How Do I Develop Kabbalistic Knowledge?

The wisdom of Kabbalah is the science of the theoretical and practical. When a person begins to study, he first learns the theory: the number of worlds, Partzufim, Sefirot; how they are differentiated; how they are formed and extended from above to below according to a hierarchy from the Light to the matter in our world, and how from the matter of our world they again ascend to the Light. In principle, this is the wisdom of Kabbalah.

It is presented in summary in the article by Baal HaSulam “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” along with a similar article by Ramchal “138 Gates of Wisdom,” and a further series of texts by other authors who illuminate the wisdom of Kabbalah in detail. It is revealed in a more comprehensive form in the book, “Etz Hayim” by the Ari and in the six volumes of the Study of the Ten Sefirot by Baal HaSulam.

In addition, many other Kabbalists devoted large serious texts to the wisdom of Kabbalah, expounding, from a scientific point of view, the system of management of our world, which it is located in. But all these texts are intended only to describe the spiritual world to ourselves intellectually, even though it is not possible to understand it with the intellect and it is not possible to describe it to ourselves visually.

As it is written in section 154 of The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot, the Kabbalists always wrote and write only for those who are already in attainment, with the feeling and the vision of the upper world. When a person like this reads what is written by others, he imagines what the author wanted to say completely precisely, clearly, and tangibly.

Thus Kabbalists shared their knowledge with each other, but it is understandable only to them because they are feeling the same upper world, the system that manages our world. And those who don’t have that feeling cannot imagine it. They only mechanically juggle different concepts and definitions. But this doesn’t give anything. The concepts remain incomprehensible.

So it is difficult to say what the point of studying them is. But according to what Baal HaSulam wrote in that section 154 of the Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot, there is great meaning to relate to the writings of the Kabbalists in a special way because people who wrote these texts were in attainment of a higher energy, the Upper Light.

As a general rule, the books of Kabbalah were written in Hebrew or Aramaic. Aramaic is related to the Hebrew language, which was in use 3,500 years ago in ancient Babylon along with Hebrew.

If a person in our world doesn’t understand and know what is written, and doesn’t even know the language the book is written in, it makes no difference. Suppose that a person knows only Chinese. If he would sit next to the Kabbalists and listen to what they are say and studying, then through his immense desire to understand and attain, he would begin to awaken and invite the Upper Light upon himself.

A unique illumination will descend upon him, and under its influence the person will gradually begin to feel what the Kabbalists are talking about within himself, even without understanding their language. And in time, he will even begin to understand the language.

When I was studying with Rabash, I received a letter from a person in Russia in a distant labor camp in Siberia. He wrote that suddenly knowledge of the Hebrew language was opened in him and he wanted to travel to Israel. Attached to his letter were attached poems that were written in Hebrew. When I showed them to experts, they were amazed because he had written in a very high level of Hebrew.

How could he know it? He didn’t know either. It was simply that an immense desire awakened in him the manifestation of this language. Rabash once said that through such a desire a person can attain the entire knowledge of the wisdom of Kabbalah.

This is because it is specifically through desire, not knowledge and understanding, that the Upper Light begins to work within a person.

So those who don’t understand the language must be concerned about only one thing: a small desire to attain the world of the Creator. If it constantly develops, they will achieve everything.

Incidentally, that person from Siberia later immigrated to Israel, published his poems and disappeared. This suggests that as long as he was suffering in the labor camp, he had a desire, but when he immigrated to Israel, and everything was revealed before him, the desire disappeared.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 5/8/16