Question: I have been a teacher for 30 years and it is very difficult for me to find a common language with students who can respond with what they want. In addition, there is a significant decline in advancement, culture, and responsibility among the youth. Does the wisdom of Kabbalah offer some fundamental solution for this?

Answer: I understand what people are looking for, especially teachers who work with pupils or students.

The problem is in the educational method and pedagogy because education is not being pursued. And it is reasonable to presume that you aren’t either. You teach a particular subject.  What kind of people are studying it and why do they need to treat it properly? Why do they have to be polite, and not respond with conventional crude slang?

They are talking to you just the way they talk to each other, and they suppose that this is normal. They are not offended by each other because this style of speech is the normal for them. So why should they talk to you differently?

There is no education and schools do not educate children.

For at least two hours per day in kindergartens and schools human nature should be explained to children: its character, the psychology of boys and girls, teenagers, men and women, relationships between the sexes, and relationships between youths and adults.

But everything should be explained from the point of view of nature, how it is organized, how it operates among people, and how we must change all of our negative impulses that have been given to us to be corrected.

We should sit children in a circle and discuss all these issues with them. Then the educational system will become an educational system. Unfortunately, for the meantime, it doesn’t exist, so every year disturbances will continue to increase in schools and other educational institutions.
[193239]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 5/1/16

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New Life 441 – The Tishrei Holidays: Searching For The Creator
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

What are the stages that a person passes through on the way to searching for the Creator, how can the connection between us contribute to discovering Him and why specifically in the holiday season do we have the opportunity to approach Him?

In the beginning of creation, we were in contact with the force that created us. We were like an embryo in the womb of his mother. The concealment was made to make it possible for us to grow, to understand who and what the Creator is and to be like Him. So a person doesn’t see the Creator. And one must try to locate Him, like in hide-and-seek, within and around himself. The partition that separates a person and the Creator is composed of five worlds (Olamot), concealments (Ha’alamot), 125 levels.

On every level we transform lack of understanding and feeling into understanding and feeling. We acquire the characteristics of the Creator. The concealment is found within my heart and mind. I expand and transform the characteristics of my heart and mind. Everything that I think and want comes from Him. There is none else beside Him. And I am only a point that discerns this. Discovering the Creator is the role of a person in the world.

Kabbalists who have already discovered this exist to help him. In every generation there are those in whom an urge is awakened to discover the Creator. Some of them have left writings for us.

Today is a unique time in which there are many people who want to discover the Creator. Searching together is much easier. In the levels of attaining the Creator, the level of difficulty always increases, but the Kabbalists help.

The futility and emptiness that is felt today is designed to bring the person closer to a search for the Creator. The Sukkot Holiday is when those who search for the Creator begin to feel waves of warmth and embraces from Him.
[145176]
From KabTV’s “New Life 441 – The Tishrei Holidays: Searching For The Creator,” 10/5/14

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Question: Suppose people I don’t want to be involved with try to come into contact with me, should I overcome my feelings and start building relationships with people I don’t feel comfortable with?

Answer: At the very least you should make sure you communicate with them in a proper way. You should not repel people. You should try to overcome yourself and try to be polite.

This doesn’t mean that you should love people on the level we are now, but you should aspire to have neutral feelings regarding every individual and then also try to befriend him. This will correct your soul! I am speaking from the perspective of the soul and not from the perspective of your good relations with others. This is how you correct your soul and advance toward the general correction of the world.
[193621]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 5/1/16

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In the News (WebMD): “In just one year, almost 3 million U.S. teens suffered a major bout of depression, a new government report shows.

“‘Adolescence is a critical time in a person’s development, and battling with depression can be devastating for teens unless they receive effective treatment,’ said Paolo del Vecchio, director of the Center for Mental Health Services at the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). …

“The overall rate of depression among young people jumped to 11 percent between 2013 and 2014, up from 9.9 percent the previous year, the SAMHSA report found. The report was published July 7.”

My Comment: The rate of depression will grow increasingly faster among youth according to the general growth of the ego. Adults have to provide youth with meaning in life, but they don’t have it either. The Bnei Baruch organization should start disseminating their ideas on the Internet, which is where the youth spend their time.
[190729]

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Question: Do you believe that a person can be happy in this world?

Answer: It is impossible. You can close your eyes; you can even get drunk or take drugs; you can limit yourself in certain frameworks and not think about anything else, but if a person really discovers himself, if he develops all the time and really wants to understand, to feel, to know, and to attain everything, it is impossible to be happy in our world.

Question: Does this mean that this world was given to us in order to direct us to true happiness?

Answer: This world is given to us as the starting point of our development. We cannot develop any other way in this world. This is the reason that everything that we do in our world is absolutely useless. This means that true life begins from the spiritual ascent, while our world remains as a point. Everything we have done throughout history is only the starting point.

Question: What about all the scientific and cultural achievements?

Answer: All our scientific and cultural achievements are the achievements of our egoism. Nothing is left of all these great achievements and ideas. The whole human history is a history on the animate level.

When we begin to look at ourselves from the side, we realize that the root of all our actions is egoism. It is the cause of all our instincts; it drives us to write poems, novels, music, and other works of art. Therefore, there are no upper attributes, states, or achievements of any kind in any of this!

Our whole history, everything that we experience and all our values we have accumulated throughout our history are only one tiny black point compared to the rest of our development. But when we attain spirituality, we don’t feel sorry about all that because then we truly begin our interstellar journey.
[193778]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 6/19/16

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In the News (Ynet): “According to the teenagers, who recently returned from their vacation, when they left the hotel and requested their passports back (which they had given over for a deposit) the receptionist demanded 50 Euros.

“After asking why they needed to pay and arguing for an hour and a half, things began to heat up.

“The hotel responded, saying ‘the young Israelis smoked and caused a small fire in the rooms. They urinated in the hallways and on the guests’ vehicles. When the staff reprimanded them, the Israelis cursed at the staff members. They broke the management’s doors, pushed women, and threatened to attack them if they didn’t get their deposit back.’

“The hotel spokesman continued, saying ‘(the Israelis) threw up all over the balconies causing other guests to leave and request refunds. They destroyed the wallpaper in the hallways and threw bottles from the balconies. They went swimming in the pool while drunk at 4:00am, despite management telling them that it was forbidden to do so.”

(HaAretz): “Director General of the Tourism Ministry Aharon Domb sent a letter of apology on Wednesday to Louisa Varaclas, director of the Cyprus Tourism Organization in Israel, following a news item published in the Yedioth Ahronot daily on Tuesday regarding the misbehavior of Israeli teenagers in an Aya Napa hotel.

“According to the news item, the youngsters destroyed the doors to their rooms, broke everything they could lay their hands on and broke into other hotel guests’ rooms. …

“Domb said that through travel agents, the ministry of tourism intends to distribute a letter from the ministry to Israeli tourists regarding the importance of proper behavior abroad. In addition, the ministry will contact the teenagers involved in the incident and will try to make them understand the severity of their actions. Domb asked Varaclas to pass his letter to the owner of the hotel in which the teenagers stayed, and expressed his hope that his apology would be accepted.”

My Comment: The lack of discipline and misconduct of the youth is not the fault of the youth but of those who engage in raising and educating them. It is the parents who should be punished or the educators of those teens. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the people’s (and the world’s) bad upbringing is the root of all our problems.
[191120]

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New Life 769 – The Embryo, The Baby And The Soul
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

The learning process begins with the education of the parents. Whatever a woman learns during pregnancy affects her embryo. The embryo is connected to the upper database, but the pressure of the external world closes him in.The baby absorbs much more than we understand through his internal senses. We all live in order to develop our soul, and if a child has a special soul he has existential questions.

A baby is born with undeveloped internal senses, which must be developed. The senses evoke questions and curiosity , so let the child develop in the direction he is drawn and don’t inhibit him.

Whatever a person learns throughout his lifetime basically brings him closer to the correction of his soul in a very special way The world serves as a huge wrapping for the fundamental question: “What am I living for?”

We have a brain and a heart not in order to serve our corporeal body, but so they will help us attain the internality of life. We have an innate desire to know where we came from ,where we are going, what happened before we are born, and what is after death.

The answers to all these questions are on the spiritual dimension, which we perceive when we develop the desire to bestow goodness. The force of bestowal is the force to exit our natural desire to receive everything for our own sake and works in the opposite direction of  spiritual life, in the direction of giving instead of receiving, of love instead of hate. The drop of spiritual semen, the tiny point that can be developed into a desire to love and to bestow is inside us.
[193595]
From KabTV’s”New Life 769 – The Embryo, The Baby And The Soul,” 9/13/16

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New Life 768 – Learning
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Learning isn’t about how much a person remembers but to what extent he expands his perception. We don’t know what the world we live in is and what the connection between us should be, but if we expand our vessels of perception, we will perceive a wider more attractive world. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah engages in.

When a person expands his vessels of perception, he absorbs new data and then processes it and attains a new understanding. Unlike animals, we have to explore what we are living for and study the meaning of life.

This is the reason that man was given intelligence, so that he can understand his essence, his role in the world and the purpose of his evolution.

Small children have a natural instinct to learn, to know about new things and to explore so that they will grow and develop. This instinct is extinguished when they grow up, but if an adult has a desire to discover things, to learn, and to develop, he will also be able to study.

The difference between the animate level and the level of the speaking is that the level of the speaking is about endless study, and if I don’t learn something new every day, I don’t feel that I am alive. The understanding is both emotional and mental, the heart understands. If a person doesn’t learn to correct his soul during his lifetime, there is nothing left of him after he passes away.
[193492]
From KabTV’s “New Life 768 – Learning,” 9/13/16

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Question: Universities around the world have conducted comprehensive studies in the field of education. In North Carolina in the United States, scientists reached the conclusion that everything depends on where a baby is born; in Kenya in East Africa they follow every step that a child takes, whereas in Europe this is considered to be aggressive. Does a single method exist through which it is possible to educate children?

Answer: There can be different ways of educating. But the main thing is to develop a feeling in the child that someone’s “shoulder” stands by his side, creating closeness between people.

The psychological basis of a person may differ, but it is up to us to understand that their fellowship, mutual understanding, and closeness must be developed in humanity, not in a physical sense, but in an internal sense.

We must understand that we are living in an integral environment in which everything is mutually connected. This should be taught from childhood. He must know that only in this manner can humanity survive, and therefore, we must relate to each other well.

Mutual aid, mutual connection, and mutual understanding, these properties must be in the conceptual apparatus of the child from birth! To direct the tiny human toward cooperation with others, we must bring him up properly, even if he doesn’t want this, because habit becomes second nature. But to do this, it is up to all of humanity to understand that we are heading toward disaster.

I am sorry that humanity cannot hear anything. But it doesn’t surprise me because that is our nature.  But the fact is that this nature must still be corrected and mankind must understand this and rise above it. In the meantime, unfortunately, it is not realized.

To do this requires a team organized throughout the world so that all of humanity will begin to move toward connection and unity. Otherwise, the world has no chance of surviving.
[193150]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 8/24/16

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New Life 767 – The Next Level
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Today, humanity has reached a unique state, the previous level of development has ended. On the one hand, we have immense abilities, and on the other hand, everything that we have developed works to our detriment. As a result of this, people are in despair and give up.This stage of our development is called the “recognition of evil.”

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches why we are alive and where we must go. Our next form is the form of a “circle,” everyone living in equality, in connection, “as one person with one heart.” What we are missing today is the understanding of the goal of life, what we are living for. Later we will discover that we need to rise above the egoism toward “And you shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18).

When people will truly be connected with each other, each one will feel a higher, spiritual level of life. Nature didn’t create us connected from the start so that it would be possible for us to develop spiritually independently. When people are connected, their attitude toward others is as it is toward themselves, all are equal and love each other.

For thousands of years people have spoken about the general rule, “And you shall love your friend as yourself.” The wisdom of Kabbalah offers a unique method for its realization.
[193317]
From KabTV’s “New Life 767 – The Next Level,” 9/6/16

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