Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 112

Chapter 12 On My Bed at Night

What does “And through the Torah, the person was created” mean? Human (Adam) comes from the expression Adameh leElyon (“I will be like the upper one”), and it is written: “You are called Adam, but the nations of the world are not called Adam.” This means that if the will to receive undergoes a correction called “for the sake of bestowal,” the corrected part is called “human.” How is this done? It is done through the Torah. How is it done through the Torah? We are given various opportunities to perform different actions in this world, and through our successes and failures, our will to receive develops.

After the development of the beastly desires for food, sex, and family, and the development of social desires for wealth, honor, and knowledge, we reach the development of the spiritual will. The development of the spiritual will is not a further expansion of desire. Rather it is the desire’s direction toward the Creator, and accordingly, its growth. If before the development of the point in the heart, which is this new desire for spirituality, we work on developing our desire, usually unconsciously, without knowing why or how, impulses and cravings surface within us, we simply run after them and fulfill them. Such work is not even considered a single line, and certainly not two or three lines. But the spiritual desire can only be developed, expanded, and corrected in the form of lines.

“Lines” mean that the small desire is not simply inflated into an ever-greater one without direction, which would make its form a circle, but it is straightened so that it aims at a specific goal and that it is intended for a specific use. The desire is aimed not at the person themselves, who is the central point within the circles, but at the Creator, outward from the central point to the source of light.

Therefore, in the spiritual desire’s development, there are several forces, conditions, and states that influence it so that the process of the desire’s correction does not follow the laws of other desires. It operates in a very complex and precise way, so that the desire grows only according to the degree of its correction toward proper use, toward the Creator. Suppose, for example, someone is inspired with the desire to build a house, a desire that is already connected to spirituality. They need to relate every detail of the construction process, the planning, the ordering of materials, the actual building, the selection of workers, and even themselves, to the purpose of creation. They must constantly remember that this house is meant for a use related to the purpose of creation.

That person becomes so immersed in the work that they forget the direction, the meaning behind each and every action. Then the work seemingly stops and various disturbances begin to arise. These disturbances are not real obstacles, but signals, signs, that they have forgotten something very important: the intention, the reason for each action. Since spiritual progress happens step by step, sometimes we get stuck at a certain stage stubbornly trying to find a solution on our own, insisting on continuing construction at all costs. But we see that we cannot move forward until we remember that the problem is that we forgot the intention.

This means that instead of moving from the left line to the right line, we thought that we could complete the work by our own strength alone. Then we remember the right line, the Creator, alignment with Him. That is, we remember that we must be connected to Him with all of our heart and soul while performing the action. Only then can we progress again until we forget once more, and the cycle repeats.

In all of our work in this world, we constantly forget the goal. We forget that the goal is not to work according to the way that we think in this world, but the work itself is an effort to remain connected to the one who gave us the work, and to use it as a means to hold onto the thought and, most importantly, as a means to increase the intention. The work itself is merely a tool only to the extent that it is meant to build and develop the intention. We think we are building a house, as if the house itself is what matters. But in reality, we are supposed to build a structure of intention rather than a structure of bricks.

Since we are made of both material and spirit, intention, we are given material tasks so that we can construct a spiritual structure alongside the physical one. It is true that we cannot build a purely spiritual structure, even though, ultimately, that is the only structure we truly need. This means that we must establish only the intention, the screen (Masach), and the reflected light (Ohr Hozer), while the will to receive, the “bricks,” will always be available to use properly, according to the intention of bestowal.

This is how we build a house, and this is how we build ourselves into a human (Adam). How? Through the 248 organs and 365 tendons, which are 613 components or desires within us, which we must construct. We want to use these desires as much as the corresponding spiritual form allows. We need to arrange our desires according to bestowing intentions so that these two aspects—the use of all desires, on one hand, and the alignment of those desires with the intention to bestow, on the other—are in harmony and work together.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 111
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 110
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 109

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