[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Meine,

There are 620 spiritual desires in total. 248 of them are corrected towards bestowing in order to bestow, 365 desires of receiving in order to bestow, and 7 additional desires that are corrected only in the final correction.

So the numbers 613 and 620 are connected. Depending on the context, sometimes Kabbalists include those additional 7 desires and sometimes they omit them.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Sherry,

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 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 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/

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Paul,

1. We learn that “necessities are neither praised nor condemned”. So whatever we need to do to maintain our normal necessities in life is not considered giving or receiving.

Furthermore, there are times when we do similar exercises to what you wrote, but unless these exercises are explicitly recommended in the lessons, I would not recommend it. Otherwise we risk distracting ourselves from the real spiritual work, which is not inside any one of us, but rather, it’s in the connection between us. As we learned in the lesson on the shattering of the common soul of Adam HaRishon, the only thing broken in the entire system of creation are the proper connections between people. So our entire spiritual work is in fixing those connections. And if we’re focusing on ourselves instead, then we’re not even looking in the direction of where our real spiritual work begins.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2014/05/puzzle-adam-harishon/

2. I cannot answer from the Creator’s point of view because that is not something that we attain. Kabbalah divides our research of the Creator into two parts:

The first is His essence (atzmuto in Hebrew). This is He Himself, His point of view, the Creator as an entity separate from the Created beings. We’re incapable of researching this part of the Creator because our research tools are not built in such a way that we can grasp such things. Perhaps after we finish the process of correction, we’ll discover additional research tools through which we’ll be able to research these things, but until then we limit ourselves and don’t talk about this part of the Creator because we cannot properly research it.

The other part of the Creator is called Bo-Re (Hebrew for Come (Bo) and See (Re)). This is the part of the Creator that we can research and reveal. How do we research this? Through the desire. When we take a part of our desire to receive and correct it in the direction of bestowal, in that corrected desire, we reveal a certain phenomenon, we call this phenomenon the Creator. This is why there are many names for the Creator (in Hebrew), since every time we correct a different part of the desire, we reveal a different aspect of this thing called the Creator.

So all of our understanding of this thing called the Creator (and any spiritual phenomena) is based on what we reveal within the corrected desire. But whatever exists outside of the corrected desire, whatever we don’t grasp, perceive or attain within the desire, whatever is beyond our tools of research, we don’t talk about. We need to keep these limits in mind in order to stay within the realm of science and not venture off into religion or philosophy.

Check out these blog posts from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2017/11/the-concept-of-god-in-kabbalah/

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Google translate of the question: What is a Masach screen?

_________

Hello,

The screen (masach in Hebrew) is the intention that is placed over the desire. It’s the calculation of how much the desire can receive in order to bestow.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman and the Guest & Host analogy in Chapter 3 of Attaining the Worlds Beyond for more details.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Lewis,

The ego. Spirituality works according to the law of equivalence of form. To the extent that we’re similar to the spiritual qualities of love and bestowal, to that extent we come closer to spirituality and reveal it in practice. And the reverse, to the extent that our ego grows, to that extent, spirituality becomes distant and concealed from us.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: http://laitman.com/2013/04/everything-is-attained-by-the-equivalence-of-form/

Keep in mind that despite the ego blocking us from spirituality, it does not mean that we need to get rid of it. Rather, we need to convert the ego, for it to operate in the direction of receiving in order to bestow. Then, instead of blocking us like a giant mountain, it becomes a trail that we climb in order to reach higher and higher levels of spirituality.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2010/10/true-evil/

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Yes, it’s possible. I’ve seen this method implemented successfully even among inmates in prison. It all depends on the influence of the spiritual environment. If a person works on making the spiritual environment important in their eyes, then the spiritual environment will influence that person stronger than their corporeal environment.

We’ll learn about this in the more advanced semesters.

Albert @ KabU

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