[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi David,

You are correct that it’s not enough to intellectualize it, it needs to be felt.

Regarding our egoistic desires, first of all, what are egoistic desires? The fact that I like to eat and drink, this is not considered egoism. In Kabbalah, egoism is a spiritual quality which stands in the way of our connection with the Creator.  By default, no one has such a quality. It’s only after we start to do some serious spiritual work, do we reveal this quality within us called egoism.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2010/10/true-evil/

As for correcting egoism, we don’t do this with our own strength, but only through the force of the light. Essentially, our entire work boils down to extracting more and more of this force, especially during the Kabbalistic studies, and it performs all of the corrections upon us.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: http://laitman.com/2013/02/sunbathing-in-the-rays-of-the-reforming-light/

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Craig,

Kabbalists typically don’t attribute much importance to dreams or the state of dreaming. They see it simply as a state where the brain summarizes/organizes the daily experiences. Similar to how some computers go through the process of defragmentation.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2016/02/new-life-496-where-do-dreams-come-from/

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Michael, great questions!

Kabbalah is a science. So when we make the distinction that Kabbalah is not mysticism, by this we mean to say that it’s not something airy or detached from nature, rather it’s very much so grounded into nature, into researching and applying the laws of nature. And when we make the distinction that Kabbalah is not a religion, by this we mean to say that it’s not based on blind faith or belief, but rather on the empirical research of the Kabbalists. Furthermore, if we follow this method, try to replicate it, we should reach the same results that they did, meaning the correction of our egoistic nature and as a result the revelation of the Creator in our lives.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2011/01/kabbalah-and-other-sciences-philosophy-and-religion/

As for convincing you to follow this method, we don’t do such things here. This follows the rule that “there is no coercion in spirituality”.  So no one can tell you if this method is for you or not, you need to feel it for yourself.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Muhammad,

Yes, you can say that. But keep in mind that Kabbalah does not relate to the stories in the Torah as literal stories since the Torah is written entirely in a type of code called the language of roots and branches. Meaning it uses words of our world to describe spiritual phenomena. As such, not a single word in the Torah is speaking about our world, history, etc.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2016/05/dispelling-myths-about-kabbalah-part-4/

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Chris,

These are just 4 letters (yod hey vav hey), there is nothing to translate there. Keep in mind that in general these things are not translated because we don’t get anything from the translation. These things need to be felt. How do we feel them? Each time we correct our egoistic desires, within the corrected desire we reveal a certain spiritual phenomena. Only after we reveal that phenomena will we understand it. And since there are 4 levels of coarseness to our egoistic desires, corresponding to each level, there are 4 letters in the tetragrammaton. We’ll learn more about this in the upcoming lesson dealing with the structure of the upper world.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Chris,

The word Assiyah by itself means action. What you’re referring to is the יה which is a part of this word, but more specifically it’s a part of the tetragrammaton, which is one of the names of the Creator.

But what is a name of the Creator? What does that even mean? How can we assign a name to Him?

Keep in mind that Kabbalah is a science with clear limits of what we can and cannot study. Kabbalah differentiate two parts to the Creator.

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 simply 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 this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2011/12/the-holy-names-of-bestowal/

Albert @ KabU

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