Bible Studies

Kabbalah – The 99% World

One of the basic principles of the Kabbalah is that there exist two realities:
“Our 1% World of Darkness and the 99% realm of Light”, wherein, one has access to the 1% of the physical reality through one’s 5 senses (Touch, Hear, Taste, Smell, Sight) and the 99% of reality is the source of all lasting fulfillment.

Let’s walk this in details:
According to the Kabbalah, the 1% is the physical reality in which you can smell, see, touch, taste and hear.

- What does it imply?

Since you cannot use your 5 senses, in awareness of all that is here, of all that exists, everything that is not in your direct environment isn’t part of the 1%, which according to the Kabbalah it means that it is part of the 99%, as the “lasting fulfillment”.

- But is it?

If we look at that equation, the starving child in the other side of the world, is part of the 99% because you don’t see the skin that covers his body that consist of only bones and organs, you can’t hear his crying for food, you can’t touch him, you can’t taste him and you can’t smell his bad body smell due to not having sufficient hygiene facilities.

Now, let’s take it one step further:

- Can you use your 5 senses to feel your cells in your physical human body?
- Can you feel the blood moving in your veins?
- Can you speak with your body and with every cell of your body, and with every organ?

- No.
- Does it mean that it doesn’t exist as the physical reality which represents the 1%?

From here, we can simply see that this basic principle of the Kabbalah was made from

the starting point of separation.

 

 

Ethics or Mussar explained

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1. What is Mussar?
a. Literally, it means “correction or instruction.”
b. It also serves as the simple Modern Hebrew word for ethics.
c. But it is most accurately described as “a way of life.”

 

2. Its essence:
a. It is a spiritual practice that enables one to refine one’s character traits, allowing us to transform ourselves, to move toward wholeness, to realize our highest spiritual potential and to live everyday life with happiness, trust and love.
b. In Judaism we believe that each of us is endowed with every one of a full range of
“middot” or traits of character.
- In Hebrew, middah literally means measure.

What distinguishes us from one another is not that you have one trait and I have another, but rather the degree or measure of the traits that exists in each of us.

For example, the angriest person has an excess of anger, but Mussar insists there must be some degree of calm in him as well. Just as there must be some anger in even the calmest person.

Similarly, the stingiest person still has at least a grain of generosity. It is not whether we have certain traits, while someone else has different ones, but rather the degree, or measure, of the traits that live in each of our souls. This is what gives us our distinctive way of being in the world and is where our traits are measured on the continuum.

The goal is not to rid ourselves of certain traits, since each has a role, but rather to correct the measure of the specific trait within us.

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c. Each of us is assigned to master something in our lives.
You have already been given your assignment and you have already encountered it, though you may not be aware that what faces you is a curriculum.

- Since each self and life is unique and individual, each of us has a personal curriculum.

- Waking up your personal curriculum and guiding you in steps toward mastering it, is the central task of your life and the purpose of Mussar.

- Your spiritual curriculum is made up of the issues in your life that keep challenging you, the behaviours that get you into trouble over and over again.