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Hello!
I am enjoying this course enormously so far however, as a Kabbalah neophyte, I am finding its concepts very obscure and abstract as well as quite difficult to fully comprehend at this early stage.
Something that has truly impressed me so far, is the fact that Kabbalah introduces science, which basically explains numerous laws of the material world, into its teachings.
Thus, my question is, since science adopts evidence to explain every law in nature, what is the proof, or evidence, that Kabbalah is a tool to explain the forces in the material world, which are basically a consequence from a deeper level of reality.
Or shall we just limit ourselves to believe in the laws of Kabbalah just by mere faith, which in that case would render Kabbalah a religion no different than Christianity or Islam.
Thanks very much!
Hi Claudio,
Kabbalah is a science because it uses the basic scientific method to research reality. The Kabbalists are the scientists of Kabbalah. Everything we know is based on their research. This is similar to how other sciences work. The Kabbalists are those researchers that have performed a certain experiment and reached a certain result: the correction of our nature, the revelation of the Creator, the force of bestowal, etc. So if we are to replicate their experiment, to follow their procedures we should reach the same results.
But if a person is not yet on the degree of a Kabbalist, how does he relate to everything he’s learning? Like to any other science. For example, when I read a physics textbook, I see different formulas and experiments that research our reality. If I’m reading this textbook in 8th grade, then I have no choice but to accept the things written there since they come from a credible source. If I’m reading this textbook in college, I’m already given some tools with which I can measure and verify some of these things for myself. And yet there are some concepts that are so advanced, that I have no way to verify them until I become a physicist myself and get access to all the tools that will help me research these things.
Same with us here. There are some things I can verify for myself even when I’m just starting in the fundamentals of this wisdom, and then there are things that I can verify only when I myself have reached attainment.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2011/01/kabbalah-and-other-sciences-philosophy-and-religion/
Albert @ KabU
Hello, Tony:
As I was listening to your presentation during my week 1 course of Kabbalah Revealed, I had a profound experience of expansion. I will not describe it here, you know. I was not afraid, it happened to me before, when I was younger. The most extraordinary experience I had a long time ago, was in a class on Tanya. Thankfully, and understandably, the Rabbi saw what was happening with me, although I was trying to hide, and he guided me through it. This time, I am not sure how much time has passed while I was in this state. I was not able to do anything mundane but amazing synchronistic events happened. I could not sleep at night, and the following day, when I was back fully into the ordinary reality, I was quite uncomfortable emotionally. I was sad and anxious. My question – how do I “handle it”, how to be with it in the most meaningful, growth-oriented way? And how do I settle back?
Yelena LebedinskyHi Yelena,
If we aspire to return to a pleasant experience we have in the past, then we simply want to enjoy ourselves egoistically. But if we want spiritual growth, we do that by making more and more efforts in the current state. So our aspirations should always be towards making more efforts and not towards any pleasant results.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2009/12/head-toward-the-creator-and-dont-look-back/
Albert @ KabU
Is the whole Bible a Kabbalah book? Is the Old Testament a cryptic volume or esoteric text for how reality works? Was Jesus a Kabbalist? What was the quality that people developed that prevented them from the wisdom of Kabbalah? Thank you.
Hi Angel,
1. The whole Tanakh (what you would call the old testament) is a Kabbalistic text.
2. You can say it’s cryptic because it’s written in the language of roots and branches. This is a type of code that uses words of our world to describe spiritual phenomena.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2016/05/dispelling-myths-about-kabbalah-part-4/
3. Kabbalistic writings don’t talk about Jesus. So we could speculate one way or another whether he was a Kabbalist or not, but these would just be speculations. We should keep in mind that Kabbalah is a science. Kabbalah only deals with the correction of our egoistic nature and the revelation of the Creator. It has no connection to faith, religion, or religious leaders.
But ultimately these things are not so opposed. Both talk about the importance of loving others as yourself. Kabbalah goes even further and gives us a method to actualize loving others to such an extent that we can reveal in our lives the Creator, the general force of love and bestowal.
4. Egoism. A higher degree of egoism emerged which was impossible to deal with at that time because it required the participation of the whole world.
We see this in how Kabbalists describe the temple. The temple symbolized the level of love and connection that Kabbalists were able to achieve at that time. When a bigger level of egoism was revealed, they were unable to maintain that level of love and connection. As a result of that, the corporeal temple, the symbol of their love and connection, wound up getting destroyed.
Baal HaSulam writes about this in “Letter 60”, here’s an excerpt:
“this is what our sages meant when they asked about the ruin of the Second Temple, that there was no idolatry there and they were proficient in Torah, so why was it ruined? They said it was for unfounded hatred.”
Keep in mind that the growth of egoism is not a bad thing, but rather a sign of progress. It’s like with exercise, when you master a 5 pound weight, in order to keep progressing, you need to add resistance by going up to a 10 pound weight, etc. Likewise the process of correction works according to the rule of “from light to heavy”. Meaning first the lighter, less egoistic souls reach their correction. They become as the pioneers that start this whole process. And only later on we focus on the heavier, coarser, more egoistic desires.
The people in the days of Abraham were less egoistic and therefore started this whole process. After they corrected the egoism on their level, it opened the door for the rest of the world, the carriers of the heavier, more egoistic desires, to reach their correction.
But the rest of the world was not yet ready for this correction. For this reason Kabbalah had to be temporarily concealed and the people who previously succeeded in this method needed to be scattered throughout the whole world. Then in the process of them integrating with the rest of the world, they sped up the development of the rest of the world to this final state of correction.
So we can see from this whole process that it’s not that something bad happened, on the contrary, those pioneers that started this process finished the correction on their level and then received their next challenge.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2008/08/building-the-third-temple/
Albert @ KabU
Are there other deities? If so, how did they become deities? Is it also like in that Star Trek episode that if you do not worship a deity they cease to be? Thank you.
Hi Angel,
There is only one Creator. Our job is to become similar to His qualities of bestowal to such an extent that we’ll reach adhesion with Him.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2019/04/the-purpose-of-creation/
Albert @ KabU
Why did the Upper Force feel the need to create and start the shattering to exclude us from the perfect connection we were previously in? Is this a test? Someone that does not understand the Oneness of Reality might say that this was cruel, no?
Hi Chavdar,
In the article Introduction to the book of Zohar, Baal HaSulam describes how we were created in the state of perfection, in complete adhesion with the Creator. But this was an unconscious state, like a baby in its mother’s womb. So we necessarily had to come to the complete opposite state, to lose that state of perfection, in order to once again reach it, but this time consciously.
And the fact that we had to lose this state is not something bad, but it’s a necessary part of our development. It’s just like with kids. We don’t just give them a completed jigsaw puzzle. On the contrary we take it and break it down into many pieces. Then in the process of them putting it together, they grow and develop. Same with us, this process of losing that state is a necessary part of our further growth and development.
This process also adds to us a certain level of freedom, without which, we would be no different than machines, or robots, that were programmed to act a certain way and they just carry out this inner script. Instead, we were programmed one way, and we rise above this inner programming, become independent of it, and then develop our own desire to advance towards this goal.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2014/01/from-perfection-to-perfection/
Albert @ KabU
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