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Hi Lucky,
Although we point to 1995 as to when Kabbalah became revealed, technically the prohibition was lifted much earlier, from the time of the Ari. He was the one to make a very special correction within the entire spiritual system, after which its not only possible, but a must to openly disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah in order to help the whole world reach its correction.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details on the Ari: https://laitman.com/2010/08/the-ari-rav-isaac-luria-the-godly-man/
So why do we say 1995? Let’s put a few things into perspective:
Kabbalah is the method of correction of our egoistic nature, thereby revealing the Creator, the general force of love and bestowal. Why was it necessary to conceal such a wisdom? Because egoism was still not yet fully developed. For example: if you compare Kabbalah to a medicine that can cure a rare disease, obviously you can’t take the medicine before you’re diagnosed with the disease, but once the disease actually manifests, you can take the medicine and be cured of it.
It’s just like the 5 stages development of a disease within a person. First a person is healthy. Then he is sick, but he does not feel it. Then the disease spreads to the point that he starts to feel pain and symptoms of the disease. This then pushes him to go to a doctor to get diagnosed and find the cure, and etc.
2000 years ago, egoism was still on a very low level, there was no need to correct it. Starting from the days of the Ari, egoism already grew to a certain extent (and technically the prohibition on Kabbalah ended there), but humanity still didn’t feel sick, on the contrary the ego was the main driving force of all of our development. Then from around 1995 egoism peaked and began to show itself as bad, like a cancer that begins to kill the host body. This is the peak at which there was a true need for the cure. Which in essence is what the Kabbalists have been waiting for all these years, for the desire, for egoism to fully ripen.
Albert @ KabU
Hi Ramar,
On the one hand, it could be discouraging, but on the other hand, it really helps to focus our work. It’s like stepping into a room with a thousand buttons, and you know that only one will actually do anything.
It’s the same in our lives, we can run around from morning to night doing all sorts of actions, but the only thing that has any influence whatsoever on the system that we’re in, is choosing to be influenced by the spiritual environment. All the rest is a result of that choice.
For more details, see my reply 333155 to Lana below, as well as this blog post from Rav Laitman: https://laitman.com/2010/10/what-no-fortune-teller-knows/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Sue,
In the structured learning courses (Kabbalah Revealed 1, 2, Kabbalah in Action, and Kabbalah Experience) each week a new set of lessons are opened up. So you can learn them at your pace, but only up to the current week’s lessons.
Whereas the other courses, like the Zohar course, are open structured, so you can work faster through them, if you want.
And yes, you can do multiple courses. Here’s the link for the Zohar course.
Albert @ KabU
Hi Bernardin, good question!
I cannot comment on how others define this word, but when we use the word mysticism, we are referring to something mystical, something removed from reality, something that does not follow the laws of nature. So when we make the distinction that Kabbalah is not mysticism, this is because Kabbalah is very much so grounded into nature. Kabbalah researches nature and the laws of nature using a very strict scientific method: “a judge has only what his eyes can see” and “what we do not attain we do not call by name”. Even our knowledge of the upper force, of the Creator, is limited to our research tools, meaning the desire. And whatever does not enter into this desire, we cannot research or talk about. For these reasons, it’s more accurate to classify Kabbalah as a science.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2011/06/a-science-about-the-world/
As for Judaism, Kabbalah and Judaism are two separate things. Let’s put a few things into perspective to understand this:
Kabbalah is the method of correcting our egoistic nature and thereby revealing the Creator, the general force of love and bestowal. The first one to actualize this was Adam. His name gives us a hint at this since Adam comes from the Hebrew word “Dome”, meaning “similar to”. He was not the first one alive, but rather the first one to reveal the Creator by becoming similar to this quality of bestowal.
This wisdom gets passed onward from Adam until Abraham who adapted it to the people of his generation and made the wisdom more practical. Abraham put together a large group of Babylonians who were interested in actualizing this method. These people later on became the Israeli nation. The word Israel comes from the Hebrew words “Yashar” “El” meaning straight to God. These are the people who had an active point in the heart in those days and were interested in revealing the Creator.
These people greatly succeeded in this method. The peak of their success was symbolized in the building of the first and second temple, which reflected the level of unity and bestowal they were able to reach. At a certain point, they lost the spiritual connection between them (the destruction of the 2nd temple) and what remained was just these external symbols of their connection.
At this point the wisdom of Kabbalah became concealed. People still had the holy books, Torah and etc, but they did not know how to use them. Since the Torah is written in the language of roots and branches. Meaning it uses words of our world to describe spiritual phenomena. But if a person does not have this spiritual connection through which he can see this, then he thinks this book is talking about this world, history, morals, commandments, etc. From this emerges the Jewish religion.
From all the above we see that Kabbalah itself is not connected to any religion and that the modern religions came out due to the concealment of Kabbalah. At the same time, 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.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2015/12/the-wisdom-of-kabbalah-and-the-other-religions/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Steve,
I cannot comment on your personal situation. In general, we need to keep in mind that 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.
As for how to do the spiritual work in the Kabbalistic group, we’ll learn this in depth in the advanced semesters where everyone will receive their own Kabbalah group with whom they can put these things into practice.
Albert @ KabU
