Kabbalah Moments: Sacrifice In Kabbalah
Posted on November 16th, 2010
Question (from a woman): We have been talking about the fact that we have to ask for everything only from the Creator. But what should I do if I am shy? Or maybe I am not even worthy of asking Him for anything?
Answer: I would advise you not to ask, but to demand. And women know how to do this very well. 🙂
On a more serious tone, if we are ashamed to ask the Creator, it means we feel that we are still distant from Him, that we don’t have anything in common with Him.
Men often feel proud at first and behave like little roosters: "Why would I ask Him for anything? What should I ask Him for?" So on one hand, there is shame, and on the other – pride. Yet, both of these sensations will gradually pass. If a person becomes included in the group, it happens very quickly.
I would advise you to be more insolent. 🙂 The Creator likes it when a person says, "I deserve this. You have to help me!"
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From the lesson on the article "There Is None Else Besides Him" on 11/12/10
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Question: How can we find the strength to advance because as time goes by we feel greater opposition and less strength?
Answer: That is wonderful! If you feel less and less energy, it is help from Above so you wouldn’t think that you can do anything at all. If you feel greater opposition, this is also help from Above so you would see that you will never be able to break through on your own.
This is help! Pharaoh, the Egyptian King, the ego, the evil inclination, is opposite to the Creator – the reverse side of Him. The Creator deliberately creates this image for you. Your entire nature, your egoism, is a reverse mold of the Creator. The Creator inserts Himself inside you and acts in a way that stops you. He does everything! There is none else besides Him.
When we say that “There is none else besides Him,” this does not mean that I exist and someone else exists opposite me. I also don’t exist! All the forces inside me that act for and against, that are good and evil, are all Him. And who am I? I am the point of discernment. I only discern what is for and what is against. From His two forms I discern with whom I desire to be.
The Creator is an actor that plays all the roles; he alternatively clothes into good and then into evil. It is how you play with a small child in different ways so he would learn to differentiate one thing from the other and understand what he should be like. He will learn about good only to the degree he attains evil.
Therefore, if you feel heaviness now, it’s the Creator who makes it happen. If you feel that you cannot do anything on your own, He gives you this sensation. Why? So you would turn to Him.
If I want to teach a small child that he has to turn to me for help, then I deliberately act in a way that prevents him from accomplishing something in order that he will need me. That is how we act in the relationships between us.
Suppose I want you to become my friend and to respect me. In that case I do something behind your back so you would feel that even though you do not desire it, you will not succeed without having a connection with me. You suddenly understand that I am great, that you have to respect me and ask me, and now you know that I am great and you depend on me. I have arranged your life so you are left with no other choice but to come to me and ask for it.
That is what the Creator does to us. Of course, He is not motivated by the egoistic intention to trick us, but the desire to teach us and raise us to His level, the best state, since He is called “Good who Does Good.” However, He acts precisely in this way, creating all kinds of misfortunes, problems, messes, and confusion constantly in the world, in all areas of life and in all the worlds so as a result you would desire to come to Him, to ask for help and this way to come closer to Him.
Then you will desire to become the same as Him. When you look at someone who is great, wise, or powerful, you desire to become the same. It’s not enough for you to just receive from Him; you want to be in His place. This is exactly what the Creator does to us.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/16/10, The Zohar
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What is the source of joy? If we are speaking of egoistic joy, its foundation is receiving fulfillment. A child is happy when you give something to him, and he cries when you take it away. A more developed person experiences joy from good or bad actions. I stole and didn’t get caught so I am happy, or perhaps I did something good for another and enjoyed it.
Everything depends on what pleases a person. But joy is always triggered by the fact that we fulfill our egoistic desires. Our basic needs are food, family, wealth, power, and knowledge. Yet the problem lies in our inability to fulfill ourselves through them.
The Upper Light, the pleasure that wishes to fill our desire, is a plus and the desire is a minus. When the plus meets the minus, a short circuit occurs, meaning that as soon as I touch the pleasure, it disappears.
But there is another form of receiving pleasure, and we find an example of it in electronics. Instead of “shorting-out” the plus and the minus directly or receiving pleasure into my desire, I create a resistor between them, a resistance screen. Connecting the plus and the minus, desire and pleasure, through resistance is now possible without annulling either of them, and it can bring a positive result. Therein, we experience life.
The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Hakdama, BeLaila De Kala (The Night of the Bride),” Item 128
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The Book of Zohar — Selections, Chapter “Tzav (Command),” Item 1
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Baal HaSulam, “Beit Shaar HaKavanot,” Lesson 18
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose,” Lesson 3
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The Zohar, “Introduction to The Zohar,” “The Night of the Bride“: There is a book of remembrance before the Creator about the sins and transgressions taking place in the world. For He needs them for the day when He will perform a miracle (Segula).
Question: What is Segula?
Answer: The Upper Force, or the Creator, or the Light, is inside the group. I can receive corrections only if we study the primary sources together with the group.
This is Segula – the special means, the works of Kabbalists, which make it possible to unite a person, the group, and the Creator into one whole. Their unity is possible only on the condition that the system they are in is used correctly.
Even now we are part of it. The worlds and Partzufim are all here, but in order for them to come through we have to evoke the influence of spiritual forces upon us. Desire alone is not enough. We need a means that will set the system in motion so it will start working on me through the group.
The system is set in motion with the help of the primary sources. That is why we study the works of Baal HaSulam, Rabash, Ari, and Rashbi. Without this I cannot establish a connection with the spiritual system and set it in motion.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/15/10, The Zohar
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The Zohar, “Introduction of The Zohar,” Chapter “BeLaila De Kala (Night of the Bride)”: … the members of the bridal chamber must be with her on that night and rejoice with her in the corrections that she is corrected….
Question: What is the criterion of our advancement? Is it hatred that becomes revealed to us in the beginning or the opposite, joy?
Answer: First of all, I advance if I do not cease to mentally gaze at the place which I want to reveal. It is called the “bride,” and it is precisely there that the “groom” (the Light that will fill the “bride,” our unification) will descend to. (In Hebrew, a groom is “Hatan” which comes from the word “Nochet,” a descending one.)
If a persistent demand to reveal that place lives in me, then I’m glad for the effort that I can exert constantly. And it’s not important how often I stray, forget, or get distracted by a rational analysis.
It is said about this, “From Zion shall go forth the Torah.” In other words, advancement is comprised of these exits (Yetziot) from the attempts to re-define the place of our unification.
Each time I have to lose my concentration. After all, any state consists of 10 complete Sefirot. In spirituality, an action is performed only if all the 10 Sefirot are present (Ein Mi Ksat Be Ruchaniut). If I correct something, I have to correct a full measure. Each part of the desire demands separation from the previous state and a new approach to unity, to a new 10 Sefirot.
This is why we disconnect from the goal again and again, even if it just for a split second. Time after time we lose the target and catch it again at the crossroads.
Due to these efforts at night we “adorn the bride” (clothe her in the Light of Hassadim [Mercy]). That is, we build the Kli (vessel) until it becomes fully disclosed and ready to accept the groom, the Light of Hochma (Wisdom), the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/10, “Hakdama, Laila de Kale (The Night of the Bride)”
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The Zohar, “Introduction of The Zohar,” Chapter “BeLaila De Kala (Night of the Bride)”: The time of correction is called night. …On the next day, the bride is to be with her husband under the Huppah….”
Our broken souls as well as the lower nine Sefirot of Malchut of the World of Atzilut are located above this world in the Worlds of Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya. The Keter of Malchut is located on top, in the World of Atzilut, and represents just a point. The remaining nine Sefirot are under the Parsa, in the Worlds of BYA.
The state of the souls in the Worlds of BYA are called “night.” By rising to Malchut of the World of Azilut, they compel Malchut to raise her nine lower Sefirot which now remain unnoticed in the darkness.
To the extent that we connect to Malchut, she starts raising its Sefirot to Atzilut and becomes a Kli (vessel). This enables her to connect into one whole with Zeir Anpin (ZA), which is called Huppah (a wedding canopy or cover, the Masach [screen] under which the Zivug [union] or a wedding ceremony takes place). In other words, we are talking about connection, Zivug.
ZA is called the Creator, while Malchut, Shechina. Their unity is what we need to achieve. When does it happen? By raising our desires to Atzilut, we instigate the ascent of all the worlds. Malchut (BON) rises to the degree of SAG, while ZA (MA) to the degree of AB. This is their future.
We attain and feel all of it in our unification. From the level of the Zivug of AB-SAG, we receive the Light and fill our souls that are located below, in Malchut.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/14/10, “Hakdama, Laila de Kale (The Night of the Bride)”
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The Zohar, “Introduction of The Zohar,” Chapter “BeLaila De Kala (Night of the Bride)”: Rabbi Shimon was sitting and studying the Torah on the night when the bride, Malchut, unites with her husband. …all the friends, who are the members of the bridal chamber, must be with her on that night and rejoice with her in the corrections that she is corrected….
In order to connect to the text of The Zohar together, it is important not to forego the aspiration to unity. The Light of The Zohar can only enter our unified desire. It does not penetrate one’s individual desire.
We should realize that everything that we read about in Kabbalistic books describes the connection between us. Hence, first, as the preparation for the lesson, we need to imagine this connection for ourselves and only then consider the words of the Kabbalists who describe it to us.
This is how I study the wisdom of Kabbalah, the purpose of which is to correct our broken interconnection. First of all, I awaken the connection that we need to correct in my imagination, and then I attempt to comprehend what kind of connection is being described to me.
We are immersed in pitch darkness of the night and have no idea about our whereabouts. Nothing is clear to us, but we toil in order to prepare the bride, Malchut, our Kli, for “daybreak.” At the break of day, meaning at the end of our efforts and corrections, the shape of our interconnection shows through the dreadful darkness (egoism), and we see increasingly clearer (in the morning light, the property of bestowal) where and how it has to be revealed.
When our interconnection finally shows through the darkness, the morning comes. The state becomes clearer, and the Light, the property of bestowal, the Light of Hassadim (Mercy), is revealed in our connection. Then, the Light of Hochma (Wisdom) clothes the Light of Hassadim, and the day breaks. The connection between the groom and the bride, between the Creator and the vessel of our interconnection, our common desire, gets established.
For the time being, we are in a state called “the night of the bride.” We are preparing ourselves. We lack unity in which the Light could manifest itself.
However, we try to find the place of our breaking, groping for the egoism that separates us and the means that we can use. All of this is the work at night, the preparation for the first rays of sunrise.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/14/10, “Hakdama, Laila de Kale (The Night of the Bride)”
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The Zohar, Chapter “BeShalach (When Pharoah Sent),” Item 441: It is written about that, “You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together,” meaning one should not give room to the evil kinds because man’s actions awaken what need not be so. When they mate together, it is impossible to stand up to them. A Klipa called “dog” comes out of their side, and this is the fiercest of all….
The Zohar also says that our every effort and action immediately exposes the Klipa (shell), and a person fails, immerses into the Klipa, and then gradually performs a correction and comes out of it. In this way, he clarifies the Klipa and does not need to be in it any longer.
That is, ascending the spiritual degrees always starts with confusion, the mixing between good and bad. At the beginning, any state is unclear to me. Undoubtedly, there is both good and bad in it.
I have to attract the Light that Reforms to this state. By manifesting in this state, the Light pulls the evil down, and I rise upward using the good. Hence, in any state I reach, I first sense a lack of clarity, and only the Light splits it into two.
At first, the Light helps me reveal the evil, as it is said, “I created the evil inclination,” and I throw it down. Then, there is “…and I created the Torah for its correction because the Light (Ohr Makif) in it reforms.” Then I rise upward to the good desires.
Hence, “There is no righteous man who does good without first having sinned.” We always need to reveal the evil first and “cast it off,” meaning to be immersed in it, imbued with it, realize that it is evil, and only afterward get rid of it and reach good.
This happens with any clarification, with every tiniest detail. So don’t be frightened if it happens with you every second. On the contrary, the more often it occurs, the better.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/10, The Zohar
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