Why People Leave Kabbalah – Laitman Unplugged
Posted on November 14th, 2012
Kabbalah is science and the system and the realization of the attainment of the Creator. Our goal is to reveal Him, and that is why there is no science higher and more important. After all, any wisdom is evaluated by its goal. Kabbalah is complex: It is not only explains the procedure, but also accompanies us throughout the entire process of its realization.
In the article “The Teaching of Kabbalah and Its Essence,” Baal HaSulam writes: As a whole, the wisdom of Kabbalah concerns the revelation of Godliness, arranged on its path in all its aspects—those that have emerged in the worlds and those that are destined to be revealed, and in all the manners that can ever appear in the worlds, to the end of time. In addition, Ramchal writes in the book 138 Gates of Wisdom: The entire wisdom of Kabbalah is designed only to know the management of the higher will: on what He created all these creatures, what does He want from them, and the end result of everything in the world.
And here are the words of Baal HaSulam from the article “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah:” This wisdom is no more and no less than a sequence of roots, which hang down by way of cause and consequence, by fixed, determined rules, interweaving to a single, exalted goal described as “the revelation of His Godliness to His creatures in this world.”
From some highest Source that I do not know, a sequence of roots descends along which, as a creature, I can achieve the revelation of the Creator. Firstly, on the way from above to below, the Creator constrains Himself more, and my receiving desire is growing until all the roots disappear, leaving me with the last one—the point in the heart (•). And on the way upward, I reveal the Creator a little bit, time after time, getting to know Him, passing through 125 roots.
Thus, the system, as well the passage of the way, connects me to the Creator. The guide and the path from point A to point B is the science of Kabbalah. Ultimately, it is a means of revealing the Creator.
There is a ladder between the Creator and the creature. It leads from the properties of the creature to the properties of the Creator, and along the way their properties are combined with each other from zero to one hundred percent. This is what Kabbalah is: It tells not about the properties of the Creator as such and not about the properties of the creature as such because this essence is incomprehensible to me. I just study their relationship, the form dressed in matter. I can attain it, know it, feel it, understand it; I have access to it. I do not know what the Creator and the creature are separately—I study only their combination.
This happens on each degree. This is the realization of the “wicked,” that is the creature, ascending to the degree of the Creator; in other words, the revelation of the Creator to the created beings is the science of Kabbalah.
Hence, it is clear that we have nothing else to do in life but to satisfy our basic needs and to devote the rest to this science. Today, we are approaching the basic level. Life itself, the crisis will cleanse us from excesses within a few years, if not sooner. Then, in desperation, the world will discover that for a few thousand years it advanced along the wrong course and now it must change direction. Of course, it was not a mistake, but preparation, the realization of the previous degrees of development, still, vegetative and animate, to finally come to the science of Kabbalah.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/12/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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Until the destruction of the Second Temple, the wisdom of Kabbalah was the Torah, the study of the Israeli nation, the group that Abraham brought out of Babel and made into a nation that lives according to the laws of the wisdom of Kabbalah. The destruction of the Temple means that they fell from love thy friend as thyself into unfounded hatred.
Since then the wisdom of Kabbalah ceased to exist among the people who we still call the people of Israel, although they were no longer connected to the law of love thy friend as thyself, and therefore have no right to be called “Israel” (Yashar – Kel), which means “straight to the Creator.” So the understanding of what we need the wisdom of Kabbalah for was lost. Baal HaSualm speaks about his fear, “and it is fearful that it will be forgotten, God forbid, in the people of Israel.”
He is afraid of that, but others don’t even think about it since they don’t know what the wisdom of Kabbalah is needed for. And to that end, Baal HaSulam wrote the “Introduction to TES,” in order to explain why it is obligatory to study the book “The Study of the Ten Sefirot“ (TES) and the wisdom of Kabbalah in general.
He didn’t see that people were interested in this wisdom or that they respond to his appeal, that they even listened to how important and essential this wisdom is. Everyone rejected it by finding different excuses. Religious people who studied the Torah didn’t understand why they needed something else. And a person who lived an ordinary corporeal life was afraid that the wisdom of Kabbalah would ruin his life. Who knew what forces were hidden in it, what he would summon upon himself by mentioning the Holy names, perhaps he would summon troubles by that…
Others justified themselves by saying that there were people who studied Kabbalah, who called themselves Kabbalists, but who didn’t recommend it to others. There are many reasons why the wisdom of Kabbalah was pushed aside, away from general attention, and it is a wonder that it has existed until now. After all there were many wisdoms that were forgotten and have disappeared throughout history.
People reject this study, but Baal HaSulam thought that this should stop. The time had come for mankind to change our attitude and to show people why the wisdom of Kabbalah is necessary and why it came into the world—in order to raise humanity to the level of unity with the Creator, which is the goal of our life, the goal of creation. It is time to fulfill this goal here and now.
For this reason Baal HaSulam wrote TES and “The Introduction to TES” in which he explains the importance of its study. In his time it was very hard to bring this idea to people. Today it is accepted in a totally different manner, and we can openly advertise the widespread study of the wisdom of Kabbalah. I remember what a buzz it made in Bnei Brak, an orthodox town, when people found out that I brought a group of nonreligious students from Tel Aviv to my teacher, Rabash. Rabash made a real revolution, but there was no other choice, the world is in such a state that the wisdom of Kabbalah has to be revealed.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/11/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot
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A human being (Adam) is a new action, new creation developing according to the internal program, inherent in the primary “drop of semen.” To this program, this form, given by the father, the mother’s material is added. Then the program begins to be realized, manifest itself, and the material takes the form of a human being.
A person is born from a mother like an animal. However, we talk about our inner structure, how we give birth to ourselves spiritually. And here is a special condition before us: We have to create our form ourselves.
Question: But is an animal not capable of this?
Answer: An animal remains an animal. It cannot become a human being. It is the foundation above which he is formed. In general, the still, vegetative, and animate nature is the platform above which we build the human form.
Question: Who can build it?
Answer: The “drop of semen” that lies above the animal degree. It contains everything, except the material. But when the material is added to it, the necessary form does not appear automatically like in the animal world; we have to find it ourselves. In the spiritual world, a person creates himself with the Creator’s help.
Initially, I do not know my future spiritual form. I should want it, look for it and try, going in faith above reason as much as I can. I act, striving for something that seems like bestowal to me, and these efforts suddenly bring me to a “discovery,” a new form. Yes, I was thinking about it all that time, but still could not imagine what it would be in reality. Now, when the form of bestowal is dressed in me, I attain it.
How did I get it, not knowing where to go exactly? That is why it is called a “discovery”—it is a surprise for me, not an expected result.
Question: So, what is my free choice?
Answer: Your free choice is to seek this form with the help of the environment, by all possible means. Namely the environment builds my future state, creating its form according to the principle of a matrix that puts pressure on a tin ingot from both sides, giving it the desired form. I am that ingot, the initial material, lying between the two parts of the press: The group is one side and the teacher and studies are the other.
Question: Where is freedom here?
Answer: It is impossible to be just free, if you are free, it means from something. In reality, you can be independent only from the evil inclination. That is why the Creator created the evil inclination first: pride, self-importance, and other egoistic qualities, relative to which we can check ourselves: How much you can cancel them, sacrifice them in order to take any form that the teacher, studies, and group require from you? If you accept their “pressure,” the Creator fills this new form with the spirit of life. And if not, then not.
When you would like to leave the group, but still decide to stay, then you go toward free choice. The choice means to rise above the evil inclination. Then, you will really feel free.
But now the time has not come yet: Is it possible to let a baby who barely learned to walk choose? He will break something. It is impossible to create a reality of freedom immediately when you have all the qualities opposed to the Creator and you have the opportunity to agree or disagree with Him.
However, today it is not required. Gradually, you realize that you do not have choice for the time being while you are under the dominion of the egoistic desire. Only it acts in you, and you have nothing else, no other force in resisting egoism in something and putting up with it in something else. You still need to go forward, study, and draw a lot of Reforming Light in order to acquire the second force.
In the end, finding yourself between two forces, you obtain the whole world, completely different values, a new understanding. Then, we will talk about free choice.
It is no coincidence that the right to vote is given at 18 and not before. Imagine if 10-year-old children could vote. Then candidates would state from the screen without any constraint: “I will give you candies! I will provide everyone under the age of 18 with the latest generation of smartphones!”
In general, we see that everyday life does not offer a person freedom. And there is no such desire. Today, you do not think that you need choice because you feel you are free. You do not feel that the Creator fully controls you.
And that is why He teaches you: First, He gives you the egoistic desire and then puts obstacles on the path to its realization, as if someone prevents you. You do not understand yet that everything comes from one source, and that is what you are taught.
Question: How can we accelerate this process?
Answer: Through playing with the correct environment, with the group. Replace a vague relationship with the Creator with a real relationship with the group. You can do this. If you want with the help of environment to change how the Creator treats you, you have the opportunity. Instead of the Creator, accept the group as a factor of influence and you can control your life freely.
We hear this, but do not yet feel it. No problem, awareness will come soon…
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/11/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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Question: In our world there are laws that we must abide by. How can I check my intention practically to see whether it is egoistic or whether it is the right intention?
Answer: How can I practically check my intention and advance? You are right, the most important thing is the intention, but you won’t be able to advance by yourself, I don’t know of any person who could study the wisdom of Kabbalah by himself. You will have to connect to us. Without a group, a teacher, friends, and assistance, you will simply waste a lot of time. So for a start, read the material for beginners. But if you are really interested and if you are about how I can change my intention, that is a high level and it already quite serious.
It is simply a waste of efforts and you are confusing yourself by that and will need much more time in order to come out of this confusion. You should connect to us. We are prepared for any situation, in any language, English Georgian, Russian, Hebrew, whichever language you want. Our books are published in 27 languages.
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From the Georgia Convention 11/5/12, Lesson 1
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Question: What was the role of Kabbalists before the revelation of Kabbalah in our day? Or was it simply the transfer of information from one generation to the next?
Answer: The role of Kabbalists was to develop Kabbalah further and further in each generation down to our time. There was no other use in practice. There were different Kabbalists in each generation who had to continue developing it in their generation.
A Kabbalist is a person who is interested in the system of management of our world: why, what for, and how to work with it. He reveals this system, studies it, and describes it based on the level that he is at.
A Kabbalist of the next generation is on a different level than the Kabbalist of the past one. Just like all other people, he evolves with other needs according to which he develops Kabbalah further. That is, the development of humanity and Kabbalah are parallel, until people begin to need it, and then Kabbalah is revealed.
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From the Georgia Convention 11/05/12, Lesson 1
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Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam (The Rungs of the Ladder), Volume I, Article 12, “What is Torah and the Work in the Way of the Creator”: It turns out that a person has to make great efforts before he begins to study, so that his study will bear fruit and good results, this means that the study should bring him the Light of the Torah, that can reform him.
First we must develop the right desire, in fact, it is indispensible. A person reaches the wisdom of Kabbalah only with a “point in the heart,” which has no direction yet. He doesn’t know where he has arrived or where he is, like a drop of semen in the womb. In this case, it is the group that plays the role of the womb, and it has to “format” a person, to give him a form, and to exert influence. We shouldn’t wait for him to act correctly. We should be careful if he “shows off,” since the show should be the group’s show.
There are those who come full of energy and begin to work, for them it is really a positive approach, but it is definitely not in the right direction. And were can he find it? From his egoistic actions? A person hasn’t even had the chance to discover the evil inclination yet and is still on a lower degree.
So the group should gently control a new student in order to give him the right form, the right direction And when a person feels that “reins and a bridle” are placed on him, he is obliged to accept it since he has no other choice. The group must control everyone.
The friends must look for the evil inclination and the lack of connection. We yearn for connection; we clarify to what extent our qualitative and quantitative parameters are correct; whether it suits our requirements and satisfies us, until we discover the Creator’s form in the connection.
We go through the levels of Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya and Yechida on each of the 125 degrees. In search for connection, we discover a deficiency and draw the Light that Reforms during the study. Thus the study becomes purposeful and I constantly check myself not according to how much I understand or not, or how interesting it is or not. This has nothing to do with what we do, the study is a time of healing, a time of clarification, a time of drawing the Light of correction. All this is in accordance with our deficiency, which we discover during the preparation for the lesson, we discover it during the friends’ meetings and in our collective actions and then we come to the lesson with the demand for the Light that Reforms.
In this demand we are different from the rest of the world. People feel that they are righteous; they don’t demand the Light that Reforms; they are satisfied with what they do, like all those who don’t even think about it. We need to constantly assess ourselves according to the deficiency for the Light and the Light itself.
When I first came to Rabash, I asked him after a couple of months: “What is the main thing about working with the book? Where is the essence of our world during the morning lesson described?” Then he showed me item 17 in the “Introduction to TES,” where it says: “And so a person who studies is committed before he studies to strengthen his faith in the Creator and His Providence in reward and punishment” since this is important. Our only work is to prepare the desire for change through the exertion in the group. On the whole we discover that we cannot do that and it is only there that we should perform the correction. With this recognition, we reach the study again.
Thus while we study we discover a deficiency and on the other hand we are corrected and healed.
So accordingly “a person should make great efforts before he begins to study.” And if in the meantime we don’t attain the right results, then we should check whether we come to study with the right intention. Otherwise we study in order to acquire knowledge from a certain book instead of drawing the Light as is required from the Torah.
So there is “wisdom” and there is “Torah.” And a person who simply wants to know what is written in the book deals with wisdom, and a person who looks for correction and who wants to change himself deals with the Torah, with the true method. This is the whole difference…
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/4/12
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It says that the temple was destroyed because the children of Israel didn’t bless the Torah first. They studied the Torah without a blessing. What does that mean?
There are blessings in the Siddur, for example: “Blessed are You Lord, the giver of the Torah.” But what is the Torah? It is a means for correcting the evil inclination. It says: “I have created the evil inclination; I have created the Torah as a spice.”
How is it possible to bless the Torah? Only if there is such a deficiency when my initial inclination is revealed as evil. I feel that my desires are evil; I have to correct them, I can’t bear them. This is called the revelation of the true evil, when I cannot agree to it, when I have to get rid of it, to get it out of me as something that is very harmful.
Then I discover the means that can get these evil desires out of me, a special instrument that is called the Torah. It turns out that there is a special method for studying, a special book, special conditions, and all this is called the Torah. It isn’t the title of the book that says “Torah,” not the number of people, and not the place of study, but simply the fact that in answer to all my actions there comes a special force that changes the force that is inside me. It is because the desire to receive is actually the force by which I identify the evil and I want it to become good, as it says: “Since the Light in it reforms.”
So I determine that my desire to receive is the evil inclination and decide that I must make it good. What is “good?” It can only be the opposite of my current desire; there are no other options. Thus the concept of the Torah symbolizes my efforts, the group I work in, the books I study from, the teacher who teaches me this method. On the whole they are the ones who summon that force from Above that corrects me. “From Above,” since the force of correction is higher than me and stronger than the current force. Thus I acquire it and heal myself from the evil, which becomes good.
But if I study without this preparation, the Torah becomes the “potion of death” for me. In this case, I reach self-fulfillment by a long and difficult path. Along this path the Light also operates on me, but from its posterior and not in the desire that dresses and not in the desire that is dressed. I reach the recognition that I don’t discover evil the way I should, I don’t recognize the poison in it. This, of course, also leads me in the right direction, but along a long indirect path of sufferings.
So if a person is not in the direction of recognizing the evil, he is in “exile.” And when he recognizes the need to correct the evil in him, which means the desire to receive, he feels that he is under the domination of Pharaoh. The deeper this feeling is, the more he wants to get rid of the evil, which means to get out of “exile.” Then he uses the Torah correctly in order to draw the Light that changes the desire in him, which enables him to use the desire not for his own good but for the good of others. Thus the Light reforms him and changes him to the good.
As long as we don’t want to exit our desire to receive and enter the desire to bestow, from evil to the good, it isn’t considered exile. We don’t even feel that it is exile. Only the need for a means to turn the desire to receive into a desire to bestow indicates that we are ready to leave the exile. The exodus itself is that we begin to use the Torah correctly.
This is what we have to aim at while reading The Book of Zohar: Do we open it with the right deficiency? If not, then we don’t bless this action, but simply follow a timetable. This is a wrong and undesirable approach. We have to think about it the whole day before the lesson, to add the discernments that stem from different states, from the desire to receive that dominates us, into one picture. We want to ascend above it towards the friends, towards the Creator.
Then we will have something to bless in the morning lesson since we want to receive “the water of life” from the study, the healing force, and this means that we are truly studying the Torah.
[91966]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/01/12, The Zohar
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