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In my reading studies material there’s a sentence that says: “The difference between the material and the spiritual is that our lack of material pleasures causes us to suffer, while our lack of spiritual pleasures does not.” I don’t quite understand this idea. For example, it may happen that because our suffering we aim even more a vital spiritual connection with G-d, specially in our darkest moments?
Another matter that makes me wonder is that if is possible to ataind perfection because we are not perfect beings (even we’ve a soul that yearns). Is it through the process described in Kabbalah that we can gain qualities of the Creator and bestow but to be like Him. Isn’t that impossible?
Hi Tamar,
1. We learn that “there is no coercion in spirituality”. So aspiring to it out of suffering is not the right approach.
Furthermore, that quote is really trying to say that we don’t feel the lack of spirituality as suffering. Spirituality means acquiring the Creator’s qualities of love and bestowal, if I cannot bestow, I generally don’t feel that as suffering. Whereas in corporeality, if I’m lacking food, for even a day, I’ll feel it right away. But in spirituality, lacking the ability to bestow is not felt directly by us as suffering, instead we see it indirectly in the world, in the chaos and never ending problems that are there.
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/
2. We were actually created in the state of perfection, in complete adhesion with the Creator. (Baal HaSulam describes this in the article Introduction to the book of Zohar). But this was an unconscious state, like a baby in its mother’s womb. So we necessarily had to come to the complete opposite state, to lose that state of perfection, in order to once again reach it, but this time consciously.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2014/01/from-perfection-to-perfection/
Albert @ KabU
The 600 000 pieces/sparks of the Original man – are they only that many, or is this a picture of everything man is? I.e. there are currently 8 billion people – are there than that many pieces?
Hi Avi,
The population is relative to the size of the general egoism that needs to get corrected. As the ego grows, the soul is fragmented accordingly so that our common egoism is divided between us, making the work of correcting the ego easier for all of us.
Rav Laitman writes about it in one of his blog posts:
“600,000 is the number of initial fragments, but after that they are fragmented again into whatever number is necessary for the optimal correction in each generation – so that each fragment will have as much egoism as it’s able to correct. Therefore, to the degree that egoism grows, the world’s population grows as well.”
Albert @ KabU
why 125 steps down and not 130? why 12 desires and not 20? why 600 pieces? so maybe I share the spark with 10k people? I am 1/10000?
Hi Nat,
The numbers all have their own significance. 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.
Regarding the 125 steps, 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.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2010/11/numbers-indicate-quality-not-quantity/
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
Hi Albert,
do we look into our own nature on the inside to correct our desires? does this mean we are teaching, creating and healing ourselves/ what are the 613 desires?
Hi Nicole,
We’re all part of a single system, like cells within a single body. Correcting myself, my desires, means that I fix my connection with others in that body. So the focus is less about me and digging within myself and more about my connection with others and how to properly connect back into a single body.
It’s like we’re trying to solve a 8 billion piece jigsaw puzzle, where each person is one piece of that puzzle. Each piece of the puzzle (each person) is perfect by itself and does not require any correction. Meaning that we don’t need to recolor any of the pieces or cut off any seemingly excess parts. The only thing we need to do is find where each piece fits relative to all the other pieces. And by that we correct everything.
Check out these blog posts from Rav Laitman for more details:
https://laitman.com/2014/05/puzzle-adam-harishon/
https://laitman.com/2015/09/compliance-with-the-613-mitzvot-commandments/
Albert @ KabU
Hey Albert,
I was wondering how you know each time you’ve corrected a desire? In other words, how do I know each time I ascend one of the 125 spiritual degrees?
Also, a more personal question— I have bipolar disorder and for instance, when I had my first really bad manic episode, I began correlating things that don’t go together in reality (or so I was told) with my life directly. For instance, I’d be watching TV in the hospital and be 1000% convinced everything on some random TV show is my life being played out before me. That being said— a lot of things in spirituality, I’ve noticed, depend on these seemingly “random” correlations between things, like the example I gave from when I was in the hospital. My question is— how do I make the apparent distinction between the two, without leaning into mania?
thank you in advance for your insight 🙂
Hi Zori,
1. Spirituality works according to the law of equivalence of form. To the extent that we become similar to it, to the spiritual qualities of love and bestowal, to that extent we reach spiritual attainment. And to that same extent we reveal the Creator in practice. In other words, if we truly made a correction and rose to a spiritual degree, then accordingly we would reveal the Creator on that degree.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2012/04/when-all-doubts-will-dissipate/
2. Kabbalah requires of a person to make strong inner efforts. For a person with a mental health disorder, such efforts could worsen their mental state and ultimately harm them. For this reason, a person with an untreated mental health disorder should not study Kabbalah without first consulting their doctor and getting it treated. It is also not recommended to study Kabbalah while taking any psychiatric drugs.
Albert @ KabU
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