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When I understand that Shulchan Aruch is not the main thing and that I need work more on my deeper level, is there any need to even continue and follow Shulchan Aruch?
Hi Yehudit,
I’m sorry, I cannot answer that for you. Every person is free to decide for oneself whether to follow religious customs or not.Keep in mind that 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.
Albert @ KabU
There is a behavior I have participated in, off and on, for about 50 years now. The meaning of this behavior has morphed many times, and in the last few years I have clearly seen it as a resistance to God/Love (Creator). Since beginning this course, I decided that I would not allow this behavior anymore, and that if I did, I would sacrifice watching/participating in the next Sunday Kabbalah Simply Explained and Q & A (which I value greatly). Well, I have now again performed this hateful behavior, with full awareness that I was doing so, of the consequence I had set for myself, and of the simultaneous feeling that I both could and could not stop it. Subsequently, I am experiencing deep remorse, and also great humility and faith that all is, essentially right and good, that my life is in the Creator’s Hands. I am confused now about whether or not to continue with the consequence. On the one hand, it seems important to keep my word and experience this loss. On the other hand, I understand that it is the Creator teaching me and helping my correct desire to grow, and that ultimately the choice wasn’t mine. The Sunday programs, and especially the music and ‘student spotlights’ at the end of the Q & A, connect me profoundly with KABU, the participants, and the will to receive to bestow. Either way seems to serve my growing intention. What would you advise? Thank you.
Hi Miryam,
That sounds like an interesting experiment, but we need to draw the right conclusions from it. Which is that we are powerless against our own ego.  This is why the Kabbalistic method focuses on CORRECTING our egoistic nature, not diminishing or fighting it. Fighting it directly is an impossible battle. In fact, the more we fight it, the stronger it gets. It’s to show us that we’re truly powerless against it. The Creator made it like this on purpose, so that without His help, we would not be able to succeed. So our focus here is not on fighting the ego, but it’s more on drawing the force of the Creator’s light to help us to correct it. We do this primarily through the Kabbalistic studies, lessons, gatherings, etc. In which case, I would not recommend missing the Sunday gathering. Missing it would not help you to deal with your ego, quite the opposite.
See my reply to Micha below for more details.
Furthermore, it’s also important to keep in mind that as we develop spiritually, our ego will continue to grow even more. And this is not a bad thing. In fact in Kabbalah, the ego is not a bad force but rather a partner that helps us to advance. Meaning we don’t eliminate our ego, we rise above it. It turns into a type of hill or mountain that we rise above. In other words, the greater the ego, the further up we can climb, and the greater the spiritual level we can achieve. On the other hand if we eliminate the ego, then the spiritual level we can achieve is relatively tiny.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details:Â https://laitman.com/2011/02/the-worse-the-better/
Albert @ KabU
Thank you, Albert, for your responses to all of our questions. Light bulbs turning on! Now, two more questions.
1) Rav Laitman, writing about the spiritual state ‘the longing to give’, writes, “In it, a person’s qualities can coincide with the qualities of the spiritual object, known as Bina.” What is the spiritual object he is referring to?
2) Rav Laitman writes, “…after Ari opened the way to comprehend the spiritual, it became much harder to give up the pleasures of this world… Ari slightly opened the source of the Light. This made it harder for people to battle their egoism; in fact, the egoism became stronger and more sophisticated.” I’m not sure I’m understanding this. Is it correct understanding that as the experience of the Light increased, the experience of the ego also increased in like measure? And, that without working the middle line between them, the Light actually fed the ego, causing it to grow even more? Than you.
Hi Miryam,
1. Bina. Which stands for our desire to bestow. We’ll learn more about the 10 sefirot in detail in the upcoming lessons.
2. It’s impossible to reach high spiritual degrees without a big level of egoism. It doesn’t mean that we try to foster the ego. Rather, as a side effect of aspiring towards the light, the ego grows as well. This is good because then we have a need to draw even more light and can thereby reach even higher spiritual degrees. See my previous reply to you on the topic.
Albert @ KabU
How to identify the path of light ? How to walk on it ? How to know from right or wrong about one’s decisions? How to understand that the conscious decision to understand the creator n depth of life is led by the path of light? What will be that sign ?
Hello S,
The path of light is called such because we tap into the force of the light in order to speed up our development.
See my reply below to Micha for more details.
Albert @ KabU
I get the think because good/evil. But still I cannot see the good in the thing we do to animals. The creatures who are perfectly whole, how can we misuse them so much and use them as objects. I find that a huge misuse of the human kind.
Hi Danielle,
I agree, it’s hard to justify how humanity treats animals. It’s also hard to justify anything else that is wrong with the world. After all, there is so much hatred, killing, wars, etc. How can we justify all these things?
The Kabbalists tell us 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 more evil and suffering 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.
We’ll learn about these concepts in more detail in the future lessons, but in the meantime, check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2011/06/how-can-we-justify-the-creator/
Albert @ KabU
Greetings.
I have lots of questions:
1) Is it correct to say from what was shown in the lessons, that our advancements in the comprehension of Kabbalah can be measured (at least for the initial stage, of receiving) by the difference between what is bestowed by the light (creator), and what we are able to receive?
2) And assuming that this is correct, what we call the dark path could be interpreted as the bad things or challenges in life, that are the hidden forces in the master plan that react to that in order to lead us toward corrections (tikun) to push us back to the right direction?
3) Then, what we perceive as bad, could in a way be consequences of us not understanding a part of the bestowal, and if we undestood earlier and took action, could have been avoided? Being more clear, suffering in life could be reduced as we become more capable of receiving more of the bestowal?
4) By pondering about the collective in our actions, trying to help others and make the greater picture better for more than ourselves or just our family, can be considered a way to bestow? Or is the concept of truly bestowing something in a different level, that needs us to reach some sort of attainment first?
Hi Helcio, great questions!
1. True advancement in Kabbalah does not come from comprehending with our minds, but by building the right desire for spirituality. See my reply to Michael in the Week 1 Questions forum for more details.
2/3. Yes, everything we are going through is ultimately to push us towards the purpose of creation. This goal is already set before us. If we wait for life to push us in that direction, then we experience these pushes as something unpleasant, as sufferings, etc. If we go willingly towards this goal, then instead of sufferings we experience a faster, more pleasant path towards this goal.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details:Â https://laitman.com/2011/01/lets-go-with-the-light/
4. True bestowal does not exist on the level of our world. Bestowal is the Creator’s nature. While our nature is that of pure reception. So it’s impossible for us to truly bestow. At best we can perform more and more covert actions of reception. For example, I go to the store and I give them my money, but obviously I want something in return. It’s the same with all of our actions of bestowal in corporeality. Either I do it to receive pleasure directly or indirectly from fame, honor, money, or even the pride of knowing that no one knows about this action, or even avoiding pain or guilt is also part of this same calculation.
So real bestowal, above any calculations for receiving for oneself, does not exist in our world. Real bestowal is purely the Creator’s quality. If we want to acquire such a quality, we first need to correct our nature. This is done by the force of the light we evoke through the Kabbalistic studies. This light begins to work on us, even if we don’t have the true desire to bestow. Even if we’re just like little kids, pretending to be spiritual grown ups. It takes this aspiration of ours and corrects it little by little, building in us a true desire for spirituality, for the spiritual qualities of love and bestowal.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: http://laitman.com/2013/02/sunbathing-in-the-rays-of-the-reforming-light/
Albert @ KabU
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