How Can You Tell What Is Good, What Is Evil?

Good and evil is an eternal topic, but in the article “Peace in the World,” Baal HaSulam writes that good and evil are evaluated by the actions of the individual toward society.

That is, he immediately takes a completely different direction, and so our actions are evaluated in a totally different way. Although the actions of any person can be so personal and individual that it seems impossible to attribute them to society; nevertheless, they are evaluated only in relation to society.

Question: Can I say: “I did a good deed”?

Answer: No. No matter how good or how bad you treat a plant, an animal, a person, or even yourself, you influence the environment, the society, with your thoughts and actions. Therefore, everything is evaluated in relation to society: how will it change, what will happen to it.

This is how you measure whether your actions are good or bad and to what extent.

How can I know whether my natural actions are good or bad in relation to society? I stroke a child’s head, so this is a good action. How does it affect society? How can I evaluate it?

All my actions, whatever they are, bring some consequences to the environment. How can I feel this?

Remark: But we usually say that a person performed a good deed or that he harmed someone.

My Comment: But how do you know? Let’s say you beat someone. Did you correct him through that?

The fact is that until we feel the entire system of nature we exist in, how we affect it, and what reactions we receive from it, we will not be able to behave correctly and correctly assess our behavior.

We have no indicator, evaluator, or a measuring device, something that I can look at and say: “This was positive and now it is negative” and to what extent.

If I felt this, then I could demand something from myself, and I would see on others, they would be my device, like the arrow on a dial that moves toward good, plus, or toward evil, minus. Then I could go around everyone and be proud that I have everything in plus.

Remark: But there are generally accepted laws of human society that we must comply with.

My Comment: Of course, in nature there are laws, but in human society they are totally distorted. This is the problem. We do not know how we behave. Is our behavior good or bad, and what consequences our actions have? Of course, this is terrible.

Question: How does a Kabbalist weigh his actions to determine if they are correct or not?

Answer: If I do not control myself and I act instinctively, my actions are completely wrong, evil, and they harm society and the world.

If I want to act correctly, I must connect with the society around me, unite with it, feel how close I am to it, exist in it, feel it, control my actions, and feel their consequences in the society around me, in the intention of bestowal and love, independently of myself. This is when I can say that I am acting correctly.

However, this requires practice, a methodology for how to exit myself, enter others, and begin to feel in the connection with them. In this case, you will begin to feel yourself in a different world.
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From KabTVs “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,”  7/21/19