Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 26

When Do the Middle and Outer Desires Reveal Themselves?

The relationship between the middle and outer desires, and how we relate to these two desires, is key. Sometimes the middle desire is revealed, and then we clearly see who we are. This happens, say, during a descent, at a moment when we suddenly look at ourselves and what we see shocks us. At that point, the middle desires surface. The outer desires are exposed during an ascent when the upper light acts upon us and we see who we would like to be, seemingly detached from the middle desire.

If we can evaluate both desires together, we can reflect on them and consider where they stand in relation to these two types of desires or assess their attitude toward them from a detached state.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 25

What Layer of the Heart Is the “Self” of a Person In?

The “self” does not reside on the external level, as on this level we only guess what we want to become. By looking inward, deep into our heart, we see what we genuinely want to become. Therefore, the external desire stems from engaging with books and authors. The books tell us that we have a very deep inner desire, a desire that we do not feel. In this inner desire is the “stony heart” or “there is none else besides Him”—the front and back of the same hidden aspect that is beyond our reach. In this inner desire lies the true “self,” which is present at both the beginning and end of correction. However, we cannot access it, neither in feeling nor knowledge. We can only reach the middle and outer desires.

Thus, what determines our level is our approach to the gap between the middle desire, which is the real desire at the level we are on, and the outer desire, the level we aspire to reach. The outer desire constantly changes as we imagine a different level to which we aspire each time. Eventually, however, the outer desire should yearn to be a copy of the Creator, so that we wish to resemble Him. This desire comes from books and authors.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 24

How Can We Sharpen Our Sensitivity to the Layers of the Heart?

In any field or subject, we can develop increasing sensitivity through contemplation, immersion, and habituation. In Shamati article number 7, “What Is, “A Habit Becomes a Second Nature,” in the Work?” Baal HaSulam states that we can feel anything that exists in reality exclusively via habit.

We can start sensing previously unfelt phenomena by exerting and working in them. What is exertion and work? It is that very prayer. Then, we develop this sensory system, delve deeper, and feel it. Other than working on this desire to receive, there is no other way.

In spirituality, there is only one solution: work on this desire through the upper light via a plea to the Creator, who responds to the plea and provides for this desire. The process is straightforward: appeal upward and receive a response from above. There is nothing more to it.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 23

How Can We Reach the Creator from a Middle Prayer?

The middle prayer is called “recognition of evil.” It expresses the extent to which we see our heart’s qualities. The external prayer is our ideal vision of ourselves, even if we do not fully agree with it. Yet, according to the middle prayer, we agree or deceive ourselves into wanting to be as we envision.

If we dwell in our heart, we can gradually see the connection between all such elements, discern where the Creator arranges them, and thus know how we can relate to the Creator.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 22

Is it Possible That an Intellectual or Physical Action Could Lead to a True Inner Desire?

We are unaware of our heart’s deepest desire and do not feel it. We sense a middle desire, which usually manifests as a desire for various things we are ashamed of. We also feel an outer desire, from which arises our plea to the Creator, in which we as if ask for the strength to bestow and to be brought us to the states described in Kabbalistic books.

But why focus on the outer desire, which is merely flattery and falsehood compared to the middle desire, which seeks only earthly and material pleasures? It is because even in this falsehood where we know that our heart seeks materiality, yet it still deceives us that it is crying and asking for spirituality and the ability to bestow, this is still considered a prayer. This prayer is based on “faith in the sages,” where we believe the words of the author even though we do not fully understand them, and this faith holds effect. Why? It is because this is a person’s only true free choice.

What is an external prayer? It is what we would ostensibly like to become. We believe that we want to love our friends, to be united with them in desire, in an embracing unity, and so on. If we look at this “ostensibly” from a different perspective, slowly, we start realizing that we want to receive it for ourselves, even if it is not our innermost, true desire.

Our inner heart was created by the Creator, but we want to absorb, receive, and somewhat agree with the external, artificial, and false desire. We wish it would be so. Here lies our free choice in our future inner self, in the way we would like to see ourselves. Although this desire is currently artificial and false, it is treated as a real desire from above. The inner, animalistic heart and even deeper, unconscious desires belong to the Creator. The person is completely disconnected from them, and has no control over them.

Therefore, even while considering the external, flattering, and hypocritical desire, we receive a correction from above, which advances us to the correct image and form. The Creator always responds from above, reflecting the gap between our concept of the good that we wish to become and the true goodness meant to sprout within us. This is the gap between the external prayer as expressed and its falsehood as revealed in our heart.

As we gain awareness of the gap between the middle and outer prayers, between who we truly are and who we wish to be, we can better understand the Creator’s response, accept it as a correction, and align with it.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 21

How Much Does Our Work Depend on Going in the Right Direction?

We need to understand what the purpose of creation is, what the Creator wants from us, and what our heart’s desire is, which is called “recognition of evil.” We examine and learn how far and how different our “self” is from what it needs to be in our current state, not how it should ideally be in its root at the completion of correction, but right now.

We should always improve relative to our current state and not compare ourselves to other people’s states or a different stage of development from our own. Just as a five-year-old is regarded as a five-year-old and not as a ten-year-old, it would be disheartening if that child suffered from growth delay and required the support of various treatments and corrections.

At every moment, we have all the data needed to discover, examine, see, and understand how we should be and whether we are moving in the right direction. It depends solely on our effort and labor. There is no corruption from above; all corruption exists within a person, and we are granted permission to discover and heal it.

However, we need the reforming light to come and illuminate our way. It is a light that reveals our nature and clarifies the extent to which we are tarnished by various thoughts, impulses, and desires. We draw this light by studying Kabbalistic texts. Therefore, it is all in our hands; only studying can help us see the gap between our current “self” and our ideal “self.”

Moreover, an overly-strong desire to immediately see the extent of the deviation between identities will not help, as transgressions, mistakes, and feelings of distance, disparity, and separation from the correct state all gradually accumulate and surface. They are specifically where we feel the revelation. Therefore, such information gathering requires a long time. We develop this ability to perceive over years, depending on the quantity and quality of our effort.

The mechanism will always be prayer and correction on the prayer, on the desire in the heart. Whenever we feel our presence in the world, at every moment, we essentially discover the gap between who we are, what is in our heart, and who we are meant to be. At the end of the day, the pressures or pleasures that the world provides are forces of correction that act on us.

For a corrected person, the worlds disappear. All the worlds exist within the person. They are a mechanism, a system, that constantly surrounds and corrects us. They guide us closer and closer to the goal. The more we approach the goal, the purer the worlds become. They become purified from the world of Assiya to the worlds of Yetzira, Beria, and Atzilut, until they disappear and become replaced by simple light.

In a person who has reached the goal, there are no worlds. There is no longer a mechanism of worlds between the simple light and the person; instead, the person becomes attuned to the simple light.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 20

Chapter 3. Correction With a Gentle Guiding Touch: The Inner, Middle, and Outer Desire

It is not our role to judge ourselves as strong or weak, brave or cowardly, wise or foolish. We need to exert ourselves to the best of our ability in the developmental process according to our inclinations and inner nature.

It is written, “The prayer of every mouth.” This means that the Creator hears every person’s prayer. In other words, it does not matter who we are or what we feel; we each, with our own feelings, and even deeper, in our heart, pray to the Creator. This deficiency influences our attitude to the Creator and the Creator’s attitude toward us.

In the heart, there is an upper and outer layer through which we feel our desires, and through which we can direct them to the Creator. For instance, we might want to appeal to the Creator with a specific desire that belongs to spiritual work, which is directed at the purpose of creation. Such a desire, albeit external and artificial since we have awakened it, is received above. However, to the extent that it is external for us, it is also external above.

If we delve deeper and examine our innermost desire, by assessing what our heart truly wants, we might discover that our heart does not long for the object of our prayer. We might find that we actually desire rest or some small pleasure instead of treading the path toward the purpose of creation and aiming at lofty matters. Such a feeling is also part of the prayer. The more we expose our innermost desire, the more it is received above.

In the heart, there is an even deeper inner desire that is beyond the level of our awareness and sensation. It is entirely hidden from us. But because it is the innermost, truest, and deepest desire, it is fully received above with its entire power and strength. When a response to this prayer, this hidden desire, comes from above, it is rarely understood.

Everyone exists at every moment in a state that results from the feeling in their heart, which stems from their prayer. However, we do not know how to connect the inner, middle, and outer prayers of the heart with the Creator’s response, as we are unaware of our heart’s deepest desire.

If we were aware of this desire and felt it, even from our current state, based on our present qualities and feelings, we would understand the extent to which we diverge from what we should feel in order to progress toward the purpose of creation. If we felt this deviation, we would know what specific correction needs to be made from above, and we would then understand the spiritual states the Creator sends us to receive through which we become corrected. However, for now, such states are concealed from us.

Nevertheless, at all times and in every state, we raise a prayer, MAN, and receive MAD in return. In other words, what rises from our heart is received above in the general system, which also contains the mechanism that operates on us personally. The response returns to us, which is essentially a correction of direction. It is our next spiritual state, which is aligned with our soul’s root and the purpose we need to reach.

Before we engage in spirituality, we lack the understanding and feeling that this mechanism operates in such a way. However, when we enter spirituality, we start seeing it clearly, and begin working closely with MAN and MAD. We form a reciprocal relationship with the Creator, which connects us to Him and which dictates our every action and our life’s course. This is called “half a shekel.” Half of the work is given by the person and half by the Creator.

Baal HaSulam provides an example of farmers in the Negev who are entirely unaware of the prayer they raise. Nonetheless, their request for rain is received above, and they receive the response below. Every layer of our heart—the inner, middle, and outer—rises upward, and it becomes felt and received by the mechanism responsible for bringing every created being to its correction and root. Accordingly, we correct the heart, which is our desire through various external conditions that continuously correct our direction toward the purpose of creation.

The more the inner desire is directed precisely at the purpose of creation, the more delicate the correction of the direction will be. That is, it will be a small and soft correction, felt as a gentle, guiding touch, like a mother tenderly supporting her child while it is learning to walk. The greater the deviation between the heart’s content and the feeling in our current state toward the purpose of creation, the more significant the correction will be and the more painful the effort to bridge the gap between the present and the desired state. We then feel the force that guides us to goodness in a more severe way, because the environmental conditions we are placed in become more challenging.

This mechanism of MAN and MAD from souls toward Malchut of Atzilut and the returning influence on the souls is a simple mechanism that we study in the book The Study of the Ten Sefirot.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 19

What Is Correct to Seek: Recognition of Evil or the Feeling of the Creator’s Greatness?

The most correct course of action in order to progress is to attach, cling, and bond with the upper force, the Creator, as Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) writes in his article “There Is None Else Besides Him.” He also writes that half an hour each day should be spent in self-reflection, not looking up, but looking within. Also, even when looking within, we should check what we have sensed, examined, and seen in the Creator.

A routine inward focus on ourselves is called “a complete descent to the level of this world.” It brings about despair, not progress. We are where our thoughts are. Who are we? Our thoughts. If our thoughts are focused on materialism, we are in materialism. If we are focused on Godliness, we are in Godliness. That is what we call “ascents and descents.”

It is thus beneficial to be as attentive as possible to Godliness. As Kabbalist Baruch Shalom Ashlag (RABASH) writes, the group should work to elevate Godliness constantly and focus on how to raise the Creator’s greatness. We should not think about ourselves but about the greatness of the Creator. Why? It is because we become inspired by what we receive from above.

Certainly, we should not neglect the inner goal and the desire for self-recognition of evil, but we should not linger in the negative for too long as it causes despair, which is unhelpful. Only connection with the Creator is helpful. By continually punishing ourselves for being bad, we actually distance ourselves from correction by punishing the Creator. Thus, expressions of joy, awakening, and elevation of spirit are signs that we are moving in the correct direction. Conversely, sadness, weakness, self-punishment, and guilt are signs of stagnation, not progress.

This is the general approach to advancing in the direction of Godliness. If there is a healthy spirit of struggle and overcoming in the group, everyone will abandon their doubts with more ease and speed. Doubts arise constantly and must constantly be set aside. It might seem endless, but there is an end, which comes after several years of effort. The time required is shortening. In earlier times, it took twenty or thirty years to reach Godliness, but as time presses on, more developed souls enter the world and the pace of progress accelerates so that today it is possible to reach Godliness in just a few years.

From a Talk on the Article “What Is Preparation for the Reception of the Torah?” 5/16/2002

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 18

What Is the Difference Between the Reception of the Torah and the Exodus from Egypt?

The Exodus from Egypt is the preparation of the vessels. We take vessels from Egypt, and opposite the point in the heart, we start perceiving the evil within us. “The children of Israel groaned from the labor.” The entire process we undergo culminates in freedom from Pharaoh’s control, i.e., from the control of such vessels and desires. We thereby become ready to confront the doubts, which is considered reaching Mount Sinai.

Without the Exodus from Egypt, it is impossible to speak of receiving the Torah. We need to have the vessels from Egypt, and then we can leave Egypt and reach Mount Sinai with those vessels. Moreover, even as we receive the Torah at Mount Sinai, when the point of Keter—Moses—receives the Torah, the point of Malchut forms an idol, which symbolizes the people waiting at the foot of the mountain seized by doubts about the spiritual work, unable to overcome them, ultimately creating an idol.

It is quite complicated. The process of receiving the Torah is a very long journey, and further corrections are needed afterward. It is due to the Torah arriving in two stages, one following the other:

• The first stage: correction of the vessels.
• The second stage: filling of the vessels.

The process thus does not end with leaving Egypt and the reception of the Torah. When we receive the Torah, we only start refining our vessels. We begin to correct them during the forty years in the desert until we reach the Land of Israel. Before reaching the final correction, there are still many challenges to face, and their purpose is to develop a sense of the true, eternal, and perfect state that is already within us.

In essence, this entire process is a way of opening our vessels so that we can increasingly feel our place. The process only affects the vessels of perception within us. Nothing external changes, only our perception.

It is astonishing how the reception of Godliness is ultimately an inner discovery and revelation; we find out where we truly are and what is within. We can liken it to someone unconscious who gradually wakes up to know where they are. Nothing changes externally, only our awareness and feeling.

The stages of the vessels’ sensitivity in us, which are stages of awareness and awakening, are called the “Exodus from Egypt,” “Mount Sinai,” “Reception of the Torah,” and other names. They are stages that we undergo on our spiritual journey. The change only plays out within us, in our inner vessels. On the outside, nothing changes. We are the ones who change.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 17

What Preparation Is Required for the Reception of the Torah?

The preparation for the reception of the Torah involves overcoming the many doubts that arise in us. We each have our own doubts, despairs, helplessness, indifference, a decline in the importance of attaining Godliness, and so on. We thus require substantial and varied efforts to overcome such doubts. We need to surround ourselves with supportive resources: a society, books, daily routines, and family. Doing so takes a long time and all such endeavors constitute preparation for the reception of the Torah. Ultimately, the main goal is to overcome the doubts and uncertainties that confront us.

Many people come to learn, but as soon as they face some difficulties or even a slight decrease in the desire that they initially received, which was meant to be strengthened from below by the effort they put in, they lose interest in learning. Then they resist the study and leave. Such people lack a deep enough need to feel that it is “better to die than to live.” In other words, they can still find sufficient satisfaction in various worldly pleasures: money, honor, knowledge, sex, food, and sports. However, this is also part of the preparation—there is no other way.

Spirituality is wholeness. What is wholeness? It requires a whole desire. If a person’s desire is well aligned with receiving the Torah, with the revelation of light and Godliness, then we receive the Torah. If not, we are still incomplete in our preparations.

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