We have entered a special period called “Between the Straits,” from the 17th of Tammuz when the first Tablets were broken, till the 9th of Av when the Temple was destroyed. Looking back at history, we can understand many things about this time. We can see how difficult it is to accept the method of unification and to implement it. This is to what the days “Between the Straits” testify.
We received the Torah, the method of correction, symbolized by Moses who rose to the mountain for forty days and brought the method of unification from the degree of Bina (Bestowal), but the people were unable to accept it. Even though everything has been prepared and given from above, we are unable to receive it.
And in reality, this is not our fault. It is simply because our desires still have not sufficiently integrated with good and evil to enable us to correct one through the other. The integration occurs precisely by way of the breakage. Only an explosion can help to break the boundaries between two opposites that reject one another and force them to integrate.
This integration must be completely chaotic and disorderly, under the pressure of an explosive force because there cannot be any order in the integration of good and evil. Order can be established only after they have been integrated. Within that integration, with the help of the upper Light, everything can be discerned and sorted out, and then the proper connection and construction can be attained.
There is a complex process allowing opposite things to unite in harmony and mutual complement. This is precisely what happens in the process of the reception of the Torah.
It is impossible to do this faster with the egoistic desire that just came out of Egypt and has only a weak inclination to be corrected. It understands that it needs to be corrected, but does not realize the extent to which it is opposite to the corrected state because there is no mutual integration yet.
As long as we are under the power of Pharaoh, egoism, we do not feel that we are its slaves. Our exodus happens by virtue of an external force that pulls us out of there, showing us that this is worthwhile. However, the desires are not corrected by it.
We see this happening to us: Every day we decide to finally come out of our egoism and start thinking about the group so that our concern won’t be for ourselves on a personal level, but so it will be for everyone. However, we do not succeed.
We make greater and greater efforts, but small breakages keep taking place. This is happening to us as we are a consequence of many destructions and corrections that have already taken place in our root.
The Torah tells us about the preparation for correction. The entire path lasting six thousand years that humanity transverses was just preparation. Correction is attained only at the very end, on the day of absolute Light. All of these states have also been realized in matter: the destruction of the First and Second Temples and the horrible wars within the nation of Israel. All of this was the material incarnation of the spiritual degrees.
After the complete integration, which was achieved at the cost of many wars, shards of the broken will to enjoy and will to bestow become completely integrated with one another and fall even lower, to the very bottom. After four exiles and three redemptions, each of which was necessary, we are reaching the end of the last exile and the beginning of the final redemption.
Looking at this process, it is obvious that the Torah cannot be received all at once. And this is indicated by the day of the 17th of Tammuz, the breaking of the first Tablets. Only after the breaking and mutual integration of spiritual desires with material ones has occurred is it possible to ascend to acquire a different form.
The first Torah was “incorrect.” It was necessary only in order for the Tablets to be broken and to reach correction. The second Torah was corrected, able to fix the integration of bestowing desires with the receiving ones, which is what happens with the help of the second Tablets. This is a unique process, testifying to how opposite our qualities are to the qualities of the upper force.
We should have a balanced attitude to these days, seeing them not just as days of mourning and breakage, but as something inevitable that we have to go through. The whole world will have to go through this destruction in one form or another. However, if we know why we are doing this and for what purpose, we will be able to go through everything by the path of Achishena (hastening), as humans.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/11/17, Lesson on the topic of “The Period of “Between the Straits”
Related Material:
The 17th Of Tammuz
Time Of Judgment
Ynet: “Breaking Out From The Straits”
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