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hello TONY
since we are taught que le créateur has created everything, you said we have no influence on anything.
But the law of cause and effect existe in the création, without it probable don’t function, also in our material realm.
Can you explain please?
Thank you so much for sharing
Hi Anja,
The Creator created everything and is the force behind everything. This is called “there is none else besides Him”. Meaning that although we see many forces in the world and even we ourselves are acting in the world, but ultimately, it’s the Creator orchestrating everything behind the scenes.
Here’s an excerpt from Baal HaSulam about this:
“All the thoughts that enter a person’s mind are the act of the Creator. That is to say, it is not what a person feels, that he draws them from some place or that they originated from him. This is false, the biggest lie. Rather each thought, the smallest of the smallest, the Creator sent it to the mind of man, and that is the motivating force of man and of beast and of every living thing.”
We’ll learn this in depth in the next semester, in the meantime check out this blog post from Rav Laitman on the topic: https://laitman.com/2017/12/there-is-none-else-besides-him/
Albert @ KabU
I’m struggling with a few things. I have to say that I don’t come from a Jewish or Christian background, and I’ve always struggled with the concept of an anthropomorphic personal God, although I do believe that a Force, or Light, or Ground of Being exists (and I’ve also experienced some evidence that life continues after death, but that’s an issue for another time). So, here are my questions:
1. I’m assuming that we cannot know why the Creator created creation, not what existed before Creation, nor who created the Creator. The Creator, being infinite, cannot be fully understood by ourselves as finite beings. Is this correct? Yet the question in me persists. It simply doesn’t make sense why ‘anything’ exists at all. If the question can never be really answered, why do I continue to ask it?!
2. If the Creator is infinite and self-sustaining, why were we created as egoistic beings – in direct opposition to a Being of pure bestowal – who must then descend and then ascend a ladder. Why not just create us as fully able to perceive the Creator in the first place? Why this descent and ascent? Why this veiling from ultimate reality?
3. I also can’t get my head around the shattering of the unified souls into individual souls. How can anyone really know that this actually happened? And why did it happen? Or do we just have to accept that it did, on faith, and that we’ll never really understand fully if or why? What’s the evidence for it?
Hi James, great questions!
1. Kabbalah is a science based on the research of the Kabbalists. As a science, there are clear limits to what we can and cannot research. One such limit is that we’re unable to research what happened before the thought of Creation, before Creation. This is because our current research tools are incapable of grasping such things, so we’re unable to research them. This is why the science of Kabbalah does not talk about what happened before the thought of Creation.
Check out this blog posts from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2017/01/why-did-the-creator-create-people/
Regarding researching the Creator Himself: In general, Kabbalah divides our research of the Creator into two parts:
The first is His essence (atzmuto in Hebrew). This is He Himself, His point of view, the Creator as an entity separate from the Created beings. We’re incapable of researching this part of the Creator because our research tools are not built in such a way that we can grasp such things. Perhaps after we finish the process of correction, we’ll discover additional research tools through which we’ll be able to research these things, but until then we limit ourselves and don’t talk about this part of the Creator because we cannot properly research it.
The other part of the Creator is called Bo-Re (Hebrew for Come (Bo) and See (Re)). This is the part of the Creator that we can research and reveal. How do we research this? Through the desire. When we take a part of our desire to receive and correct it in the direction of bestowal, in that corrected desire, we reveal a certain phenomenon, we call this phenomenon the Creator. This is why there are many names for the Creator (in Hebrew), since every time we correct a different part of the desire, we reveal a different aspect of this thing called the Creator.
So all of our understanding of this thing called the Creator (and any spiritual phenomena) is based on what we reveal within the corrected desire. But whatever exists outside of the corrected desire, whatever we don’t grasp, perceive or attain within the desire, whatever is beyond our tools of research, we don’t talk about. We need to keep these limits in mind in order to stay within the realm of science and not venture off into religion or philosophy.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2017/11/the-concept-of-god-in-kabbalah/
2. We were indeed created in the state of perfection, in complete adhesion with the Creator. (Baal HaSulam describes this in the article Introduction to the book of Zohar). But this was an unconscious state, like a baby in its mother’s womb. So we necessarily had to come to the complete opposite state, to lose that state of perfection, in order to once again reach it, but this time consciously.
And the fact that we had to lose this state is not something bad, but it’s a necessary part of our development. It’s just like with kids. We don’t just give them a completed jigsaw puzzle. On the contrary we take it and break it down into many pieces. Then in the process of them putting it together, they grow and develop. Same with us, this process of losing that state is a necessary part of our further growth and development.
This process also adds to us a certain level of freedom, without which, we would be no different than machines, or robots, that were programmed to act a certain way and they just carry out this inner script. Instead, we were programmed one way, and we rise above this inner programming, become independent of it, and then develop our own desire to advance towards this goal.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2014/01/from-perfection-to-perfection/
3. Kabbalah is a science. The Kabbalists are the scientists of Kabbalah. Everything we know is based on their research. This is similar to how other sciences work. The Kabbalists are those researchers that have performed a certain experiment and reached a certain result: the correction of our nature, the revelation of the Creator, the force of bestowal, etc. So if we are to replicate their experiment, to follow their procedures we should reach the same results.
But if a person is not yet on the degree of a Kabbalist, how does he relate to everything he’s learning? Like to any other science. For example, when I read a physics textbook, I see different formulas and experiments that research our reality. If I’m reading this textbook in 8th grade, then I have no choice but to accept the things written there since they come from a credible source. If I’m reading this textbook in college, I’m already given some tools with which I can measure and verify some of these things for myself. And yet there are some concepts that are so advanced, that I have no way to verify them until I become a physicist myself and get access to all the tools that will help me research these things.
Same with us here. There are some things I can verify for myself even when I’m just starting in the fundamentals of this wisdom, and then there are things that I can verify only when I myself have reached attainment.
Albert @ KabU
I must confess that I am still trying to assimilate the material of the 1st week. I was watching the Zohar reading for March 25th, which I missed, and I am glad it was recorded. As I was listening to it, I was thinking about the following: is the Zohar correlating to Kabbalah?
I was thinking about the system of connections in a “body” which at the end makes part of a “whole”
This was the first reading for week one. Then, as I was listening to Marcus’ Zohar Reading and I felt it was talking about it the whole time. Am I understanding it all right? Do the Zohar and Kabbalah correlate? Thank you!Hi Aglaya,
The Zohar is indeed a Kabbalistic book. If you’re interested in learning how to properly decipher the book of Zohar, check out the Enter the Zohar course.
And also here’s a blog post from Rav Laitman on the topic: https://laitman.com/2009/09/what-is-the-book-of-zohar-and-the-sulam-commentary-about/
Albert @ KabU
Hi,
maybe this has been asked or explained some where, How does the Kabbalah account for Angles in their creation story.
Thank you very much Albert! You are motivating me to do that! I’m new to all of it, therefore my next question: Is it possible to start with the Zohar, although I’m new to Kabbalah, too?
Hi Roli,
At every moment of our lives, we are surrounded by many different forces of nature that are constantly acting upon us. Some of these we identify, like the force of gravity, magnetism, the force of the sun, the moon, etc. And some of them we don’t yet identify. Spirits, angels, etc are terms referring to the forces of nature that are always acting upon us. These terms can be used interchangeably, so essentially you can call the force of gravity the angel of gravity. But these are forces. Just as you don’t attribute any intelligence/consciousness or even an image to the force of gravity, you shouldn’t attribute any to the forces called angels or spirits.
Furthermore, there is nothing harmful that stems from any of these forces. The only source of harm in the world is man’s own egoism.
Check out these blog posts from Rav Laitman for more details:
https://laitman.com/2008/03/demons-spirits-angels-devils-do-they-exist/
https://laitman.com/2010/05/why-do-angels-have-wings/
https://laitman.com/2015/07/a-devil-with-horns-or-our-own-egoism/
Albert @ KabU
Why now we are able to learn about Kabbalah comparing with a time when it was concealed ? Is there anything which makes our times different ? Thank you ..
Hi Kat,
Although we point to 1995 as to when Kabbalah became revealed, technically the prohibition was lifted much earlier, from the time of the Ari. He was the one to make a very special correction within the entire spiritual system, after which its not only possible, but a must to openly disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah in order to help the whole world reach its correction.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details on the Ari: https://laitman.com/2010/08/the-ari-rav-isaac-luria-the-godly-man/
So why do we say 1995? Let’s put a few things into perspective:
Kabbalah is the method of correction of our egoistic nature, thereby revealing the Creator, the general force of love and bestowal. Why was it necessary to conceal such a wisdom? Because egoism was still not yet fully developed. For example: if you compare Kabbalah to a medicine that can cure a rare disease, obviously you can’t take the medicine before you’re diagnosed with the disease, but once the disease actually manifests, you can take the medicine and be cured of it.
It’s just like the 5 stages development of a disease within a person. First a person is healthy. Then he is sick, but he does not feel it. Then the disease spreads to the point that he starts to feel pain and symptoms of the disease. This then pushes him to go to a doctor to get diagnosed and find the cure, and etc.
2000 years ago, egoism was still on a very low level, there was no need to correct it. Starting from the days of the Ari, egoism already grew to a certain extent (and technically the prohibition on Kabbalah ended there), but humanity still didn’t feel sick, on the contrary the ego was the main driving force of all of our development. Then from around 1995 egoism peaked and began to show itself as bad, like a cancer that begins to kill the host body. This is the peak at which there was a true need for the cure. Which in essence is what the Kabbalists have been waiting for all these years, for the desire, for egoism to fully ripen.
Albert @ KabU
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