An Ideal Educator

Development means constantly limiting the desire, which is inevitable. Even the most advanced educational approaches that do not use punishments still limit children but in other ways. An embryo in his mother’s womb also develops by limitations. All of nature is based on this principle, and if we kept it in our development, we would certainly avoid troubles and sorrow.

But we followed the opposite path and removed all the obstacles: Free your ego, abuse others as much as you can, abuse the whole world for your own interests. A person sees himself as great when he manages to steal millions and is respected for it. We have totally distorted our way by giving up any form of restraint. Our desires are not limited by anything and we can also see that on TV, in modern cultural and educational forms. Judging by what is happening with children and the youth, we are cultivating a generation that grows by beastly models and not human models of behavior and thinking. What kind of models does advertising present?

We see the outcomes: Without limiting ourselves, we reach collapse and sufferings, and we begin to understand that we have to change. This is what awaits us since we are not really suffering yet.

If we were as flexible as babies who can be easily directed to develop in the right way, if we responded to what is going on with the same speed, with the same readiness they do, then everything would be just fine. We could see that the Creator is the perfect educator and we wouldn’t come to Him with any complaints.

But in order to do that, we have to respond correctly to His educations and to be sensitive. Kabbalists tell us how we can acquire this attitude; they say we should connect and be “good kids,” we should be sociable, kind, and responsible for one another, to create mutual guarantee, etc.

Clearly, children don’t want to listen to anyone. They only want to go in every direction. But the grownups impose discipline on them and so does the Creator, although He hasn’t started to treat us seriously yet. One way or the other, the same laws penetrate through all the worlds, but the point is that we have to learn from nature and not invent artificial limitations.

This refers to the educators of children too. Nature shows us how, when, and in what way to limit them according to the stages of development. Actually nothing depends on us, we only carry things out. If we studied well the laws of creation and children’s’ nature, we would know exactly how to act in every phase, now and in the future. Ideally, an educator carries out nature’s orders. He never invents anything new but only implements its plan. This is his obligation: to gradually, day by day, bring the little person’s nature to match the upper nature.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/9/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”