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If the creator is perfection why were souls even created? Why would perfection need an entity who is imperfect to strive for perfection? I don’t understand why perfection needs/needed anything.
Hi Pamela,
We cannot speak on the Creator’s behalf because we don’t attain such things. We don’t attain the Creator Himself, but only how we perceive Him in our corrected vessels. Let’s put this into perspective to understand it:
Kabbalah divides our research of the Creator into two parts.
The first is His essence (atzmuto in Hebrew). This is He Himself, His point of view, the Creator as an entity separate from the Created beings. We’re incapable of researching this part of the Creator again because our research tools are not built in such a way that we can grasp such things. Perhaps after we finish the process of correction, we’ll discover additional research tools through which we’ll be able to research these things, but until then we limit ourselves and don’t talk about this part of the Creator because we cannot properly research it.
The other part of the Creator is called Bo-Re (Hebrew for Come (Bo) and See (Re)). This is the part of the Creator that we can research and reveal. How do we research this? Through the desire. When we take a part of our desire to receive and correct it in the direction of bestowal, in that corrected desire, we reveal a certain phenomenon, we call this phenomenon the Creator. This is why there are many names for the Creator (in Hebrew), since every time we correct a different part of the desire, we reveal a different aspect of this thing called the Creator.
So all of our understanding of this thing called the Creator (and any spiritual phenomena) is based on what we reveal within the corrected desire. But whatever exists outside of the corrected desire, whatever we don’t grasp, perceive or attain within the desire, whatever is beyond our tools of research, we don’t talk about. We need to keep these limits in mind in order to stay within the realm of science and not venture off into religion or philosophy.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2017/11/the-concept-of-god-in-kabbalah/
Albert @ KabU
The need help box when I click on it comes up blank. I can’t figure out how to find your response to a question or comment I made about this week 1 lesson. Where can I find your response? I went through the numbers at the bottom of the comments through 33 and didn’t find anything. I am finding your site hard to negotiate. Please offer me some help. Thank you. Pamela Hamilton
Hi Pamela,
Sorry to hear that you’re having difficulty with the site. We’re always trying to improve it and make it more user friendly. I’ll pass along your concerns to the developers.
Regarding the need help button, I think it works best in the chrome browser. Alternatively, you can use the “contact” button on the top banner to reach the support team.
Regarding finding the response to your question, it’s always right underneath your post. The newer questions are on the first page and older questions get pushed down into the other pages.
Albert @ KabU
I am really confused. You state as no.1 that Kabbalah is not a religion. After reading the lessons for week one it appears to me that we have received the same language from religion. Him, The Creator, etc. in capital letters seems to me to just be another way of saying GOD and our objective is to return to God. Is that not so? If Kabbalah is not a religion why are there so many references to verses in the Bible and also to the Torah.
I often have a hard time expressing my thoughts. My experiences in life have led me to this place because I believe that religions are created by men, not by a diety. I can grasp a place of creation but I have trouble with the term Creator (capital letter again) to whom my life must parallel in order to “return”. If was there once and cast out, why would I want to “return”?
Hi Pam, great questions!
1. Kabbalah is not a religion. It’s a practical scientific method by which we can correct our egoistic nature. As a result of this correction, we become similar to this thing called the Creator and reveal Him in practice, in our lives.
2. Kabbalah precedes the modern religions. If so, why are there so many references to biblical verses? That’s because the Torah is indeed a Kabbalistic book.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2016/05/dispelling-myths-about-kabbalah-part-4/
3. As for being cast out, the reason we were cast out is for our growth and development. It’s just like how we educate our kids. We don’t just give them a completed jigsaw puzzle, on the contrary, we break it down into many pieces, make it challenging, so that in the process of them putting it together, they will grow and develop. Likewise with us, this process of being cast out and returning to that state of wholeness and adhesion with the Creator is an essential part of our growth and development.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2014/01/from-perfection-to-perfection/
Albert @ KabU
Before learning of KabU, I just recently starting reading an English commentary on The Zohar, by Rav Michael Laitman, PhD. I’ve read books from the Nag Hammadi library, e.g.: The Book of Thomas and The Apocryphon of John. In the process of reading the commentary on The Zohar, parables from those texts and also from what I’ve read in the Bible started to make sense – like a chain reaction of understanding. I then got to the point in the commentary that says one can only learned directly from a Kabbalist-teacher, so I started to look for a source. Unbelievably, KabU was already in recommended videos on YouTube – I didn’t even have to look. It’s hard to sleep now because this experience is so otherworldly, and it somehow is occupying my mind – basically continuously. But, my questions are: (1) Are the books in the Nag Hammadi library (from the Essenes), at least in part, influenced by the Wisdom of Kabbalah? Or, to put it another way, (2) Were the Essenes Kabbalists? Thank you!
Hi Glen,
I’m not an expert in other methods, so I cannot say for sure, but it is possible.
In general, we should keep in mind that although there are countless Kabbalistic books that have been written in the past, in our days, we mainly study from the writings of Baal HaSulam and Rabash. This is because egoism grows from generation to generation, so Kabbalah, the method for its correction, needs to get adapted in each generation for that level of egoism. For example it’s like in medicine, if a person has a headache he can just drink a tylenol and that’s enough to fix him. But if it’s not just a little headache but something cancerous, then that tylenol won’t do anything for him but he needs a completely different regime to heal himself.
This is why Kabbalah gets adapted in each generation to the level of egoism that is currently found in that generation. So although there were many different Kabbalists and Kabbalistic books throughout the generations, nowadays we mainly learn from the writings of Baal HaSulam and Rabash, since their writings contains the light that is most suitable to correct the egoism that is found in our generation.
Check out this blog posts from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2015/11/the-great-kabbalists-and-their-works/
Albert @ KabU
In the video, Tony explains that something changed around 2000 years ago where it became difficult for people to understand Kabbalah like they did the previous 2000 years. Why then, did the science have to be hidden if people weren’t understanding it? I’m trying to understand why the Kabbalists made it even more difficult to learn if they were already less able to grasp it.
Hi Peter, good question!
So what changed 2000 years ago? 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.
Albert @ KabU
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