Baal HaSulam, “Arvut ”: It is written, “You shall be My treasure from among all peoples.” This means that you will be My treasure [a special quality, Segula], and sparks of purification shall pass through you onto all the peoples and the nations of the world.

Segula is a special action by which we correct our egoistic intention to an altruistic one. I do not know exactly how this action is actualized, but it enables me to change, to acquire a second nature, to enter the next dimension, a reality that lies above my current self. And I don’t know exactly how this occurs.

That is why the exodus from Egypt is called a “miracle” and why the force of correction, the Light that reforms, which is contained in the Torah is called “a special quality”—Segula. I don’t have any idea about how it works. I only see the results, as if a certain “illumination” effuses upon me or a certain force works on me, and I become different.

Thus, even though I don’t understand how Segula works, I activate it by carrying out the conditions I am told about. “Do this,” write the Kabbalists, “And you will receive that.” I cannot trace this connection. It is not within my power. I simply know that specific actions on my part will bring about a specific reaction, although the cause and effect chain remains unclear to me. That’s because it originates from the Light, from the Giver, while I am still in the egoistic desire and do not see or feel Him. The contact with Him is still unclear to me, just as I don’t understand the mechanism of the return connection by which the Giver influences me and changes something inside of me.

That is why this kind of action is called “special.” A child has this same “special means” while playing and growing in our world. What actually causes his growth? We are so used to seeing how children develop by playing that we don’t notice how it happens. What force is activated by a child’s contact with a toy, with pictures in a book, with animals he sees, or with the cars that pass by him on the street? How do the images of the big world that he wants to come closer to, form something new inside of him? To us this is the regular routine, but in essence, this is the same “special means” at work.

A child wants to grow and is drawn to all sorts of forms of the adult world, and that’s how he really grows. Likewise, if we want to advance, we have to carry out several actions in order to activate the upper force that raises us. In a child the yearning to grow is instilled naturally, while we have freedom of choice: We have to organize an environment, the study, and ourselves, and attach the intention. That is how we develop.

Thus, “Segula” is the result of certain actions a person makes, even though he does not know exactly what he activates and how he is activated in response. With us this is expressed in our relationship with the upper Light, while in children—in their relationships with the surrounding world. The same principle operates in the interactions between the “nations of the world,” meaning all those who do not aspire to the Creator, and “Israel,” meaning those who do aspire to Him. Our relationship with the Creator is similar to their relationship to us. After all, they do not have a spark, a connection with Him, an aspiration for Him, or a desire to reveal Him. Only troubles push them to search for something better. That is why we bring them the science of Kabbalah in an adapted, accessible form.

The invitation to reveal the Creator does not say anything to them. They need a good life here and now, and nothing more. Accordingly, we reveal our message gradually to them, in the appropriate form, and they use us as a “special means,” as a “treasure from among all peoples.”

By being connected to us, they “suddenly” start acquiring forces, understanding, and desires that they did not have before. These “sparks” come from Infinity, from the Creator—through us to them. As a result, the “special quality” operates on all the levels.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/25/11, “Arvut”

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In the news (from Associated Press): “STOCKHOLM (AP) — At the “Egalia” preschool, staff avoid using words like “him” or “her” and address the 33 kids as “friends” rather than girls and boys….

Staff try to shed masculine and feminine references from their speech, including the pronouns him or her – “han” or “hon” in Swedish. Instead, they’ve have adopted the genderless “hen,” a word that doesn’t exist in Swedish but is used in some feminist and gay circles….”

The school is especially careful in selecting books and toys for children. It strives to give children the possibility to be who they are and to prevent them from developing barriers that separate masculine and feminine activities.

“There’s a long waiting list for admission to Egalia… It places a special emphasis on fostering an environment tolerant of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. …Nearly all the children’s books deal with homosexual couples, single parents or adopted children. There are no “Snow White,” “Cinderella” or other classic fairy tales seen as cementing stereotypes.”

My comment: We are surrounded by what is called “Nature.” We know virtually nothing about its laws, reasons, and the goals of its and our own existence. Yet, our observations and knowledge show that everything is in the process of causal development, and nothing is accidental or redundant. Whoever does not agree with this demonstrates their unfamiliarity with the laws of nature.

Hence, all we have to do is to study the laws of nature and carry them out. This will guarantee our good future. A breach of a natural relationship between the sexes brings about tremendous suffering in children and, as they grow up, problems with sexual and social identity.
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Last week, our supplementary education center for children and youth celebrated its birthday. Here are some pictures from the event.

[Show slideshow]

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Question: The Rambam says that the truth should be revealed gradually to those who are small. When working with children, we do not impose unification on them directly, but try to weave this message into games and studies. Can an overly direct message harm and repel a child?

Answer: As we develop we go through four levels: still, vegetative, animate, and human. As a rule, on the still level objects usually take on whatever form you give them if you have enough energy to do that. By exerting the right amount of energy, you can destroy the structure of a metal and rebuild it through heating, pressure, and other such influences.

On the vegetative level the situation is different: In order to give a plant a different form, you have to understand its nature. Say, a tree requires specific types of cultivation and care, and if you are an expert at what you do, then you will receive the necessary form by accompanying the tree in the process of its growth.

Stated differently, you have to grow to a level where you can take care of the tree, which involves bringing it inside of yourself and getting to know it. Then, based on this inner image, you can carry out work with the external form and receive a result.

In order to deal with the animate level of development, it is again necessary to learn its nature, to ascend above it, and include it inside of you. Then you can tame and train animals. Of course, it has to happen within specific boundaries, but you can train them to carry out certain forms of behavior which they are able to learn. And a children’s instructor works analogously.

These levels of development—still, vegetative, and animate—are small, “childish” states compared to an adult, and they end at the degree of “age 13.” From “age 13″ on, you are dealing with the human being in a person, and accordingly, you treat him completely differently. You accept him into your group, treat him as a friend, and raise him through examples of mutual partnership, offering him a place for work.

These are the phases of work with children’s groups.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/11, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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Question: What happens “behind the scenes” of my actions when during the reading of The Book of Zohar I make repeated efforts to return to the intention, but they seem futile to me?

Answer: Your efforts determine your qualities of perception, your sensitivity, and then you make the revelation. Everything is in front of you, but your lack of sensitivity does not allow you to reveal the system of connection between the souls that The Zohar tells you about. Your efforts and prayer build the instruments of perception inside of you in order to feel that picture.

Question: I repeatedly keep trying to build my intention anew, but it seems like I make the same efforts and feel the same thing I did a week ago, as if nothing changed….

Answer: Suppose I am among musicians. Looking at them, I see how they listen to every sound and discern the combination of different sounds, and I see how important this is to them. As I look at them, I learn about how to treat sounds. Then, as a result of my efforts, I become more sensitive and begin feeling them.

Then I ask the musicians questions and they explain things to me, but I don’t understand their explanations. “A fourth,” “a fifth,” “glissando, “forte”—these words don’t say anything to me, just like the unintelligible terminology in The Book of Zohar.

But I want to learn them! That is why I try to become a bit more sensitive to them and to feel them. Then, because we are in a special system, according to my efforts, desire, and aspiration, I begin to feel. That is how a child develops as well: He wants to become big and is always running around, never tiring and researching everything around.

We wonder: How can children watch the same cartoon or listen to the same story a thousand times over? However, it’s a thousand times to us because we don’t develop any longer. But a child lives in that story. When he listens to the tale about Little Red Riding Hood today, to him this is a completely new story, not like yesterday. You look at him and think, “Fine, I’ll tell him the story. Let him sit quietly, calm down, and enjoy it….” But he hears this story anew every time! And even though he also knows it by heart, when he repeats it together with you, he relives it all over again. It’s similar to how you have to eat today even though you ate yesterday. That’s what happens to him too!

Therefore, our entire work is to develop the sensitivity to acquire new qualities of perception.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/23/11, The Zohar

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Unity is not equalization, but mutual inclusion. The method of education is based on this idea as well: Everyone is unique, and hence children develop through discussions that allow them to learn other children’s opinions no matter how numerous these opinions are.

Thanks to this method, each child absorbs from the others, becomes imbued with their way of being, and grows to be even more unique. The child receives from everyone else and grows on that, developing his own properties.

This is what we want to achieve with our method of education. People unite correctly, making a contact, communicating with each other, and build a human society themselves, a society which is based on mutual inclusion of each into all and all into each. As a result, everybody’s uniqueness flourishes even more.

To do this, children conduct discussions, which we direct and manage just a little bit. Meanwhile, everybody has an opportunity to speak out, experience the role of a judge and defendant, advocate and prosecutor. We develop a human being in each child only through mutual inclusion.

Then, from year to year, children will grow more different from each other. The difference between them will strike one’s eye every time, but so what? Namely this will give power to the following unification. That’s the entire point: Without suppressing the individual, we build a community from great personalities.

Thereby the method of Kabbalah allows us to use the entire creation. Otherwise, we simply destroy a person, reducing him to a cog in the machine, whereas in fact, each detail, conscious of its indispensability, should put this machine into action.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/12/2011, “Peace in the World”

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Education is a special topic. It is interesting that people almost did not think about education over the course of human history. A little person grew among the grown-ups and learned from them. Parents did not need to take special classes to learn how to raise their children. Like animals, we practiced regular and natural education.

Kindergartens and schools appeared during the industrialization period, when people started working in factories, and mothers also had to start working. Until then, most children grew naturally at home.

In reality, nothing is more important than education. No wonder we are now experiencing a crisis in this area. People never thought that they needed to follow a certain system in education and that the growing generation requires a sensible approach. Take us: Who teaches us? What criteria do they follow, which method, which program? Instead of receiving education in schools, we receive knowledge.

Overall, schools appeared when a need arose to bring peasants to the cities, so they needed to be taught elementary grammar and arithmetic in order to work with simple industrial machines. People needed to be taught to read and understand manuals. This was the beginning of the two hundred year old institution of school for the masses.

We envision general education as the continuation of the ancient human wisdom. However, essentially, people only began to rise above the animate level in the nineteenth to twentieth century.

People never gave a serious thought to proper education. What should a person become when he or she grows up? Do we turn him into a Human? These questions are ignored even now. We send a child to math, physics, or computer specialized schools, without thinking of the individual this person will become. Who cares about the individual? What matters is to find a good job in our “bourgeois” life.

Moreover, this is happening because humanity has not come to a consensus, a common opinion of what it means “to be a human.” We tell the child: “Be good to others so they will enjoy dealing with you.” This is what out education mostly comes down to.

The problem is that society does not demand a connection between people. And today, once we have come to a general crisis, the crisis of education especially stands out. This is because the young generation is new souls with new demands of the new world. We call them the “Indigo children,” stuff them with Ritalin, and think that they do not understand us. In reality, we are the ones who do not understand them; we are the ones lagging behind life. We were not taught to understand these children.

They demand development at a new level. Similarly, a person whose point in the heart awakens ceases to understand other people who live a regular, “corporeal” life. And our children also look at us and do not understand: “What are you living for? We do not want your life, we are not willing to live like you and are incapable of it.”

If we want to find a connection with them, we need to introduce a new kind of education. And even though we fall short of this role, being the transitional stage before the new generation, we still need to complete this stage to the end.
[40961]
From Lesson 6, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

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We found the topic of education to be in high demand within the framework of mass dissemination of Kabbalah. Suddenly, this channel has opened wide before us. Everyone is ready to forge relationships and listen: “Just advise us about what to do with the growing generation which we are unable to approach.”

Our children are a completely different story: Judging by their questions and answers and their attitude towards life, we can see that they represent a completely different generation. We have put a lot of effort into them; let us hope that this will serve all of us.

We have named the upcoming year the year of education. We have dedicated the third hour of the morning lesson to developing the principles which we will use to formulate the method. We are beginning to document the materials, so you will soon be receiving them in all the different languages.

Moreover, it is very important to involve children in our website for children, try to push them, give them prizes for participation. We need to develop a connection between them—this guarantees success. We bring them closer to Kabbalistic sources and teach them unity in a simple way. At the same time, the Light flows through these sources, and we discover how advanced our beloved children are.

For example, in Israel 13-14 year-old children enroll in college level classes. Colleges are not ready to accept them to study psychology, assuming that these are regular children, so they will study education, communications, and other disciplines. This way they will finish high school and have a college diploma at the age of 17-18. And they are ready for this.

Moreover, our mentors and some parents will study together with them. We are referring to an education diploma, and education is our specialty. We need to become teachers, educators of the entire world. I hope that you will take this as good advice.

We are discussing joint programs with the UN and UNESCO. Over the course of the year, you will receive many books, films, and educational games from us. We will try to create a large children’s portal on the Internet, designed for gradual advancement, as well as a virtual community, which will enable the children to feel much more united than we are. The entire world will be at their disposal for them to unite around the world, armed with the method, knowledge, and education and to become people in the full sense of the word.
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From Lesson 6, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

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Question: What are our plans regarding the education of Palestinian children?

Answer: We have students from Arabic countries and other Muslim regions. I do not see any difference between them and all the others. We have students from the Palestinian Authority, Iran; during the lessons, we receive questions from people from Syria and other places. One of the international meetings about educational issues within the UNESCO framework was organized by a Saudi prince, and we received a personal invitation from him.

Education is a world problem, and through it, we can establish connections over countries and differences. Of course, there is the question of religion, and this will remain a source of deep separation between people until, in the words of  Baal HaSulam, we establish a single religion, that of love and bestowal.

Baal HaSulam writes in his article “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose” that there is no other religion besides love. Everything else is customs that people have accepted. Let us hope that the different crises together with our dissemination will make the world understand that they need to rise above the differences.

The education that we are developing is common for everyone, it does not have any specificity. So I think that as soon as our Arabic brothers will want to accept it and will be ready for it, there will be a method waiting for them: We are preparing it in Arabic as well.

Moreover, since the times of Abraham, Islam has a movement called Sufism. I have met its representatives many times. Naturally, they understand what it is we are talking about, and we can work with them to disseminate the new method of education.

The problem is that radical Islamic circles do not recognize them: Sufis have been exiled from Arabic countries and live in the US and in England. I hope that this position will change because nature prevails regardless. We must go through these stages—The Zohar describes this particular course of development. Soon the transition period will be over, and people will feel that they exist in a global world.
[41081]
From Lesson 6, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

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Question: How can a person know that he is ready to be a teacher, and are there classes for this?

Answer: First of all, a person must have a disposition to teach, meaning not to lecture (every person can do this egoistically), but to explain, to observe how the student works and whether he accepts the teacher’s opinion. A teacher also needs to possess the ability to learn from the students, adapt and explain according to the changes.

I do not think that every person is capable of doing this; however, there are many areas in education. Some people do not like to speak and explain things, but suddenly prove themselves as good practical leaders. They play with the children, organize groups, and take them on field trips.

Our education is different in the way that we, primarily, want to teach the children about life. We show them museums, factories, and hospitals, although this, of course, depends on their age. They become acquainted with the operations of an airport, railway station, and bank. We make plans with the managers of a facility ahead of time, and when the children arrive, they are explained the production process.

We explain to them where they are going to ahead of time. Once the children return, they sit together in a circle and discuss the things they understood, how a certain mechanism operates and its purpose, and so on. We want them to know everything about life: how restaurants, hospitals, factories, and zoos operate. They take notes during the field trip, and then they write an essay and discuss it together with their teachers. This expands their world view.

We do many things within the framework of mutual agreement. When someone gets in a fight, argues, or has a misunderstanding, this is discussed among everyone. Sometimes we even have a mock trial: We assign children to be the judge, the attorney, the jury, the witnesses, and the audience. Roles change next time around.

This way every child learns to see himself or herself through the eyes of others: how a judge, the prosecutor, the audience, and others see him or her. A child begins to develop and see a wider world than his narrow view.

There are other examples, but the key element is to have a discussion in a circle. There is no such thing that children sit in class and look at the teacher: Everyone is equal in a circle, including the teachers.

The teacher lowers himself to the common level and remains among the children, without standing out. He manages them in such an unnoticeable way that they do not perceive it. And we teach them to be responsible: judge, defend, accuse. Children have an enormous ability to absorb, and we must use it.

Any person able to teach or manage a group, prepare material, or develop the method can be a teacher. We need different professionals to work with children, both boys and girls. Usually, they study separately, but sometimes we combine them.
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From Lesson 6, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

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