Ask Anything

[Gil]

Ask any question and get an answer from a KabU instructor! (for tech questions see “Tech Support” Section)

[Todd]

Hello

Rav was talking about using your screen and if you lose it you have to work on building it again.  It seems very difficult to keep the screen in place with your intent all the time.  How can a person even do this?

 

[Chris – KabU Instructor]

Hey Todd,

This is why working in a group is the only way. We help one another keep this “ball afloat”.

This is the only way.

Chris

[Todd]

Does a person have to be in Israel the physical country, to make certain corrections?

[Chris – KabU Instructor]

Hey Todd,

Absolutely not.

 

[Todd]

Hi

 

So I read on wiki that Baal Hasulam was a day laborer.  Also Rav said that Rabash would grab his tools and go to work in those days.  I am wondering if there is something connected to physical work in the corporeal world and Kabbalah.  Baal Hasulam could have gotten a better job could he not have?  A better paying more prestigious job.  He was very smart and capable no?  Why didn’t he establish himself.  I read that he could not afford enough paper and ink to write.  Could you explain this please?

[Chris – KabU Instructor]

Hi Todd,

In general, many Kabbalists in the past chose laborious jobs so their mind would be free to engage in spiritual thoughts, whereas if they were to take jobs which demanded them to be more devoted in other ways, this would be less appealing for them. This usually meant the physical work was pretty difficult, especially in previous centuries, but now most of the jobs take most of the “mind space” so, this approach is a bit more difficult for students in this era, but the idea is still relevant.

Thanks!

[David]

The previous answer to my question on the Shoah said it was a “correction”. Correction of what? What could possibly be needing such a correction? Please don’t beg the question with an answer along the lines that “we can’t know HaShem’s way. Isn’t Kabbalah to help us know HaShem’s way? I have worked with Holocaust survivors for years and, what explanation would you suggest I give them? Thank you.

[Chris – KabU Instructor]

Hi David,

There’s no way we can logically understand it in our corporeal minds. If we lack the perception of the quality that governs all of nature, then we can’t even depict to ourselves the “thought” of how it operates – its “nature”.

There’s no just way. You can keep asking questions about “why?” but the answer will always be, “the Creator is Good that does good.” If you were to suddenly understand and feel that this was actually the Creator’s mercy and good intention, there’d be no doubt of His providence and you’d be addicted to His revelation. This of course is what the system of correction refrains from – that we wouldn’t just be shown but that we ourselves, from the lowly place, would rise to a high place on our own where from the opposite nature we attain the good nature.

You could extrapolate this question to any “evil” thing occurring in this world, you (and many others) tend to ask about the worst atrocities since surely if there was only a singular force in reality and it was good, it wouldn’t allow such things to happen. But really, we can’t justify the small things either, but we can somehow maybe logically understand that somewhere buried in the pain or struggle I or someone else experienced, it made them “stronger” or something like that, but like you said, we don’t understand what a “correction” is until we experience that every moment is actually a correction and sometimes there are calculations such as those where the “whole” is considered and not the “particular”.

Nature only considers the general development of creation towards the end goal. Nothing will stop the engine from moving in that direction. The created being will eventually reach that goal. The only question is how quickly. Can we awaken ourselves and cycle through the necessary states of awareness of our egoistic nature and demand correction, or will we need to be awoken from this external world in the form of pressures, stresses, pains and troubles?

Hope that helps,

Chris

[Todd]

Hey guys,

So I was listening to Rav yesterday, I think it was a video on youtube called “Resistance to the work in Kabbalah”.  Any way he said that if they published something great about you that means the creator has cast you out or is done with you.  If you get that kind of honor it stays in your ego and is hard to get rid of.  I believe it is at the end of the second video.  I am just going by memory.  Could you speak to this?

[Chris – KabU Instructor]

Hey Todd,

You can imagine to yourself, that if the ego was receiving some of the greatest pleasures, there’s no room there to think about the spirituality you don’t have. This is just how we work. You can consider it “lucky” that you didn’t win the lottery.

Thanks!

Chris

[khalid]

Greetings, I asked a question outside of this forum and was advised to ask the question here. My question is, ” can an experience of suffering push someone to learn or encounter certain kabbalistic concepts before they are formally taught? In other words, can one’s trauma resulting in a great desire to alleviate his suffering, result in a teaching to unfold before he is formally taught? I am not saying that I understood exactly what I was painting under the influence of great emotion, however the little I did understand became overwhelmingly abundant when I saw a diagram in the first lesson of this course that closely resembled it conceptually and wondered if the creator can drop bread crumbs for a pigeon like myself to follow

[Chris – KabU Instructor]

Hi Khalid,

Anything is possible, indeed. Nature works on all of us in different ways. It makes sense this would happen since the wisdom of Kabbalah is just research into the phenomena in nature within a person. It would be natural for you to feel these natural emotions outside the framework of “Kabbalah” which is only the method itself.

Chris

[khalid]

Thank you. Is this something that can be and should nurtured? And if so, would studying Kabbalah facilitate that?

[Chris – KabU Instructor]

There’s usually some awakening that brings a person to the path, and from there, a person needs to continue. Like it’s said, “the Creator takes a person’s hand and places it on the good faith and says, “Take this”.”

[Author]

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