The first man (Adam HaRishon) was created as an angel—in a small, undeveloped state. Only after the transgression with the tree of knowledge of good and evil did he begin to become a man.
It was then that the two forces appeared: reception and bestowal, contraction and expansion, between which a struggle began. As a result, all levels of nature developed—the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human.
Ultimately, this being appeared—the man—standing between good and evil, bestowal and reception, light and darkness, feeling himself to be an independent creation in relation to them. That is us!
Before that, there had been no “third”; only these two forces of nature acted together as one upper force. But when they reached the culmination of their development, someone third emerged from them that possessed the ability to exist and evolve beginning with the inanimate level, then the vegetative, the animate, and ultimately reaching the awareness of self and of the Creator, that is, becoming man.
All this is the result of the sin, after which these two opposite, shattered forces began to interact and integrate with one another.
Baal HaSulam writes that when our planet Earth was forming, it went through alternating periods of about 30 million years of heating up and erupting with fiery lava from within, then cooling from outside and solidifying. This continued until it reached a stable state that made the development of the next levels possible—first plants and then animals.
All this evolution took place due to the struggle of these two forces. Therefore, only now are we reaching the completion of that process and beginning the true work of man. All generations before us existed as “angels.” Only in our time do we act as a result of the shattering and merging of the people of Israel with all other nations. We are the first who now begin correction.
The first man, Adam HaRishon, was a spiritual Partzuf from which man developed as from a drop of seed. And as a result of all the development and our work, he is destined to become a creation that will become similar to the Creator. It is for the sake of this future state that he is called “Adam” (from the word “Domeh”—similar to the Creator).
Before that, he was merely an angel, a creation of the hands of the Creator that possessed no independence of his own.
That is why, when man was being created, the angels asked the Creator: “Why are You creating this evil inclination?” But the Creator replied that evil is necessary, for it is precisely through it that the two forces hatred and love will unite, and thus the Creator will be attained. As it is written: “They shall all know Me from their smallest to their greatest.” After all, the Creator’s contentment lies in His creations attaining His perfection, wholeness, and greatness.
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From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/16/2011, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”
Related Material:
Anticipating The Light That Reforms
An Honorable Kinship with Adam
Was There Really Adam HaRishon?
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Question: Mirror conventions will be held in different cities. How can we unite all our desires into one in order to turn to the Creator and truly become one heart?
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