Question: In order for a new plant to grow, a seed is needed, one that contains the full potential. But then the seed must completely rot, and only then can a sprout break through. Can we take this example for spiritual development? Is some kind of gap necessary before rising to the next degree?

Answer: There is a gap between the degrees, and the desire must make a leap to reach the next one. I perform 99% of the work on my current degree in order to reach such an acute desire to ascend from it that remaining on it becomes “worse than death.”

I act above reason, annul all my intellect and feeling, and want nothing except greater bestowal, the quality that the upper degree possesses. I cling with all my strength to the teacher, the environment, and the books just to complete this one remaining percent. But I am certain and know that only the light can help me make this leap.

A gap remains, like between two electrodes, which must be bridged by a spark. I’ve brought my “electrode,” my current degree, as close as possible to the next one. But now, what must connect them is a fiery, electric arc, and that is no longer within my power. What depends on me is only the effort, my desire to eliminate this gap, to short-circuit it!

This is the very percent that the Creator completes for you, when you’ve done all that depends on you and approached so closely that what remains between the degrees is only the stony heart (Lev haEven), which you cannot short-circuit, and then the Creator breaks through it for you and carries out this leap.

Because between degrees there exists an infinite gap. You cannot pass from one to the other, you can only jump. The difference between degrees is as between Yesh (existence) and Ein (non-existence), between the Creator and creation. After all, on the next degree, you become in some aspect similar to the Creator. You transition from the degree of creation to the degree of the Creator.

And the same occurs on the next degree, once you’ve realized it completely on the level of creation, you must once again leap to the degree of the Creator that is higher than you.
[35176]
From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/11/11, Writing of Rabash

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