We all receive some initial sense of the importance of the bitter fruit of bestowal, but we cannot bear its terribly bitter taste. However, if we constantly tell each other how important it is, then everyone will be imbued with this importance. On the other hand, a person will feel more clearly how much this repels him and is against his whole nature. He will sense that this thing is extremely valuable, but is beyond him.

If a person is in the environment that tells him that there is no choice because this fruit is vital for him, and it is his entire life, then he agrees to change his nature. He begins do discover that there is a remedy for this and demands the force that would change him: the Light that Reforms.

Thus gradually, he discovers a new taste. He begins to find sweetness in this bitterness by adding even more bitterness!

The Talmud gives an example that it is forbidden to sprinkle lemon or grapefruit with salt because it softens the natural bitterness and turns it into sweetness. As it is said: “Salt sweetens meat.”

To the bitter fruit, we add an even more bitter component—the anti-egoistic screen—and then it turns sweet! Thus, a person gets a remedy called the force of bestowal.

And then the bitterness, which he felt before in his egoistic desires, becomes sweet due to the screen. That is, he obtains a connection with bestowal because bestowal turns into pleasure for him. And the Giver, that is, the Creator, becomes close to him to such an extent that a person feels the desire to bestow to the Creator.

He then develops this taste for bestowal, as in our life we develop a taste for new food, and it becomes pleasure for us. A child will not drink wine because it is sour or bitter, he would rather have sweet juice. He will refuse to eat very spicy and sour food that we eat. Our normal tastes also develop over  our lifetime, and we can develop a new attitude to the things that previously we could not tolerate.

The same happens in our inner work. Bestowal is a very bitter fruit. There is nothing attractive in it; just the opposite, everything in it repels. However, if a person cares about the importance of bestowal, this importance turns into the right line for him, and bitterness into the left line. And then he builds a new middle line, a means to taste the sweetness in bitterness.

It is completely like the Megillat Esther (Book of Esther), which means the disclosure (Megillah) of concealment (Esther). Sweetness is felt in bitterness, and “darkness will shine like the Light.” And so everything that we felt as bitter becomes sweet due to a new attitude.

But “the earth will not bear fruit until man is created.” The fruit already exist, and the earth is ready to bear them, just a person has to be born to feel that there is fertile soil, bearing fruit, and it is sweet; otherwise, it is not a fruit. That is, these are the fruits that are revealed as a result of man’s work, and without it, he will not reap the fruits.

To the extent that he built the middle line, a new attitude to what he felt bitter, he will reveal that this is a sweet fruit.
[59424]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/1/2011, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
Conscious Love For A Bitter Fruit
The Desired Is Not Broken The Screen Is
Turning Bitter To Sweet

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work | 1 Comment →