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Hi Dan,
Not directly. This is because we don’t attain the Creator Himself, but only what we discover in our corrected desires. Let’s put this into perspective to understand it:
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 again 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/
https://laitman.com/2019/04/the-purpose-of-creation/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Saji,
Above and below are symbols. “Above” symbolizes higher levels of bestowal while “below” symbolizes higher levels of reception. So when we say that the roots go from above downwards, it means that this system starts out from the highest levels of bestowal (100% bestowal, 0% reception) and begins to become more coarse, more egoistic, up until it reaches the level of this world (0% bestowal, 100% reception).
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2015/09/where-is-the-upper-world/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Jerzy,
Kabbalah and Judaism are two separate things. See my reply (#304860) right below this to Juan Londono for details.
Albert @ KabU
Hi Juan,
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 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 Kai,
These are great questions which we’ll cover in depth throughout the course. But here are a few key points:
1) We discover the meaning of our lives when we reveal the Creator and connect with Him. Revealing Him works according to the law of equivalence of form. Meaning that in order to reveal Him, we need to become similar to Him. In other words, we need to correct our opposite egoistic nature, for it to operate in the direction of love and bestowal, just like Him. Then we will reveal Him in practice and realize the meaning of our lives. This is precisely what the Wisdom of Kabbalah helps us do.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2011/06/kabbalah-without-a-trace-of-mysticism/
2) Regarding the modern age, we will understand its emergence as well as all the stages that preceded it and that ones that will follow it when we learn about the three states of the soul (Baal HaSulam describes in article Introduction to the book of Zohar, items 14 & 15).
The first state is the state of perfection in which we were created. But this was an unconscious state, like a baby in its mother’s womb. So we necessarily had to come to the complete opposite state (the second state), to lose that state of perfection, in order to once again reach it, but this time consciously (the third state).
As Baal HaSulam writes in that article, these three states necessitate each other and are thereby fixed and unchanging. In other words, all of the things humanity has undergone in all the billions of years of development as well as all of our future states are preset, prearranged to give us exactly what we need in every moment in order to help us reach that final third state.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2014/01/from-perfection-to-perfection/
3. Connection happens on the level of desires, we’ll learn about this in the future lessons.
4. I’m not an expert on religions so I cannot comment on that. But in general, we should know that Kabbalah is not a religion. It’s a practical scientific method by which we can correct our egoistic nature and thereby reveal the Creator in our lives. What about the afterlife? If we realize this correction within our lifetime, we will continue to exist within that corrected state even when our animalistic bodies die. If not, then we’ll continue to reincarnate again and again until we finish this correction.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2015/06/what-happens-to-the-soul-after-death/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Trino,
1. Yes.
2. Yes, you can say that. All of humanity is interconnected and one person’s correction brings everyone closer to their correction and to the purpose of creation. It’s like we’re all parts of an eight billion piece jigsaw puzzle. If I find where my piece fits into the puzzle, it makes it easier for others to find where their piece fits.
Albert @ KabU
