Morning Lesson December 7, 2023

Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio.

Part 3:

Baal HaSulam. The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy

Reading What Is Spirituality? (00:15) “Philosophy has gone through a great…”

Reading Philosophy with Regards to His Essence. (02:53) “Philosophy loves…”

1. S. (05:45) Before the philosophers, there were teachings in the world, there was knowledge, except science was not organized; from where does the need for a theory come, something that studies, something that is unattainable?

R. Man wants to know everything and if he can imagine something that is not even perceived by his senses then he wants to imagine it with his fantasies, just like that. There is no foundation for it other than what we have in our minds, this urge to nevertheless imagine something, but there are no premises.

S. But philosophers did organize, science became built, organized?

R. Yes that is correct, but afterwards they couldn't continue because it’s all based on imagination.

S. That it’s something that Kabbalists say that it is a curse, philosophy, that damned philosophy?

R. Yes, because it deviates people from the right path, both from science and from life, from regular research. And it not only confuses, it leads humanity, it brings to humanity all kinds of theories that put it into problems and wars and such troubles that cost us dearly.

S. But today no one appreciates it but its results are still, a lot of harm that exists in humanity to this day?

R. Yes, that is correct.

S. So what does the wisdom of Kabbalah offer in order to correct all of this?

R. The fact that we still cannot brush off philosophy when we still hold it, we still maintain it, we do. When I was doing my dissertation for my PhD in Philosophy, I was at the Institute of Science and there were several hundred students and ninety percent of them were female students, and that's it, it's still kept, continued.

S. In what is the revelation of the wisdom of Kabbalah in the world to the extent that it reveals itself as the wisdom of Truth, it will cleanse this damage that philosophy did?

R. I think it'll take a long time because humanity still doesn't understand where it is, but gradually, bit by bit, each and every day we are still, nevertheless, moving away from philosophy. Life itself is erasing philosophy between us, we're beginning to mock it, to slight it and to move away from it; please, that is clear, right?

2. S. (10:12) Why aren't there negative laws in the wisdom of Kabbalah?

R. Because you can do whatever you want, but if it is a science then you have to bring proof.

S. And nothing is negated in the work?

R. Nothing is negated if a person can attain it, and what he cannot attain, we do not talk about it.

S. He says that we don't research His Essence because it is disconnected from our attainment.

R. Correct?

S. But there are many things we don't attain in the wisdom?

R. In the meantime, in the meantime, but there are such Kabbalists who attain or did attain. This is why we can say we can never attain, and that we can attain according to our degrees.

S. And if we research His essence?

R. How can you research in His self if you don't attain it?

S. But I don't attain other laws in creation, but I research because I'm drawing light.

R. How do you draw a light, I don't understand, this is interesting. How can you draw something from what you do not attain?

S. As he writes in Letter One Fifty-Five in The Introduction to TES, that even if I do not attain it, from engaging in it, and reading, and so on?

R. We have a law that we can engage in something and receive from there an illumination.

S. Even though we don't understand it?

R. Yes, well understanding is already a different type of illumination.

S. So what if we research His Essence, can we extract an elimination from it?

R. No, you have nothing to grip on.

S. So, there are things that we do not attain but we can research and there are things that we do not attain, and you don't research, like His Essence?

R. Yes.

3. S. (12:40) Could we scrutinize the disconnection between corporeality and spirituality?

R. You can grasp corporeality in your senses, the ones you were born with and developed with.

S. In spirituality?

R. In spirituality, you don't have the vessels that you are born with or developed with, and therefore you need to perform special actions here if you want to attain it, if you have an inner drive and inner urge to attain them.

S. So if there is no contact between spirituality and corporeality, how can we attain spirituality?

R. Why must there be a connection?

S. How can a person in corporality ascend to spirituality?

R. He is not born only in corporeality, he doesn't know how he was born, or how he developed; in short, the question is, what are you saying?

S. A person in corporeality attaining spirituality.

R. He attains spirituality by the point in the heart developing in him, as we call it, and he is drawn to attain the spiritual world, the spiritual laws.

S. What is that, is that a beginning of a connection, the point in the heart?

R. Yes.

S. How does it awaken in a person, how does it come to a person, such a point?

R. This we do not know, there are those that the Creator places it in their hearts and there are those that don't, and in some more and in others less.

S. What does it mean, we don't know, is there someone who does know?

R. There are people who feel, who have a tendency to attain the Creator, to feel Him, to understand him, a tendency towards spirituality, all in all, and this is what we need to develop.

S. But if there's no connection between corporeality and spirituality, how does a beginning of that connection, how does it start?

R. But what does it have to do with corporeality?

S. A person is in a corporeal reality with his senses, of his desires, there is no connection to spirituality.

R. Well, this is what you are saying, but saying that there is no connection is like saying that there is a connection.

S. He writes here if you could scrutinize this: “Their mistake was in spiritual perception, that they determined that it gave birth to corporeality and that is false.” What does that mean?

R. That spirituality is not born from corporeality.

S. So how is corporeality born?

R. I don't know.

S. What does it mean that spirituality did not father corporeality?

R. It doesn’t give birth to it, it’s got nothing that is contained in corporeality.

S. What is corporeality, what is spirituality, and why doesn't it give birth to the other?

R. I don't know, we will decide and keep learning and reading, and maybe we will understand what he writes here.

S. If there is a law of root and branch in reality?

R. It depends on what it belongs to.

S. What does that mean?

R. It means that I don't know what root and branch you want to draw a line from.

S. I read with Baal HaSulam that in all reality there is root and branches, and every root clothes in a branch, and every branch is a root for the next branch until our world.

R. Yes?

S. So, it does come to our world, or is there a disconnection at some point in this process of root and branch, root and branch, until we feel the reality that we feel and live in?

R. Yes.

S. Yes, there is a disconnection or a connection?

R. Yes, there is a disconnection.

S. How can that be?

R. Because in our five senses, we do not feel spirituality.

S. Because there’s a disconnection from below, from us to spirituality, that we stopped feeling the roots.

R. Yes.

S. But on behalf of spirituality, is there a disconnection?

R. How can we speak from the perspective of spirituality?

S. Someone who is in spirituality, he attains corporeality and spirituality. Does he see a connection or disconnection between spiritual and corporeal?

R. He probably perceives that there is a connection.

S. So there's a connection only for someone who is attaining spirituality?

R. Yes.

S. So, that is the meaning of this disconnection?

R. I don’t know, you’re asking me above what we know, and feel, and this is why I cannot answer you directly.

4. S. (18:51) To explain the matter that the wisdom of Kabbalah only explains a part of all of reality, it doesn't engage its essence.

R. From everything that the wisdom of Kabbalah explains, it explains not His self but the Creator; His self is the Creator, Himself, this, no one can say or talk about or explain or express, it is impossible.

S. And this attempt to explain beyond it, His Essence it’s due to fail, such an explanation?

R. Yes, of course, it is stupidity, how can you talk about the Creator, what He thinks, what He plans, what He is in Himself, it’s even more than that, He, Himself, how can you?

S. So this engagement of philosophy is actually?

R. Philosophy is even beyond that, it wants to include everything that the Creator is in and speak this way.

S. And that is what fails all of philosophy because the engagement is just to reach a point that you cannot engage in?

R. Because they look at reality this way, by this, they erase themselves.

5. S. (20:43) We live in contradictions since we were born, and the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us how to work with these contradictions, to bring light to them. Without them, a person cannot Implement themselves.

R. Rav nods.

6. S. (21:13) Studying philosophy can ruin for young people all kinds of perceptions of reality, they see it, you can actually bring them closer to the wisdom of Kabbalah, so is it better to teach them philosophy?

R. No, philosophy is not a bridge between people and Kabbalah, it confuses people a lot. This is why we see that, naturally, today it is completely declining and moving away from science as it was initially in science. Today it is the last, it used to be the first, now it is the last, and you don't need to study philosophy in order to study physics or chemistry or all those things. Although we still call it, call PhD, philosophy doctorate still remains, the title. But in truth, there is no real connection with philosophy itself, our perception of reality, and the way that philosophy wants to open it. It is just unrealistic, and it is already obvious to everyone, evident.

S. What should a Kabbalah student who teaches philosophy do, our friend in the Ten who teaches philosophy, what should he do?

R. A Kabbalah student who teaches philosophy?

S. He teaches philosophy in school.

R. Continue, you need to make a living, and that is it; but for yourself study something else, for yourself, study Kabbalah. You can't help it, philosophy is already, it's gone off the human stage, and it is not used anymore, not used, except for philosophers themselves, who also don't understand each other, no one respects philosophy.

7. S. (24:34) What is the difference between man's qualities, one who has drawn to philosophy and one who has drawn to Kabbalah?

R. Those who are drawn to the wisdom of Kabbalah it’s because they want to know, to attain, and then when they begin to study, they learn what it means to go above reason, which is the means by which to really attain the Creator, to attain the upper reality and that is the difference.

S. Can a person drawn to philosophy, what does he search for?

R. He is searching for knowledge, but also there are a lot of, many kinds of knowledge here, that talk about imagination, they talk about, I don't know how to say it. In short, it is, well, help me, help me say it, you don't want to. I think that today's philosophy only confuses people and although we use many words and discernments that we take from it. But in itself, in general, it has completely disconnected from all of the human research.

S. So because of that reason, Kabbalists in our time, let themselves interpret the wisdom of Kabbalah in a way that will be more clear because it is not going into philosophy anymore?

R. Yes.

S. Still, I think that's what we learn, and I think maybe, there are people who are still trying to understand the world they are living in scientifically and then they discover the wisdom of Kabbalah, and they see that there are interesting things there and then they come to study. And a person who did start his path with a philosophical search, would he be able to be drawn to something that the wisdom of Kabbalah wants to give him?

R. Yes, yes of course, he can go from philosophy to Kabbalah and all kinds of forms of philosophy into Kabbalah, yes of course. I think that this is really the way that the Creator arranged for us in general, the whole entry into the wisdom of Kabbalah and into science through philosophy.