Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 131

How Are the States of Male and Female Felt Before the Barrier?

The myriad spiritual discernments RABASH writes about exist within us as a copy. Even before the barrier, we can imagine various spiritual states. True, they exist only in imagination, but we already experience certain subtle sensations. We do not yet have full feelings, and what we imagine is inaccurate, but there is some shadow of truth.

In other words, within the point in the heart, there is already some volume, a space for each concept, sensation, and for the relationships between them. There is a certain distance, a kind of hollow, between every definition inside the point in the heart. We can sense that something belongs to the right side, and something else to the left side. One thing feels a bit closer, another more distant. We have an inner sensation corresponding to these, though not yet a real feeling, only a slight sensitivity, as if we can “smell” the real thing. Due to the breaking of the vessels, there are sparks left within, which allow some form of sensing.

How can we feel something through the sparks? If we work with the point in the heart, we attract various surrounding lights around ourselves. The light that comes during the study is not uniform; it carries many possibilities according to the vessel. It is simple light (Ohr Pashut), not inner light (Ohr Pnimi) or surrounding light (Ohr Makif) in the full sense, but a subtle illumination that constantly surrounds us. Depending on how we work with the point in the heart, how we develop it and make discernments within it, the surrounding light acts differently on these discernments time after time.

Even though this light is not yet like the clear inner light NRNHY (Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, Yechida), which is distinctly tied to specific degrees like Hassadim, Hochma, and so on, it nonetheless contains nuances and shades. Therefore, it not only develops sensitivity within the point in the heart, but it also causes it to swell, and prepares it for the growth of future organs, like a seed cell. We can have a certain sensitivity that within this seed cell are tiny points, minuscule seeds, from which the future body of the soul will develop. Even before the barrier, we can have such sensitivities.

Of course, it is still just a seed, a drop. We must therefore prepare ourselves toward this drop, wishing for it to develop organs and different parts and relations toward the Creator. The organs—“hand,” “foot,” “liver,” “head,” etc.—represent different relationships arising from our various desires toward the Creator. We wish for it to be so, but do not yet find those desires and discernments within us, yet we still search for them and seek how we can relate to the Creator through them.

When we complete this search, this effort (when exactly is in the hands of the Creator), only then does the Creator give His response: He revives the seed, and it begins to develop. In other words, we must do half the work through our own efforts, and after dedicating all of our effort and completing our share, which is called “filling our measure,” we then receive from above.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 130
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 129
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 128

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