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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 213

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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