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Thanks for your previous answer.
I am curious, in the lecture the instructor said that Abraham when he was sitting outside of his tent, he was teaching the Kabbalah to the travelers. I read in Genesis 18 as per the Torah and Bible that Abraham sits at his tent’s entrance, sees 3 visitors (angels), and offers them hospitality. One announces that Sarah will have a son, can you clarify on that please?
Hi Jul,
Here’s a blog post from Rav Laitman on the topic: https://laitman.com/2013/11/to-see-an-angel/
And if you’re interested in learning how to properly decipher the Torah, check out the books: Disclosing a Portion or The Secrets of the Eternal Book.
Albert @ KabU
Can you please clarify? you mentioned that Kabbalah is not a religion, and even Christian can practice or study Kabbalah. Isn’t there going to be any contradiction later on? how will Christian belief fit into Kabbalah as I want to learn more and keep my belief in the teachings of Christ?
Hi Jul,
Kabbalah is a science, it’s not a religion. Even while studying Kabbalah a person can continue to believe and practice their religion.
Furthermore, both Kabbalah and many religions 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 as a result we can reveal in our lives the Creator, the general force of love and bestowal.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2015/12/the-wisdom-of-kabbalah-and-the-other-religions/
Albert @ KabU
Is Kabbalah derived from the Zohar? If not, how is their relation?
I am aware also of a book called Sefer Yetzirah, which also delves in the understanding of Hebrew letters, how important is it to learning Kabbalah in learning the origin of the Hebrew letters?
Hi Charles,
1. See my reply below to Gates.
2. It’s helpful to know Hebrew, but it’s not a must. As much as it is necessary, we’ll learn a few basic terms in Hebrew throughout the courses.
Check out this article for more details about the spiritual code inside the Hebrew Language: http://www.kabbalah.info/eng/content/view/frame/60270?/eng/content/view/full/60270&main
Albert @ KabU
If Kabbalah started with Abraham, how is it not Jewish? Additionally, do the books of Kabbalahinclude the Torah and Zohar?
Hi Gates,
Yes, the Torah and Zohar are indeed Kabbalistic books. But Kabbalah and Judaism are two separate things. Let’s put a few things into perspective to understand this:
Kabbalah is the method of correcting our egoistic nature and thereby revealing the Creator, the general force of love and bestowal. The first one to actualize this was Adam. His name gives us a hint at this since Adam comes from the Hebrew word “Dome”, meaning “similar to”. He was not the first one alive, but rather the first one to reveal the Creator by becoming similar to this quality of bestowal.
This wisdom gets passed onward from Adam until Abraham who adapted it to the people of his generation and made the wisdom more practical. Abraham put together a large group of Babylonians who were interested in actualizing this method. These people later on became the Israeli nation. The word Israel comes from the Hebrew words “Yashar” “El” meaning straight to God. These are the people who had an active point in the heart in those days and were interested in revealing the Creator.
These people greatly succeeded in this method. The peak of their success was symbolized in the building of the first and second temple, which reflected the level of unity and bestowal they were able to reach. At a certain point, they lost the spiritual connection between them (the destruction of the 2nd temple) and what remained was just these external symbols of their connection.
At this point the wisdom of Kabbalah became concealed. People still had the holy books, Torah and etc, but they did not know how to use them. Since the Torah is written in the language of roots and branches. Meaning it uses words of our world to describe spiritual phenomena. But if a person does not have this spiritual connection through which he can see this, then he thinks this book is talking about this world, history, morals, commandments, etc. From this emerges the Jewish religion.
From all the above we see that Kabbalah itself is not connected to any religion and that the modern religions came out due to the concealment of Kabbalah. At the same time, Kabbalah is not against religions. In fact we have millions of students worldwide, from many different backgrounds and religions. Many of them do choose to maintain their religion or to perform certain religious customs while studying Kabbalah and there is nothing wrong with that. Just like with any other science, a person can be religious and also be a chemist or physicist. Likewise a person can be religious and also study the science of Kabbalah. Baal HaSulam writes that even after the full spiritual correction people can still keep their religions.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2015/12/the-wisdom-of-kabbalah-and-the-other-religions/
Albert @ KabU
I’d like to better understand the 125 steps that were discussed. When we are born, where are we on this ladder? Are we descending or ascending throughout our life here on earth?
Hi Raquel,
The number 125 comes from the structure of the upper worlds. This structure is just a division of the spiritual desire that we need to correct into sefirot, partzufim, and worlds.
The most basic division of the desire is 1 Sefira. 5 Sefirot compose 1 partzuf. 5 Partzufim compose 1 world. There are 5 worlds in total. So 5 worlds each with 5 partzufim each with 5 sefirot equals 125 (5x5x5) steps on the spiritual ladder, or in other words corrections that need to be performed on the desire.
In the book Kabbalah for the Student, there’s an article called Foreword to the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah (http://www.kabbalah.info/eng/content/view/full/64187) which lists these 125 steps in the language of sefirot/partzufim/olamot(worlds). For now, these are just technical terms for us, but in the future lessons we’ll dive deeper into these things and learn how to feel and experience them.
In simpler words, the 125 steps represents the difference between us and the Creator. The Creator is a desire to bestow and we are the desire to receive. Adapting our desire to receive to work in order to bestow takes 125 steps. So to the extent that we correct our nature, make it similar to the Creator’s nature, to that extent we’re “climbing” this ladder.
In other words, ascending or descending this ladder is not a physical action, but rather depends on how much we’re similar to the Creator’s quality of bestowal (ascending) or less similar to it and more egoistic (descending).
All of this operates according to the law of equivalence of form. Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2013/04/everything-is-attained-by-the-equivalence-of-form/
As for us, we’re not yet on any spiritual degree, we’re still in the preparation period prior to the spiritual ladder. But once we start to do real spiritual work, we can measure our progress in our attitude towards other points in the hearts. That I’ll feel how my attitude towards them changes, from complete indifference, all the way until I feel them as pieces of my soul. We’ll learn about this in the more advanced lessons.
Albert @ KabU
One thing that I struggle to reconcile with is the idea that we don’t have a soul yet. All my life I’ve been taught that all human have souls. Please help me understand the disparity of the (.) and the soul. Thank you.
Hi Pablo,
There are different levels to this thing called a soul. In the beginning, we all have an animalistic soul, meaning a certain force that enlivens our animalistic body, similar to any other animal. But the human level of the soul is not something we have by default, but rather something that we acquire by correcting our egoistic nature. In other words, each one of us has a human soul in potential which we call the point in the heart. If we correct that point, out of it, we can build the full level of the soul. If not, that same potential continues to reincarnate again and again until it gets corrected.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2015/06/what-happens-to-the-soul-after-death/
Albert @ KabU
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