The Creation of the World

Question: How does Kabbalah relate to the contradiction between the creation of the world 5,770 years ago and the time of the “Big Bang”?

The Big Bang occurred approximately 14 billion years ago. Its cause was a spark of the upper light that reached its lowest level—egoism. The spark contained within it all the matter and energy of our world, and from it the entire universe was created.

Planet Earth was created approximately 4.6 billion years ago as a result of the condensation of the solar system. In time, the crust of the Earth cooled, the atmosphere was formed and life began. None of it was coincidental. Everything that happens is a manifestation of information that preexisted in the initial spark of light.

Following the inanimate nature, plants appeared, then animals, and finally man. The interpretation of evolution based on its superficial appearance—that species evolve from other species, which then evolve into even more species—is incorrect.

The reason for the appearance of every detail in nature is the information that was initially rooted in the spark of light. Kabbalah explains evolution as a process of unfolding bits of data (genes), called Reshimot (recollections).

Man developed from the ape hundreds of thousands of years ago, as the ARI (Isaac Luria) writes in The Tree of Life. However, only 5,770 years ago (as of the writing of this book) was a point in the heart first awakened in a human being. His name was Adam, from the verse Adame la’Elion (”I shall be like the Most High” Isaiah, 14:14). His name reflected his desire to resemble the Creator.

The day Adam revealed the spiritual world is called “the day of Creation.” This was when humanity first touched the spiritual world, which is why it is the point from which the Hebrew count of years begins. According to the plan of Creation, within 6,000 years we must all attain the level of the Creator. This will be called “the end of correction” (of the human ego).

Small Village, Global Ego

Throughout the history of humanity, there was only one period in which the wisdom of Kabbalah was available to all. It was in ancient Babylon, a city that functioned like a small village, where every individual could influence the lives of everyone else. Society in Babylon existed as a single system, hence the need for the wisdom of Kabbalah, which teaches how to implement the law of “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Abraham the Patriarch, a native of Babylon, called for the implementation of this law, but only a few listened to him. Only those in whom the point in the heart had revealed followed him and employed the wisdom of Kabbalah. Reflecting their deepest desire, they called themselves “Israel,” from the words,Yashar El (straight to God), meaning directly to the quality of the Creator.

All the others in Babylon preferred not to unite, but to remain distant from each other. They scattered over the face of the Earth, and generation by generation they pursued the drives that the ego naturally aroused in them.

Abraham’s group grew and developed to the size of a nation: the nation of Israel. But 2,000 years ago, a huge ego suddenly appeared within us and we fell from the degree of love of others to unfounded hatred. We lost the feeling of life as a unified system, the encompassing feeling of love disappeared, and the Creator was concealed from us. Only a few with unique qualities were drawn to revealing the Creator, engaged with the wisdom, and developed it from generation to generation, waiting for the time when all would need it.

Recently, the circle began to close and the two routes that separated in Babylon are merging.Again, the world is becoming a small village, and again, we are egoists. But now there is nowhere to run. We have become so interdependent that we are compelled to implement the law, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches how to attain the love of others in order to survive. Today, it is being revealed to everyone once more to teach us how to thrive in the new world.

True Kabbalah

The wisdom of Kabbalah was hidden for thousands of years, providing fertile ground for the springing of diverse theories as to its essence. All of them were incorrect. Today, the study of authentic Kabbalah is open to all, without any restrictions or prerequisites. However, it is important to know that the wisdom of Kabbalah engages only with man’s correction.

“This wisdom is no more and no less than a sequence of roots, which hang down by way of cause and consequence, by fixed, determined rules, interweaving to a single, exalted goal described as “the revelation of His Godliness to His creatures in this world. ...the whole of humanity is obligated to eventually come to this immense evolvement.”

(Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”)

A Ladder to Infinity

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us that we live in a multi-layered reality.

Reality is divided into two basic levels—our world and the upper, concealed world.

The upper world consists of 125 different degrees of existence positioned one atop the other, like a ladder with 125 rungs.

At present, we exist below even the lowest rung on the ladder. The point in the heart evokes us to climb up to its first rung.

When we discover that there is a higher rung, the urge to reach it and climb up the ladder will awaken in us until we reach its top.

This form of development will lead us to infinity.

The Wisdom of the Hidden

We research our world through science and discover that which is concealed from us.

The knowledge that science accumulates helps us in this world. Even if we know nothing from our own life experience, we trust scientists, physicians, and other experts. Although science has not yet discovered everything about our world, with time, more of the concealed becomes revealed.

Yet, there is another part to reality, a concealed world, a higher world that science cannot discover. To be able to sense this part of reality, one must correct one’s nature, the ego, and acquire the quality of love and bestowal. Only then does one begin to sense the concealed world and study it scientifically.

The different belief systems and religions are theories regarding the hidden world (God) and the things this world compels us to do. These theories are diverse, often contradictory, and exist precisely because that part of reality is concealed from us. However, none of them provides practical recommendations for revealing the concealed world (revealing God).

Kabbalists are people who have acquired the quality of love and bestowal, through which they have attained the concealed world. They describe the structure of the upper world and offer the opportunity to reveal it to anyone who is interested. We are not required to change our ways of life, since there is no connection between corporeal actions and the acquisition of the quality of love and bestowal. Kabbalah is not about believing in Divinity, but about revealing it.

The Indignant Question

The fundamental textbook with which we study the wisdom of Kabbalah is The Study of the Ten Sefirot. In this book, Baal HaSulam interprets the words of the ARI (Isaac Luria), which are vital for the development of the souls in our generation.

Baal HaSulam opens the preface to the book by introducing different doubts people have regarding the study of Kabbalah. He does not refer to these doubts directly, but rather turns elsewhere, to the question regarding the meaning of life:

“Indeed, if we set our hearts to answer but one very famous question, I am certain that all these questions and doubts will vanish from the horizon, and you will look unto their place to find them gone. This indignant question is a question that the whole world asks, namely, ‘What is the meaning of my life?’

“In other words, these numbered years of our lives, which cost us so heavily, and the numerous pains and torments that we suffer for them to complete them to the fullest, who is it who enjoys them? Or even more precisely, whom do I delight?

“It is indeed true that historians have grown weary contemplating it, and particularly in our generation. No one even wishes to consider it.

“Yet the question stands as bitterly and as vehemently as ever. Sometimes it meets us uninvited, pecks at our minds and humiliates us to the ground before we find the famous ploy of flowing mindlessly in the currents of life as always.”

(Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 2)

The wisdom of Kabbalah is for anyone who can no longer ignore the question about the meaning of life.