Just the Gist

• The real reality

• The door to the “sixth sense” opens

• Getting to know what we want

• At the heart of selfishness lies true giving

Now that we’ve cleared up common misconceptions about Kabbalah, let’s see what it’s really all about. This chapter briefly presents the basic concepts of Kabbalah. The terms we present and discuss in this chapter set up the language of Kabbalah that we use throughout the book.

This chapter also presents how and why your study of Kabbalah is not only good for you, but also for the benefit of society as a whole.

The Truth about Reality

In Hebrew, the word Kabbalah means “reception.” But Kabbalah isn’t just that—reception. It’s a discipline of study, a method that teaches you how to receive. Kabbalah helps you know where you truly are in relation to where you think you are. It shows the boundaries of our five senses and opens up the part that they can’t reveal by helping you develop a “sixth sense.”

This sixth sense not only enriches your life with a new dimension, but opens a door to a “brave new world.” There is no death in this world, no sorrow, no pain. And best of all, you don’t have to give up anything for it: you don’t have to die to get there; you don’t have to fast or restrain yourself in any way. In short, Kabbalah doesn’t take you away from life; it adds a whole new meaning and strength to everything that happens. That’s right, Kabbalists live life to the fullest.

Kabbalearn

In his essay “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Baal HaSulam defines Kabbalah as follows: “This wisdom is no more and no less than a sequence of roots, which hang down by way of cause and consequence in fixed, determined rules, interweaving to a single, exalted goal described as ‘the revelation of His Godliness to His creatures in this world.’”

To Receive—Discover the Force of Giving

To understand the kind of pleasure that the Kabbalist receives, it’s essential to understand a basic concept in Kabbalah: In the whole of reality, there is only a single force—the force of giving. And because that force is giving, it creates “something” to receive what it gives. The giving force in Kabbalah is called “Creator,” and what it creates is called “creation,” a “creature” or a “created being.” The created being is us, humanity as a whole and each of us in person.

This creature goes through a process of learning and development, and at its end discovers the full grandeur and beauty of its Creator. Baal HaSulam explains that this revelation of the Creator to the creature is the essence and the purpose of the whole of creation.

Reality as an Embroidery

Now let’s talk a little more about revealing the Creator. When Baal HaSulam describes the purpose of Kabbalah as “the revelation of His Godliness to His creatures in this world,” he means that the essence of Kabbalah (“reception”) is to discover the Creator because this is what gives us the ultimate pleasure.

But there is more to it: Kabbalah explains that discovering the Creator means discovering the law that governs nature. In fact, the Creator is nature. By disclosing this law of nature, Kabbalah aims to disclose reality in its entirety, the whole gamut, revealing why things happen to us and how we can not only predict them, but change them to our benefit.

Also, if you can understand all sides of nature, you can reach far beyond your present physical life, far beyond the boundaries of your five senses, as if someone has removed a blindfold from your eyes and allowed you to see the true vastness and beauty of the world.

How does it work, and what do you actually receive? Reality is like embroidery. When you look at an embroidery you see a coherent picture. But when you look behind the picture, at the threads that make up the picture, you find a mess of strings and cords that you can’t decide where they begin, where they end, and which part of the picture they belong to. Kabbalah helps you understand the threads behind the picture of reality, and teaches you how to become an embroiderer yourself, so you can build a picture that suits your liking.

The Latent Sense

Reception in Kabbalah is all about perceiving the spiritual world. It is a world invisible to the five senses, but one we certainly experience. If everything we perceive depends on our senses, it stands to reason that all we need to sense the spiritual world is a special sense that perceives it. In other words, we don’t need to look for anything outside of us, but we need to cultivate a perception that already exists within us that lies dormant. In Kabbalah, this perception is called “the sixth sense.”

Actually, the title, “sixth sense,” is a bit misleading; it is not a “sense” in the physiological meaning of the word. But because it enables us to perceive something that we otherwise wouldn’t, Kabbalists have decided to call this different means of perception “the sixth sense.”

Here’s the crux of it all: our five senses are “programmed” to serve personal interests. For this reason, all we perceive is what seems to serve our best interests. If your senses were somehow programmed to serve the interest of the whole world, then that’s what we would perceive. In this way, each of us would be able to perceive what every other person, animal, plant, or mineral in the universe perceives. We would become creatures of unlimited perception—omniscient, literally Godlike people.

Kabbalearn

In Hebrew, the name “Adam” comes from the word Domeh, as in Dome la Elyon (similar to the Upper One), as described in the verse, “I will be like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:14).

In such an unbounded state, the five senses would be used in a very different way. Instead of focusing on personal interests, they would serve as means of communication with others. This is why the sixth sense, which enables perception of the spiritual worlds, is not a sense in the usual meaning of the word; it is the intention with which we use our senses. Intention is a critical Kabbalah concept that we explore more fully in Chapter 4.

On Course

Basically, intention is the “goal” for which we act. If we want to benefit ourselves, then all we see is ourselves and all that we have created. But if we want to benefit the Creator, then all we’ll see will be the Creator’s world and all that He has created.

The Creator Has to Give; We Have to Receive

Kabbalah is really very simple, once you know it. It explains that the Creator is benevolent and that He wants to give us endless, infinite pleasure. Because the Creator is benevolent, He created us with an endless, infinite desire to receive the pleasure He wants to give. In Kabbalah, this is called “the will to receive delight and pleasure,” or, in short, “the will to receive.”

In his “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” Baal HaSulam explains the Creator’s necessity to create the will to receive (creatures):

Since the Thought of Creation was to bestow upon His creatures, He had to create in the souls a great measure of desire to receive that which He had thought to give them. …Thus, the Thought of Creation itself necessarily dictates the creation of an excessive will to receive in the souls, to fit the immense pleasure that His Almightiness thought to bestow upon the souls.

In other words, we have the capability, potential, and even unconscious desire to connect with the Creator and, in receiving His pleasures, enhance our joy in living.

Selfish to the Core

But in practice, there are consequences to such an immense will to receive. Baal HaSulam himself describes the complexity of the human condition in his essay “Peace in the World”:

each and every individual feels himself in the world of the Creator, as a sole ruler, that all the others were created only to ease and improve his life, without him feeling any obligation whatsoever to give anything in return.

In plain words, we’re selfish to the core. However, when corrected, this extreme egoism becomes the highest level of altruism and benevolence.

The Most Egoistic Desire: to Be an Altruist

But being born selfish doesn’t mean we will remain selfish forever. Remember that the Creator is benevolent; He has nothing on His mind but giving. As a result, He creates creatures that want only to receive. These creatures begin to receive what He gives, more, and more, and more. Endlessly.

Spiritual Sparks

There is a wonderful, invaluable remedy to those who engage in the wisdom of Kabbalah …. [T]hey awaken upon themselves the Lights that surround their souls …. [T]he illumination received time-after-time during the study draws upon one grace from Above, imparting abundance of sanctity and purity, which bring one much closer to perfection.

—Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

As the will to receive evolves in creatures, an almost magical transformation takes place. They not only want what the Creator gives, but they also want to actually be Creators. Think of how every child wants to become like his or her parents. Think, too, how the very basis of learning is the little one’s desire to grow. Kabbalists say the child’s will to be a grown up stems from the creature’s desire to be like its Creator.

If your parents are your role models, you would study their actions and do your best to emulate them and become a grownup, too. Similarly, if the Creator is your role model, you would study the Creator in order to become like Him. If the Creator you study is all about giving, about benevolence, you can see how the extreme egoism of wanting to become “Creatorlike” can be turned into altruism (which we explore more fully in upcoming chapters), because that’s what He is. In Kabbalah, the ability to be like the Creator is called “achieving the attribute of bestowal.”

On Course

Another way to think about this idea of altruism is to remember that Kabbalah reminds us that we are not separate from but part of our world. Altruism is about being one with others, united with them. From this perspective, altruism is an intelligent way to look out for our own welfare, as well.

The implication, though it may sound like an oxymoron, is that every person’s most egoistic desire is to be like the Creator: a total altruist.

In a Nutshell

• Kabbalah provides a method by which you learn to receive.

• The Creator’s primary desire is to give pleasure, so He imbues His creations with a desire to receive that pleasure.

• The “sixth sense” allows you to perceive higher spiritual worlds.

• The purpose of Kabbalah is the revelation of the Creator while we are living here in this world.

• The biggest egoists want to be like the Creator: altruists.