Question: Don’t you think that we need much wider dissemination of Kabbalah without mentioning its name, but rather explaining its ideas, the causes of the current crisis, and the necessity to unite in our world?

Answer: I totally agree with what you just said about the necessity of being more open in our external dissemination. I agree that special programs with the intent of spreading this wisdom more broadly are essential. We also have to prepare professionals in this field.

However, before acting, we have to conduct research in order not to drown in the sea of similar slogans and mottos urging “unity” that are already being spread by other people that know how to use “beautiful words.” There are so many organizations out there. The Internet is crowded with them, but no one listens to them. Why?

The reason is that nature is just a desire to receive pleasure and delight selfishly. A person can “hear” only within the radius of his own desires, but he cannot go beyond them. This is how creation was built. Screaming is useless here.

Rabash once said that while desire is not sold in the drug store, we can only address those who are “sick.” We all are indifferent to everything except ourselves. We cannot blame people for that. So what options do we have?

We can only do the following:

1. Disseminate our ideas and bring together those who already have “a point in the heart.”

2. Disseminate our ideas a little wider than only to those who already have “a point in the heart,” also to the people who are very close to getting it.

3. We know that, so far, humanity doesn’t want to acknowledge the global crisis and tries to hide it. The only thing that is impossible to cover up (and that is being felt by each of us) is the predicament in the upbringing (not education!) of our children and the critical situation at schools, in families, and in our personal lives.

If we can manage to demonstrate to others that we are able to bring up the young generation to be physically and psychologically healthy, ethical, and aware of the purpose of their existence to its very width and depth, we would definitely attract everybody’s attention. Thus, through such upbringing (a collective one, through the attraction of Ohr Makif, the Surrounding Light) we would enlighten children instead of adults, that is, we would form a new generation that will replace their parents several years from now.

We have to set up a chain of schools all over the world. We have to use the Internet to create an open school for everybody; virtual space should become a platform for upbringing and education, the creation of interest groups, communication networks, and whatever else is popular among youngsters. We have to raise them from the material plane to virtual space and then to spirituality.

For that, we have to launch a virtual school. Even if we happen to attract only our friends’ children worldwide, it still will bring in hundreds of thousands of kids that will achieve good results and that later on will become active and educated participants of our movement. As a child matures physically, he will grow spiritually as well.

We can implement the third item in practice and thereby push the world towards correction, as it is said in The Bible: “Return the hearts of fathers to their sons, and the hearts of their sons back to their fathers.”
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Kabbalah for the Nation Introductory Lecture Series, “Israel and the Nations of the World”
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Kabbalah for the Nation Introductory Lecture Series, “We Shall Do and We Shall Hear”
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Question: What should a child’s proper environment be like?

Answer: A child will always grow up to be like his environment. This is why caring for the environment is the same as caring for the child.

Think of the ways to influence his environment and control him indirectly by giving him games, books, and videos that contain the information you chose for him, but that is presented to him in an interesting manner. Teach children to protect themselves from bad, outer influence and also show them how to resist it on their own; give them the power to stand on their principles. After all, the system of values is built on the opposition of good and evil.

There is no problem building a good environment for children if parents arrange it. It is easy to bribe a child with games and sweets and, gradually, to connect him to the necessary environment. Then, it will begin to influence him.

Also, the teacher needs to have the ability to get down to the level of a child so the child will not feel that the teacher is bigger. He should sit with the children, play with them, and speak like them. He should invade the children’s environment like a secret agent and work with them. Then, he will be able to pass his spirit on to them and lift them gradually. However, if the teacher is higher than them, then the children perceive him like furniture. They run among the legs of the adults and push them around so that the adults will stop bothering them. They have their own world.

In other words, everything needs to be organized for the attainment of one purpose: to develop love for others in children in order to reach love for the Creator through it. This is the intention that a child must have in the beginning of his life and at the end of every action. It is specifically at this young age that this is easy and possible. If you instill love for others in your child from an early age, you will guarantee the highest degree of safety and success for him in life.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/10, “The Love of the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Question: What does it mean to “raise a child with the ‘Torah and commandments’ and with the intention to bestow to the Creator instead of love for himself?”

Answer: Commandments are the steps of the correction of our egoistic desire, the desire to receive pleasure, which becomes revealed more on every step as if to hinder love between us. However, when we correct this egoism that pushes us apart and turn it into bestowal, love manifests itself specifically in it, that is, it becomes our ally. This is what we refer to as the Torah and commandments.

The Torah is the Light that Reforms, love and bestowal, and commandments are the actions of correcting the human desires into love and bestowal. The Torah is the method that allows us to attain love, union, and bestowal because it contains the Light, the force of correction. This Light created the desire, and only it can correct it. However, there is a condition: We must desire the correction, evoke the Light to act. This is the role of man.

Children are raised neither by their  father nor mother, nor by the school teacher. Even if you were the greatest of Kabbalists, you would not be able to raise a child; only the proper society can do it. No matter how much parents put into their children, children do not take anything from their parents, but rather fall under the influence of their environment on the street or in school,  and there they receive all their models of behavior and life values.

They perceive their fathers and mothers as a system and not their environment. The environment is something that is close to the children. It speaks a language the children understand and it also understands them. They are on one level. The need for the environment arises around the age of three to four, and it is necessary to place proper boundaries around them.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah, we learn that we only perceive either the Partzuf that is equal to us or a higher one that has descended to us. We do not perceive above the level equal to us. This is why a child perceives the father and mother as those who must serve him.

This is why it is only possible to educate through the environment. Create a proper environment for your children. Then, you will be able to influence them.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/10, “The Love of the Creator and Love of the Created Beings”

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Kabbalah for the Nation Introductory Lecture Series, “Preparation for the Congress”
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Lately, people have been sending in many questions about our education system. We are creating a new educational system, and we must use it for the sake of bestowal, for dissemination purposes. This will pave the path to its successful development, support, and acknowledgement. Our children will become part of the process that is directed toward aiding all the children of the world. We are using that which is the dearest to us, our children, for dissemination purposes, as an example of proper upbringing.

This is the key to success: We are not only concerned with the well-being of our children, but the well-being of the entire world. This means that our primary objective is not in creating our own school, but in organizing virtual, model classes to serve as examples for shaping children into adults.

We will use this foundation to make educational video programs so children around the world could use them to study after school over the internet or through local television. Dynamic programs of different formats tailored to specific age groups will introduce us as a serious educational organization that really cares about education. We will provide the world with a systematic supply of educational programs in different languages. Naturally, we will do it without mentioning the wisdom of Kabbalah, but only using its global, integral approach to the revelation of the world.

This system does not conflict with the scholastic program; on the contrary, it shapes a child into an adult. Gradually, we will also introduce all the school subjects into our programs from the perspective of the global worldview of reality and our world.

We need to teach children to understand that their perception of the world is relative and show them that it is possible to feel and understand the world in a different way without becoming stuck on stubborn preconceived notions. When telling children about nature, we need to teach them about relative perception, arouse questions about themselves, bring them closer to reality, and open up the world before them.

The aforementioned are not groundless fantasies, but actual results that we already clearly observe on hundreds of our children over the past several years.
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From the Talk on Education 10/1/10

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It is written in King Solomon’s Book of Proverbs (Mishlei): “He who spares his rod hates his son.” Parenting is built on judgment and mercy, just as we are governed by judgment and mercy from Above. There is no place here for unconditional love because the child must sense a balanced influence of these two forces.

In so doing we show him that he has freedom of choice. Let him make his choice every time, but he has to know that the wrong choice will instantly result in a negative reaction. As he grows, the child will acquire increasingly greater freedom for independent action because the negative response, for example, the “rod,” will be increasingly concealed. In the end, we will raise a person who lives in a wide world and knows that he exists between these two forces, reward and punishment, and that in order to follow a straight path, he has to actualize his free will in every step he takes.

The attitude toward all children, from the littlest ones to big kids like us, has to stem from exerting and controlling judgment and mercy, gradually annulling them in accordance with the education level. We give the child more and more freedom, passing to him control over himself, until he comes out into the world and accepts from us these “reigns” of judgment and mercy, so as to become an independent person in their optimal combination, in the middle line.

This is what we instill in him, and he accepts from us the right and left lines, reward and punishment, and continues to build himself with their help.
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From the Talk on Education 9/29/10

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Question: It is common to humanize animal characters for the purpose of education. Is this a correct approach?

Answer: I have never seen an elephant converse with a fox, a dog singing, or a mouse pulling crafty tricks on a hapless cat. I don’t see any educational value in these models. As compared to a realistic worldview, there is a great lie in them. I don’t see in them examples that show a little person how to behave in life.

Instead, I see a distorted picture of the world. By imposing imaginary stories on a child, we maim his reason and warp his logic. We don’t even realize that these illusions will remain with him for the rest of his life, forming his attitude toward the world.

Obviously, we need to familiarize the children with the still, vegetative, and animate worlds, but only in their true form. We ought to treat a small child like a small person, and not a visitor from some imagined reality, where animals speak and exist in fairytale relationships with one another. This approach is a consequence of our sanctimonious world and all kinds of absurdities that humanity has concocted over thousands of years. The wisdom of Kabbalah has a very different outlook on things.

Is this really the only way to raise our kids? In the examples and explanations we offer, can we not avoid animals, the majority of which children have never even seen? Otherwise we’re imposing “virtual” characters on the child, which is tantamount to telling him about ghosts and spirits.

My grandson has a conception of a cell phone, an airplane, a car, and dogs and cats in the streets. So why should I feed him fables? “You know, somewhere outside the city there is a forest, and in that forest there are animals who talk to each other….” Up until now he has lived in the real world, and here I introduce a lie into it. What for? What is the educational value here? Simply, I slipped the child a make-believe reality, which he perceives as fact. Imbued with these fables, he will retain this distorted perception for the rest of his life. No wonder we’ve got people jumping into bear enclosures, thinking the animals are so soft and cuddly.

A child must be educated not with fables, but with parables and games, where the make-believe is not presented as reality. Stop feeding kids fables, and keep them on a truth-only diet. Any lie is imprinted in their subconscious, incorporated into their inner program, and distorts their outlook on life. Only the truth should be expanded more and more as the child develops. The truth will redefine the child’s approach to life, and he will grow correctly.
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From the Talk on Education 9/29/10

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Question: How can you explain to children the law of “love thy neighbor as thyself”?

Answer: Education should be the same for children and adults. Only with the child you reveal everything in a smaller measure, presenting examples that he can understand, that are merely “reduced” to his level, and not fairytales. In every case he must be told the truth! We simply need to make sure he understands us properly at his level, just as we adapt the language of the Kabbalists in an effort to bring it closer to the modern man and make it clear to everybody.

It takes many lessons to explain to a child a small part of what the adults study at the daily lesson. After verifying that all the previous lessons were grasped, I reveal a new problem for the group of children to solve; I give them “half a spoon” of it, just for a “taste.”

But afterward, the child must start asking questions, while lacking in understanding and plagued by doubts, discussing it with his friends, together trying to understand what is really going on, wherein lies the problem and its solution. And the teacher includes himself in the discussion on equal terms with them, guiding them toward the right path while keeping his distance.

First we fully clarify the question itself, and then we try to find the solution. Through this process the teacher evaluates the children’s progress: Every preceding degree connects into the succeeding degree with its lower part. No grades are given, everyone is equal; we only evaluate the collective solution to any given problem.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/4/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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