[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Chris,

The word Assiyah by itself means action. What you’re referring to is the יה which is a part of this word, but more specifically it’s a part of the tetragrammaton, which is one of the names of the Creator.

But what is a name of the Creator? What does that even mean? How can we assign a name to Him?

Keep in mind that Kabbalah is a science with clear limits of what we can and cannot study. Kabbalah differentiate two parts to the Creator.

The first is His essence (atzmuto in Hebrew). This is He Himself, His point of view, the Creator as an entity separate from the Created beings. We’re incapable of researching this part of the Creator simply because our research tools are not built in such a way that we can grasp such things. Perhaps after we finish the process of correction, we’ll discover additional research tools through which we’ll be able to research these things, but until then we limit ourselves and don’t talk about this part of the Creator because we cannot properly research it.

The other part of the Creator is called Bo-Re (Hebrew for Come (Bo) and See (Re)). This is the part of the Creator that we can research and reveal. How do we research this? Through the desire. When we take a part of our desire to receive and correct it in the direction of bestowal, in that corrected desire, we reveal a certain phenomenon, we call this phenomenon the Creator. This is why there are many names for the Creator (in Hebrew), since every time we correct a different part of the desire, we reveal a different aspect of this thing called the Creator.

So all of our understanding of this thing called the Creator (and any spiritual phenomena) is based on what we reveal within the corrected desire. But whatever exists outside of the corrected desire, whatever we don’t grasp, perceive or attain within the desire, whatever is beyond our tools of research, we don’t talk about. We need to keep these limits in mind in order to stay within the realm of science and not venture off into religion or philosophy.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2011/12/the-holy-names-of-bestowal/

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Chris,

Sorry, there’s a bug in the forum links. It’s being worked out now. In the meantime, you can find the post by going to the 2nd page of this forum. It’s the very last post there.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Beth,

Kabbalists view life and death in a completely different way. Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for an example: https://laitman.com/2013/06/life-and-death-in-the-eyes-of-a-kabbalist/

But regardless of how Kabbalah views these things, don’t think that Kabbalists are against us following our traditions. Quite the opposite. Kabbalists write that even after the full spiritual correction, a person can keep their religious customs and traditions.

In other words, it’s encouraged to maintain your traditions even while studying Kabbalah. So if there are certain customs and traditions that your family is used to doing, if these things are not harmful to others, then by all means, keep doing them.

As for the spiritual corrections that we talk about in Kabbalah, these things have nothing to do with the actions we perform with our hands and feet, but rather these are internal corrections, corrections of our intention. We’ll learn more about this in the upcoming lessons.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Katie,

He’s saying that this is a misconception, that there are no preliminary requirements. Baal HaSulam wrote about it in one of his letters:

“I shall tell you that in the past, it was necessary to obtain all seven secular teachings and undergo terrible self-torments prior to attaining the Creator. Yet, not many were rewarded with the Creator’s favor. But since we have been rewarded with the teachings of the Ari and the work of the Baal Shem Tov, it is truly within everyone’s reach, and no further preparation is required.” 

In other words, in our days, there is no need for any preliminary wisdoms. The only condition to studying Kabbalah in our days is the desire to do so. If a person has such a desire, called the point in the heart, then this entire wisdom is open before them. If not, then no. This follows the rule that “there is no coercion in spirituality”.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Nancy,

In the next semester, we’ll learn the importance of the spiritual environment.  Essentially our entire work in Kabbalah boils down to strengthening our spiritual environment. In other words, we don’t focus on ourselves, on our own strength to overcome, etc. Rather, we focus only on our connection to the spiritual environment. And everything else, all of the good thoughts, actions, that we perform, this is a result of our connection with the spiritual environment.

This is similar to how a seed by itself is powerless to do anything. Everything depends on where you plant that seed. Once you plant it, the results are already dictated by the environment in which you plant it. Same with us. By ourselves, each one of us is powerless to do anything against his own egoistic nature. So our entire work is on planting ourselves in a good spiritual environment and the rest is a result of that action. We’ll learn more about this in the upcoming lessons (KR2, Lesson 2).

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Rachel,

That’s a good question. If you didn’t get your answer from the lesson 1 video, feel free to post it in the questions forum.

Albert @ KabU

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