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Hello,
I’m not an expert in eastern teachings, so I cannot comment on that. But in general, most spiritual methods, religions, philosophies, and even sciences in one way or another stem from the wisdom of Kabbalah. Either as a stepping stone for a person to develop through until his point in the heart awakens (such as many eastern traditions), or from an attempt to copy and implement this wisdom (like what early philosophers tried to do, which later on turned into modern sciences), or as a side effect of the concealment of this wisdom (which is how the modern religions and spiritual paths emerged).
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2008/11/the-origin-and-purpose-of-eastern-teachings/
Albert @ KabU
If the purpose of Kabbalah is to unite the whole of humanity in order to over come our Ego – why don’t Jews evangelize like Christians and Islam?
Hi Nicole,
1. I’m not an expert on religions or Judaism, so I cannot comment on that. But we need keep in mind that Kabbalah and religion are two separate things. Let’s put a few things into perspective to understand this:
Kabbalah is the method for 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/
2. There is a rule in Kabbalah that “there is no coercion in spirituality”. So unless someone has a desire for this, you cannot force it onto them. Although we do disseminate Kabbalah and the need for uniting humanity to the whole world, we do so in a very light way so as not to breach the above law of no coercion.
Furthermore, we need to keep in mind that ultimately it’s not we ourselves that will awaken humanity with our own egoistic strength. Rather it’s the Creator that does this work. We only spread this information on a large scale, as if to plant the seed in humanity, but we’re not the ones to finish this work. In everything we do there, we need to leave room for the light to finish the job. We’ll learn more about this in the more advanced lessons.
Albert @ KabU
Hi Albert –
So Kabbalah is a sect of Judaism but not targeted at Jewish people specifically, part of its aims is to support Israel as a nation for Kabbalists to be in; live and build the environment needed for connection and the rebuilding of the new Temple; the latter will be a sign of the stronger connection amongst the one soul. Am I inaccurate about any of the above?
Hello,
Everything is attained through equivalence of form. Meaning that to the extent that we become similar to spirituality, to the spiritual qualities of love and bestowal, to that extent we attain it.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details:Â http://laitman.com/2013/04/everything-is-attained-by-the-equivalence-of-form/
Keep in mind that we don’t perform these changes and corrections on ourselves, rather it’s the force of the light that performs these corrections on us. Our work is only to extract more and more of this light, especially during the Kabbalistic studies, and it does all the rest.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details:Â https://laitman.com/2013/02/sunbathing-in-the-rays-of-the-reforming-light/
Albert @ KabU
what is the meaning of those five spiritual levels that come before the infinite and which level comes first
thank you
Hello,
The 5 spiritual worlds are not place like we think, but rather levels of concealment. World (Olam in Hebrew) comes from the word Concealment (ha-alama). So the 5 worlds are 5 levels of concealment between us, the desire to receive, and the Creator the general force of love and bestowal. To the extent that we correct our own opposite, egoistic nature, for it to also operate in the direction of bestowal, to that extent we reveal these worlds, these higher qualities.
Regarding the order and meaning of each world:
First is Adam Kadmon (primordial Man) this is the first form of the desire to receive that became similar to the Creator, but it operates in a different way then the rest of the system, so it’s called primordial.
Atzilut (from the words etz lo: at his place, in his possession). This is the place where the Creator exists, meaning the pure desire to bestow.
Beria (creation), comes from the word Bar, meaning outside of. Meaning that it’s already a distinct degree of remoteness from the quality of bestowal.
Yetzira (creation), also means creation but this time it stems from the word yetzer, inclination. Meaning there is already an inclination of its own to the Creator.
Assiya (action), this completes the action of creating the desire to receive.
Keep in mind that we usually don’t translate these words when we use them in the lessons. A lot of times it’s better to use the Hebrew word instead of being confused by the translation.
Albert @ KabU
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