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Hi Luis,
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman: https://laitman.com/2013/09/from-root-to-branch/
Albert @ KabU
How the temple got destroyed ? What happened there that destruction of it resulted in fall of humanity? When will it be created again?
Hi Rahul, great questions!
1) The temple symbolized the level of love and connection that this group was able to achieve at that time. When a bigger level of egoism was revealed, they were unable to maintain that level of love and connection. As a result of that, the corporeal temple, the symbol of their love and connection, wound up getting destroyed.
Baal HaSulam writes about this in “Letter 60”, here’s an excerpt:
“this is what our sages meant when they asked about the ruin of the Second Temple, that there was no idolatry there and they were proficient in Torah, so why was it ruined? They said it was for unfounded hatred.”
2) The general level of egoism grew. But this is not a bad thing, but rather a sign of progress. It’s like with exercise, when you master a 5 pound weight, in order to keep progressing, you need to add resistance by going up to a 10 pound weight, etc. Likewise the process of correction works according to the rule of “from light to heavy”. Meaning first the lighter, less egoistic souls reach their correction. They become as the pioneers that start this whole process. And only later on we focus on the heavier, coarser, more egoistic desires.
The people in the days of Abraham were less egoistic and therefore started this whole process. After they corrected the egoism on their level, it opened the door for the rest of the world, the carriers of the heavier, more egoistic desires, to reach their correction.
But the rest of the world was not yet ready for this correction. For this reason Kabbalah had to be temporarily concealed and the people who previously succeeded in this method needed to be scattered throughout the whole world. Then in the process of them integrating with the rest of the world, they sped up the development of the rest of the world to this final state of correction.
So we can see from this whole process that it’s not that something bad happened, on the contrary, those pioneers that started this process finished the correction on their level and then received their next challenge.
3) Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2008/08/building-the-third-temple/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Orah,
There is no official course at the moment. All of the Hebrew that we need for studying Kabbalah we will gradually learn together throughout this course. For more details about the importance 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
I have more than one please forgive me. You say kabbalist, what makes a person a kabbalist? You gave the example of Abraham teaching the men kabbalah. How do you know he was teaching that to them? Did they know they were kabbalists? Did they know that the words they were using were representations of something of another world? The 125 steps…where did the knowledge come from that it is that many? I should probably get those books lol
Hi Blue,
1) A Kabbalist is someone that has corrected his/her egoistic desire into the desire to bestow (at least to some extent). As a result of this correction, a Kabbalist reveals the Creator, the general force of love and bestowal, while they are alive in this world.
2) Regarding Abraham, we know of his work through the writings of Rambam.
3) If a person corrects himself, he attains spirituality, he feels it tangibly. It’s impossible not to know that one has spiritual attainment.
4) Yes, the Kabbalists used the language of roots and branches on purpose in order to convey spiritual phenomena. For those that are in spiritual attainment, this is very clear. For those that are not, these writings seem to them like some kind of stories, history, morals, etc.
5) The number 125 comes from the structure of the upper worlds. This structure is just a division of the spiritual desire that we need to correct into sefirot, partzufim, and worlds.
The most basic division of the desire is 1 Sefira. 5 Sefirot compose 1 partzuf. 5 Partzufim compose 1 world. There are 5 worlds in total. So 5 worlds each with 5 partzufim each with 5 sefirot equals 125 (5x5x5) steps on the spiritual ladder, or in other words corrections that need to be performed on the desire.
In the book Kabbalah for the Student, there’s an article called Foreword to the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah (http://www.kabbalah.info/eng/content/view/full/64187) which lists these 125 steps in the language of sefirot/partzufim/olamot(worlds). For now, these are just technical terms for us, but in the future lessons we’ll dive deeper into these things and learn how to feel and experience them.
In simpler words, the 125 steps represents the difference between us and the Creator. The Creator is a desire to bestow and we are the desire to receive. Adapting our desire to receive to work in order to bestow takes 125 steps. So to the extent that we correct our nature, make it similar to the Creator’s nature, to that extent we’re “climbing” this ladder.
In other words, ascending or descending this ladder is not a physical action, but rather depends on how much we’re similar to the Creator’s quality of bestowal (ascending) or less similar to it and more egoistic (descending).
All of this operates according to the law of equivalence of form. Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details:
https://laitman.com/2013/04/everything-is-attained-by-the-equivalence-of-form/
Albert @ KabU
Hello,
I am so glad that I can ask questions and get answers from real people. I’ve been watching videos and reading books and honestly it’s so confusing. In the video (week 1 here on KabU) the instructor said something about Machsom. What’s the best way to cross that border and start feeling spiritual worlds? Study in a group the teaching of 10 sefirot? There has to be a structure step by step, is that correct? Or each individual person achiees perception of reality at a different time? Thanks! 🙂
Hi Aaron, great questions!
Spirituality works according to laws. The main law in spirituality is the law of equivalence of form. Meaning that in order to cross that barrier, we need to become similar to the spiritual qualities of love and bestowal that reside there.
It’s similar to how a radio works. That we just need to tune the inner frequency of the radio to match the external wave. Once we tune in to the wave that we want, we right away hear the music that is on that wave. Likewise with us, once we tune ourselves in the direction of bestowal, we will reveal the spiritual world.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: http://laitman.com/2013/04/everything-is-attained-by-the-equivalence-of-form/
And yes, we do this work by studying together in a Kabbalistic group. This is what we’ll be doing in a systemic way throughout the courses on KabU and especially in the advanced semester.
Until then, we’re still in the fundamentals, learning the foundation needed to do this type of work. The best thing you can do for your spiritual advancement now, is to set aside some time to regularly return to the Kabbalistic sources, weekly lessons, videos, books, etc. Such a habit of regularly returning to the source of the light will help you throughout your entire spiritual development.
Albert @ KabU
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