Entries in the 'Children' Category

Israel—Cultural Gaps

laitman_590In the News (Israelinfo): “A study conducted recently by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), revealed one of the main causes of the ‘two-speed’ development of Israel—one foot is in the edge of the 21st century, and the other mired in inefficient old-style economy. It is the deep cultural differences between the major sectors.

“Researches investigated the abilities of OECD citizens of 29 countries on three points: mathematical literacy, reading comprehension and problem solving with the help of technical means.

“For all these measures, Israel was below the average of the OECD countries. … Israel is at the level of Chile, Turkey, Greece, Spain and Italy. …

“The highest score was achieved by men of Ashkenazi origin from the central part of Israel with parents with higher education.”

My Comment: It all the depends on the importance of education. In the Israeli branch of the Bnei Baruch organization, almost all the children go to university and graduate with a second degree even before they join the army at the age of 18!
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New Life #505 – The Search For Meaning In Daesh

New Life #505 – The Search For Meaning In Daesh
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Summary

Since the sixties, we see how young people began asking about the meaning of life, but nobody had an answer. The elites understood the necessity of somehow stopping the little man and began to develop a culture of leisure. Yet the question about the meaning of life still pecks away from within and doesn’t allow anyone to rest.

When youth join Daesh and other extremist groups, it is from a sense of lack of meaning in their lives. These terrible activities give them some kind of significance, meaning, and goal in life, that their lives are not so small and insignificant, and there is a reason to live.

There is a feeling among the younger generation of not understanding why their parents gave birth to them at all in such a terrible world. The era has permitted the hastening of awareness that everything is empty, secondary, and tasteless.

This acceleration leads to the goal, which is balance with nature. What is meaningful is love and bestowal to everyone, because in the world of tomorrow, people will be linked to each other consciously and willingly and not because they have no choice.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #505 – The Search For Meaning In Daesh,” 1/20/15

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New Life #504 – Living Through Screens

New Life #504 –  Living Through Screens
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Summary

All of nature is one integrated system, and developing in this system requires our connection to each other, as if we were members of one family, but our egoism opposes and doesn’t want to truly connect to others. The era we live in is the era of the screen, and it brings with it a feeling that the whole world is in the palm of our hand, that we are connected to the whole world and that the world is connected to us.

But most of all, the screens reveal our nature. We become more direct, and behave without shame. The screens expose our true faces, our nature, our ego, and places a mirror in front of us.

It is true that we were also egoists 200 years ago, but then we covered it with false manners. Today, the Internet has dissolved all these games and unleashes all the evil in us and forces us to correct it and to truly connect with our environment.

We will soon realize that we have to connect to and to be part of the trend of integration. It will happen very soon.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #504 – Living Through Screens,” 1/20/15

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New Life #506 – Learning To Communicate Again

New Life #506 – Learning To Communicate Again
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

We have to learn how to establish new relationships so that we will be able to open the door to a new world. A wide, unlimited, eternal world is waiting for us behind this door…

Summary

Technology eliminates the limitations of place and distance. Today we can communicate through short text messages in an practical, convenient and less confusing way than physical encounters. On the other hand, we cannot eliminate the greatly needed physical contact.

Evolution leads us to the recognition of the fact that technology is not sufficient to reach hearts and connect, so I believe that we will soon begin to abandon the technological devices because we will feel that they do not answer our needs.

We will long to connect in another way, a new connection, a connection that will show us the meaning of life, that will explain what the meaning of our existence is, what we are living for, what the secret of life and the secrets of nature are.

We have to learn how to build this new relationship so that we will be able to open the door to a new world. A wide, unlimited, eternal world is waiting for us behind that door where we will be able to fly in infinite speed. The only question is how we can exit our ego which traps us in this world, in the limited development of nature, and enter a new world. This is some food for thought…
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From KabTV’s “New Life #506 – Learning To Communicate Again,” 1/20/15

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New Life 489 – Do The Stars Affect Our Fate?

New Life 489 – Do The Stars Affect Our Fate?
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

 

Question: The issue of astrology and fate is very interesting, intriguing, and very unclear. Do the stars affect our fate? Is it possible to foresee our fate? How can we use this information?

After all, the hardest thing about our life is that it is unpredictable. We go through life having no idea what will happen to us in the future and what surprises fate has in store for us.

A person cannot control his life. This is the reason that so many people are interested in astrology, which can seemingly predict a person’s character and his fate according to the different signs.

Astrology was very popular in ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, the Far East, India, China, and also among the American Indians. Even today many believe that there is a connection between the stars and a person’s state. Is there really such a connection?

Answer: The universe develops gradually, step by step, and man is the last phase of this evolutionary process and is the most developed part. But it is actually because man is the most developed creature and has a mind and feelings by which he can explore nature more and more, that he feels that he is vulnerable.

It says “a day-old calf is called an ox.” After all the moment the calf is born he already has the mind and senses of a grown ox. He knows which plants he can eat and which he shouldn’t; he will not fall from a high place, unlike a small child who has to be nurtured and taught for a long time until he grows wise.

If we don’t teach a child, he will grow up to be an animal. But if we convey to him all of the human life experience that has been accumulated for many years he will reach the human level, the level that he will be allowed to develop to. A person develops and according to the level he develops to he discovers the world.

Therefore man is a very sensitive creature, since he has to feel nature very deeply. He is strong in being able to build different systems that help him cope with nature. Man has learned to control fire, discovered electricity, learned to heat his home and light up the darkness of the night. He has learned to communicate over great distances and has invented the Internet.

Man has become increasingly more sophisticated and has added all the comfort he lacked to nature. At the same time he hasn’t changed much. There are probably very clear limits to human ability.

We can improve our daily life in many ways, but we cannot answer the most important question of: what will my fate be? What will my future be? What will happen when I die? What was there before I was born and what will happen to me after I die? What happens beyond the boundaries of this life? Why have I met the people who surround me in my lifetime? Why was I born with a certain personality, as a man or as a woman, in a certain country, at a certain time?

All these questions remain a mystery for us. There is a certain force that controls us and we cannot influence it. We can only try to live comfortably at the place our fate has brought us to: to build houses instead of caves, to prepare food and to store food products.

We develop what belongs to the body’s corporeal existence, which means that we use the human mind and feelings that raise us above the animals for the sake of the animate level, for the sake of the body. It is only for the sake of the body that we have developed all the sciences: physics, chemistry, biology, and zoology, so that our body can enjoy.

But we cannot use our mind and our feelings in order to exit our body. It turns out that we use everything that was given to us beyond the animate level—our high intelligence, the ability to explore nature and to discover its laws—only for the well being of our corporeal body.

We wanted to move fast, so we built a car; we wanted to speak to someone who is far away, so we invented the radio and the Internet. But all these inventions are for the comfort of our body, for the sake of our health, for ourselves or for our children.

There is no invention that our developed mind has come up with that was for the level that is beyond the animate level. Universities, stock markets, museums are all made to provide our body with maximum comfort. It is sad to see how primitively we use our delicate feelings, our sharp minds, and our ability to develop as we evolved from one generation to the next.

We fly to outer space and have great achievements in medicine. A hundred years ago the average life expectancy was no more that 40-50, and today we are nearing 100. In another 50 years we may live to 200. We have the ability to make our life in this world much more intense, healthier, and to extend the life of the body. But what remains unclear is what we should do with the body for so many years.

We can improve the conditions the body lives in for the sake of our families and our children. We can answer practically any question except for the one most important question about our fate. The term “fate” includes what we were before our birth, what we will be after death, what will happen to us in the middle, in the time from birth until death, and what hardships we will have to cope with during this time.

On the one hand, we realize that everything is predetermined, but to us it is revealed as complete chance. Now it seems a coincidence, but what if I could rise a bit and look at the whole plan from above. This is very intriguing.
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From KabTV’s “ New Life 489 – Do The Stars Affect Our Fate?” 1/1/15

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New Life 488 – Hope Heals

New Life 488 – Hope Heals
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Abraham drew a clear boundary between truth, nature, and the human mind that explores our ability to advance to the human level, which differentiates man from an animal, and on the other hand, different mysticisms and beliefs that aren’t even a religion where everything is strictly organized, but are different dark superstitions.

There is the wisdom of Kabbalah revealed by Abraham that teaches a person about the Creator and there is religion in which a person operates in rigid frameworks according to precise rules.

Religion is a social framework that thoroughly binds a person and doesn’t allow him to act according to his heart’s desires. It is a certain kind of pressure with a promise of a reward or a punishment in this world and in the next world: heaven or hell.

But there is a gray area between these two major streams: the wisdom of Kabbalah (the wisdom of the upper force) and religion. It is created because people are not satisfied with the simple religious frameworks anymore and are trying to find out something about themselves: What will my future be? What will happen to me? How can I succeed in life and keep away from trouble?

They have practical questions. They don’t ask about the next world that religion promises them, but about our daily life. They care about succeeding in life and are looking for the means to achieve that: blessings, lucky charms to protect them and their children, simple symbols that give them a sense of security and hope for the future.

Indeed, a person who buys a lucky charm, ties a red string around his wrist, or wears a symbolic trinket hopes for better circumstances, which gives him strength and psychological support. People are ready to pay a lot of money in order to feel protected, calm, confident, and happy.

This actually heals. It is common knowledge that self-confidence can help a person by raising the body’s hidden resources that can support and heal him. Therefore, we cannot simply dismiss these methods and say that they don’t work. They do work, but in the rational sense, and there is no mysticism here, although they stem from an irrational source.

This is the reason that there is a grey area between the wisdom of Kabbalah and religion. In England, for example, people have experts purify a new home from all the evil spirits before they move into it. All these superstitions should be taken seriously because they give people confidence.

There are very few people who yearn for the revelation of the Creator and for whom the wisdom of Kabbalah is important. There are many people who belong to a certain religion in one way or another, but every person is somehow connected to this gray area. Everyone believes in some signs and symbols that support and sustain him through life.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 488 – Hope Heals,” 1/1/15

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Young People Are Losing Interest In Marriage

laitman_547_05In the News (Russian Bazaar): “‘No one disputes the fact that the institution of marriage is dying, – says Bauer.- The question is how to deal with this fact. We can not turn back the clock and make the church a major institution in the country. Also, we can not force the young to have the reverent and sacred attitude toward marriage inherent in the older generations. So maybe everything that happens – is for the better ’

“If the ‘anti-marriage’ trend does not change, then already in 2025, Americans will be much more likely to get divorced than to marry.”

My Comment: Growing egoism separates people from each other more and more. Bringing them together is possible only by the upper Light. Studying the wisdom of Kabbalah spurs and summons the action of the Light. Otherwise we will see masses who are estranged from each other.
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Why Don’t They Want To Get Married…

laitman_600_04In the News (Russian Bazaar): “Americans aged 18 to 29 years continue to rapidly lose interest in marriage. If in 1960 55% of people in this age group were considered married, today only 19% of “millennials” (born from the early 80’s to late 90’s) officially live a family life.

“Today we can say with certainty that all attempts to return interest to the institution of marriage, undertaken by the government and religious institutions, failed miserably. …

“According to experts, young people no longer understand the meaning and the essence of the religious marriage.

“‘Many ‘millennials’ consider marriage obsolete and an outdated institution, which from a legal perspective only complicates life. Without marriage, as we know, there is no divorce, division of property and other litigation. …

“Getting a college degree, moving to their own homes, buying a house or car, the birth of a child – all of this is much more important for today’s youth, than a wedding. Even ‘meeting someone you love’ they rate much higher than official marriage. …

“Look who is protecting the institution of marriage today. By and large, they are conservative Americans aged 45 years and above. They grew up with other values and traditions, and now they want to instill in their children. But the 90’s and 2000’s greatly changed American youth. It thinks very differently and evaluates reality differently than the older generation.”

My Comment: Human behavior is based on a single feature: egoistic pleasure. This determines every aspect of our behavior. Therefore, the reason for a change in our behavior is a change in the basis of the phenomenon, egoism.

Egoism has developed and continues to develop very rapidly, especially qualitatively. At the heart of nature is its development program and the program of human development.

You can read about the lack of free will in any of our actions in my post “There Is No Such Thing As Free Will“.

According to this program a person has to penetrate nature’s program, to study it, implement it on himself, and act in harmony with it. Currently, we operate opposite to this program. But it is normal and this is also part of the actual program, which is called the growing period, similar to the way children grow in our world.

Today we are in the stage of transition to actively participating in the plan of creation. The program of creation will force us to attain its essence and to act specifically according to it. It is similar to the way young people become independent in our world. Some easily succeed and others find it very difficult.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is the science of human development and it is meant to tell us what happens to us and to prepare us for the correct interaction— Achishena, hastening time (along the quick and easy path)—with nature, with the Creator.
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New Life #590 – Moving On To Meaningful Learning

New Life #590 – Moving On To Meaningful Learning
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Summary

The problem with education today is that we don’t know how to build a human being, how to provide a child with the tools for building himself. Therefore we have made great technological and scientific progress in the 21st century, but humanity itself looks and behaves like savages.

If we look at what is happening in Israel today, it is a real shame. We have lost the basic value our nation is founded on, the foundation of “love thy friend as thyself.” We need to teach psychology, the way a person should behave with himself, with others, at home, in society, and in nature. Learning today lacks the right direction, the goal, which is to communicate nicely with others whoever they may be.

Children need to feel that they are appreciated only according to their connection with others. If we learn how to communicate with each other correctly, we will be able to bring together all the personal knowledge every individual has and to prosper together. This ability is missing in the world; there is no sharing of knowledge but only destructive, egoistic competition.

Schools should make each class in a friendly atmosphere where everyone supports each other. The competitive atmosphere, bullying and violence in schools disrupts children’s ability to learn. Even startup projects are based on cooperation when people who share an idea connect and develop it together. The approach of making each child outstanding is outdated. Today we need to educate about connection between people.

This has strong implications for our lives. Many people, for example, get divorced because they cannot get along with each other. We have to change the atmosphere in the classroom to positive competition like who helps his classmates the most, for example. The class should reach high achievements together, the teacher should give questions and everyone should work on the common solution together.

The teacher should check the cooperation between the students as they work, the level of their connection, and the quality of the connection. With such an educational approach the future society will be united, instead of in the mutual hatred that destroys us today.

What will motivate a lazy child to take part in a group assignment? The general atmosphere will make him want to be part of it. Very few rush forward in an individualistic competitive atmosphere. In a group atmosphere everyone is involved. The most important thing is to teach children how to be together. This is the main thing they will need in the future world.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #590 – Moving On To Meaningful Learning,” 6/23/15

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There Is No Neuter Gender In Nature

laitman_559Question: In Europe there are kindergartens where children aren’t differentiated by gender; they are called “it.” They believe that, with time, a child must determine his own sex. How is this possible in a civilized world?

Answer: I don’t know how it is possible to call a person “it” when nature has created a precise division into either “she” or “he.”

In Hebrew, there is no neuter. Hebrew is the language of the roots, and it comes from the higher system of management where a clear division exists between the masculine part and the feminine part. It is not possible to call something by a masculine name and then switch to a feminine name, and vice versa. So, the concept of “it” doesn’t exist in nature. There is only a male or female part, male or female property.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/6/16

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