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Hi Charlene,
When we learn about freedom, we’re not talking about some philosophical concept of free will, but rather freedom from our egoistic nature. We can reach that freedom by placing our point in the heart in 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/
Furthermore, in that same article, Baal HaSulam explains that everything else, like our good thoughts and deed and responses to the current situation, is a RESULT of us placing ourselves in a good spiritual environment.
This is similar to a seed that if we plant it in fertile ground, then it’ll get all the right nutrients and grow. If we put it in the desert or just keep it on a shelf somewhere, nothing will come out of it at all. So all of our work boils down to finding the best spiritual environment in which to plant that seed. And what will ultimately happen to it is a result of the environment we put it into.
Here’s a quote about that from the article the Freedom:
“However, there is freedom for the will to initially choose such an environment, such books, and such guides that impart to him good concepts. If one does not do that, but is willing to enter any environment that appears to him and read any book that falls into his hands, he is bound to fall into a bad environment or waste his time on worthless books, which are abundant and easier to come by. In consequence, he will be forced into foul concepts that make him sin and condemn. He will certainly be punished, not because of his evil thoughts or deeds, in which he has no choice, but because he did not choose to be in a good environment, for in that there is definitely a choice.
Therefore, he who strives to continually choose a better environment is worthy of praise and reward. But here, too, it is not because of his good thoughts and deeds, which come to him without his choice, but because of his effort to acquire a good environment, which brings him these good thoughts and deeds.”
Albert @ KabU
Hi Charlene,
When we learn about freedom, we’re not talking about some philosophical concept of free will, but rather freedom from our egoistic nature. We can reach that freedom by placing our point in the heart in 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/
Furthermore, in that same article, Baal HaSulam explains that everything else in life, like our good thoughts and deed and responses to the current situation is a RESULT of us placing ourselves in a good spiritual environment.
This is similar to a seed that if we plant it in fertile ground, then it’ll get all the right nutrients and grow. If we put it in the desert or just keep it on a shelf somewhere, nothing will come out of it at all. So all of our work boils down to finding the best spiritual environment in which to plant that seed. And what will ultimately happen to it is a result of the environment we put it into.
Here’s a quote about that from the article the Freedom:
“However, there is freedom for the will to initially choose such an environment, such books, and such guides that impart to him good concepts. If one does not do that, but is willing to enter any environment that appears to him and read any book that falls into his hands, he is bound to fall into a bad environment or waste his time on worthless books, which are abundant and easier to come by. In consequence, he will be forced into foul concepts that make him sin and condemn. He will certainly be punished, not because of his evil thoughts or deeds, in which he has no choice, but because he did not choose to be in a good environment, for in that there is definitely a choice.
Therefore, he who strives to continually choose a better environment is worthy of praise and reward. But here, too, it is not because of his good thoughts and deeds, which come to him without his choice, but because of his effort to acquire a good environment, which brings him these good thoughts and deeds.”
Albert @ KabU
Hi Simón,
There are 125 degrees of spiritual bestowal. Ranging from bestowal in order to bestow, in which we restrict our egoistic nature and focus only on bestowing. All the way until the highest degrees of bestowal in which we tap into our egoistic nature in order to bestow even more.
Keep in mind that we practice this type of spiritual work primarily in the Kabbalah group. The Kabbalah group is like a lab where we practice manifesting the Creator’s qualities of love and bestowal. In the group we build a strong connection with other points in the heart that are together with us on the spiritual path. This becomes like a nucleus. Once we build that nucleus, we will be able to add to it wider and wider circles of the world, until we’ll come to include the whole world in that connection. But this is gradual work. And until we build that nucleus, we have nothing with which to do any spiritual work towards the world. Meaning that until then, with the rest of the world, just act normal.
Albert @ KabU
Hi Oliver,
Yes, you can say that Judaism, in its modern form, sprang out when Kabbalah became concealed. Let’s put this into perspective:
Kabbalah is the method of correcting our egoistic nature and thereby revealing the Creator, the general force of love and bestowal. The first one to actualize this was Adam. His name gives us a hint at this since Adam comes from the Hebrew word “Dome”, meaning “similar to”. He was not the first one alive, but rather the first one to reveal the Creator by becoming similar to this quality of bestowal.
This wisdom gets passed onward from Adam until Abraham who adapted it to the people of his generation and made the wisdom more practical. Abraham put together a large group of Babylonians who were interested in actualizing this method. These people later on became the Israeli nation. The word Israel comes from the Hebrew words “Yashar” “El” meaning straight to God. These are the people who had an active point in the heart in those days and were interested in revealing the Creator.
These people greatly succeeded in this method. The peak of their success was symbolized in the building of the first and second temple, which reflected the level of unity and bestowal they were able to reach. At a certain point, they lost the spiritual connection between them (the destruction of the 2nd temple) and what remained was just these external symbols of their connection.
At this point the wisdom of Kabbalah became concealed. People still had the holy books, Torah and etc, but they did not know how to use them. Since the Torah is written in the language of roots and branches. Meaning it uses words of our world to describe spiritual phenomena. But if a person does not have this spiritual connection through which he can see this, then he thinks this book is talking about this world, history, morals, commandments, etc. From this emerges the Jewish religion.
From all the above we see that Kabbalah itself is not connected to any religion and that the modern religions came out due to the concealment of Kabbalah. At the same time, Kabbalah is not against religions. In fact we have millions of students worldwide, from many different backgrounds and religions. Many of them do choose to maintain their religion or to perform certain religious customs while studying Kabbalah and there is nothing wrong with that. Just like with any other science, a person can be religious and also be a chemist or physicist. Likewise a person can be religious and also study the science of Kabbalah. Baal HaSulam writes that even after the full spiritual correction people can still keep their religions.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2015/12/the-wisdom-of-kabbalah-and-the-other-religions/
As for Ezekiel’s vision, Psalms and other such Kabbalistic texts in the Tanakh, all of this is written in the language of roots and branches. Meaning it uses words of our world to describe spiritual phenomena. As such, we don’t interpret it literally, as applying to the level of this world. But rather it’s something that we discover within ourselves, in our spiritual development.
Let’s take the story of Passover as an example. This story symbolizes how our point in the heart (symbolized by Moses) help us come out of our egoistic nature (symbolized by Egypt/Pharaoh) and acquire the Creator’s qualities of love and bestowal (symbolized by the land of Israel). So as we develop spiritually, we’ll begin to see how the entire Torah plays out inside of ourselves.
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 Tiiu,
We were created opposite to the Creator, in the qualities of reception, in order for us to have a certain sense of freedom in this process. If not for that, we would be no different than machines, or robots, that were programmed to act a certain way and they just carry out this inner script. Instead, we were programmed one way, and we rise above this inner programming, become independent of it, and then develop our own desire to advance towards the goal.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2014/01/from-perfection-to-perfection/
The Creator is the pure quality of love and bestowal. As such, He does not lack anything. Meaning He does not need us to bestow anything to Him. The only ones benefiting from this whole process is us.
Although we sometimes use the words that we perform a certain action in order to bestow to the Creator or to bring Him contentment, but in truth it’s just a game to help us to develop. Just like with kids, when we spoon feed them, they see the example from us and want to pick up a spoon and feed us back. Do we really need them to feed us? Of course not. But we still accept this from them, smile, show them how happy they made us by feeding us etc, since we know that through this game, they grow and develop. So ultimately the Creator is not lacking anything. And all of our attempts to bestow to Him are nothing more than a type of game for our own development.
Furthermore, the Creator is concealed. So we cannot even play this type of game directly with Him. Instead we need to use what is revealed, which are other people. Meaning that if we want to “bestow” to Him in practice, we do so by bestowing to other people. This is called going “from the love of the created beings, to the love of the Creator”.
Keep in mind that we practice this type of spiritual work primarily in the Kabbalah group. The Kabbalah group is like a lab where we practice manifesting the Creator’s qualities of love and bestowal. In the group we build a strong connection with other points in the heart that are together with us on the spiritual path. This becomes like a nucleus. Once we build that nucleus, we will be able to add to it wider and wider circles of the world, until we’ll come to include the whole world in that connection. But this is gradual work. And until we build that nucleus, we have nothing with which to do any spiritual work towards the world. Meaning that until then, with the rest of the world, just act normal.
In the advanced semester everyone will receive their own virtual Kabbalah group and learn how to do these things in practice. In the meantime, check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2024/01/communicate-directly-with-the-creator/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Mona,
The Creator instilled in us our egoistic nature. Defying His will in this context means being able to rise above this egoistic nature and aiming to bestow instead.
Baal HaSulam talks about this in the article Shamati 19, here’s an excerpt:
Then one has close contact with the Creator to help him turn the will to receive to work in order to bestow. One must believe that from this extends contentment to the Creator, from his praying to Him to draw him near in the manner of Dvekut [adhesion], called “equivalence of form,” discerned as the annulment of the will to receive, so it is in order to bestow. The Creator says about this, “My sons defeated Me.” That is, I gave you the will to receive, and you ask Me to give you a desire to bestow instead.Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2025/07/my-sons-defeated-me/
Albert @ KabU
