Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 254

How Is the Desire for Spirituality Structured During the Time of Preparation?

The desire for spirituality during the time of preparation is divided into two desires: a desire to enjoy spirituality for personal benefit alone, and a very small desire to bring pleasure to the Creator. That is, 99 percent Lo Lishma and one percent Lishma.

Although the Lishma is not through a screen, there is nevertheless something of it. Also, everything is still at the expense of the upper one. The upper one holds us in a state in which we have no screen. If we had a screen, we could actually use the quality of the screen, but during the time of preparation it disappears, returns, and disappears again.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 253

What Does a Person Go Through Before the Barrier?

The states we go through before the barrier are called the “time of preparation,” the beginning of Lishma. There is no screen to speak of yet, but we already begin to relate to our state from the point in the heart. What does it mean to enter the time of preparation? For thousands of years, we reincarnate in bodies of this world, and suddenly we receive an awakening from above. This is called “the point in the heart entering us.” It is the point in the heart being revealed in us.

In addition to the heart, which is a desire for all kinds of pleasures in this world, we have a desire to enjoy spirituality. Although it is an egoistic desire for spirituality, dressed in the intention to receive, it already belongs to spirituality. Within it there is a certain sensation of the surrounding light that gives the grace of Kedusha (holiness), which means that there is something of the intention to bestow. We are clueless as to what bestowal means, but this gives us a sense of truth and falsehood.

Beforehand, we viewed the world only from our heart and thought about how to grab and enjoy. Now we sometimes look from within our heart and sometimes from within the point in the heart. We are thrown from one to the other, and this brings changes of states and moods. When we look from within the point in the heart, we begin to criticize ourselves and think that we are beasts, and from the point in the heart we begin to understand a little of what it means to be human.

But this is still not birth. Spiritual birth begins with the actual acquisition of a screen, from root coarseness (Aviut de Shoresh). However, for those who study Kabbalah, preparation for birth begins. Even during the time of preparation there are many stages that cannot be clearly divided in succession. This is not yet birth; it is preparation.

What is birth? Even birth that comes after the barrier is not yet birth; it is only the “entrance of the seed into the womb of Ima Ilaa (Upper Mother),” called the “three days of absorption,” and so on. The “nine months of pregnancy” begins, a state in which we feel that we are in the Creator’s world and begin to acquire a screen in order to annul ourselves toward it, so that everything we receive will be in order to bestow and will not touch our will to receive.

Like in spirituality, the states preceding it, which correspond to spirituality, are also given such names. In any case, these are states in the point in the heart’s development that receive a screen at the barrier.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 252

What Does It Mean to Cross the Barrier?

A person who crosses the barrier is a person who has acquired an intention in order to bestow, even if it is the smallest possible intention. This is called “crossing the barrier.” It does not mean reaching some boundary in the middle of the road with a sign stating, “Barrier Ahead,” which can be removed to let someone through. Crossing the barrier in spirituality is the inversion that takes place when we acquire the smallest measure of Lishma from Lo Lishma, the smallest measure of bestowal.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 251

Chapter 22. Kabbalah Before the Barrier

There is a great difference between the work of the general public and the work of the individual. It is the difference between heaven and earth. A beast has no purpose of creation; it does not ascend anywhere, and just as it was born, it dies, with its role amounting to serving man. This is the degree of the beast. The whole world is on this degree, not even on the degree of Lo Lishma. Certainly, on this degree too there are several changes, states, and degrees, and accordingly, in the animal world there are also countless species and ways of life, from tiny lice to large animals, and they are all copies of the qualities and forms that exist in a person who is on the animate degree.

Lo Lishma is on the beastly degree, and so is most of humanity, including those who relate to life out of a self-aimed intention. What determines the difference between the beastly degree and the human degree is a screen (Masach). There is the self-aimed intention, which is called “fear of this world,” “fear of the next world,” and “fear of reward and punishment,” and there is the intention outside of us, which is fear concerning how much and in what way we will be able to bestow upon the Creator. The latter is fear that is not self-aimed, but outwardly directed. Outside of us there is only “None else besides Him,” and then we are born from the beastly degree into the human degree.

They say that the main thing is studying Lishma, but the problem is that we do not know what Lishma is. Our measure of Lishma is our measure of unity with the Creator that we reach through a screen. We then certainly study Lishma.

Only the goal of Lishma or Lo Lishma brings about the importance of the wisdom of Kabbalah. This is because, if we do not attract the upper light during the study, which we attain through the study of Kabbalah, we cannot rise from the degree of Lo Lishma to the degree of Lishma, acquire a screen, and become a human instead of a beast. There is no other means to do so.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 250

How Do We Distinguish Between a Klipa and the Recognition of Evil?

We distinguish everything according to the way the light illuminates us.

From a Talk on the Article “What Are Holiness and Purity, in the Work?” 6/17/2002

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 249

How Does the Creator Bring About the States We Go Through?

It is written that the light shakes the vessel. This is the only way. The more or less it shines, the more the vessel rises or falls. There is no other force besides the light that can influence the vessel. But the light influences the vessel and its parts selectively, according to the vessel’s ability to advance. The light itself is a simple, abstract light that shines upon the vessel like a simple flashlight, but it creates a special system between itself and the vessel called the “worlds.”

The light that passes through the worlds and shines upon the vessel acquires a special form that illuminates precisely the part of the vessel that is supposed to become active at that moment. The light shines with exactly the intensity and in exactly the manner required for a particular organ to act now, to correct itself, and to feel something. In other words, the worlds that stand between the light and the vessel adapt the light precisely to each individual vessel according to its nature. Then each vessel receives exactly what it needs and responds and becomes corrected accordingly.

Therefore, it is said in Kabbalah that the worlds are a system of control, a system of governance, a system of providence. What are the worlds for? The worlds are built in accordance with the vessels, only in an opposite form. That is, they understand the deficiencies in the vessels, and they exist in the worlds in a positive form. When we study the world of Atzilut, not technical studies, as Baal HaSulam writes, but when we truly begin to see how the world of Atzilut prepares its influence for the souls, with what wisdom it knows exactly how and for what purpose to prepare its influence in each and every soul, the picture is truly magnificent.

In Kabbalah, we simply learn that the worlds were created as a copy. There was the shattering of the world of Nekudim, and from that shattering the worlds were formed. Therefore, we begin counting the worlds from the world of Atzilut onward, whereas the world of Adam Kadmon, the world of Keter, is the light that shines from Ein Sof (Infinity). Ein Sof is completely abstract light. That light is divided in the world of Adam Kadmon into five original lights, according to the five parts that exist in the original vessel, the four phases of direct light. Afterward, the world of Atzilut, which arose from the remnants of the shattering, channels the lights to the souls that exist in the worlds of BYA and arranges them so that they influence each and every part, in every soul, exactly according to the order of corrections that each soul requires.

Therefore, we study primarily the world of Atzilut because it explains everything that happens, and through it we can learn about the souls. The world of Atzilut is in complete correspondence with what should exist in the soul. Therefore, we do not study souls directly. We study only ourselves. “From Your actions we know You.” The study of the world of Atzilut is, in fact, the study of the souls, one corresponding to the other. The study of the world of Atzilut is fascinating and awe-inspiring. Through it we understand what change each individual detail undergoes when the light descends upon it, what it is about to correct, what within the soul is awakened, how it responds both consciously and unconsciously, and how the created being begins to awaken and come into existence from a state in which it was not yet a created being at all. It is a wondrous picture, truly a marvel.

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Why Is It Said That We Should Ask for the Revelation of the Creator, and That Through This the Recognition of Evil Will Come?

It is constantly said that we should ask for the revelation of the Creator, for the importance of the Creator, for the greatness of the Lord, and that from this the recognition of evil will come. But when we are immersed in evil, we cannot ask from within it for the greatness and importance of the Creator. We are incapable of doing so because we are immersed in evil. We can emerge from this evil if we look at it from the outside and recognize it as evil in relation to the Creator. The more we emerge from the evil, the more we can recognize how opposite that evil is to the Creator. How do we emerge from the evil? By bringing our “I” closer to the Creator while our body remains where it is.

We begin to see how far we are from the Creator when we rise above the body toward the Creator, from the point of the “I,” the point of awareness. It is as though a certain point emerges from within us, from our body and from this pain, a point called “the point of our awareness,” and it draws closer to the Creator. As it draws closer to the Creator, it can already observe the body and see how far it is from the Creator, according to the extent that it feels the body’s distance from Him. It cannot measure how far away the Creator is. It can only measure how far the body is from the place from which that point emerged.

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Why Is It Said That We Should Ask for the Revelation of the Creator, and That Through This the Recognition of Evil Will Come?

It is constantly said that we should ask for the revelation of the Creator, for the importance of the Creator, for the greatness of the Lord, and that from this the recognition of evil will come. But when we are immersed in evil, we cannot ask from within it for the greatness and importance of the Creator. We are incapable of doing so because we are immersed in evil. We can emerge from this evil if we look at it from the outside and recognize it as evil in relation to the Creator. The more we emerge from the evil, the more we can recognize how opposite that evil is to the Creator. How do we emerge from the evil? By bringing our “I” closer to the Creator while our body remains where it is.

We begin to see how far we are from the Creator when we rise above the body toward the Creator, from the point of the “I,” the point of awareness. It is as though a certain point emerges from within us, from our body and from this pain, a point called “the point of our awareness,” and it draws closer to the Creator. As it draws closer to the Creator, it can already observe the body and see how far it is from the Creator, according to the extent that it feels the body’s distance from Him. It cannot measure how far away the Creator is. It can only measure how far the body is from the place from which that point emerged.

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What Is the Difference Between Feeling Evil and Recognizing Evil?

It has already been mentioned here how to escape evil, from a bad feeling to a good feeling. We should ask the Creator not to give us evil, but the recognition of evil. What is the difference between the two? They are completely different. In one case, we feel that the Creator is striking us for no reason, and we feel bad due to that. In the other case, we understand intellectually, through reason and understanding, that these blows are not directed at us, because we already identify with a different point. Instead, they are directed at those qualities within us that are opposite to the Creator’s qualities.

When we feel bad because of the blows we have received, we are like a child who has experienced something unpleasant, for example, we did not receive a piece of candy (a blow is not necessarily a physical blow), and we identify with that feeling of evil. We are inside the evil. In Kabbalah, it is said that if we feel evil, we should escape that feeling. We should emerge from that evil and observe it from the outside, from a distant point, which is called “performing a restriction.” That is, the “I” that feels and the “evil” that is felt are two separate and opposing things. And from whom do we receive the evil? From the Creator.

In other words, we place our “I” outside both the Creator and the body that feels evil, and this is called “recognition of evil.” Otherwise, we do not recognize the evil, we merely feel it. Kabbalists emphasize strongly that this is called “recognition of evil,” not the feeling of evil. Also, when we look at that evil from the outside, we already understand why we feel that way, for what purpose it came to us, and what we must do with it. Then the recognition of evil truly brings us to correction. Therefore, when we are in the recognition of evil, we seemingly ask to recognize it even more deeply in order to receive the strength to emerge from it and to ask for corrections. We do not ask to feel more evil. We ask to recognize more of the evil.

It is possible that evil brings with it a pleasant sensation. A person who enjoys smoking, for example, continues to smoke and enjoy it, yet at the same time would like to develop a hatred for smoking. How does one come to recognize the evil in smoking, which gives him pleasure? Gradually, he begins to feel that smoking is bad for him. He coughs, and his health deteriorates. He gains a deeper and deeper view on how harmful it is, until smoking becomes so bad that he fears it, becomes fed up with it, and is ready to escape from it. The recognition of evil is not the feeling of evil. They are two completely different things.

“The feeling of evil” is what an animal feels. “The recognition of evil” is already spiritual work performed by a human being. We begin to discern that something is evil and understand in relation to what it is evil, in relation to advancement, to drawing closer to the Creator. It is not for nothing that we feel the blow but do not know who is giving it to us. We realize that through this blow, the Creator shows us the quality that prevents us from connecting with Him and adhering to Him. It is not evil because we feel pain, but because the quality in which we feel the pain distances us from the Creator. The recognition of evil is the recognition of our distance from the Creator, not the sensation of suffering in a particular bodily organ.

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How Can We Imagine the Image of the Creator and His Qualities?

There is no need to imagine the image of the Creator. What is the image of the Creator? A white beard? Large eyes? How can we imagine qualities such as eternity? Is eternity long? Tall? Large? We have no image of the Creator within us. In our work, no image is formed. The search for the point of connection with the Creator is a search for a kind of inner point with which we gradually begin to feel a desire to connect. But what that point is and what it looks like cannot be explained, for it is indeed a point in which no dimension is yet felt that would make it possible to say what it is. We want to connect with that point, which we image to be the Creator within us.

Later, when that point expands, we will feel ten Sefirot within it, and it will become our vessel. The soul is a part of the Creator from above. Therefore, we will feel the Creator in that expanded point, and we will feel the point itself as our attitude toward the Creator. We can picture it as a sphere: the sphere itself is our attitude toward that which fills it. What fills the sphere is the Creator, and the walls of the sphere are our attitude toward the Creator.

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