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Shalom aleichem! Good day!
Does kabbalah’s language of “roots and branches” relate to PARDES (Pshat, Remez, Drosh & Sod) or does kabbalah have its own defined systems/ levels of understanding?
Hi Joshua, good question!
Yes, it does relate to it. Except in Kabbalah we learn that spiritual attainment actually starts from the Sod (secret) and ends with the Pshat (simple). Meaning that at first, we don’t understand how spirituality works at all. We’re learning it as something vague. This is the level of sod. Later on, we come to feel spirituality to such an extent that it will become pshat to us, as something that is fully attained and tangible.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2010/11/when-the-hidden-becomes-revealed/
Albert @ KabU
Hi!
Thank you for this beautiful explanation! It makes me wonder where I stand right now. How do we know when we have started climbing the ladder?
Hi Carlos, good question!
We’re not yet on any spiritual degree, we’re still in the preparation period prior to the spiritual ladder. But once we start to do real spiritual work, we can measure our progress in our attitude towards other points in the hearts. That I’ll feel how my attitude towards them changes, from complete indifference, all the way until I feel them as pieces of my soul. We’ll learn more about this in the more advanced lessons.
Albert @ KabU
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
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