[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Ben,

1) It’s an interesting question, but because it’s philosophical, there is no real answer here. We can say in general that all of life is a game with the Creator. This is called “there is none else besides Him”. Meaning that He’s the only source behind EVERYTHING that is happening in life. Every single thought, desire, life event that we experience, it all stems from Him. So how can we possibly beat Him in this game? Only if we unite our points in the heart, will we have the strength to defeat Him.

We’ll learn about this in the more advanced 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/

2) We should keep in mind that Kabbalists are not philosophers, they are scientists. They research the Creator in a purely scientific approach. See my reply (#304863) to Dan below for more details:

https://kabuconnect.com/forums/topic/ask-anything-about-week-1-lesson-and-materials-and-get-an-answer-from-a-senior-kabbalah-instructor/#post-304863

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Joey,

When Kabbalists use the word spirit, they are referring to the spiritual light that fills the vessel. In order for the light to fill the vessel, there needs to be something that adapts it to the vessel.

It’s just like in electronics, in order to have electrical energy flow in the circuit, the circuit needs to have a positive side, a negative side, and a resistor between them. Likewise in our spiritual work, we need two opposites and a resistor between them. The positive side is the light, the Creator’s force of pure bestowal. The negative side is the vessel, our desire of pure reception. And the resistor between these two is the anti egoistic screen. When we put all of these three components together, the light can flow into the vessel, which we can say is a form of spiritual energy.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2013/04/what-is-the-source-of-the-energy/

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

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

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

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

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Jerzy,

Kabbalah and Judaism are two separate things. See my reply (#304860) right below this to Juan Londono for details.

https://kabuconnect.com/forums/topic/ask-anything-about-week-1-lesson-and-materials-and-get-an-answer-from-a-senior-kabbalah-instructor/#post-304798

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

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

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