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Hello,
It is unclear to me what numbers like “600,000”, “125”, “613” actually stand for or – more particularly – where they come from.
Could you please expand on that?
Thank you.
Hi PVJ,
When a person attains spirituality, he begins to research it, and discovers all these numbers from his research. But what exactly is he researching, what is spirituality?
Essentially we’re always talking about a desire. Our current reality is based on our current nature, the desire to receive. Spirituality on the other hand operates according to a different desire, that of pure bestowal. The different numbers are just a different way to divide up that spiritual desire. This desire can be divided into 613 parts, or 620 parts, or 600,000 pieces, or 125 degrees, or even 10 sefirot.
It’s just like how we can study a person based on his behavior, or based on his anatomy, or based on his external appearance, or his internal chemistry. Ultimately we’re studying the same person, but from different angles. Same with these different divisions, they are all talking about the same spiritual desire but from different angles or a different scale.
So if we are describing the desire as 613 parts, then we’re talking about the number of corrections that need to be placed over the desire. This number is further divided into 248 desires of bestowing in order to bestow and 365 desires that operate on receiving in order to bestow. We’ll learn about this in detail in the more advanced lessons on KabU that deal with the structure of the upper worlds.
The number 125 comes from the structure of the upper worlds. This structure is just a division of the spiritual desire that we need to correct into sefirot, partzufim, and worlds.
The most basic division of the desire is 1 Sefira. 5 Sefirot compose 1 partzuf. 5 Partzufim compose 1 world. There are 5 worlds in total. So 5 worlds each with 5 partzufim each with 5 sefirot equals 125 (5x5x5) steps on the spiritual ladder. This number symbolizes the gap, the delta, between our nature and the Creator’s nature.
Regarding 600,000, this is less of a quantitative number and more of a qualitative number. It represents the strength of the spiritual desire after it’s been fully corrected.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman to see how this number is derived:
https://laitman.com/2010/09/love-and-hatred-of-600000-souls/
Albert @ KabU
I don’t know if this is a correct forum to ask this but I was wondering how kabbalah considers dreams? Is there any value trying to interpret them?
Hi Toni,
Kabbalists typically don’t attribute much importance to dreams or the state of dreaming. They see it simply as a state where the brain summarizes/organizes the daily experiences. Similar to how some computers go through the process of defragmentation.
On the other hand, there is a spiritual state called dreaming which is the process by which we transition from one spiritual degree to another. It’s like the neutral gear on a manual transmission, which requires you to switch to the neutral gear before switching to another gear. In other words, in between every spiritual state is a state called “dream”. But it’s not related to the corporeal dreams that we experience in our physical bodies. Kabbalists don’t ascribe any importance to corporeal dreams.
Check out these blog posts from Rav Laitman for more details:
https://laitman.com/2016/04/an-ordinary-dream/
https://laitman.com/2015/02/we-cannot-live-without-sleep/
Albert @ KabU
Hi,
I don’t think so, Ethics of the fathers is Pirkei Avot. Where did you see the word “afer” used? Please post a link so that I can comment within that context.
Albert @ KabU
I’m listening to the audio of Attaining Worlds Beyond. The line is toward the beginning of chapter 2, “From all the ‘Afer’ said it should become clear, that the only element lacking in our world is the perception of the Creator.” I’ve listened to the book many times and not found a reference to who that is.
I stand to be corrected, if I am out of context, I have question Rav, are Catholic priests kabbalists right?
Hi Ron,
A Kabbalist is someone that has corrected his egoistic desire into the desire to bestow (at least to some extent). As a result of this correction, a Kabbalist reveals the Creator, the general force of love and bestowal, while they are alive in this world.
Whoever performs such a correction can be called a Kabbalist. Since this correction is internal, it makes no difference if this person is a priest, male, female, elderly, young, religious or secular, etc. None of these external factors have any influence over our spiritual correction, nor are they indicators of a person being corrected or not.
Albert @ KabU
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