Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 135

How Can We Direct Desires?

We cannot direct our desires except by examining whether a particular desire is beneficial toward our goal. If we have no goal beyond simply fulfilling the desire, then we are like animals: when commanded to crave grass, they eat grass; when commanded to rest, they lie down; they drink water according to command, and so on. In this animalistic state, we merely carry out whatever desire arises within us, period. We possess no other inner program aside from instinctively executing desires. Thus, we are called “inanimate,” “vegetative,” or “animate.” In the “speaking” or “human” degree, we have a goal, an additional program that connects us to our “host” through the processes happening within.

RABASH explains that there is something called “the sustenance of existence,” which exists in the inanimate, vegetative, and animate. It concerns how each being lives: how it has a will to receive, how it sustains itself, and what it desires for its own survival. But beyond this, there is a purpose: to bring this existence to a special state. The wisdom of Kabbalah does not deal with the sustenance of existence, with how everyone was given a desire and how we maintain ourselves like animals. It deals solely with the ways to reach the purpose, the additional inner program implanted within creation.

Thus, two programs were instilled within us, which create a split personality. We do not know which program to follow that will be better for us. The first program demands we protect our animalistic self, while the second demands we reach the goal. Then, we bounce between desires: we want money, then we want honor, then we want honor again, then we want the Creator, then we want the Creator again, then we want the purpose, and we scrutinize whether to act or not to act, constantly moving between a blend of drives. This is all because we possess two programs. As Kabbalah explains: when there is a host and there is also food on the table, the two contradict each other.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 134

How Does the Desire Change?

We should not engage in trying to change the desire, because it is not in our hands to do so. A person cannot change desires. Our preparation is to discern that a desire to change desire is no good, that the created being cannot change anything. Desires were created by the Creator.

We cannot change our desires by ourselves, nor even shift from one thought to another or from one desire to another, within them. This takes place only from above, through changes in the light.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 133

How Does the Desire Change?

We should not engage in trying to change the desire, because it is not in our hands to do so. A person cannot change desires. Our preparation is to discern that a desire to change desire is no good, that the created being cannot change anything. Desires were created by the Creator. We cannot change our desires by ourselves, nor even shift from one thought to another or from one desire to another, within them. This takes place only from above, through changes in the light.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 132

Is Prayer a Means?

Prayer is not merely a means. We refine our desire to make it better, to make it function, and to assume another form through prayer. What is prayer? It is a deficiency within the desire, a request for the desire to change.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 131

How Are the States of Male and Female Felt Before the Barrier?

The myriad spiritual discernments RABASH writes about exist within us as a copy. Even before the barrier, we can imagine various spiritual states. True, they exist only in imagination, but we already experience certain subtle sensations. We do not yet have full feelings, and what we imagine is inaccurate, but there is some shadow of truth.

In other words, within the point in the heart, there is already some volume, a space for each concept, sensation, and for the relationships between them. There is a certain distance, a kind of hollow, between every definition inside the point in the heart. We can sense that something belongs to the right side, and something else to the left side. One thing feels a bit closer, another more distant. We have an inner sensation corresponding to these, though not yet a real feeling, only a slight sensitivity, as if we can “smell” the real thing. Due to the breaking of the vessels, there are sparks left within, which allow some form of sensing.

How can we feel something through the sparks? If we work with the point in the heart, we attract various surrounding lights around ourselves. The light that comes during the study is not uniform; it carries many possibilities according to the vessel. It is simple light (Ohr Pashut), not inner light (Ohr Pnimi) or surrounding light (Ohr Makif) in the full sense, but a subtle illumination that constantly surrounds us. Depending on how we work with the point in the heart, how we develop it and make discernments within it, the surrounding light acts differently on these discernments time after time.

Even though this light is not yet like the clear inner light NRNHY (Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, Yechida), which is distinctly tied to specific degrees like Hassadim, Hochma, and so on, it nonetheless contains nuances and shades. Therefore, it not only develops sensitivity within the point in the heart, but it also causes it to swell, and prepares it for the growth of future organs, like a seed cell. We can have a certain sensitivity that within this seed cell are tiny points, minuscule seeds, from which the future body of the soul will develop. Even before the barrier, we can have such sensitivities.

Of course, it is still just a seed, a drop. We must therefore prepare ourselves toward this drop, wishing for it to develop organs and different parts and relations toward the Creator. The organs—“hand,” “foot,” “liver,” “head,” etc.—represent different relationships arising from our various desires toward the Creator. We wish for it to be so, but do not yet find those desires and discernments within us, yet we still search for them and seek how we can relate to the Creator through them.

When we complete this search, this effort (when exactly is in the hands of the Creator), only then does the Creator give His response: He revives the seed, and it begins to develop. In other words, we must do half the work through our own efforts, and after dedicating all of our effort and completing our share, which is called “filling our measure,” we then receive from above.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 130

How Can We Be Concerned about Improving the Society?

As much as it depends on us, we need to prepare ourselves and act. We must be sensitive to what is happening among our friends. Perhaps everything they lack is already there among them, but they do not see or feel it, like a cat walking around between people’s legs, unaware of the changing states around it. Therefore, before anything else, we need to awaken our sensitivity to everything happening in our society, be impressed by our friends, and not dismiss them.

We must ensure that our sensory receptors are highly sensitive to things that can evoke admiration for the society. To achieve this, we should:

1) Awaken ourselves by reading Kabbalistic texts, listening to Kabbalistic music, and so on.

2) Demand from the society that, despite our sensitivity, the friends “perform” for us, that is, act in a way that stimulates our senses so that we can perceive their actions through our senses, to see and to hear them, and that the friends do not remain like hidden righteous ones. By making their actions visible, we can be impressed by them.

Indeed, this performance is somewhat of a lie, but through this lie, we reach the goal. Therefore, it does not matter if people act in front of each other. In Judaism and in Hassidut, it is customary for everyone to demonstrate to their friend how they pray and how they conduct themselves, because they learn from one another accordingly. However, in Kabbalah, this is done for the sake of attaining an internal state.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 129

How Do We Choose a Society That Will Bring Us to the Correct Desire?

It is according to the extent by which we are impressed by the society, by the friends, and think that the spirituality they engage in is unique, great, and overshadows everything else. If we are impressed in such a way, then this is the right society for us. If we are not impressed by anyone in the society, that society is no good for us.

If we observe the friends carefully and, no matter how much we look, we are still uninspired, it might be that we simply have no desire to see these matters as good. Or it might be that we are truly seeking, but no one does anything that inspires us. In the latter case, we need to seek out another society.

In other words, we must constantly be concerned about improving the society surrounding us. Baal HaSulam writes that this is the only choice given to us.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 128

How Do We Reach the Desire of “Until It Does Not Let Me Sleep”?

“Until it does not let me sleep” is the final desire before crossing the barrier. Baal HaSulam says that this final desire consists of three aspects: at the same time, in the same place, with the same woman. Meaning, we have a goal before our eyes, and relate to it as a child wanting to get a bicycle, but its attainment is conditioned upon excelling in their studies. What is the connection between the two? We are directed to the correct goal through a lie.

Therefore, we need to constantly find a correction by which we deceive ourselves into thinking that we have a temporary goal, and use it to progress toward the true goal. Meanwhile, we must give our will to receive some form of compensation so it will work. Baal HaSulam says about this that the body that works does not receive anything, and the body that does not work receives the entire purpose. Also, how do we head from there to reach a fierce longing for Godliness, for the Creator, to “until it does not let me sleep”? We need the society and books to supply us with this desire. From above, we receive only an initial desire, and rest must come through the impression we receive from the society.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 127

How Can We Reach a State of Lo Lishma Before the Barrier So That the Creator Will Pass Us Through the Barrier?

RABASH says that before the barrier, we must reach a state of “until it does not let me sleep,” “I am lovesick.” This is such an immense extent of yearning for the Creator that does not leave our eyes day or night. It is all we want, and we become locked onto the object of our yearning. Such a state means that we have prepared a vessel, and the Creator discerns our preparation and, according to that preparation, grants the correction, the degree, the vessel. The Creator cannot give us what we have not asked for. We do not receive fulfillment into the vessel we have prepared, otherwise it would turn into a Klipa. Instead, first we acquire a correction, the initial screen.

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Why Do We Who Want Vessels of Bestowal Still Want Them in Order to Receive?

We will always desire everything “in order to receive,” but we still seek some connection to spirituality, even if through Klipot. When entering spirituality, there is a right side and a left side. We, and our entire world, are situated under the left side of Kedusha, in the Klipot. Human beings are a result of the Klipot.

What is required is to reach such a strong state of Lo Lishma, where we can ascend from it to Lo Lishma that is beyond the barrier, and then transform into Lishma. We cannot imagine or desire anything beyond that. However, even in the Lo Lishma desire, there is something of Lishma because the point in the heart is active and stimulates us toward such a desire.

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