Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 139

Chapter 14. The Desire for Spirituality

The Creator created the will to receive in accordance with His purpose “to do good to His creations,” to bring the will to receive to a state of perfection. For “doing good,” according to the Creator, means to do so perfectly, like Him. Anything less than perfection is not considered true goodness. Only the Creator is perfection.

In order to bring the created being to equivalence, to such perfection, it is necessary for the created being to want to become corrected, to change, and to bring the state that is opposite to perfection to ultimate perfection. Perfection is achieved only from its opposite, as “the advantage of light out of darkness,” as “there was evening and there was morning.” From a vessel that feels deficiency, the filling is sensed, and from a felt lack, delight is perceived. We cannot understand or attain anything except from its opposite.

The essence of delight, the essence of light, is the Creator. To attain and feel Him is only possible through having the opposite form. This means that the nature of the created being must be opposite to the nature of the Creator in order to enjoy the state of perfection, the degree of the Creator. Therefore, the breaking of the vessels takes place. Through the breaking of the vessels into the will to receive of the created being, which is “existence from absence,” qualities of the Creator (“existence from existence”) fall in. Therefore, we acquire desires for fulfillments, which necessarily come from the Creator.

The way to reach the purpose of creation begins from the lowest degree where we have basic bodily-animal desires for food, sex, and shelter, which are desires found also in animals. We long for them even when living alone. Next, we develop human-social desires for wealth, honor, and knowledge, which society instills. Only after we more or less know, recognize, and fulfill these desires, do we reach desires called “spiritual desires,” which neither body nor society can fulfill, only the Creator can.

There are thus three stages of the desire’s development. The development begins by fulfilling animal and human desires, known as “desires of this world.” We begin to talk about a human being only from the moment when spiritual desires awaken, desires that can only be filled with the upper light, with the Creator, with the sensation of the Creator. These are called “desires of the world to come,” the spiritual world.

We who develop a spiritual desire, where the desire for spirituality is conceived, work to develop and fulfill this desire against all other desires. We work on the point in the heart, the desire for spiritual fulfillment, against all other bodily and human desires. We labor against these opposites with all of our might, using the society, the study, and inner searching. We want to grow and nurture the point in the heart, the desire for spirituality, against all the other corporeal desires.

If we complete this work (and we do not know when that will be), we long only for spirituality, day and night, in a state described as “until it does not let me sleep,” and we only fulfill the other desires out of necessity for basic existence, not as luxuries. If all of these conditions are met, it is a sign that we have finished our work in this world, and then we are given a new degree: the level of work is raised. Instead of the general bodily desires in the heart, we are given desires called Klipot.

Opposite the point in the heart, instead of the expanded point, we are given the feeling of the Creator. Now, instead of a heart filled with animalistic and human desires and a small point with a vague longing for spirituality, we receive a new heart, a Klipa within which is Kedusha. The Klipot are various thoughts and desires against the Creator, against His unity, collectively called “Pharaoh.” Kedusha is the desire and yearning for the Creator, the soul. The relationship between Klipa and Kedusha is like the relationship between the heart and the point in the heart at the level of this world.

Thus, we continue our work. Our whole connection, life, and yearning becomes directed toward the Creator, while Pharaoh (the Klipot, the disturbances) constantly resist them. Yet, as it is written, “Pharaoh brought the children of Israel closer to their Father in Heaven.” It is precisely through these disturbances, through the Klipot, that we strengthen and magnify our connection, yearning, and desire for the Creator.

When we complete the work, the end of the work is called “the end of correction,” we enter a state where all our desires are completely corrected in accordance with perfection and Godliness, and we become fully filled with the upper light. These are the differences between the degrees of this world and the degrees of the next world, between the beastly soul and the Godly soul.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 138
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 137
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 136

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