A question I received: Why does a person have to go through so many breakings? There’s the sin of Adam HaRishon, the intoxication of Noah, the animosity between Cain and Abel, the destruction of the Temple, and others. Why couldn’t we just go through the breaking once and then proceed to correct everything?

My Answer: The breaking is necessary in order for our desire to receive to become aware of itself, to feel that it is on the receiving end and someone gives to it, that someone wants to give to it and waits for a special reaction in return. This is all done in order for creation to learn not only to receive, but also to become similar to the Giver. Creation has to understand that reception and bestowal are just a means for connecting the Creator with creation. It is a means to bring creation to bestowal, to similarity with the Creator, and to help it ascend to His level.

When the egoistic desire begins to understand and feel all of this, it becomes “human.” Reception and bestowal are just auxiliary actions that help to elevate a person to the Creator’s level. All of the breakings are done in order to develop us and bring us to this level. All the states, feelings and realizations we go through are necessary; without them we would be unable to attain the Final Correction.

We cannot get there in one leap because wisdom comes with experience. We have to go through many states and compare them; we have to experience many inner conflicts and struggles in order to understand them. Our task is not to research the desire to enjoy that’s in us, but rather, through its reactions we study the Light, the Creator. We do not feel the Light itself; we are unable to perceive and understand it. However, by going through different layers of the desire to enjoy, the broken or uncorrected states, by being emptied of Light and filled by it, we study what happens outside our egoistic desire.

We don’t know what is really happening “outside.” We only feel the changes happening inside us and we compare them. This is how we study the third component – the Light. Even though we don’t know anything about the Light and we can’t feel it, we are nevertheless able to attain it through its actions. But this cannot be done all at once.

The more complex one’s desire becomes, the more contradictions and “shades” it contains, and the greater one’s ability to recognize the Light and the Creator. Therefore, we shouldn’t think that someone is deliberately placing obstacles on our path. The nature of our egoistic desire, which is opposite to the Light, requires it to perform these many actions in order to understand what the Light is, which is so far removed from it.

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