What Is the Meaning of Our Lives?
Q: People asked about the meaning of their lives in previous generations, but in our generation everyone can study Kabbalah. Is that because of our virtues or because of our sins?
A: Yes, it’s true that such questions are not new. But in our generation, the question about the meaning of our lives is being asked more acutely. The souls that return to our world are riper now, better prepared. In the past, people were less interested in finding the meaning of their lives, and more interested in science, social science, culture, literature, and so on.
But nowadays we have become disillusioned with everything: there is less talk about the ability of science to provide peace of mind and confidence; people often seek answers to the most basic questions about the anguish they experience, and they are finally beginning to understand that the source of all this trouble is the concealment of the Creator and dissimilarity from Him. They are beginning to feel a yearning to connect with Him, and that ultimately leads them to Kabbalah.
Humanity is approaching a state of searching for the meaning of life, but not on the level of our world, as they have realize that there is no happiness in high technology, or the development of our culture and ethics. Drugs and other accessories for pleasure produce a desire to avoid such questions as the desire to understand the meaning of life, but nonetheless, it remains as vital.
Kabbalah & Me
Q: Has everything been preordained?
A: The starting point and final point are determined by the Creator. But the way from the starting to the final points depends on us. We have the ability to choose which way to reach the purpose of Creation. But even at the starting point we operate under the pressure of our absolute egoism. We are its slaves and are motivated only by egoistic desires.
When we change our nature from egoism to altruism, we also become slaves, but this time to an altruistic nature. The freedom of desire is only in the choice of whom to serve: Pharaoh or Moses. Therefore, the entire Torah is a guide to attain the purpose of Creation. As it is said, “I have Created the evil inclination, I have created for it the Torah as a spice” (Gomorrah Masechet Kidushin p. 30;2), meaning, "I have created egoism and I have given the Torah/Kabbalah in order to correct it."
All the parts in the Torah were given to us to match our attributes with those of the Creator. But each generation must focus on a certain part of the Torah.
A Kabbalist named Moses rose to the spiritual world through his spiritual understanding, meaning he was able to feel spiritual degrees, and he described them in a book he called "the Torah."
The Torah strictly forbids depicting of spiritual phenomenon as physical entities. It is forbidden to picture a distinguished old man named Moses climbing down Mt.Sinai with a book of Torah in his hand. Torah means "the Light of the Creator." Every word in the Torah is a name of the Creator. The names of the Creator are one’s sensations of Him, while He Himself has no name.
It is the attaining individual who gives names to the Creator according to one's perception of Him: “Kind”, “Merciful”, “Mighty”, “Fearful” and so on. The Torah describes everything Moses discovered and understood of the spiritual worlds, everything that the Creator revealed before him and commanded him to convey to us so that we perform it.
The purpose of the creation of this world by the Creator is spiritual unification with Him, the correction of man’s properties, or in other words: spiritual ascent. There are 620 spiritual degrees from our point, which is the lowest possible, to the Creator. Each of those degrees is called a Mitzva.
When we correct ourselves through a certain altruistic act, we perform a certain Mitzva and consequently ascends to the corresponding degree. This means that there are 620 further corrections of adoptions of altruistic desires that we must perform after we rise above the egoistic nature of our world.
At the last and highest spiritual degree, one unites with the Creator completely. His properties and desires become completely identical to those of the Creator. We must attain that state of complete sameness of attributes with those of the Creator while living physically in our world.
Thus, the completeness of the entire Creation is attained, and the gap between the highest and the lowest point of Creation is breached. In that state, everything returns to the Creator, to His attributes, to the Source and to a state of infinite altruistic bliss. It is only at that spiritual degree that the soul is liberated from the necessity of going through the degrees of “this world” again.
But as long as there are corrections to perform, we must return here over and over again until we complete our correction through the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah. Why do people interpret and relate so differently to the text of the Torah? After all, the Kabbalists themselves described the spiritual world for us and gave us this book. They called it Torah, to indicate that it relates to the words Ohr (light) and Horaa (instruction).
Kabbalists can sense the Upper Worlds and depict these sensations in their books in a unique language. But those who can not see and feel the spiritual worlds cannot understand the explanations of Kabbalists. After all, there are no physical bodies like our own in the spiritual world, and there are no names that you can use to name the objects there. It is in fact, impossible to convey these feelings in a language that humans understand.
But because everything that exists in our world stems from the Upper Worlds, and every physical object has a spiritual root above, Kabbalists decided to name every spiritual entity according to its worldly branch, which seemingly passes from Above downward, from a spiritual root to a corresponding material body in our world. The spiritual root is the cause and the worldly branch is the projection, the consequence.
The entire Torah was written in this descriptive language. It speaks only of spiritual forces, and so do all the other holy books. The books can be divided into those that use a legal tongue, such as the Talmud, or a historic tale like tongue, such as the Pentateuch. But all these books describe nothing but the spiritual worlds. They have no intention whatsoever of referring to our world.
Confusion is created only when we read these books and automatically interpret the words according to our understanding, which knows only terms of our world. As a result, we begin to think that it speaks of things that happen in our world. But a Kabbalist who reads the same text understands precisely what the author meant in each section of the book. It is a lot like a musician who can sing the music by merely looking at the notes.
Q: We don’t feel the Creator and consequently we don’t believe that He exists. We cannot see the Upper World; we don’t know and don’t understand a thing about it. None of the existing sciences enables us to influence the future, so on what grounds do you claim that it is possible to influence it?
A: The wisdom of Kabbalah does not study the phenomena of this world, but its spiritual roots in the Upper World. These roots affect everything that happens in our world and produce the events of our lives. A person who studies Kabbalah begins to see and understand the Upper World.
By seeing the Upper World, we begin to feel the Creator and understand how He created the spiritual world. The wisdom of Kabbalah refers to this act as the “first day of creation.” In the acts that follow, meaning in the next days, the Creator created the nature of the Upper World, and the forces that manage it. The last act of the Creator, on the sixth day, was the creation of Adam ha Rishon.
Because Adam ha Rishon was the consequence of the last act of the Creator, he also constitutes the purpose of the entire Creation. Everything that was created before him was created for him. So judging by the program of the Creator, what should become of man? He must attain spiritual unity with the Creator, become like Him in every aspect, equalize with Him, and learn to manage his own destiny.
Furthermore, man must attain the highest spiritual degree of total completeness alone. That means that he must first be at the lowest spiritual degree, completely opposite to the attributes of the Creator, and then rise to the spiritual degree of the Creator through his own spiritual efforts.
The wisdom of Kabbalah can be used to observe both the spiritual world and our world, and the reciprocation between them. Knowledge that constantly descends from the Upper World to ours and materializes before our very eyes. Our reactions to this information rise to the Upper World as knowledge and determine whether we feel our tomorrow as positive or negative.
Therefore, the Creator, who is at the highest spiritual degree, created this creation from an egoistic attribute, which is the complete opposite of Him, and filled it to the rim with light. He then emptied it and lowered it to the degree of “our world.” A creature who ascends back up the spiritual ladder receives a much more intense pleasure than prior to the decline to this world.
Q: If there is an Upper Force that governs us and every little insect in our world, then how are we different from robots?
A: If we use Kabbalah to change our inner properties, we also change the external influence that operates on us. Because this entire world is built to guide us to perfection, our process of individual correction also changes a bit of the outside world as well, and uncovers its better side toward us. It is then easier for both the individual and for all mankind to progress to the ultimate goal. The beginning and the end points are preordained, but the road there can be a path of Kabbalah or a path of pain. Which path we take is up to us.
Q: Will Kabbalah help my professional progress?
A: Kabbalah not only enhances one’s sensation and attainment of Upper Worlds, it also deepens, expands, and refines other emotions. We improve our connections with our environment and the events around us, and learns to regard science as a trivial thing that is used only for mankind’s general sustenance and adaptation to the world around us, and nothing more.
When we first begin to study Kabbalah, we are normally quite confused with all the new terms and emotions. Later on, we begin to relate to science from a superior point of view, seeing it as something incidental. That helps us avoid bowing before science, and relate to it in a truer and more profound manner. Kabbalah enables scientists to progress and obtain a more complete attainment even on the level of our limited world.
Q: You mentioned that there is general providence that leads mankind in general, and that one who begins to study Kabbalah can change one's life and fate. Can a person who studies Kabbalah somehow change the collective current of life in his environment, not only for himself, but for others, too?
A: It can be done, but only by circulating Kabbalah to other people, gently and without being missionary. We can discretely inform people around us that there is such a thing as Kabbalah and interest them in reading books that were written by Kabbalists. That is enough to put in a completely different state regarding the Creator, where there is already a different kind of Providence on Him from Above.
I have no other answer: books, audio and video files, our internet site (www.kabbalah.info). We do everything to provide people with whatever means they choose to change their fate. In any event, people will come to it in just a few years' time as they will realize that mascots, charms, and blessings are not the solution to how to change their lives. We must all determine our own fates, and not discharge ourselves from this responsibility. Changing our lives cannot be bought for money or any other currency.
The Spiritual World
Q: What is a spiritual birth? Is it anything like a physical birth?
A: Everything that happens in our world matches perfectly what happens in a spiritual birth. When one is completely liberated from egoism, this state corresponds to that of a fetus in its mother’s womb. The fetus then goes through nine months of spiritual development that correspond to a state of conception, until it is born as an independent, though small being. Then there are two years of infancy and feeding of the ‘breast’ of the superior. Then, the infant continues to grow (at the expense of the superior Partzuf, but in a separated form) until the age of thirteen, and from that age begins his state of Gadlut (adulthood). This is how every person’s soul develops.
Everything the Kabbalah books describe, everything that happens in our world and everything the Torah speaks of are processes of ascent on the spiritual ladder. There is nothing but a human being and the Creator, and our entire way is meant to bring us closer to Him.
Q: How can one know he has attained a connection with the spiritual world?
A: Everything we can imagine comes as a consequence of our experiences in the physical body. Therefore, all the "flying" experiences and other such "spiritual events" are completely disconnected from the actual spiritual world.
The sensation of spirituality can be obtained only by means of a screen, an anti-egoistic trait that can be acquired only through the system of Kabbalah. This necessitates group work, the right teacher, and a number of years of intensive study with the right books. Sometimes a person can get a feeling of the spiritual world without any preparation. However it is a passive feeling because one is unable to correct the self when receiving it as a gift from Above without prior efforts to create the screen.
This has nothing to do with the evolution of an ordinary soul in the path of correction; it is just something that the Creator needed to do according to His own program of development of unification and separation of souls. That is why He did it. If we could see the entire picture of the reincarnation of souls we would understand why the Creator acts this or that way with a certain soul. No part of our collective soul can attain the goal, the spiritual degree of the Creator, before it is corrected.
The Creator will allow no one, under any conditions, into the spiritual world without a spiritual effort. If He did, one would be unable to create a vessel, the desire necessary to feel the perfection of the Creator.
Q: What would happen if the Creator appeared before us right now?
A: In that case, we would take the pleasure for ourselves and would never be able to exit this egoistic pleasure, though it is so small it is practically nonexistent compared to spiritual pleasures -those sensed with the aim toward the Creator. The Creator hides from us to allow us to build a screen, which is the aim towards the Creator. Only afterwards will He reveal Himself to us. Only then will the pleasure be infinite and lasting, because that is the nature of altruistic desires.
Q: But you keep saying that all we need in order to enter the spiritual world is the revelation of the Creator?
A: What I mean in this case is not the pleasures that come from the Creator, but the revelation of His Godliness. When that happens, we will nullify ourselves before the Creator and be able to cancel his egoistic desires and obtain a screen. Only afterwards will the Creator reveal Himself as the Source of all pleasures.
Q: How do you differentiate between “good” and “evil”?
A: Our perception of good and evil is very different from how they are perceived in spirituality. Good and bad in our world are based on subjective, egoistic feelings, meaning something is good if it is good for me, and bad if it is bad for me. Only when one transcends his own egoism does he attain what good and evil really are.
Everything is done by the Creator, but we are unable to justify His Actions. Global disasters, wars, and annihilation of entire nations, horrendous torments, and trouble everywhere, are called good by those who attain the collective picture of the universe and the worlds.
Q: What is the “freedom of desire”?
A: When one attains the spiritual world, one attains everything that descends to our world-the roots and where and how they concatenate to our world. Every earthly event begins in the spiritual world. Everything that happened and that will happen to us stems from there.
The system of Kabbalah means having faith above reason, and the Kabbalist never exploits his knowledge for self-gratification. That is why his knowledge of self or others is of no significance because the Kabbalist will never use it in the ordinary way people want.
Many people ask me about the future, but I tell them to go see a fortune teller. What I can do is advise about what one should do, but it is forbidden to open the picture to others because you are denying them freedom of choice and freedom of desire. That will result in the loss of their desire for living, because if everything is known before it even happens, then why bother living? Our lives are only pleasant when we have a little bit of freedom of desire. That is what separates us from all other elements in Creation and we must utilize that freedom.
Q: When one attains the spiritual world, what does one find there?
A: One finds absolute harmony within. One finds that everything is conducted by an Upper Force that brings all Creations to a single goal. One finds one's own goal and stops making mistakes. One understands why illness occurs, and the purpose of the troubles in life. One begins to understand the good or harm that actions bring and how to behave with others. There is no longer a need to learn anything from anyone because this person becomes a part of Creation. There are no needs to satisfy within; it is toward this state that the Creator is leading us.
There are only two choices we have: the first is the one all of mankind is presently taking. It entails suffering and running from pain to pain without any ability to find any reason for living. This state may continue until the pain accumulates and brings one to a spiritual degree. It is impossible to know or feel the previous amount of pain that has been accumulated, but every soul keeps its own account and needs a different amount of suffering to bring it to spirituality. This is the first path, the path of pain. It is a very long and agonizing road.
However, the Creator gives every person a way out of the anguish that befalls us and offers the spiritual world through a second path – the path of Kabbalah (Torah). The Hebrew word, "Torah," means "instruction." There are clear instructions in the Torah/Kabbalah that teach us how to attain spiritual attainment, while combining it with family life, study and work. It tells us how to discover our inner spiritual worlds, as well as the outer physical world.
Desire
Q: If we are only a desire, like all other creations, then what is our deepest desire?
A: Our deepest desire is to cleave to the Creator. That is everyone’s unconscious desire. It has been imprinted in us to begin with and it is the only desire that we are actually eager to satisfy. But that desire only becomes clear to us to the extent that we are willing to accept and realize it. Until that point, the Creator continues to push and tempt us with new desires, meaning the primary desire is clothed with other desires.
Q: What if I suddenly have an urge to steal something?
A: There will not be such a desire. There can be a desire to steal, but there will be a thought that follows it, because that is the Creator’s way of showing us how despicable and dirty we are.
Along with the desire there is the sensation of repulsion at such a desire appearing in us. That is what the “recognition of evil” exists. An ordinary person does not regard such desires as evil, but rationalizes, "Well, I'm no different than anybody else."
It is written that God said to Abraham, “Look now toward heaven” and promised him that his seed and his people will be like the stars in the sky – innumerable. Stars are sparks of returning Light that broke from the collective soul. One collects these sparks, corrects them and thus ascends. For that reason, the sparks, which are tiny souls that rise upward, are called "stars." The Creator promised Abraham that if he followed this path, the entire heaven would be his.
Death
Q: Does a part of the soul pass on from parent to child?
A: A human is a two-legged animal. It has a vital force called the “animate soul.” When a person dies, the soul leaves the body, just like that of any other animal. But Kabbalah speaks of a different kind of soul, one that is the Light of the Creator.
A soul is a certain amount of Light that enters only when that person acquires specific altruistic attributes. It has nothing to do with the identity of one's parents.
Q: Most people find death distressing, but what is the death of the body really like?
A: Our problem with death begins with what we tie our egos to - do we associate the ego with our bodies, or with our souls, our internal part? If one lives inside the properties and desires of the soul, then one remains with it and connects with it. For such a person, death is not tragic, but just a transition to a different state. It is as though certain obstructions that the body had are removed so one can pass to a more perfect and complete state, with an improved ability for spiritual progress.
It turns out that death is something that one can only be happy. Death indicates that you are on the right path for spiritual progress and have already completed a certain portion of the journey. Now that that part is completed, you are free to continue without the weight of the physical body.
Q: What happens to a person who experiences clinical death?
A: People who experience clinical death a detachment from the ego because they enter a post-mortem state. Though not yet spiritual, that state is no longer animate because the clinical death separates one from one’s ego.
One is incapable of feeling what spirituality is like before acquiring a screen, because one lacks the sensation tool called “Returning Light”, the aim for the Creator.
However, one can still feel the fineness of spirituality because of the pain that was suffered. Agony neutralizes egoism because it brings the ego to a situation where it is willing to become nullified if only to stop the pain.
A rabbi was once sent to an imprisoned man in Russia. He was in a very poor mental state, without any knowledge of Hebrew, but he wrote poems in Hebrew about such sublime spiritual states only a Kabbalist could experience. Or course, he did not use Kabbalistic terms, but he experienced states of disconnection from our world. Those experiencing clinical death also feels a higher spiritual state because they have gone through such torments that the ego inflicted, they are enough to repel one from one's egoism.
These torments make him start looking ourselves "from the side," and we begin to feel some spiritual sensation. However, that is not the way the Kabbalah advises us to take because we have the Kabbalah as a cure. In the path of torment, people feel these things in the worst possible situations, but that is not the way we should go.
Torments do not come directly come from the Creator. When the animate soul dies, we feel a little more Light from Above, but it is billions of times smaller than the lowest spiritual state we acquire as a result of our own labor!
Q: Do we pass to the spiritual world when we die?
A: The soul is man's spiritual vehicle, man's inner self. It is in a certain spiritual state before it enters this world. Because the purpose of Creation is to raise the soul from its lowest to its highest possible state, the soul receives additional egoism, additional negative properties that hide the spiritual self from us.
The self had a certain spiritual foundation; it was above this world before it received additional egoism, which caused it to descend into this world. Egoism is added in the form of the desires of an animate body; this is how we begin to feel our birth and existence in the corporeal world. However, if we remove our additional egoism, we will immediately return to the place from which we descended into this world, meaning at our soul's original degree in the spiritual world.
Now we relate to the world as does everyone else. What we must do is to use our egoism to rise in spirituality. This way, we ascend 620 degrees higher than the degrees from which we began.
When we rise from our world and reach the end of correction, we rise to the world of Ein Sof and feels 620 times more complete then our current preliminary state. Our animate bodies die because we take away their egoistic satisfaction. The meaning of death is that the spiritual force that gives us the desire to live and absorb the force of life is taken away.
Miscellaneous Questions & Answers
Q: Why do all the meetings with the Creator occur on mountains (Mt.Olives, Mt. Moriah) etc.?
A: The word, Moriah comes from the word, Mora (fear); the word Har (mountain) comes from the word, Hirhurim (contemplations) of Mora, which is a screen for the Gar of every degree. Sinai comes from the word Sina'a (hatred), because there is concealment of the Light of Mercy.
Mt. Olives is Malchut, the point of this world, the end of all the worlds. Every place where Malchut ends without touching the point of "this world" is called Mt.Olives.
Q: Is there any connection between the spiritual Mt.Olives and the physical one?
A: There is no connection between the spiritual Mt.Olives and the physical one. That is why any person can call that mountain by that name, and not only one who has attained the spiritual Mt.Olives.
Q: How can an ordinary person name anything according to its spiritual root if he doesn’t attain it and doesn’t even know that it exists?
A: Any person, even a non-Jew, can name any place on earth according to one's spiritual roots, even without attaining these roots. That is because all people are messengers of the Creator, just as is the entire Creation and the whole of nature. Just as an ordinary person chooses that a mountain should be called Mt.Olives for some earthly reason, so a Kabbalist determines that this mountain should be named that way because of a spiritual root.
This teaches us that the difference between the attainment of an ordinary person and that of a Kabbalist is only in the depth of the attainment. The former sees only the external layer, and the latter sees the entire depth down to the primary reason. That is why Kabbalah is also a science. The only difference is that Kabbalah studies the full depth of the matter to its innermost layer, meaning the desire that was created by the Creator, which is robed by all other properties. For this reason, a Kabbalist and an ordinary person can both give something the same name because the olive trees grow on the same mountain.
The ordinary person has his own reason for calling something by its right name. Furthermore, the internal property with which the Creator created a spiritual object will appears in any language with the same meaning.
Q: What is a dream?
A: During sleep we are disconnected from spirituality. There are only electric currents that run through our minds and nothing more. If we disconnect the brain from the body during this time there will not be any dreams. We can disconnect the ego from the body so that the body will sleep separated from the ego.
The state of slumber has nothing to do with spirituality. It exists in every living creature. The state of Dormita (slumber) in Kabbalah is the name given to the time when the Light leaves the Partzuf to a higher Partzuf. All that the Partzuf is left with is called Kista de Hayuta (A small pocket of life force), which is a uniting and strengthening force. That is the spiritual meaning of slumber. If one thinks of an idea during sleep, it is because the lessened connection with his physical body allows for clearer sight. As a result, the mind and imagination operate on a higher level, but that has nothing to do with spirituality.
Q: How and when does one attain spiritual understanding?
A: One comes by spiritual understanding only by making the spiritual effort of studying the wisdom of Kabbalah, as well as persistently struggling with the egoistic desires. The precise moment of understanding is untraceable. One cannot know when that time will come, because the spiritual efforts must be directed not toward understanding, but toward giving to the Creator. However, we must always believe that "God's salvation is as the wink of an eye."
Let me clarify attainment for you: I feel the consequences of my attainment within. I feel the delights I will receive ahead of time. If I can taste them, then the consequence will be experienced inside me. For example, I cannot say that there is any pleasure in a salad; the pleasure is in me to begin with, and the salad is just a means to bring out the delight in order to satisfy my desire. We can weigh or otherwise measure the salad any way we like, but we will not find any pleasure in it.
This means that the sense of pleasure exists inside us, including the sensation of the Creator. Generally speaking, we feel everything inside us. That is what I meant by saying that we feel "the giver behind the salad." The question is not how much salad, or how good was the salad we ate, but what kind of pleasure we experience at the time, because the pleasure is felt in the spiritual part of us.
Why did the Creator make it so that we would only be able to reach an altruistic vessel from an egoistic one? Even our ability to find the pleasure centre in the brain and stimulate it will only be an external expression of these spiritual vessels.
Again, why did the Creator create an egoistic vessel from which we would rise to an altruistic one? Let's say that we rely on a small egoistic vessel that can contain ten grams, but we receive these ten grams from the Almighty Creator, and we use them to please the Creator. In that state, our pleasure depends on how great the Creator is, not on how great the ten grams are.
The ten grams are only an axis with which we can turn everything inside us and come to a reality where the pleasure is infinite. Then, time disappears and a state of perfection is created because of the connection of Ein Sof.
Q: Let us say that Israel, the Creator, and Divinity are one. What then is Divinity?
A: There is nothing but the Creator and the creature. The Creator created a creature, which is the will to receive pleasure from the Creator. The only thing that this desire can do is receive. It names what it feels, meaning it names the reflection of the Creator in its feelings. It all depends on our sensations, meaning how we are influenced by the Creator. These feelings are a consequence of two elements: the Creator Himself and our own sensations.
If we change those, we will feel the Creator differently. We will never know what the Creator is when not perceived through our senses. That is why we never speak of the Creator Himself, but only of how we feel Him inside us, in our senses. That feeling in our senses is called "Divinity."
Q: Can we know when we deserve to punished or rewarded?
A: Let’s say that a person was standing on a high porch. A part of it suddenly collapses and the person falls off and dies. Or perhaps a natural catastrophe suddenly happens. Whom do we blame?
When children break something we can punish them, but we will be doing so from within our animate understanding of reward and punishment. In that manner, we teach the child our own understanding and approach.
That is how it used to be in Russia. If I did not accept communism, they could punish me and even kill me. They set their own rules and their own justice, meaning their own understanding of good and evil. In fact, there must be an honest and objective system of reward and punishment, but not one that favors the initiators of the system, but the well being of those who keep it.
It is impossible to provide an accurate and concise explanation of the concepts of reward and punishment. If the system is correct, it should teach us something and not merely exist. However, we cannot be objective; we don’t know what hides behind our actions, which contradict the purpose of Creation because of our corrupted vessels. There is no reward or punishment from the Creator’s perspective. He has no desire for man to do this or that.
There is only one assignment with regard to the Creator – to bring mankind to a special inner state, such that will enable us to receive the bounty and delight that is intended for us after we attain the purpose of Creation. The Creator has no desire to punish or reward any activity. He always leads us toward the purpose of Creation.
If that is the case, then to whom do these concepts of reward and punishment relate? A child? An adult? At which degree, which level of understanding does reward or punishment begin? A person who grows up in this world becomes subjugated to its rules. If we could know someone as well as the Creator does, we could predict that person's every move in every situation. That brings up the question: "Where is our freedom of choice, and what exactly are we liberated from?"
Is it freedom from the natural properties that the Creator inserted in us, or freedom from the influences of our environment? Where is that juncture where we can become free from both our own nature and our surrounding? If we knew for certain where we could choose freely, we could also speak of reward or punishment, because the steps we would take would be steps made through choices free of our own nature and other external influences.
We should know that with every move we make and every step we take, it is the Creator teaching us, fine-tuning our senses and directing us toward the purpose of Creation. If we could see it that way, then reward punishment would take on a completely different meaning, depending on our goals.
In that case, everything that we would go through - the good and the bad - would be regarded as a reward. The bad would not be regarded as painful or tormenting, but as tutoring. Thus, we could interpret everything positively. It would mean that the division between reward and punishment simply did not exist, because we would find only positive aspects in how the Creator treats His creatures.
However, we do not come by such a feeling in only one experience, but after all sorts of concealments by the Creator. In the beginning, there is double concealment, then a single concealment. After that comes the revelation of the Creator, and finally the attainment of eternity, completion, and love towards Him who has always loved us, and has always wanted to give each and every one of us nothing but the greatest possible pleasure.