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If i am to bring a lighter to a tribe unfamiliar with the technology, they may take me as a magician, capable of conjuring fire from my fist. But i don’t know how the lighter works, i only know how to operate it because i saw others, some time ago, doing the same. How does it work with the wisdom of kabbalah? Can anyone operate the fire “safely”, just by watching “adults” doing it? or do i need to learn every little element of the lighter and the tribe and its relations to the fire and how to refuel the lighter – before inviting attention of the tribe?
Hi Nika,
The example with the lighter was to illustrate how Kabbalah is not something mystical, but rather it’s ground within the laws of nature.
Just like with the lighter, a person who has never seen such things might think it’s magic, but a modern person knows that there is nothing magical about.
Likewise with Kabbalah, a person who has no understanding of Kabbalah might think it’s mysticism, but a person who is actually practicing it knows that there is nothing mystical about it.
That’s the extent to which this example is meant to illustrate.
Albert @ KabU
Hello,
I was reading the recommended text, Kabbalah for the student, the Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah.
In the text this Question is posed:
“…why is there the matter of the multiplicity of
Partzufim, Sefirot, and interchangeable connections, which are so abundant in
the books of Kabbalah”I didn’t really understand the answer about anatomy of a small animal. It seems confusing to have different words which essentially mean the same thing. Can you help me understand
Hi Curtis,
Essentially he is asking the question that if there is but a singular goal of creation, why are there so many different systems in creation? And he gives the example of a small animal whose only goal is to live long enough to procreate, but if you zoom into their anatomy, you also find a huge, complex system. So just like that small animal needs all those systems in order to carry out its goal, likewise, we too need all of these huge systems of Partzufim, Sefirot, and Worlds in order to help us reach the purpose of creation.
As for different words meaning the same thing, like with the example of the body, you can just say that the body is made up of cells and that would be correct. But we see that science does not stop there, but calls one grouping of cells a heart, and another grouping of cells a brain, etc. It’s all referring to cells, but the specific names help us to zoom in and talk about specific parts of the body.
Albert @ KabU
One last question for me today please. As I began to delve into Kabbalah I purchased a library of books which were recommended for the study of Kabbalah, Torah and the Zohar. For example I have the book Deresh HaShem written by the RaM’Hal and the 2 companion books of explanations of the work. I also have the Babylonian Talmud, The syangouge edition of the Siddur ect, ect but now I wonder with the teachings of Baal HaSulam, does these books have any value in our lives today? Would they be worth the effort to explore as a compainion to the teachings of Baal HaSulam?
Hi Philip,
Those books were written by Kabbalists, so for sure each one of them is priceless. But whether they will have the same effect on a person as the writings of Baal HaSulam and Rabash, I cannot say. The writings of Baal HaSulam and Rabash were written specifically for our generation, so they would of course have the strongest effect on us, on the level of egoism that we’re working with.
See my reply 375236 to Rade below for more details.
Albert @ KabU
How doe one correctly apply his ego for the purpose of correction in ones life, to make a better place for himself and for the others around us? Kabbalah is introducing me to an entirely new concept of ego and how it works and I desprately wish to learn more about how the ego functions and what I can do to use it for ultruistic purposes?
Hi Philip,
First, we need to understand what is the ego that we’re talking about.
Our nature is the desire to receive pleasure. It simply means that every calculation we make is to chase pleasure or avoid pain. This is similar to how any other animal functions. By itself, there is nothing wrong with this nature, it’s simply the program by which we function and preserve ourselves.
Egoism is when this program begins to be used in a way that harms others. Not only do I want to receive pleasure, but I want to receive it at the expense of others, at their detriment. This is the corporeal ego.
There is also a spiritual ego. Spiritual egoism is everything that stands in the way of our connection with the Creator. Normal people don’t have a spiritual ego. This is only something that we discover after doing some serious spiritual work.
We’ll learn how to work practically with the spiritual ego in the more advanced semesters. In the meantime, check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2010/10/true-evil/
Albert @ KabU
Hi teachers, so the fact that we are living now in the most high level of egoism and evil is because somehow God wanted to let the evil grow at the maximum level and then cut him out ?
Hi Alexander,
Yes, you can say that the general level of egoism has truly peaked in our days. But it’s not in order to get rid of it, rather it’s in order to use it to ascend spiritually. In Kabbalah, we don’t work on eradicating egoism, but only on rising above it. This is because we cannot attain high levels of spirituality without the ego. In fact the more we advance, the more our egoistic desires grow. They turn into a type of mountain that we climb over. The bigger the desires, the higher we can climb, and the higher the spiritual degree that we can attain. On the other hand, if we were to eliminate our egoistic desires, then accordingly, we would only be able to attain a tiny degree of spiritual attainment.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2011/02/the-worse-the-better/
Albert @ KabU
wow, this is really a fine line and suggests we have a choice of how ‘much’ ego we posses and how difficult we wish to make the journey over those mountains. I wish for example to cleave unto the G-d, blessed is his name, in a deeply meaningful way, does this mean that I should build up huge ego in order to overcome it and be worthy of such a connection to the G-d, hallowed be his name.?
Hi Philip,
No, we don’t work on growing the ego. Our aspirations should always be towards something positive, towards acquiring the Creator’s qualities of love and bestowal. If as a result of that work we reveal our opposite egoistic nature, that’s fine. But that’s a side effect and not something we aspire for directly.
Albert @ KabU
Hi,
If i got it right- only the texts from Baal Ha Sulam and latter Kabbalists (Rabash, Rav Leitman) are helping ordinary people to get through Machsom and attain spirituality and the texts from Kabbalists before Baal Ha Sulam are for the people that already have some attainment in spiritualty?
Kind Regrads,
Hi Rade,
You can say that, but we need to put these things into perspective. There have been many Kabbalists and Kabbalistic books written throughout the generations. Although some of those writings still exist today, we don’t really study them directly in our days. In our days we mainly study from the writings of Baal HaSulam and Rabash. This is because egoism grows from generation to generation, so Kabbalah, the method for its correction, needs to get adapted in each generation for that level of egoism. For example it’s like in medicine, if a person has a headache he can just drink a tylenol and that’s enough to fix him. But if it’s not just a little headache but something cancerous, then that tylenol won’t do anything for him but he needs a completely different regime to heal himself.
This is why Kabbalah gets adapted in each generation to the level of egoism that is currently found in that generation. So although there were many different Kabbalists and Kabbalistic books throughout the generations, nowadays we mainly learn from the writings of Baal HaSulam and Rabash, since their writings contains the light that is most suitable to correct the egoism that is found in our generation.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details:Â https://laitman.com/2015/11/the-great-kabbalists-and-their-works/
Albert @ KabU
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