Question: Why is it that even when a person knows what is good for him, he still goes and does things that harm him?

Answer: We even see this happening with small children. How many times do you have to punish a child until he starts to understand something? And even then, is this a result of the punishment, or did he simply grow up and become smarter? Maybe the punishments were not beneficial at all? This is indeed a question: What causes us to change our actions?

In reality, we do not change by being punished. Overall, there is no such thing as reward and punishment as we understand it. We never learn under the influence of fate’s misfortunes. We simply grow until we outgrow our Reshimo. Then new ones emerge in us and the surrounding environment changes, and we change under its influence as well. We only change from the confrontation of two parameters: our inner informational data (Reshimot) and the surrounding society. As they interact with one another, they determine our state.

We have to bring our Reshimot to balance with the environment. This is all we aspire to. It is the basic law of the universe: similarity, balance, equilibrium. Everything in nature automatically aspires to this. That is why as soon as an imbalance emerges inside us with the surroundings, then consciously or not (depending on a person’s development) we immediately put all our energy toward trying to bring ourselves to balance.

For example, when you enter a certain society or a certain group of people, you always adjust yourself because you desire to be similar. That is how things are built; it is the law of equivalence, the initial law that the Creator put at the head of everything. Having created a nature opposite to Him, the will to enjoy, He desires for it to gradually reach equivalence with Him, the will to bestow. That’s because growth creates a mind inside the desire, and then the creation gains awareness, sensations, and reveals the Creator, becoming equal and identical to Him.

A person differs from any inanimate creation by the emergence of a mind that consciously directs creation toward similarity to the Creator. Therefore, our entire freedom of will lies in constantly creating a surrounding environment for ourselves that will “pull us up” to the Creator. That means we have to take care of the environment so it would be a level higher than we are. In that case we will want to become similar to it, and thus we will keep advancing toward the Creator. By envisioning the group as higher, greater, and more ideal than ourselves, we advance forward.

Therefore, everything depends on creating the right environment because it will enable us to automatically pull ourselves forward. Therein lies the entire law of growth.
From the lesson in Moscow on 1/17/11, Shamati

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Question: Suppose that we have already reached the state where all seven billion people in the world study and actualize Kabbalah. Now a child is born into this world. What happens to him? Will he have to understand the meaning of evil in order to reach good? But by that time the world will already be corrected, so how will he feel evil?

Answer: In this world there is only a renewal of physical bodies, but not souls. Therefore, the children being born today are old souls that acquire new bodies. That’s why we don’t pay attention to a person’s age. Regardless of whether a physical body has died or has been born to live in this world, the soul continues its reincarnations.

You’re asking: If all the people correct their egos, will it be necessary for more people to be born? No, the souls will no longer need to be born. However, we won’t live forever biologically. We will begin to feel how our world changes, gradually acquiring the qualities of the upper world.

To the degree each of us and all of us together are corrected in the single system, our perception of the world changes as well. When we ascend from the first level of the spiritual world to the second and then the third, we go from one world to the next. And when we attain the state of full correction in the common interconnection, our world will be destroyed.

It is written, “Six thousand years of concealment and one year of destruction.” It will be the seventh millennium. “The world will be destroyed” means that this world will disappear from our sensation because we perceive it in our common egoism. As soon as our egoism turns to bestowal and love, then instead of it we will feel the upper world.
From the lecture in “Kabbalah L’Am” Hall on 1/11/11

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Question: How do you work with a child correctly when he has an outburst of petulance and anger?

Answer: The best method is to film the situation and bring it up for a discussion. It is useful for a person, both for an adult and a child, to see himself from aside. When he looks at his behavior as a spectator from the outside, he quickly learns and draws conclusions. He has to understand that the world is relative, and that from the outside it looks different than from the inside.

Taking part in discussions carried out in a calm environment, the child gradually learns to control himself by balancing out extreme states. The impression he received stays in him, and the next time he will get angry at it instead. Gradually, the impressions from such examples will be accumulated and will make him hate the outbursts of anger in himself.

Question: Which field of professional activity should we direct our children toward?

Answer: Since we are an educational organization, education is our main goal. That is why both in the army, in college, and at the university, it is preferable for our children to choose professions related to education. Going through various states, our children learn themselves and become better at mutual education. The fundamentals are instilled in them and they can become highly successful in various fields of education. They can be teachers, instructors, and lecturers. Humanity needs them, and in huge amounts.

These professions are also preferable because all other fields of activities are artificial and require constant study; the person needs to work on improving his external skills. However, in education, his Kli (vessel) is always with him since he advances in his inner work all the time. That is why education is the closest profession to us.
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From the Talk on Education 1/7/2011

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The UN Security Council prepared a clip from video submissions in which young people from more than 90 countries share their opinions on how to find a solution to the problems the world faces today. The final clip contains the submission of children from our Kabbalistic Education Center in Israel (MALAM) (minute 4:00).

The video montage was posted on the White House site.

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Question: Who has to overcome evil: me or the Creator?

Answer: No matter what others tell me about the Creator, I have to work on my own from beginning until end. Then, according to the things that become revealed, I will be able to tell how exactly this takes place: by itself, by virtue of my efforts, or with the help of a certain Upper Force.

We shouldn’t wait for anything to come from Above. Nothing will come. With my forces and efforts I have to reveal a picture that already exists.

Everything depends on how much I yearn for it. I am like a child who grows only to the degree he wants to grow. And I have to add this desire myself. Now just imagine what life would be like for that child.

In our world children develop naturally and we can barely keep up with them. A child runs around all over the place and always wants something. That is how we should do our spiritual work as well. Otherwise we won’t develop and grow. However, what we do instead is take “breaks” all the time and time-outs to stop and think it over.

Does a child ever take a time-out? No, he does not experience a moment of rest. He has to attain the world at every moment.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/11/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How do we help a child not to fall into groundless philosophy, but rather examine and verify everything practically?

Answer: This is exactly the kind of approach to life that we should be methodically teaching to a child by providing examples thereof. A child tends to trust what an adult tells them. But we have to teach him or her to verify everything.

You should explain to the youngster: “If I told you something, how can you be sure you’ve heard it right? By the same token, how can you be sure that I know what I am talking about and tell you how it really is? After all, grownups also err; anyone can make a mistake! It is your job to verify what you are told, which is a sole basis of your advancement.”

You may ask how will he grow up then if he doesn’t believe what the teacher tells him? But he should believe us only inasmuch as to do the exercise we are giving him. But it is his job to learn from this exercise what is right and wrong. He should only believe that it is worthwhile to do this exercise to make his own conclusions later on.

In other words, we must teach a child to search for answers on his own based only on his own life experience. Otherwise, he will learn to trust everything we say and will think that everything that is written in the newspaper is absolutely true.

We read a newspaper and subconsciously receive everything it says as facts since this is what we were taught in childhood: to respect a printed word. But if we dig into it, we’ll see that everything is dictated by mere greed and is cut to order. We, however, take it at the face value and gain information from this source. We don’t need to teach a child that, do we?

We ought to teach him to use thorough critical thinking skills when it comes to everything life throws at him so that he never takes somebody’s word for it. He must verify everything first! He should accept another’s “expert” opinion but only to make one next, independent step forward.

As to the rest of it, lay down a rule: Make judgments solely based on evident facts for it is written: “A judge only has what his eyes can see.” Children tend to gravitate to fantasy, but all of it should be channeled into verifying it. Each fantasy needs to be checked. It is great that a child has vivid imagination, but it has to be founded on evidence.

The only exception is what lies in the realm of inspiration, art: singing, painting, and culture. Culture has no relation to science and doesn’t have such heavy restriction; therefore, it can work with imagination alone. But it isn’t in any way connected with life principles. Culture is above knowledge and reason since it derives from the search for the Upper One, the Creator. Therefore, art should be separated from egoistic desire.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/9/2011, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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Question: You have said that when properly taught, the new generation will naturally transition into spirituality without sinking into egoism. How does this fit with the notion that man comes to Light from darkness as he reveals the evil within?

Answer: We exist in a very large system of souls that was created by the Creator. Now, instead of it, we feel our physical existence and broken interconnection. There is only one reason for this: our inadequate and faulty perception. And this is why we need to find out and learn how to transition to the correct perception.

If we were to come to Kabbalists at a young age, they would have given us the education that we as children should have received. To educate means to accompany a child as his desires grow and impulses take over due to the changing Reshimot which unfold in the process of his natural development, and provide him with the means to manage them, properly arrange them, and weave them into the correct attitude towards the world.

Today we teach our children to exploit the world, to enjoy it egoistically, and to use everything and everyone. Instead, we need to teach children an altruistic and friendly attitude towards the world, teach them love. This way a child simply receives a different education method from us and no more than that.

“How will his evil inclination manifest?” The evil inclination does not go anywhere; it keeps growing, while we provide children with the appropriate means to correct it. So why am I teaching adults, who are also transitioning from the animate to the human degree, when I can be working with children? Today, all of them are born with inescapable questions about life. There is no need to wait for them to grow up and become full of animate desires. I can immediately teach them to be human.

Parents must provide their children with education one way or another. And if my goal is bestowal and love of my neighbors, then would I really teach my son anything else? Of course, I will teach him the things I value.

Our duty is to provide our children with a method that will bring them to the human degree. We clearly see what is happening in the public education system. And this is why we naturally need to do everything we can to ensure our children receive spiritual education.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Spiritual education is much quicker at developing the receiving desire in children. Egoism grows and restores balance as we provide children with the means of bestowal, which help manage it. As a consequence, seven to nine-year-old children develop aspirations and abilities absent in people at thirty or forty.

Our body does not play any part here; its changes are insignificant. A person is judged according to the soul’s shifts and changes. We are yet to see how the egoistic desire in children grows according to the degree of correction that the soul is able to provide. Nature, the upper governance, always keeps this balance.

The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES), Part 9 and further describes the maturing of the soul: the periods of conception, nursing, and maturity. A child will be able to go through these stages before completing high school.

Indeed, why should a boy not become a “man” at thirteen and acquire the Masach (anti-egoistic screen), in other words, begin his work of overcoming, receiving for the sake of bestowal in a mature state (Gadlut)? He will then have control over all of his desires by twenty and will come to the end of correction by the time he turns seventy.

To a certain extent, this is the way it occurred during the times of the Temples. Children received a corresponding education, and it is written that from Dan to Beersheba, there was not a single child who did not know the spiritual laws.

Here everything depends on the environment. For example, if we were to organize a commune and raise our children there, would they not grow, studying the properties of reception and bestowal, and learning to work with them?

Even today our children are soaking in the spiritual education, regardless of the “viruses” that schools are infecting them with. They have a different approach; they know how to analyze the world and themselves. Besides, they do not repeat what they have heard or learned, instead they actually speak in “first person,” they make independent observations, and draw their own conclusions.

Sit a child like this down with a professor of some sort and you’ll see that there will be no conversation. And the child will not be at fault.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Since a person has to realize his freedom of will, could we be taking it away from the children by teaching them Kabbalah from an early age?

Answer: We are specifically teaching them how to use their freedom of will! States keep changing, egoism grows, the surrounding society changes. Every moment a child needs to make a new decision about who he wants to be with, how to treat and perceive things, and what he needs to do. If they keep relating to the changing environment correctly, they will develop very well.

Everyone knows about the teenage crisis, when everyone revolts. We need to use this wonderful quality and never repress it. It will help children make an easy leap from corporeality into spirituality. We only need to properly prepare the children prior to this age so that the coming-of-age years (12-15) would become their years of spiritual ascent and entrance into the spiritual world.

For this reason, children need to be educated ahead of time in a way that would help them realize what they have learned in practice later. Nature intentionally lays this period of inner explosions in our genes: on the levels of hormones, egoism, and the desire for power.

This is the age for working with a person in order to raise him or her into spirituality. They start “growing old” afterward. Beginning with the age of 20, people start moving in the direction of the cemetery. They “enter life,” end up in an ordinary society, and become concerned only with providing for themselves in the corporeal world.

A child needs to be educated from the age of six or seven so he would acquire an opportunity to act in a correct manner, grow up, and become “big” in the spiritual sense before he enters adolescence and grows up. We must not miss the childhood years; otherwise, it will be too late!

It would be the same as beginning to teach grammar at twenty. Imagine all the opportunities this person would miss in his life. But in our case we are referring to the fundamentals of nature, which need to be instilled in a child. We teach him to properly organize all his desires and qualities.

This is absolutely essential, and this is why we are so concerned with creating an educational system according to the method of Kabbalah.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/6/2011, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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Adolescence is a very important, decisive point. This is the time when the results of upbringing have to manifest. Its entire success depends upon the previous years, from six to eleven, as problems begin past this age: the influence of hormones and inner struggles.

We need to make sure ahead of time that by this point the child will already have a method and a proper environment with which to help him overcome this critical period and use this exploding egoism as a catalyst to ascend over it. And then we will immediately have a mature spiritual person.

Children can easily cross the Machsom at that age. They are ready for anything! They have this desperate decisiveness. Adults are not able to tolerate the same kind of suffering as adolescents whose fire is still burning. Adolescents can do miracles with it.

It is not an accident that nature has planted this period in the process of our development. Our entire hope in raising a spiritual person from a child falls specifically between the ages of six-seven to fourteen-fifteen years.

After that it is almost impossible to do anything, it becomes very difficult. They have entered “life.” And you are now referring to a person surrounded with different life problems: age, sex, work, army, and who only thinks about the opposite sex and material success. All these screens will no longer let him hear you.

We need to begin telling them about Kabbalah from early childhood so it turns into a habit which “becomes a second nature.” That is, we need to do it before they dive into “adult life.” And then children will go through teenage rebellion, but they will use it correctly!

The Creator is purposefully provoking us towards this egoistic rebellion so that we will rise over it. When we rise above this egoism, it’s as if we were ascending the mountain of hatred, Mount Sinai (“Sina” means hatred), and we receive a spiritual degree.

We need to take advantage of this opportunity that nature gives us. It would be so helpful for my desires to burn and explode today as they did some time ago in my childhood. And if at the same time we are there near the children, properly directing them and showing them how to work with this, they can quickly turn into great Kabbalists. I hope that we will achieve this.

If we fail to use this opportunity given to us by nature, it will be very difficult to catch up. This is why it is written that raising a child is the same as writing on a blank sheet of paper, and this is completely different from writing on paper full of notes, trying to erase what others have written.

This is why education needs to start at the earliest possible age. Otherwise, instead of growing like a human, children grow like animals because they are only taught to search for fulfillment for their bodies, their egoism. Kabbalah defines this as raising an animal, the desire to receive pleasure.

Only the proper combination of two forces, reception and bestowal, is called human. So let us decide who we want to raise and begin preparing children for coming of age from the earliest age (at least from six to seven). This way, we will be able to draw the most benefit from all these years.

I am convinced that with proper preparation, a child can enter the spiritual world and rise to the mount of hatred that is suddenly erected in him under the influence of these incredibly powerful inner impulses of adolescence. All the emotions of a grown person who searches for spirituality are nothing comparing to this burning. This is what all of us really lack….
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/6/2011, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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