January 4, 2025
April 24, 2014 at 7:30 pm · Filed under Kabbalistic Sources
How can the Creator (the quality of love and bestowal), which is eternal, perfect and absolutely good, give birth to such insignificant and small creatures as us, who are egoistic, stupid, greedy, and absolutely opposite to Him? If this comes from the Creator, how can something imperfect and defected come out of or originate from the One who is Perfect and Eternal?
After all, if it comes from the Creator, this means that there is a root or thought about them in Him as well? And if this is present in Him, does it mean that He contains an imperfection? If not, then how could He have created something completely opposite to Him that was not present in Him? This is impossible to understand. However, in principle, even if a thought was conceived about such opposite and insignificant creatures, doesn’t this suppose that this is present in Him, and this speaks about an imperfection in Him? These are very serious questions of a philosophical type; they are very deep, and Baal HaSulam (Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag) raises these questions and answers them in his article “Introduction to the Book of Zohar.”
Next, Baal HaSulam also asks the following questions: how can we imagine the appearance of something new at all? In our world we say, “Oh, look, something new suddenly happened.” How? It is because we do not observe all phenomena, since some phenomena are concealed from us. Something suddenly manifests, but we do not see the inner connection that caused this phenomenon to manifest, and therefore it seems to us that it is something new and supernatural. It is like a baby who looks and suddenly sees something, thinking that it is a miracle or fairy tale. The baby does not see all of the connections that give rise to this phenomenon. An adult does everything, doing something for this to happen for the baby. This is a mystery to the baby, a manifestation of something new from nothing.
Generally, how can we imagine anything “from nothing”? “From nothing” means that there were no preconditions of any kind at all. How can creation be absolutely new? That is to say, there was the Creator (the quality of love and bestowal), and from some moment on, creation (the quality of reception) appeared. If creation is not present in the Creator in any other form, then how can it suddenly appear? From what? From the thought? In that case it is not new, rather it existed, but only in thought rather than in matter; nevertheless, it existed.
All of these questions are examined in Baal HaSulam’s article “Introduction to the Book of Zohar.” In reality, we are unable to clarify them in such a short space as they are very deep and very interesting, voluminous. Also, it depends for whom: there are people who are more fascinated by this and others, less so, depending on each person’s development. Gradually you will reach a point when you will see that it is not for nothing that Baal HaSulam works through certain questions for us. As we ascend along the ladder of self-attainment, we will have to feel, study, and answer these questions ourselves. We will simply build ourselves out of them.
The Free Kabbalah Course is based on the articles of Baal HaSulam and provides step-by-step guided learning from experienced Kabbalah instructors of Kabbalah’s basic concepts based in Baal HaSulam’s articles. Baal HaSulam was the first Kabbalist in history who wrote articles not only for Kabbalists, but for the broad public, in order to explain Kabbalah’s fundamentals, because he understood the need that would emerge in humanity to answer deeper questions about life’s meaning and purpose. Therefore, if you’re interested in such topics, we recommend taking the free course and start learning about the world around you and inside you anew. Click the banner below to sign up for the free course …
April 23, 2014 at 7:30 pm · Filed under Perception of Reality
People began calling Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag “Baal HaSulam” after he wrote the Sulam Commentary on The Book of Zohar. He also wrote four introductions to the Sulam commentary. These are the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” “Preface to the Book of Zohar,” “Preface to the Sulam Commentary” and “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” (also known as “Pticha”). In general, we can say that they are completely separate compositions rather than introductions to The Book of Zohar with the Sulam Commentary.
In the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” Baal HaSulam raises questions and then answers them.
- What is our essence?
- What is our activity in the process that happens to us, in which we participate without understanding what our participation is, and generally,
- Where are we going, where is life leading us?
When we look at ourselves, we find that we are very small. When we look at the entire world around us, even our world and our universe, we feel insignificant. But on the other hand, our world is like a grain of sand compared to the immense spiritual worlds. It is said that the human being is the greatest being, above and beyond all of these worlds, able to devour all of these worlds and expand above all of them. How can this be, if the person is so small?
Here, Baal HaSulam explains that it is our spiritual attributes that are important rather than our physical attributes. With regard to our physical attributes, of course we cannot compare ourselves to all the huge masses of billions and tons of rock that exist in the universe, or with infinite time. But when we compare ourselves in a different plane or dimension, namely in regard to spiritual forces, then naturally we are the biggest and greatest in this world. Then we really encompass everything in ourselves, the still, vegetative, animal and speaking nature inside of us and accordingly, we ascend above it all.
In principle, this process is the process of self-attainment. The person discovers everything around him through himself, by attaining himself. Why? (We will examine this in subsequent articles of Baal HaSulam.) Because by attaining himself, the person attains the entire surrounding world. This is because the whole surrounding world is nothing more than a reflection of our inner states.
Nothing exists around us. It is our inner attributes that are being projected this way on the hind side of our head, for instance, resulting in the picture of the surrounding world that we see.
In reality this surrounding world does not exist. There is nothing around me, you are not in front of me, these walls are not here, and this world is absolutely not here. All of this is how the structure in the World of Infinity is being depicted for me in my attributes.
However, I am not in the World of Infinity with my attributes, and I thus perceive the structure of the World of Infinity, where everything is connected together in one Kli (vessel/receptacle/tool) under one Light (quality of love and bestowal), on the level of our world where this whole structure of the World of Infinity appears before me and seems to me as this world. However, this conception is purely my personal one, inner and subjective.
This is why Baal HaSulam discusses the topic of perception of reality in this article. Even more so than in “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” Baal HaSulam discusses the topic of perception of reality in more detail in his article “Preface to the Book of Zohar.”
In general, the section of Kabbalah that examines our self-attainment and our attainment of others around us can be considered its most interesting section. The attainment of the world is called “perception of reality.” It is because in principle, it determines our states and how we can change them to the level where everything is revealed to us and there are no illusions of me, you, and everything else, but rather everything merges as one common Kli (vessel/receptacle/tool) filled by the Upper Force, the Creator (the quality of love and bestowal).
The Free Kabbalah Course is based on the articles of Baal HaSulam and provides step-by-step guided learning from experienced Kabbalah instructors of Kabbalah’s basic concepts based in Baal HaSulam’s articles. Baal HaSulam was the first Kabbalist in history who wrote articles not only for Kabbalists, but for the broad public, in order to explain Kabbalah’s fundamentals, because he understood the need that would emerge in humanity to answer deeper questions about life’s meaning and purpose. Therefore, if you’re interested in such topics, we recommend taking the free course and start learning about the world around you and inside you anew. Click the banner below to sign up for the free course …
April 22, 2014 at 7:30 pm · Filed under Kabbalistic Sources
Baal HaSulam (Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag) wrote the article “A Speech in Celebration of the Conclusion of The Zohar” (Maamar le Sium ha Zohar) when he completed his 21 volume commentary on The Book of Zohar. On this occasion he organized a big celebratory lunch or meal on Mount Meron, the place where the author of The Book of Zohar, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (Rashbi) is buried. Baal HaSulam recited this speech there. Afterwards people wrote it down, formatted it and it resulted in an article called “A Speech in Celebration of the Conclusion of The Zohar.”
Here he describes that the person’s entire task in our world comes down to becoming completely similar to the Upper Force, i.e. the quality of love and bestowal. To become similar to the Upper Force means to ascend to its level, unify with it, to become just as eternal and perfect as it, beyond any perceptions, problems, or that which happens on lower levels. All of humanity collectively must ascend to this level, which is the only level that really exists.
It is because all other sub-levels are below the World of Infinity. They exist only in our subjective perceptions, but not in reality. There exists only one state, the World of Infinity where creation (i.e. the quality of reception) and the Creator (i.e. the quality of love and bestowal) are constantly merged together in eternal and infinite existence.
Therefore, in order to reach this state, we should not move to another place, wait for time to do this to us or for someone else to do this for us. That’s impossible. The only path is when the person changes his attributes in similarity to the attributes existing in the World of Infinity. To the degree he is similar to these attributes, he ascends and comes closer to the World of Infinity. It is because in the spiritual world, just as in the physical world there are fields and all kinds of attributes between objects, they get closer to each other to the degree they are similar and separate from each other to the degree they differ. The same thing is true in the spiritual world, if our attributes will become similar to the attributes of the World of Infinity, or the attributes of the quality of love and bestowal, in any way, then we will begin to perceive it.
Today, right now our attributes are opposite to the quality of love and bestowal. We do not contain even a single attribute that is similar to the quality of love and bestowal and this is why we do not perceive it. If even one of our attributes was even slightly similar to the quality of love and bestowal in any way, then we would perceive love and bestowal in that attribute. Therefore our task is to invert our attributes, change them, as if turning them inside out, and make them opposite to our current attributes so they will be similar to the quality of love and bestowal, and then we will be able to exist on the same level as this quality, in a state of eternity and perfection. This is achieved by working on oneself in the heart and mind. This is what the person has—the mind and the heart (Mocha ve Liba). Baal HaSulam describes for us how to work on this in the heart and how to work on this in the mind.
Here he again talks about the fact that it is precisely we who have to do this in our time. It is because The Zohar became revealed, because he was able to create a commentary on the entire Book of Zohar and this is an absolutely precise sign that our generation can achieve the highest and best state already globally, by everyone, and enter the level of eternal existence.
He describes that this is why this is happening to us. In particular, here he describes the means to do this, saying that the most important means is to find the appropriate environment for yourself.
We know how the environment or the surroundings influences a person. I sign up to some club, attend a group of people, they tell me something, pass something on to me, and in this way I begin to become permeated by their ideas, ideals, and goals, and they become important to me. And so, I have to find an environment that will exalt and elevate the spiritual, and then I will unwillingly aspire to the spiritual faster than being pushed from behind by suffering. Therefore the most important thing for a person is to find the appropriate environment that will constantly influence, thereby constantly pulling the person forward. This is what Baal HaSulam talks about in the article “A Speech in Celebration of the Conclusion of The Zohar.”
The Free Kabbalah Course is based on the articles of Baal HaSulam and provides step-by-step guided learning from experienced Kabbalah instructors of Kabbalah’s basic concepts based in Baal HaSulam’s articles. Baal HaSulam was the first Kabbalist in history who wrote articles not only for Kabbalists, but for the broad public, in order to explain Kabbalah’s fundamentals, because he understood the need that would emerge in humanity to answer deeper questions about life’s meaning and purpose. Therefore, if you’re interested in such topics, we recommend taking the free course and start learning about the world around you and inside you anew. Click the banner below to sign up for the free course …
March 18, 2014 at 7:00 am · Filed under Articles, Books
Two Essential Desires Every Truth Seeker Needs to Find
The importance of Abraham’s discovery lies not so much in its scientific or conceptual innovation, although for his time both were absolutely radical. Rather, the primary significance of his discovery lies in its social aspect.
Indeed, Abraham’s motivation for asking the questions about life’s meaning and purpose, which eventually led to his discovery, was as much social as it was intellectual. He noticed that his townspeople were becoming increasingly alienated. For a long time, Babylonians nurtured a prosperous society that allowed multiple belief systems and teachings to coexist in harmony. But in Abraham’s time, people were growing intolerant, conceited, and alienated from each other, and Abraham wondered why.
Through his questions and observation of Nature, he realized that the world that appears to our senses is but a superficial blanket that covers a complex and magnificent interaction of forces. When these forces interweave in a certain way, they induce a certain type of physical or emotional reality to appear, such as birth, death, war, peace, and all the states in between.
This interaction exists not only on a large scale, as between countries, but in every element of life, from the subatomic to the interstellar, and from the very personal to the international.
Abraham’s thought process in discovering these forces is evident in his questions, which to him were, as Neil Postman put it in The End of Education, “the principal intellectual instruments available to human beings.” In Maimonides’ writings, Abraham asked, “How was it possible for this wheel [of reality] to always turn without a driver? Who is turning it, for it cannot turn itself?”
Thus, through repeated pondering and observation, Abraham came to realize what really makes the world go around, and like all great truths, it was as simple as can be: desires, two desires, to be exact. One is a desire to give and the other, to receive. The interaction between those desires is what makes the world go around; it is the wheel that drives all things and the force that creates all phenomena. In Kabbalistic terminology, the desire to give is referred to as “His [the Creator’s] desire to do good to His creations,” and the desire to receive is described as “the desire and craving to receive delight and pleasure.” for short, Kabbalists refer to them as “desire to bestow” and “desire to receive.”
This simple realization is what Abraham was trying to convey to his fellow Babylonians, but Nimrod tried to prevent him from doing so by trying to kill him. And when he failed to do so, he sent him away.
The Secret Rules Abraham Discovered of Preventing Potential Destruction
Alas, deporting Abraham did not restore the Babylonian spirit of camaraderie and union. Eventually, “The Lord [Creator, meaning Nature] confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth” (Gen, 11:9).
This did not happen to the Babylonians because some vengeful and powerful old man called “The Lord” was holding a grudge against them. It happened to them because the desires that Abraham discovered possess a certain direction of evolution. There is no random interaction here, but a set of rules that unfold by a rigid cause-and-effect order.
When Abraham discovered these rules, he realized his local folk were headed in the wrong direction, which could only lead them to eventual destruction, so he tried his best to warn them. Read the rest of this entry »
October 31, 2013 at 6:45 pm · Filed under Articles, Books
Kabbalah has always been studied from books.
When Kabbalists write books, they have already reached a certain spiritual level. When we read the books, wanting to somehow make contact with that world from which the Kabbalist wrote, we are enfolded in an illumination from that place. We do not feel it, but it slowly prepares us for the phase when we begin to feel more and more of what the books describe.
This is how one begins the process of entering the spiritual world.
Throughout history, Kabbalists have written materials that were meant for a specific generation. The materials from different generations actually provide the same material, but are presented in a manner that is easiest for that generation to understand.
The text in genuine books of Kabbalah precisely describes how the mechanism that operates reality works. Using charts and formulas, it depicts the “control room of reality” in a form much like a user’s manual. These visuals teach us how the laws work in spirituality, and how we can influence them with mind and will, consequently affecting the results that will return to affect us.
Read the rest of this entry »
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