What Is Passover – Part 1 of 2

What Is Passover – Part 2 of 2

Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman discusses the spiritual meaning of Purim & its relevance in today’s world.

More and more youngsters are succumbing to drugs, depression and horrendous acts of violence. What has brought about the crisis our young generation is facing? Kabbalah explains that it’s their desire that’s in crisis, as they can no longer fulfill it with what we try to give them

As I go to read the news online, the headlines hit me once again. A 20 year old stepped into a school and opened fire, killing 28 people, 20 children, 6 teachers, his own mother earlier and himself. What could lead a young person with a bright future ahead of him to commit such a desperate act? Meanwhile, a dear friend’s niece clings to life in a hospital after swallowing a bottle of pills in a suicide attempt. Depression among teenagers has reached epidemic proportions.

What is happening to our youth? Shouldn’t teens be too young to be overwhelmed by feelings of despair and hopelessness? There are many countries in the world where despair would be understandable – countries where unbelievable hardship, poverty, starvation and violence are the daily reality. But this is the United States – many of these kids come from affluent, loving homes where they have every advantage that money can buy. 

At the other end of the spectrum, we see a growing number of people who are stuck in childhood – even into their 20s, 30s and beyond. They might trade in their Hot Wheels toy cars for the real thing and get involved in more expensive “games,” but they are still children who rebel against assuming any type of responsibility in the adult world. We see the impact in areas as diverse as the breakdown of American families, the record number of bankruptcy filings, and the trouble businesses are having hiring responsible, mature workers.

Although it’s hard to admit, both youth and adults are facing a social crisis, and no one seems to quite know why. Talk show hosts have become millionaires by expounding on these problems and interviewing “experts.” Politicians push their proposed social reform programs, and communities pass more and more laws in an effort to control behavior, but these are all knee-jerk reactions to the problem. In order to affect real change, we must find the source of the problem.

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains the roots of today’s increasing social discord, showing a common thread behind all the unpleasant phenomena that we are witnessing.

Identifying the Source

In order to identify the reason behind our youth’s behavior, we first have to examine our very nature and see how it evolves. Kabbalah maintains that the motivating force behind all of our actions is our desire to receive pleasure. In other words, every action that a person takes, no matter how small, is prompted by some desire for some pleasure.

But there’s more: This desire for pleasure continuously evolves within humanity, propelling us to constantly seek new kinds of pleasures. This evolution started with our most basic desires: those we must fulfill to survive, such as desires for food, sex and shelter. In other words, ages ago, having a good meal and a roof over one’s head was the ultimate bliss.

At a later point in humanity’s evolution, new kinds of desires emerged – social desires. These desires emerge due to the fact that people interact within society, and they include desires for wealth, fame and power. We have evolved through these social desires for thousands of years, actualizing every possible combination and aspect of them. From this perspective, film stars, sports idols or politicians are all “manifestations” of the social desires that evolve within humanity.

But today, Kabbalists explain, a new kind of desire is emerging within humanity, one that we can neither fulfill through our bodies nor through other interactions with each other. This desire is still hard for us to define, and we don’t really know how to fulfill it – it is the desire to realize the purpose of our existence.

While there have always been individuals in every generation who wondered, “Why am I here?” now is the first time in history that this question is awakening in masses of people, and demanding to be answered.

The Price of Dissatisfaction

So how does this relate to the crisis our younger generation is facing? Because they are at the peak of the evolution of desires, they inherently sense that money, fame and power will not lead them to true happiness. This doesn’t mean that the kids of today have no desire for anything; on the contrary, they have a huge desire: they just don’t know how to satisfy it.

It’s quite simple: If I really want a puppy for my birthday, I’m not going to be happy if you give me a new set of clothes. Even if the clothes look really nice on me, they simply won’t match the desire I have within me. For our youth, it’s like that with any kind of pleasure. They go from one desire to the next at lightening speed, and continue to find themselves unsatisfied.

By the time they are teens, many children are disillusioned and cynical about their parents’ ability to show them how to be happy. They don’t see why they should work hard to achieve the goals that adults set for them. On the other hand, they don’t know what else to strive for. To us, it may look like today’s kids are lazy, but their lack of motivation is really an expression of hopelessness. In extreme cases, their despair is so painful that life itself seems pointless and suicide seems to be the only answer.

To cope, many teenagers adopt a “Life is short; eat dessert first” attitude, spending their time chasing after any pleasure, as long as it is easy to obtain. The result is the “perpetual child,” unable to maintain a family or work relationship once it requires real effort. These kids are also vulnerable to the appeal of drugs, alcohol, and get-rich-quick schemes, since all of these promise intense pleasure for virtually no effort.

Other teens react to their sense of emptiness with anger, lashing out at parents and a society that have been unable to provide them with a meaningful purpose for their lives. Often their very upbringing has been so distorted by the current competitive materialistic society that today we are raising more and more youth with mental illnesses and disorders, who live their lives shifting between depression, fear, anxiety and anger… and sometimes this anger erupts in horrendous violence, such as with the Newtown school shooting.

Answering Their Needs

The younger generation’s inability to understand and fulfill their desires is the very source of their problems. Without guidance from previous generations, teens are groping in the dark as they try to find ways to satisfy this nameless desire within them.

In order to help our children, we must let them know that there is a reason for the emptiness and confusion that they feel. We need to show them where they fit into humanity’s general course of development – and let them see that they represent the final phase in the evolution of desires. And we have to provide them with a way to develop and fulfill their desires.

Kabbalah can help us provide such guidance by giving youth a tangible understanding of the purpose of their existence. And once our children know what their purpose is, they will be motivated to go after it. Apathy, anger, depression and despair will give way to the same passionate energy toward this purpose with which their parents and grandparents pursued the “American dream” – the quest for money, honor and fame.

Our children will be able to go places and achieve states of unbounded happiness, but we must provide them with the tools and guidance for their journey. By so doing, we will save them a lot of misery, allow them to find true happiness, and hasten everyone’s way towards the true purpose of existence.

–by Riggan Shilstone.

Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman discusses the deeper meaning behind the holiday of Hannukah.

A panel discussion including Dr. Michael Laitman discussing the current Israel Gaza conflict.

Related Videos:

• Nov. 18 QUESTIONS & ANSWERS “Kabbalah On The Current Israel Gaza Conflict” »
• Nov. 16, 2012 SPECIAL BROADCAST “Kabbalah On The Current Israel Gaza Conflict” »
• Kabbalah On The Current Israel Gaza Conflict | FULL SPECIAL BROADCAST FROM ISRAEL | Nov. 15, 2012 »
• What Is Kabbalah’s Solution To The Israel Gaza Conflict? »

Nov. 18, 2012 ISRAEL – Questions & answers with Dr. Michael Laitman discussing the current Israel Gaza conflict.

Related Videos:

• Nov. 18 SPECIAL BROADCAST “Kabbalah On The Current Israel Gaza Conflict” »
• Nov. 16, 2012 SPECIAL BROADCAST “Kabbalah On The Current Israel Gaza Conflict” »
• Kabbalah On The Current Israel Gaza Conflict | FULL SPECIAL BROADCAST FROM ISRAEL | Nov. 15, 2012 »
• What Is Kabbalah’s Solution To The Israel Gaza Conflict? »

Nov. 16, 2012 PETACH TIKVA, ISRAEL – A panel discussion including Dr. Michael Laitman discussing the current Israel Gaza conflict.

A panel discussion including Dr. Michael Laitman discussing the current Israel Gaza conflict. It focuses on the need for the people of Israel to use the current Israel Gaza conflict as a means to wake up to their role in the world. The special broadcast from Israel includes live talks with people in Israel close to the Ashdod rocket attack that killed 3 people.

The discussion touches on the below topics and more:

• Who are the people of Israel?
• What is the land of Israel?
• What are the roots of the people of Israel?
• What does it mean that Israel are responsible for each other?
• How should we live where we won’t feel these distances between each other?
• Why is it only at times of war and disaster that we offer to open our doors and our hearts to one another? Why don’t we open our doors, our hearts, to each other everyday?

Dr. Michael Laitman discusses the current Israel Gaza conflict from the perspective of Kabbalah, in a Nov. 15, 2012 special broadcast from Israel.

Why did Hurricane Sandy happen? Can we avoid such natural disasters? Or do they come without any reason and there’s no way to resist or protect ourselves? Dr. Michael Laitman explains Hurricane Sandy through the lens of the wisdom of Kabbalah.

How can the internal message of the wisdom of Kabbalah come out to the world? Dr. Michael Laitman discusses education through mass media as a solution to society’s problems with Vladek Zankovsky.

Dr. Michael Laitman discusses the meaning behind Hurricane Sandy, related crises befalling humanity today & the role of those who hold the key to balance with nature.

The role models we need today are those who understand the system of connections between ourselves and nature. Why specifically these? Dr. Michael Laitman explains in this interview.

Solving the world’s problems is obviously no small task, but Michael Laitman and Anatoly Ulianov … attempt to consolidate the solution into one central premise: that of “mutual guarantee.” The authors believe that globalization has created an environment in which “we are all connected to and dependent on one another like cogwheels in a machine.” If people all over the globe can change their mindset from “caring for oneself into caring for all,” write the authors, then everyone would be far better off.

The authors explain the notion of mutual guarantee by breaking the book into two parts. Part 1 addresses the key principles related to the concept. Here the authors discuss how mutual guarantee relates to nature, as well as practical issues, such as changing the public discourse, implementing the concept with the help of the Internet, the need to turn school into a place of social learning rather than individual learning, and the way in which mutual guarantee would achieve social justice. In Part 2, they briefly describe how a new society could be established based on the concept of mutual guarantee. One key cornerstone is recognizing that everyone is equal. The authors write, “We must change our social values so that people are appreciated for their contribution to society, not according to the size of their bank accounts.” Read More »

Review by Barry Silverstein, ForeWord Reviews
October 18, 2012

It is time for “Jewish” to mean hero; a hero that knows himself, that knows how to overcome his own ego and to love others, teaching others how to do the same.

It is in these stressfully precarious times, with a growing, world-enveloping economic crisis and the looming threat of Iran, that I found myself in a very interesting meeting. A meeting so delicate and intensely profound that it brought me to wonder in awe about the future we are all about to be living.

Maybe it will be completely terrible and chaotic, politically, financially, socially and ecologically – but maybe not. Maybe we’ll pull through and find it to be uplifting and transforming.

I found myself sitting together with my old university professor, the big-hearted and wise psychologist Dr. Kalman Kaplan, an expert in Biblical Psychology and the author of the TILT: Teaching Individuals to Live Together model, and one whose depths I cannot fathom: Dr. Michael Laitman, scientist and…Kabbalist. It was not your ordinary discussion about where we are and where we are heading; there was a very pressing feeling that something big needs to happen, and that it can only happen through the collaboration of many.

The topic was us. Jews.

What is going on with us, our identity, our strengths? Are we aware? Are we awake? Are we tapping in to our great ancient wisdom and do we see how relevant it is to today’s issues? Sadly, everyone around the table agreed that the situation is less than favorable. Read Full Article at JPost »

Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman discusses the deeper meaning behind the holiday of Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement).

Are you struggling to get a lasting, real feeling of fulfillment and happiness in your life?

And moreover, have you become disillusioned with the way modern society places all these materialistic goals for you to run toward, which you have absolutely no desire for pursuing in the first place?

Well you’re not alone.

Everybody is playing their role in this day-to-day “I’m trying to feel good!” movie.

And only few have developed the ability to exit this movie and see it for what it really is – a movie.

And we’re not talking about a select few rich, powerful or famous people either. They’re also characters playing their part in this same movie.

No. We’re talking about people just like you who came across a golden opportunity, and took it.

These people literally discovered the tools, the instruction and the teaching by which they learned how to exit their state as a “character” in this movie, discovered the hidden “actor” that was playing them, and by attaining more and more of what’s behind the scenes, they came to discover the “director” and the original script that literally describes how to discover what is outside of this movie we know as “life,” how to attain it, and how to use it to its fullest.

These people are called “Kabbalists.” There were only a few of them throughout history, and they studied in secret over the generations.

What exactly did these people discover?

They discovered that outside this movie, in which people are constantly chasing pleasures in their lives, there is a wholly different reality, one which contains the source of pleasure, where pleasure is constant and unchanging.

In other words, you don’t have to be chasing one pleasure to the next in life anymore – you can rather get the manual for how to discover the source of constant, everlasting pleasure, and learn how to live in it.

Sounds pretty good doesn’t it? Well, it is. It’s not only good, it’s the source of all that is good – of pleasure, fulfillment and happiness – and it’s not some fantasy utopia that doesn’t exist, but a real place that Kabbalists have attained a clear perception and sensation of, and which they have left a method so that you and anyone else who wants, can also attain that state.

Why have they kept this method a secret from everyone for so long?

This secret was kept simply because the majority of people in the past didn’t yet need it. Rather, the Kabbalists were holding this secret for the time when a real need would emerge in a lot of people.

And when did they say that time was?

Now.

That’s right – right now.

Right now, you have the ability to discover everything Kabbalists discovered.

And moreover, what took them dozens of years to discover in the past can be now attained in a much shorter time span.

How can that be?

And why is this being revealed specifically now?

And what exactly can you do to discover what they did?

And moreover, how is this discovery the solution for literally every problem you have, and every problem society in general is experiencing today?

Find out the answers to these questions, and start learning this method for attaining real, lasting happiness in your life at your upcoming local Kabbalah course.

This week, the Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education Center is opening up 13 new locations of study centers where you can go to get a free Kabbalah lecture followed by a 10-lesson course that will give you the fundamentals for being able to take this journey into a whole new reality.

Sign Up For The Free Lecture In Your Area Here »

A short, fun animation video made for the ONE Convention this weekend in New Jersey, May 11-13, 2012.

Prepare yourself for workshops you could never imagine!

In this video, Attendees of the European Kabbalah Convention in March 2012 share their impressions of their first hand experience with the convention’s workshops that aim to apply the method of Kabbalah in a practical group context.

Workshops will be a major part of the upcoming conventions. To experience them first hand, we recommend attending:

• The ONE Convention in New Jersey on May 11-13, 2012, if you live in North America: Go To The ONE Convention »
• The Latin American Kabbalah Convention in São Paulo, Brazil on May 4-6, 2012, if you live in South America: Go To The Latin American Convention »