We Are At The Threshold Of The Human Degree

How Old Is the World?A question I received: Say I am carrying out an inner action, rather than an external, mechanical one. What is the inner driving force of this action? And what is its meaning?

My Answer: The whole meaning of our actions is to reveal reality by means of very hard efforts. This is what constitutes a person’s work in this world. A person comes into this world in order to reach the realization of his own evil, the evil of his existence. Granted, this realization comes gradually, whether to each person individually or to entire nations or even civilizations. It occurs in due time, according to the pyramid that constitutes the structure of humanity.

But eventually, every person needs to come to the realization of evil; that is, to understand that mankind’s material existence is good for nothing, and we are incapable of correcting it even if just to live like corrected animals that feel well.

And even if we could correct our corporeal existence and make our bodies feel well, we would be like cows standing before an endless green meadow. The cow has sunlight, water, and everything it could possibly want, but the grass and the cow’s life will come to an end one day! Our lives also will end someday and that’s it… And this thought, which the cow doesn’t have, suddenly begins to torment every person, once he reaches a certain level of development.

Most people don’t think about this, or they try to forget about it. But in the end, a person develops to such an extent that he begins to ask about this. He wonders: Why is this so? What for!? Moreover, if he sees an inevitable end ahead of him, and pictures it clearly, he feels sick from all the green grass around him. It fails to give him any pleasure if he knows that one day it will all end.

At that point, a person doesn’t want to live the moment. And that is when a very complex inner battle and discernments begin to take place in him. Does he want to continue enjoying the pleasures that he can receive today, tuning himself out from the next moment, or does he live for the future and exist only for the future’s sake?

This constitutes a person’s decision: to live for today and not think about the future, as though it doesn’t exist, or to live for the future and not worry about the present moment. It is one of the two. If I only think about the present moment, I am called an animal, and if I think about the future, I am called a human being. When a person begins to feel this sensation, he turns to the science of Kabbalah. He does it out of despair, due to being unable to find any meaning in mankind’s material development. That is when Kabbalah steps in and explains to the person why everything was created and how he can continue to advance.

The other sciences, too, confirm that man’s activity in this world is inherently flawed, and that we are destroying the world. We need to take from the world only as much as animals take. After all, our body is just an animal. And the rest of our efforts should be devoted to spiritual development, in order to rise to the “human” degree. This is where Nature is pushing us: to reach the human level.

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2 Comments

  1. But Rav, these days there is constantly danger all around us; economic insecurity, swine flu, violent weather. At the same time we are trying with all our effort to reach the goal. So how do we make it through this mine field and to the goal when we’re constantly having to worry for the safety of our children and selves, which distracts us? You are always saying we have to care for our families and our beast while obtaining the purpose of creation. So how do we balance all this out?

  2. P.S. Our enviroment is getting so hostile that it seems like we’ll be lucky to live to reach the goal, even if we have the greatest desire to reach it. Since this is the purpose of creation, shouldnt He clear a path of safety so we can reach it.

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