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Hi Ruth,
As we learned in this lesson, we do have a certain amount of freedom in choosing which environment will influence us. So if we are punished, we are not punished for our actions, but for choosing to be influenced by a bad environment.
Baal HaSulam writes about it in the article “The Freedom”. Here’s an excerpt:
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“However, there is freedom for the will to initially choose such an environment, such books, and such guides that impart to him good concepts. If one does not do that, but is willing to enter any environment that appears to him and read any book that falls into his hands, he is bound to fall into a bad environment or waste his time on worthless books, which are abundant and easier to come by. In consequence, he will be forced into foul concepts that make him sin and condemn. He will certainly be punished, not because of his evil thoughts or deeds, in which he has no choice, but because he did not choose to be in a good environment, for in that there is definitely a choice.
Therefore, he who strives to continually choose a better environment is worthy of praise and reward. But here, too, it is not because of his good thoughts and deeds, which come to him without his choice, but because of his effort to acquire a good environment, which brings him these good thoughts and deeds.”
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Keep in mind that, in Kabbalah, reward and punishment is not referring to someone judging our actions and handing us a fine, rather reward and punishment are referring to a cause and effect relationship that is found in the laws of nature. For example, if I disregard the law of gravity and jump from a 100 story building, then I’ll be “punished” by falling to my death. Meaning it’s not a punishment, but cause and effect, jump off 100 story building -> death.
Likewise with our spiritual work:
If I build a good spiritual environment for myself -> I’ll correct my egoistic nature and become similar to the Creator.
If I don’t build a good spiritual environment for myself -> I’ll waste my time and not reach the spiritual correction in this life.
So there are no punishments in Kabbalah, but there are laws of nature. And we need to come into balance with these laws.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details:
https://laitman.com/2008/10/nature%E2%80%99s-commandments-the-creator%E2%80%99s-laws/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Orah,
There is no official course at the moment. All of the Hebrew that we need for studying Kabbalah we will gradually learn together throughout this course. For more details about the importance of the Hebrew language, check out this article: The Ties between Letters, Words, and Numbers:
http://www.kabbalah.info/eng/content/view/frame/60270?/eng/content/view/full/60270&main
Albert @ KabU
Hi Abe,
Freedom means rising above our egoistic nature. As we learned in this week’s lesson, we do this by building for ourselves a strong spiritual environment.
Baal HaSulam talks about this in the article, the Freedom. He writes: “Harut (carved) on the tables”; do not pronounce it Harut (carved), but rather Herut (freedom), to show that they are liberated from the angel of death.
Throughout the article he explains how our current egoistic nature is that angel of death. Meaning although we are technically alive and surviving, relative to spirituality, our life is considered death. True life is within a completely different nature, that of bestowal. In order to reach freedom from our current nature, we need to choose and build a spiritual environment for ourselves which will influence us with the importance of acquiring the quality of bestowal.
For this reason, the Kabbalists equate our main freedom in life in choosing to be influenced by a spiritual environment. Not just any environment, but specifically a spiritual environment, since only through the spiritual environment can we get the importance of coming out of our egoistic nature and only through that environment can we draw the light that can help us to actualize this.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2012/10/bestowal-should-become-fashionable/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Blue,
1) A Kabbalist is someone that has corrected his/her egoistic desire into the desire to bestow (at least to some extent). As a result of this correction, a Kabbalist reveals the Creator, the general force of love and bestowal, while they are alive in this world.
2) Regarding Abraham, we know of his work through the writings of Rambam.
3) If a person corrects himself, he attains spirituality, he feels it tangibly. It’s impossible not to know that one has spiritual attainment.
4) Yes, the Kabbalists used the language of roots and branches on purpose in order to convey spiritual phenomena. For those that are in spiritual attainment, this is very clear. For those that are not, these writings seem to them like some kind of stories, history, morals, etc.
5) The number 125 comes from the structure of the upper worlds. This structure is just a division of the spiritual desire that we need to correct into sefirot, partzufim, and worlds.
The most basic division of the desire is 1 Sefira. 5 Sefirot compose 1 partzuf. 5 Partzufim compose 1 world. There are 5 worlds in total. So 5 worlds each with 5 partzufim each with 5 sefirot equals 125 (5x5x5) steps on the spiritual ladder, or in other words corrections that need to be performed on the desire.
In the book Kabbalah for the Student, there’s an article called Foreword to the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah (http://www.kabbalah.info/eng/content/view/full/64187) which lists these 125 steps in the language of sefirot/partzufim/olamot(worlds). For now, these are just technical terms for us, but in the future lessons we’ll dive deeper into these things and learn how to feel and experience them.
In simpler words, the 125 steps represents the difference between us and the Creator. The Creator is a desire to bestow and we are the desire to receive. Adapting our desire to receive to work in order to bestow takes 125 steps. So to the extent that we correct our nature, make it similar to the Creator’s nature, to that extent we’re “climbing” this ladder.
In other words, ascending or descending this ladder is not a physical action, but rather depends on how much we’re similar to the Creator’s quality of bestowal (ascending) or less similar to it and more egoistic (descending).
All of this operates according to the law of equivalence of form. Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details:
https://laitman.com/2013/04/everything-is-attained-by-the-equivalence-of-form/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Aaron, great questions!
Spirituality works according to laws. The main law in spirituality is the law of equivalence of form. Meaning that in order to cross that barrier, we need to become similar to the spiritual qualities of love and bestowal that reside there.
It’s similar to how a radio works. That we just need to tune the inner frequency of the radio to match the external wave. Once we tune in to the wave that we want, we right away hear the music that is on that wave. Likewise with us, once we tune ourselves in the direction of bestowal, we will reveal the spiritual world.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: http://laitman.com/2013/04/everything-is-attained-by-the-equivalence-of-form/
And yes, we do this work by studying together in a Kabbalistic group. This is what we’ll be doing in a systemic way throughout the courses on KabU and especially in the advanced semester.
Until then, we’re still in the fundamentals, learning the foundation needed to do this type of work. The best thing you can do for your spiritual advancement now, is to set aside some time to regularly return to the Kabbalistic sources, weekly lessons, videos, books, etc. Such a habit of regularly returning to the source of the light will help you throughout your entire spiritual development.
Albert @ KabU
Hi Selah,
1. Good is being able to bestow, just like the Creator. Goodness does not exist on the level of our world because our world is completely governed by our opposite egoistic nature, which only wants to receive. As long as we remain within our ego, we won’t find any goodness in this world, quite the contrary, we’ll find worse and worse things, since this is what motivates us to get out of our ego (see the blog post I referenced in my previous post). Only when we finally rise above our ego, will we discover true goodness.
And what about everything that happened to us in the past? It’ll all seem like nothing more than a dream. This is why the Kabbalists call this world “the imaginary world”. Since after we correct ourselves, relative to that corrected state this life would appear as nothing more than a dream.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2010/11/this-life-is-a-dream/
2. I’m not an expert in other methods, even others that seemingly teach “Kabbalah”, so I cannot comment on what they do or teach there. In general, authentic Kabbalah has been around for about 5800 years, but it’s been concealed for the past 2,000 years, so people don’t really know what it’s all about (just picture a 2,000 year old game of telephone). So naturally, many different methods sprang up that are seemingly “Kabbalah”.
Some try to associate themselves with Kabbalah as a way to validate themselves, while others borrowed some principles from Kabbalah and created something else, which is how philosophy emerged and later on turned into science. Or it’s also possible that these methods sprang up as a result of the concealment of Kabbalah, this is how the modern religions emerged. But ultimately, authentic Kabbalah has nothing to do with any other method and for the most part precedes all of the modern religions, sciences, and philosophies.
Authentic Kabbalah is the method by which we correct our egoistic nature and as a result we become similar to and reveal in practice the Creator, the general force of love and bestowal.
This is what we’re learning about here and these materials are the only ones that I can comment on and explain.
Albert @ KabU
