A Date at the 49th Gate
If a person does not overcome a small obstacle on the path, a greater disturbance will not come to him. That small disturbance will keep confusing and spinning him around until he manages to rise above it.
Being under the 49 gates of impurity does not mean being buried beneath them; rather, it means passing through 48 gates of holiness! I overcome each of the impure gates, and in doing so reach the next, even higher gate, or more accurately, the lower ones, because these are gates of impurity. But I must conquer the previous ones first. If I do not know how to do first-grade exercises, I will not be admitted to second grade.
The work in Egypt is very hard: working with the material, with bricks, under resistance and opposition from Pharaoh. It is not idle inaction waiting for time to do the job. Time will do nothing. “You shall not place a stumbling block before a blind person.” That is why we must work and not despair when we receive a burdening of the heart. Ideally, we should shorten such periods as much as possible.
The Egyptian exile was meant to last 400 years, but the children of Israel shortened it to 210. Though that incomplete work came back to them later, it returned in another form. Yet, we are no longer in that phase of preparation for correction. So for us, the periods called the Egyptian exile, the receiving of the Torah, and the 40 years of wandering in the desert can all be very short. We can pass through them rapidly, in accelerated time.
When a person reaches the final, 49th gate of impurity, no one can save him from there but the Creator Himself: “He alone, and not His angel or messenger.” Step by step, a person draws closer, overcomes all the forces of impurity, until finally he makes contact with the upper force.
In essence, the Klipa prepares the entire path for us, laying out the trail through which we can ascend to the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/30/13, Writings of Rabash “Lishma and Lo Lishma”
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