Spiritual Education

The state of the world, as we all know, is challenging. But don’t lose hope—in the Kabbalistic method, parents teach their children to give love, and in the process, remember what they have long forgotten.

Spiritual (Kabbalistic) education has been the heart of our nation from its very beginning. This is why Jews are called Am HaSefer (“The Nation of the Book”). Spiritual upbringing has been the essential means for the existence of our society; it constructed society and was a vital element within it.

Indeed, from the reception of the Torah until the ruin of the Second Temple, old and young alike have lived in unity and with clear perception of the Upper Force. Moses established spiritual education in the nation, and children learned from a very early age to know reality based on its roots in the Upper Worlds. It was said that from Beer Sheba in the south to Dan in the north, not one child was ignorant of matters of purity and impurity.

Purity and impurity do not refer to physical matters, but to the impure egoistic force in us, and to the pure force of giving. In other words, even the youngest among the nation experienced high spiritual states.

An Escalating Crisis

Yet, after the ruin of the Second Temple, the nation lost its tangible sensation of spirituality, though the importance of spirituality remained rooted deep in the hearts of people. Even while in exile, every Jewish child knew how to read and write and calculate, and was taught the ancient writings. The education for unity, established by Kabbalists, kept the Jewish communities united in the Diaspora.

Despite the fact that education produced greater prosperity, today the importance of education is rapidly declining. Papers are replete with news and surveys describing school violence, drug abuse, depression, and disorientation among youth. Young people are indifferent to values and seem to want more than this world can offer.

Moreover, the crisis in education is part of a much larger crisis—one of global proportions. Kabbalists explain that this is a process by which the human ego is magnified to a point that a person can no longer satiate it.

Another example of the inflation of the ego is the increasing generation gap, which began to accelerate in the past century. The young today cannot relate to their parents’ generation, and regard grownups as old fashioned. Thus, on the one hand we do not understand how to raise our children and satisfy their changing and increasing needs. On the other hand, the young haven’t the means to communicate with the previous generation. More than ever, we need a method that will serve as a basis for a uniform and happy society, in which all parts find their place and work toward a common goal.

Laws of Giving and Loving

The wisdom of Kabbalah deals with education and with the building of society as means to attain the Upper Force. In their writings, Kabbalists reveal the evolution that every person should undergo in a spirituality-based society. Just as each soul receives what it needs from its environment in the spiritual worlds, a person should receive the right education in each phase of his or her life.

In a society based on the principles of the wisdom of Kabbalah, we can learn from childhood to appreciate life on a deeper level. We will understand that this world is far richer than our five senses can perceive. From an early age, we will learn through games and examples to identify the causes and the latent forces that control reality. Thus, we will know the spiritual laws of love and giving, learn to use them correctly, and be able to live in harmony and balance with Nature.

The Best Future

Children can only implement what they have learned after observing the examples set by adults. Proper education stems solely from personal example. One of the problems in today’s world is that we behave opposite to what we teach. For example, while we teach altruistic values of giving and sharing, we conduct ourselves to the contrary.

Such contradictions evoke confusion and disrespect from children toward their parents. However, in an education system based on the wisdom of Kabbalah, the parents’ personal examples of altruistic values will be in harmony with what they teach. Education will result from mutual responsibility; it will unite the generations.

Parents will understand that such consistency will create the best future for their children, and will commit to proper conduct because of their love for their progeny. Similarly, children will be exposed to values and personal examples of giving from their parents and aspire to join them as active members of society. They will take their place beside the adults and work together for a thriving society.

In the end, a spiritual upbringing will promote society as a whole. Moreover, spiritual education will change life considerably. The younger generation will be assisted by the experience acquired by adults, and use their examples to learn how to overcome their own ego when it bursts. By so doing, youth will appreciate the previous generation and create a stronger bond of love and of respect between them.

The future society that Kabbalists have always yearned for can be built through spiritual education, and it can be built today. It is enough to educate one generation to “kick-start” the process.

This, in turn, will create a uniform society, untainted by a generation gap. Both past and present generations will support one another so that one will be the guarantor of the other’s success. The old will set the example, and the need to educate the young to spiritual values will compel the old to set the right kind of example. Thus, they will complement each other and march together toward the complete attainment of the higher reality.