Description

Is it legitimate or is it exploitative to take money for supposed ״spiritual״ offerings?

Transcript

Guy Gudes: We know there's these trends these days with Kabbalists, coffee-cup readers and fortune-tellers, and these trends are gaining a lot of strength. And today, anyone who has a problem, big or small, runs to seek its answers, each one in his own things. The question is, if money is being charged, so how much? I hear people say that someone might take eighteen dollars, while the other takes a hundred times eighteen. Is there something about it that’s definite or does each one just say, "Look, I have powers, I help people, so I have the right to take whatever I want"?

The question is, when is it really helpful to people, spiritually, because the Creator’s given me a special power, or has it turned too commercial, and as you know, you can take as much money as you want from people in distress?

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: This in my opinion... I would put it this way: the question is incorrect. What does it mean, "incorrect"? As we have said, the wisdom of Kabbalah opens a gate to the sensation of the Upper World, and from there you learn on your own, together with the book that acts as a guide, where you are actually living.

It does not talk about what is happening in this world at all. Meaning, if you ask me, how can I succeed more in my marriage, at work, in business, with health and other things? Then I'll tell you, "Go to an expert and leave me alone."

Why? It's because the wisdom of the Kabbalah doesn't deal with it. It deals with how to create an opening to the spiritual world, how to rise above this world, so that you feel a higher system which you can use to improve your life on your own.

The fact that you give someone a hundred thousand times eighteen, doesn't help. It might help by providing you with some psychological support perhaps. You might then feel that "certainly this will be good for me." This soul strengthening, this belief in it, helps you.

Guy Gudes: Does it help you or the person who takes the money and by doing so gains his livelihood?

Rav Laitman: No. It also helps the person who gives the money because by doing so, he is strengthened psychologically. But this has no connection to Kabbalah. It belongs to the belief of someone who puts a note on the Western Wall, or gives something to someone in order to feel more secure.

This is how we are built. It’s a natural, animal-like security that resides within us. But by doing these things a person does not change life, he doesn’t change the essence of life. And therefore this has no connection to Kabbalah.