Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 246

What Is the Difference Between Feeling Evil and Recognizing Evil?

It has already been mentioned here how to escape evil, from a bad feeling to a good feeling. We should ask the Creator not to give us evil, but the recognition of evil. What is the difference between the two? They are completely different. In one case, we feel that the Creator is striking us for no reason, and we feel bad due to that. In the other case, we understand intellectually, through reason and understanding, that these blows are not directed at us, because we already identify with a different point. Instead, they are directed at those qualities within us that are opposite to the Creator’s qualities.

When we feel bad because of the blows we have received, we are like a child who has experienced something unpleasant, for example, we did not receive a piece of candy (a blow is not necessarily a physical blow), and we identify with that feeling of evil. We are inside the evil. In Kabbalah, it is said that if we feel evil, we should escape that feeling. We should emerge from that evil and observe it from the outside, from a distant point, which is called “performing a restriction.” That is, the “I” that feels and the “evil” that is felt are two separate and opposing things. And from whom do we receive the evil? From the Creator.

In other words, we place our “I” outside both the Creator and the body that feels evil, and this is called “recognition of evil.” Otherwise, we do not recognize the evil, we merely feel it. Kabbalists emphasize strongly that this is called “recognition of evil,” not the feeling of evil. Also, when we look at that evil from the outside, we already understand why we feel that way, for what purpose it came to us, and what we must do with it. Then the recognition of evil truly brings us to correction. Therefore, when we are in the recognition of evil, we seemingly ask to recognize it even more deeply in order to receive the strength to emerge from it and to ask for corrections. We do not ask to feel more evil. We ask to recognize more of the evil.

It is possible that evil brings with it a pleasant sensation. A person who enjoys smoking, for example, continues to smoke and enjoy it, yet at the same time would like to develop a hatred for smoking. How does one come to recognize the evil in smoking, which gives him pleasure? Gradually, he begins to feel that smoking is bad for him. He coughs, and his health deteriorates. He gains a deeper and deeper view on how harmful it is, until smoking becomes so bad that he fears it, becomes fed up with it, and is ready to escape from it. The recognition of evil is not the feeling of evil. They are two completely different things.

“The feeling of evil” is what an animal feels. “The recognition of evil” is already spiritual work performed by a human being. We begin to discern that something is evil and understand in relation to what it is evil, in relation to advancement, to drawing closer to the Creator. It is not for nothing that we feel the blow but do not know who is giving it to us. We realize that through this blow, the Creator shows us the quality that prevents us from connecting with Him and adhering to Him. It is not evil because we feel pain, but because the quality in which we feel the pain distances us from the Creator. The recognition of evil is the recognition of our distance from the Creator, not the sensation of suffering in a particular bodily organ.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 245
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 244
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 243

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