The Best Situation
Q: How does Baal HaSulam relate to human life?
A: There are prisoners who have food and water and are content with life. They need nothing more. They don’t even want to leave their prison. But then there are others who are free to walk the earth, yet feel as though they live their whole lives in prison. They would give anything to break free.
The difference between these two approaches to life results from variations in our spiritual development, the development of our souls.
Baal HaSulam writes that there are people who think only of themselves, or the well - being of their families, or even that of their city or town. Others think of the wellbeing of the whole nation, and yet others of the whole world.
Yet, how can one picture that the whole world is imprisoned while being free to do whatever one wishes, without feeling that in fact, there is no freedom of choice, that one is limited in every way, as is the entire world?
As a student of Kabbalah, my primary goal is to perceive that I am imprisoned, that the cage limits my freedom, and that I should do anything to get out of that cage. I begin by seeing that outside the cage there is another life, fuller and more beautiful than I could ever imagine. I realize that without that beauty, my world until that moment has been dreadful in its emptiness. The soul cannot evolve in such a world.
If you try to see yourself living outside of that cage, try to feel the spiritual freedom; it will be easier for you to understand the means of getting out of your current situation.
The wisdom of Kabbalah is not opium for the masses, because opium means deception. Why was the use of drugs prohibited all over the world? Because drugs create an illusion of freedom, with severe consequences. Man feels that he is in a completely different situation; he purposely misleads his own senses. Kabbalah accomplishes exactly the opposite. The first phase in the study is the opening of the eyes, making one see the world for what it really is.
In fact, man is always in the best possible situation, yet he feels the complete opposite, because he can only understand his own reactions, his own corporeal attributes, which are self-centered and limited in scope and abilities. These are attributes that have not been corrected through Kabbalah. The system taught by the wisdom of Kabbalah is a process of gradual spiritual evolution, the discovery of the Creator through the screen