Ask Anything

[Gil]

Ask, connect, inspire.

[Lyndon]

FAO Mike Kellogg

Dear Mike,

Re. Sep 22, 2022 – Rosh HaShana

Thank you as always for your classes

The lesson this week focused on the quality of ‘love’ being something completely outside the will to receive and presently beyond us.

I have been thinking a lot about what exactly the term ‘Love thy friend as thy self’ means and have the following questions:

1)   what does the term ‘friend’ actually mean? is this the exclusion of all those who you do not term as being a friend.

2)   does the term ‘friend’ just mean the rest of humanity regardless of their relationship to you whether the individual is indeed a friend or enemy, foe, somebody you distrust/ dislike etc regardless

3)   if the term friend means the rest of humanity/ all people would it be better to say “love all beings else as thy self”?

4)   If we take it that the term friend means everybody in the world I don’t know whether I would ever be able to come to terms with that. I mean, with such dreadful things in the world done at the hands of man it would be very difficult for me to love such people let alone those who are considered as being friends.

thank you ever so much. Lyndon.

 

 

[Xavier M]

Thank you, Jim and Gianni. I’m grateful to be here to start developing that place for the friends.

[David J]

Zohar explained that my desire should be the fulfillment until the next step. To concentrate on what I can do, not what I can’t do today. I am impatient to be placed into a ten,  how do I wait?  I am  weak.

[Jim – KabU Instructor]

Hello David. You have an excellent opportunity at this time. One of the great tools kabbalists need is patience. However, we can’t develop this tool unless we really feel impatience first. So perhaps you should thank the Creator for giving you this situation and these feelings.

[David J]

Thanks Jim

[Paul]

Lately, Gianni talked about the only point where we have  free choice,  situated in the middle third of Tifferet.

That is, if  I am not mistaken, the center of the center, as far from above as from below. In the eye of the storm, so to speak. Does it mean that only in the center of our group (the Ten) once we have reached a mutual integration, is there an opportunity  to choose life (spiritual life)? Are there more requirements to exert free choice?

[Gianni – KabU Instructor]

Reaching the center of the ten is what we need. For this we need the entire wisdom of Kabbalah. To do so I would have to sort all the corporeal desires in my current Reshimo and raise the friends higher than all of it, so I only think of them. It’s still not the middle third of Tifferet, we don’t have something like that in our tools yet.

[Ralitza]

Question to Seth about “A Sage Speaks” from 13th September:

Hi Seth,

Unfortunately I cannot join your lessons live anymore, but I am still watching every recording at least twice. Your way of explaining is awesome. 🙂

A question burns inside me, though:

When the Ohr Yashar (100%) is rejected and divided into Ohr Pnimi (20%)+Ohr Hozer (20%)+Ohr Makif (80%) we get 120%. Does that mean that the Light grows bacause is has been reflected on the Masach or it just changes it’s form? Like a sunbeam hitting on a magnifying glass? You can burn a whole forest with a tiny little peace.

Thank you for your lessons!

Ralitza

[Jim – KabU Instructor]

Here’s a reply from Seth.

Ralitza,
Hi :)The light reflected by the screen called Reflected Light dresses onto the Direct Light (which is coming Direct from the Creator) and this Reflected Light serves as the vessel for receiving the Inner Light into  the Guf of the Partzuf.

For example, if someone you love with all of your heart gives you a glass of water, it is not the water that is so pleasurable, but your relationship with the giver of the water.  That new attitude with the Giver are the new vessels that are formed.  This is different than what happens on the inanimate, vegetative and animate degrees that simply receive the water or any pleasure and the relationship is to the received pleasure, not with the Giver of the pleasure.

The Reflected Light is the intention to only receive the Direct Light on the condition that it can be received for the sake of the Creator – this is the relation to the Giver.  So if the Kli can relate to the Creator let’s say 20% and not to the pleasure itself from the Creator, then this attitude, this intention clothes the Direct Light.

This amount of clothed light can enter inside the Toch of the Partzuf.
To answer your question, it is not a second 20% that goes inside the Partzuf.  To the extent that the kli can work and clothe the Direct Light, to that extent, the Light can enter into the kli.  All fulfillment happens inside the kli, not in the Rosh.  The Rosh is only the calculation.  Remember that point.
Great question.

Additionally, as the masach purifies the screen, as we are starting to learn now, the kli starts to understand its relationship to the Light, what it can receive, what it can’t, why, what is the attitude of the Creator, what is my attitude, etc.  so even as the partzufim seem to get smaller with less light, it has more quality, kind of like what you said in your forest example…but let’s follow Baal HaSulam and it will become clear.
Wishing you all good and see you soon,
Seth@KabU

[Ralitza]

Thank you for forwarding Seth’s answer,  Jim !!!

[Gianni – KabU Instructor]

Hi Ralitza,

Seth usually doesn’t answer in this forum, but I can tell you that it still adds up to 100%. To the extent that the Partzuf can receive in order to bestow, it can receive the light inside. So, let’s say it can receive 20% of the Light. The Ohr Hozer (Reflected Light) is actually the measure of how much I am able to bestow – meaning I could totally overcome the pleasure and not receive it, and bestow it instead. That’s the test. And it turns out that, to that measure, I actually receive it – in order to bestow. That’s why you see both are at 20%. It’s like if I transfer funds from one bank account, you’ll see that same amount in the other.

[Ralitza]

Thank you for the clarification, Gianni! Now I start to understand the principle.

[David J]

Hello, I have just joined the GE but am unable to find information on joining a ten. How will this occur?  Thanks, David

[Gianni – KabU Instructor]

Welcome David,
We are so excited to have you in the Graduate Environment. As you many have heard, this week we are all connected to the Annual KabU Retreat and hope you are going to be with us at this special event.

In the Grad Environment, you will experience a myriad of lessons every week, and the “flagship” is what we call the Young Group. It starts every few months and in it you will embark on the practical Kabbalah journey. This is where you will be assigned a ten and learn all about the work in a ten. Your Young Group will be starting a couple weeks after the Retreat.

[David J]

Yes, I attended the retreat virtually, it was awesome! Thanks for the response. Excited.

[Jim – KabU Instructor]

Hello David. The class is divided into 10s several weeks after the start of the semester.

[David J]

Thanks for update.

[Lyndon]

Dear KabU Instructor,

FAO Seth Breitman

Dear Seth,

Re.  Aug 16, 2022 – Ptiha, Lesson 6 | A Sage Speaks

Question 1) Does Shame (busha), as referred to in sections covered (19, 20 & 21) relate to the fig leaf in the depiction of Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden?

Question 2) Why was Phase 4 forbade from receiving without limit forever and be happy then/there in this state?  What made this decision and why?

Question 3) In the lowest permutation of the restrictions ‘Malchut of Malchut’ {Dalet of Dalet).  If no light is received here because it is the coarsest of all, would the whole thing not completely and irrevocably disappear into complete darkness with no way out as it can never perceive any light in the first place as its in pitch blackness in this state?

I know this isn’t an intellectual quest but without getting this it will remain as mush and I need to get over these hurdles but its early days and your classes are so helpful.

Thank you again.  Lyndon S.

[Jim – KabU Instructor]

Hi Lyndon. Again, I will forward your post to Seth. Having not heard the lesson you are referring to, I would answer your question like this:

1.       Yes

2.       There was no decision. It was a matter of cause and consequence. The creature cannot make a decision until it is fully formed. The ability to make a decision is the definition of a fully formed creature. This is where we are headed. The restriction in phase 4 was a consequence of the shame.

3.       It would, but for the shattering. The one soul was broken into pieces and sparks of bestowal  (light) were mixed with the vessels of reception. We call these sparks “the point in the heart” and they are the reason we ask about the meaning of life.

[Author]

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