chaim vital | Kabbalah Blog

December 22, 2014December 14, 2014

The Real Reason Why Kabbalah Was Hidden for Thousands of Years

Past Writings of Kabbalists Were Often Hidden

Anything that people need spreads naturally in the world. But when it comes to The Zohar and the Kabbalah, matters are not that straightforward.

The disclosure of the writings of Kabbalah has been accompanied by intriguing stories. The Book of Zohar has undergone many hardships, and only a small portion of the original manuscript remains today. The writings of the Ari [Rav Isaac Luria, author of The Tree of Life], were dug out of his grave only three generations after his demise. Indeed, there is a special integration of revealed and concealed, and painful labor pangs when it comes to expanding the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Difficulties that Surrounded the Spreading of Kabbalah in the 20th Century

Baal HaSulam made great efforts to publish his interpretation on The Zohar, the Sulam [Ladder] commentary, and wrote as much as 20 hours a day. When he fell asleep on his desk, it was hard to pull the pen out of his hand because his fingers were cramped around it.

For lack of funds to print the manuscripts, he had to wait until he could find the resources. And once he found them, he arranged the lead letters in the printing press by himself, although he was already ill and very weak. Yet, volume by volume, his life’s work was completed.

Still, people were afraid to open The Zohar and preferred to stay clear of it. As early as 1933, Baal HaSulam began to disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah in an effort to prevent the looming holocaust. “Time to Act” was the title of his opening essay in the first tract that he printed—out of fifty that he had planned to publish. However, his work was frowned upon by certain orthodox circles, and within a few weeks they managed to apprehend the printing of the tracts to prevent the expansion of the wisdom.

In 1940, Baal HaSulam published a paper, The Nation, in which he called upon the Israeli nation to unite. His wish was to establish a by-weekly paper, but the paper initiative, too, was thwarted after the publication of the first issue.

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July 30, 2014July 26, 2014

How Reincarnation Really Works

The Mystery of Reincarnation Explained

In each generation, the same souls that existed in previous generations reappear. They are clothed in new bodies, evolve, and become more sensitive and receptive to sublime and complex spiritual knowledge. Thus, people who lived thousands of years ago had the same souls as our own but are more developed today, bringing technological and spiritual progress to our world.

Any progress in humankind is the result of souls rising to a higher degree, after having gained experience in previous lives. Each soul that comes to our world begins its life with the experiences it has accumulated in the previous life. Hence, the soul goes through a process of accumulating knowledge, spiritual attainments, and worldly sensations, leaving it with memories we call Reshimot (records or reminiscences).

Of all the souls that have come down to our world from previous generations, only a few have wished to evolve into the spiritual realms. However, in our time, many have done so. We are much more advanced than our ancestors. It is easier for us to absorb new information and live it, because we are born prepared to absorb this information. Hence, each new piece of data is completely natural for us.

How the Concealment of Kabbalah and Reincarnation are Related

Kabbalah books tend to be revealed and concealed intermittently. They can be hidden for several generations, reappear, and then be lost again. It happens this way so that humanity can go through certain “corrections” (Tikkunim). Generally speaking, these books exist throughout the history of humankind to correct humanity and assure its development. All these books will be known to everyone in the future. The Zohar and the books of the prophets state that in our final days, all humanity will use these books as manuals for attaining the upper worlds, and people will have happy, eternal, and complete lives.

Souls of great Kabbalists go through special cycles. They do not appear in our world in every generation but, like the books, only in special ones. The soul of the first man incarnated later on in Abraham the Patriarch, Moses, Rabbi Shimon Bar- Yochai, the Holy Ari, and, in our days, Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag.

Such a soul comes only during special times, when it is meant to influence and correct the entire human race.

The Story of the Reincarnation of a Very Special Soul: The Ari

In the 16th century, the time of the Middle Ages and barbarism, a child was born in Jerusalem. Later in his life he received the name the Holy Ari. He absorbed the entire Kabbalistic knowledge since the first man and processed it and phrased it in such a way that all the generations following him could receive their spiritual nourishment from his books.

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April 28, 2014April 23, 2014

The Conclusion of the Renaissance Ends the Concealment of Kabbalah

How Kabbalah Was Kept Secret Up Until the Renaissance

In tune with the shifts that took place at the onset of the Renaissance, Kabbalists began to remove the veil from the wisdom of Kabbalah, or at least to speak in favor of removing it. Since the writing of The Book of Zohar, Kabbalists have set up various obstacles before those who wished to study. It began with Rashbi’s concealment of The Zohar and continued with declaring all sorts of prerequisites that one had to meet before receiving permission to study. The Mishnah, for instance, gives the apparently paradoxical instruction to avoid teaching Kabbalah to students who are not already wise and understand with their own mind, but the text does not specify how is one to come by wisdom if one is not permitted to study.

In the Babylonian Talmud, there is a well known allegory about four men who went into a PARDES (an acronym for all forms of spiritual study—Peshat (literal), Remez (Implied), Derush (interpretations), and the highest level being Sod, Kabbalah). Of the four, one died, one lost his sanity, one became heretical, and only one, Rabbi Akiva, who was a giant among Kabbalists—entered in peace and departed in peace. There are other deeper and more accurate explanations to this allegory, but the story was nonetheless used to intimidate and deter people from studying Kabbalah.

Another prerequisite that Kabbalists set up was to “fill one’s belly with” (be proficient in) Mishnah and Gemarah before one approaches the study of Kabbalah. To justify that condition, they cited the Babylonian Talmud, which warns that one must spend a third of one’s life studying the Bible, another third studying Mishnah, and the remaining third studying The Talmud.

This, of course, leaves no time to study Kabbalah, so when the time came for Kabbalists to permit the study, they had to “make room” in the day for the study of Kabbalah. Thus, Kabbalists such as Tzvi Hirsh of Zidichov, “detoured” the prohibition by declaring that every day, one must “fill one’s belly with” Mishnah and Gemarah, and then study Kabbalah.

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April 27, 2014April 23, 2014

How the Renaissance Ended the Concealment of Kabbalah

The Ari – The Greatest Creative Force of the Renaissance

Preceding every new stage in the evolution of desires, the appropriate precursor appears. First, there was Abraham; he was the Root. Then there was Moses, representing Stage one, followed by Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai (Rashbi), who corresponds to Stage Two. And now the time has come for Stage Three.

The emergence of Stage Three in the evolution of desires roughly corresponds to the advent of the Renaissance in Europe. Its harbinger was the greatest Kabbalist since Rashbi: Isaac Luria (the Ari)—founder of the Lurianic Kabbalah, the most systematic and structured school of Kabbalah. Today, it is the predominant teaching method, thanks to the 20th century commentaries of Baal HaSulam, who interpreted the writings and adapted them to the scientific/academic mindset of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Despite his short life, the Ari (1534-1572) produced numerous texts with the help of his prime disciple, Rav Chaim Vital. The Ari did not write his texts by himself. Instead, he would speak and Chaim Vital would write down his words.

After the Ari’s early demise, Vital and several of his relatives compiled the Ari’s words into cohesive texts. for this reason, many scholars have ascribed the Ari’s writings to Chaim Vital and not to his teacher. Yet, even though Vital was the scribe, the provider of the information is undisputedly the Ari.

How the Ari Reformed the Wisdom of Kabbalah

In Stage Three there is an “inverted” modus operandi, where the act is reception but the intention is to give. This was true for the initial four stages of desire. However, after the breaking of Adam’s soul, the prevailing intention in the collective soul—of which we are all parts—has been inverted and regressed from bestowal to reception. And because we are all parts of Adam’s soul, the hidden intention in all humans is to receive, as well. Clearly, when everyone wishes to receive, and none wish to give, it induces an unsustainable situation.

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November 19, 2007August 19, 2009

Kabbalistic Meditation – There Is No Such Term

Question: For several years now, I have been practicing Kabbalistic meditation. I took some courses on the subject and I’m using a book by Rabbi Chaim Vital for this purpose. But lately, I’ve been reading in your paper that there is no such term as “Kabbalistic meditation.” How is this possible if Rabbi Vital writes specifically about that term?

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: First, note that no such term as “meditation” or anything like it appears in even a single authentic Kabbalah book. Additionally, the fact that all kinds of courses and study groups say that they practice “Kabbalistic meditation” doesn’t mean that this actually exists in Kabbalah. All the writings of Kabbalah, including those of the Ari—which were written by Rabbi Chaim Vital—explain one simple thing: the whole of Creation is made of a desire to enjoy. That desire can only be in one of two states: corrupted—with an intention to receive for itself, or corrected—with an intention to give, to love others.

Question: What does this have to do with Kabbalistic meditation?

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: In the process of the correction of the soul, a Kabbalist uses a method called “three lines.” This method is built on a simple procedure: first, the Kabbalist “takes” part of the corrupted (egoistic) desire, called “the left line” and subsequently corrects it, using the force of the spiritual Light, called “the right line.” In doing so, the Kabbalist builds a “middle line” within the soul, and thus advances in spirituality.

Because this work concerns changing one’s intention from reception to bestowal, it is called “work in intention” or “intention work.” One who is not proficient in the wisdom of Kabbalah misinterprets the term “work in intention” and attaches it to terms that are completely foreign to Kabbalah, such as meditation.

Taken from the article “Ask the Kabbalist” in Kabbalah Today Issue 9. Read the Full Article

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