I find the Kabbalah I’ve studied in various classes is parallel to self help books and focuses on the “I” or “me”. One course I took was described as”reflective approaches to chart your own path to personal growth.” I have come to learn from our Sages that this is a form of idol worship as one is using connection to G-d for personal gain and/or benefit. I find true Kabbalah, not watered down, is about Israel – straight to G-d and altruism and realizing that all people are connected and effect each other. The true purpose of Kabbalah is to bring all humanity together with the realization that we are all echad. What is your take on this as this difference has been a wieght on my mind lately?
Thank you for your excellent question. The questions that you are asking apply to all levels of Torah, not only Toras HaSod (the “Hidden” or “Mystical” Aspects of Torah), or Kabbalah. All parts of Torah have a “Mystical” aspect as well as a “Revealed” aspect. The question is not about the true purpose of Kabbalah as much as the true purpose of Torah.
Through Torah, including Kabbalah, we learn how to improve ourselves so we can improve the world. When one helps oneself, one is indeed helping the entire world. Maimonides taught that one should see the world as 50% good and 50% evil, and if you perform a good deed, then the scales are tipped to the side of merit, as well as the opposite. If one ignores one’s own needs, one cannot help others. If you starve to death, you cannot help someone else because you are not here. This is true both in material and in spiritual matters.
Thus a path of personal growth does have the potential to be completely altruistic. You are correct that if personal growth is totally an ends to its self it does have the potential to be idolatrous, but if it is a path to be able to help others than it can be altruistic. Thus the path to personal growth, which may be illuminated with Kabbalistic understanding, etc., is an altruistic one if properly focused.
All the best,
Rabbi Kolakowski
Richmond, VA