Question: Hundreds and thousands of American children are practically left to themselves, and multiple social services that are supposed to handle them fail completely. Are there any books on this issue that we can offer them?

Answer: So far, there are not, but we are working on them. I hope that in three to six months, you will start receiving a series of books containing the method of raising children of different ages: how to form groups, conduct discussions, influence their development, and build a connection between them.

Besides, you don’t have to wait for our materials; you should join us and together with us participate in the process of writing such books! A person who isn’t engaged in spreading the wisdom has no chance to advance spiritually. How can one channel the Light if there is no yearning to pass it on to others?

Take the American Education Center as an example; participate in dissemination or we won’t succeed and will keep developing very slowly. We need the force, a lot of it! We really need your help!
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From Lesson 6, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

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Question: Should we begin the Kabbalistic education with our children, to make them an example for the outside world, or are we ready to address the outside world, and the only question is how to go about it?

Answer: Parents must educate their children, this is designed by nature. Therefore, if, as a parent, I understand that the best gift I can give my child is the connection with the Light, the Creator, the force that can protect him and raise him to the highest possible level, the force that accompanies him or her in this world and the next, I will certainly want to give my child this support, this shield.

I want for my child to be brought up by the Light and not just some school teacher. First and foremost, I want to give him or her a spiritual education, and in addition to that he can study in a school or a university. I don’t care as much whether he becomes a blue-collar worker or a professor; what I do care about is the spiritual baggage he ends his life with, whether he’ll be happy in this life, whether he’ll know what his life is for.

Therefore, a spiritual education is immeasurably more important than a material one, which changes direction every few years. These days, when a person concludes his education, he is forced to begin anew almost right away. The world is on the threshold of the informational revolution.

Should we first educate our kids and disseminate the system of spiritual education with their help, or should we cultivate spiritual education in the world directly? We must propagate spiritual education now, without delay. A lot of time will go by before our children grow up and we will be able to present them to the world. We are already preparing materials on the spiritual education method, without any connection to our kids, and disseminating them in the world in all languages through various non-commercial organizations.

We’re bringing up our children, and we will be glad to see children from other countries join us virtually as well as participate in the summer camps we will be organizing. We need to see the result of the Kabbalistic education on our children.

We already see it, but it’s not enough to address the world and show everyone what’s happening here. If in two to three years from now we can show five-six year old kids reasoning correctly, eleven-twelve year olds with mature personalities who understand what’s happening in the world, and fifteen-sixteen year olds finishing universities, then we’ll have something to show the world.
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From Lesson 6, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

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Question: Are children born with the point in the heart, filled with absolute love?

Answer: No, there are no people born with the point in the heart, full of love of others. On the contrary, a child is born with a ruined point in the heart. It is precisely this black point that we refer to as the “point in the heart.” He needs to develop, expand, correct, and fulfill it through connecting with others.

There are children born with the point in the heart, and there are those whose point in this incarnation has not yet “emerged” and they do not yet feel the question about the meaning of life.

Question: Do small children have contact with the Creator, and do we need to create conditions for the development of their spirituality from their early months of life?

Answer: We begin to work with children after they turn three. Until that age, they do not perceive anything but their animate state.

We need to form the proper attitude towards others in children. They do not understand what others are until the age of three. But at the age of three they develop initial “social relations” with other children, they already play together. This is why it is possible to start working with them.
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From Lesson 7, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

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Question: Even though our world is an imaginary reality, Kabbalists treat it very seriously. Why is that?

Answer: It’s because we grow and act while being inside of it. Even though this reality is definitely imaginary, you have to take it seriously and arrange things in it as if it really exists.

Imagine that you joined a group of children and are playing with them as seriously as possible, making the game real the way they do. The little ones are running around, trying to put something together and arguing over toys, but to them—this is life. And you participate in their life, helping them put its parts together so they would grow quickly and correctly in this “sand-box.”

This requires a serious attitude. It takes great efforts to raise a child in this world, and a person must treat himself in exactly the same way. This is how he should treat the spiritual child that is growing inside of him. You cannot make any compromises in this regard: I take care of myself, my family, children, and parents, and all the material needs. And even though all of this is obviously an illusion, that doesn’t matter.

The pictures of the material world are depicted in my brain by the egoistic desire and I cannot correct that desire because it is on the still level. Even the great Kabbalist Rabbi Shimon had to eat, drink, make a living, and take care of his students. Do you really think they were floating up in the clouds, not worrying about their families and about putting bread on the table?

This world is part of my growth, “including toothaches,” as Rabash used to say. The only difference is that I must aspire upwards over and over again, toward bestowal, toward the spiritual world. Kabbalists have a different problem: How to remain serious inside of this children’s sand-box. And they are obligated to do that. That is why they have such a responsible attitude to upbringing and other areas in the material world. A person has to provide for all of his vital needs.

Corporeality disappears from our sensations only at the end of correction when there is no more need for this game of the imagination.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: I told my three year old son that everything that surrounds us exists within man. He asked me: “Does it exist inside my body?” And I didn’t know what to answer him. How can we explain it to a child?

Answer: It is forbidden to talk about these things with small children. We can discuss the correct perception of reality with nine year old children, by giving them the information in small portions since their internal and external perception of reality contradict each other.

This may induce a conflict in the child since his brain is not sufficiently developed yet and can’t perceive two parts as being both opposite to and connected with each other. All other things can be discussed at younger age.

It’s advisable to consult with us on such matters. We have collected a great deal of children education material; a big department is working on it; twice a week I hold talks on education, which provide answers to such questions.
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From Lesson 2, WE! Convention 4/2/2011

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On the spiritual path, we undergo phases of development and at the same time, creative development. It is the same in our world: Man does not live by bread alone.

We do not only feed children to strengthen them, nor do we solely appraise them by the weight they gain. Rather, the most crucial factor is the extent to which a child becomes a human being: one who is understanding, perceptive, responsive, longing, and directed towards qualitative rather than quantitative achievements. This means that a child grows. It is a pity if he is deprived of this.

It is the same in spirituality. Is it really possible to evaluate yourself according to the number of hours spent studying? No, we require qualitative growth so that our desires and thoughts focus more and more on the principle of “Israel, Torah, and the Creator are one,” on the goal of our growth.

Nature imparts on us purposeful development and obliges us to learn to relate to everything we do in life purposefully. And this means that we have to define for ourselves what a person should be like. After all, a wise man looks into the distance. If we develop purposefully, we need to understand what nature wants.

Nature demonstrates to us the wholeness, interconnection, the integrity of all of the parts, a constant development. And so we, too, must distinguish the corresponding stages in our development, accepting them as desirable.

Today, correct education is required for both parents and children. We must deliver the basic principles to everyone: constant self-perfection, aiming towards unity, the goodness of qualitative and quantitative connections between us, naturally arising as a result of association, unity, harmony, and homeostasis with nature.

If we ourselves behave this way, and if we begin to teach this to the young generation, if continuous steps towards unity, becoming closer, and mutual understanding, up to loving our neighbor as ourselves becomes a norm, we will be moving ever closer to the goal. Our education will be purposeful.

As we develop and undergo states that contradict our egoism, we should understand that the end of the action lies in its initial thought. Nature has set the end goal: We must unite with each other. And because there is no other way out, we need to educate ourselves and the growing generation with the method of uniting.

Otherwise, instead of longing towards a sweet fruit, we’ll only be more immersed in the bitterness of the previous stages of ripening.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/24/11, The Principles of Global Education

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Question: What does it mean to feel that you are already at the convention right now, while reading The Book of Zohar, so the convention would happen in the best possible way?

Answer: Prepare yourself. If you are about to attend a wonderful, pleasant, and joyful event, then you prepare for it in advance. You anticipate it and enjoy this beckoning illumination of the future. And you receive great inspiration from that.

Therefore, as we get closer to the worldwide convention that will be held in New Jersey, we have to prepare ourselves already now. Everything depends on preparing the desire, “What do I plan on correcting? What do I want? What will I get out of it? How do I want to appear there?” I have to imagine all of this in detail, as if I am already there. Therefore, we have to make all the songs available on the website, as well as everything that will happen at the cultural programs and the other events so people can become familiar with it, understand it, and already be able to imagine how it will happen.

A child grows by imagining the future, and then it comes true. If a person does not experience this reverent desire at all times, if he does not increase his desires, and even his worries and fears, then he does not gain anything. He must already now wait impatiently, wondering, “How will this happen? When? In what way? How will I be inspired? How will I participate?”

This is necessary in order to grow up. If children did not receive the aspiration toward the future from nature, then they would not be able to grow. But for us, this aspiration is given as freedom of choice. Do you want to grow up? Then find a way to receive the greatness of the goal from the environment, and then you will grow. There is no other method! If we don’t learn on the example of small children, if we don’t implement these actions in practice, then it would be a shame to let our lives go by wasted.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/24/11, The Zohar

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While researching nature, we study many phenomena that take place in front of us and inside of us. To bring them to a common denominator, we can say that any species and any part in nature takes care of its own existence. And the more it takes care of itself, the higher is the level of its development. That is how the vegetative level of nature originated from the still level of nature, and the animate level came from the vegetative, and man came from the animate level of nature.

We understand from the science of Kabbalah that this did not happen by itself, but by means of Reshimot, the “developmental genes” that are successively realized one after another within the framework of the initially fixed model.

All of this exists inside the aspiration for self-benefit. The program instilled in all of nature’s elements places one task before us: What should I do to feel good? Be it realization of evil, conscious progress toward goodness, force, speed, connection, feeling, or mind: According to its potential, every species aspires to goodness and detaches from evil. That is our nature.

On the still, vegetative, and animate levels this nature is a "one way street”—urging us to act directly for our own benefit. But on the human level there is one more special action. Man is able to feel the neighbor, and therefore, he is willing to give something to his neighbor with the expectation of later receiving reward and pleasure. We have learned different ways to use the neighbor which don’t exist on lower levels.

On the still, vegetative, and animate levels there is only reception. But man also knows how to bestow to the neighbor in order to receive benefit for himself. Moreover, interaction with the neighbor is meant to eventually bring him much more benefit than regular reception. Otherwise he is simply unable to receive anything directly. But one way or another, in both cases, he acts for his own sake.

In principle, direct reception is a primate method for man. As a child grows up, he receives upbringing whereby we teach him to interact with the world, and usually that means learning how to use the neighbor in a way that avoids being harmed and that enables him to receive self-benefit at the end. This is human upbringing. If things are the way they are, then it’s best to take the neighbor into account. After all, often we wish to simply take, conquer, and steal without leaving a trace behind.

That is how our world is and that is why we only perceive what we receive inside of us. Our desire is limited and eventually it brings us to feelings of emptiness and despair.

But there is also another, opposite possibility—bestowal, where the tendency is away from myself, upwards, towards the neighbor, as well as away from myself, downwards toward myself, and then upwards toward the neighbor. In the first case I bestow for the sake of bestowal (Bina, Hafetz Hesed), and in the second case I receive for the sake of bestowal (the degree of love). This is called an exactly opposite calculation and it only exists in a human being.

Thus, we have two possibilities: reception with auxiliary bestowal or bestowal with auxiliary reception.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/11 on Global Education

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Question: What exactly does the wisdom of Kabbalah give to children that a good private school is unable to provide?

Answer: Kabbalah develops a human being. It gives him tools which then make one’s life easy. It gives a possibility to perceive and learn everything in an easy way because it reveals abilities in a person which allow him to understand everything.

He will not encounter any difficulties that would make him feel incapable of overcoming them. He will be looking at everything from above as something that he can learn. He will not experience any difficulties in acquiring any knowledge.

Kabbalah studies expand a child’s tools of perception to a higher level. As a result, he will not have any problems with ordinary sciences such as physics, chemistry, or biology. He will look at them as a science of the lower levels of nature: inanimate, vegetative, and animate.

Kabbalah immediately begins to develop the human level within a child. The rest of the levels come amazingly easy for him. He can graduate from a college within two to three years at the age of 12 to 15.

We just did not set such a goal until now. However, we can organize such a group and request the department of education to give them qualifying exams. Let them see how developed are these children and how maturely they think. They really deserve a diploma according to their human level.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/28/2010, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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The entire wisdom of Kabbalah is but the method of education. After all, a person needs to change, to grow from a “little savage” living in this world to a human similar to the Creator. We can’t even sense this—the goal is so exalted and opposite to us that it slips our perception.

We undergo changes along the path in order to become increasingly similar to the Creator. By transforming ourselves, we reveal our new states in the spiritual world, on the spiritual degrees. All these states are essentially the steps of education. We are being raised by the upper Light that surrounds us; we change and thereby go through the education process.

Hence, Kabbalah is the method that enables one to educate oneself in similarity to the Creator. We do it with the help of a teacher, the sources, and the group or the environment. This education requires differentiation between children and adults, between men and women, or various types of people. We need to look for a way to help everyone receive the correct education.

Every person who receives the spiritual awakening has to correct himself and facilitate the general correction of all. Essentially, “all” are he himself. If he relates to others in this way, he has to correct them. However, if he separates himself from the rest, he becomes a “reformer” who only corrupts himself and others.

We will have to clarify these matters and formulate them in a light and understandable manner. At this stage, all of humanity is approaching the realization of the wisdom of Kabbalah; it begins to feel the need to educate itself to the level of correspondence to the Creator. Otherwise, we will start feeling how many misfortunes our opposition to Him brings to us.

With this goal in mind, we are preparing a list of global education principles. The key is that they should be understandable for everyone. We ourselves have a relatively good idea about where they spring from. It’s not difficult for us to talk about these principles in the language of Kabbalah and in the language in which Baal HaSulam presents them, mostly in his articles. But how can we make them applicable to every person in the world? This is the problem we are facing today. We will try to solve it.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/16/2011 on The Principles of Global Education

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