[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Etienne,

Yes, you can say that. Keep in mind that freedom means rising above our egoistic nature. Which as we learned in this week’s lesson is 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

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Ludumo,

1. The Kabbalists tell us that “envy, lust, and honor take a person out of the world”. Meaning that if we use these seemingly negative qualities in their correct way, within the spiritual environment, then we can evoke greater and greater desires within ourselves until we build a true desire for spirituality, for bestowal. It’s just like in our world, when people use advertising to get us to want things we don’t normally want. The only difference is that here, instead of advertising reception, we advertise bestowal to each other.

We’ll learn more about these things in the upcoming semester. In the meantime, check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2012/10/bestowal-should-become-fashionable/

2. Ein Sof is commonly translated from Hebrew as infinity. But here the literal translation “without end” is more accurate. This is referring to the state in which the desire is completely fulfilled, to the max. Similar to how you can take a cup and fill it up to the max where it’s impossible to add any more liquid to the cup. Even if you add one more drop it will just spill over. So if you take a desire and fill it with pleasure to the max, that state is called Ein Sof. Keep in mind that we’re talking about spiritual desires and spiritual fulfillment, meaning that of bestowal.

As for the light, this is the force that is opposite the desire. All that was created was the desire to receive pleasure. The force that created this desire and fulfills it is the light. So the light is the Creator, the pure quality of bestowal. We can also say that light = pleasure, since this is what fulfills that desire. So the light of Ein Sof is the pleasure that completely fulfills that spiritual desire.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: http://laitman.com/2014/12/what-is-the-light/

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Niklas,

You’re right, the actual point of free choice is still ahead of us. There is a saying that the Creator puts man’s hand on the good fate and says “choose this for yourself”. Meaning He awakened your point in the heart and brought it to a good spiritual environment in which you can nourish it, but after that the rest is up to you.

But if the point in the heart is forcing me to be here, what needs to happen for me to start actualizing my free will? This desire then needs to be taken away from me little by little, and there I begin to reveal more and more the place of my freedom.

This is similar to how we teach a child to ride a bike. First the parent holds the child completely. Then as the child learns to pedal and balance himself, the parent lets go a little, then a little more and a little more, until the child continue to pedal without the parent holding him at all.

So we too need to learn to continue to do this work even when that initial desire for spirituality begins to disappear or when the ego grows and begins to pull us into many different directions. Here there is already a need for mutual work in the group, the spiritual environment. On one hand when I fall into my ego, they need to pull me out, and on the other hand I need to help pull others out when they fall. This is why Kabbalists have always studied in groups (physical or virtual).

We will learn more about this in the more advanced semesters on KabU, where you’ll receive your own Kabbalah group with whom you can practice these things.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Christina,

I’m not sure what you mean. The books written thousands of years ago like the Torah, Talmud, Zohar are Kabbalistic books. As are the more modern books like the writings of the Ari, Rabash, Baal HaSulam.

As for the language used, just like Latin is used by medicine and doctors, and Italian is used by musicians, the wisdom of Kabbalah uses Hebrew and Aramaic. They were both discovered by Adam when he first revealed spirituality. The Kabbalists developed these languages in order to convey spiritual phenomena. In general, Hebrew is used to describe actions of the light while Aramaic is used to describe the actions of the Kli (the vessel, meaning the desire to receive).

But it doesn’t mean that we need to learn Hebrew or Aramaic, since the spoken language is not important here. What is important is for us to understand the basic terms that we use in Kabbalah. We’ll learn these gradually throughout the course.

Check out this article for more details about the importance of the Hebrew language: 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/2016/12/the-letters-as-models-for-managing-our-world/

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Maria,

There are good questions, but I cannot answer them for you, since 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 Beth,

The first and second factors point to the part of our development that we cannot change. Meaning that we were created as a desire to receive pleasure. We cannot change that at all. What we can do is to correct this desire to operate in the direction of bestowal, meaning to add the intention to bestow to it.

As for performing that correction and thereby reaching adhesion, it’s not about knowing oneself or being super strong and powerful, rather all that we need to know is how to leverage our one and only point of freedom in life, which is to build for ourselves a strong spiritual environment. Through the spiritual environment we extract the reforming light and the light does all the rest of the work. In other words, the light performs all the corrections on us, our work is only to extract this light through the spiritual environment.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2012/10/bestowal-should-become-fashionable/

Albert @ KabU

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