Question: What is the connection between suffering and a descent? Can suffer but not fall or vice versa?

Answer: Indeed, what does suffering actually mean to me? And what do we call a descent? Is it possible that, while feeling suffering, I am in an ascent at the same time? No, that is a falsehood. In one’s development, in every state and on every degree, a person redefines anew what an ascent is and what sufferings are.

At first, animal pleasures, money, honor, and knowledge are important to a person, and they serve as his criteria for ascents and descents. For example, “earning more” or “achieving greater power” mean an ascent and the opposite state meant a fall.

In the end, a person comes to a state where one becomes indifferent to everything except spiritual ascent, in which he somehow feels spirituality more, senses the presence of the Creator more acutely, and that, apparently, the Creator observes everything and governs everything, including him. From this a person experiences a certain elevation, and this defines the concept of ascent, from which one feels good.

In contrast, in double concealment a person does not feel anything, not even the Creator. Various things happen to them, and they are sure that they occur by themselves and have no relation to the upper force.

In simple concealment one feels unpleasant things: a sense of fear, phobias, various obsessive thoughts, but within them one feels that they are sent by the Creator. The feeling of the Creator sending them sweetens the feeling of suffering for one so much that a person begins to strive for them, just to feel through them that it is the Creator arranging this for them. Then a situation is possible when one supposedly receives suffering, but inside them they feel enjoyment.

If a person comes to a state in which they are not in single or double concealment but resembles an animal, then they prefer to enter simple concealment: “It does not matter, let there be suffering, but with its help I will feel that I am connected with the Creator, let me have at least something from eternity; let there be suffering if there is no other means.”

From the Creator’s side, this is of course an undesirable state, because a person who has truly come to a connection with Him is obliged to receive enjoyment from this connection. Therefore, simple concealment is not the end of the path.

And even then, it is still done at the expense of the person: “It does not matter, let there be sufferings as long as I feel the Creator.” Thus, one’s calculation is that in order to feel the Creator it is worth paying even with sufferings. This is still an egoistic calculation: I strive for pleasure, and the sensation of the Creator is now a great pleasure for me. And until I cross the Machsom, there can be nothing greater.

My state right before the Machsom is called “It does not let me sleep” to such an extent do I strive for spiritual pleasures and prefer them to all the pleasures of this world. I have increased the point in the heart so much compared to all the other desires that they fall away and practically do not present the slightest interest to me.

And only after the Machsom, when I receive a screen and a second nature, do I begin to calculate not what is better than what, not that the pleasure from the Creator is better than an evening well‑spent, but the intention for the sake of bestowal versus the intention for the sake of reception. There the calculations are different.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/1/26, Rabash, “Why the Festival of Matzot Is Called Passover”

Related Material:
Before and After the Machsom
Machsom—Transition From One Quality To Another
From A Point Of Unity To Crossing The Machsom

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