A Kabbalist’s Attributes

Question: Can a Kabbalist be annoyed and impatient with those around him at times?

Answer: If a person engages in the dissemination of the wisdom of Kabbalah and wants to achieve something, he certainly feels tension and anger, has doubts, and different questions such as how he should act in the best possible way, and whether he should do his work one way or another. Although he is already included in the upper force, he has freedom of choiceto use it in a better way, and so there is room for all the human feelings.

Question: As a Kabbalist are you ever insulted by anything?

Answer: No, what can I be insulted by? I can only be insulted by the upper force that takes everything upon itself.

Question: Is it typical of a Kabbalist to feel responsible?

Answer: A Kabbalist feels the greatest sense of responsibility because nothing forces him to work for the wellbeing of others except for a sense of responsibility and commitment that he has taken upon himself. The feeling of responsibility that he has is only with regard to the Creator and not anyone else. To the extent that a Kabbalist develops spiritually, he becomes increasingly less greedy. He teaches people how to discover the Creator in the right connection between them; he serves as a teacher for his students, an advisor, a mentor, and a coach until his students can advance independently. Then he feels that he doesn’t need anything and is only happy that they don’t need him anymore and that they can advance on their own.

Question: Does a Kabbalist have to be brave?

Answer: Everyone has to be brave and especially a Kabbalist. He has to clearly understand that he is in a conflict with the Creator who is revealed to him in different ways. A person undergoes such transformations that he needs to be persistent, stubborn, brave, and steadfast. A Kabbalist cannot be cowardly under any circumstances, but must be able to stick to his opinion when facing the Creator, when the Creator is testing him and trying to divert him from the right path by invoking in him different doubts, which thus strengthens him. This strengthening is attained thanks to a person’s very strong resistance.

Question: Is it typical of a Kabbalist to feel fear? What is he afraid of?

Answer: No, the fear disappears. A Kabbalist can only fear one thing: that he may not do what he has to do correctly.

Question: To what extent is a sense of humor important for a Kabbalist?

Answer: A sense of humor is very important in a Kabbalist’s work. I really appreciate humor and jokes and so did Rabash, my teacher, who used to listen to the jokes I told with great pleasure. Humor is a brilliant thought that comes to mind when a person encounters several awkward situations that contradict one another and knows how to connect them.

Question: Does a Kabbalist feel shame, and if so, of what?

Answer: A Kabbalist feels shame only if he doesn’t use an opportunity to attribute everything to the Creator; it isn’t shame of having been able to do something and not doing it because everything is fulfilled from Above, but it is shame of having had an opportunity to attribute what happened to the Creator and missing it. This is also arranged for him by the Creator so that he will attribute everything to Him.

Question: What would happen if I suddenly discovered that I did something 20 years ago that I feel ashamed of?

Answer: The past will be revealed to you as terrible transgressions and you have to understand that it was all done by the Creator, not by you. A person is not to blame for anything. Even the cruelest person didn’t do anything by himself. It is all arranged that way by the Creator on purpose.

Question: What is being noble for a Kabbalist?

Answer: Being noble is being committed, being responsible.

Question: Does a Kabbalist ever feel a sense of revenge or anger?

Answer: A sense of revenge is a correction. A person naturally feels angry when he cannot fulfill the corrections that depended on him, but the fact that he hasn’t corrected himself is intentionally arranged that way by the Creator. A Kabbalist is a person who is in an uncorrected state and each time rises from it to a more corrected state, and so he does have all these feelings.

Question: Is miserliness typical of a Kabbalist?

Answer: If you are referring to money, he can save money in order to spend it on dissemination.

Question: Can a Kabbalist be unfaithful?

Answer: He has a different set of values and so such things are not typical of him.

Question: Can he be jealous?

Answer: Jealousy is a positive attribute that motivates a person. We have to develop our feeling of envy of those who advance faster and further ahead along the spiritual way.
[191913]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 4/17/16