From Today’s Daily Lesson:

Related Material:
* Food Crisis: The Rising Food Prices and the Meaning of Life – taken from Michael Laitman’s Personal Blog: www.laitman.com

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The Story of Stuff – Untold Story of: a Consumer Nation
Article in Kabbalah Today Issue 14

Stuff. It fills our closets, our garages, and our lives. We gauge success in life by the stuff we own, and spend incredible amounts of time shopping for it. A new documentary, The Story of Stuff, shows how our entire lives have been taken over by “stuff.” And the wisdom of Kabbalah shows what we can do about it. Read the Full Article…

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Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education & Research Institute and the ARI Online Kabbalah Education Center is taking part in a book fair at Second Life, which finishes today, April 27. Visit the Bnei Baruch bookstand at the book fair today. Click here for more information about the book fair

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Tom, Jerry and Our Children
An Article in Kabbalah Today Issue 13

Today, even Tom can’t help us teach good values to our children. Not to mention Jerry…

Modern psychological research shows that a child’s cognitive development and patterns of behavior begin to form very early on. The acclaimed Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget, showed that soon after birth, a baby begins to learn through observation, adopting mental concepts from the environment. The incoming sensory data that the child receives, even as a toddler, has a major effect on his development. Later on, the child only continues developing and perfecting what he had absorbed from his surroundings during the early years.

In light of this, just imagine how sophisticated we must be in order to give our children the right examples, literally from the age of zero. On the other hand, how can we give our children positive examples when even the children’s entertainment industry feeds them countless negative values and images?

To cite just one example, here is the latest description of Tom and Jerry, as it appears on the Cartoon Network website: “Tenacious cat Tom is forever on the tail of his elusive nemesis, Jerry the mouse, and no tricks, traps or cast-iron frying pans will stop him in his timeless pursuit.” And that, dear parents, is what our toddlers learn from.

But apparently, our children are not the only victims of their environment. Society doesn’t ask any of us, “What would you like to want?”—it rather dictates to us what to want, from dawn to dusk. Whether it’s Coca Cola, Nike, iPod or Benz—“you just gotta have it!” But when it comes to our children’s education, it’s up to us, the parents, to choose the values and patterns of behavior that will influence our children.

The Oldies and the Newbies

Take a look at the games our children play or the movies they watch. Chances are, you’d be hard pressed to find even one cartoon that doesn’t use elements of violence, scorn and degradation. There will always be someone who suffers—and someone who enjoys it. Systematically, the cartoons’ plots revolve around the pleasure derived from deriding and abusing one or more of the characters.

On the other hand, think of the oldies—they, at least, had a touch of goodness. So what happened? Let’s go back to our beloved Tom and Jerry: They started off with the tiny, likeable mouse struggling to escape the big, bad cat, who was always eventually punished for trying to pick on the harmless creature. But over the years, along with the scriptwriters’ steadily growing egos, the little mouse also gained some nerve. Today, he’s a real snake, plotting how to best snare the sleepy, silly cat, and revels in making that cat suffer! Anything less than that is already boring for the mouse, and for us, too.

Time to Grow Up

The fact is that this is how we were created—as self centered creatures. However, today, nature demands that we grow up. Even as we keep encouraging our egoistic tendencies, reality is forcing us to realize that we are all part of one, big, integrated whole, and we have to start acting like it. Otherwise, we won’t survive the 21st century.

For millennia, Kabbalists have been telling us that Nature’s higher law is one of love, reciprocity and unity. But even more vital for us to know is that the law of Nature treats us the same way we treat our children: When they are young, it’s OK for them to make mistakes, but when they grow bigger, they have to learn how to play by the rules.

So today, let’s do ourselves a favor and start changing our values, if not for ourselves, at least for our children.

* Read this article in Kabbalah Today Issue 13

View/Download Kabbalah Today Issue 13:
* E-Version
* PDF Version
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By the end of 2007 there were over a billion Internet users (about 20% of the world’s population) world wide, not bad for a population of almost 7 billion. That’s a growth of 265% from 2006. [Source]

Today, the whole world is accessible by means of our keyboards and computer screens. These now not-so-new tools give us full access and with it the sense of freedom of thought, speech and movement.

With the Internet as the main tool for communication it seems that today we are freer than we have ever been before. On the other hand, through the virtual connections, networks, communities and realities that we create we become enslaved to the “black box.”

In his lesson on “The Future Generation” Rav Michael Laitman explains how we became prisoners within our own freedom.

Looking at the use of the Internet by both adults and children Rav Laitman explains that the Internet and its development is a replica of the current state of our society.

View/Download the Lesson “The Future Generation”: wmv video | mp3 audio

Related Articles:
* You Have a New Message 🙂 – U can communicate in codes like youth do on chats; u can remain unexposed behind a computer screen and a user-name, but not for long. Sooner or later we will have to leave our masquerades and make room for each other in our hearts, not in our chat rooms.
* Facebook: What’s All the Fuss? – The obsession with Facebook expresses a deep rooted desire within each of us—to feel connected with everyone. But does the largest virtual community really deliver the new and improved social world we seek?
* Better than the Virtual World!? – Second Life – You can find anything here, or at least anything the human mind can think of. An entire world of 3-D figures living a virtual life in the palm of your hand. All you need is a mouse, a monitor, and plenty of imagination. But what’s really the deal with this “virtuality” trend? What lies behind the passion for the virtual?

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