What does Kabbalah Teach and What does Studying Kabbalah Do for Me?

The science of Kabbalah is unique in the way it talks about you and me, about all of us. It doesnt deal with anything abstract, only with the way we are created and how we function at higher levels of existence. One of its sections talks about the descent of the higher forces from the world of Infinity. The world of Infinity is our initial state, and there we exist as a single, unified system of souls, com letely interconnected. Then, from the world of Infinity, we study the sequence of worlds, Sefirot and Partzufim as they descend to the world we live in. !any Kabbalistic books have been written about it, starting with "braham the #atriarch four thousand years ago, who wrote a book called Sefer Yetzira $The Book of Creation%. The next im ortant work is The Book of Zohar, written in the second century &'. The Zohar is followed by the works of the "ri, a renowned () th century Kabbalist. "nd the twentieth century saw the a earance of the works of Kabbalist *ehuda "shlag. "shlags texts are best suited for our generation. They, as well as other Kabbalistic sources, describe the structure of the u er worlds, how they descend and successively bring lower worlds into existence, and how our world came into being, the universe, our globe, and how life evolved. +tudying how that system was created and how it descends to our world allows us to master the method of entering this system and governing it. ,e, for the most art, study the six volume textbook Talmud Eser Sefirot $The Study of the Ten Sefirot%, written by *ehuda "shlag. It is designed as a study aid with questions, answers, materials for re etition and memori-ation, ex lanations, gra hics and drawings. This is, if you will, the hysics of the u er world, describing the laws and forces governing the universe. This material gradually transforms the students, because when searching how to enter and begin to live in the s iritual world, one gradually ada ts oneself to the material. The science of Kabbalah does not deal with life in this world. Instead, by studying this system we re.attain our level before we descended, the same level where we will be at the end of our ascent from this world. /uring this ascent, the study of Kabbalah builds within the student a system equal to the higher system. This system begins to organi-e and manifest itself in the erson who wants to achieve it, and who studies it for this ur ose. 0ust like a dro of semen can otentially evolve into an entire human being, and subsequently grows into a mature grown.u , the science of Kabbalah develo s our desire to attain a higher level of existence. "t first this is a tiny desire, called 1a oint in the heart.2 This oint is like the embryo of our future states. 3y studying the structure of the u er world, we develo the 1genetic2 information within it, and as it grows, the structure resembling the higher levels forms within us.

This is why studying is so rewarding. 'ven if we do not understand a single thing about what we are reading, sim ly trying to understand the Kabbalistic texts nurtures the oint in the heart, the desire for the 4igher One, and the oint begins to grow. The more it grows, the more we feel the a earance of a new creation, a new and different feeling of a world within ourselves. In so doing, the science of Kabbalah gives us the o ortunity to feel the u er worlds, to understand everything that ha ens to us, and most of all, to control this rocess for ourselves.