The Divine Taste Of Bestowal

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: It’s unclear why creation makes a restriction and pushes the pleasure away? Why can’t it be close to the Creator and receive from Him?

Answer: I don’t push away pleasure, but an unpleasant sensation. At that moment I no longer feel pleasure. If you give me some kind of exquisite dish, but it causes me to feel ashamed, then I stop feeling pleasure from that dish. This infinite fulfillment doesn’t make me feel good any longer!

Afterwards I will have to awaken my taste for this pleasure all over again. When I acquire the quality of Bina and start acting for the sake of bestowal, and then I start to receive for the sake of bestowal, I must once again reawaken the taste for pleasures within myself.

However, these are no longer the same tastes I felt before, but a completely different kind of pleasure which I offer to the Creator. First of all, I take His desire and fulfill it. I check with what kind of love He gave me this piece of pleasure and I want to fill the empty place in Him. It’s empty because I did not accept this fulfillment from Him.

I think about His enjoyment, about what kind of pleasure He will receive when He fulfills me. And because I feel what kind of pleasure I give Him, I now understand what kind of fulfillment I have to take from Him and in what form I should enjoy Him.

When I begin to experience pleasure from bestowal, I no longer feel the old taste of pleasures inside of me because I approach them with a new intention. Just like shame ruins all of the pleasures from reception for me, so the intention of bestowal revokes the simple taste in me. That is why it is called the acquisition of new vessels or desires.

Both the bestowing and the receiving desires in me are completely new, which is called “613” times more than what I had before. This multifold multiplication comes precisely from the shame that enables us to increase our desires and pleasures by 613 times.

This is the shame from the difference between myself and the Creator, the difference between our situations. This is not just some kind of sensation, but a precise measurement of how much He is entirely bestowing and above me, since I am a receiver. It’s precisely equal to the height of that shame.

And the difference does not arise due to any material reception, but it’s a difference in our intentions. Therefore, if we work on this shame in order to turn it into respect and honor, then we attain this “613-fold’ increase.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/11, Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah

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