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So far so good. And very straightforward. Tony Kosinec touched upon it in the video, but it has been a question that has previously kept me from formally studying the Kabbalah. Are there (and where can I read about them for inspiration), accomplished gentile Kabbalists? – Thank you.
Hi Clifton, great question!
The most famous example is Rabbi Akiva who was either a convert or a descendant of converts. And he became one of the greatest Kabbalists of all time. But we need to keep in mind that Kabbalah and Judaism are two separate things. A person does not have to be Jewish or religious to study Kabbalah. Let’s put a few things into perspective to understand this:
Kabbalah is the method of correcting our egoistic nature and thereby revealing the Creator, the general force of love and bestowal. The first one to actualize this was Adam. His name gives us a hint at this since Adam comes from the Hebrew word “Dome”, meaning “similar to”. He was not the first one alive, but rather the first one to reveal the Creator by becoming similar to this quality of bestowal.
This wisdom gets passed on ward from Adam until Abraham who adapted it to the people of his generation and made the wisdom more practical. Abraham put together a large group of Babylonians who were interested in actualizing this method. These people later on became the Israeli nation. The word Israel comes from the Hebrew words “Yashar” “El” meaning straight to God. These are the people who had an active point in the heart in those days and were interested in revealing the Creator.
These people greatly succeeded in this method. The peak of their success was symbolized in the building of the first and second temple, which reflected the level of unity and bestowal they were able to reach. At a certain point, they lost the spiritual connection between them (the destruction of the 2nd temple) and what remained was just these external symbols of their connection.
At this point the wisdom of Kabbalah became concealed. People still had the holy books, Torah and etc, but they did not know how to use them. Since the Torah is written in the language of roots and branches. Meaning it uses words of our world to describe spiritual phenomena. But if a person does not have this spiritual connection through which he can see this, then he thinks this book is talking about this world, history, morals, commandments, etc. From this emerges the Jewish religion.
From all the above we see that Kabbalah itself is not connected to any religion and that the modern religions came out due to the concealment of Kabbalah. At the same time, Kabbalah is not against religions. In fact we have millions of students worldwide, from many different backgrounds and religions. Many of them do choose to maintain their religion or to perform certain religious customs while studying Kabbalah and there is nothing wrong with that. Just like with any other science, a person can be religious and also be a chemist or physicist. Likewise a person can be religious and also study the science of Kabbalah. Baal HaSulam writes that even after the full spiritual correction people can still keep their religions.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2015/12/the-wisdom-of-kabbalah-and-the-other-religions/
Albert @ KabU
It seems impossible to me, not to have desires. I often ask the question, Am I really giving?
How can one know how to really give?
Hi Leticia, good question!
1. The Kabbalistic method is not about suppressing our desires, rather it’s about rising above them. In fact the more we advance, the more our 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 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/
2. How can we really give? We can’t, it’s completely against our nature. The best that we can do is just to play pretend, as if we want to give. See my reply below #287239 to Arthur for more details.
Albert @ KabU
Hi All,
I wanted to know what part your Kabbalistic astrology plays in your destiny and how important is understanding psychological techniques in personal transformation.
best regards
Kay
Hi Kay, great questions!
The goal of authentic Kabbalah is to correct our egoistic nature and as a result to become similar to and reveal the Creator, the general force of love and bestowal. Things like astrology and psychological techniques might help to calm us down and somewhat deal with our nature, but ultimately these things don’t correct our egoistic nature, so they are not a part of the authentic Kabbalistic method.How then do we correct our ego and become similar to the Creator? Only through the light. The light is a special force that can correct our nature. Our entire work (and the entire Kabbalistic method) boils down to extracting more and more of this light, especially from the Kabbalistic studies, and it does all the rest.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: http://laitman.com/2013/02/sunbathing-in-the-rays-of-the-reforming-light/
As for destiny, fate, freedom of choice, etc, we’ll learn about this topic in depth in the next semester.
Albert @ KabU
I don’t have any questions right now but I did enjoy reading other people’s questions. I am sure I will ask something later. Thank you.
So my question has to do with the intention, free will and the space less qualitiesof the higher worlds. So from what I have been learning, there is no space in these higher worlds and instead it is the qualities the determine the proximity of different states/forces. So then, if my in intention is to invert my will to receive in such a way to where it is similar to the will to bestow, the initial intention of inverterting or changing the will to receive into the will to bestowal seems rather deceptive. In other words, it seems like it’s only a lie. It’s like a snake pretending to be a bird but no matter what the snake does, it’ll always be a snake. Therefore, according to the spaceless quality of these higher worlds, doesn’t this deceptive act of pretending to be the will to bestow only bring me closer to others that are also engaging in these deceptive acts? In other words, the snake won’t get closer to the birds but rather won’t it get closer to the other pretenders since they share the same quality of pretending/inverting the will to receive into the will to bestow?
Hi Arthur, great question!
Essentially you are right. The problem is that the will to receive is our nature. Just like a PC cannot just reprogram itself to run as a Mac, we too cannot just change our own nature. So no matter what we do, all of our actions will stem from this egoistic nature. So what can we do? The most that we can do in our situation and actually the only thing that is demanded of us is just to play pretend as if we want to bestow, as if we want to be like the Creator. When we play this type of game within the Kabbalistic group and while reading the Kabbalistic texts, we extract from them the light which gradually corrects us and makes this game a reality.
We’ll learn about this in the more advanced lessons. In the meantime, check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2012/03/building-blocks-of-the-first-spiritual-degree
Albert @ KabU
The question and the answer are amazing. What I would like to add is that if you have ever truly been silent and still, there emerges a recognition of Oneness and an identification with that Oneness. The question suggests it feels like a lie. It appears the Kabbalist explains our nature is to receive. Yes, this is our Nature as we identify with this level. However, the truth is we are not this level. I loved Albert’s answer. I have found that playing pretend awakened in me awareness of my Being and it is unbounded. So it can’t be a lie. It’s true. It only seems like a lie. We want to move beyond seems. There is a truth to our Being. Pretend it. Human nature dissolves. Divine nature reveals.
I’d like to make sure I’m getting off on the right foot in understanding the text, so I have one overarching question that will either cause or answer numerous others, to be sure.
Many of the videos linked describe the language of Roots and Branches quite well, but does this apply even to those we’re reading right away, like Attaining the Worlds Beyond? I can see several instances in just the first two chapters where I can perceive a concept on a potentially higher level, even though it’s described in ‘this world’s’ terms, however there are many references to both the body (told to us referring to egoism) and to the ego directly – when the Kabbalists on the YouTube channel say that the Kabbalah texts “never refer to anything here in this lowest world”, does that mean even Attaining the Worlds Beyond, and even when it directly refers to concepts that we’re told only exist “here”?
In other words, how soon is too soon to begin to learn the language of Roots and Branches – are these texts we’re starting with written in that manner in their entirety, to some extent, or not at all..?
Hi Andrew, great questions!
The books we’re learning from help us to understand some of these concepts, these spiritual roots, but they do so in an everyday style of language. The language of roots and branches is what we find primarily within books like the Torah, the Zohar, the Study of the 10 Sefirot.
As for learning this language, this is not something that we can master by learning it, rather it comes with spiritual attainment. Without spiritual attainment, we cannot truly understand these things. It’s like a blind person that is trying to study colors. He can learn the wavelengths behind each one, the different feelings they all evoke, but ultimately he will never truly understand colors. But if this blind person was to undergo an operation and gain his sense of sight, how easy and simple it would be to teach him colors. We would simply point to it and say “this is red”.
It’s the same with the language of roots and branches. It’s currently impossible for us to truly grasp these things. But once we gain our “spiritual sight” we would pick these things up very easily and naturally.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2010/12/the-spiritual-decoder/
Albert @ KabU
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