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Hi Tristan,
Kabbalah Revealed and Attaining the Worlds Beyond are good books for beginners. They will give you a solid foundation in the Wisdom of Kabbalah. You could find more details in the recommended readings page. https://kabuconnect.com/lessons/recommended-reading/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Eugene,
600,000 is less of a quantitative number and more of a qualitative number. It represents the strength of the spiritual desire after it’s been fully corrected. So essentially all of humanity is included in this number.
Check out this blog post to see how this number is derived: https://laitman.com/2010/09/love-and-hatred-of-600000-souls/
As for being Jewish or a gentile, in the Wisdom of Kabbalah, these things are not determined by our nationality but only according to our desires. If a person has a desire to reveal the Creator, that person is called Israel (from the Hebrew words Yashar-El, straight to God). If a person has a desire only to fulfill one’s stomach, then that person is called an animal. In other words, these things are not fixed at our birth, but rather as our desires change, these labels change as well.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2013/05/roles-that-come-along-our-way/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Sapir,
Suffering is not the optimal path. The path of light is actually the optimal way. Suffering is indeed a last resort.
Furthermore, although we say that there are two paths towards the goal (path of light vs path of suffering), in truth we don’t really advance on the path of suffering. It’s like a child that needs to go to school. Pressuring and punishing him is not the same as educating him. So after all of the pressures and punishments we put on him, he will still have to go to school and get his education. In other words, the path of suffering is only there to pressure us to return to the path of light.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2015/05/we-wont-follow-the-path-of-suffering-forever/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Rae,
Yes, “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.
Keep in mind that 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.
As for the rest of the world, we should remember that “there is no coercion in spirituality” and do our best not to force anyone into doing this type of spiritual work. So when we are outside of the Kabbalistic group, the best thing to do is to act normal, just like everyone else.
We’ll learn more about this in the more advanced lessons.
Albert @ KabU
Hi Kai,
The trick is to focus outside of ourselves, on helping others to do that. If we can help uplift others, we ourselves will also be uplifted. This is why Kabbalists have always studied in Kabbalistic groups. We’ll learn more about these things in the advanced semesters on KabU where everyone will receive their own Kabbalah group with whom you can put these things into practice.
Albert @ KabU
Hi Tom,
There is a saying that “if someone comes to kill you, you need to kill them first”. Meaning that on the level of this world, we need to live our lives in the normal way, according to what is customary in our society. So if someone is trying to harm me, I need to stop them, defend myself, call the cops, sue them, etc. We deal with all these things in the normal way that our society deals with them. Likewise if I’m sick, I need to go to the doctor. If I lose my job, I need to send out my resume and go job hunting, etc. Externally all of these things remain.
So what changes as a result of us studying Kabbalah? Our internality. Internally we need to ascribe everything that is happening to us as coming to us from the Creator. So internally we begin to relate to all of these things differently. But this is our internal work and it does not cancel out any of the normal actions that we need to take externally.
We’ll learn more about this in the upcoming lessons, in the meantime, check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: http://laitman.com/2017/12/there-is-none-else-besides-him/
Albert @ KabU
