What Does Kabbalah Have to Say about Free Will?

What Does Kabbalah Have to Say about Free Will?

How to Find the Point of Free Choice in Life

We believe that we have many possible futures to choose from. But choosing means seeing the future, so what is this choice based on? How does one know which future is best? If we could see the result of choosing one option and the result of choosing another option, we would know which was better. But in truth, there are no options to choose from whatsoever.

A certain Reshimo awakens within a certain will to receive, meaning within a certain person situated in a certain environment. Subsequently, that person realizes the Reshimo, accumulating further impressions from life’s events.

If we realized that we are only marionettes, and that at the same time we can change our future, we would then be at a point of choice. In other words, we could then choose an environment that would influence us positively and assist in our spiritual development. Such an environment would help us realize that Reshimo in the same direction and the same preexisting ladder, but we would do it willingly, instead of under pressure.

 

What a Positive Social Environment Can Do for a Person’s Development

In any given state, the Reshimo in the awakened will to receive, and the environment are all predetermined. Even if one had an urge to realize the Reshimo, this urge would stem from within; and even if one used the environment to accelerate the unfolding of the Reshimo, it would only shorten the predetermined unfolding period.

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Do You Make this Mistake While Enjoying Something?

Do You Make this Mistake While Enjoying Something?

The wisdom of Kabbalah tells us how the Creator’s quality of bestowal creates a desire, out of nothing, a desire to receive pleasure, and how this creature has similarity with the end of its development.

After an initial four phase development the creature realizes its total opposition to its source, end enters a new phase, using a bestowing intention to progress towards the desired similarity.

We learn how the creation receives what pleasure it can in order to bestow, and builds itself to be as similar as possible to its Creator. However, even after all the worlds have been established in the Partzuf, and all the lights that could be received in order to bestow are received in the Partzuf, there still remains one desire that cannot be made to work in the Partzuf—the desire to be like the Creator. This is the desire that the host in Ashlag’s allegory was referring to when he said, “In this case, there has never been born a person who could fulfill your wishes.” This is the most intense desire, the core desire of Stage Four, and at the same time it is utterly unachievable.

So once all the desires were exploited to the maximum, the creation’s (the company) marketing department (surrounding light), reminded the company management—the Rosh (head) of creation—that there was still more light to be received. Now it was the Rosh’s duty to examine this new desire and determine if it could receive this desire with the intention to bestow.

 

Do You Fall for this Hidden Temptation that Is Impossible To Resist?

For this reason, the Rosh assembled a special board meeting to discuss the fate of this last desire. In this meeting, the argument for not using it was that it was too strong to handle. Indeed, how can one handle a desire to be like one’s parent? If the Partzuf actually received what it wished for in that desire, it would be similar to a child instantly becoming an adult, without the knowledge and experience acquired over the years of growing up. Clearly, this was too complicated and too dangerous a desire to handle.

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Celebrating Independence and Declaring Our Freedom

Freedom

From the Daily Lessons – In following video, Rav Michael Laitman, PhD talks about freedom: what it is, what it isn’t, and where freedom can be found. He deals with the question “What does it mean to be free?” asking “What is free in you?” and explains how to attain a different kind of nature, and acquire the ability to exercise freedom against everything constraining us.

Video: Where Can True Freedom be Found Today?

Download this Lesson: wmv video | mp3 audio [54:02]

Additional Sources:
Videos
*Where Is Our Freedom?
*Upbringing – an article by Rav Michael Laitman, PhD

*Society’s Approval is the Greatest Reward – An Interview between Michael Laitman and TV anchor Lev Novozhenov
*Influence of the Environment – a post on Laitman.com – Michael Laitman’s Personal Blog.

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Three Sources for True Freedom You Don’t Want to Miss Out On

Three Sources for True Freedom You Don't Want to Miss Out On

Our modern idea of freedom is embedded in remoteness, individualism and isolation. The true idea of what freedom means has been inverted and long forgotten. Here are three sources of information on what true freedom is and how it can be attained in our world today.

1. Video: The Freedom Prison
In this excerpt from a morning lesson Rav Michael Laitman, PhD provides a definition of freedom that is completely opposite to society’s idea of freedom, but is more natural than anything else.

Download this Lesson: wmv video | mp3 audio [66:42]
Shamati Article #190 “Every Act Leaves an Imprint” (the article on which the above video’s lesson is based)

2. Freedom of Will (An article by Rav Michael Laitman, PhD)

3. The Freedom (An article by Baal haSulam)

Related Material:
Newspaper Articles:
* Kabbalah Today Article: The Freedom Blues
* Kabbalah Today Article: A Kabbalist, a Geneticist and the Meaning of Life
Short Clips:
* Do We Have Free Will or Is Everything Predetermined
* “Kabbalah Revealed” Episode 10: Free Will, Part 1
* “Kabbalah Revealed” Episode 11: Free Will, Part 2 The Four Factors

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New Genetic Research Meets Kabbalah to Tell Us “There Is No Free Choice”

A Kabbalist, a Geneticist and the Meaning of Life

So you thought that generosity came from good will and caring for other people? Think again.

New genetic research shows that it may just be a matter of genes. From Kabbalah’s viewpoint, however, this is hardly news. That’s why we were sure that a meeting between Geneticist Prof. Ebstein and Kabbalist Dr. Laitman would be extremely fascinating.

Read “A Kabbalist, a Geneticist and the Meaning of Life”

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From the Meeting:

Kabbalist Rav Michael Laitman, PhD and Geneticist Prof. Ebstein

Kabbalah Today Reporter, Oren Levi: Earlier you mentioned that what a person does is 50% influenced by his genes. What about the other 50%?

Prof. Ebstein: That comes from society, the education one receives from his parents or his school.

Oren Levi: Okay, so if this adds up to 100% – 50% genes and 50% society – then where am “I”? What do we have left of the person himself?

Prof. Ebstein: That is the question.

Oren Levi: And what does Dr. Laitman say about this, from the perspective of Kabbalah?

Dr. Laitman: What can I say – there is no free choice. more…