Question: Why is it said that due to corporeal pleasure you come to spirituality?

Answer: It means that I try to do all kinds of actions of bestowal to friends or in dissemination to another, to the general public.

Even though I try to carry them out only in order to bestow, without any personal benefit, ultimately I discover that they bring me pleasure and I am ready to do them only on condition that I will enjoy them.

I don’t have perpetual energy in me allowing me to perform actions without any fuel. If I move my hand, I must expend calories, expend energy. But where does this come from? So I must have pleasure to supply myself with energy.

I am not ready to just bestow. The Creator is the source of the energy, whereas I cannot be a source of energy. If I do something, I must get adequate compensation for this so that it will be worthwhile for me to act according to my emotion and intellect according to the calculations of my internal computer.

So even though I perform good actions: studying, dissemination, strengthening the group, I discover that in spite of it all, I am working for my own sake. I clarify that I am not prepared to be a power supply; rather, I always must have the thought of the benefits that I get from it. This is corporeal action.

From this it is clear to me that I am the opposite of the Creator and also perform actions of bestowal for the sake of my gain and benefit. I am like Pharaoh who used the children of Israel, meaning bestowal for my own pleasure. Pharaoh was very happy that the children of Israel were working for him. It was worthwhile for him to hold onto slaves like these.

They seemingly acted in order to bestow, but the ego, Pharaoh, received all of the fruits of labor for himself. What could be better than that? The desire to receive alone, without acts of bestowal, which just works in the form of reception, is called a “beast.” That is how all the animals and beasts act, receiving pleasure directly. The calculation is very simple: How much to pay for each pleasure and how much I will get?

But the exile and enslavement in Egypt is that I already want to approach the Creator, and so I enter into this period. I do acts of bestowal, am connected with the friends, establish Arvut (mutual guarantee) between us, do acts of dissemination, do a multitude of things, invest all of my life in this. But I always discover that I did all of this for personal benefit.

In the end, I don’t want this to be for my own benefit, but I cannot do anything except for myself, otherwise I cannot work. So I fall, lose all my energy and I don’t have the strength to move. Kill me, I will not get up.

So I begin to discover how much I am not ready to work without a payoff. So how can I do acts of bestowal? If the society shows me the importance of bestowal and I see that I am not ready for this, then I feel myself enslaved. And accordingly, I already begin the struggle and I am approaching the plagues in Egypt.

I feel myself as if I am Moses, it is in my interest that my desire receives blows. Only this will allow me to break away from it.
[131427]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/1/14, Shamati #190

Related Material:
The Work In The Exile In Egypt
Renouncing Egoism
Farewell To Egypt

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Work | Add Comment →