Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Who is the God of Kabbalah?“

God in Kabbalah means the general force of nature, where other than this force, nothing exists.

In and of itself, we consider God as an abstract concept and cannot discuss something existing outside our perception. No one has ever felt it. This state of God, also called “the Creator,” in no way can be perceived by us, and therefore, this force is called “Atzmuto,” i.e., “His essence.”

Everything that we attain and what is possible for us to attain are the actions of the upper force in relation to us. The wisdom of Kabbalah deals with revealing these actions in relation to a person.

We call this upper force “the Creator” because He created the human being and all of our qualities, within which we feel our world and can explore the Creator through our senses. We can explore why He created us with such qualities, limitations and abilities, and what He wants from us.

By making progress in such an exploration, we begin to attain the Creator. We do not attain the essence or “self” of the Creator (Atzmuto), but the Creator in relation to us. It is written about this, “We will know You by your actions.” We explore the Creator’s actions, how He created our world and all other worlds, as a system of connections between Him and us. This system of connections in degrees that cascade down to us is called “worlds,” and this system influences us at every moment of our lives.

By studying this system, these worlds, we study the Creator and ourselves, both our nature and the nature of the Creator, and we progress to the understand of what states we connect to Him with. We can change our behavior and our actions in accordance with this in order to raise ourselves to higher connections, to be connected directly with the Creator.

In other words, we can see what kind of reactions our actions produce in Him and, conversely, what reactions His actions produce in us. We can reach an absolutely complete, open and two-way connection.

When we begin to attain this opportunity, to reveal and achieve it gradually, we naturally change our behavior in accordance with what we reveal, and we enter a completely different stage of our development where we begin to undergo changes in becoming more and more similar to the Creator.

At the same time, our world and we ourselves radically transform, and our state becomes increasingly reliable, convenient and true.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is the esoteric Kabbalah even approaching legitimacy?“

Kabbalah is not a form of esotericism.

People want to label Kabbalah as esoteric or mystic, and connect it with blessings, curses, charms, and many other phenomena. These labels became linked with Kabbalah because there was a prohibition on the study of Kabbalah in the masses for 1,000s of years since humanity’s spiritual desire still hadn’t ripened. In the 16th Century, when the Ari (Kabbalist Isaac Luria) lifted the prohibition on the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah, claiming that the time had come for Kabbalah to be revealed to humanity, he also mentioned the prohibition on the use of charms and blessings, since they have nothing to do with Kabbalah.

Kabbalah is a science that teaches the law of reality, of which we are a part. Through this science, we discover those rules and the spiritual world, which is the reason for everything that happens here with us. They are collective rules, which encompass the laws of all the sciences in our world.

Kabbalah is not another belief or an imaginary view of life. Instead, it offers precise and clear laws that depict the structure of the upper worlds.

It is when we study Kabbalah that we first acquire knowledge of the world outside our own. We discover the higher, spiritual world, and then we gradually attain the ability to affect it. Through tests and experiments, we learn how to do it, and then we enter the comprehensive reality.

At this point, we begin to work not from within our own bodies, but from our souls, which are our true essence. The human being is not the physical body that is replaced at the beginning of each new life. The human being is the soul that we currently do not sense.

The purpose of creation is that we will act from within our souls, from the upper world, and live at the highest degree possible, rather than in the lowest (our world), which is at an animal level. By discovering our souls, we attain contact with the upper world, and thus achieve a whole, complete, eternal and blissful life.

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Question: How did Abraham teach the tens of thousands of people who gathered around him if there was not yet a Pentateuch that set out the commandments?

Answer: At that time, people were at a level where they understood it from within themselves.

Comment: Abraham wrote several books of which only The Book of Creation (Sefer Yetzira) has reached us. I have read it many times, but it does not say anything about connection.

My Response: In The Book of Creation, Abraham wrote about the upper force that influences people. He wrote this book so that we could understand the upper force the way he described it.

To do this, we must have the appropriate tool. This tool is connection with other people in which the upper laws are revealed.

Question: However, it was not written anywhere specifically about connection. Was it obvious to them?

Answer: Yes. This is called the “Oral Torah,” which Abraham explained to his followers.

Question: Rambam wrote: “Abraham sowed this great principle in their hearts and wrote books about it.” However, these books describe what a person feels in connection with the Creator, with the upper force of nature. Does it mean that communication between people was passed by word of mouth?

Answer: This is a practical wisdom that Abraham passed on to his disciples Isaac and Jacob.

Question: Were they not his children?

Answer: You can call them “children,” it does not matter. However, Kabbalah refers to the disciples through whom the method of correcting human egoism was passed onto the entire nation, to the entire group of people who gathered around Abraham in Babylon.

All this is described in the Torah through one person. First what happened to Abraham, then to Lot, and so on. Where are the other tens of thousands of people that gathered around him?

The fact is that description does not take into account the number of people Rambam spoke about, but only their spiritual level. The spiritual level is already 70, 50, 10 people, and so on—it does not matter because in spirituality we do not count the number of heads, but the strength of their connection with each other.
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KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 6/24/19

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Question: A ten is a mini-model of society. Instead of working with all of humanity, which, in principle, is not yet possible, did the Kabbalists take, like a hologram, the most minimal cell in which it is possible to implement the method?

Answer: That is absolutely right.

Comment: Kabbalists say that two people are also minimal for a society.

My Response: In principle, for lack of anything else, there can be two. After all, then a person begins to feel the difference between himself and the other: Who is “I” and who is “he?” But in fact, you can only achieve the altruistic quality of bestowal quickly and correctly if you are in the ten.

Question: There are many things written about the ten in the Kabbalistic sources. Kabbalists have always been studying in such a way. Was there no learning for two people?

Answer: This was at the beginning of the foundation and development of Kabbalah. However, in those days there were special souls and special conditions.

Question: Is it possible today for a Kabbalist teacher to teach just one person? Do we teach privately?

Answer: There can be private teachers. When my friend and I came to Rabash he gave us his disciple as a teacher, a man of advanced years, and the two of us studied with him for six months.

Question: There were no people who wanted to study Kabbalah back then? Is this possible today?

Answer: No. I do not think that this is even useful. The group is best of all. In Kabbalah, everything is so tied to the connection between friends that other ways of studying are not effective.

Question: What about the initial stage, at least to understand what this is about?

Answer: It is possible. There may be private lessons at that stage. However, that is not movement toward the goal but filling with knowledge.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 3/20/19

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Question: Should I deprive myself of the pleasure of having a hearty dinner if I know that I would sleep longer afterward and consequently would have less time for the study of Kabbalah, communication with the group, and so on?

Answer: I would not recommend it.

I, for example, plan in advance what I can do to wake up for the lesson without fail. Moreover, I have to prepare for the lesson for at least an hour and a half: to read, delve into the material, prepare myself for certain sensations. Otherwise, how can I be accountable before my friends?

As I go to the students, I regard them not as pupils, but as my friends through whom I want to receive certain sensations. After all, I am not in the absolute state yet.

That is why I prepare for the lesson constantly: I familiarize myself with the topic of the lesson in advance and read excerpts on that topic. I tune myself similarly to the way a musical instrument is tuned before being played.

Moreover, you not only discuss tuning, but on the contrary, that you might not come to the lesson. Such a thing is completely unacceptable.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 1/12/20

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From a Variety of Methods, Choose One

Question: According to the Kabbalistic principle, in a group it is recommended to talk about spiritual terms from the primary sources. For example, if we read Talmud Eser Sefirot or The Book of Zohar, can we use terms from these texts to communicate with each other?

Answer: Yes, it is not prohibited.

Comment: There is also another principle. It is important to ignore other spiritual practices and techniques while studying Kabbalah.

My Response: Naturally. In order to attain a certain technique, you must delve into it. You should not make a salad of all kinds of methods and approaches. And there are lots of them.

There are eastern and western teachings, and scientific and psychological ones, and there are the teachings of Baal HaSulam and Rav Kook. The methods of Vilna Gaon and Baal Shem Tov have long been known, and so on. That is, there are a great variety of paths to the Creator. Therefore, in order to succeed, you need to deal solely with one branch.

Because I found my teacher and I was Rabash’s student and assistant for the last 12 years of his life, I follow this principle and try to adhere to it.

Rabash was the eldest son of Baal HaSulam, so we study the materials of Baal HaSulam and try to implement them as much as possible. Baal HaSulam wrote that we belong to the generation when Kabbalah must open to the world and appeal not only to the people of Israel, but also to the nations of the world. This is the way we act.

Question: For whom did your teacher write articles about the principles of working in a group?

Answer: He wrote them for his students and for those who would come after them in the next generation.

Baal HaSulam and Rabash did what the Ari and Baal Shem Tov did in their time. The Ari developed the wisdom of Kabbalah, and Baal Shem Tov developed practical Kabbalah.

Baal HaSulam did the same, paying attention mainly to the wisdom of Kabbalah and describing it according to the Ari. Rabash continued to develop practical Kabbalah. I cannot imagine what else can be done after them, that is, where there is room in Kabbalah to enter and add something.

Numerous written books only dilute the wisdom of Kabbalah. I do not think it is necessary. What remains for us is, perhaps, to adapt their works for beginners, translate them into other languages, and bring the method of correcting the world closer to the nations.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 3/6/19

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Under the Slogan of Love

Question: 98% of people believe in God, and they all say that God is love. On the other hand, we see that for hundreds of thousands of years, people have been killing each other in the millions. Why do we physically destroy each other while believing that God is love?

Answer: One does not apply to the other. People just say, “God is love,” just like a child repeats.

Remark: But there are people who devote their entire lives to the Creator.

My Comment: At the same time, they destroy each other, fight in the name of the Creator. There are such theories that by killing another, you give him paradise, as you deprive him of his sinful life.

Look at what people are capable of: going to death, blowing themselves up next to other people, and all in the name of a higher power.

Question: All the same, it comes from one force, there is nothing but it. So is the fact that people behave this way an evolutionary process?

Answer: This is a correction process.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 2/7/19

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Question: Suppose I chose a teacher and after two or three years I see that I have nothing to learn from him, and even know more than him. Such things happen in our world in music, sports, etc. Does it happen in Kabbalah?

Answer: Yes, the same can happen here. It is quite possible that it is worth changing teachers. But here you need to understand to whom you are changing. Either you change your teacher because you don’t want to apply more effort or because you have an urgent need for it because you cannot advance with the old teacher.

Question: Is there any particular connection between teacher and student?

Answer: The teacher is a conductor of the higher energy, higher light, and higher knowledge to the student. Therefore, it is important for us that the student is connected to his teacher because this connection does not vanish.

Remark: Earlier the groups were very small, and therefore a close relationship between the teacher and the student really existed. Today, you have millions of students and naturally, you know only a small amount of them.

My Comment: It does not matter who I know, it is important which of them considers oneself to be my student, one’s attitude toward me. To this extent, the student rushes with his or her inner movement toward me, and through me one receives contact with a higher power.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 3/4/19

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are the secrets of the Kabbalah?“

There are no secrets in Kabbalah and never have been.

The entire problem is only in society’s possibility of correctly accepting it, adapting to it, tasting it, and using it correctly for its development.

For example, it is written in The Book of Zohar that of the great Kabbalist Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai’s ten disciples, only Rabbi Aba could correctly expound upon the teaching so that it would be accessible, smooth, correct, and at the same time, hidden.

In other words, the concealment in Kabbalah is that it discusses the higher world, beyond our current perception of reality, which we perceive through our five senses. To perceive the higher reality, we need to develop an additional sense, called a “screen” (“Masach”) in Kabbalah. Such attainment is available to anyone who so desires, and the method is laid out in a way where it can be researched, attained and repeated by anyone. It is only a matter of whether one has a desire to attain a reality higher than our current one, and whether one applies oneself in the method according to the guidance of the Kabbalist teacher.

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Question: All citizens of ancient Babylon worshiped many gods. What does polytheism mean?

Answer: Polytheism is a natural evolution of man. We can see that even today such beliefs are preserved in the world, especially in the East.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam originated from Abraham. All other beliefs are based on polytheism, i.e., the existence of a host of gods, a multitude of supposedly all kinds of forces of nature, each of which has some special influence on nature and the destiny of man.

Question: Can we say that each of us is also an idolater? That is, if a person does not discover one force behind all matter, then one is an idolater?

Answer: I do not think that we deify these forces to such an extent. After all, idolaters were not stupid people; rather, they just saw that they were greatly dependent on various properties of nature but could not bind them together. Neither can we.

It was believed that the god of rain, the god of the sun, the god of night, the god of day, etc. were all great forces of nature on which a man is completely dependent and must worship to maintain good relations with them. After all, along with the fact that man deified nature, he felt his dependence on it.

Remark: People believed that there are certain forces that could be appeased and it could be best appeased by different priests who know exactly how to do this.

My Comment: Yes. Imagine an uneducated, ignorant peasant. He would rather submit a bag of grain and be sure that he will no longer have any problems either with the crop, or with drought, or with flooding rivers.
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From KabTV’s “System analysis of the development of the people of Israel,” 6/24/19

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