Bridging The Generation Gap
April 19, 2009
Why is today’s youth so negative and full of anger and aggression? The reason is that we have not provided them with what they ask for or really want, or the thing they were destined for. We are simply not ready to accommodate the younger generation. We don’t provide them with what they really want and need and that is why their lives are so difficult. On the surface they appear to have everything – computers, football, TV, sweets. But they don’t have an answer to the question “What am I living for?” This erupts in them through violence and anger at the elder generation.
After all, why are we even in this situation with an elder generation and younger one to begin with? Because the previous generation must tell and supply the new generation everything it knows about life. Otherwise what is the point of having parents?
A child gets out of diapers, learns a bit how to get by in life, and then asks, “So what’s next?”, “Is this all they are giving me? Now they need to give me the wisdom of life. The knowledge of where I am, what I am living for, what the essence of my life is. And this, I am not receiving from them.”
The fact that most people do not have a clue themselves about the answers to these questions does not free them from their obligation to provide their children with answers. They must search for answers. The child feels, “they gave birth to me, brought me into this world, and sort of threw me at the world” … This is what children feel inside and why they are completely disconnected from their parents nowadays. A child comes home, has a bite to eat and has his own life. For him his mother and father are simply machines that supply him with physical needs. All the rest, what has to do with his soul and what he is missing inside, has nothing to do with them. From his perspective “Who are they anyhow? Real dinosaurs.” Just robots that are in the house and serving him. That is how parents appear to children nowadays.
All this can change once parents begin to receive a different type of education. If they do not, the situation will not change. We can see this in families where parents are interested in the purpose of life, in the question: “What am I living for and how can I achieve the purpose of life?” The moment children look at their parents and see them developing from day to day, and feel they can provide an answer to any question they may have, and even more so, can explain to them what is happening in the world and the reason for the global crisis, the reason for all these difficult problems, answer questions about the end of life and the end of the world, all the subjects that the kids read and hear. When parents can explain and include their children in the correct explanation, then the situation changes altogether.
On the other hand, if children see and feel inside themselves how truly miserable their parents are, divorcing, substance abuse, and wasting their lives away (children nowadays are smart enough to pick up on this), then they have real contempt for their parents. So there is no choice but for parents to understand that they must also educate themselves – for their children’s sake. There is no way around this.
Creating Lasting Change
March 23, 2009
The current education system was developed over thousands of years. Throughout all those years it was adjusted to suit our varied systems, philosophies, historic and politic development, and so on.
Over time we managed to gradually set up some sort of system. That is how we arrived at the state we are in now with an entire system for training teachers, creating content, and preparing kids in nurseries for when they go into school.
Obviously a process of change cannot take place from one day to the next but must rather be over a number of years. As a society we must agree to work on bringing about this change in a diligent manner. Mankind has never succeeded at solving anything overnight.
The beginning of the change requires us recognizing the evil within us, meaning our lack of understanding for the younger generation, which will allow us to solve the problem from the root and prepare for change.
The change could be brought about by dedicating hours of national television coverage to the subject with all the concerned parties seated at a conference table to discuss the solution. This must become the most important issue on the public agenda and this will allow us to educate the children, parents, teachers and education authorities together.
All other systems provide filling for the growing ego but in this generation we will see that along with the ego increasing its demands will not be to fill its ego but rather to achieve something beyond it, to fill himself with something beyond our life. That is why we will need to give this generation filling that is not in this world, that is what the younger generation yearns for– spiritual filling. That is the only way it will feel full and satisfied.
Out of lack of choice a child will go to a psychologist or psychiatrist that will give him medication but when that does not help he will turn to drugs to shut his mind down and forget. But the precise thing that he wants, right before he drowns himself in his sorrow and turns to a psychiatrist and drugs – is spiritual filling. This is precisely what is happening in this generation. That is the generation’s demand. That is why they are restless, hyperactive from a very young age and sometimes older.
Only the wisdom of Kabbalah can provide a solution. It is possible that the student has no idea what is happening but inside he is demanding a higher filling than anything he can get in this world.
Teachers and Students Advancing Together
March 21, 2009
Teachers and kids need to be bound together in the same goal, with the teacher himself being in the same development toward the same goal. Based on his experience the teacher shows the child slightly more than the child knows. If the entire world is on the same path then humanity becomes like creatures marching toward the same huge goal together. Kids would be taught as they were in the jungle – what is allowed, what is not, what is good, what is bad, what is dangerous and what is not.
This is the way to teach how to manage in nature in order to reach the goal with the parents and children being in it together. Together we are one soul, and when we are together in this world we get strength and security, and the children are equal to all.
The key aspect here is the togetherness that should be used in games and to explain to the child, “I am in this with you, equal to you and playing with you”. In this way the parent plays with the child and with all of humanity. That is why the children’s attitude to the parents, educators and everyone changes the moment they begin learning the wisdom of Kabbalah. They become mutual friends, tied in a single goal, in one system. The study transforms the child into an active partner who is equal to the adult. What tremendous pride and confidence the child receives from that.
In education according to the wisdom of Kabbalah we are talking about a mutual connection between the teacher and student with both of them in the same process for the same reason and goal. The only difference being that one is big and the other is small. The bigger one takes the smaller one by the hand, and knowing what to do leads him toward the goal.