Discover The Creator’s Goodness, Not His Presents

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Creator doesn’t hide from us; rather, it is our ego that hides Him. Our opposite nature is what separates us from Him. So how can we take on the Creator’s form? How can we reach Him according to the law of equivalence of form? How can we discover Him and find out that He is in us?

In order to do that, we have to perform certain actions. Who performs these actions, us or Him? There is probably a need for cooperation here. We can’t advance without the upper Light. By “rocking” us, It demands our cooperation, which is called “free will.” This cooperation is all of our work. There are no restrictions here. It is open to everyone and is implemented by the correct studying of Kabbalistic books.

These sources can be the “elixir of life” or the “potion of death.” It all depends on our approach.

  • If I intend to discover my evil inclination and to correct it, I can succeed, and the wisdom of Kabbalah will be the “elixir of life” for me. I will discover “death,” my ego, inside me and will want to correct it in order to come to life.
  • But if I study to attain egoistic achievements, if I am looking for knowledge, power, respect, control, etc., then the studying only reinforces the egoism in me and my success is opposite to bestowal and I am not even aware of it. Such a study becomes the “potion of death.”

Thus we go through the stages of the Creator’s concealment. The concealment is divided into single and double concealment; the revelation first reveals to us the governance as reward and punishment and then the revelation of His eternal Providence.

Actually it all depends on my desires, on my vessels. With regard to the Creator, there are no restrictions. He doesn’t hide and is not concealed. It is my desires, my vessels, that hide Him, and if I work with them properly, they are gradually corrected, and according to their correction, I discover the Creator. One way or another, I am the one who hides Him from myself.

In our world we also discover many phenomena that we don’t notice at first: different kinds of food, different kinds of art and culture, and different kinds of animals. These things were there all along, but not for us.

With time we perceive more, thanks to our emotional and intellectual development under the influence of the environment, which elevates the importance of things in our eyes, evokes in us passion, ambition, and vanity, and obliges us to pay attention to things that were totally unimportant to us before. Everyone says that it is important; I am impressed and enter someone else’s desires. This is enough to make me care: I discover new desires, new vessels, and come out of concealment with regard to a certain phenomenon.

It is the same when it comes to the wisdom of Kabbalah and the Creator. It is the same principle here too: I am an egoist, and I don’t care about anything but my everyday “beastly” requests. So if I want something more sublime, I have to enter the right environment that will stimulate me and guide me toward greater things.

Therefore, everything depends on the correction of my desires. Initially the phenomenon doesn’t exist for me and is in complete concealment. Then I begin to discover a certain desire, a yearning for it, and then the concealment grows weaker, until I discover something new.

On the spiritual path I look for the Creator, but not as a source of pleasures; I want to discover His attitude to me because He wants to reveal that He is the good and benevolent. The point is not in what I receive from Him, but what is important for Him is that I discover His attitude to me, so that I will see His absolute goodness, be impressed by it, and be filled by this attitude. Thus He “buys” me.

So all the four phases of concealment and revelation actually relate to the good and unchanging attitude of the Creator, which I gradually reveal according to my desires. When I discover the good attitude on His part, I see that it existed before, only that I didn’t feel and understand it because of my corruption.

So now too, when I don’t see the Creator’s goodness in everything, I have to assess the concealment: Even if I don’t pay attention to his goodness in certain things, it could be that He is there too. Maybe it is my fault that I don’t see His goodness?
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/17/12, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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One Comment

  1. Can my ego lie to me and tell me “I am of a proper attitude and humility and am pleasing to G-d.” We do indeed have to “know ourselves.” Should I trust my judgements? If I heard the voice of Hashem, as Moshe did, would He be pleased with me?

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