A question I received: Our family often watches your programs. My wife says that you often contradict yourself, even during the same program. For instance, in one of the “Ask the Kabbalist” episodes, you categorically denied that Kabbalists engage in predicting the future of our corporeal bodies. But later, in the same program, you said that in the 1930s Baal HaSulam predicted two world wars. This relates to corporeal matters, doesn’t it? My wife wants to know why is it that you always contradict yourself?

My Answer: What I meant is that Kabbalists know the way the future will come from Above, or in other words, what will happen if things advance along the path called Beito, meaning “in due time,” or when things follow the unchanging, rigid laws of nature. However, when we make corrections, we shift to the path called Ahishena, and thus we affect how these forces will manifest in our world and how they will be expressed inside us.

To the extent we correct ourselves and understand things better, we will feel good instead of bad. But no Kabbalist, or anyone else for that matter, can ever know how anything will actually turn out, because man has freedom of will to change his destiny. (See Baal HaSulam’s article, “The Freedom.”)

If you read the terrible prophecies of the future, keep in mind that the prophets were describing only the path of Beito. They did not know how corrected we will be, and therefore, how we will handle certain situations.

Related Material:
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Laitman.com Post: The One Action Where We Implement Our Free Will
Attaining the Worlds Beyond: “Eradicating Egoism”

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