Entries in the 'Q&A' Category

Magical Circles In Pedagogy

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can a person know that he is ready to be a teacher, and are there classes for this?

Answer: First of all, a person must have a disposition to teach, meaning not to lecture (every person can do this egoistically), but to explain, to observe how the student works and whether he accepts the teacher’s opinion. A teacher also needs to possess the ability to learn from the students, adapt and explain according to the changes.

I do not think that every person is capable of doing this; however, there are many areas in education. Some people do not like to speak and explain things, but suddenly prove themselves as good practical leaders. They play with the children, organize groups, and take them on field trips.

Our education is different in the way that we, primarily, want to teach the children about life. We show them museums, factories, and hospitals, although this, of course, depends on their age. They become acquainted with the operations of an airport, railway station, and bank. We make plans with the managers of a facility ahead of time, and when the children arrive, they are explained the production process.

We explain to them where they are going to ahead of time. Once the children return, they sit together in a circle and discuss the things they understood, how a certain mechanism operates and its purpose, and so on. We want them to know everything about life: how restaurants, hospitals, factories, and zoos operate. They take notes during the field trip, and then they write an essay and discuss it together with their teachers. This expands their world view.

We do many things within the framework of mutual agreement. When someone gets in a fight, argues, or has a misunderstanding, this is discussed among everyone. Sometimes we even have a mock trial: We assign children to be the judge, the attorney, the jury, the witnesses, and the audience. Roles change next time around.

This way every child learns to see himself or herself through the eyes of others: how a judge, the prosecutor, the audience, and others see him or her. A child begins to develop and see a wider world than his narrow view.

There are other examples, but the key element is to have a discussion in a circle. There is no such thing that children sit in class and look at the teacher: Everyone is equal in a circle, including the teachers.

The teacher lowers himself to the common level and remains among the children, without standing out. He manages them in such an unnoticeable way that they do not perceive it. And we teach them to be responsible: judge, defend, accuse. Children have an enormous ability to absorb, and we must use it.

Any person able to teach or manage a group, prepare material, or develop the method can be a teacher. We need different professionals to work with children, both boys and girls. Usually, they study separately, but sometimes we combine them.
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From Lesson 6, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

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I Want To Be A Child!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the method of teaching Kabbalah to children?

Answer: It is very easy to explain any phenomenon to a child. It only seems difficult to us; however, that is not so.

It is written that the one teaching a child is as if writing on a blank sheet of paper, whereas we, grown-ups, must write on paper we ourselves have doodled on. First we must neutralize our thoughts, desires, prejudices, and preconceptions, erase many things within, and only after we can try writing something. But experience shows that it is easy working with children.

I have seen this in my son’s example. When I began studying with Rabash, I would repeat the material we read during the lesson at home. My seven year-old son would sit next to me, and I would recite the text back to him in order to better take in the material. I saw that he perceived and remembered it better than I did. I asked him questions, and he answered correctly.

Then I understood that the more pure the person, even still a child, the more naturally he perceives Kabbalah. This is because in reality, it is a science of nature, and we see this on the children. I am jealous of how naturally they all perceive it!

Many things register in them simply through repetition, without having to sense them, because their sensory mechanism has not yet been developed. The sensation will come at a later time, during the time of the eruption of hormones. But by then, they will already be filled with different laws and formulas. So once their hormones will start working and desires will begin to surge, they will know how to regulate them.
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From Lesson 6, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

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Who Is With Me?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we, your students, join your mind?

Answer: What does it mean “with me?” You are with me if you annul yourself, lower your desire before my desire. If you attend lessons, it does not necessarily mean that you are with me. This is not the study in the true meaning yet.

After all, uniting should be inner; it’s not about the words you hear. We unite through desires, goals, and common actions. The one who evokes the property of bestowal into action is the one who studies. In this case you indeed study the wisdom. You will not be able to receive the wisdom, the Light of Hochma (Wisdom), from me if you do not activate the Light of Hassadim (Mercy) as a vessel. And Hassadim is self-annulment and unity when you are ready for this.

You vacate a space for every soul in your heart, and then all souls fill this volume. The entire reality returns to you. However, it returns precisely through your annulment.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/30/2011, “The Acting Mind”

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Faith In The Sages

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If a person is raised in religion from childhood and filled with the notion that there is only the Creator, why do people believe in all kinds of impure forces?

Answer: How can you believe in the Creator when you have never seen or otherwise sensed Him? What can you ask of a person who believes in second-hand stories? One person has one story to tell, another has something else, but neither of them has seen anything with their own eyes, and neither have I. There cannot be blind faith!

This is why the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks only of actual attainment, as it is said: “A judge has only what his eyes can see.” And by no means can we deviate from this principle.

We must know the Creator by revealing Him, not by believing in Him. Kabbalah says that there is some higher reality that we don’t perceive, which is still concealed from us. We know that looking at the world with nearsighted eyes you can only see a few feet in front of you, but with glasses you can see a mile away.

Similarly, there is another opportunity to infinitely expand our perception (vision, understanding, sensation) and also to add new qualities, to reveal new dimensions. All of this is possible. We accept this as a hypothesis, just as in science. We believe the Kabbalists that if we do certain actions which they speak of, we can achieve this new level of perception: achieve attainment, enlightenment, and sensation. The method is not about blind faith.

I have faith in the method; that is, I accept it with a question mark so that I could test and actualize it in practice. And then I see that the method is very logical, that it clearly explains to me how I can use the environment so that it changes me; I realize how I need to act with respect to the forces that exist in nature.

I believe only when I see that the method gives the desired result, though the actions themselves are clear and obvious. The notion that I can use the environment to work against my egoistic nature, to achieve a quality that’s opposite to it, is quite realistic. This is called “faith in the sages,” when I follow their advices.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/27/2011, Shamati No.1

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In The Reflection Of The Upper Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If the Creator is unchangeable, why do each one of us perceive Him differently?

Answer: Each one of us perceives the Creator differently to the extent of the development of his or her soul, according to his or her desires and qualities. This is because the Creator Himself cannot be perceived. I never feel Him; I perceive myself in relation to the “simple upper Light.” And in relation to this simple upper Light, I discover myself.

So, where am I? You are the entire world. Do you feel it? Yes. Do you exist together with those around you? Yes. Well, then you are this entire world. It is your desire where you perceive everything.

Do you feel as if it were happening on the outside? You are wrong. All of it is inside you. The entire world is inside you. You simply perceive your reality this way, against the upper Light. You do not perceive this upper Light, but it exists, and also not on the outside, but inside of you.

Anything you could ever imagine is inside you, the upper Light as well. But what is the upper Light? You can only speak about it based on your experience. Where is it? It is inside your desires. Everything is inside man.

This goes on until we actually reveal the upper force.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/2011, Shamati No.1

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What Is A Spiritual Necessity?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is a spiritual necessity?

Answer: A spiritual necessity is the feeling inside of me that I lack the aspiration toward the neighbor, toward the Creator. It is the sensation of how much I am still unconnected to the inner system that I imagine as our common desire, the united heart “as one man with one heart.”

I am tormented by how far away I still am from this state and from the revelation of the Creator inside of this common heart. This is exactly what all of my suffering has to be about. And I must always try to check and see how much do I aspire to this and how much do I desire to attain this quicker.

Clearly, the environment has to help me do this. It must be imbued by the atmosphere of a common spiritual search where we are all simply killing ourselves over this goal. And this does not bear any relation to what happens to us in our regular lives in our world. This is a very deep inner aspiration and an inner way to check a person and the group.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/11, Writings of Rabash

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The Point Where You Begin

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean to ask from the Creator and how can we ask something from Him? Should we just say inside of us: Correct my qualities?

Answer: When a person first starts out doing this, he turns to the Creator as if He were an individual, an external authority, an external force that is outside of him as if he were praying to an “idol” or to some imaginary image. But you can’t do anything about that. This is how we imagine the Creator in the beginning.

However, later on we begin to reveal that this force exists only inside of us, according to the prohibition, “You shall not make other gods for yourself,” meaning ones that are outside of you.

We delve deeper and deeper inside, where we discover that the Creator is located precisely at our deepest point. It’s like your mother, who gave birth to you and is therefore perceived by you as the innermost force that created you, being the point of your origin, your source. That is how a person senses the Creator.

The Creator begins to be felt inside of you as the innermost source of energy, feeling, and reason.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/11, Writings of Rabash

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Crossing The Egyptian Border

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What can I do if I have a great desire to unify with the friends, but no matter how hard I am trying to do so, I am unable to stay in it for more than five minutes and get carried away by all kinds of irrelevant thoughts?

Answer: You need to transfer yourself from one thought to the other, over and over again. What can you do if our work is done in small steps, like children who grow little by little, day by day. But a child does work, all day long, in order to advance. It constantly tests the environment and itself: How well it can fit into and employ it, how to develop in order to take the most advantage of the environment.

But we don’t do the same. Each second we don’t examine how we should use our environment, what the best way is to connect to it. We don’t wish to unify and test ourselves: Do we bestow to the environment? Can you really do it each moment like a child does? And that’s where our problem lies; it is the reason why our progress is so slow.

Nothing is halting us. We received all the instruments; everything is written down for us; everything is explained; and all we need to do is jump on it altogether and just do it! And then anyone, even if he is in the farthest corner of the Earth, will also feel he can’t do otherwise.

Only the common inner effort of the entire world group will awaken every heart. No one has any other chances to keep on the path, to immediately wake up and keep moving forth. This is regarded as the mutual guarantee, when all guarantee to everyone that he will quickly wake up and reach the good state.

Egypt isn’t that necessary if we are passing through it together. The Creator arranges everything so that we can bear this turmoil which is regarded as the “pain of love” when I dream about meeting with someone I love, and yearn for Him, for this anticipated encounter that lies ahead.

And I naturally suffer since I haven’t yet come to that meeting and we haven’t reunited, but I already live looking forward to it, in the illuminated anticipation of the future. The only difficulty on this path is lack of unity between us. Beyond it, there is nothing else.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/2011, Beit Shaar HaKavanot

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The New Babylon

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is our message to the American people?

Answer: It’s to reveal the truth as soon as possible: Where we actually are and how we can save the situation. I repeat that everything depends on you. I wish good guides for the American people, and you are these guides.

Question: America holds a special place. Is this because it is the new Babylon?

Answer: Yes, but it is no longer the same place that America held some twenty years ago. Today, the entire globe is Babylon. Before, America was the gathering place for a multitude of nations and cultures, and this is why it was a special place. Today, everyone is connected with one another. The entire world has become Babylon.

It is amazing that sages wrote thousands of years ago that this would happen. I did not believe it when Rabash spoke about this. I simply smiled at him. However, it has been twenty years, and we have suddenly found ourselves connected and dependent on one another.

The laws of nature are invariable. We will benefit if we manage to explain this to people and understand that there is no other choice.
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From Lesson 7, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

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