[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Afc, great question!

Kabbalah and religion are two separate things. Let’s put a few things into perspective to understand this:

Kabbalah is the method for 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/2008/10/religions-place-in-our-lives/

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Derek,

There are 613 spiritual desires and corresponding to each desire is a law, an inner process by which extract the reforming light and correct that desire. Keep in mind that 613 is referring to our spiritual desires, that we don’t yet have. Similar to how a single cell in a body only has some basic desires. 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/

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Esther, great questions!

1. The point in the heart is the beginning of this thing called a soul. The soul is the fully developed form of the point in the heart.  See my response below 63205 to Michael for more details.

2. You’re right, we cannot speak about the Creator’s point of view because we never attain such a thing. Everything the Wisdom of Kabbalah talks about is based on what we can research and experience within our desires. We never speak about what exists outside of our desires. See my response below 126154 to Nicole for more details.

3. The purpose of creation is not simply to stuff us full of pleasure like we stuff a turkey, or to take some drug that’ll make us happy for the rest of our lives. The purpose is to elevate us to the highest best possible state, meaning to become similar to the Creator, to his qualities of love and bestowal. In other words, it’s not enough simply to receive, but we need to develop and become similar to Him.

4. 620 is the number of corrections that need to be placed over the spiritual desire. This number is further divided into 248 desires of bestowing in order to bestow, 365 desires that operate on receiving in order to bestow, and 7 additional desires that are corrected only in the final correction. All of these numbers come to us from the structure of the upper worlds and the Kabbalists that attained these things. We’ll learn how this number is derived in the more advanced lessons on KabU that deal with the structure of the upper worlds.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Helen, good question!

We don’t yet have any true spiritual sensations, we’re still in the preparation period prior to the spiritual ladder. But once we start to do real spiritual work, we can measure our progress in our attitude towards other points in the hearts. That I’ll feel how my attitude towards them changes from complete indifference, all the way until I feel them as pieces of my soul. We’ll learn more about this in the more advanced lessons.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Peter,

We learn that all of the changes we undergo is thanks to the reforming light. We extract this force primarily from the Kabbalistic study. So ideally a person should set aside some time on a regular basis to return to the sources: the Kabbalistic books, videos, lessons, etc.

As for what happens in between all those times. That depends less on our own strength and more on the spiritual environment that we place ourselves in. All of our good thoughts are the result of that environment.

Baal HaSulam writes about this in the article “the Freedom“. Here’s an excerpt: “he who strives to continually choose a better environment is worthy of praise and reward. But here, too, it is not because of his good thoughts or deeds, which come to him without his choice, but because of his effort to acquire a good environment, which brings him these good thoughts and actions.”

We’ll learn how to do this practically in the more advanced semesters.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Mark,

I’m not sure in which context you’re asking this question, but in general, yes, you can say that. The point in the heart awakens and in a way this throws us off balance. We become incapable of simply living out our lives like everyone else. Rather we start asking some deep existential questions and start seeking some other type of fulfillment in life.

Albert @ KabU

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