Hoshana Rabbah—A Plea for Salvation
Hoshanah is like a plea for salvation. A person asks the Creator to save him, and to achieve this state a person must go through many stages. When a person comes to study the science of Kabbalah, he does not know exactly what he is looking for at first.
Gradually, as a result of his studies, he receives new values in life and then begins to understand what is worth asking for, whom to ask, and what he wants to be saved from. He has to undergo very difficult internal scrutiny to stop asking for solutions to his life problems or salvation from minor or more severe obstacles.
A person does not understand whom to turn to, what other upper force, the Creator, or other nature? He knows only his material life, this world. Others, on the contrary, imagine the Creator is punishing them for misdeeds and ask for leniency. Time passes until a person understands whom and what to ask for after he despairs from understanding life, destiny, or revealing heaven with his own forces.
He feels a black cloud suddenly descending on him, and then, on the contrary, everything clears up and becomes transparent, understandable, pleasant, and easy. Then again, an incredible heaviness falls on him, a dullness in his mind and heart.
This is how we go through many states until we decide that we are entirely controlled from above because we are creatures under the control of the upper governance. A general upper force governs everyone individually and everyone together, doing whatever it wants with us. A person despairs regarding changing anything and loses all hope to influence the upper force.
It will take a long time before one finally believes the Kabbalists that we can change our fate. However, it is impossible to turn to the upper force alone because it hears only a complete request, that is, a group prayer, from ten people together.
Perhaps we gather ten people, but everyone asks for something different. How can we know the hidden aspirations of someone else’s heart that even the person himself may not be aware of?
We need one desire for all ten people, one common heart, and then the Creator will gradually perform the act of correction so we understand what we want and what is worth wanting, and move toward the state of “I am for my Beloved, and my Beloved is for me.”
In fact, this is the whole work, which is why we have fallen into the state called “this world,” into complete concealment, an imaginary reality as Kabbalists explain.
We imagine ourselves in some kind of world, on the globe, divided into different nations, in a vast universe. It is all an illusion. In reality, there is only the upper world. But where is it? After all, we do not feel it.
We do not have such organs of perception to sense that the material is illusory while the spiritual exists. We still need to come to this point to see that our current “reality” is only a screen hiding the truth and to reveal this actual world in our new senses. It all depends on our correction.
Instead of sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste, we will acquire new organs of perception: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut. By rising above our desire to enjoy, in giving above receiving, in faith above reason, we will reveal the true reality.
We will feel ourselves existing in two worlds at once: in this world, in an imaginary reality, and also in the true reality, in the spiritual world. One world is depicted in the desires to enjoy, and the other in the desires to bestow.
The path is open before us. There is no doubt we are advancing, and the Creator, all the forces of nature are leading and accompanying us, organizing, gathering together, protecting, and screening.
We need to accelerate their impact on us because Israel, that is, people who seek to reveal the Creator, have the power to speed up time. If we work as a transitional channel between the Creator and all mankind, we will merit the Creator’s care and accelerate our development.
The night of Hoshana Rabbah is a common big, complete request, with all the forces and all the necessary corrections. The light that returns to the source penetrates through the covering of the Sukkah and corrects the desire to enjoy below the screen.
Thus we will become worthy of being one union. The main thing is not to forget that the ultimate goal is to correct the whole world and bring it to the Creator so He can rejoice in His creations. Let us strive and succeed.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, “Hoshana Rabhah”
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