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Hi Aaron,
Kli is Hebrew for vessel (Kelim is the plural, so vessels). A vessel is a container. What does it contain? Light. Light = pleasure. What vessel can contain pleasure? A desire. So kelim are desires.
We all have different desires, but these are corporeal desires for food, sex, family, money, honor, power, knowledge, etc. Kabbalah does not deal with these types of desires. Kabbalah only deals with the desire for spirituality.
But do we have a desire for spirituality? Not really. At most, we have a single point, called the point in the heart, out of which we can build a true desire for spirituality. How do we do that? By connecting our point with other points in the heart.
This is why we learn about the shattering in the system of Adam Harishon. This is the system of connections between our points in the heart. This is the only thing that was broken and the only thing we need to correct. Once we properly connect between us, we will rebuild that spiritual kli through which we can perceive spirituality.
Keep in mind that we do this type of work only in this safe environment that we call the Kabbalistic group. With the rest of the world we need to act in a normal way, just like everyone else.
We’ll learn more about these things in the more advanced semesters.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2014/05/puzzle-adam-harishon/
As for the restriction (tzimtzum in Hebrew), check out the Guest & Host Allegory in Chapter 3 of Attaining the Worlds Beyond:
http://www.kabbalah.info/eng/content/view/frame/4180?/eng/content/view/full/4180&main
Albert @ KabU
Hi Sharlene, great questions!
1. Yes.
2. Kabbalah is not a system of beliefs. Kabbalists don’t “believe” in the Creator, they reveal Him in practice. And this revelation is not something mystical, but rather it works according to the law of equivalence of form.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2011/06/kabbalah-without-a-trace-of-mysticism/
3. Yes, you can say that.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2017/11/the-concept-of-god-in-kabbalah/
4. Yes, you can say that. The stories in the Torah are written in the language of roots and branches. It’s a type of code that uses words of our world to describe spiritual situations and phenomena. As such, these stories are not literal stories.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2016/05/dispelling-myths-about-kabbalah-part-4/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Marc, great questions!
But 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.
Albert @ KabU
Hi Comfort, good question.
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 David, great questions!
The Kabbalists tell us that “necessities are neither praised nor condemned”. Meaning that taking care of our necessities to live a normal life is not considered egoism. It’s perfectly fine to do that.
What then is egoism and how is it connected to our nature which only wants to receive?
There is the desire to receive pleasure and there is egoism. Although we sometimes use these two things interchangeably, in truth they are two separate things.
Our nature is the desire to receive pleasure. It simply means that every calculation we make is to chase pleasure or avoid pain. This is similar to how any other animal functions. By itself, there is nothing wrong with this nature, it’s simply the program by which we function and preserve ourselves.
Egoism is when this program begins to be used in a way that harms others. Not only do I want to receive pleasure, but I want to receive it at the expense of others, at their detriment. This is the corporeal ego.
There is also a spiritual ego. Spiritual egoism is everything that stands in the way of our connection with the Creator. Normal people don’t have a spiritual ego. This is only something that we discover after doing some serious spiritual work.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2010/10/true-evil/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Miryam,
1. The text talks about how we start our journey in an egoistic way, with all the different attempts we went through at trying to control the Creator. Later on we get despaired from our inability to do so. And after that we learn about the true meaning of our existence, which is not to control Him but rather to correct our egoistic nature and thereby to connect with Him.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2019/04/the-purpose-of-creation/
2. The Kabbalists tell us that we are living in a sea of endless light. Meaning that there is no shortage of light around us. Why then don’t we feel this light? It’s because we’re lacking the vessels in order to perceive that light. Once we build the right vessels, the light will immediately fulfill those vessels. This is why the most important part of our development is the process by which we build the vessels for the light.
He writes about this in that same paragraph: “It is precisely through the slow meaningful manner of reading that you can develop feelings, or “vessels” (kelim). These are necessary for us to receive spiritual sensations. Once the vessels are in place, the Upper Light will be able to enter them. Prior to their formation, the light merely exists around you, surrounding your soul, although you cannot perceive it.”
Albert @ KabU
