Q: What exactly do you learn in Kabbalah? Is it only about the aim, or is it a real “academic study?”
A: Kabbalah is a very real and accurate system, by which a person begins to gradually feel the Creator in mind and heart, to a greater extent than we feel our current environment. The Creator is sensed a lot more clearly, without any self-deception, and through controlled and systematically repeated actions.
Kabbalah is subject to all the requirements that exact sciences are subject to - you can measure emotions and translate them to numbers, you can conduct experiments, repeat them and transfer the acquired knowledge to others. Because of all that, Kabbalah is regarded as a science.
We use everything we’re given in this world freely. We do not feel where and from whom it comes. If we were to feel the Giver, even slightly, we would instantly receive a different sensation, a different position, and a different relationship with anything or anyone.
That would immediately place us in a completely different situation. Our whole problem is the absence of the sensation of the Creator. That is why the single most important goal in our world is to feel the existence of the Creator, to establish some sort of contact with Him.
After that, contact will become much easier. When you attain even a little bit of the sensation of the Creator, you hang on to it, and can return again and again to deepen and broaden it.
Once you have achieved the ability to turn to the Creator, you can comprehend the kind of response you will get. This is what is meant by the phrase, “One’s soul tutors one.” This means that man is led by his own soul, and his own feelings tell him how he should proceed.
But before attaining this, one needs the meticulous guidance of a teacher, a group and books. One also needs to trust others who have already achieved that state.