The Only Gift From The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We know that we can only receive pleasure from the Creator if it is important to us. It turns out that even if there is a wall in front of me, it all depends on how important it is to me.

Answer: Both Rabash and Baal HaSulam bring the example of the bride who is satisfied if someone she considers important agrees to marry her. By that, it is as if he “buys” her. But he didn’t pay anything; he didn’t give her anything, so why is she satisfied with that? Because he is important to her.

What does our desire receive from the Creator? Nothing. But He is great, and we are ready for the “wedding”; we agree to adhere to Him with heart and soul in infinite, absolute adhesion. The Creator “buys” you only with His importance. It is the only thing that you acquire as you develop, and this is what fills you.

Our desire—which grew thanks to the Light, which received bestowal from the Creator—what does it want to enjoy? Actually, it wants to enjoy the greatness and nothing else. We cannot enjoy the pleasure itself; this only happens in our world with imaginary pleasures that come from the Creator to the point of something from nothing. The pleasures of this world are only available to sustain us until we begin to understand the Creator’s greatness. All the spiritual levels are the recognition of His greatness, and with His help you enjoy if you want to bestow upon Him.

On the other hand, the evil inclination, Pharaoh is the attempt to enjoy directly, but again only the Creator’s greatness. This is called spiritual pleasure.

It seems that the greatness is necessary only in order to overcome our ego and afterwards we will be able to enjoy in order to bestow, but this isn’t so; all our work is to raise the Creator’s greatness in our eyes. By that we develop new desires, and the emphasis moves from receiving direct egoistic pleasures to receiving pleasure from His greatness; thus, at least we reach Klipot (shells), and this is not simple at all.

The Creator’s greatness overtakes us, and it is very difficult to get out of this captivity. After all, all of creation is the essence of the steps of the ladder. When someone from a higher level shines upon me some of his greatness, then I surrender, I become addicted to the root and from then on it is my “boss,” the “king.”

But I want to operate differently, consciously, and intelligently. I want to resist the advantage the upper has over me; I don’t want to be bribed by His importance and His power.

This means that it isn’t about receiving from Him, we are struggling over the level of importance. I don’t want to work just for the benefit of the upper one simply because He is great. By that I simply annul myself naturally.

Question: Does this mean that all the Kabbalah books and all the ages of development were dedicated to only one thing, to the independent recognition of His importance?

Answer: That’s right, and it isn’t by chance that the modern world is so confused and that no one understands what is going on. After all, everything evolves only around one point of adhesion.

Question: But still, there is nothing more important in this world. I’m not trying to raise the importance of something artificially. Are all the worlds and all the levels meant only for that?

Answer: They were created as a result of the Light that filled the desire and gave it different forms. What does the Creator fill us with? What pleasure does He get by having created the created being so that he will only want that? What’s more, does the Creator have anything but the force of bestowal? No. He created mechanisms of perception in the created being, levels specifically for this force of bestowal; we develop only according to this importance.

Where are the pleasures that He has prepared for me? Where are the refreshments that the host has prepared according to the famous example?

There isn’t even an ounce of pleasure the way you imagine it. There are no refreshments, although it seems that way, it is only an illusion. In our world you settle for a false pleasure, you swallow delicacies, but you are not filled. So get rid of the illusions and start discerning the levels of the greatness of the Giver. It is then that you will begin to calculate things within the limits of your perception.

Now we may understand what happened in the first restriction. Malchut started to restrict itself when it discovered that it receives in relation to the Giver; it discovered the gap between the receiver and the Giver and not between the hunger and the delicious refreshments. It is the greatness of the Giver that pulls me out of myself. I don’t calculate this “pleasure,” but rather the pleasure from the Giver. When I discover the bestowal on His part and the reception on my part, I am filled with shame, but not because of the refreshments that I enjoy, but shame when I see His greatness compared to my lowliness.
[83415]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/17/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar

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