[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Kay, great questions!
The goal of authentic Kabbalah is to correct our egoistic nature and as a result to become similar to and reveal the Creator, the general force of love and bestowal. Things like astrology and psychological techniques might help to calm us down and somewhat deal with our nature, but ultimately these things don’t correct our egoistic nature, so they are not a part of the authentic Kabbalistic method.

How then do we correct our ego and become similar to the Creator? Only through the light. The light is a special force that can correct our nature. Our entire work (and the entire Kabbalistic method) boils down to extracting more and more of this light, especially from the Kabbalistic studies, and it does all the rest.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: http://laitman.com/2013/02/sunbathing-in-the-rays-of-the-reforming-light/

As for destiny, fate, freedom of choice, etc, we’ll learn about this topic in depth in the next semester.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Arthur, great question!

Essentially you are right. The problem is that the will to receive is our nature. Just like a PC cannot just reprogram itself to run as a Mac, we too cannot just change our own nature. So no matter what we do, all of our actions will stem from this egoistic nature. So what can we do? The most that we can do in our situation and actually the only thing that is demanded of us is just to play pretend as if we want to bestow, as if we want to be like the Creator. When we play this type of game within the Kabbalistic group and while reading the Kabbalistic texts, we extract from them the light which gradually corrects us and makes this game a reality.

We’ll learn about this in the more advanced lessons. In the meantime, check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2012/03/building-blocks-of-the-first-spiritual-degree

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Anastasia,

We learn from the lesson on the perception of reality that the whole world is a reflection of my own uncorrected state. Meaning that everything that I see, I see it through the lens of my egoistic nature. If my nature is still egoistic and uncorrected, then I see a horrible world in front of me, wars, and all sorts of other atrocities. If I correct my egoistic nature, then I’ll look at the same world, but now I’ll see it as peaceful and perfect.

It’s like I have these dirty glasses through which I see the whole world as dirty. The moment I clean my own glasses, I then look at the same world, but now it’s clean and perfect.

So we don’t need to spin all these things and try to find positives in them, rather if we see something bad in the world, it’s a sign that we’re still not corrected, and that we need to work on our own correction.

We’ll learn more about these things in the upcoming lessons, in the meantime, check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2014/04/in-neutral-gear/

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Kári,

It depends on what kind of desires you are talking about. Kabbalah only deals with our desire for spirituality. Regarding the desires of our animalistic bodies, Kabbalah does not deal with these things. Our corporeal desires don’t have any relation to spirituality, so each person can arrange these desires however is most comfortable for them (of course within the context of the law and without harming others).

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Shaun,

Torah comes from the word ohr (light). So when Kabbalists use the word Torah, they are not referring to the physical book, but rather to the light. This is a special force that we can extract, especially through the Kabbalistic studies, in order to correct our egoistic nature.

And when Kabbalists use the word Mitzvot they are not referring to corporeal Mitzvot that a religious person performs with his hands and feet. But rather the Mitzvot are the internal processes by which we draw the light and correct the egoistic desires.

So knowledge of the Torah is not necessary in order to study Kabbalah and perform these spiritual corrections.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2010/11/spice-up-your-desire/

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Andrew, great questions!

The books we’re learning from help us to understand some of these concepts, these spiritual roots, but they do so in an everyday style of language. The language of roots and branches is what we find primarily within books like the Torah, the Zohar, the Study of the 10 Sefirot.

As for learning this language, this is not something that we can master by learning it, rather it comes with spiritual attainment. Without spiritual attainment, we cannot truly understand these things. It’s like a blind person that is trying to study colors. He can learn the wavelengths behind each one, the different feelings they all evoke, but ultimately he will never truly understand colors. But if this blind person was to undergo an operation and gain his sense of sight, how easy and simple it would be to teach him colors. We would simply point to it and say “this is red”.

It’s the same with the language of roots and branches. It’s currently impossible for us to truly grasp these things. But once we gain our “spiritual sight” we would pick these things up very easily and naturally.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2010/12/the-spiritual-decoder/

Albert @ KabU

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