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dearest teacher,
would i be wrong to say that the torah is speaking to us not only in riddles but that we also miss most of it’s teaching because we only read the letter of the words (face value)?
if i may use the levitical laws and the lay-out of the tabernacle as an example:
we read about the person walking to the tabernacle with his sin offering and all we see is a sinner, but its not about that person but its teaching me about myself…
do i realize that the person with the animal on his way to the door of the tabernacle already did repentance (i mean he already is holding his offering in his hands), and what is he taking to the door of the tabernacle (animal (rich), two doves (middle class) or flour (poor)), which teaches me that they do have financial needs or not and what i need to do to assist such a person.
it’s teaching me not to judge but to think about what is said behind the physical words.
hope it makes sense
Hi Davison,
Yes, you can say that you’ll be missing out by reading it at face value. Furthermore, you can also say that you will also be missing out by extracting morals from it.
Kabbalists use the Torah primarily for the Ohr (light) that is in it. This is a special force that has the ability to correct our egoistic nature. As a result of this correction, we become similar to the Creator, to His qualities of love and bestowal. As a result of becoming similar to Him, we reveal Him in practice, in our lives. This is what the Torah is intended to help us to do.
Morals on the other hand don’t correct our egoistic nature, they simply band-aid it up, making it look pretty. So Kabbalists are not interested in using the Torah to extract morals from it.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2016/05/dispelling-myths-about-kabbalah-part-4/
If you’re interesting in learning how to properly decipher the Torah, check out the books: Disclosing a Portion or The Secrets of the Eternal Book.
Albert @ KabU
if one is aligning to abba’s word (torah), isn’t that to aligning to his moral standard?
can you maybe give me an example of what you mean?
Hi Davison,
Kabbalah talks about acquiring a new nature. Morals on the other hand don’t change our nature, it’s a continuation of the same nature.
Our nature is our ingrained operating system. Let’s say that I have a Windows PC. I have a few programs installed on it. Changing our morals is like picking which program to install on that PC. I can install Word, Powerpoint, Excel, etc. But regardless of which application I install on it, I will always be working with the same Windows operating system. In other words, regardless of the morals a person chooses to follow, that person will continue to exist within the same egoistic nature he was born into.
Whereas changing our nature is like switching to a completely different operating system, like to a Mac. Or in the Kabbalistic sense, we’re talking about acquiring the nature of bestowal.
As for studying “Torah”, it’s not about memorizing a few pages from a book. Rather it’s about having an intention for the light to change you through the study. We’ll learn about this in the upcoming lessons, in the meantime, check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details:
https://laitman.com/2013/02/sunbathing-in-the-rays-of-the-reforming-light/
Albert @ KabU
google translation of the questions:
Why were the texts written by the Kabbalists using the language of the branches? Please
Is it to protect their wisdom that you hid it?
______________________________________________________________
Yes, on the one hand, you can say that it’s to protect the wisdom. On the other hand, the language of roots and branches is the ideal form for passing spiritual information. There are no words or objects in spirituality, it’s a world of forces. But each of these forces have a corresponding corporeal branch in our world. So by using the names of the corresponding branch, Kabbalists can point out and talk about its spiritual root.
Check out these blog posts from Rav Laitman for more details:
https://laitman.com/2010/12/the-spiritual-decoder/
https://laitman.com/2013/09/from-root-to-branch/
Albert @ KabU
A big thank you for the great teachings of Kabbalah. You said that everything in Torah is code from the roots using the language of the branches and had nothing to do with this world. Does that mean that the story of the Egyptian plagues, Passover and the crossing of the red sea never happened. Including other stories we read about Israel being slaves in Egypt for over 400yrs.
Thanks
Hi Richard, great question!
The Torah is entirely written in a type of code called the language of roots and branches. This code uses words of our world to describe spiritual phenomena. So none of it is literal. On the other hand there is a law that every spiritual root must touch the corporeal branch at least once. Meaning although these are spiritual phenomena, they must have a corresponding corporeal branch in our world.
For example, Egypt represents the uncorrected egoistic desire while Israel represents the corrected desire, those are the roots. But in our world these things exist as branches as well. There is actually a physical place that is called Egypt and Israel. Likewise with Moses, there was indeed a Kabbalist named Moses. Still, despite all the above, the Torah is not a history book, not a single word of the Torah speaks about our world, history, morals, etc.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2016/05/dispelling-myths-about-kabbalah-part-4/
If you’re interesting in learning how to properly decipher the Torah, check out the books: Disclosing a Portion or The Secrets of the Eternal Book.
Albert @ KabU
I was wondering if learning at least some of the Hebrew language would be recommended to help in the study of Kabbalah? I’ve actually always wanted to learn Hebrew but never followed through with it.
Wow Albert @ KabU…thanks for the eureka moment. I can’t wait to continue this journey to finding Ultimate Reality. You all @KabU rock. Thanks for the learning opportunity!!!😊
Hi Michelle,
Knowing Hebrew is helpful, but you don’t really need to learn Hebrew to study Kabbalah. All of our materials are professionally translated to English and many other languages.
But does the translation pass the full spiritual meaning? No. Hebrew is a language built for passing spiritual meaning, not just the meaning of the words, but every single letter and shape of the letter is a code for a spiritual state. So any translation is good but it will never give you 100% of the true spiritual meaning, it’s impossible.
So how big is the loss? For a person who is not yet in spirituality, the loss is very very small, even minuscule. In fact we have thousands of students worldwide studying with us on a daily basis, in a language other than Hebrew. Whenever Rav Laitman visits these groups, he always remarks how there is no difference in the spiritual advancement between these students and the students in front of him (all Hebrew speakers) that he studies with daily. This is because spirituality does not depend on knowledge but only on the desire. If we build the right desire for spirituality, we will feel it, if not, then no.
If you want an in depth explanation of the significance of the Hebrew language, check out this article. The ties between letters, words, and numbers:
http://www.kabbalah.info/eng/content/view/frame/60270?/eng/content/view/full/60270&main
Albert @ KabU
Hi Dadyaran,
For material and courses in other languages, check out our portal site: https://www.kab.info/
Albert @ KabU
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