It’s not my place to comment on your personal life, but I think that the first two courses will help you make sense of reality and start developing a different attitude to life and everything that has happened in the past.
I don’t think so, Ethics of the fathers is Pirkei Avot. Where did you see the word “afer” used? Please post a link so that I can comment within that context.
Yes you can say that. We learn that we, as the created beings, can only experience reality out of opposites: hot/cold, up/down, love/hate, bestowal/reception, etc. The 9th of Av represents the revelation of the most opposite state to the Creator. Although this state is not very pleasant, it’s a necessary part of our spiritual development. Without revealing this opposite form to the fullest, we will not be able to fully correct it and thereby reach the final correction.
Single and double concealment is in our attitude to the Creator. In single concealment, we try to see how there is “none else besides Him”, how every single thought, desire, and life event all stem directly from Him. But since we experience both positive and negative things in life, we are not always capable of seeing how the negative things also come from Him. And when enough negative experiences accumulate, then we begin to think that there is no Creator, that these things are happening to us are not from the Creator but due to our bad luck or blind fate. That is the state of double concealment.
Check out these blog posts from Rav Laitman for more details:
A Kabbalist is someone that has corrected his egoistic desire into the desire to bestow (at least to some extent). As a result of this correction, a Kabbalist reveals the Creator, the general force of love and bestowal, while they are alive in this world.
Whoever performs such a correction can be called a Kabbalist. Since this correction is internal, it makes no difference if this person is a priest, male, female, elderly, young, religious or secular, etc. None of these external factors have any influence over our spiritual correction, nor are they indicators of a person being corrected or not.
Kabbalah is also a science. The difference is that traditional scientists study nature that is found within the egoistic desire to receive. Kabbalists on the other hand correct their egoistic desire into the desire to bestow, and study nature within that corrected desire.