End Of The Egyptian Slavery
It isn’t easy to answer a question of where is the point from which a person can determine whether he’s going to receive pleasure from egoism or from bestowal? Does a person want to be a slave to Pharaoh or to the Creator?
Our main task is to reach a point where we ask to change our ruler so that the force of bestowal would rule over us instead of reception. We study Kabbalah and carry out all the recommendations of Kabbalists in order to be able to make this choice.
We can come to this choice either by the path of suffering, through the natural progression of time (Beito), or by the path of Light (Achishena). On the path of natural development, only blows await us. This is when the Creator takes away all possible pleasures from Pharaoh, our egoism, or the desire to receive for oneself, and therefore we experience suffering. That’s why we are ready to exit from Pharaoh’s rule and to distance ourselves from him. After all, nature itself is forcing us to avoid that which causes us to suffer.
And then there’s the path of Light, “hastening of time” (Achishena). This is when our egoistic desire is still allowing us to receive pleasure, but we carry out various actions in order to build a new attitude toward the desire to bestow. And even though I receive egoistic pleasure and I’m under Pharaoh’s rule, I don’t feel that this is something negative: I’m enjoying life. However, I begin to look for a way to rise above him and to no longer depend on him, to start to value the quality of bestowal.
This means that I try to walk the path of Light so that the quality of bestowal would effect me and give me the understanding that Pharaoh is an evil ruler. His evil isn’t in the pleasures that he gives but in my receiving these pleasures for my own sake. This entirely new criterion is based not on pleasures, but on their direction, on who receives: I or the others (or the Creator along with others).
And then instead of judging the path through sensations, according to pleasure or suffering, I switch to a logical calculation of what’s good and evil, of true versus false. I come to realize that truth is bestowal, the upper force, the Creator, and I want this truth! And even if I feel good under Pharaoh’s rule, I still want to adhere to bestowal.
If a person comes to such a realization, he rises above the natural or the animal evaluation (Beito) and makes decisions on the level of “Achishena,” thereby pushing himself toward exiting from Pharaoh’s rule. And then he doesn’t need to go through physical suffering and receive blows to the desire to receive through various crises we feel in the world today and which will only increase in the future if we continue to progress by the natural flow of events (Beito).
His suffering becomes the suffering on the path of “Achishena,” the suffering of love. After all, he’s aspiring toward bestowal, something opposite to love of self. He asks the Creator, or the upper Light, to change his pleasure from egoistic to from bestowal. This is how a person advances.
[40773]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/2011, Writings of Rabash
Related Material:
Entering A New Land
A Great Egoism That Leads To Bestowal
Egyptian Slavery Means You Have No Right To Bestow
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Re the above statement :
“This is when the Creator takes away all possible pleasures from Pharaoh, our egoism, or the desire to receive for oneself, and therefore we experience suffering. ”
Why has the Creator left his creatures for such a long time on the path of suffering?
Only now when end of days is +- 200 years away is the Zohar now made available.
Millions of people have never heard of and probably will never know the point in the heart within the next 200 years. (It has already taken 1000’s of years to get this far!).
The creature was never told before about the choice of 2 paths but is now subjected to suffering for making the wrong choice. A choice was never offered.
This is a wonderful article, there is something else though.
Love of others initially comes from self rejection. But then one sees that they themselves are part of the group, and that all must be happy and healthy, including themselves, in order for the organism to survive. So then the person can receive as well, the key being that everyone is fulfilled, not one or the other, but both, all.
The problem with self rejection taken too far is that it leads to martyrdom. Too much self rejection and the person will die. Loving others and resisting loving just the self is the first step, but then loving the entire reality, the creator, is the perfected state. The key is finding what will bring fulfillment to the most. Strangely, this seems sometimes to be choosing oneself over others sometimes…
I never would have thought this but here is an example:
Say one is in total self rejection and only helps others. Those still in hateful self love (me above all others screw everyone else this world is mine etc) will literally prey upon such a person, and drain them and use them so much that the person will lose faith and may fall back into a form like those that prey on them. In this case it becomes necessary to be strong in the face of them, and not give a single bit to such a ravaging force. In this environment (where I live sadly) it is critical that one keeps their giving for those who truly appreciate their love, otherwise it is pearls before swine. This is why the vicious egoists are evil, they force Israel to not give but to receive, which can pull them backwards, or if they are developed enough, force them to not bestow because it will feed their egos. A sad thing, but needed. I hope this is useful, I am starting to grow weary of this place.