Building A Person
April 18, 2009
The entire essence of life is to teach ourselves and the younger generation. Education is the main thing a person has to do in this world. The entire process of our life is simply to become educated for something increasingly bigger. A person who is developing is called ‘becoming educated’.
There has never been a generation like the one growing up today in our time. As Baal HaSulam, the greatest Kabbalist of our time, writes, this is the Messiah’s generation. This is a generation that must change, that must go from the level of exile we are all in, and reach the level called the ‘level of redemption’. This can only be attained through a new education, a new perspective, through a new inner development inside man. The souls descending to our world today are new souls. They are very important souls, very big souls, and we must give them the appropriate filling.
These are our children’s souls and we can see how this is being expressed through hyperactivity and all the demands and their attitude to life. Kids nowadays ask, “What for?” instead of “How?” When we were younger we used to ask how to do, how to achieve. We looked for a way to progress in life. But today’s generation does not even ask how to progress, it wants to know what it has to progress for.
These children are interested in their purpose for being here but the problem is that their parents do not know how to explain it to them. That is the reason why there is such a large gap between generations. A grandfather may ask himself, what can we do with children today, we weren’t like that at all, we didn’t educate our children like that either and what is happening with grandchildren today is unacceptable. What is actually happening in our society?
We are currently in the midst of a very big education crisis and this is a global crisis. Everyone is aware of the problem but no one seems to know what to do. Humanity has no alternative education for the younger generation apart from the wisdom of Kabbalah, which is willing to serve the whole world. Kabbalah is a system through which we can educate the younger generation today, to lead it to its development and reach the purpose man was created for, for discovering divinity in our world, for adhesion with the upper force, for an entirely new life – to no longer feel that we are at such a degrading level, in such a desperate state that we don’t even know where we are or how to exist.
All this is only dependent on the implementation of the wisdom of Kabbalah. And until we reach it, we will not find a solution. All this is because we are not giving children what they demand. They themselves also don’t understand what they need exactly, but we are the ones that should be solving this issue, not them. And it cannot be solved by giving them Ritalin. The hyperactivity problem is no longer sprouting up in individuals like twenty years ago, but rather everyone nowadays. Almost every second child today is like this, and from year to year the phenomenon is increasing throughout the world. So we must understand that the generation has been born already and is built that way, and that we must supply it with what it needs. The medicine is simply calming kids down a bit, and that is very bad because in a way we are putting inner handcuffs on these children, and this will bring about an outburst elsewhere. We are stopping their natural inner impulses and they need to come out, and later on they will come out in a sick way. With more outbursts, more violence, more terror. It will come out in many ways because it has to come out.
(Words of Kabbalist Michael Laitman)
A Yearning for the Unrevealed
April 18, 2009
Children can begin learning Kabbalah from the tender age of three or four. From the moment a child begins to learn it is important to create games for him, to begin building the system correctly, so that he will know that life has a higher purpose, that his life is not just about his physical body in this world, but rather that the force of nature is at work here. A child receives this information in a natural way just as he accepts nature. He will learn about nature, but in a more internal manner, the same nature that our eyes are closed to at the moment and we do not want to recognize. But we see that we have no choice, the new generation must receive this and we must prepare the proper education for him. We must begin at the earliest possible age.
A great sage once wrote that if his generation had listened to him they would have begun teaching The Book of Zohar to kids at the age of nine. And it really does not really matter what they understand or don’t understand because even adults do not understand what is written in the Zohar. But when we begin giving a child the correct education, he receives supreme inspiration; he receives strength from nature, because he is learning about things that are part of nature, but hidden. And in this manner he begins to fill himself.
Why don’t children want to be taught nowadays? Why are they so attracted to calming themselves down with drugs? Why are they attracted to movies like the Matrix? Because they have inner hollows, that only the as of yet unrevealed education can fill, and that will allow them to progress.
Precisely because this is a very special generation, there are many children today suffering from depression and confused, mainly where people are completely ignorant of the wisdom of Kabbalah. We must begin explaining to both parents and children, but first we must explain to education authorities. That only through the wisdom of Kabbalah is it possible to stop the wave of drugs and all the outbursts, the terrible behavior in school, and the violence. We must explain to them in a manner that they can take small elements and implement them to see how they work, discover how well and how much they work in a wonderful way.
Children who study these elements understand why they are living, what nature is and how they operate in nature, the process they need to go through and the purpose they are living for. Kabbalah has nothing to do with religion or beliefs or rituals that a person has to carry out. It is rather the study of life, and through one’s life a person sees how real this learning is. Kabbalah is truly about research, and not religion or faith.
The Essence of Education – Carrying Out Nature’s Law
April 18, 2009
Nowadays education systems are testing with all kinds of experiments in attempt to interest children, to provide them with knowledge in a way that will appeal to them. These systems are trying to become more modernized and are going out of their way to interest children in acquiring this knowledge. But these attempts are not having the desired effect because education is not about how much we fill the child’s head with all sorts of data.
Education is about connecting us to a bigger system, through a process called life. So what would really interest children who are aware of this bigger system would be exploring concepts such as; where did this system come from? Why does it come to us in this way? Where is a person’s choice in life? What is the upper force, nature, demanding from us? Why do we exist in a state like this? What point is there to life?
We learn that nothing inanimate or vegetative was created for nothing and that everything has a reason and result. So how is it possible that the greatest natural phenomenon of all the world’s wonders – a person – how can we say that he was created for nothing? Of course we cannot but we simply do not see this yet.
If we show this bigger system to a child he will not want to go anywhere else. He will see that nature is obligating us and how the moment he goes off track and does not agree with nature, he will immediately receive a blow. Just like any other place, if a person carries out some of nature’s laws, he enjoys them and learns how to make better use of them for his own good.
If a person does not carry out the law of nature, he gets into a conflict with nature and receives a bad response in the form of blows. Just like any other law, if for example we put a hand into a fire or fall from a high height, if we act incorrectly against the law and use it incorrectly, we will suffer.
If we show a child the clear laws of nature, norms of behavior between man and his environment and how he can ensure his good existence, what could be better for our little ones that are just starting out in life? An education like this puts a little one on the right track from early on. And when he sees this wisdom in others, he wants to stay connected to such an educator, because he sees the educator belongs to a generation that he can rely on and continue forward with, that he can really teach him something. Any other type of teacher is not considered an educator in his eyes.
The goal of education is to provide a person with the clear understanding and perception of which stream of life he exists in, within which laws. He comes to the world, is born, and in 15 years he will be an adult, but at this stage he still has his whole life before him and needs to be shown how life is built like a pipe with an ending. If we show an ending of death, then right from the start we have eliminated his entire development, and from that point he does not care, he just wants to get by in life, take advantage of everyone and success as it is said, “Eat and drink because tomorrow we will die”.
But if we show him the inner laws of nature that he is already in, he will have no choice, nowhere to run from them. And if he will know how to use them, then his life will become eternal, and he will go through life with a feeling of eternity and elation. He will open a new world for himself, not only here in this world in this physical body he occupies, but will rather start to feel a new perspective of reality.
The younger generation is yearning to feel this. The series of Matrix movies are a wonderful example of this. Why do they have such a yearning for these types of movies? Because they want to know, according to their nature they want to know. Fifty years ago we did not have movies to go to but nowadays children want to know about the true dimension of their lives. They feel that their lives do not end and even do not begin in a person’s boy, but rather something beyond that.
If we only give children life in this world and they aspire to more, they will need to be tranquilized and silenced with the help of drugs and alcohol, and outbursts that allow them to forcibly forget what attracts them more. Children today are much more developed than what we have to offer them.
Teaching Kids About The Meaning of Life
March 21, 2009
At a time when educational systems are being criticized for their inability to turn children into mature, confident adults, Kabbalist Rav Michael Laitman believes that now is a unique time to introduce a new concept —teaching them about the meaning and purpose of life today through the ancient wisdom of Kabbalah.
According to Rav Laitman, to bring about a true and lasting change in our education system we must look two generations into the future, and begin today by explaining life’s purpose to the young. “Once we do that,” says Rav Laitman, “many things will change for the better.”
Kabbalist Rav Michael Laitman, PhD is a scientist and a Kabbalist who has been studying and teaching Kabbalah for the past thirty years. He is certain that the challenges our education system is facing can be solved, and solved well. “The surprising thing about it,” he adds with a smile, “is that the solution is right in front of our eyes.”
Education is not about stuffing the child’s brain with knowledge and information. Education should connect children to the unique process called “life.” Where does life come from? Why do things happen the way they do? What are we living for? Where do we have freedom of choice in our actions and thoughts, and where do we not? All these questions should be answered as part of the process of educating our youth.
To provide our children with practical tools for coping with the reality we live in, we must teach them the rules that govern nature, and where nature is leading us. In other words, we should be teaching our children the purpose for which nature has created humans.