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In the past 2 live sessions the topic of Judaism was discussed and one KabU instructor expressed that Jewish people in Israel are the ones rising to the top of the mountain uniting with the creator . But so are many non Jews that are studying kabbalah world wide so I don’t know why that wasn’t mentioned or emphasized either. I was reading Dr latimans article on the Torah and he said the Torah is written using 3 languages one of them being Jewish halakah which is Jewish law does that mean we have to follow Jewish law relating to Torah ? . I respect the Jewish people but I have no interest in religion and I have met many Jewish rabbis that say kabbalah is nonsense but it’s “Jewish nonsense”. So with this in mind why is Judaism being re-intertwined when Rav Latiman has said explicitly that kabbalah pre-dates religion. In the Larry king interview he says that, no kabbalah is not Judaism.
It’s been exhausting trying to understand this I thought the word “Jew” referred to anyone who is working with the point in the heart and not a person performing rituals. And are Jewish people really the “Chosen” people that are above the rest of humanity. If someone studies kabbalah would it not make more sense that, that person is also “chosen” in the sense they are doing the work in kabbalah. When Judaism gets put into the classes I just get confused again. But I can’t find this anywhere in Rav latimans books or Rav Ashlags. On the contrary when I read Rav Ashlags writings I find this beautiful sense of urgency he has to bring kabbalah far and wide to every single individual. But am I missing something?
Btw I write this in the most non combative way possible… Sadly the internet rips out human contact and emotions so things can be easily misunderstood. It’s a genuine question and one I’m confused on a lot. We are told to remove all our previous concepts about Torah and kabbalah etc but when all this gets brought up I just get confused again and it’s like I have to go back down to 0 and start investigating all over again 😮💨<p style=”text-align: left;”>Hey Luke, I get it, feeling confused when trying to reconcile different perspectives on Kabbalah and its relationship with Judaism. It’s just an atypical approach, as if needing to unlearn all kinds of preconceived notions.</p>
Kabbalah indeed predates organized religion and is a universal wisdom meant for all humanity. It focuses on the inner spiritual work of correcting one’s desires to align with the Creator’s qualities so the term “Jew” in Kabbalistic terms refers to anyone who has awakened the “point in the heart” and is striving towards spiritual unity with the Creator, regardless of their cultural or religious background.
The mention of Jewish law or Halakha in the context of Kabbalah is often symbolic. Kabbalists like Rav Laitman and Baal HaSulam emphasize the inner, spiritual meanings behind these laws rather than their literal observance. The Torah, when studied through the lens of Kabbalah, is seen as a guide to spiritual development rather than a set of religious rules.
Regarding the concept of the “Chosen People,” Kabbalah teaches that this refers to a spiritual mission rather than superiority. It signifies a responsibility to achieve spiritual correction and to serve as a conduit for spreading the light of Kabbalah to all nations. Anyone who engages in this spiritual work is, in essence, fulfilling this mission. Anyone…
We certainly wouldn’t advertise the method of correction to be accessible to anyone and then demand some kind of conversion…
In Kabbalah, the ten plagues and the ten Sefirot are indeed connected, but not in a negative sense. The ten plagues represent stages of spiritual purification that the Israelites underwent in their journey from slavery to freedom. Each plague corresponds to a specific Sefira, reflecting a process of correcting and refining desires 🙂
I’ve been struggling with self worth and negative self talk. In the articles the sages talk about self hatred. Is this what we should do ? Hate ourself and develope negative self talk ?
Ah…not the same thing at all–although I understand the tendency to go in that direction, that’s what the world kind of teaches us.
Kabbalah instructs us to always aspire only towards the good, and from the good we’ll recognize the evil in us, the desire to receive for ourselves and as a result of this we begin to “hate” what separates us from the Creator. This is not something artificial where we “focus” on something we hate and by that we imagine we’re advancing. This is not the path.
This hatred of what separates us from the Creator is also done with joy because we see how the Creator brings us to have certain feelings towards something we used to love. We love ourselves and there’s no doubt about that, this is all we know. So how can we develop feelings toward the one thing we actually love if not by some greater force above us that helps us aspire towards Him and not towards ourselves.
I hope the direction is clear. 🙂
Chris
My man Chris how are you ?
This will sound like a cliche question but when we see human ego running wild and making chaos like war and famine why doesn’t the creator intervene? If you take civilian casualties for example or poverty where people are suffering because of their political leaders or lack thereof, why does the creator not make a way to save those people considering they are suffering through no fault of their own but even worse they are suffering because of the ego of their leaders etc. Where is the creator in thisHey Luke,
Ya, classic question… It’s hard because here we are talking about human life and to us it seems so valuable and each one of us cherishes our own life so much and that’s easy to translate that into feeling for others, that their life is also valuable but this is not the life the Creator cherishes.
What we don’t see is this accumulation of Reshimot we go through individually and collectively and the absolute necessity to maintain the place of free choice for the created being. We nonetheless learn only through pain, from all kinds of different flavors and colors of being disconnected from the upper force and all this adds to our distinction between self love and equivalence of form with the Creator.
Our nature makes us these creatures that cannot stand pain and on the other hand become completely zombified and obsessed with pleasure. If He were to somehow take the pain away, He’s taking away specifically the thing that brings us closer to Him, and it’s not these corporeal bodies that He cares about coming close, so we may need to flip through a few of these before we finally understand how He speaks with us.
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