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Hi Sarah,
We need both an action and an intention. An action by itself is not enough. This follows what the Kabbalists tell us that “an action without an intention is like a body without a soul”. On the other hand just an intention is also not enough. An intention by itself without an action is detached from reality and has no effect. So we need both.
Keep in mind that the spiritual work of bestowal that we’re learning about here is something that we practice only with other points in the heart in the Kabbalistic group. If you practice this anywhere else, in the best case scenario you’ll build some good relationships, in the worst case, people will think you’re weird or try to take advantage of you. But either way it will not lead to the revelation of the Creator. So generally with the rest of the world it’s best to just act normal, 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 the way normal people act there.
But is there something we can actually bestow within the Kabbalistic group? Yes. If a person has a point in the heart and we help them realize that point, then we are bestowing to them. So supporting each other on the spiritual path is how we bestow. We’ll learn how to do this practically in the more advanced lessons.
Albert @ KabU
Hi Cyndi,
The sixth sense is felt in the desire to bestow. But since our nature is completely opposite to bestowal, meaning pure egoism, this nature does not allow us to feel that desire to bestow. We first need to correct that nature. But if this is our nature, how can we change it? Just like a PC cannot just reprogram itself to run as a Mac, we too cannot just change our own nature. We need outside help for that. This help comes to me from the force of the light. The light is a spiritual force that has the ability to change our nature. Our entire work is essentially to extract more and more of the light, especially during the Kabbalistic studies, and it does all the rest. Meaning that it will gradually correct us more and more until we begin to feel that desire to bestow and in that desire begin to reveal the Creator.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2013/02/sunbathing-in-the-rays-of-the-reforming-light/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Avi, good questions!
Studying Kabbalah can help you understand how modern Judaism appeared and how to actualize the role of the Jewish people in our days. 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 onward 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
Hi Barnabas,
1. Short meaning direct.
2. Nature meaning not just trees and animals, but the all encompassing system that we’re in. So our relationship with the Creator is our relationship with the all encompassing system of nature. This system includes all of our thoughts, desires, all of the life events we go through, everything. Through all these things we begin to build a relationship with the Creator and to understand Him.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2017/11/the-concept-of-god-in-kabbalah/
Albert @ KabU
