Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 188

Isn’t It More Logical to Reach Love of People From Love of the Creator?

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, love of the Creator is the final degree of the development of the desire; it is the correction of the desire. The desire exists in double concealment, single concealment, reward and punishment, and love. Love is divided there into several parts, and eternal love is the greatest and the last.

That is, we need to reach the end of correction, and only from there understand that we must relate well to the friend we are here studying with. Otherwise, why did the Creator create this entire world and the friends and gather us together? The purpose of the existence of this world, which burdens the soul and weighs upon it, is to try to be in the end of correction despite the disturbances that the Creator currently gives us. This is essentially the whole matter of ascending the degrees. We are already in the end of correction even now, but do not feel it because our heart is shrouded by 125 coverings. These layers of concealment must be neutralized in order to feel the end of correction. How do those coverings become neutralized? It is through various means that are at our disposal.

Even the great righteous who are at the end of correction descend to this world when they must help the souls in this world, and they begin the same path anew, attain the end of correction in their lives, write books for us, help us, care for us, and teach us, all from the degree of this world. They are still connected to the end of correction within themselves, but they are here with us. In other words, all the coverings that were given to us so that we would not feel the end of correction are meant to lead us to overcome them so that we will relate to them and use them. The greater the disturbance, the greater the illumination it will later become.

The laws of nature in this world prove this to us: the action of resistance in electricity, the connection between cells in the body, and the connection between all things. The force of resistance is a positive force if it is used for a purpose. Only through it can something be felt and benefit be produced. When electricity passes through a wire with no resistance, it is not felt. If resistance is placed in it, benefit can be produced from it: heating, cooling, and the operation of various devices.

So it is also with the burden caused by the will to receive. Without it we would not feel the light. With zero coarseness nothing is felt. If there is coarseness in the sea of light, according to the coarseness, we will be able to feel the light passing through it, provided we let it pass. Therefore, the force of the screen is called “the force of resistance.” It operates exactly like a resistor that produces electrical resistance.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 187
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 186
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 185

Filed under: Talks about the Steps of the Ladder - No Comments →

Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 187

How Can We Reach the Creator Through Our Attitude to a Friend?

In the society of those who wish to become Kabbalists, people behave according to the rule that from the love of friends we come to love of the Creator, as RABASH writes in his articles about what the love of friends should give us. Therefore, we should understand that in our attitude to the friends we ultimately determine our attitude to the Creator. Even if we are incapable of relating to them kindly, but we are aware of it and wish to check whether we are improving, we must examine whether something in our attitude toward them has changed. If something has changed substantially, or even slightly, it is a sign that we have made a great step forward in spirituality.

We cannot measure spirituality, but we can assess from the perspective of the heart how we look at others: whether we are less envious of them, whether perhaps we are already capable of caring about them a little, and whether there is already some preparation within us for this. This is the test. We can never imagine a higher spiritual degree. When something suddenly becomes revealed to us, if we suddenly understand something, for us it is a true revelation.

So how can we long for a higher state? What we should do is remember the last good state we had, when we longed for the Creator, thought about Him, enjoyed feeling Him, and were connected to Him. We should try to hold on to that state even when it has already passed. In some way, we need to continually build the position of the relationship between ourselves and the Creator, because an example was given to us for that purpose.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 186
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 185
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 184

Filed under: Talks about the Steps of the Ladder - No Comments →

Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 186

What Is the Root of Hatred?

The root of hatred is the breaking of the screen; there is no unity, each one feels only their own will to receive, and we feel alienation toward a will to receive that is different from our own. There are many degrees. We love ourselves and care only about ourselves because our nature compels us to do so. As RABASH writes in an article: a wolf that devours a deer does not do harm to the deer; the wolf’s nature demands that it fill itself, and the Creator created it so that the deer is its fulfillment. The wolf eating the deer is a correction for both the wolf and the deer. To us it seems terrible, but it is not. It is nature.

He also continues and writes that there are animals that harm other animals, not because they need to, but out of an ancient habit that was necessary for survival in the past and now is no longer necessary. Therefore, even though the need for its actions is not understood, the ancient habit seems to exempt it from punishment because it is not to blame for having become accustomed in this way, since nature accustomed it to act in such a way. Here we are speaking only about the animal degree, the degree of the still, vegetative, and animate. Therefore, these degrees have neither good deeds nor transgressions, and they are not judged as good or evil according to their behavior. They only have nature.

Human beings are required to deal with their relationships. The question of what we need for survival and for the fulfillment of our basic needs is not asked. Usually the state ensures that each person has a secure piece of ground under their feet. The more corrected the society is, the more it cares for its members. Our self-examination begins at the degree above survival.

Baal HaSulam writes in the article “The Last Generation” that at the end of correction, in the last generation, there will be a universal religion for all the nations. What will that religion be? It will be to not receive more than the least unsuccessful person receives from society. He calls this “religion.” The rest of the nations, he says, can maintain their religions, customs, and traditions, and will not interfere. This indicates Baal HaSulam’s attitude toward the entire animal degree. In other words, I make an account of what is necessary for me according to the last unsuccessful person, the one who truly receives less than everyone else. If I receive more than that person, then I receive luxuries. This is what Baal HaSulam says. This is the ideal, the religion of the last generation.

However, necessity has many degrees. There is a degree in which we relate only to ourselves and our needs, and there is a degree in which we already begin to take others into account.

What does it mean “to take others into account”? We have animal desires that animals also have: food, sex, shelter, family, which are all necessities. “Necessary” is what we do only for the needs of our body. When we already begin to look at what others have, it means we no longer consider only what our body needs, but we think about how we will appear in the eyes of others. Suddenly we need a five-story house, which means that we begin to calculate our needs, not according to our body, but according to the eyes of others.

RABASH recounts that in Jerusalem at the beginning of the 20^th century his family had one room. In the corner of the room there were mattresses, and at night each person would spread out a mattress and sleep on it. The wealthy parents of his daughter-in-law had two rooms. The entire family lived in one room, and they rented out the second room. This was normal and this was how everyone lived. Today, necessity is that each person has their own room, their own private corner.

When we begin to take society into account and to measure what they should receive from it according to what we see around us, this also affects essential needs such as food and a house. We choose our food and our house according to the variety offered in the supermarket and according to the houses that others build. These all turn from a basic bodily need into a need to have what our neighbors have. This is no longer a necessity but a relationship to the environment. When these needs are compared with what society consumes, they already receive another character and are no longer called necessities but luxuries belonging to human desires: money, honor, and knowledge. These are desires influenced by society, even though they are seemingly connected to the body. In fact, the body does not need them.

In human desires, desires that relate only to society, there is a thought about what we want to contribute to society, opposite to the thought about what we want to receive. However, we want to receive: do we want others not to have what we have, or that they will have it, and perhaps together we can make it good for everyone? In human desires, there is an entire spectrum of shades, from a good attitude toward others to hatred of others.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 185
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 184
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 183

Filed under: Talks about the Steps of the Ladder - No Comments →

Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 185

What Should We Do If We Already Love Some of the Friends in the Group?

If we already love some of the friends in the group and we are still not at the end of correction, it is a sign that we are deceiving and lying to ourselves. It only seems to us that we love the friends, while in fact we are somehow evading it and calling it love.

Then we must invest more effort. From above we are shown that we are still not with the friends in the state of the end of correction and that we have not yet completely corrected our attitude toward them, which is called “the end of correction.”

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 184
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 183
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 182

Filed under: Talks about the Steps of the Ladder - No Comments →

Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 184

Is Slander Toward a Friend in a Society Engaged in Kabbalah the Same as Toward the Creator?

A society engaged in spiritual work aspires to act according to spiritual laws. The entire benefit of the society is that at the root, in the soul of Adam HaRishon, in the place where everyone exists at the highest spiritual degree, where all souls are connected together, we can draw strength and surrounding light. We must try to act from a state in which we are below that highest spiritual degree, as if we were already in that state, the higher one, as if we were already in it. This means that we long for it, and this is called “effort.” Effort means resembling a higher state.

If each member of the group tries to build their relationships with their friends as if they were already at the end of correction, this is called “applying effort.” To the extent that we all long for the corrected state of the end of correction to dwell among us, as it appears to us at the moment, then from that perfect state we will invite a surrounding light upon ourselves that will take care of us and correct us, and it will indeed draw us to the state of the end of correction. Therefore, we must behave in our environment according to “Love your neighbor as yourself” as much as possible.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 183
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 182
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 181

Filed under: Talks about the Steps of the Ladder - No Comments →

Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 183

Chapter 18. The Root of Hatred

In this world it is customary that refraining from slander means that a person should not speak ill of their friend, that people should be good to one another, and that every person should examine themselves before saying something critical about another. Today, there are so many thick books on the subject that before people do something or approach someone, they first check the law books of slander to see how it is advisable to approach and how they can protect themselves through what is written. That is, people do not examine their hearts, but rather look at “what is written in the books” and act according to what is written. What is written is permitted, and what is not written is not.

In other words, importance is given to what a person utters with their mouth, while there is no discussion about what takes place in the heart. That belongs to the hidden teaching. For the general public, for the still level, this is indeed the accepted path and appropriate for its degree. However, “slander” is certainly not what we express with our mouth or even what we feel in our heart toward the environment, but only what we feel toward the Creator. What we feel toward the Creator is either slander or good speech.* The sole intention is with regard to the Creator.

Since the entire purpose is to reach adhesion with the Creator and the only way to do so is to improve my qualities so they will be in equivalence of form with Him, everything I do is always to compare myself to Him: where I am, where the Creator is, how much I understand who He is, what He is, how I can make this correction, reduce the gap between us, how much I value the situation as beneficial for progress that He builds around me and within me, and how much I understand His state.

The way a person feels this entire situation, even before they examine and criticize it, is essentially their attitude toward the world that the Creator has shaped for them, and if they are not satisfied with it, their attitude toward their life is called “slander.”

In the wisdom of Kabbalah we learn that our soul includes two parts:
GE (Galgalta ve Eynaim) – vessels of bestowal, called “Israel.”
AHP (Awzen, Hotem, Peh) – vessels of reception, called “the nations of the world.”

The general correction is that until the end of correction it is impossible to use the vessels of reception, but only the AHP that ascend through their incorporation in the vessels of bestowal. The vessels of reception themselves are called “gentile,” and their incorporation in the vessels of bestowal is called a “convert.”

From this follows the correction that can be made to these two types of vessels:

The correction for Israel, for Galgalta ve Eynaim, is “Love your neighbor as yourself” (per Rabbi Akiva), because they can reach adhesion with the Creator. “Your neighbor” is the Creator.

The correction for the nations, for AHP, is a restriction called “What is hateful to you, do not do to your friend” (per Hillel), which means restrict your evil. This is because the vessels of reception in and of themselves cannot be corrected until the end of correction.

This is precisely the difference between Rabbi Akiva and Hillel, and this is the difference in the relationship between these two corrections. In Galgalta ve Eynaim, vessels of bestowal, it is permitted to use them, and in AHP, vessels of reception, it is forbidden to use them.

From this we can understand the “holy language” as a language spoken through vessels of bestowal, Hebrew, Panim (anterior), and the “language of translation” as that which is still not the holy language, but a language through which we prepare ourselves in AHP to later reach correction so that it will be like Galgalta ve Eynaim, the Achoraim (posterior) of the holy language. Therefore, Galgalta ve Eynaim speak in the holy language, and AHP speak in the language of translation. This is also why The Book of Zohar was written in the language of translation, in the Achoraim, because it is a book that still deals with corrections.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 182
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 181
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 180

Filed under: Talks about the Steps of the Ladder - No Comments →

Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 182

Why Is Slander Called “A Help Against Him”?

In reality there is no such thing as something that is simply “against.” Therefore, in the Torah, the word for “against” (Neged) is always written with a prefix of “as” or “like” before it, (Keneged) in the sense of “one against another” (Zeh Keneged Zeh). What does the prefix “as” or “like” imply? It means something like or as if opposite to something else. One thing actually supports the other, and in order to clarify one thing, something appears opposite it.

Sometimes it seems to us, due to lack of understanding and the absence of a comprehensive view of what is before our eyes, that there is something that contradicts and destroys. Indeed, this might appear to happen, but even the worst occurrence has the purpose of serving as a support, a foundation, for the structure and the next degree.

Whether we receive Kedusha according to our equivalence of form with it, or according to our opposition of form to it, depends only on us.
From a Talk on the Article “What Is the Substance of Slander and Against Whom Is It?” – Part 1 6/12/2002

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 181
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 180
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 179

Filed under: Talks about the Steps of the Ladder - No Comments →

Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 181

Why Is There No Forceful Means Against Slander?

There is indeed a forceful means against slander. It is possible to simply not listen. We cannot destroy slander, because we have insufficient strength to do so, since slander speaks from within nature. We can only ask the Creator to change our nature, and thus replace slander with speaking well of others. A person individually would never be able to do this on their own.

It is impossible to subdue slander in any other way, because it cannot be confronted on the human level, because on that level it is always right. On the surface it indeed appears as though we can attain money, honor, knowledge, security, and health through various accepted means. Moreover, when people try to attain these through conventional pathways, they see that it is impossible to solve problems through the intellect. Therefore, the intellect cannot solve anything, but we must reach this realization by ourselves through scrutiny.

With what do we make such a scrutiny? Precisely with this slander, but on condition that we channel it for our benefit. Then we see that its existence is meant to help us recognize the evil. In other words, slander must be under our control, and then we realize that slander is “a help against Him,” which is very good.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 180
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 179
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 178

Filed under: Talks about the Steps of the Ladder - No Comments →

Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 180

Why Is There No Forceful Means Against Slander?

There is indeed a forceful means against slander. It is possible to simply not listen. We cannot destroy slander, because we have insufficient strength to do so, since slander speaks from within nature. We can only ask the Creator to change our nature, and thus replace slander with speaking well of others. A person individually would never be able to do this on their own.

It is impossible to subdue slander in any other way, because it cannot be confronted on the human level, because on that level it is always right. On the surface it indeed appears as though we can attain money, honor, knowledge, security, and health through various accepted means. Moreover, when people try to attain these through conventional pathways, they see that it is impossible to solve problems through the intellect. Therefore, the intellect cannot solve anything, but we must reach this realization by ourselves through scrutiny.

With what do we make such a scrutiny? Precisely with this slander, but on condition that we channel it for our benefit. Then we see that its existence is meant to help us recognize the evil. In other words, slander must be under our control, and then we realize that slander is “a help against Him,” which is very good.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 179
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 178
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 177

Filed under: Talks about the Steps of the Ladder - No Comments →

Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 179

What Should We Do Against Slander?

It is written, “Blunt his teeth,” because there is no factual evidence that can stand against one who speaks slander. A person who speaks slander appears to be right. They speak about visible facts and rely on the ego and on the surrounding reality that they see. They base their words on their life in reality, on the present situation: “You are a weak person. You have a family. There are many pressures on you. You are tired from the struggles of life.” They will tell you a thousand and one things, and everything they say will be right and justified. The problem is that according to the current level on which they exist, they are right.

One who speaks slander is like a mother who says to her son out of concern: “You are sick. You are weak. You have children, a family. I feel sorry for you. Take care of your health. How can you not sleep at night?” They are all true points, and the list is endless. On that level she is saying correct and justified points, except for one point, that there is a spiritual goal. She does not speak from the point in the heart. She simply speaks from the heart, from human mind, while ignoring the upper mind.

The only recourse to stand against the slander that weakens one’s strength is, as it is written, “Blunt his teeth.”

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 178
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 177
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 176

Filed under: Talks about the Steps of the Ladder - No Comments →