Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 239

Why Will the Body’s Resistance Be Removed If It Is Actually a Necessary Part of the Process?

The body’s resistance does not disappear simply by saying that everything is for the best. By saying this, we are, as it were, making a restriction. We do not want to receive only the body. Instead, we want to receive it together with the Creator’s qualities that are positioned opposite it, so that we, the Creator, and His entire method exist together. Then we derive benefit from that state.

We attain nothing by sinking solely into resistance and negative qualities when nothing stands opposite them. Sometimes it seems that great suffering brings results, but this is untrue. There is no commandment to suffer even for a single second. Suffering is a problem of the body, of the Klipot (shells/peels), which constantly confuse and mislead us into thinking that through suffering we manage to attain something.

The statement, “It is a great Mitzva to be in joy,” is absolutely true. The moment we can move into joy, we should not think that we have not yet felt enough suffering, that we must still sink deeper into suffering, into the depths of the evil inclination, into the depths of creation. Nothing is attained from the evil inclination or from suffering.

One should rejoice and not judge joy as frivolity. If, in the face of suffering, we immediately move into joy, that is not frivolity. In any case, suffering will soon return, and we will emerge from it once again, and so it goes, over and over. “And from Zion…,” i.e., from coming out of suffering, “shall come forth Torah.” Otherwise, we bring about destruction.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 238
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 237
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 236

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