Will $100 Billion Make Our Education System Better?

rav-son-and-daughterIn the News (from The New York Times): “Our Greatest National Shame” Our No. 1 priority must be education. That makes the new fiscal stimulus package a landmark, for it allocates more than $100 billion toward education. Education Secretary Arne Duncan argues: “We have to educate our way to a better economy, that’s the only long term way to get there.”

My Comment: It’ll be a real pity if this sum won’t bring any improvement. And chances are – it won’t, because in order to create a new education system, it’s necessary to create the right environment for every student – one that will elicit new, altruistic qualities in them (see the article “The Freedom”). In other words, schools must provide a full day of classes, and the children should only go home in the evening, to spend time with their parents and to sleep. In addition, the interactions among the kids should be organized according to a new, integral program that will teach them how to connect with society and to take every member of society into consideration.

However, in the above case, the money will be spent on the kind of education that turns children into various specialists, whereas the real problem lies in upbringing – how to turn a child into a Human Being.

(The above picture shows me together with my son and daughter.  Both were raised in a Kabbalistic education system and now have successful careers in Kabbalah.)

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Schools Should Teach Children How to Become Human Beings
Laitman.com Post: Education Is the Only Thing That Can Change the World
Kabbalah Today Article: Spiritual Education
Kabbalah Today Article: The American Education System: “F” is for Failing
Kabbalah for Children
Baal HaSulam Paper: “The Nation”

The Domino Effect Is Now Happening On The Global Scale

pointIn the News (from The New York Times):The Unintended Consequences of Changing Nature’s Balance” In 1985, Australian scientists kicked off an ambitious plan: to kill off non-native cats that had been prowling the island’s slopes since the early 19th century. The program began out of apparent necessity — the cats were preying on native burrowing birds. Twenty-four years later, a team of scientists from the Australian Antarctic Division and the University of Tasmania reports that the cat removal unexpectedly wreaked havoc on the island ecosystem.

With the cats gone, the island’s rabbits (also non-native) began to breed out of control, ravaging native plants and sending ripple effects throughout the ecosystem. “Our findings show that it’s important for scientists to study the whole ecosystem before doing eradication programs,” said Arko Lucieer, a University of Tasmania remote-sensing expert and a co-author of the paper.

My Comment: We, too, must learn all about the system in which we exist – the forces influencing us as well as the forces through which we affect everything – before trying to change anything in the system. Because the system is integral, we now have a domino effect on the global scale, where any small, particular error causes a systemic, global collapse.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Ecologists Should Take a Kabbalah Course to Learn About Nature

The Threat of Deglobalization Reminds Us That We Must Learn to Connect In Our “Small Global Village”

whats-the-right-attitude-to-have-to-this-worldIn the News (from The Economist): “The integration of the world economy is in retreat on almost every front” Globalization means the global integration of the movement of goods, capital and jobs. Each of these processes is now in trouble … the process is going into reverse. World trade has plunged. In December, says the International Air Transport Association, air-cargo traffic (responsible for over a third of the value of the world’s traded goods) was down 23% on December 2007 – almost double the fall in the year up to the end of September 2001.

A poll in 2007 by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found that majorities in 47 countries saw international trade as good for them; majorities in 41 out of 46 welcomed multinational firms. [However,] a CNN poll in July 2008 showed that, for the first time, a small majority of Americans saw trade as a threat, not an opportunity. The economic meltdown has popularized a new term: deglobalization. Britain’s prime minister, Gordon Brown, is among those who fear the results will be bad.

My Comment: He’s right. In fact, this may even lead to a world war. Therefore, it is necessary that we find a way to connect with everyone in our “small global village.” And the only way to create this connection is for everyone to recognize that we are absolutely interdependent.

This is exactly what the wisdom of Kabbalah does: it helps us reveal our interdependency. At first we reveal it from the egoistic side, which enables us to recognize that our egoism is evil. And then Kabbalah shows us how to correct our egoism, how to transform it into attitudes and relationships of kindness in “our small village.”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Gordon Brown Warns of the Threat of Deglobalization
Laitman.com Post: The Solution to the Global Crisis Cannot Be Found Without Kabbalah
Laitman.com Post: The Crisis Is a Step Toward Eternal Harmony

Remembering The Congress

logo1Here are some fond memories of the 2009 International Kabbalah Congress held just a few weeks ago

The G-20 Will Not Resolve The Crisis

special1In the News (from The Earth Times): Czech President Vaclav Klaus, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, was quoted on Thursday by a French weekly as comparing the 27-member European Union with the former Soviet Union. “One thing is sure, just as it was in the USSR, very important decisions are not taken in the countries that they concern.” Klaus said he hoped there would never be the single European super-state that is the goal of what he described as “Euro-nihilists.”

Klaus said the upcoming G20 summit in London was a bad idea. “The crisis is an economic phenomenon with its own internal dynamics,” he said. “It is a mistake to want to change the world in order to resolve it… I don’t think that you find a solution by organizing a summit with 20 leaders.”

My Comment: The fact that people are criticizing the “European Union” indicates that they desire real integration. Many are already beginning to understand that the changes have to be made inside the human society, and they shouldn’t be political or economic, but purely social.

We have to start by recognizing that our nature is egoism and it is evil. The next phase will be to correct our nature by ascending above it: “moving away from evil” and “doing good.” However, this can only be accomplished by means of the force of correction, which affects us while we study the system of the world that’s revealed to us by Kabbalah. And actually, even the “recognition of evil” is impossible without studying Kabbalah, because otherwise we can only reveal our own, personal evil, rather than the evil inherent to the whole system.

Indeed, what we have to reveal is the evil that prevents us from uniting. We should realize that this is the real evil, rather than all the things that may be bothering us. In short, in the future the G-20 will have to study the structure and system of the world as explained by Kabbalah. Only then will they find the correct solution to the crisis.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Analysis of the Declaration of the G-20 Summit In Washington DC
Laitman.com Post: It’s Time for the European Union to Wake Up and Unite
Laitman.com Post: Why Don’t Kabbalists Enter the Political Arena?

Why Did God Create Death?

soul3A question I received: My eight year old daughter is asking, “Why did God create death?”

My Answer: He did it in order to encourage man to search for immortality, and to attain immortality even before he dies.

This is not achieved by prolonging the physiological life of our physical, protein body, but by developing a new, spiritual “body.” The spiritual body is made of the will to bestow instead of the will to receive. When one has this body, then instead of desiring to receive everything “inside of oneself,” one desires to bestow “to the outside, away from oneself.”

Therefore, this body (or these desires) exists forever. One’s desires do not get annulled by the pleasure as soon as they are fulfilled. Through these desires, a person feels eternal and perfect life, and never ceases to develop and be fulfilled.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Freedom from the Angel of Death
Kabbalah Today Article: “To Be or Not to Be?”
Interview: “Why There Has to Be Death?”
Baal HaSulam Article: “Body and Soul”