Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 70

How Is the Choice Between Good and Evil Made from this Middle Point?

“Middle” means that good and evil seem equal. But how can we distinguish between them? In our world, there are no labels of “good” or “evil” attached to desires, temptations, or actions. If there were such labels, we would have no free choice. We are positioned between and surrounded equally by all kinds of possibilities.

But if the possibilities are equal, how can we choose? What choice can there be in Klipat Noga, in something half good and half evil, if we do not know what direction to take? After all, we are clueless as to what lies ahead of us. If we knew in advance, what choice would we have? How, then, do we make a choice?

It is only through descents and ascents, through failures. As it is written, “There is not a righteous man on earth who does good and did not sin.” From the failures and the feeling of how the situation is opposite to the spiritual degree, to perfection, to the Creator’s state, we come to recognize the Creator through negation and learn who and what He is, as is it written about “the advantage of light from within darkness,” and then we yearn for Him.

This is how we gather these yearnings until they build a genuine desire that leads to a cry to the Creator from which we receive strength, and we can then adhere to Him. This happens only through the feeling of failure.

The wars mentioned in the Bible with Amalek, the Klipot, and the many conquests are scrutinies of distinctions that must be made in order to reach the Land of Israel (“Land” [Eretz] meaning “desire” [Ratzon], and “Israel” meaning “straight to God” [Yashar-El]), a place where our desire aligns precisely with the desire of the Creator. It is a state where we receive a screen at the level of the light that dresses the level of Ein Sof.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 69
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 68
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 67

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