Preparation Question: What is freedom and how, by the help of the Reforming Light, can we acquire it?

[Tony Kosinec- KabU Instructor]

Preparation Question: What is freedom and how, by the help of the Reforming Light, can we acquire it?

[Steven]

I think that freedom is when the point in the heart is awakened, and we then, through the thoughts which the Creator bestows upon us, choose to walk the Path of Light, which leads to spiritual ascension of the Reshimot through the study of Kabbalah. In my humble opinion, we can and must acquire it.

[Olav]

Freedom for me is that we can choose to walk the Path of Light or the Path of Suffering.
We acquire the help we need from the Reforming Light when we have a yearning for spirituality and decides to use our ego in a constructive way, to walk the Path of Light.

[Farzin]

Freedom in this world, to me, means having, doing, and enjoying what you want and desire. As I was created to receive, I found it bizarre to be created to receive yet always be envious of what I don’t have.

How can the light help? Either by eliminating the desires, changing them, or bestowing on me what I desire.

[Judith Oliver]

I believe that we are on this earth plane to learn.  On this earth, I believe freedom is like a school we ask all the questions we want answered (not meaning that we get all the answers), but gain knowledge from these answers, observe our environment and become closer to the Creator if we absorb the true meaning.

[csilla]

i’m not really sure about my answer about What is freedom?, since it actually came up for me, as a question, in week 1, video 1 and seemed like a ‘conundrum’, which is a word i’ve come to appreciate, as often confusing solutions all seem equally plausible. But, after video 2, and reading Shamati 15-19, i would ask (based on the assumption that freedom = choice): “Does freedom in Kabbalah’s pov mean that once we’re ‘in the holiness’ that the only thing we can choose is to stay in it “the King’s Palace”, (rather than give in to the pull of descent and ‘normal life’ pleasures and pass times)?

On pages 17/18 of Shamati, Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag writes: “when one feels that now he is in a state of ascent, and feels some good flavor in the work, he must not say: “Now I am in a state that I understand that it is worthwhile to worship the Creator.” Rather he should know that now he was favored by the Creator, hence the Creator brought him closer, and for this reason he now feels good flavor in the work. And he should be careful never to leave the domain of Sanctity…”

i’m thinking in this way of “freedom” as such a limited “freedom of choice”, since it seems like if “There is None else than Him”, then even our traditionally ‘bad or good’ actions and thoughts wouldn’t be ours to have chosen (and to this i thought we might be like a Kabbalistic version of Pharaoh who asks to God “Why did You harden my heart?”)

as for the 2nd part of the question, i’m thinking maybe it’s not unlike Rousseau’s concept of General Will, in Shamati, p. 19: “Through these calculations he loses his individuality and avoids being trapped by the Sitra Achra, which is the will to receive for his own benefit.” Only, a bit different in that the General Will would be universally determined by God and we can achieve freedom, with help of the Reforming Light, through efforts to overcome the pull of descent into ‘normal life’, or maybe better to go with choosing to stay in the Palace by cultivating the desire to cleave to the Creator.

 

 

[Suzanne]

I don’t really believe in freedom of choice. I think that we just think we are making a choice and because of that I follow what Joseph Campbell said “While on Earth, play the game.” I quote from The book of Tokens says, “I am the doer of all. Nothing moveth but my power.”

[Author]

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