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I have three questions regarding the reading assignment: “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”,
Quoting from that document:
“And because of the great difficulty in the matter, our sages advised us: “Make for yourself a rav [2] and buy for yourself a friend.” This means that one should choose for oneself an important and renowned person to be one’s rav, from whom one will be able to come to engaging in Torah and Mitzvot in order to bring contentment to one’s Maker. This is so because there are two facilitations to one’s rav:
Since he is an important person, the student can bestow contentment upon him, based on the sublimity of one’s rav, since bestowal becomes as reception for him. This is a natural fuel, so one can always increase one’s acts of bestowal. And once a person grows accustomed to engage in bestowal upon the rav, one can transfer it to engaging in Torah and Mitzvot Lishma towards the Creator, too, since habit becomes a second nature.
Equivalence of form with the Creator does not help if it is not forever, that is, “until He who knows all mysteries will testify that he will not turn back to folly.” This is not so with equivalence of form with one’s rav. Since the rav is in this world, within time, equivalence of form with him helps even if it is only temporary and he later turns sour again.”And the following paragraphs say we should engage in coming to equivalence of form with our rav.
My first question then is should we consider Dr. Michael Laitman our rav? Or should we choose Baal HaSulam, the Rashbi, or the Ari? Or some other Kabbalist, perhaps even Tony Kosinec? How to proceed?
And my second question: if we do engage in this practice, how is this different from idol worship?
And my third question: there is also this issue: From another Spiritual Path there is a kind of warning – pick your Teacher very carefully because you will not be able to rise any higher in your Spiritual development than he/she has achieved. We are told that the Rashbi did ascend to all of the 125 degrees of attainment and came into perfect adhesion with the Creator. And we can assume that the Ari and Baal HaSulam also came into perfect adhesion with the Creator. But is this a Fact? How do we know? And what of rav Laitman? If I practice this program of aligning all of my inversion of desires, from receiving only for myself to receiving to give pleasure to my rav, and if my chosen rav has not attained the complete transformation, will this not be limitation, perhaps even a negative energy on my desire to come into perfect adhesion with the Creator?
Blessings to all.
Hi John,
1. Tony, myself, and all the instructors here are students of Rav Laitman. When you finish the graduate courses on KabU, you’ll have a strong enough foundation to join his lessons as well, if that is what you want. Ideally the teacher we choose is still alive in this world. Like Baal HaSulam writes above “Since the rav is in this world, within time…”. But whether you will see Rav Laitman as your Rav or not, I cannot answer that for you. It’s up to you. Ultimately “there is no coercion in spirituality”.
2. In practice, bestowing upon the Rav means sharing his goal to bring the world closer to the Creator. So it’s not like we’re idolizing the person, but rather we are working on disseminating the wisdom of Kabbalah to the world.
3. I cannot comment on what they teach in other spiritual paths. You can see from this very question that there is something incomplete in their explanation. After all, how did Rashbi, Ari, or Baal HaSulam reach all 125 degrees of attainment if their teachers did not?
In general, if we want to succeed in Kabbalah (or in any spiritual practice really) we should practice it without mixing other things into it. Otherwise it’s like following two different GPS systems. One leads you to the goal through the west highway, while the other through the east highway. If you follow both, you’ll just wind up going in circles.
Albert @ KabU
Hi Janika,
Baal HaSulam writes about this in the article The Peace:
“To avoid having to use both tongues from now on—nature and a supervisor—between which, as I have shown, there is no difference regarding the following of the laws, it is best for us to meet halfway and accept the words of the Kabbalists that HaTeva (the nature) has the same numerical value (in Hebrew) as Elokim (God)—eighty-six. Then, I will be able to call the laws of God “nature’s commandments,” or vice-versa, for they are one and the same.”
Here’s a breakdown of the numerical value of the letters
the nature = הטבע
ה = 5
ט = 9
ב = 2
ע = 70
God = אלהים
א = 1
ל = 30
ה = 5
י = 10
ם = 40
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2017/09/elokim-is-nature-in-gematria/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Vania,
Equivalence of form means that I become similar to the Creator, to His qualities of love and bestowal. In order to love and bestow like Him, I need to have someone I can love and to whom I can bestow. But there is a condition that “there is no coercion in spirituality”. So we cannot do spiritual work with just anyone. We need to find those with active points in the hearts that are interested in doing spiritual work together with us. Given that these types of people are rare, less than 1% of the world, chances are you won’t find someone like that among your corporeal acquaintances or family members.
So where do we find such people? In the Kabbalistic group. The Kabbalistic group is made up of many people around the world that are interested in using the Kabbalistic method to reach spirituality. And in the more advanced phases of KabU, everyone will receive their own Kabbalah group (a ten) with whom they can put all these things into practice.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2013/04/everything-is-attained-by-the-equivalence-of-form/
Albert @ KabU
Hello,
I am not sure I understand what a desire means. Can you please give me few examples? I understand the desire for spirituality, ok, I guess I have that one, but 613? Or am I missing something?
And this: …this system is perfectly built to create the exact desire that will allow a person to come into balance with the thought of the Creator through the Law of Equivalence of Form…
one exact desire?
how does that desire can look/feel like?
how can you know if you have that desire or not? and distinguish it from other desires?Thank you in advance!
Hi Zorica,
The 613 desires that we are learning about are spiritual desires, meaning desires that we don’t yet have. This is similar to how a single cell in a body only has some basic desires to sustain itself. But when that cell is part of a greater body, it reveals there higher desires which are impossible for the individual cell to have: desires for money, honor, power, etc. Same with us, until we integrate with the general body of Adam HaRishon, we don’t reveal or understand these 613 spiritual desires.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2008/12/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-613-desires/
This is why we focus all of our work on building that one desire to integrate and connect back into that general body of Adam HaRishon. What does that desire look and feel like? It’s a desire to connect and be close to others. When they speak, I really listen and value their words. When they are doing something together, I want to be there with them. If they are down, I want to uplift them, etc.
Keep in mind that we do this work only with other points in the heart in the Kabbalistic group. It’s like we’re building here a certain nucleus. Once we build that nucleus, we will be able to add to it wider and wider circles of the world, until we’ll come to include the whole world in that connection. But this is gradual work. And until we build that nucleus, we have nothing with which to do any spiritual work towards the world. So until then, how do we behave towards the rest of the world? We behave there normally, just like everyone else.
We’ll learn how to do this type of work practically in the more advanced semesters. It’ll be a lot more relevant in the graduate courses when everyone will receive their own Kabbalah group with whom they can put all these things into practice.
Albert @ KabU
I’m loving what I’m learning and I can clearly see methods described, but will there be more on the “how-to” or detailed examples to initiate the changes, or am I missing it explained already? Am I supposed to already be designing the process in my mind to change my ego etc or do I wait for further teaching? I do understand what’s being taught, but not sure if I’m supposed to be working on the process, or if I’m supposed to wait until more is taught.
Thanks!
Hi Scott, good question!
Our ego is our ingrained nature, our operating system. Just like a PC cannot just change itself to run as a Mac, we too cannot just change our own nature. We need outside help to make this change. This help comes to us from the force of the light. This is a special force that can change our nature. Our entire work boils down to extracting more and more of this light, especially during the Kabbalistic studies, and it does all the rest.
So from the point of being a complete beginner in Kabbalah all the way until the point of the final correction, all of our work is in extracting more and more of this light. The only difference is that in the more advanced phases of our studies, we are able to do this work together with others in a Kabbalistic group, which exponentially increases the amount of light we can extract.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2013/02/sunbathing-in-the-rays-of-the-reforming-light/
Albert @ KabU
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