The Creator’s “Unfair” Game
Question: Is there an area in our brain where we can feel pleasure from being one with the group and revealing the Creator in it just as much as we enjoy food, sex, and family?
Answer: The brain, as well as desire, doesn’t care what we gain pleasure from, but the Creator is playing an “unfair” game with us. He placed a condition for us: If in this world, this life you wish to derive pleasure from sweets, you can do so, for now.
It is similar to how we treat our children. They have to grow to become adults. Hence, day by day, over the first 18 years, we give them everything we possibly can. A child breaks toys, disobeys, does things wrong, while you continue treating them kindly. What other options do you have? It’s hard to raise kids. All you can do is keep giving them what they need.
Clearly, nature also gives everything to its children: desire, strength and the will to grow. They run, play, and are always in motion. Everything is made so as to give a person a chance to grow. Have you grown? Now, it’s your turn to work and serve in the army. It’s so different from your previous life! Childhood has ended; you are a grown-up now.
In the spiritual world, the Creator puts us in a similar condition. You are given an opportunity to start growing in spirituality in a small state (Katnut) and receive all that you need just like children in this world. However, as you grow, you are placed in increasingly difficult conditions. You have to give more, pay, and love to get something in return.
The Light stays at absolute rest. Desire wants to enjoy the Light. But in between, there is a condition, like there is for a grown-up in this world: If you wish to keep enjoying yourself, you have to pay, complete your desire, the vessel that receives the Light. The pleasure remains the same, but due to the above rule, you can’t enjoy it. Hence, we have no choice: We must reach bestowal.
We say: “But I want to feel pleasure directly. Place me in Malchut of Infinity! Give me pleasure right now. Fill me up!” But, no, we are told: “Malchut of Infinity? Sure thing! But all you will find there is a horrible void.” How so? That’s because of the same condition, the First Restriction. If you are not similar to the Light in your properties, you will feel nothing but darkness.
So, all pleasures expand from the Light. Even if someone enjoys killing, that, too, is derived from the Light. There is no other source of enjoyment. However, there is a condition: If you wish to know real, everlasting pleasures, you must receive them in the will to bestow. You have no choice—this is the rule.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/2011, Explanation of the Article, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”
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I have had many lucid dreams, where I would try to fly into space to see what lies at the edge. Only to find an immense black void. Paralyzed with terror, I could not move and woke up. But alas I felt drawn to this void, and did this many times on purpose, seeking something. I tried to create something there, but it caused only pain. At last I tried flying backwards, keeping my eyes on where I had come from and zooming out, as opposed to looking at the void directly. The opposite then occurred, and all faded to white with purple clouds, and instead of terror I felt immense comfort, as if sitting on a large soft couch. I realized in my pursuit of infinity I might lose all I had before, so instead I purely expanded, not losing view of where I came from, and hence went the entire way up without fear, but love.