Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 189

What Is the Discernment of Knowledge and What Is the Discernment of Faith?

A person cannot walk on the path of knowledge, because the path of knowledge is the reception of the reward in corrected vessels. What is knowledge? Knowledge is given to us when the light enters the vessel and gives the vessel a sensation, and we examine it with our intellect and are aware of all the circumstances that brought us to that sensation: the actions we performed, with which desires, to what extent they are corrected, on which degrees of coarseness, and how we built this sensation altogether. The structure of the sensation, our approach to it, how much we worked, and how we now enjoy it, all give us knowledge. In spirituality, we can reach this only through faith, that is, through the correction of Hafetz Hesed (delighting in mercy). Faith and knowledge are two degrees. “Faith” is called the light of Hassadim, and “complete faith,” when knowledge comes within it, is called “the light of Hassadim with the illumination of Hochma.”

We attain the light of Hassadim by means of a screen of the root, first, and second degrees of coarseness. Even in the third and fourth degrees of coarseness, the light of Hassadim must first come in a strength appropriate to the light of Hochma. Faith is the first correction. Everything is attained through faith. What does faith mean? It means having a restriction and vessels of bestowal, the degree of Bina. Bina is called “faith.” GAR of Bina is called “complete faith.” When ascending from below upward, when Malchut reaches the degree of Bina, it first attains Bina, which is called Hafetz Hesed, and afterward, when it corrects its vessels of reception within Bina, it is considered that it has reached GAR of Bina, and there it receives the illumination of Hochma.

This is in contrast to what the masses in our world think, that faith means closing our eyes, that we become fanatical and do what we are told without using our head. In spiritual vessels it is indeed so that “not using the head” means not working with the light of Hochma, but we must “use the head” in order to work with the light of Hassadim, which requires much subtlety and effort. It does not mean erasing the desires. It means knowing them and, above them, building an attitude of going above them. This is called “faith above reason.”

There is no such thing as simple faith. Since we are vessels of reception, even in the root, first, second, and third degrees of coarseness, even in the root degree, everything we do essentially rides on the will to receive. We have no will to bestow. The will to bestow is the Creator. We have a will to receive that can be corrected for the sake of bestowal. Therefore, even if we work in the root degree of coarseness, it is still work upon a will to receive of the root degree, which is different from the pure bestowal of the Creator. If we reach work only in order to bestow, we work above that will to receive.

Even in the will to receive there is knowledge. Knowledge is its coarseness, even the root degree of coarseness, and if we work above it we neutralize ourselves, and this is called being “an embryo.” The corrected root degree of coarseness is called “an embryo.” We completely annul ourselves and we are entirely in self-annulment, but we know what we are giving up and what we annul. In this annulment, we are as if under the Creator’s full control, and this is called “an embryo in its mother’s womb”; it is the complete giving of our soul to the upper one. This is above reason. To the extent that there is reason, we should be above it. At every degree, there is a state called “embryo.” That is, there are 125 degrees, and at each more advanced degree there is a coarseness that we relinquish and give their soul over. To be an embryo at the 100th degree, for example, is a greater attainment than to be great at the 99^th degree.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 188
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 187
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 186

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