“Existence from absence” was created from “existence from existence,” meaning the upper force, the one, unique, and unified, besides which there is nothing else. And this creature is regarded as “the will to receive pleasure.” The nature of the upper force is to bestow; hence, it created the will to receive pleasure as opposite to itself so that it could exist outside of this force.

The second force, the desire to receive, wants to receive the property of bestowal that the primary force wishes to endow and to fill it with. Thus, the desire to receive and the desire to bestow match and oppose each other. And this is how the wisdom of Kabbalah begins: the exploration of authentic, universal reality.

Further on, the will to receive evolves influenced by the will to bestow, and both these forces affect one another as plus and minus. Being secondary to the will to bestow, the desire to receive yields to the former, accepts, and receives it into itself. The primary force created affects and rules over it, and thereby, the will to receive changes while undergoing various transformations.

Initial changes along this way are regarded as the “four stages of the Direct Light” or the name HaVaYaH. It is the stencil through which the will to bestow acts in the will to receive.

After the four stages of this work are complete, the will to receive becomes aware of what it is, where it is in reference to the will to bestow, and starts experiencing itself as a created being that exists outside of the giver, outside of the Creator. Then, the desire to receive autonomously defines the process it wishes to implement. And what it wants is to achieve equivalence of form, in order to become absolutely equal to the will to bestow that begot it.

Undoubtedly, all that exists in the will to receive came from the will to bestow. The desire to give brought it to life, linked into it, and endowed it with its own power and properties. Obviously, all there is in the creature, in the desire to receive, came from the giving one. After all, there is nowhere else from which to receive anything. From where can something new within it suddenly emerge?

And still, experiencing itself as a creation, it is able to perform an autonomous act. To do so, it has to be present between the two opposite forces of nature: its own desire to receive and the Creator’s will to bestow. If the creation manages to position itself in the middle, it will be free to choose with what it wishes to be associated.

And hence, the Creator’s intention in creating the will to receive was not for it to simply receive pleasure and become aware of itself or who created it, but rather so that it would find itself between the two forces. Let it end up not in its own or the Creator’s nature but in the neutral “zero” nature, equal detachment from either force, between the plus and the minus, the two poles of a magnet, “hanging in the air” between heaven and earth.

In this state, the choice indeed will be solely up to the creature itself.
[35674]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, Writings of Rabash

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