Meaningful Life Skills with Rabbi Simon Jacobson

Addiction is one of the greatest plagues of our time. It impacts tens of millions of people - according to official statistics there are over 20 million addicts in the USA alone. And how many more are there who are not accounted for, due to denial and other factors? Addiction's impact on life is devastating - polluting virtually every facet of life: work, relationships, personal growth. How much of our potential remains trapped as we escape into our various addictions? The very word addiction sends a shudder down our spines. Whether it's behavioral, psychological or physical, addiction reflects one of the saddest states of the human spirit: the loss of control over one’s own decisions. Becoming enslaved to a substance or behavior is the ultimate desecration and betrayal of human dignity. But what is the root of addiction? What causes a person to allow themselves to become a slave to another entity - defying the very nature of human autonomy?! Aside from addressing its symptoms, is there anything we can do to uproot addiction at its core? When we look back at the etymology of addiction, we find it has other meanings as well - and surprisingly! - they are not all negative. Addiction also means devotion, attachment and connection. Indeed, this can actually provide insight into what lies at the root and heart of addiction. Please join Rabbi Jacobson in this eye-opening program to discover a new, fascinating way of looking at addiction. Addiction is essentially a form of attachment disorder. The “soul” of an addict has a powerful searching energy - seeking, aspiring, yearning for love, connection and transcendence - but this force has become misdirected for various reasons. The problem is not the drive, but the objective of the drive. This class will lay out the 12-step Kabbalistic system and formula of how to deal with addiction in any form. Learn how to recognize the enormous power hidden in addiction; examine how to harness and direct it to literally change your life and the world around you.

24 Mar 202247min

What is driving the war in Ukraine? Who is Putin and what makes him tick? What can impact him? How will it end? What can we do? Join Rabbi Simon Jacobson in a live broadcast on the eve of Purim to discover the surprising answers in the story of Purim - 24 centuries ago!

21 Mar 202251min

Interesting stat: More than half the world prays daily. But here is the big question many of us wonder: Is anyone actually listening? Does God even care? Does praying accomplish anything? But before trying to answer these questions, we first need to rethink what exactly is prayer. Prayer is NOT about what God wants from us. Rather, prayer is about what you want from your connection to God. Prayer is not just a desperate effort of someone in crisis, or a crutch based on cultural superstitions. Nor is it merely a religious ritual. Prayer is about attachment -- attaching yourself and pouring your heart out to a Higher Reality, and drawing that power into your life. Communicating your needs, desires and requests to a higher source in your own way, be it through words, tears, pre-written prayers.. whatever talks to you. Prayer is about connecting the big picture with the small picture of your life. It is very effective. It is free, and you can do it anytime and anywhere. Join Rabbi Jacobson and discover the true essence and purpose of prayer. Once we uncover what prayer truly is, we can begin to understand how our prayers indeed do work, and someone out there actually does listen and care.

24 Feb 202231min

Money certainly has the power to corrupt and destroy. Just look around you -- and look back into history -- for countless examples of the ugly ways money perverts people, the extremes individuals will go to in pursuit of wealth, and how it turns people and even families against each other, often with tragic consequences. But money has also been used in the noblest ways and has built the most beautiful institutions. So which one is it? Money clearly can bring out the worst and the best in us. Is money -- and materialism in general -- the root of the problem, or is it our excessive attachment to money and material indulgences? Please join Rabbi Jacobson as he challenges us to dig deeper and realize that the real question is not about the nature of money, but the nature of us humans: Are we at heart material beings or spiritual ones? To understand what money is we first need to understand who we are. Discover a new way to look at money and the material world around you -- through the lens of your soul instead of the lens of your body.

17 Feb 202231min

Do you know how to criticize and discipline in a constructive way? Do you rush to judgment? Does your critique demoralize or motivate? Does it break or build the other's spirit? Very often we insert ourselves into the challenging situation, and react reflexively and emotionally, without deliberating on what would be best to remedy the issue. When faced with circumstances that require disciplinary action, many of us go from one extreme to the next: we either choose to ignore it or we come down hard. Is there a healthier way of disciplining and educating -- be it your child, your student, your employee or anyone else you have influence over -- and even yourself? Please join Rabbi Jacobson as he discusses this imperative topic and discover a third approach, which balances constructive critique and productive results. Learn how to integrate discipline with love -- growing the flowers while uprooting the weeds -- in one seamless process of nurturing a beautiful and exquisite garden.

10 Feb 202226min

Do you have any idea how much impact pain and pleasure have on your life? How many decisions are made and how our behavior and relationships are shaped by our drive for pleasure and our aversion to pain? Freudian psychology -- as well as other schools of thought -- places the pain and pleasure principle at the center of the psyche and its drives. Marketing and advertising seek to trigger our primal emotions by demonstrating how a product or service will bring us pleasure or prevent pain. Recent studies thicken the plot by showing that pleasure and pain stimulate the same regions in the brain, causing much speculation on the similarities and commonalities between them, and how they affect each other. How much of our pleasure is seeking to numb our pain, and how much of our pain is a result of unfulfilled pleasure -- just to name one intriguing question. Please join Rabbi Jacobson in this pioneering talk dissecting the root and "soul" of pain and pleasure. Drawing from millennia old kabbalistic wisdom, discover the secret connection between pleasure and pain, and how we can transform the deepest anguish into the greatest joy.

3 Feb 202241min

We can all agree that a patriarchal society -- the primary model that has prevailed throughout history -- has unjustly been used and abused to control women, subjugating them to inequalities and multiple unfortunate situations. This also explains the birth of the modern feminist movement which seeks to realign the balance, reform the wrongs, and strives to provide women with equality in the workplace, in politics and in the home. The question looms: Has the feminist movement resolved the issue? Or, as some ask, has it further enslaved women, causing them to compete with their male counterparts and forcing them to play by their existing rules. Please join Rabbi Jacobson as he presents a non cosmetic, non superficial solution to the "battle of the sexes''. Identify the causes, not just the symptoms of this battle, and discover how the ultimate antidote to reclaiming our masculine and feminine identities will result in true women's liberation. Learn about these important essential truths and how to navigate the model that takes us back to the very roots of this challenge. Freeing the powerful feminine energy properly can, and will transform our entire society.

27 Jan 202227min

Within us we each have two primary forces -- two distinct voices -- tugging us in different directions. The drive to survive and the drive to transcend. The first is is consumed with ensuring that we get our material needs met -- food, clothing, shelter, social connections, earning money to pay for these needs. The second seeks to transcend the physical parameters of our routines and discover deeper purpose, meaning and soulfulness. This can be achieved in many different ways -- music, dance, poetry, love, romance, faith, spirituality, just to name a few. In many ways this marks the distinction between body and soul. How do we deal with the inherent dichotomy between these two extremes? Throughout the ages, two schools of thought have emerged to address this conflict. One approach is to focus primarily on our material survival, leaving some limited room for our transcendent needs. Matter takes precedent over spirit. The second approach is to disengage from the distractions of our material pursuits in order to engage in our spiritual lives, to the point of asceticism for some. Both approaches, however, have one thing in common: These two worlds of matter and spirit, body and soul, cannot coexist. Thus, most of us ultimately compartmentalize our lives, dividing our time between the two. Please join Rabbi Jacobson and discover a third approach -- one that does not surrender to a life of duality, but accesses a third dimension, beyond the corporeal and the ethereal, which allows us to integrate the two. Just as science has revealed that energy and matter are really one, and technology taps the energy within matter, so too is it with your body and soul. You can actually live a life of utter unity and harmony by learning how to tap the spirit within matter and spiritualize the material, ultimately experiencing total and seamless fusion between the two.

20 Jan 202236min