[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Debra,

Rav Laitman wrote about it in one of his blog posts:

Question: You said that 1995 was the starting point of the current events. What happened in 1995 that you are referring to?

My Answer: I felt this because suddenly, the students that started coming to study with me were different: They were serious, diligent, and persistent in their pursuit of the goal. Today they still make up the core of the worldwide Bnei Baruch group. Of course, there were also inner changes that are concealed from the average onlooker – a clearer revelation of new spiritual forces in the world.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Al,

There is none else besides Him does not mean that we have no free choice. It means that we are in a closed system with absolute forces and laws. We cannot change these laws, but we can consciously work on putting ourselves under their influence in order to speed up our development.

That is our place of freedom. How do we do this? How do we put ourselves under the influence of these forces and laws even stronger? By choosing/building for ourselves a strong spiritual environment.

See my reply 357064 to Leyah below for more details.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Sue,

I’m not sure in which context you heard it, but in general, Kabbalah talks about how our desires evolve. First come our basic desires for food, sex, family, etc. After that level develop the desires for money, honor, and knowledge. And at the peak of this pyramid is the desire for spirituality, which we call the point in the heart.

Kabbalah only deals with our desire for spirituality. Regarding the rest of our desires, Kabbalah does not deal with these things. Our corporeal desires don’t have any relation to spirituality, so each person can arrange these desires however is most comfortable for them (of course within the context of the law and without harming others).

In practice, we don’t need to suppress our corporeal desires or live a life of poverty. We only need to work on making the desire for spirituality the most important thing. Then naturally the rest of our desires will fall into place. For example, it’s like with an artist that is so involved in his art, that he fulfills all the rest of his desires out of necessity so he can quickly return to his passion. Same with us, when spirituality is the most important desire, then we will be able to properly relate to all the rest of our corporeal desires in a balanced way.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Sheila,

Our spiritual correction is first of all in the mutual work we do with other points in the heart. Meaning that it’s primarily within the Kabbalistic group. With the rest of the world, we should follow the rule that “there is no coercion in spirituality” and not force any spiritual work on others. There we should behave normally, just like everyone else.

Normal meaning that we don’t turn into monks and run away from the world. And we also don’t turn into saints and start sacrificing ourselves for the world. But just be normal: work in the normal way, raise our families and take care of our health, etc, all in the normal way that is customary in this world.

And in the more advanced stages of our development, we will start to see how the problems and situations we undergo in our day to day life are also a part of our spiritual correction. Our day to day life makes it more challenging to stay connected to the Kabbalistic group. And it’s thanks to these challenges that we can develop to higher spiritual levels. Similar to how a bodybuilder needs to keep adding resistance for his muscles to grow bigger.

We’ll learn how to work with all these things more practically in the advanced semesters.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi George,

1. 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. But why then don’t we see this in our world? Why do we see so much suffering and wars in the world?

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, then we will reveal the true reality in which only goodness exists, and our previous egoistic state would appear as 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/

2. I’m not sure I fully understand the question, but we do have a certain measure of freedom, which is in choosing the environment that will influence us. See my reply 357064 to Leyah below for more details.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Sue,

The 5 spiritual worlds are not place like we think, but rather levels of concealment. World (Olam in Hebrew) comes from the word Concealment (ha-alama). So the 5 worlds are 5 levels of concealment between us, the desire to receive, and the Creator the general force of love and bestowal. To the extent that we correct our own opposite, egoistic nature, for it to also operate in the direction of bestowal, to that extent we reveal these worlds, these higher qualities.

Regarding the order and meaning of each world:

First is Adam Kadmon (primordial Man) this is the first form of the desire to receive that became similar to the Creator, but it operates in a different way then the rest of the system, so it’s called primordial.

Atzilut (from the Hebrew words etz lo: at his place, in his possession). This is the place where the Creator exists, meaning the pure desire to bestow.

Beria (creation), comes from the Hebrew word Bar, meaning outside of. Meaning that it’s already a distinct degree of remoteness from the quality of bestowal.

Yetzira (creation), also means creation but this time it stems from the Hebrew word yetzer, inclination. Meaning there is already an inclination of its own to the Creator.

Assiya (action), this completes the action of creating the desire to receive.

Keep in mind that we usually don’t translate these words when we use them in the lessons. A lot of times it’s better to use the Hebrew word instead of being confused by the translation.

As for attaining these things and understanding them, these are two separate matters. First we reach spiritual attainment and only afterwards can we understand these things. It’s like a blind person that is trying to study colors. He can learn the wavelengths behind each one, the different feelings they all evoke, but ultimately he will never truly understand colors. But if this blind person was to undergo an operation and gain his sense of sight, how easy and simple it would be to teach him colors. We would simply point to it and say “this is red”.

Same with us, until we reach spiritual attainment, it’s impossible to truly understand these things. In order to reach spiritual attainment, we need to correct our egoistic nature. This is done through the force of the light. So our entire work boils down to extracting more and more of the light, especially during the Kabbalistic studies, and it does all the rest.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2013/02/sunbathing-in-the-rays-of-the-reforming-light/

Albert @ KabU

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