy stands at alonrozbb@gmail.com.
After documents like this, Laitman’s words about truth, care, spiritual honesty and “friends” cannot be taken on trust. They have to be checked against documents, correspondence and the way the system behaves toward people who write to it.
A signal from inside was returned as blame. Everything is visible in one letter: a personal appeal, a blind copy, and a reply that does not answer.