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Hi Loria,
Freedom means rising above our egoistic nature. As we learned in this week’s lesson, we do this by building for ourselves a strong spiritual environment.
Baal HaSulam talks about this in the article, the Freedom. He writes: “Harut (carved) on the tables”; do not pronounce it Harut (carved), but rather Herut (freedom), to show that they are liberated from the angel of death.
Throughout the article he explains how our current egoistic nature is that angel of death. Meaning although we are technically alive and surviving, relative to spirituality, our life is considered death. True life is within a completely different nature, that of bestowal. In order to reach freedom from our current nature, we need to choose and build a spiritual environment for ourselves which will influence us with the importance of acquiring the quality of bestowal.
For this reason, the Kabbalists equate our main freedom in life in choosing to be influenced by a spiritual environment. Not just any environment, but specifically a spiritual environment, since only through the spiritual environment can we get the importance of coming out of our egoistic nature and only through that environment can we draw the light that can help us to actualize this.
In the more advanced lessons, we’ll learn how to build this type of spiritual environment, in the meantime, check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2012/10/bestowal-should-become-fashionable/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Jonathan,
I’m not a historian, so I cannot comment on that. But in general, throughout the Kabbalistic study, our views on these things will gradually change. Even what we once considered idol worship will change. From that initial view that people were as if bowing to statues and forces, to the Kabbalistic viewpoint of idol worship which is bowing to our own egoism. In that regard, every single one of us starts out as an idol worshiper until we correct our egoistic nature. We’ll learn more about this in the upcoming lessons.
As for the concept of God in Kabbalah, check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2017/11/the-concept-of-god-in-kabbalah/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Jonathan, good question!
The general level of egoism grew. But this is not a bad thing, but rather a sign of progress. It’s like with exercise, when you master a 5 pound weight, in order to keep progressing, you need to add resistance by going up to a 10 pound weight, etc. Likewise the process of correction works according to the rule of “from light to heavy”. Meaning first the lighter, less egoistic souls reach their correction. They become as the pioneers that start this whole process. And only later on we focus on the heavier, coarser, more egoistic desires.
The people in the days of Abraham were less egoistic and therefore started this whole process. After they corrected the egoism on their level, it opened the door for the rest of the world, the carriers of the heavier, more egoistic desires, to reach their correction.
But the rest of the world was not yet ready for this correction. For this reason Kabbalah had to be temporarily concealed and the people who previously succeeded in this method needed to be scattered throughout the whole world. Then in the process of them integrating with the rest of the world, they sped up the development of the rest of the world to this final state of correction.
So we can see from this whole process that it’s not that something bad happened, on the contrary, those pioneers that started this process finished the correction on their level and then received their next challenge.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2008/08/building-the-third-temple/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Julia,
No, we cannot skip any of the degrees, otherwise we will never reach wholeness and perfection. It’s like a child that misses out on a key developmental stage.
In general, our spiritual work goes “from light to heavy”. It’s similar to weight lifting, a person does not start with lifting 1000 pounds, each one starts with let’s say 1 pound. After they master that, they can increase the resistance. Similarly with our spiritual work, each one starts the spiritual correction with the lightest desires. Only after correcting those, do they begin to reveal more egoistic desires to work on. And the bigger the desires that we correct, the higher up we climb spiritually. But it’s a linear process, we cannot just jump directly to the big desires.
Albert @ KabU
Hi Natalia, good question!
Destiny means that the final point is already preset in the purpose of creation. We have no way out of it. The path there is also set. The only choice we have is the pace at which we go through that path: whether we go through it consciously and willingly or whether we wait for the sufferings to build up and push us forward.
We’ll learn more about this in the upcoming lessons. In the meantime, check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2011/01/lets-go-with-the-light/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Alessa, great questions!
1. It means that people were relatively undeveloped, that they had a small level of egoism, similar to animals. If you look at ants or bees, they also live in unity, but this is not a spiritual level of unity. Spiritual unity means that there is a huge ego that is separating us from each other and despite that ego, we extract the Creator’s force to help us to unite with each other. That huge ego is a necessary condition to reveal higher levels of spirituality. It’s like a mountain, the bigger the ego, the higher up we can climb in spirituality. Whereas the previous generations had a tiny ego, so even if they were united, this unity could only generate a tiny level of spirituality.
2. We are not trying to get back to zero, we don’t eradicate our ego, we correct it.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2010/10/true-evil/
3. Everything that we go through is for our further development. Adam in that original story is like that small level of egoism that I wrote about earlier. That level of ego is not enough to fulfill the entire purpose of creation. A much greater ego is required. How can we reach such a large level of egoism? For that Adam was given Eve, who got “tricked” by the snake into eating that apple, etc. It’s not a trick, rather this entire process was precisely planned and programmed into creation in order to help us to further grow and develop.
It’s similar to how we help our kids to grow. We don’t just give them a completed jigsaw puzzle. Rather we take it and break it down into many pieces. Then in the process of them putting it all together, they grow and develop.
If you’re interesting in learning how to properly decipher the stories in the Torah, check out the books: Disclosing a Portion or The Secrets of the Eternal Book.
4. I’m not an expert in any other teaching or method, so I cannot comment on that.
Albert @ KabU
