Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 216

How Do We Make a Movement in Spirituality?

A movement is made through a change of form. If we become somewhat more similar to the Creator than we were before, it is a sign that we made a movement. In other words, movement takes place through the effort we make upon ourselves. To the extent that our qualities change in relation to the Creator’s qualities, to that same extent we have advanced toward Him. The distance from the barrier to the Creator is measured in 125 degrees. According to the extent to which we can achieve equivalence of form with the Creator, this is the place where we stand on this ladder of degrees between ourselves and the Creator, moving ever upward upon it.

In this work, we are never in a worse state than the current one. We can only advance. At times it seems to us that we retreat, as though we “fall away,” but this is only how it appears to us. It happens in order to awaken us, to seemingly trip us up, to give us various opportunities to feel new discernments. Usually, disturbances come so that we will delve precisely into them and view ourselves more clearly, because it is specifically through disturbances that we will later feel a special attitude from the Creator. The place where we are given blows is the very place where a special relationship develops, both now and in the future. Evil becomes replaced by good.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 215

How Can We Act in Order to Bestow Before the Barrier?

Before the barrier (Machsom), it is impossible to act in order to bestow. We cannot think in order to bestow and then fail to carry out an action in order to bestow. That is why it is called “before the barrier.” In spirituality, there is no possibility that we can be in one place while already fitting another place, because the moment we match a certain place, we are already there.

In spirituality, we have a kind of “engine” that moves us to the place that corresponds to us according to the changes in our qualities. It is like an electric charge in an electric field or a piece of iron in a magnetic field. It is the equivalence of form between something and its potential field. The Creator is the center of spiritual force, and from Him emanate the waves of the spiritual field. We exist within this field, within this space, as a soul. According to the soul’s potential, the more we resemble the Creator, the closer we come to Him, and the more our qualities differ from those of the Creator, the farther away we become. Thus, we ourselves determine our spiritual movement.

If we, throughout our entire corporeal life in this world, made absolutely no change in our relationship to the Creator, if we made no movement whatsoever, then we are called “one who was dead and remained dead.” If we made some movement, or at least wanted to make a movement, then we already have some relationship to the Creator, and it is possible that we truly made a movement. Our goal is to adhere to Him, to reach the center of that field and space where the Creator is. We need to increasingly progress to Him through equivalence of form, until we are actually included in Him. We do not become nullified. On the contrary, we become like Him. The qualities of the person become like the qualities of the Creator. Then there are two at the center of that field, not one.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 214

Is the Degree of Receiving in Order to Bestow Higher Than the Degree of the Creator?

The Creator has no problem with bestowal. He bestows according to His nature. We, however, must be those who bestow in order to bestow, which is a rather strange combination of words. The created being is a desire to enjoy, and if together with the pleasure it feels, it intends to give pleasure to the Giver of that pleasure, to the Creator, then it is bestowing. This is the sum total of the nature and essence of the action. However, in practice, it always receives; it has no other possibility. We always use our desire to receive, our appetite, and the foods set before us in order to connect with the Host. We have no connection with the Host except through the foods and through his hunger. These are the means of connection.

We cannot speak about the Creator, who bestows according to His nature. Certainly, He makes no effort to bestow. Bestowal is His desire, and it is what He carries out. We do not speak about the upper force or about the degree of His separation from us. We cannot say what He is, only what we receive and feel from Him, whether they be good or bad things, shame or pleasures. We cannot imagine what the Creator is, what the desire to bestow is in itself, even if we were a created being on the highest degree. Although on such a degree we receive certain kinds of gifts from the Creator, hints that somehow make it possible to understand what the desire to bestow is.

What we understand, we understand within our vessels of reception, and then through the act of reception we can describe our understanding. We cannot understand beyond what our vessels allow. We can never step outside our vessels. Stepping outside the vessels means abstract light, which is something that has not been created. Nor do we perceive this abstract light. If we perceive abstract light, it is simply because we have reached a state in which we feel that the light is abstract, and even this takes place in our vessels of reception.

Therefore, we do not engage in what exists above the created being, because that is merely philosophy. No one has any experience of it, nor is it possible for the created being to attain it. The sole kind of attainment possible takes place when the Creator grants a kind of understanding that is above the vessels of the created being, on very high spiritual degrees. But Kabbalists do not even write about this. It has no significance.

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Is There Spiritual Value in Intention Without Action?

First, we need to be concerned with the intention. That is, first we must find the Creator, establish some kind of connection with the Creator. Then we examine what kind of connection exists with the Creator. Maybe it is for the sake of receiving, or maybe there is no connection at all? Also, when a connection exists, we check whether that connection is for the sake of bestowal. Suppose we reach a state where we can truly be in a restriction (Tzimtzum), restricting our desires so that our entire attitude to the Creator is for the sake of bestowal.

What does “for the sake of bestowal” mean? What degree of strength is required for it? Consider eating a salad, a piece of bread, fish, or even meat. This represents the difference between five portions, five degrees of Aviut (coarseness of desire). For which portion, both quantitatively and qualitatively, can we confidently calculate that this pleasure is being received for the sake of bestowal? This is called “the calculation made in the Rosh of the Partzuf.” Only afterward does the action take place.

However, in spirituality, the calculation made in the Rosh of the Partzuf is considered the action itself, because the actual operation follows immediately afterward. There is undoubtedly a calculation in the Rosh. In other words, when we examine and determine in the Rosh that we are already capable of building the Rosh of the Partzuf, this testifies to everything that will follow. This is called the intention in the Rosh for the sake of bestowal. According to the action that we examine and prepare, we prepare everything for reception in the vessel.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 212

Chapter 20. Intention and Action

Kedusha (holiness) is called “in order to bestow,” meaning intention. The action itself is not important, except insofar as it testifies that the intention is indeed in order to bestow. Therefore, all Kedusha—from the barrier onward, up to the soul’s final correction—consists entirely of degrees of “in order to bestow,” intentions aimed at bestowal.

It depends on the particular desire to receive, on the receiving vessels, and on which actions can be joined to that intention. To the extent that we can increasingly attach our very selves to the intention to bestow, we ascend to higher and higher degrees.

Therefore, the intention is of utmost importance. The path begins and ends with it. All of spirituality is intention, and the desire upon which the intention rides determines our degree. There is a certain gradation in this. Our level is measured according to the coarseness (Aviut) of the desire and according to the coarseness of the screen (Masach) that we can place upon that desire.

If the intention to bestow is used with a desire to receive of Aviut Shoresh, Aleph, and Bet (root, first, and second degrees of coarseness), we do not receive in order to bestow, but only bestow in order to bestow. Why? This is because bestowal in order to bestow does not actually exist as an action that belongs to the created being; a created being is a vessel of reception. However, since the desire to receive in the degrees of Aviut Shoresh, Aleph, and Bet is still unfelt as receiving pleasure, the work with it is called the work of bestowing in order to bestow.

Only when the intention to bestow rides upon a desire to receive of Aviut Gimel and Dalet (third and fourth degrees of coarseness) is it called “receiving in order to bestow.” This is because in Aviut Gimel and Dalet there are already sensations of reception, pleasure, and shame. Then we begin to receive in order to bestow, and the feeling of being a receiver who bestows begins.

Therefore, every soul, every vessel, is divided into Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE) and AHP, and the work of each part is different:

The work of Galgalta ve Eynaim—the work of conception (Ibur), birth, and nursing (Yenika), up to the state of smallness (Katnut).

The work of AHP—work with the vessels of reception of Aviut Gimel and Dalet, the vessels of greatness (Gadlut), meaning that we begin to work with the AHP.

These are the two discernments in Kedusha. However, Kedusha is not measured according to desire, but according to intention. The minimal intention to bestow that we acquire immediately places us in the spiritual realm, in the spiritual world.

What does it mean to cross the barrier (Machsom)? It means acquiring an intention to bestow that is called “Lishma” (“for Her sake” or “for the sake of bestowal”).

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 211

Can Eternity Be Felt Only at the End of the Spiritual Path?

Eternity can be felt starting from the very first spiritual degree where we already sense a part of the end of correction. Why? It is because that lowest degree, degree 125, is the same end of correction, but reduced 125 times. That is, we feel what exists in the end of correction, but through many screens. We have a kind of awareness of it, in all of its details, but in a vague way.

Nevertheless, we are within that sensation and begin to identify with the soul instead of with the body. Our life changes. Even our attitude to life and death changes completely. When we begin to identify with the soul, we feel something of eternity.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 210

What Is the Difference Between a Kabbalist Who Has Reached the End of Correction and the Creator?

What is the end of correction? It is when for every influence of the light there is a desire that exactly matches it. If every such desire is corrected in order to bestow, it operates exactly like the light that wishes to fill it. That is, the vessel becomes similar to the light precisely in action and in result, and according to this result there is no difference between the created being and the Creator.

Yet there is the Creator and there is the created being. It is true that the substance of the created being, the will to receive, remains, but it assumes the form of the Creator. Therefore, this is called “equivalence of form.” A difference remains between them, but only in the initial point: the Creator is existence from existence and the created being is existence from absence. But apart from this point, that the Creator created the created being, everything else in the created being is its own self-construction by its own powers in the likeness of the Creator.

Therefore, this initial point is not taken into account; what is, is everything the created being has built above it. Therefore, it is said that the created being is in adhesion with the Creator and there is no difference between them. That is, the created being attains the status of the Creator, everything that exists in the upper one. It is not that we receive all of this from the Creator, but we attain the thoughts, desires, and everything. This is not just a degree above the human; it is a degree above the created being.

Those degrees in which we are in the process of attaining the Creator are called “the secrets of the Torah.” Nothing is written about them anywhere, and it is impossible to write about them. What the created being attains when reaching equivalence with the Creator are the secrets of the Torah, the very thoughts of the Creator, which each person must conceal as much as possible and distance themselves from revealing. Therefore, nothing is written about this anywhere.

For this reason, there is no need to fear reading Kabbalah books. All the books of the wisdom of Kabbalah deal with how to reach the state of the end of correction, which is called “the flavors of the Torah”; it is permitted and even necessary to read them in order to correct ourselves.

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When Does a Person’s Path End?

Each and every person must begin their life at the lowest degree and reach the highest degree within this lifetime. And what about all the previous reincarnations we have undergone? If in previous incarnations a person already attained some spiritual degree but stopped midway along the spiritual path and did not reach its end, it will help them in their next life to complete the entire path. However, until we reach the highest degree from the lowest degree within a single incarnation, we must continue to reincarnate again and again.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 208

How Is Our Vessel Structured After Crossing the Barrier?

If we cross the barrier, it means that we have entered the lowest spiritual degree, where 125 degrees still separate us from the Creator. These are 125 screens that conceal the Creator from us. In other words, we must correct ourselves, our qualities, 125 times.

At each degree where we exist, our “I” is a vessel composed of two parts:

1. 248 organs—parts, desires, in which we can perform correction, corresponding to Galgalta ve Eynaim.
2. 365 tendons—desires in which we cannot perform corrections, corresponding to AHP.

This is the entire spiritual vessel; it consists of ten Sefirot. At each degree, we must examine all of our desires, both above the Chazeh and below the Chazeh (“Chazeh” is the division between Galgalta ve Eynaim and AHP), and correct them.

When the totality of desires is corrected, we have completed that correction and acquire a screen. Then we are rewarded with a new filling, which means we have ascended to a new degree. At the new degree, we again have new desires of 248 organs and 365 tendons, and once again our relation to them is different from before, and again all the corrections are carried out.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 207

What Is the Ladder of Degrees?

The ladder of degrees is the measure of equivalence between the created being and the Creator. What does it mean that a person is at degree 123? It means that 123 degrees separate the qualities of the Creator from the person’s qualities. What does it mean that a person is at the highest spiritual degree? This signifies that there is no difference between the qualities.

In spirituality, in the spiritual ladder, there are 125 degrees: five worlds, with five Partzufim in each world, and five Sefirot in each Partzuf. In practice, this can be divided into many more, but in Kabbalah it is divided according to need. In total, there are five worlds: Adam Kadmon (AK), Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya. However, the worlds of BYA (Beria, Yetzira, Assiya) are divided more precisely into six thousand years, into six thousand degrees.

As we ascend the degrees, each and every degree in the ladder blocks a greater light that is above it. That is, if we exist as a soul at a certain degree, all the degrees above them conceal and diminish the light of Infinity in relation to them. When we want to ascend a degree, we must cancel the screen that conceals it and turn it into a receiving screen, essentially moving from concealment to revelation, from the concealed Torah to the revealed Torah.

For Kabbalists, this is understood differently. People generally think they study the revealed Torah and that Kabbalah is the concealed Torah. However, according to the Kabbalistic view, as the Vilna Gaon wrote, at each degree one moves from the concealed Torah, when the higher degree is hidden, to the revealed Torah, when it is revealed. This is how we come increasingly closer to revelation time and again.

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