[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Lora,

Yes, it’s possible. Rabash for example would periodically listen to the news on the radio to get a feel for how the world is changing relative to his spiritual work.

Another example is Rav Laitman. We could all see the results of his work because we are all essentially the results of his work.  He was just one person who began to widely disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah and now there are millions of students around the world that are studying it.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Sarah,

1. At the beginning of the spiritual path, there are a lot of tendencies to isolate ourselves from the world. So what you’re feeling is normal. But the more we advance, the more we’ll begin to see that we don’t need to isolate ourselves. Even Baal HaSulam and Rabash were not living in isolation in some Kabbalistic environment, rather they had normal jobs, families, and lived in a typical neighborhood of their time. How then did they attain such high spiritual levels? By tapping into the strength of the spiritual environment.

So if we build for ourselves a strong spiritual environment, then it will influence us even stronger than the corporeal environment that we’re in. But this is not a one time choice. Building and strengthening the spiritual environment is our constant work. As we progress, our ego will grow more and more, and the corporeal environment will pull us more and more. This is done purposefully so that this resistance will force us to build an even stronger connection to the spiritual environment, and thereby reach an even higher spiritual level.

It’s just like with a bodybuilder. If he lifts only a 1 pound weight all the time, he will not get very strong (this is equivalent to us living in isolation). In order to grow, that bodybuilder needs to constantly increase the resistance that he’s lifting. So the more we advance, the more we’ll begin to see how the everyday problems, experiences, work situations, etc we undergo in the regular society are a necessary part of our correction. That we don’t erase these things, but above them we need to stay connected to the spiritual environment. And this will determine the level of our spiritual attainment.

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

2. We learn that “love your friend as yourself” is a great all encompassing rule of our spiritual work. It is essentially the path through which we come into contact with the Creator. But who is a friend? When Kabbalists use the word “friend” they are not referring to our corporeal buddies. A friend, in the spiritual sense of the word, is someone that is close to me spiritually, someone that shares the same spiritual goal as me. In other words, a friend is someone with an active point in the heart that is together with me on the spiritual path. This is why the spiritual work of “love your friend as yourself” is primarily carried out in a Kabbalistic group.

Furthermore, the spiritual work we do in the Kabbalistic group is the foundation of all of our work. 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 normally there, just like everyone else. Meaning don’t make a saint of yourself and at the same time don’t cause harm to others, but just act there the way normal people act.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi William,

Yes, the world is a reflection of ourselves. Just keep in mind that our attitude of love is an internal matter. Externally we still exist on the level of this world and still need to carry out the normal actions of this world. For example, if someone is trying to hurt me, I still need to stop them, defend myself, and call the cops. If I lose my job, I still need to go out and actually search for a job. If I’m sick, I still need to go to a doctor, take some medicine, etc.

In other words, our internal attitude to what is happening should not cancel out any of the normal actions that we need to take in life. It’s important to maintain this balance in our internal and external work. We’ll learn more about these things throughout our studies.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Jo,

I’m not an expert on religions, so I cannot comment on that. In general, we should keep in mind that Kabbalah is not a religion. It’s a practical scientific method by which we can correct our egoistic nature. As a result of this correction, we become similar to the Creator and reveal Him in practice, in our lives.

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

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Roger,

You can say that they are a window of learning, in that we need to always aspire towards the goal and not get stuck on the path, even in a very pleasant moment.

Keep in mind that our nature is egoistic, so avoiding pain is one of the major motivating forces for us. If we were to completely get rid of that force, then we would have no drive to continue our development. So as long as we have not fully corrected our egoistic nature, there always needs to be a force that prods us to move forward. Without it, we would agree to remain in the current state forever and not reach the goal.

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]

google translation of Luis’s question:

Why does the wisdom of Kabbalah consider that it is not necessary to refrain from satisfying bodily desires? Is not a certain condition of the body essential to access the desire to know the meaning of life and adhere to the Creator?

Hi Luis, great question!

The Kabbalistic method is not about suppressing or killing our ego, rather it’s about rising above it. In fact the more we advance, the more our egoistic desires grow. They turn into a type of mountain that we climb over. The bigger the desires, the higher we can climb, and the higher the spiritual degree that we can attain. On the other hand, if we were to eliminate our egoistic desires, then accordingly, we would only be able to attain a tiny degree of spiritual attainment.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2011/02/the-worse-the-better/

By the way, if you prefer to study Kabbalah in a different language, we have courses available in many different languages. Check out this portal site for details: https://www.kab.info/

Albert @ KabU

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