The purpose of our lives is to bring “Tikkun Olam”, the perfection of the world. According to the Kabbalah the world was in this perfect state before Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Before this time, the perfect state of the world meant that there was no suffering, pain, conflict or evil of any kind.

After the sin the world was transformed into the one we know so well today. The world became filled with negativity, evil, and actions expressing the opposite of the universal desire for peace and tranquility which was the state of the world during the time of the Garden of Eden.

As each person perfects himself the world become closer to being perfected, as it was before the sin. But the Kabbalah teaches its students that become transformed is not the same thing as “earning brownie points” for doing “good deeds.” It is a misunderstanding to believe that we are rewarded according to the amount of “good deeds” we do.

To quote Michael Berg, a teacher at the Kabbalah Center and a co-director there, “Our world is not a point system, but rather a system with a point.”