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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
Hi J,
If by “easy” path you mean for there to be an opportunity to bypass the process of development, then you’re right, there is no such thing. Either way we need to go through the entire process of development.
Furthermore, although we say that there are these two paths (suffering or light), 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 Trino,
Not just any action. As we learn from the system of roots and branches, our world exists on the level of branches. All the changes essentially stem from the root. In order to make any change here, we need to do so on the root level.
It’s like watching TV. Let’s say I’m watching a TV show and want to change something in the show. I can start yelling at the show or even turn it off, or go to sleep or make a thousand other actions, but ultimately it will not change the show itself. In order to make any change, I would need to go to the source. In this case maybe to contact the director or something.
This is how our world works. That we’re on the level of branches, like that end result of a TV show that was already made. And in order to make any change here, we need to go to the roots.
We’ll learn more about this in the upcoming lessons, in the meantime, check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2009/09/the-law-of-roots-and-branches-the-most-imporant-law-in-kabbalah/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Namron,
Yes, you can say that about the carpenter.
Regarding equivalence of form on the level of our desires, if we had an example of a spiritual desire, we would be able to emulate and copy it in order to reach equivalence of form with it. The problem is that such a thing does not exist on the level of our world. The best that we can do here is to read the Kabbalistic texts which describe to us these spiritual desires in the language of roots and branches. By reading these texts and trying to understand and feel them within our desire, through those efforts we evoke the light that is in these texts. This light gradually corrects our desires and makes them similar to the spiritual desire that we read and aspire towards. And then in the corrected desire, we will reach equivalence of form with spirituality and begin to feel it in practice.
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
