Ask anything about week 2 lesson and materials and get an answer from a senior Kabbalah instructor.

[Tony Kosinec- KabU Instructor]

Ask anything about week 2 lesson and materials and get an answer from a senior Kabbalah instructor.

[Etienne Fourie]

Do I understand correctly, that we must each build a vessel that can contain the upper light, and as we progress to higher spiritual levels, this vessel will be more and more purified until it can contain all the upper light. Here we will be truly like the creator and free?

[Esther]

Another thought-Does everyone have the free will to choose what it is they desire?  For example, if someone has obsessive compulsive thinking, is there a place for free will to desire something outside of  those thoughts, like desiring connection with others and the Creator, or is it possible they have no control over what it is they desire.  If so, how does that align with each individual’s spiritual growth?

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Esther,

We don’t choose our thoughts and desires. These things come to us from the Creator. Baal Hasulam writes about it in “Pri Chacham Sichot. The Secret of His Name”. Here’s an excerpt:

“All the thoughts that enter a person’s mind are the act of the Creator. That is to say, it is not what a person feels, that he draws them from some place or that they originated from him. This is false, the biggest lie. Rather each thought, the smallest of the smallest, the Creator sent it to the mind of man, and that is the motivating force of man and of beast and of every living thing.”

__________

So we can’t change our thoughts and desires directly, but we can do so indirectly, as we learned this week, through our choice of the environment. Baal HaSulam writes about it in the article “The Freedom” (https://kabbalahmedia.info/sources/4AtF9tGS?language=en) . Here’s an excerpt:

“However, there is freedom for the will to initially choose such an environment, such books, and such guides that impart upon him good concepts. If one does not do this but is willing to enter any environment that appears before him and read any book that falls into his hands, he is bound to fall into a bad environment or waste his time on worthless books, which are abundant and more accessible. In consequence, he will be forced into foul concepts that make him sin and condemn. He will certainly be punished, not because of his evil thoughts or deeds, in which he has no choice, but because he did not choose to be in a good environment, for in this there is definitely a choice.

Therefore, he who strives to continually choose a better environment is worthy of praise and reward. But here, too, it is not because of his good thoughts or deeds, which come to him without his choice, but because of his effort to acquire a good environment, which brings him these good thoughts and actions.”

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Etienne,

Yes, you can say that. Keep in mind that freedom means rising above our egoistic nature. Which as we learned in this week’s lesson is by building for ourselves a strong spiritual environment. Baal HaSulam talks about this in the article, the Freedom. He writes: “Harut (carved) on the tables”; do not pronounce it Harut (carved), but rather Herut (freedom), to show that they are liberated from the angel of death.

Throughout the article he explains how our current egoistic nature is that angel of death. Meaning although we are technically alive and surviving, relative to spirituality, our life is considered death. True life is within a completely different nature, that of bestowal. In order to reach freedom from our current nature, we need to choose and build a spiritual environment for ourselves which will influence us with the importance of acquiring the quality of bestowal.

For this reason, the Kabbalists equate our main freedom in life in choosing to be influenced by a spiritual environment. Not just any environment, but specifically a spiritual environment, since only through the spiritual environment can we get the importance of coming out of our egoistic nature and only through that environment can we draw the light that can help us to actualize this.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2012/10/bestowal-should-become-fashionable/

Albert @ KabU

[Yvon Decelles]

What if you can’t choose your environment?

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Yvon,

The spiritual environment consists of the Kabbalistic books, group, and teacher. Choosing the spiritual environment means making these three things as great and important in our eyes and placing ourselves under their influence. In other words, this is not a physical choice but rather an internal one.  So there is always room to make such a choice.

Albert @ KabU

[Niklas]

To be honest, I don’t really see the freedom in factor 4. Where should that suddenly come from?

I understand that a proper environment “hastens time”, as Kabbalists say. However, Tony Kosinec himself says in the video “Free Will – Part 2” that “as soon as the point in the heart awakens (which I have no control over) the Creator places that person in the proper environment to develop all of its potential (so, there is no choice here as well)”.

I am fine with not having free will. If “There is None Else Besides Him”, as Kabbalists say, and the Creator is all good and benevolent AND the goal is eternal fulfillment, I am happy to be lead by Him.

I do feel that the intention “in order to bestow” “hastens time” and that the choice between “in order to receive” and “in order to bestow” is made freely, although it is not really a difficult choice (coerced by suffering), since nobody would consciously choose suffering over the Path of Light.

If somebody comes up to me and tells me: “Hey man. Putting yourself in a spiritual environment is the best thing you can do to hasten the time of your development and all you need to do to find such an environment is to set the intention of finding it”, then it is all fine for me. But I still don’t see a point of freedom in this anywhere. After all, I would not set the intention to find a proper environement if it wasn’t either suggested to me by a friend or it came from inside me (from the point in my heart which the Creator created for me). I can’t control any of that. And since I am run by the egoistic program, I cannot even decide what my response to my friend’s suggestion will be. Will I look for a spiritual environment? That’s pre-determined.

Am I confused somewhere? Can you help?

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Niklas,

You’re right, the actual point of free choice is still ahead of us. There is a saying that the Creator puts man’s hand on the good fate and says “choose this for yourself”. Meaning He awakened your point in the heart and brought it to a good spiritual environment in which you can nourish it, but after that the rest is up to you.

But if the point in the heart is forcing me to be here, what needs to happen for me to start actualizing my free will? This desire then needs to be taken away from me little by little, and there I begin to reveal more and more the place of my freedom.

This is similar to how we teach a child to ride a bike. First the parent holds the child completely. Then as the child learns to pedal and balance himself, the parent lets go a little, then a little more and a little more, until the child continue to pedal without the parent holding him at all.

So we too need to learn to continue to do this work even when that initial desire for spirituality begins to disappear or when the ego grows and begins to pull us into many different directions. Here there is already a need for mutual work in the group, the spiritual environment. On one hand when I fall into my ego, they need to pull me out, and on the other hand I need to help pull others out when they fall. This is why Kabbalists have always studied in groups (physical or virtual).

We will learn more about this in the more advanced semesters on KabU, where you’ll receive your own Kabbalah group with whom you can practice these things.

Albert @ KabU

[BEN]

does the first and the second factors point to the uniqueness of each of us? for example – i am ment to be a rabbi, even if i try to become a musician, that will not be my fullfillment?

and so the path to adhesion with the creator is really knowing oneself and fullfilling it? that is what is quite difficult …

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Beth,

The first and second factors point to the part of our development that we cannot change. Meaning that we were created as a desire to receive pleasure. We cannot change that at all. What we can do is to correct this desire to operate in the direction of bestowal, meaning to add the intention to bestow to it.

As for performing that correction and thereby reaching adhesion, it’s not about knowing oneself or being super strong and powerful, rather all that we need to know is how to leverage our one and only point of freedom in life, which is to build for ourselves a strong spiritual environment. Through the spiritual environment we extract the reforming light and the light does all the rest of the work. In other words, the light performs all the corrections on us, our work is only to extract this light through the spiritual environment.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2012/10/bestowal-should-become-fashionable/

Albert @ KabU

[BEN]

am not sure if i got this correctly – Everything that is happening in nature is part of a big picture – the ecosystem, the animal kingdom etc. does this mean that we are not meant to judge anything ? because we are not able to see the big picture? so for example like Hitler, Napoleon or anyone who society regards as a criminal, how do we take these into account?

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Beth,

As we learned in the lesson on the perception of reality, the entire external world is nothing more than a reflection of my uncorrected egoistic state. Meaning that I don’t experience some objective reality, but I experience something through the lens of my ego. Furthermore, to the extent that I correct this ego, to that extent the external reality will change as well. It’s like I have these dirty glasses through which I see the whole world as being dirty. The moment I clean my own glasses (correct myself) then I’ll look at the same world, but now it’s clean and perfect.

So until we correct our egoistic nature, we’re incapable of properly judging anything that we see outside of us. Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: http://laitman.com/2014/04/in-neutral-gear/

Albert @ KabU

[Eliyahu]

Based on the article “There’s none else besides him” where it is described how he attracts and rejects an individual until he comes to a point that the individual wants to hold on fast to the realization that the creator is the only operator, but even loses that sometimes, because it is the creators will, how can I understand that there will be any free will ever?

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Eliyahu,

There is none else besides Him does not mean that we have no free will. It means that we are in a closed system with absolute forces and laws. We cannot change these laws, but we can consciously work on putting ourselves under their influence in order to speed up our development. This is our free will. How do we put ourselves under the influence of these forces and laws even stronger? By choosing/building for ourselves a strong spiritual environment.

See my reply 55264 to Marion below for more details.

Albert @ KabU

[Sandra]

So if I understand correctly, our life is predetermined for us? work, family and I guess when or how we are going to die?

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Sandra,

You can say that anything that takes place within our default nature, the desire to receive pleasure, is predetermined. Only when we rise above this nature, do we gain any sort of freedom.

See my reply 55264 to Marion below for more details.

Albert @ KabU

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