I have started teaching lessons for children around the world every Sunday, from 5:30pm to 6:45pm Israel time [Time Zone Converter].

Lessons are broadcast live on Kabbalah TV, with translation into English and Russian, and more languages in the future.

I’m inviting children from all around the world to join in and ask questions that I will answer live (ed. there is a question submission interface on Kabbalah TV, which gets communicated to Michael Laitman during the lesson).

Also on Kabbalah TV on Sundays:
* Before the children’s lesson, from 4:00pm to 5:30pm Israel time [Time Zone Converter], there is a broadcast of my weekly lesson for beginners (translated into English).
* After the children’s lesson, from 7:00pm until 8:00pm Israel time [Time Zone Converter], there is a broadcast of the weekly gathering of friends (Yeshivat Haverim).

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News Story: Cultural Tolerance for Divorce Grows to 70%

The Gallup service published the results of a traditional survey where Americans were asked to evaluate the moral acceptability of various actions. The survey results show that U.S. residents regard divorce as the most morally acceptable act from the list, while adultery receives the most disapproval.

My Comment: Why is it considered “moral” to break up a family and separate its children in order to satisfy people’s individuality, their egoism? It’s because the society that judges such values as morally acceptable is the same society that places most of its value on the individual. Simply put, divorce and destroying the family is much easier than building the family and developing it, so people view divorce as being something normal.

On the other hand, animalistic affairs, relationships without any deep feelings that are forgotten about as soon as they’re over with, and that take place much more often than divorce, are for some reason looked upon as being the most morally unacceptable acts.

Is this a high level of morality? Is it self deception? Or is it a special institution in a deceitful society? It’s quite possible that any kind of a moral evaluation of behavior has been replaced by whatever people find most convenient. In this same manner, all the “honest” men and their “faithful” wives together scoffed at Clinton! Could it be that people really can’t judge themselves properly? People’s egoism blinds them.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Avalanche of Divorces Can Only be Stopped by the Ultimate Reward
Kabbalah Today Article: Man, Woman and the Snake Between Them

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A question I received: Did you ever have an experience when young students would express a nice attitude to you in order to please you, but later they would begin perceiving everything that happens to them as your manipulation?

My Answer: You’re right. We are under the constant influence of external factors, but we have no awareness of it. Gradually, during the process of study (which I guide), a student begins to realize how he is being controlled from above (by the Creator), and how he can become freed from such control, have his own say, freely choosing and deciding how to act. Those who don’t study Kabbalah, however, remain controlled in every way.

We are like children in our spiritual development. The difference is that with a child, Nature (the Creator) evokes the aspiration to imitate adults. However, in one’s spiritual development, the person himself needs to develop the desire to become an adult, i.e. become similar to the Creator.

He can receive this aspiration only through upbringing and direction (call it “manipulation” if you will) from the teacher and the group. The student and the group are practically always directed by the teacher. Otherwise, how could they understand how and what they should develop to on their own?

The spiritual world, after all, is hidden from them until they acquire, under the teacher’s direction, the qualities similar to that world. Then, to the degree they are similar to the Upper World, they will feel it and be able to continue progressing on their own. As a result of being guided, the students become independent! This is the difference between spiritual (Kabbalistic) development and any other kind of development.

You have to read Baal HaSulam’s article “The Freedom” and then everything will become clear. [Read more →]

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A question I received: Last week, on Israeli journalist Yoav Itzhak’s website, the NFC reported that there is new information about the testimony of businessman Morris (Moshe) Talansky, who supposedly lent money to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Talansky said that a person who has a $50,000 Rolex will not ask to borrow $5,000. He also added that Olmert has “claimed ownership of a pen” worth $15,000, which was supposed to be sold in order for the proceeds to be donated to charity. Talansky asked one of the investigators: “Have you seen Olmert’s ties? What about his cigars? Or his pen collection?” Tomorrow, the transcripts of Morris Talansky’s interrogation will be submitted to court. What is your opinion of all this, as a Kabbalist?

My Answer: It’s nothing special. The only people who aren’t thieves are those who:
1. Do not have a desire (their egoism hasn’t yet developed, and they’re like children who are only interested in a limited range of things),
2. Are ideologically minded (for example, revolutionaries, terrorists, those who are consumed by an idea that suppresses their desire for wealth, i.e. people who place fame or power over wealth, and don’t use those ideas as a means to attain all of these together),
3. Are Kabbalists, that is, those who have acquired a Masach (screen) – the force and knowledge of how to use their enormous egoism correctly.

Related Material:
Article: Correct Use of the Ego
Lesson: The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose [56:53]
Lesson: The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose [56:53]
Lesson: The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose (Transcript)

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A question I received: I understand that the issue of education is one of the most important things to you, and it must be the first thing on your agenda. Today, society disregards teachers, and they suffer from ridiculous budgets and low salaries (compared to the social sector). Additionally, classes are overcrowded with twice the permitted number of students, and there are always several children in a class who require special attention.

Moreover, teachers often need to explain the basic values and norms of behavior, since parents have no choice but to spend very little time with their children. I would like to know your opinion: Is it possible to change the situation, and how? Where will the teachers draw the strength to come out of this current state?

My Answer: Only our dissemination of Kabbalah among parents, the realization of their hopelessness, and their fear for their children will force parents to change the current education system or create a different one, which will work on creating “people” out of children.

Related Material:
Kabbalah Today Article: Spiritual Education
Laitman.com Post: You Can’t Step into the Same River Twice
Article: Education
Article: Raising the Next Generation of Children
Article: Why Kabbalah? Why Now?
eBook: From Chaos to Harmony – The Solution to the Global Crisis According to the Wisdom of Kabbalah

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This week, I held a talk with students of the Architecture Department of Tel Aviv University. The topic of their senior thesis (requested by the university) is “Designing the International Kabbalah Center,” which needs to include all of our numerous services, centers of communication, broadcast center, classrooms, auditoriums, television and radio studios, offices for the creation and editing of our materials, center of Kabbalah dissemination, conference halls, centers for women and children, utility rooms, etc.

A group of nearly thirty students will be working on this project together. For the first time in the university’s history, students are given not individual assignments, but are required to work together on creating a World Spiritual Center. Thus, it was decided that the students are to work on this project together, as a group, and each student will receive credit for his or her mutual work just as if s/he had done it individually.

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A question I received: Within the course of ten years leading up to year 2002, the use of antidepressants in Great Britain increased by 234%. The U.S. independent report of 2005 announced that 11% of women and 5% of men who are not undergoing official treatment (in the year 2002) take antidepressants. What effect do antidepressants have on a person’s spiritual development? Can a student advance in Kabbalah if he’s on antidepressants?

My Answer: Antidepressants are definitely one of today’s leading drugs. Not only do we prescribe them to children, we prescribe them to animals as well. Egoism is incapable of being fulfilled in our world, and at the same time, it hasn’t yet realized its fulfillment in the Upper World. As a result, egoism remains in a sort of intermediate state between the two worlds. Egoism’s growth will lead one to the discovery of Kabbalah as a method of fulfillment, but in the meantime – suffering!

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A question I received in response to the post What Do You Do with an Unsupportive Wife?: What does a woman who studies Kabbalah do with an unsupportive husband? What happens to the children? Is it correct to believe that the Creator has put us in this situation for the good of all, or should I do what is important for me as a woman?

My Answer: First and foremost, you should fulfill your earthly responsibilities, and only in your free, personal time, study what interests you, without imposing it on anyone else.

A question I received on the Ask a Question page: If my husband’s soul isn’t yet ready for Kabbalah, does this affect my spiritual advancement?

My Answer: It has no affect on it whatsoever.

A question I received on the Ask a Question page: I am relatively new to the study of Kabbalah and I’m still a little confused about the woman’s role in Kabbalah (I’ve been attending the fundamentals lessons at www.arionline.com and this subject came up last week about men and women having different methods of study, which led me to the article “A Talk about the Spiritual Advancement of Women”). So, I have the following the questions that I hope you can help me to understand better…

If a woman’s desire should be for the men to find/achieve the nine Sefirot, will a woman not receive the Light until that happens?

My Answer: No. Everyone attains spirituality at a different rate, because in general there are two groups advancing – the men’s group and the women’s group.

Question: Are the women totally dependent on the men to provide the path to spirituality or cohesion with the Creator?

My Answer: No. What matters most is a woman’s desire for the goal, while in general, men attract the Light by studying toward women’s desires. Every person receives the Light’s influence to the extent of his or her desire and efforts in dissemination.

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A question I received in response to my post “A Call for Ideas – New Children’s Games“: How can one help a child mature if the child resists? I understand “Mosif daat mosif mahov” (“increase knowledge, increase pain”) but it’s still difficult to observe a normal boy, 13 years of age who wants to be like an 8 year old.

My Answer: You can impose a more grown-up environment upon him by involving him in his peers’ hobby groups, and keeping him out of the house.

A question I received in response to my post “Comments about Depression, Seeming Egoistic to Others, and Parenting“: How do I defend myself against evil people that hurt my feelings and constantly bother me? How can I deal with the stress that results from this?

My Answer: Find an environment that will allow you to feel secure and healed. Whatever you do, don’t isolate yourself. Find amusement, sports, a change of scenery, and be hard on yourself for being sensitive.

A question I received in response to my post “The Creator = Nature“: Why isn’t the Creator indifferent towards me? Is He more concerned about me than others? If this is true, then why?

My Answer: Put simply, the time has come to correct your individual soul in the general collective of souls, of the single soul of Adam.

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A question I received: Lately people in Israel are talking about combining traditions with children’s education. They want to bring the traditions and elements of Judaism into the general curriculum, but as the national culture, rather than religion.

Even secular parents, who weren’t taught to honor traditions as children, want their children to adopt these traditions, hoping that this will give them a different perspective on life and the world and prevent problems like drugs, alcoholism, depression and other diseases of our time. They hope that this will keep their children away from harm and make their lives safer.

My Answer: Kabbalah says that traditions can have a positive influence on people, as long as they are perceived as the nation’s cultural heritage and as long as they are kept for strengthening the family unit. However, in every other respect, people should live according to what Nature demands of them, according to its program of evolution.

According to Nature (or the plan of creation), man must understand Nature, discover how it is connected into a single, integral and perfect system, and consciously integrate himself into it as an integral, intelligent element.

In order to make us want to understand Nature and consciously integrate with it, Nature shows us our lack of harmony with it. We perceive such imbalance as all kinds of suffering, like wars, problems and distress. Gradually, we start realizing that all these problems are global and interconnected, and that they are all symptoms of one problem.

We then start understanding that maybe we’re the ones with the problem. This is what Nature is pushing us to understand, and not to uphold traditions. However, if traditions and other boundaries help us become corrected and fulfill Nature’s global plan, then of course, we should have them as well.

Concerning the plan you describe, of what the teachers and parents are hoping to do, I’m certain that it won’t work, because children have no such desire. Subconsciously, their desire is already directed at discovering the purpose of creation – the existence of the Creator. Our children are a completely different generation: They aren’t simply enormous egoists. Their desire for spirituality, called “the point in the heart,” is already being revealed. This desire is the embryo of the soul, and it is demanding its development. Previous generations did not have such giant egoism within their points in the heart.

Egoism has been evolving over thousands of years, demanding fulfillment from this world the whole time. However, today it isn’t the egoism that demands fulfillment, but the point in the heart, and this is why children no longer desire our world, but something else… something that’s still unclear. By acting the way we do, we imprison them; but to us, it seems like this is what’s best for them. Our generation does not have the time nor the place for these experiments. We need to immediately figure out what is going on, and then we will understand how we should raise our children!

Related Material:
* ARTICLE: Raising the Next Generation of Children
* ARTICLE: Education

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