Kabbalists On The Purpose Of Creation, Part 16
Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. I promise to answer them. Commentaries in brackets are mine.
Why Is The Creator Concealed From Man?
That deficiency [in our sensations] was born only as a result of the concealment of the face of the Lord, who did not wish to shine His face upon His creatures immediately, and [by this concealment] create them whole from the start. Rather, on the contrary, the Creator hid His face [perfection of the property of bestowal and love] from them, leaving them lacking [since the opposite property of reception and hatred appeared in them as the result of concealment], as the Light of the King’s face is surely life, and Its concealment is the source of all evil.
However, since the initial intention of concealment is not to be concealed, but on the contrary, to be revealed later and to transpose any evil born only from that concealment, He thus established law and order in order to reveal His concealed benevolent face. This is achieved by people’s actions, by fulfilling the laws and the doctrines which He gave us in His Torah, the doctrine of truth. By carrying them out, man reaches [reveals the sensation of ] eternal life since the reward of a Mitzva [the correction of each of 613 desires of the soul] – Mitzva [the act of bestowal itself], that is the Light of His face [fulfillment by bestowal and love], which He concealed from man at the beginning of His Creation.
Thus, the creature’s toil [by aspiring to become similar to the Creator], being dominated by his evil [egoistic] inclination, and his evil manifests in all sorts of [egoistic] deficiencies [with regard to the others], and his distance from that which would give him the Light of life [the property of bestowal]. And the acts of Mitzvot [the acts of bestowal to others and the Creator] draw the [previously] hidden Light upon him, so that by the time he has completed the law of the Mitzvot [has corrected all 613 corrupted, initially-egoistic desires], he himself complements them [in similarity to the Creator since Adam (man) comes from the word “Dome” (similar)] in drawing the Light in this life [and thus sensing the eternal and perfect existence, similarity to the Creator, in the property of bestowal].
– Ramchal, Klalei Pitchei Hochma ve Da’at (The Rules of Gates of Wisdom and Knowledge)
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I am drawn to this style of commentary. The bracketed explanations are very helpful to me. I feel very inspired reading this material.