How Can We Get A Desire For An Unknown Taste?
Question: What is the purpose of the circulation of the knowledge of Kabbalah and in what forms should it be carried out?
Answer: There is a reality that we perceive in our desire to receive pleasure, and we cannot disclose it more than we feel it now. There is also a reality that we can apprehend in our desire to bestow. To the extent we desire to bestow we can reveal the upper force, the nature of which is complete bestowal. We can attain only these two qualities.
We perceive our world in our desire to receive pleasure and can develop in it. But essentially, our world is limited by our egoistic desire that absorbs everything “into itself.” Consequently, we discover ourselves existing in a body made of flesh and in the surrounding environment.
Whereas the desire to bestow reveals for us the five worlds and the upper force, where we feel ourselves eternal and perfect like the upper force. But the problem is that in our desire to enjoy we sense a need for this world. Whereas we don’t have any need for the desire to bestow, for the spiritual world, and we have to develop it. Otherwise, we will not be able to attain the spiritual world.
The question is how I can develop a need for something I don’t want, feel, or understand and have no taste for? I don’t have any prerequisites for it; I have never tasted spirituality. What should I strive for?
I can advance towards it by means of problems and blows. But then I will only want to get rid of the blows, to run away from them, pushing or pricking me from behind. And how can I discover good awaiting for me ahead? I cannot see, feel, or taste it.
Thus, we do not have any choice. Blows, suffering, problems, crises, and bankruptcies alone cannot help us: All these impacts will not assist us in reaching spirituality. Therefore, Baal HaSulam states that there should be a preliminary condition for revelation of spirituality—the dissemination of the science of Kabbalah, which is referred to as “the call of the Messiah’s horn.”
I need to disclose to the world that there is something good, pleasant, and worthy that opens everything before you. It should be so attractive that even if I do not feel any lack now, I will suddenly realize that I am missing a different world—the upper one.
How can I get a desire for it? It is possible if I get impressed by the environment that tells me about it. Meaning, I need a good, big environment that “will brainwash me” to such a degree that I will really want something I do not want now. And we can see that the society is able to do it.
Therefore, everything depends on the environment. Otherwise, sufferings will come and will bombard me with blows—until I develop a desire to disseminate and try to disseminate in any case in order to receive an aspiration to move forward. By virtue of this desire I will be able to progress towards the quality of bestowal, towards the spiritual world, and then and only then I will attain it.
Thus, dissemination is an indispensable and mandatory condition for attaining spirituality. In what forms should we disseminate? In any! How can we influence a person? Through all his senses: Let him be impressed, desire, beg, or fear—it could be anything that will make him desire spirituality, as it is said: “I want!” Otherwise, if I don’t wish to advance on my own, only sufferings will come from behind, which is not enough.
We should desire spirituality ourselves and only then we will reveal it. That desire must be complete and reach a full measure called “Seah.” And I can receive it only from the environment. Therefore, you should realize how important circulation is!
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From the New York lecture #2, 9/12/11
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I must say, we have this desire naturally. It is called the desire to know the meaning of our lives, the WHY that children ask and are so fond of.
In the beginning, all of our desires are behind this goal, to find the meaning. They all assist it like servants and workers. But when it is broken by the world, and by pain, we become lost. Then we are no longer in harmony and all the desires within us pull in different directions.
The correct education will maintain the harmony, or perhaps shatter it knowing it will be rebuilt. But, this has to be very carefully done, so as to let them rebuild it themselves. Then each will truly have a unique piece to offer.