Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 225

What Is New About This? After All, We Already Had a Connection with the Host Before…

No. From our side, we never had a connection with the Host, nor did we feel Him as we are destined to feel Him. This is because the final correction that the Creator created is at the Creator’s expense, not at the expense of the created being. In Kabbalah, we learn that the expansion of the Light and its departure make the vessel fit for its role. In other words, only then does a deficiency arise, and from that deficiency comes the connection between the created being and the Creator. Before that, there was no connection.

The most the Creator can do is create a desire to receive, fill it, and give it a feeling of shame, so that through all these things it will restrict itself, undergo various incarnations, and spill over to the opposite end. The Creator cannot bring it closer without this process, because then the desire does not develop and we do not draw closer to the Creator. The Creator can do everything except give us the feeling that we ourselves accomplished it. Baal HaSulam illustrates this with a short story:

Two friends meet after twenty years without seeing one another. One has become wealthy and the other has become poor. The wealthy friend takes the poor friend into his home and says, “Everything I have is yours.” They spend time together, enjoy themselves, and everything is wonderful. Indeed, the wealthy friend gives his companion every good thing wholeheartedly. He makes no calculations and is completely willing to place everything before the poor man. After a week, the poor man, who understands that his friend is giving to him exactly as he would give to himself, and even more so, without any calculations, says to him: “There is a problem here. There is only one flaw: it was not I who did this; it was you. And there is nothing you can do to change that fact. There is only one thing you can do if you truly want to do me a favor: give me the opportunity to achieve what you have on my own.” That is what the Creator does for us. When we arrive, we truly arrive at an equal level with Him.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 224
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 223
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 222

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

Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 224

What Is Our Addition?

Our addition is “the self.”

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 223
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 222
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 221

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

Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 223

What Is the True Picture of the Creator?

We never speak about how things appear from the Creator’s side, what He feels, or what He is. We speak about what the created being feels from Him, or about how the created being imagines the Creator’s state, but not about His state outside the created being. At times we think all sorts of things about a friend that do not truly reflect who he is. We speculate about his thoughts, feelings, and troubles, and when we come a little closer to him, we discover that none of it was true. It was all merely a picture we had drawn in our imagination.

There is the matter of knowing something from within ourselves, from imagining that something is one way or another, and there is the true picture. We never see or know the true picture of the Creator. We can only know the Creator through ourselves, what we think about the Creator, how we understand the Creator, and so on. The truest picture that we are capable of attaining, without our vessels distorting what the Creator wishes us to feel from Him, is the state of final correction. The Host wishes to serve a five-course meal, each course perfect in every respect. We receive it and feel the Host’s attitude toward us through it. Beyond that is beyond our ability.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 222
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 221
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 220

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

Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 222

What Is the Difference Between Before and After the Barrier?

Before the barrier, a person passes through two principal and very important stages:

1) Double concealment
2) Single concealment

These two stages provide us with all the vessels and discernments, which we later enlarge in spirituality and upon which we dress additional discernments. The transgressions and mistakes that we make on our spiritual path toward the barrier are the actual vessels that we will use later.

The difference between before and after the barrier is not only in these vessels. The point is that before the barrier, when we are in concealment and the Creator is not revealed, we might sometimes feel something in relation to the Creator. Our sensation of the Creator is that of the surrounding light (Ohr Makif) and not of the inner light (Ohr Pnimi), because we still lack a screen (Masach).

After the barrier, we acquire a screen. The acquisition of the first screen is called crossing the barrier, and afterward additional screens are added. Then, according to the strength of our screen, we can receive inner light, which is a clear and tangible sensation of Godliness.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 221
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 220
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 219

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

Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 221

Does the Creator Bestow Upon Us the State of Final Correction?

The Creator bestows upon us as though we were already in the state of final correction, and indeed we are in the state of final correction. It only seems to us that we are not. In other words, the “as though we were” applies to our perception, not to the state of final correction itself. Final correction is the only state that actually exists, and we deceive ourselves into thinking that we are outside of final correction. This illusion stems from the numbness of our senses. Therefore, we need to correct our senses in order to feel the place in which we already exist.

RABASH compares this to an unconscious person who gradually rises and regains consciousness. This “return to consciousness” consists of the 125 degrees, through which the states gradually become clarified to him, until he reaches the state in which he truly exists. It continues until his awareness and the state in which he exists become one and the same.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 220
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 219
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 218

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

Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 220

What Does It Mean That the Creator Relates to Us as Though We Are Already in the State of Final Correction?

We are indeed with the Creator in the best and most perfect state possible, but that state is concealed from us behind 125 coverings. There, somewhere in the state of final correction, the Creator relates to us through 125 coverings. We experience the Creator’s attitude through those 125 coverings, which weaken that attitude to such an extent that we even reverse it. Thus, from the Creator’s perspective, we are perfect, while only from our own perspective are we corrupted.

This means that self-correction is for our own benefit. By correcting ourselves, we are not doing the Creator any favor whatsoever.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 219
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 218
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 217

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

Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 219

How Can We Bestow If There Is No Connection to the Creator? To Whom Is This Desire Attributed?

The desire to bestow is not attributed to the person. Suppose we could perform some action like making ourselves a sandwich, enjoying it, and attributing that pleasure to the Creator: “You, the Host, created this entire world for me and brought me to enjoy this sandwich. I would like to feel You so that I could show You how much I enjoy the sandwich. But in truth, it is not the sandwich itself that I enjoy. Rather, I enjoy the feeling that You prepared this for me.” In other words, we reach a state where we lack something, where we need to feel the Creator so that we have someone to thank.

We can begin with this and see that the Creator will reveal Himself. Even if we merely think about thanking the Creator, He will reveal Himself. The Creator is ready for this, because it is truly for the sake of bestowal, regardless of the fact that it concerns nothing more than a simple sandwich.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 218
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 217
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 216

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

Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 218

On Which Desire, Among All Our Desires, Do We First Work So That It Will Be in Order to Bestow?

We have many desires, and we do not work with all of them at once. We work on them one by one. Kabbalists say, work with the smallest desire first, so that we can be sure we will not fail. Once we have completed work on it, choose a greater desire.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 217
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 216
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 215

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

Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 217

What Is the Difference Between a Person Being Close to the Creator and the Creator Being Close to a Person?

A person who advances and draws closer to the Creator discovers that, from the Creator’s perspective, there is no concept of being “close” or “far,” either from him or from other people. A person is within the Creator all the time, and from the Creator’s perspective he is already in the state of final correction (Gmar Tikkun), from which the Creator relates to him. However, the person feels the Creator’s attitude toward him in a negative way according to the extent that he himself is not corrected.

This is exactly how we behave in this life. How much pressure and how many blows does a demanding mother give when she wants her son to become a doctor? Until he is immersed in it one hundred percent. Until he studies and receives the highest possible grade. Nothing less than that. The more he resists, the more she pressures him.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 216
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 215
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 214

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

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.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 215
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 214
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 213

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