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Hi Zorica,
When we say that Kabbalah does not require any physical changes, it’s because most of our spiritual work is internal, and if there is any external expression of this work, we do it only in the Kabbalistic group.
With the rest of the world, obviously we should not be causing harm to anyone nor doing anything illegal there. But aside from that, with the rest of the world we need to act normal, just like everyone else.
As for the changes we undergo, we go through many different changes on the spiritual path. It’s not so much that our character will change, but rather we will begin to relate differently to life. Furthermore, the more we advance we become more sensitive, so our emotions become deeper. Aside from that, our priorities will shift around. At first we will value spirituality much more than corporeality, but then corporeality will once again become important and we’ll need to find a way to balance the two of them.
As for growing a third leg, no we won’t grow a third leg. We also wont become monks and disconnect from this world. Kabbalists continue to exist on the level of this world throughout the entire spiritual ladder of development. So we’ll continue to work, take care of our families, health, etc.
So from the above, we can see that not much changes externally while studying Kabbalah. Internally on the other hand, it’s quite an adventure…
Albert @ KabU
Hi Geoff, great questions!
1. From the 3 state model presented by Baal HaSulam in the Introduction to the book of Zohar, we learn that the future perfect spiritual state already exists, and we all already exist there as well. The only difference is that our uncorrected ego does not allow us to perceive this yet. So once we correct our egoistic nature, we will reveal the true spiritual reality in which we existed the whole time.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2010/04/revealing-our-true-state/
Introduction to the book of Zohar, from item 14: https://kabbalahmedia.info/en/sources/ALlyoveA
2. The goal of creation is to bring us to that third final corrected state. This goal is predetermined. The path to reach that goal (state #2) is also predetermined. It’s like climbing a ladder, you have no choice but to keep climbing up.
So what influence do we have on this system? We can change the speed at which we climb the ladder and we can also change our attitude to what we are going through.
But if our development requires us to go through something unpleasant, like wars or personal troubles, we have no choice but to go through it?
We have to experience everything that is necessary for our development. But if we experience these things internally, in our spiritual work to correct our ego, we don’t need to experience them externally. For example with war, I can feel internally like I’m at war with my ego in my spiritual work. Or if I don’t perform this spiritual work, this war will appear externally in front of me in this world, and I will need to experience it externally.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2023/01/what-can-we-influence/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Tammy,
It depends on the context. You could say that our world uses the branch language. And sometimes we use the terms “our world” and “this world” interchangeably. But sometimes “this world” is not referring to planet Earth, and not even to us, but rather to the beginning of our spiritual journey. “This world” is referring to the point when we discover that there is something called spirituality and that we’re disconnected from it. Meaning it’s already a type of awareness of what is lacking. So we can say that 99% of the world is not in this concept called “this world” because they still don’t feel that they are lacking spirituality.
Albert @ KabU
Hi Zorica,
The 613 desires that we are learning about are spiritual desires, meaning desires that we don’t yet have. This is similar to how a single cell in a body only has some basic desires to sustain itself. But when that cell is part of a greater body, it reveals there higher desires which are impossible for the individual cell to have: desires for money, honor, power, etc. Same with us, until we integrate with the general body of Adam HaRishon, we don’t reveal or understand these 613 spiritual desires.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2008/12/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-613-desires/
This is why we focus all of our work on building that one desire to integrate and connect back into that general body of Adam HaRishon. What does that desire look and feel like? It’s a desire to connect and be close to others. When they speak, I really listen and value their words. When they are doing something together, I want to be there with them. If they are down, I want to uplift them, etc.
Keep in mind that we do this work only with other points in the heart in the Kabbalistic group. It’s like we’re building here a certain nucleus. Once we build that nucleus, we will be able to add to it wider and wider circles of the world, until we’ll come to include the whole world in that connection. But this is gradual work. And until we build that nucleus, we have nothing with which to do any spiritual work towards the world. So until then, how do we behave towards the rest of the world? We behave there normally, just like everyone else.
We’ll learn how to do this type of work practically in the more advanced semesters. It’ll be a lot more relevant in the graduate courses when everyone will receive their own Kabbalah group with whom they can put all these things into practice.
Albert @ KabU
Hi Jessica,
We’re still in the fundamentals of this course, so it’s possible that you still did not encounter all of the definitions for these terms. But there are clear definitions and explanations for all of these things: What is the Creator, how do we research Him, why is Kabbalah a science and not a religion, what is the relationship between Kabbalah and Judaism, etc.
Kabbalah is a science because it uses a scientific approach to research reality. It’s not based on someone’s thoughts or philosophies but simply on the research of the Kabbalists. Furthermore, this research is not based on faith, it’s not something we verify after we die, but rather something that we can replicate and reproduce in our lives.
How did the Kabbalists research the Creator?
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/
As for the relationship between Kabbalah and Judaism, see my reply #314866 to Sarah.
Albert @ KabU
Hi Sarah,
Kabbalah does not deal with morals. Kabbalah helps a person change on the inside. Not just our external actions, but our ingrained nature changes from operating in the direction of reception to the direction of bestowal.
Furthermore, 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 on ward 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
