The word “Kabbalah” is explained in different ways. One of the meanings is transmission, since the language of Kabbalah can be transmitted only in the connection of a student and a teacher.

All other languages (Tanakh, Alakhu, Haggadah) you can study by yourself.

Of course, you have to get books from previous generations, study explanations of key points, and have the opportunity to consult with someone, but you don’t have to be closely connected with the teacher; you don’t have to learn how he thinks, feels, and treats everything.

You are not obliged to accept from him or to copy his attitude or worldview.

But in order to attain the language of Kabbalah, you must cling to him. After all, he is the upper and you are the lower.

He presents his AHP to you, and you are obliged to perceive it as something desirable despite its externality that deliberately, egoistically repels you.

Of course, you disagree with the teacher, do not want, reject, and hate. But, in essence, it shows you how much you don’t accept the spiritual.

You have to acquire a language, a program, that works in it, but doesn’t yet work in you. You try to copy it on yourself from the examples that are given to you.

Without the help of a teacher who is next to you in the same world, in the same sensory organs, in order to penetrate into the spiritual, whose attitude to the spiritual you can cling to despite the external obstacles blocking your ability to achieve inner connection—without such examples, the Creator would leave you in complete isolation from the spiritual, without any hope.

It is impossible to extract spirituality from books. After all, it is not attained by the earthly mind.

Only on the condition that a person annuls his egoism and destroys the barrier between himself and the teacher in order to see his inner content, only on this condition, does he absorb his spiritual contemplation as far as he is able.

And if you have somehow grasped the program of the teacher’s connection with the Creator, you can continue; otherwise, no.

This is what the Ari said before his death, that only one of his students, Chaim Vital, could continue to study Kabbalah, because he took over from him the basics of the language and the program of connection with the Creator, while the others did not.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/10/09, Baal HaSulam “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and its Essence”

Related Material:
How Does the Language of Kabbalah Affect a Person?
The Relationship Between The Language Of Kabbalah And The Language Of Integral Education
Kabbalists On The Language Of Kabbalah, Part 5

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