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March 29, 2024

Archive for Student Articles

Comment: The Economy’s Hidden Problem – We’re Out Of Big Ideas

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting editorial: America’s stagnating growth is because we don’t have anymore good ideas.

I study the wisdom of Kabbalah. I got into it years ago because, like many, I wanted something more in life. I wondered and searched for a universal meaning and purpose. Kabbalah is one of the more practical life teachings I found.

Kabbalists define evolution less historically and more egoistically. The method says that throughout history, our ego grew. Ego is our desire to know, think, eat, reproduce, live, make money, and the like. 200 years ago, people were more concerned with survival and less with career success; in short, those people’s ego was less developed.

As the ego grew, so did society. Much of our societal development was facilitated by the ego’s growth. It was fantastic and created present day society.

However, Kabbalists say that the ego would reach a point where it finished growing because life is not only to acquire, invent, and manufacture. For one, this way of living isn’t really sustainable.

I mention this because of this Wall Street Journal article. Kabbalah would probably say the Journal is correct: Our economy is in trouble because we’re out of big ideas.

What’s the solution?

Well, evolution continues but not in the same egoistical direction. We must evolve the connections between human beings. For most of our history, we focused on math, science, history and the like but we can’t afford to only focus there any longer. Nature is telling us [blatantly] that we have no choice but to improve relationships between people.

We look at our own country. America is divided politically and each side kind of hates the other more than our parents generation did. We can especially see this in racial and religious tensions. It is remarkable to me how such an evolved society can be so divided. This hatred is not sustainable.

As we move into the future, education on interconnections between people becomes necessary. This is the new idea we are missing. The next level of innovation is the development of human beings.

By Peter C.

  

Living The High Life

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“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”? C.S. Lewis

For the most part, human beings have never looked for meaning beyond the framework of material life. Frankly, there’s never been a need until now. Humanity has always fulfilled itself with its natural passions for food, sex, and family, and with more “civilized” things like wealth, honor, control, and knowledge.

Of course, there have always been rare individuals who’ve looked for meaning beyond the mundane but, for the most part, humanity has been satisfied with worldly pursuits.

Today, things are different. People aren’t content with what life has to offer; they want to know why they’re alive, and why it’s worth living. For thousands of years, people have found ways of answering life’s questions, but now they bluntly ask: why do we need this life?

The fact that humanity is asking this question is not the problem. The problem is that it can’t find an answer. Now the world is in a crisis. Families are falling apart. Science has reached a dead-end. Depression is on the rise, and people consume themselves with drugs and alcohol just to escape the void that’s appearing in their lives.

The challenge that this generation is facing is in finding a solution to the uncertainty that looms in front of it. The world has always had something to offer, but our egos have outgrown it. Now, nature is pushing humanity to develop.

However, the next rung in human evolution is unknown because, like a stone that doesn’t appreciate the sound of music, humanity doesn’t have the senses to recognize the higher laws that govern life.

Luckily nature has provided the world with a tool that can help it realize its potential—it’s called the wisdom of Kabbalah. This science is nearly 6000 years old, but it’s more relevant than ever. In fact, it was developed specifically for this generation.

Kabbalah is practical. It’s not philosophy or religion. A person doesn’t have to be smart to study it or believe in anything. All that’s needed is for people to start studying it because it describes the foundation of the world in which we live.

The study itself elevates a person. By learning about the world that Kabbalah describes, a person gradually comes closer to it, revealing immense pleasure and complete fulfillment because a person discovers the source of life itself. When humanity connects to its source it will know what to do, and where it’s going. It will understand its purpose in this world, and attain the feeling of true life.

By Shane Greve

  

It’s Your Lucky Day!

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Sometimes a great opportunity presents itself. Here’s one for you! This is your chance to follow in the footsteps of wise and learned people on a well-established, scientifically proven path, guaranteed to lead you to a better life.

The path I’m talking about might be called the road less traveled or the path of wisdom, Kabbalah. This is a very direct path for changing your luck and your life for the better. It was definitely my lucky day when I started on the path three years ago, and I can assure you, I have never looked back.

Many friends traveling this path are much like you and me. Simple, everyday people who’ve begun to wake up and ask questions. The rush for success has somehow lost its lure, and now we see that even acquiring more love, or more money, or more power doesn’t really fill that sense of emptiness. Nor does finding a different job or a different partner.

The rat race, the drive for money, sex, power, and control; none of these are that important anymore. Instead, we are asking those nagging questions that awakening people have been asking themselves for centuries. What am I doing here?  What is the meaning of my life?

Science tells us that just as nature holds a DNA plan for our physical bodies, a plan for our spiritual development is also embedded within us, making spiritual growth a natural part of our human evolution. Yes, there is a special spiritual gene in each of us. It is called our Reshimo (reminiscence) or “the point in the heart.”

Each person has a Reshimo, and like all our DNA it becomes operational as soon as we are born. Unfolding in the background of our lives, our Reshimo silently dictates our attributes, our character traits, our likes and our dislikes, moving us slowly forward to fulfill our destiny, urging us onward and upward towards the higher consciousness of spirituality.

When I discovered this scientifically based information I started to understand myself much better. In addition, I began to understand the importance of connecting with others on the path, which serves to hasten our progress along the way. I’ve noticed that some travelers progress more rapidly or more slowly than others, but regardless of age, experience, or time of life, our own Reshimo is alive and unfolding within each of us, urging us on and silently pointing the way.

I am personally inviting you to come this way, to join me and other friends on this path, to learn and to grow together, each one helping the other along the way.

One of our most revered teachers, the great Kabbalist of the 20th century, Yehudah Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), compared what’s ahead for us in spirituality to emergence from one world to another, from the corporeal to the spiritual, while remaining in a living body here on earth.

As Baal HaSulam explains, a student’s progress can be likened to the quest of a worm who has been born inside a radish. The worm lives in the radish so he knows nothing else. He thinks the whole world is dark and bitter. But, if the worm makes effort, and he begins to move, to seek, and to grow, when he finally breaks through the radish shell and peeps outside, he claims in bewilderment: “I thought the whole world was the radish I was born in, and now I see a grand, beautiful, and wondrous world before me!”

Indeed, there is wondrous wisdom to be learned and much more to reality than we presently know. I invite you to learn more.

By Wendy Barker

  

Life Is a Game

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I don’t remember being a baby and playing games with my mother, but I can imagine it. Her face and the sound of her voice were part of me, and then, suddenly, her face disappeared and she was quiet. I was scared. Then her laughing voice—peek-a-boo!—and her face again. The turmoil in my tummy calmed down and after many such games, it was replaced with the certainty that she would always be there.

I grew up in a neighborhood with kids bulging out of every house. In the evenings during warm weather we played in the street, usually hide and seek or kick the can. Finding the most concealed place to hide was the challenge. The reward was when I couldn’t be found or those times when I was “it,” and I could find everyone. Whether hiding or seeking, I was in charge, thinking through my strategy, acting on it.

Adolescence hit me like a ton of bricks. My parochial high school environment became rigid and demanded absolute compliance. The ego in me rebelled and I experienced some harsh consequences. I was led to believe that “disobedience” would result in the Creator abandoning me until I again became a good girl. I prayed to Him, but I couldn’t find Him. So I abandoned Him. What had happened to that loving God I had been taught about?

Higher education took me through a winding path toward what I then held as my life goal: becoming a practicing professional. But I was very unsettled. Life went on, feeling humdrum and without purpose. I no longer had a goal toward which to yearn. Out of habit, when life dealt me hard blows, I prayed to this God I had rejected, but He was still absent.

So I went in search of Him. I hunted Him in various religions, teachings, gurus, books, seminars. I was “it,” but He remained well-hidden. I caught glimpses of Him during this time, but He would again quickly disappear. This was no longer  hide-and-seek or kick-the-can. It was a serious game and I didn’t know the rules.

It turns out though that the Creator was there all the time, preparing me. Who knew that peek-a-boo, hide and seek, testing boundaries, experiencing the consequences and learning to play well with others would be preparation for the rest of my life?

Because… BAM! Seemingly out of nowhere Kabbalah entered my life. Just like that. Freely given, immediately elating, then confusing, often exasperating, always intriguing, and forever inside me. And I started all over.

The Creator hid so I would have to seek. He taught me that Nature is a magnificent system of cause and effect. He lured me with the promises of the ancient wisdom, into yearning for an exalted goal. And then He gave me the environment and the other points in the heart so I could practice what I was learning and continually deal with His annoying disappearing acts.

And not only that, he made finding Him hard. He’s good at finding hiding places and just when I think I’ve found him, Hhe evaporates again. I begin to feel Him though, and because it’s such a sublime feeling, I continue to seek. And that, my friends, is the real game.

That ego that had battered me for decades? I found out that this wily Creator gave it to me so that I could tame it and then use it for my journey back toward Him.

And best of all, He prepared me by putting me exactly where I’ve needed to be in this magnificent universe so I could learn the skills and develop the qualities I need so that I can finally find Him. He sure knows how to play the game, that Creator, and He continually invents more challenges, sort of like in a video game. And most important of all, He gave me friends on the path, all of them having been prepared, uniquely for each one, by Him, as was I.

The great sage Rav Yehudah Ashlag, Baal HaSulam, tells us: “The Creator truly resides within the heart of every person of Israel, and that is from His side. Hence, what does one lack? Only to know that. And the knowledge changes, and the knowing completes.“

By Mary Miesem

  

Can I Really Know The Creator?

Can I Really Know The Creator

Every day I wake up and my day starts running. The kids need fed, diapers changed, dishes washed, laundry, lunch prepared, and the list goes on. If I do not stay on top of the chores, I know that I will feel overwhelmed, yell at the kids and things will be worse. Sometimes in the middle of this work I ask myself, “What is the point of all this?” or “How can I keep this up?”

The truth is that I can’t keep it up. I end up getting upset, or wearing myself so far down that I get sick. I reach an end. I look at myself and realize I am doing these things for myself. This will end in death.

I need to cry to the Creator, ask Him to teach me how I can really love the people that He has placed in my life. Instead of running around mindlessly, I need to look at my husband and my kids and see they are exactly what the Creator has put in front of me. The Creator is all around me.

By Anne Beck

  
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