The Creator created the desire to receive pleasure, whose fulfillment is the Creator Himself. And if the desire were to feel the Creator, we would feel good; that is, we would receive pleasure. So what is it that we lack? We lack a true desire. Because the desire created by the Creator is not a true one; that is, the creature does not feel this desire as its own.
So how can a true desire appear within the creature? How can we compel ourselves to seek a desire that did not previously exist within us? This is possible only from the opposite direction. The Creator created the desire and gave it to the creature. And now, from these two components—from the desire and the light—the creature must build a new desire.
It turns out that the creature seemingly “creates,” builds itself from zero, from this world to the world of Infinity. That is why a person is called a creature. But until he gives birth to his new desire, he is not yet called a creature, and this is simply nature: still, vegetative, animate, and human. All of this is nature, created by the expansion from above downward.
And the ascent from below upward is the development of the desire toward the spiritual, toward the Creator, that is, a desire that previously did not exist at all within the creature. This new desire is born only now, from a person’s work of clarification between his point in the heart and his natural, instinctive desire, that is, between the light and the darkness.
The surrounding light helps us clarify the essence of the collision between these two entities within us: light and darkness, the spiritual point in the heart and our egoistic nature. And if we conclude that spirituality is more important than corporeality, and we choose spirituality from between these two, then this is already a desire that did not exist before. It is precisely this that is called a creature.
We need to work only on this new desire. And all the other desires that originally existed within us (still, vegetative, animate, human), that is, desires for pleasures, wealth, power, knowledge, this is simply nature, which does not require correction.
We are not required to earn money for the sake of bestowal to the Creator, to strive for power for His sake, or to study sciences for His sake. One must direct only the desire that is above all these material desires toward the Creator, the desire for spirituality.
The wisdom of Kabbalah does not deal with correcting human character, because this relates to animate qualities. One person is born hot-tempered, another phlegmatic; neither one nor the other needs correction, nor is it possible. What must be corrected is only the attitude toward the Creator, that is, the new desire that is born in the ascent from below upward.
This desire is called true desire. It is not given by the Creator by nature; rather, the creature itself gives birth to it from the collision of thoughts, contradictions, doubts, and its own lack of understanding.
This desire is born through a person’s efforts from three components:
- the spiritual spark implanted in us, called the point in the heart;
- the heart itself, that is, our egoism, our entire nature;
- the surrounding light that illuminates us.
If not for the surrounding light, which we draw through study in a group, we would not be able to clarify this desire and give birth to it each time on ever higher degrees.
We increasingly strive for spirituality, but for ourselves. And only when this egoistic desire for spirituality fills a person’s entire being, that is, when it outweighs all of a person’s natural desires for pleasures, wealth, power, knowledge, and suppresses them so that a person lives by one aspiration alone: for spirituality, for the Creator, which is called “losing sleep,” then he receives correction by the screen: the first corrected desire in his soul.
The main thing is to care for the correct desire. For now, it does not matter whether it is for oneself or for bestowal, only that it does not clothe itself in the garments of this world, but is directed upward. And then we will receive an answer upon it.
[351557]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/5/26, Rabash, Article 11, “A Real Prayer Is over a Real Deficiency”
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