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 doesn’t 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, completely 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.
Many Kabbalistic books have been written about it, starting with Abraham the
Patriarch four thousand years ago, who wrote a book called Sefer Yetzira (The Book of
Creation). The next important work is The Book of Zohar, written in the second
century CE. The Zohar is followed by the works of the Ari, a renowned 16th century
Kabbalist. And the twentieth century saw the appearance of the works of Kabbalist
Yehuda Ashlag.
Ashlag’s texts are best suited for our generation. They, as well as other Kabbalistic
sources, describe the structure of the upper 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. Studying 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.
We, for the most part, study the six volume textbook Talmud Eser Sefirot (The Study
of the Ten Sefirot), written by Yehuda Ashlag. It is designed as a study aid with
questions, answers, materials for repetition and memorization, explanations, graphics
and drawings. This is, if you will, the physics of the upper 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 spiritual world, one gradually adapts 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. During this ascent, the study of Kabbalah
builds within the student a system equal to the higher system.
This system begins to organize and manifest itself in the person who wants to achieve
it, and who studies it for this purpose. Just like a drop of semen can potentially evolve
into an entire human being, and subsequently grows into a mature grown-up, the
science of Kabbalah develops our desire to attain a higher level of existence.
At first this is a tiny desire, called “a point in the heart.” This point is like the embryo
of our future states. By studying the structure of the upper world, we develop the
“genetic” information within it, and as it grows, the structure resembling the higher
levels forms within us.
This is why studying is so rewarding. Even if we do not understand a single thing
about what we are reading, simply trying to understand the Kabbalistic texts nurtures
the point in the heart, the desire for the Higher One, and the point begins to grow. The
more it grows, the more we feel the appearance of a new creation, a new and different
feeling of a world within ourselves.
In so doing, the science of Kabbalah gives us the opportunity to feel the upper worlds,
to understand everything that happens to us, and most of all, to control this process for
ourselves.