Entries in the 'Education' Category

There Is Work For Everyone!

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (The International Labour Organization (ILO), a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with labor issues): The International Labour Organization is concerned that despite the recovery from the economic crisis and the improving situation in global financial markets, unemployment continues to rise.

“ILO statistics paint a grim picture of the current global employment situation with 210 million people out of work–the highest number in history; and over half of the global workforce in vulnerable employment. According to the ILO, in the next 10 years, more than 440 million new jobs will be needed to absorb new entrants into the labor force, and still more to reverse the unemployment caused by the recent crisis. While the world is seeing significant levels of economic growth in some countries, unemployment, particularly for young people, remains at record levels in many countries, posing enormous long term social and economic challenges including threats to social cohesion.”

“The lack of decent work exposes young people to high levels of economic uncertainty. … A generation without hope for decent employment can be a problem for families, the economy and society at large. The inability to find stable employment creates a sense of frustration and idleness among young people.”

My comment: There is no way to employ everybody in the world. New technologies are changing the nature of work: Many professions disappear, and there is no need for laborers and clerks in the information age. It is easier and cheaper to keep a person unemployed than to invent an occupation for him. However, the problem with occupying people emerges; idle time leads to degradation, emptiness, and tension in society.

Kabbalah explains that our development happens according to the general internal plan of nature: We have reached a new threshold in our technological and social development. Therefore, Kabbalah suggests that we should learn how to live in the new, integral, common world which must uncover a new stage in its existence: the spiritual one.

This state can be achieved only by mass education, training and teaching the new laws of the surrounding nature and social and personal behavior. Only in this way will we rise to the level where we begin to control nature, and a sensation of comfort will replace a sensation of crisis.

Full employment in our time is possible only in spiritual work, learning it and carrying it out within oneself and with others. Thus, we build a new society where everyone has work!
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No More Girls And Boys

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn 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.

The Phases Of The Great Path

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: 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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The Catalyst Of The Spiritual Desire

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can people who don’t feel any aspiration for spirituality be able to reach it if this requires a latent memory about it, a forgotten taste? Why do they suffer uselessly?

Answer: People do suffer uselessly, and that is why we have to bring to them the method of development without the blows. Then even if a person does not have spiritual genes (information about previous states), he will receive them from others thanks to the mutual inclusion.

It’s like in our world when you are resting in an armchair in front of the TV with a cup of coffee, watching a soccer game, and you think that you don’t need anything more. But suddenly they show you some commercial that convinces you that you absolutely need some object. You immediately forget all about soccer and start thinking about how to buy that thing. The advertisement takes away your sense of tranquility and awakens your desires.

We do not understand just how dependent we are on the influence of the environment. If we did not have that influence, we would be like animals in a forest. After all, according to the desires of our bodies, we don’t need anything besides the vital necessities.

Everything that is beyond the boundaries of necessity are things we wish for only due to the influence of society, which pressures me and convinces me that I need one thing, and another, and a third, and then I feel like I have to obtain those things.

If from every direction, via all the means of mass information, society now starts telling me that I need spirituality, then besides the simple necessities of this animate body, all I will need is spirituality. This is all we have to do—place ourselves under the influence of the right environment. And I don’t need anything else! It’s not necessary for the spiritual gene to awaken in me because the external environment will perform all of that work.

Spiritual genes awaken in special people who suddenly receive that kind of infusion from above and dash forward. This is special care from above. But others have to develop only by virtue of the environment.

Therefore, if we don’t build the right environment around all of humanity, if we don’t disseminate this knowledge across the whole world, then the world will have to advance only by the price of enormous suffering.
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/11, “General Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Our Meeting Place With Humanity

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we explain to people the difference between the right kind of unity and the wrong kind?

Answer: We are simply saying, “Let’s get to know nature.” I do not want to divide humanity into those who unite correctly and those who do it incorrectly, and I don’t want to analyze anyone personally. That is why we are setting up contacts with scientists—in order to show everyone what nature is. And you can decide for yourselves what to do next. Just know that the degree of your similarity to nature determines how many disasters you will receive from it. The greater is the equivalence, the less troubles and the more pleasures are waiting for you.

Everyone has to have a clear understanding of what the source of their suffering is. Humanity is asking this question, and we will give it the answer. In our times it is already possible to explain things. Previously it was impossible to explain anything because we first had to reach the maximal, global, integral egoism. But today we have reached this level and therefore we can explain the general picture of what is happening to people.

From here on we will explain it in increasingly easier words, reformulating it again and again, and using this as a basis to explain the source of people’s problems in their family, with their children, with their health, at the bank, at work, on the roads, with one’s self, and so on.

After all, the general nature is essentially your entire life. Inside of this picture you will be able to find your attitude to everything, including football, work, and death….

However, you are still not expressing yourself in this picture. Newton revealed the law of gravity thanks to an apple that fell. However, the law operated before that as well. Similarly, it would be good if someone would “get it” and recognize the universal law of nature in order to tell the world about it. But if we wait for this to happen without giving a preliminary “presentation,” then we will pay too high a price.

By now I can already talk about this with anyone. The knowledge is in my hands, but let’s check it together. It belongs to everyone and if everyone learns it, we will all win. So let’s see whether or not I am right.

This is a very sound, scientific approach, pure of any personal biases. And I am willing to check myself as well. Most importantly, look at what is being revealed by a science that has reached us through many millennia. And it is especially relevant to the present moment, to whether or not we will have the means to live tomorrow, whether we will survive or fall in war.

In short, from the entire picture of nature, you cite the facts that confirm how everything aspires to unity. All of the still, vegetative, and animate nature is in balance, in homeostasis, in a fine interaction between different species. It seems to us that they simply eat each other, but in reality this is mutual existence. That is how the cells in our bodies exist as well.

Obviously, it is not simple to raise people slightly above their current level, but there is no other choice. You cannot leave them on the “animate” level and keep them on the infusion of the upper Light to change them from the inside. They have to come a bit closer to it themselves as well.

You come closer to them by trying to give them explanations that are as simple as possible, while the Creator will awaken their interest or even nudge them forward with blows so they would gain a greater awareness of the modern troubles and will be more willing to listen to the rationale. Then you will meet in some place: You with your maximally simplified explanations, and they with the attention span they are capable of having.
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/26/11, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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Live News: Thirteen Minutes About The Most Important Thing

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe crisis that has enveloped the world was very obvious at the recent conventions we held, including the one in Italy three weeks ago and especially  the one in Madrid, Spain a week ago. There the crisis is very apparent. The masses are in disarray, and the rate of unemployment among young people is 40%. And things only get worse every day. There are demonstrations and protestors holding sit-ins on the streets, and more.

I deliberately walked around the streets there and talked to people. They don’t know what to do and are holding protests in front of government buildings. But the government also doesn’t know what to do. Everyone is confused and no one is guilty. And it’s all because we are finding ourselves facing nature’s challenge.

Work places cannot be created out of empty space. And what for? By doing that we would only exhaust the remaining natural resources even faster, ruin the soil, and pollute the environment even more. Our water and air resources will dwindle even faster. So why should we stimulate the deteriorating economy? Just to give people work? With these kinds of consequences, it’s better not to give it to them!

In Spain I appeared on the most popular TV channel during prime time. Instead of speaking for just a few minutes, which was planned according to the program, the interview lasted thirteen minutes. Can you imagine—thirteen minutes on the morning news, among reports about the most important current events! They just couldn’t put an end to the interview.

My suggestion was simple and came down to one piece of practical advice: We have to sit people down to study. They should be paid unemployment benefits (which will also be the most effective money-saving strategy) and they should be taught about what kind of world we are living in, what exists in front of us, and what kind of challenge nature is throwing at us.

This is not someone’s whim or the interests of a certain party or government leaders. This is none other than nature, which is challenging us. And the challenge is for us to change. We do not have to change anything besides ourselves.

We have to become integral and global, in conformity to the current crisis. After all, the crisis is the sensation of one’s lack of conformity with the surrounding nature. Therefore, if we correct ourselves this way, everything will become balanced out and will reach harmony. This is what people should be taught.

The interview received a widespread positive response throughout all of Spain, as well as Latin American and North America, and that’s because it really is the only sensible way to come out of the situation that has formed. And Spain is not alone. Greece, Iceland, Italy and others are in a similar situation, and there are many other countries gradually entering this crisis. And in other places the crisis is coming in different ways.

That is how nature places a clear task before us: We have to change. We have to be integral with nature just like everything else it contains—the still, vegetative, and animate levels. Man should not think that he is above nature and that he can do anything he wishes. His most important task is to consciously become an integral part of the whole.

By becoming an integral part of nature, he begins to understand what it is, and suddenly discovers new depths in it: the worlds of Assiya, Beria, Yetzira, Atzilut, Adam Kadmon, and the world of Infinity. He no longer obstructs himself from nature with his egoism, but starts to feel nature as transparent. He finally understands and becomes aware of the forces that control everything, including himself.

This is the task we are facing today. Therefore, if we desire it and use the force of aspiration forward, which exists in many people in the world, then we really will aspire to self-correction, to the world’s revelation, to exiting from the state of dreaming, from unconsciousness. Then we will attain total equality with nature, the Creator’s level.
From the 1st lesson at the Moscow Convention 6/10/11

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Know The World You Live In

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do we reach people in authority? After all, we want to break down the walls of the box they live in.

Answer: Not at all. We don’t fight with the government, don’t destroy politics and the economy, and we don’t break customary lifestyles. We fight only for the education of people and not more. I am in favor of leaving everything in the world as it is, only adding the principle of “love your neighbor as thyself.”

It’s none of my business what has been built so far. Let them build more. Only one thing is important for me: People should know in what world they live, what they live for, and how they can truly fulfill themselves so that they reach the goal without falling into self-deception and entertaining themselves with all kinds of games that give only fleeting, inadequate fulfillment, and ending in death.

I don’t cancel anything, don’t oppose government programs, banks, city halls, and the like. I don’t care about that. Do what you want: If you want to steal, steal, do other silly things, it’s not important; I don’t look at that at all. All I want is to add education.

The purpose of education is to give knowledge about the world we live in, how it functions, what moves it, what its goal is, what would happen if we go along with this program, and what would happen if we deviate from it or head in the opposite direction. How much suffering will this bring us? What kind of suffering? Whether it’s worth it or not? I want people to know, to see what they face, to be able to read the map and nothing more.

All the other issues are on another plane, and I don’t overlap with it at all: My office is on the floor above. We are talking only about what we are destined to come to anyway. We deplete natural resources and pollute the Earth. Thus, we have to move from a consumer society to a balanced society, in other words, to stop acting silly.

People need simple everyday things: housing, work, food, clothing, and the like. This should be provided for everyone, and everything else has to cease. We have to stop producing useless goods, to stop measuring one’s success by output. These goods empty the planet and pollute the environment.

Thus, you will work half a day to provide the necessities and study the rest of the day, passing exams from time to time. You will be paid for this and only for this.

People don’t know the world they live in. They graduate from school, not matching the reality they exist in. They live in their illusions, in isolation from the world, surprised by the troubles they attract to themselves. These troubles come because, like children, we act to harm ourselves.

And thus, I want only one thing for you: to add education and, most importantly, upbringing and training, the essence of which is the correction of the relationship between people. Then, you will be in sync, in balance, with the world; you will become an integral whole, which is the imperative of the time. All the elements have to be correctly connected with the main mechanism, with natural networks of interconnection, and you don’t even know about this.

That is what I am talking about. True, such education will change a person, but it will happen gradually, as if by itself. I don’t fight with the nature of things; I just explain the world to you, show where you live, and as a consequence, you change. You see the facts in front of you, and what can you do? We can do nothing: Having seen immutable laws, we will take them into account.

Nothing can be changed at one go. People act according to their nature. Can it be corrected? Destruction is inherent in human nature, and until you give humans a correct education, until they will see for themselves that they risk losing their lives, they will not stop. And they have to see it in the clearest way, as if death is standing on the threshold. This is the education, the upbringing that we need.

Otherwise, we will not survive on the Earth. This is confirmed by research. There is no other means except education. We don’t have to moralize and tell people whether they are good or bad. They are the way nature created them. They cannot steal less, lie less; they are unable to. It’s said: “Go to the Creator Who made me.” The Creator tells you from the very beginning: “I created the evil inclination.” You are not going to complain to Him about His deeds, are you?

You have only one medicine: “The Torah as a spice,” in other words, education according to the method of Kabbalah.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/2011, “The Freedom”

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