Meaningful Life Skills: Weekly Global Class

Lying at the heart of all relationships -- personal, social, professional, political -- is communication. The manner in which spouses, parents and children, neighbors, friends, co-workers, employers, employees, communities and nations speak and listen (or don't) to each other carries the key to thriving, lasting, and healthy connections. Even when there is concern and love between different people or groups, very often they are lacking the tools to properly express their feelings. In effect then, mastering the art of communication is the defining blueprint that leads to family, domestic, national and global peace, harmony, and tranquility. Please join Rabbi Jacobson in this important, fundamental talk on the secret to true and effective communication. Discover that communicating is more about connecting and building trust than it is about expressing thoughts; speaking is more about listening than about voicing opinions; more about empathy than data; and the most successful way to be heard is to listen. Reme

Ahh. Comfort zones. They sound so... comforting. Do you anyone that likes to leave their comfort zone? And yet, every form of growth is dependent on going out of comfort zones. As long as you stay safe in your predictable and conventional routines, nothing new will be born. That is why it is so difficult to change and break out of our habits and patterns. The inertia of the status quo generates enormous force. But being an invisible power, concealed in lethargy, we grossly underestimate its impact on holding us back from movement and change. Is there a way to motivate and propel yourself out of your comfort zone and reach great new heights? Please join Rabbi Jacobson in this inspiring lesson offering methods and tools to break out of your trappings and discover new openings and possibilities. And not just on a temporary basis, but in a consistent and sustainable fashion. Find out how you carry within yourself inherent strengths that can challenge your tendency to stagnate. Learn how to spread your wings and

As we enter 2020, the third decade of the third millennium, many of us are wondering what the future holds. We are currently experiencing plenty of changes. Polarization and upheaval is in the air. The road ahead will certainly offer us many opportunities while also presenting us with many challenges. But we are often trapped by nearsightedness, in which we only see the here and now and cannot see beyond our noses. What will the next decade bring? How will our future look? Are we entering a new world order? Can we identify signs and patterns that help us forecast the world of tomorrow? What methods can we employ to help us navigate the terrain of the coming years. Please join Rabbi Jacobson in part two of this 2020 workshop as he takes a birds' eye view on our unfolding lives and evolving world. By looking at the big picture with a panoramic lens we can discover a broader perspective of our lives and destinies. We can learn to recognize the inner narrative and choreography of today's events, which in turn

As the curtain comes down on the second decade of the third millenium (2019), and we prepare to enter its third decade with the year 2020, many of us are wondering what the future holds. We are currently experiencing plenty of changes. Polarization and upheaval is in the air. The road ahead will certainly offer us many opportunities while also presenting many challenges. But we are often trapped by nearsightedness, in which we only see the here and now and cannot see beyond our noses. What will the next decade bring? How will our future look? Are we entering a new world order? Can we identify signs and patterns that help us forecast the world of tomorrow? What methods can we employ to help us navigate the terrain of the coming years. Please join Rabbi Jacobson in this 2020 workshop as he takes a birds' eye view on our unfolding lives and evolving world. By looking at the big picture with a panoramic lens we can discover a broader perspective of our lives and destinies. We can learn to recognize the inner n

Nothing triggers our emotions like going home and seeing our parents and families. Etched in our psyches, for good or for bad, are all that we experienced in our impressionable childhood years. During this holiday season, when many of us spend time with our families, all types of feelings arise. For some, it’s a beautiful time, evoking the warmth and love of our relationships. Others, at the other extreme, dread going home. Their toxic and dysfunctional families make them anxious and fearful. Many others have mixed feelings, fluctuating from the brighter to the darker. But one thing is certain: no one is neutral when dealing with their home and family. Please join Rabbi Jacobson and learn how this season offers us an excellent opportunity to probe and examine ourselves and our emotional lives. Discover tools how to become a healthier, more secure and confident person, and develop greater strengths to actualize your potential. Whether you grew up in as nurturing home or in a challenging home, this time of ye

The million dollar question: What is the secret to finding a healthy and enduring relationship? What criteria should I be looking for? How can I know if someone is compatible with me? What defines compatibility? How can I identify my true soulmate? You may be surprised to know that the mystics mapped out the soul in five dimensions, which in turn offers us a blueprint for finding your compatible soulmate. You don't want to miss this program with Rabbi Jacobson, in which he lays out these five levels of compatibility and presents a practical approach and specific guidelines to finding and building a beautiful, lasting and thriving relationship. Discover parts of your self that may be concealed, and tools to recognize in your date his/her deeper soul dimensions -- all adding up to creating a true soul connection.

You would think that the aspiring soul would be seeking to become more awake and aware, to heighten its cognizance and consciousness, not to learn how to... fall asleep. Yet sleep contains fascinating secrets and mysteries of regenerating our psyches and our souls. Learning how to sleep -- and how to fall asleep -- can teach us how to become more awake and more aware. What is sleep? What happens when we sleep? What can we do to have a more restful and peaceful sleep?  Please join Rabbi Jacobson as he probes the mysterious world of sleep and its effect on our souls. Discover the journey of your psyche during sleep, and how to tap into the inner forces that rejuvenate your inner being, and truly begin a fresh new day. Learn how sleep can bring you alive -- psychically and spiritually -- in unprecedented ways, enhancing your life and your relationships.

Inside each one of us there is a place in which we are all alone. Even those that love us and those we love, even those we trust and open up to, cannot fully enter that core center of our beings -- the space that defies words, expressions and definitions. After all our relationships and interactions, after all our partying and fireworks, even when we may not feel all alone, at the end of the day a part of us walks alone. Is that alone space an asset or a liability? Does it reflect our uniqueness and exclusivity, or our inadequacy and lack of self-esteem? What does feeling alone tell you about the state of your spirit and psyche? Ostensibly, loneliness may manifest as one who does not have any friends, family, or acquaintances. It may also take on the form of emotional loneliness, which stems from someone feeling no meaningful relationships or connections in life. However, there is a loneliness that exists even in the face of healthy personal relationships. It may be called existential loneliness or spiritua

Do you feel that you matter? That among 7.7 billion people on earth, and trillions of other forces in the universe, you are indispensable and your life is vital? This is not a small or academic question;  every decision you make, every move you take, is effected by how much you value your life. If you  feel that your life doesn't matter much, then all your life choices and relationships don't matter that much either. If your life is negligible then everything you do is also negligible. Please join Rabbi Jacobson as he addresses this single most important question: Do you matter? Discover a new approach to looking at yourself and your role in the world -- a fresh perspective which has the power to transform your life, your choices and commitments.  Learn that your are indeed unique, necessary and irreplaceable -- not just to you and your family but to all of existence!

Morality is a big word, which means different things to different people. What exactly is morality? Is it absolute or relative? Are moral values something we can all agree about, or are there different opinions on what constitutes a moral act? Can certain behavior be considered by some as moral and by others immoral? If so, how do we determine what is the moral standard to abide by? And if we all have our standards, how can we create a universal co-existence? The list of questions goes on and on. And they aren't mere academic exercises. Morality and its meaning has far reaching implications in virtually every area of life -- personal, familial, communal, education, business, national and international relations. Please join Rabbi Jacobson as he dives into the heart of the matter, and dissects the definition and evolution of morality at its core. Tracing it back its roots in the Bible, we discover how morality is an intrinsic component in the development of every aspect of society and civilization. Why shoul

What do you see when you look around you? Do we all see the same thing? Ostensibly it would seem that all healthy eyes observe the same empirical reality. The fact is, however, that what you see is not (usually) what you get. Observation is not just what is visible to the naked eye, but far more than that.  Despite knowing that fact, here is a mysterious paradox: We all understand that there is more to everything we see than meets the eye. And yet, we are easily seduced by externals, to the point that we can ignore the inner "soul" within things. One of the most misleading cliches is "don't judge a book by its cover." People constantly judge books by their covers; that's why book cover design and packaging -- and general beauty products, including make-up, skincare, hair care, fragrances and cosmetic surgery -- are a multi-billion dollar industry! How many mistakes have we made, how many people have been hurt, due to our prejudging or misjudging the value of something based on its outward appearance al

Manifestation? "What exactly is that," you may be wondering. Well. in short it's about being present -- about "showing up" and being immersed and invested in your life experiences. How often do we have our foot halfway our the door, afraid to commit due to the risks involved? How often are we not fully present in a relationship or even a conversation? It may be for good reasons -- lack of trust, fear of being hurt, past disappointments and wounds. But we can also be trapped in our patterns and "comfort zones", not allowing us to fully engage. We all have our defense mechanisms and escape hatches to run to for protection when we feel threatened. We have our masks and suits of armor. But have our masks become our identities? When important opportunities and healthy love can we be missing out on because we don't know how to fully manifest and engage? How can we improve our being present? The surprising answer to these questions comes from an unexpected source: Kabbalah. The mystics map out two dimensions in Di

We all have, at some or another, wronged or hurt another person -- a loved one, a friend or a stranger. What can and should we do about it? Are we aware of the full impact and effect our behavior has on ourselves, others and the universe in general? And do we appreciate the potency contained in correcting our errors? One of the most noble and courageous human acts is to ask for forgiveness and make amends over damage we may have caused. And this is the best time of the year to do so.  Please join Rabbi Jacobson in this pre-Yom Kippur talk on the importance and power of making amends, and how to actually do it in the best possible way. Learn what practical steps to take to repair a relationship. And discover how you -- and everyone around you -- become healthier when you ask for forgiveness and correct any mistakes you may have committed. How making amends unleashes new reservoirs of potential within you.

At one or time or another, many of us feel stuck in our lives. Unable to move forward. It can take on the shape of resignation, hopelessness and even depression. It can be more subtle as in feeling old and worn out, without the energy to create change. And it can even manifest in cynicism, as in the more things change the more they stay the same.  What causes us to feel stuck? Are they objective or subjective causes, meaning are they true external obstacles or only ones in our mind? Is it perhaps fear? Einstein is famously credited as saying that we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. How then do we change self-defeating attitudes? Please join Rabbi Jacobson in this pre-New Year talk addressing the great dilemma of getting unstuck in your life. What can we do to free ourselves from whatever it is that making us feel trapped and unable to truly move forward. As we enter a New Year, the mystics tell us that a new unprecedented energy enters into our lives. How

"Do you believe in miracles?" is one of the most common questions asked. But before we answer that question, we need to first define the meaning of a miracle. Is it a fantastical, nature-suspending event (like the parting of the sea), or is it an awesome and unique event (like giving birth)?  Our sages teach us that one experiencing a miracle often does not recognize the miracle that has transpired. Other scholars say that nature is simply a "continuum of miracles" whose repetition make them seem like common "natural events." Please join Rabbi Jacobson as he explores the anatomy of a miracle, and its role in our lives. Discover surprising facts about the "natural" forces that define the parameters of your experiences. Learn how to tap into deeper reservoirs of energy in your soul, and in the process find out how you can easily detect hidden miracles inside and around you.

Some of the most silent, yet demoralizing forces in our lives are boredom and monotony. They may seem innocuous, but lifeless routines create breeding grounds of toxicity. What can we do to infuse vitality and passion into the pedestrian day? How can we spice up our humdrum lives? Please join Rabbi Jacobson as he presents a dynamic approach of how to spiritually charge up your daily quotidian, and turn the ordinary into the extraordinary.

What is depression? Why do we get depressed? And what can we do about it? Many answers have been posited to these pressing questions, with suggested interventions ranging from medication to therapy, and various alternative methods. What has been less explored are the spiritual roots of depression. After all, a soulless body does not get depressed. Is depression a spiritual or physical malady? How does spirituality impact depression and can a heightened spiritual life help decrease depression? Please join Rabbi Jacobson as he dissects the DNA of depression and the core of the soul, seeking to identify where the two intersect and how they affect each other. Learn new insights into the nature of depression, and ways to use spiritual tools to help treat depression. Nourishing the soul by adding a healthy spiritual diet to traditional treatments can open new channels of hope and confidence. The joy of the soul in turns weakens the debilitating fear and demoralization of the depressed psyche.

When things are not going well, especially when they get desperate, people often fantasize about starting life over. This also happens when we have regrets over grave, irreversible errors we may have committed, or serious traumatic experiences that have injured our psyches and worn us down. "If only I can turn the clock back." "If only I had a second chance." "If only I would be born into another body to another family."  Is there indeed any hope after experiencing serious loss? Can we rebuild after betrayal? Are we doomed by our pasts, or is it possible to start life over? Please join Rabbi Jacobson in this eye-opening talk and discover surprising cosmological and mystical insights on the very nature of life and the ability to renew your life, despite past experiences. Life can be seen as a series of routines, with "nothing new under the sun." However we have another option: to travel "above the sun" and beneath the veneer, where you can tap into new and powerful reservoirs of energy and strength, whi

Despair is one of the worst possible human conditions. It's one thing to experience pain and suffering, it's quite another to give up hope. Even the most trying circumstances can be faced when you have hope. Even the most difficult challenges can be addressed when you have confidence, and know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. But when you give up on life and its possibilities, then what's left to work with? Please join Rabbi Jacobson and travel into the heart of the abyss, and discover the spark that lays even in the darkest corners of the psyche. Learn methods to employ when all seems lost and you want to give up. Find out how to uncover a "new" self with new hope even when your familiar old "self" has lost hope.

 Have you ever found yourself staring at the moon at night? There is something about the haunting lunar sphere in the sky that mystifies and mesmerizes us. What lessons does it teach us?  What can we learn from the lunar cycles and from the full moon? Is there any deeper connection between us and the moon? Please join Rabbi Jacobson as he explores the "psyche" of the moon -- and its parallels in our personal lives. Discover how to moon -- and the full moon --  can empower us as we face our own emotional and psychological challenges, and can help us build healthier lives and relationships.