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My question is regarding the lineage of Qabalah. Some say that the true Qabalah was stolen from the ancient jewish hebrews and that the qabalah that is taught today is not authentic and is in fact a bastardised version. Some make reference to kazarians, zionists who brought forward their own interpretation of sacred qabalah after stealing this sacred knowledge. I aware from my own reading that Quabalah was taught orally from master to student only so that the purity of the wisdom was translated in its original state. What are your thoughts?
Hi Yvonne, good question!
Authentic Kabbalah has been concealed for the past 2000 years, so naturally there are a lot of misconceptions associated with it. Just picture a 2000 year old game of telephone… Essentially Kabbalah is the method by which we correct our egoistic nature. As a result of this correction, we become similar to the Creator, the general force of love and bestowal. As a result of becoming similar to Him, we reveal this force of love in practice, in our lives.
The first one to actualize this was Adam (about 5800 years ago). 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, philosophy, or the myriad of spiritual methods out there. Check out these blog posts from Rav Laitman for more details:
Albert @ KabU
I watched all of the series Kabbalah revealed on YouTube & that is what brought me to this site. I’ve had so many A-Ha moments in my brief learning of this subject , I can’t believe that anyone could learn this & not be blown away by it
I am consciously trying to think of others before myself, and to be calm & pleasant to people. I am naturally this way but occasionally my ego is too strong & I get frustrated & criticise & judge people. Is it possible to be critical of people/situations etc yet still be on the path of enlightenment?
I also am starting to pay attention to my intentions when I help others or give to others instead of myself. It really is hard to eliminate that egoistic element in which I gain satisfaction from it.
But at least I’m aware of it , I’m guessing it takes many years to master it ?Thankyou so much for sharing this life changing information
Hi Shaun, great questions!
1. Spiritual work is something that we do with other points in the heart in this safe environment that we call the Kabbalistic group. If you practice this anywhere else, in the best case scenario you’ll build some good relationships, in the worst case, people will think you’re weird or try to take advantage of you. But either way it will not lead to goal of our spiritual work, which is the revelation of the Creator. So generally with the rest of the world it’s best to just act normal, like everyone else. Meaning don’t make a saint of yourself and at the same time don’t cause harm to others, but just act there the way normal people act.
2. We were all created as egoists on purpose. It’s precisely thanks to the ego that we can rise to high spiritual degrees. In Kabbalah, the ego is not a bad force but rather a partner that helps us to advance. Meaning we don’t eliminate our ego, we rise above it. It turns into a type of hill or mountain that we rise above. In other words, the greater the ego, the further up we can climb, and the greater the spiritual level we can achieve. On the other hand if we eliminate the ego, then the spiritual level we can achieve is relatively tiny.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2011/02/the-worse-the-better/
Albert @ KabU
Does Kabbalah has its foots from Hebrew? If Yes, then What is the relationship between Hebrew and Kabbalah?
Hi Michael, good question!
Hebrew was discovered by the first Kabbalist when he revealed spirituality. 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.
Check out this article for more details: http://www.kabbalah.info/eng/content/view/frame/60270?/eng/content/view/full/60270&main
As well as this blog post from Rav Laitman: https://laitman.com/2010/12/the-iron-rules-of-spiritual-grammar/
Albert @ KabU
Hello dear teachers and fellow students.
My question is whether our desire (or will to receive) is egoic in nature or if our desire can go in 1 out of 2 directions, one of them being egoic and another altruistic? Also do the 0-4 levels of desire only relate to it’s egoic aspect which would be in contrast to altruistic desire which draws our closer to the Creator instead of away from Him? Ooh I just had a thought occur, do the 0-4 levels relate to the 125 steps of discent and assent of Light which one must climb in order to connect with and know our Creator?
Thank you so much!
🙂
Hi Poli, great questions!
Our desire is egoistic by nature. True altruism does not exist on the level of our world. Bestowal is the Creator’s nature. While our nature is that of pure reception. So it’s impossible for us to truly bestow. At best we can perform more and more covert actions of reception. For example, I go to the store and I give them my money, but obviously I want something in return. It’s the same with all of our actions of bestowal in corporeality. Either I do it to receive pleasure directly or indirectly from fame, honor, money, or even the pride of knowing that no one knows about this action, or even avoiding pain or guilt is also part of this same calculation.
So real bestowal, above any calculations for receiving for oneself, does not exist in our world. Real bestowal is purely the Creator’s quality. If we want to acquire such a quality, we first need to correct our nature. This is done by the force of the light we evoke through the Kabbalistic studies. This light begins to work on us, even if we don’t have the true desire to bestow. Even if we’re just like little kids, pretending to be spiritual grown ups. It takes this aspiration of ours and corrects it little by little, building in us a true desire for spirituality, for the spiritual qualities of love and bestowal.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: http://laitman.com/2013/02/sunbathing-in-the-rays-of-the-reforming-light/
Regarding levels 0-4, this is talking about the size of the desire and not whether it’s egoistic or altruistic. And yes there is a connection between the size of the desire and the spiritual level that we attain. The bigger the desire, the higher the spiritual degree we attain when we correct it. Which is why in Kabbalah we don’t work on eliminating the ego, but only on rising above it.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2011/02/the-worse-the-better/
Albert @ KabU
In this chapter on the Spiritual Path it states that all of our perceptions are responses to Divine acts the Creator has produced in us and our feelings are only what He wants us to feel. So if I experience a lot of negative or bad feelings why would He want me to feel that way?
Hi Linda, great question!
We learn that the Creator is the pure quality of love and bestowal. Every single moment He sends us nothing but goodness. This is called “there is none else besides Him” and “He is the good that does good”. But why don’t we sense this goodness? It’s because we’re opposite to Him. Our opposite egoistic nature inverts this goodness into something bad. It’s like multiplying numbers: a positive times a negative, equals negative.
So as long as we remain within this egoistic nature, we will continue to suffer more and more in life. But if we correct our nature to be similar to the Creator’s nature, then we will reveal the true reality in which only goodness exists and our previous egoistic state would appear as nothing more than a dream.
We’ll learn more about this in the next semester, in the meantime, check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2011/06/how-can-we-justify-the-creator/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Pooya, good question!
Everything that we achieve is in accordance with the law of equivalence of form. Meaning that in order to reveal something, we need to become similar to it. It’s just like a radio receiver that can catch different external frequencies by matching them on the inside.
So in order to reveal our life’s source, in order to reveal the Creator, we need to become similar to Him, to His qualities of love and bestowal. We’ll learn more about these things in depth in the upcoming lessons, in the meantime, check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: http://laitman.com/2013/04/everything-is-attained-by-the-equivalence-of-form/
Albert @ KabU
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