[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Ludumo,

Spirituality means acquiring the Creator’s qualities of love and bestowal. These are qualities that are unnatural for us, completely above our egoistic nature. How then do we acquire such qualities? Through the reforming light. The light is called such because it gradually reforms us, corrects us. Although naturally we don’t have such qualities, if we just aspire to them, then this is enough to draw this light.

Where can we read and learn about these higher spiritual degrees so we can aspire to them? If I open up just any book, the vast majority of them are not talking about spiritual degrees above our egoistic nature, rather the vast majority of them are talking about states we undergo within our ego. So I won’t find the reforming light there. I will only find the reforming light in the authentic Kabbalistic books which talk about these higher spiritual degrees.

Furthermore, although everything does come from the Creator, since “there is none else besides Him”. But at the same time, there are things that on purpose divert us from Him. This too comes from Him. It’s a type of game that He made for us in order to help us build a true desire for Him. Check out this excerpt from Baal HaSulam’s article Shamati 1: “there is none else besides Him”:

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It is written, “There is none else besides Him.” This means that there is no other force in the world that has the ability to do anything against Him. And what one sees, that there are things in the world that deny the upper household, the reason is that this is His will.

This is deemed a correction called “the left rejects and the right pulls closer,” meaning that what the left rejects is considered a correction. This means that there are things in the world that, to begin with, aim to divert a person from the right way, and by which he is rejected from Kedusha [holiness].

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We’ll learn about this concept in depth in the next semester, 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/

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Michael, good question!

Hebrew was discovered by the first Kabbalist when he revealed spirituality. Hebrew is a language built for passing spiritual meaning. Not just the meaning of the words, but every single letter and shape of the letter is a code for a spiritual state.

Check out this article for more details: http://www.kabbalah.info/eng/content/view/frame/60270?/eng/content/view/full/60270&main

As well as this blog post from Rav Laitman: https://laitman.com/2010/12/the-iron-rules-of-spiritual-grammar/

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Rawan,

At the beginning of the spiritual path, there are a lot of tendencies to isolate ourselves from the world. So what you’re feeling is normal. But the more we advance, the more we’ll begin to see that we don’t need to isolate ourselves. Even Baal HaSulam and Rabash were not living in isolation in some Kabbalistic environment, rather they had normal jobs, families, and lived in a typical neighborhood of their time. How then did they attain such high spiritual levels? By tapping into the strength of the spiritual environment.

So if we build for ourselves a strong spiritual environment, then it will influence even stronger than the corporeal environment that we’re in. But this is not a one time choice. Building and strengthening the spiritual environment is our constant work. As we progress, our ego will grow more and more, and the corporeal environment will pull us more and more. This is done purposefully so that this resistance will force us to build an even stronger connection to the spiritual environment, and thereby reach an even higher spiritual level.

It’s just like with a bodybuilder. If he lifts only a 1 pound weight all the time, he will not get very strong (this is equivalent to us living in isolation). In order to grow, that bodybuilder needs to constantly increase the resistance that he’s lifting. So the more we advance, the more we’ll begin to see how the everyday problems, experiences, work situations, etc we undergo in the regular society are a necessary part of our correction. That we don’t erase these things, but above them we need to stay connected to the spiritual environment. And this will determine the level of our spiritual attainment.

We’ll learn how to do this practically in the more advanced semesters of KabU.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Innocent,

Yes, you can say that.

Physical groups were once the norm that we aspired to reach. But then the Creator sent along the pandemic and we had to turn all of our groups into virtual groups. With the experience we have now, we can see that it’s not a shortcoming to belong to a virtual group. In many cases, virtual groups can be even stronger than physical groups. Virtual groups allow us to focus more on the spiritual work and get less distracted by the physical world. Furthermore, given the generation that we live in and the level of egoism that we’re working with, it seems like virtual groups are the way of the future. We’ll learn more about these things in the more advanced semesters.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Asher,

This course is relatively straightforward, there are the fundamentals courses (Kabbalah Revealed 1 & 2) and intermediate courses (Kabbalah in Action and Kabbalah Experience). Once you finish the fundamentals and intermediate semesters, you can join the graduate environment in which you’ll receive your own Kabbalah group with whom you can put all these things into practice.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Poli, great questions!

Our desire is egoistic by nature. True altruism does not exist on the level of our world. Bestowal is the Creator’s nature. While our nature is that of pure reception. So it’s impossible for us to truly bestow. At best we can perform more and more covert actions of reception. For example, I go to the store and I give them my money, but obviously I want something in return. It’s the same with all of our actions of bestowal in corporeality. Either I do it to receive pleasure directly or indirectly from fame, honor, money, or even the pride of knowing that no one knows about this action, or even avoiding pain or guilt is also part of this same calculation.

So real bestowal, above any calculations for receiving for oneself, does not exist in our world. Real bestowal is purely the Creator’s quality. If we want to acquire such a quality, we first need to correct our nature. This is done by the force of the light we evoke through the Kabbalistic studies. This light begins to work on us, even if we don’t have the true desire to bestow. Even if we’re just like little kids, pretending to be spiritual grown ups. It takes this aspiration of ours and corrects it little by little, building in us a true desire for spirituality, for the spiritual qualities of love and bestowal.

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

Regarding levels 0-4, this is talking about the size of the desire and not whether it’s egoistic or altruistic. And yes there is a connection between the size of the desire and the spiritual level that we attain. The bigger the desire, the higher the spiritual degree we attain when we correct it. Which is why in Kabbalah we don’t work on eliminating the ego, but only on rising above it.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2011/02/the-worse-the-better/

Albert @ KabU

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