A Flight To Inner Space
Question: How can a person understand the Creator‘s greatness and His providence?
Answer: The whole goal of creation is the revelation of the Creator to the created beings in order to do them good. The Creator does the created beings good by revealing Himself to them and by filling them. The Creator is dressed in the created being, which means that the Light of Hochma is dressed in Light of Hassadim.
But do we know how to advance towards the revelation of the Creator? By what attributes do we look for Him and in which direction should we advance? How do we make sure that we don’t draw away from the right path? We have to be stabilized in order to do that. If I were in space not knowing where I am, I would find my way according to the stars.
It is the same in spiritual work. We cannot say anything about any phenomenon, outcome, force, or attribute if we don’t measure it in relation to something. It is important to make sure in relation to what we measure something.
For example, we assess the behavior of animals that devour one another and it seems very cruel to us. But the point is that we assess it wrongly, in relation to human feelings. This is why we reach wrong conclusions. It is the same in regard to any phenomenon.
The problem is how we should assess every phenomenon. This is important both in spirituality and our world, and in order to assess phenomena, we use tools such as compasses, measurements, and specific units to measure distances, weight, and different frequencies. Humanity has created these systems of measurement in order to determine and measure different phenomena.
Before measuring systems were invented, it was very difficult for people to communicate. If I wanted to exchange my chickens for your donkey it was difficult to measure how many chickens the donkey was worth. Today we have money for that.
The increasing accuracy of different measurements allows us to measure different attributes. This is exactly how we bring up a child, teaching him how to see himself with regard to his environment in order that he has the right orientation with regard to space, the furniture in the room, his parents, to other children, and to himself.
When we enter the spiritual world, we have no means by which to feel it. It is because we lack a standard and we don’t know in which way we should change ourselves and what we should do with our attributes.
Therefore, it is impossible to exist only by the positive force, so we need to use the two forces together. This is the reason that there is always light and darkness. It is impossible to see anything in contrast to one light and neither is it possible to see anything in the dark. The only way to see something is in the contrast between light and darkness. This principle is true in every aspect.
Just as a small child begins to recognize attributes and differences through his close environment and to gradually learn how to establish increasingly wider connections until he knows all of humanity, so we also establish connections between us in the group and begin to know the spiritual world.
It is impossible to do this in any other way. The Creator is revealed in the group, in the relationships between us. If our relationships are egoistic, there is no standard of measurement since there is only one force at work, which is help against us. We also need the opposite force. When I develop the force of bestowal and it begins to operate against the force of receiving, I can begin to turn and manage myself and measure the diversion.
According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, just as in any other science, the main thing is the measurement: NRNHY, KHB ZON, Partzufim, levels, Hassadim, and Hochma. It is all based on measurements, when different things are compared and thus new phenomena are discovered.
It is written: “Thou shalt not make other gods,” which means that different forms intentionally appear before us so that we will be able to measure and format the Creator in relation to them.
When the Light of Ein Sof (Infinity) fills Malchut of Ein Sof it does not leave a shadow within it and everything is totally filled with the white Light. It is thanks only to the fact that phase four, which becomes coarse, appears within it and sees itself as opposite from the Light. From this oppositeness, we can begin to measure things.
Therefore we cannot manage without “other gods” although they are fictitious and a lie and don’t really exist. But we need them in order to measure things in relation to them. This is how the Creator plays with us. This is the reason that He created the evil inclination and the Torah a as a spice, “since the Light in it reforms.”
Thus we have 613 desires and opposite them there are 613 lights by which we acquire our senses. If there are 613 lights that fill 613 desires, we have 613 elements by which to measure. We can assess and clarify many near and distant concepts with regard to every desire and the light inside it. We can find out in which direction they operate, whether in the direction of Hassadim or Hochma, bestowal or receiving.
It turns out that after we correct our desire to the intention of in order to bestow, according to the principle of “the advantage of the Light from the darkness,” we get a chance to know the Creator, the Light of Ein Sof. Other gods stem from the Creator, so that we should know them and stabilize ourselves by using them. Without them, there is no way we can get to know the one upper force, the One who is “there is none else besides Him.”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/09/14, Shamati #15
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