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Hi Ruth,
As we learned in this lesson, we do have a certain amount of freedom in choosing which environment will influence us. So if we are punished, we are not punished for our actions, but for choosing to be influenced by a bad environment.
Baal HaSulam writes about it in the article “The Freedom”. Here’s an excerpt:
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“However, there is freedom for the will to initially choose such an environment, such books, and such guides that impart to him good concepts. If one does not do that, but is willing to enter any environment that appears to him and read any book that falls into his hands, he is bound to fall into a bad environment or waste his time on worthless books, which are abundant and easier to come by. In consequence, he will be forced into foul concepts that make him sin and condemn. He will certainly be punished, not because of his evil thoughts or deeds, in which he has no choice, but because he did not choose to be in a good environment, for in that there is definitely a choice.
Therefore, he who strives to continually choose a better environment is worthy of praise and reward. But here, too, it is not because of his good thoughts and deeds, which come to him without his choice, but because of his effort to acquire a good environment, which brings him these good thoughts and deeds.”
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Keep in mind that, in Kabbalah, reward and punishment is not referring to someone judging our actions and handing us a fine, rather reward and punishment are referring to a cause and effect relationship that is found in the laws of nature. For example, if I disregard the law of gravity and jump from a 100 story building, then I’ll be “punished” by falling to my death. Meaning it’s not a punishment, but cause and effect, jump off 100 story building -> death.
Likewise with our spiritual work:
If I build a good spiritual environment for myself -> I’ll correct my egoistic nature and become similar to the Creator.
If I don’t build a good spiritual environment for myself -> I’ll waste my time and not reach the spiritual correction in this life.
So there are no punishments in Kabbalah, but there are laws of nature. And we need to come into balance with these laws.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details:
https://laitman.com/2008/10/nature%E2%80%99s-commandments-the-creator%E2%80%99s-laws/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Abe,
Freedom means rising above our egoistic nature. As we learned in this week’s lesson, we do this by building for ourselves a strong spiritual environment.
Baal HaSulam talks about this in the article, the Freedom. He writes: “Harut (carved) on the tables”; do not pronounce it Harut (carved), but rather Herut (freedom), to show that they are liberated from the angel of death.
Throughout the article he explains how our current egoistic nature is that angel of death. Meaning although we are technically alive and surviving, relative to spirituality, our life is considered death. True life is within a completely different nature, that of bestowal. In order to reach freedom from our current nature, we need to choose and build a spiritual environment for ourselves which will influence us with the importance of acquiring the quality of bestowal.
For this reason, the Kabbalists equate our main freedom in life in choosing to be influenced by a spiritual environment. Not just any environment, but specifically a spiritual environment, since only through the spiritual environment can we get the importance of coming out of our egoistic nature and only through that environment can we draw the light that can help us to actualize this.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2012/10/bestowal-should-become-fashionable/
Albert @ KabU
How do we know that the desire to climb outward towards freedom beyond the influence of our egoistic nature is not just a programm within us? Isn’t it influenced by our environment – family, friends, education, culture etc? If the root of everything comes from the spiritual world and we can see only the causes in this world, can we affect the spiritual world with our free will or this “free will” is only an illusion of the freedom?
Hi Marcin,
You are correct, this desire, this point in the heart, is something that simply awakens within us and in a way forces us to start our spiritual development. True freedom is attained later on in our development. See my reply #293888 to Maria below for more details.
Albert @ KabU
Since our free will exists only in intention and our attitude about our external/internal experience, and the Creator is responsible for all of it, I am having an impossible time understanding that his nature is love and bestowal yet I have witnessed horrors that I don’t wish to repeat in this life. How could a force this powerful ever allow this to have to come to be? It’s impossible he couldn’t have developed, in his genius, another way. Or is he limited by something else? No, because there isn’t any other force besides him right? This seems impossible to reconcile so any clarification would be immensely helpful. Thanks
Hi Peter,
We learn from the Kabbalists that every single moment comes to us directly from the Creator, this is called “there is none else besides Him”. Furthermore, they also say that He is the “good that does good”. Meaning that every moment He is sending us nothing but goodness. Why then don’t we see this in our world? Why don’t we feel everything that is happening as something good?
This is because our world is governed by our egoistic nature. This egoistic nature is opposite to the Creator’s nature. Because of that, it inverts the Creator’s goodness into something bad. It’s just like multiplying numbers, a positive times a negative equals negative.
So as long as we remain within this egoistic nature, we will continue to see and feel more suffering and horrors in the world. But if we correct our nature to be similar to the Creator’s nature, we will reveal the true reality in which only goodness exists and that our previous egoistic state was nothing more than a dream.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2011/06/how-can-we-justify-the-creator/
Albert @ KabU
Hello. This is new. Herut… Wow. A freedom to altruism. Sich Great news to lnow that there is a helping Upper Force to guide me into freedom I never new existed and that I’m aware of. Thank you.
Now that I have Herut hoŵ often do I realize it? Does it live with me for eternity?
Hi Maria,
We’re still in the fundamentals learning about this concept of freedom, the actual point of freedom is still ahead of us.
There is a saying that the Creator puts man’s hand on the good fate and says “choose this for yourself”. Meaning He awakened your point in the heart and brought it to a good spiritual environment in which you can nourish it, but after that the rest is up to you.
But if the point in the heart is forcing me to be here, what needs to happen for me to start actualizing my free will? This desire then needs to be taken away from me little by little, and there I begin to reveal more and more the place of my freedom.
This is similar to how we teach a child to ride a bike. First the parent holds the child completely. Then as the child learns to pedal and balance himself, the parent lets go a little, then a little more and a little more, until the child continue to pedal without the parent holding him at all.
So we too need to learn to continue to do this work even when that initial desire for spirituality begins to disappear or when the ego grows and begins to pull us into many different directions. Here there is already a need for mutual work in the group, the spiritual environment. On one hand when I fall into my ego, they need to pull me out, and on the other hand I need to help pull others out when they fall. This is why Kabbalists have always studied in groups (physical or virtual).
We will learn more about this in the more advanced semesters on KabU, where you’ll receive your own Kabbalah group with whom you can practice these things.
Albert @ KabU
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