Why do I get an education? It’s a good question, isn’t it? Because we’re all striving to finish our school, our high school, our university, our master’s degree. Many people now have PhD or some specialization, lawyer, doctor, candlestick maker as we say. And I think many people also think that a higher degree means that I’m going to have a higher level of morality.
I’m going to know the difference between right and wrong. But of course, many times that just does not happen at all. I was watching a clip the other evening on the Einsatzgruppen, the German deployment group or police during the 2nd World War. These were the soldiers, if you can call them that, that went behind the regular army and were tasked with liquidating the enemies of the Reich. The Jews, the Soviets, the intellectuals, the priests, etcetera.
Now many of these people that headed up these groups were actually intellectuals. They were doctors and lawyers. Kind of frightening in a way. So the program was about one particular man. His name was Lishka, and he’d actually been in charge of the Jewish section under the Paris police.
And he virtually personally assisted in removing 35,000 Jews from Paris, and they were all sent away to the east to mostly to Auschwitz, and they all died. And after the war, he spent a little time in jail, and then he was released. And finally, about 25 years later, there got to be a new push, and he was rearrested. And I think he only served, actually, 5 years in jail, and he died when he was, are you ready for this? 98 years old.
And of course, the 1,000 if not tens of thousands of people that he liquidated never had a chance at life. And he was a lawyer. Another lovely soul, a fellow by the name of Sandberger, also a lawyer, went on to liquidate numerous people and his life was also spared. And there’s many, many stories. There were 7 of these group and of which 4 were very, very active in the east during World War 2.
And you say to yourself, how is this possible that I get a high education and I can convince myself that evil is the right course of action, you know. And I think it suggests that certainly in our education, we need to be educated from a spiritual perspective, philosophical perspective, as well as a scholastic perspective. Because we’re going to learn a lot of things at school, aren’t we? But that need not necessarily make us better people. What will make us better people when it comes to education?
And I think at the very beginning, we must be perceptive. We must learn perhaps to be perceptive. And I was speaking with a couple this evening and young children, and the question was, how do you properly raise young children? And I think to a very large extent, there has to be an element of discipline that’s brought into any family when the children are very young. And I don’t mean cruel discipline, of course.
But things like you should be able to sit at the table and eat properly as a child, and you should learn that you can’t just run amok in a shopping center. And most assuredly, you just can’t scream at any time that you want to. I mean, all of us. At 68 years old, I want to scream sometimes, but, of course, I don’t. And I can’t, of course, as well.
Right? So I guess the question when it comes to education is that it’s a very, very broad field. Now tests are also failing us, aren’t they? Because many people can write a test, but they don’t know the subject matter at all. I mean, I teach a lot of tests, and some of the brightest people don’t do as well as the people that are not so bright because the people that are not so bright know the system.
And the bright people, in a way, fool themselves. So they think they can do this test, so they could know the material without really studying the material. So what do I want from an education? I want the capacity to be able to learn how to learn. And in learning how to learn, I’m also going to learn how to be a good human being, to be a part of the common good, and to aspire to be a better person that I am today.
And this does come, like I said earlier, with discipline. Gotta make my bed in the morning. Gotta write in my notebook. Gotta say my prayers. And these are all skills that usually are taught by our parents because these are lifetime skills.
Successful people are disciplined at any profession. And I think there’s something to be said for that. So as you proceed forward, please reflect on your spiritual education as well as your philosophical education. And when you look at people, ask yourself, is that human being doing good or are they perpetuating bad? When people get impatient or people are rude or brusque or whatever it is, are they really helping the common good of society?
I think many times, no. So in education is a broad field, we must be educated but in so many ways. Right? Not only from the scholastic side. So you know what they say. You know what they say. Critical thinking is necessary, especially if I’m going to become an educated person. And, of course, critical thinking is great, truly great. You take care. God bless. Bye bye.