If the Creator wishes to be the Creator, He needs the creature. This created being, which exists separately from the Creator and feels independent of Him, receives from and responds to the Creator, and it is considered as though it is giving back. In other words, these two have to have a certain relationship, feelings, thoughts, and interaction.

There has to be two! Therefore, it’s necessary to create a being separate of the Creator, meaning that its nature should be the will to receive pleasure—the only thing it lacks to be the creature. That is, it has to feel alive, existing, and receiving. Then, by using this desire to receive, it can become like the giver and respond to the Creator’s love in the right way.

Thus, except for the will to receive pleasure, the creature must also possess a “steering wheel” in order to turn this desire and change its direction from 100% of receiving for its own sake to 100% of receiving for the Creator’s sake. And in the rest of this interval between them, there will be various combinations between these two extremes: one part to the Creator, and the other to me.

This is what defines the entire ladder of spiritual rungs. I start with 100% for myself and gradually turn the “wheel” 180 degrees to 100% of bestowal to the Creator or other people. It doesn’t matter to whom because it’s all about how I use myself.

“I” is my desire, whereas the “steer” is my intention, meaning for the sake of whom I exert. This is what determines my state. And now the only question is at which point of this circle I am. We start at the zero point (0) and finish with the final correction (Gmar Tikkun), the state of absolute love and bestowal.

So, according to the plan of creation “to delight the creatures,” the Creator creates the necessary desire. Additionally, He gives the creature conditions which allow it to control the desire and turn itself in the direction it chooses—if I wish to “drive” to the higher rungs, on the 125 degree ladder, from the zero point of “this world” to the world of Infinity. This is how the plan of creation works.

In order to keep “driving,” I need to see the road ahead of me. I have to know what is necessary to keep driving and how to obtain “fuel.” I should know how to steer the wheel, change direction, and stay out of trouble on this path. I have to clarify for myself all of these criteria and check whether I am following them or not, if I can change and control them.

Then, I will gradually begin to see in all of these “road traffic” conditions that I am losing sight of myself ever more. I can keep driving only if I am willing for the new form to clothe in me all the time, the one that is ever closer and more similar to the Creator. Phase after phase, point after point of this trip, when I have covered another distance and advanced a bit more, I get internally transformed, and the image of the Creator clothes in me ever more. This means that I am “driving” and getting closer to Him.

Consequently, we need to make our desire to enjoy ready for such transformations, to assume such forms of the upper one. This implies the restriction of the will to receive and annulment of one’s egoistic intention, until it starts to obtain the forms of bestowal, the Creator’s forms, getting closer to Him ever more.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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