Know Your Limits
Making any movement only as a result of love for others, without any spark of reflected light or hope for any kind of reward in return is completely impossible by nature (Baal HaSulam, “Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah]“).
And this still needs to be revealed. The words are correct and wonderful, but a person must perform many actions directed toward bestowal, spend many hours studying, and make many efforts to unite with others to come to the realization that he does not have the slightest chance to perform an act of bestowal.
Of course one can immediately admit that he is an egoist who does not care about anyone, who does not value anyone, and to whom everything is indifferent. But this does not testify to the revelation of the vessel, the Kli; anyone can say this about themselves. We agree with this without unnecessary words.
The problem is to realize the evil within oneself, to understand that even if one desires, he is incapable of performing any act of bestowal. This means to know one’s nature, to know one’s limits. With all one’s might using all possibilities and means, one pressures himself to reveal bestowal to his fellow, and discovers purest egoistic reception. He does not find even one percent of bestowal.
And the more I try to do good for someone, the more my original intention is revealed to me after all these enormous efforts. Previously, I did not know about it and could not detect it, but now it turns out that all my actions pursued personal gain.
This is a very deep study. I receive these lessons only after I make efforts. With a pure soul, I set to work, wishing to benefit others as much as possible, and unite with them, completely forgetting about myself. In my eyes, my friends are so great that I simply get lost, disappear among them. And in the end, after each action, the opposite picture is revealed to me: I did everything for my own benefit.
This truth manifests as a reward, as a prize for my efforts to perform pure, maximum bestowal from the heart.
And then, thanks to my efforts, I come to the final result, to what is said: “I created the evil inclination.”
The entrance opens before me, the understanding of these words. I begin to realize what the Creator has created. Until then, they were just words.
Then, as usual, I go through four stages of development and come to the necessity of the Torah as a spice, that is, a method of correction. I begin to understand what the Torah is, what the spice is, what it adds to the evil inclination, in what form it should be used, and how it works. Even if I am only at the beginning of the path and still have no experience, the means called “Torah-spice” is already slightly revealed to me.
And also, the light that returns to the source (the reforming light), which is embedded in it is revealed to me. We are talking about different concepts; the Torah and the light are not the same.
That is why receiving the Torah is a very complex matter. Moreover, the question arises: who gives it to me? After all, this giving is necessary, and it is precisely thanks to it that we come to receive the Torah.
[49646]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/6/2011, Baal HaSulam “Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah]”
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