Question: In “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” Baal HaSulam writes that in our world the receiving desire materializes in its entire, adequate, desired form. What is it desired for?

Answer: For correction. Otherwise why would it need to descend down the ladder of the spiritual worlds? Moreover, on the lowest level it went through life cycles over and over again until taking on the adequate form in our time. Even in our world the development happens “according to schedule,” and now in the 21st century we are starting our ascent back up. Our current state is the desired, adequate form.

This point was instilled in us from the beginning of creation and we had to reach it. Now is exactly the beginning of man’s or creation’s birth. Until now there was no creation. There was just desire, which developed according to a set program in order to reach a specific state where a point of freedom emerges, the point of our independence.

Question: We are talking about a fully formed egoistic desire, but the “desired form” sounds like a positive thing.

Answer: Of course, this is a positive state. That is exactly how the Torah defines the deadly egoistic desire that has accumulated its full might. This is where creation begins because now it can form, express, and sense itself.

As long as a person doesn’t feel that he is evil, completely opposite to the Creator, as long as he doesn’t realize the entire horror of being in this position, he won’t be able to work on himself. Therefore, in the boundaries of the process of correction, this is a good state because it leads to the formation of a human being.

However, if you suppose that “goodness” is when you feel good, fine, go ahead and feel good. But this is purposeless. In a goal-oriented state a person feels his opposition to the Creator, and this is exactly what motivates him to act.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/11, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

Workers of the Creator Who Make the Torah Arid

This is the matter concerning the declining merit of the generations until they reached the final restriction in our generation and hence nobody feels any need to correct their nature. …Even those engaging in the work, it is by rote; they are not thirsty to reveal the upper wisdom. And even if they see such an opportunity, they prefer to remain at the level of simple execution.
– Baal HaSulam, “The Remedy of Memory”

Woe unto people from the affront of the Torah. For undoubtedly, when they engage only in the literal and in its stories, it wears its widow-garments, and covered with a bag. And all the nations shall say unto Israel: “What is thy Beloved more than another beloved? Why is your law more than our law? After all, your law, too, is stories of the mundane.” There is no greater affront to the Torah than that. Hence, woe unto the people from the affront of the Torah. They do not engage in the wisdom of Kabbalah, which honors the Torah, for they prolong the exile and all the afflictions that are about to come to the world.
– The Writings of Ari, The Tree of Life, Part 1, “Introduction of Chaim Vital,” 11-12
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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

Workers of the Creator Who Make the Torah Arid

There is an oath that the Light of bestowal and love will not awaken in the world before Israel’s deeds in Kabbalah study will have the intention to bestow contentment. …Thus, the length of the exile and affliction that we suffer depends on us and waits for us to merit the practice of the intention to bestow.
– Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 36

A person, born with the will to receive and wishing to correct it to in order to bestow, which is known to be against nature, has only one counsel: the Light of the Torah. … Hence, such people who engage in Torah, not necessarily to know the laws and the customs and to fulfill the commandment, but…in order to correct the heart, these are called, “wise at heart.”
– Rabash, The Rungs of the Ladder, “What Is Torah and Work on the Path of the Creator”

Those who engage solely in the dresses of the Torah are gravely mistaken. …they consider the wisdom of the Torah with its purpose as mere addition of some quip to the laws—which, though truly sacred and precious—they will not illuminate our souls.
– Rav Kook, Igrot (Letters), Vol. 2, 153
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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

Workers of the Creator Who Make the Torah Arid

But if a person from Israel degrades the virtue of Kabbalah, which deals with the correction of our souls, relative to the mechanical fulfillment of religious rituals, …he humiliates and disgraces the Children of Israel and strengthens the destructors of the world in the nations of the world, who will regard Israel as superfluous, as though the world has no need for them, God forbid.
– Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 69

I met with the most renowned Kabbalists of Jerusalem, people who have already worn out their years delving in the writings of the Ari and The Zohar and knew them virtually by heart…. I asked them if they had studied with a Teacher who attained the inner essence of the texts. They answered: “Heavens, no! There is no internality here whatsoever, but accurate texts, given to us, and nothing more than that.”… “The Ari received the composition of these matters from Elijah, and he knew the internality, since he is an angel.” Here my wrath poured out on them, for my patience to be with them had ended.
– Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book, From the Mouth of a Sage”
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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

Workers of the Creator Who Make the Torah Arid

The redemption of Israel and the rise of Israel depend on the study of Kabbalah. And vice versa, all the destruction and the decline of…Israel are because…they have degraded its merit and made it seemingly redundant.
– Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 69

The Creator gave us Kabbalah, the method of correction,… so that with its help we could learn to perform actions with the intention to benefit the Creator. Had it not been for the engagement in Kabbalah for the sake of the Creator,… there would have been no tactic in the world that could help us invert our nature.

…If one’s intention in the study of Kabbalah is not to benefit the Creator, …not only will his nature not be corrected, but rather it will become worse: His egoism will be greater than what he received from nature.
– Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”
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Related Material:
Kabbalists On The Torah And Commandments, Part 46
Kabbalists On The Torah And Commandments, Part 45
Kabbalists On The Torah And Commandments, Part 44

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The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion “Behukotai,” Selected Excerpts
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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

Workers of the Creator Who Make the Torah Arid

There is a common opinion that the essence of the Torah is in the observance of the actions, and for this it is enough to study the revealed part of the Torah. … Yet, this is not the case. Our sages have already said, “Why should the Creator mind if one slaughters at the throat or at the back of the neck? After all, the Mitzvot were only given to correct people.”

…Hence, clearly, if the actions are not arranged for the desired goal, it is as if nothing exists. And it is also written in The Zohar: “A Mitzva (commandment) without an aim is like a body without a soul.”
– Baal HaSulam, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”

The aridity and the darkness that have befallen us in this generation, such as we have never seen before. It is because even the worshipers of the Creator have abandoned the engagement in the wisdom of Kabbalah. … [Hence,] it is no wonder the whole generation is failing because of them.
– Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 57

Those who confine themselves to the practical part of the Torah and do not wish to try to understand the wisdom of Kabbalah… and the flavor of commandments …make the Torah dry. Woe unto them, for with these actions they bring about the existence of poverty, ruin, and robbery, looting, killing, and destructions in the world.
– Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 70
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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

Only the Light in the Torah Reforms the Person

Our sages said, “I have created the evil inclination, I have created the Torah as a spice” (Babba Batra, 16). The matter of the spice is as our sages said, “If only they left Me and kept My Torah, the Light would reform them” (Yerushalmi, Hagiga, 6b). Thus, that there is a power in the Torah to reform a person, referring to the evil within man, meaning to make the will to receive be in order to bestow.
– Rabash, The Rungs of the Ladder, “Man Is Created in the Torah”

We see that the purpose of creating the worlds and the souls was entirely with one intention: to correct everything to be in order to bestow, which is called Dvekut [adhesion], “equivalence of form.” The Creator said about the Torah, “I have created the evil inclination, I have created the spice.” In other words, after a person receives the Torah as a spice [medicine], the evil inclination [egoism] is corrected to being in order to bestow, as written in The Zohar, “The angel of death [egoism] is to become a holy angel [that of love].”
– Rabash, The Rungs of the Ladder, “What Is Torah and Work on the Path of the Creator”

Related Material:
Kabbalists On The Torah And Commandments, Part 44
Kabbalists On The Torah And Commandments, Part 43
Kabbalists On The Torah And Commandments, Part 42

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Only a person that can rise above his egoistic desire attains the sensation of fear. He sees that he is unable to ascend, yet he definitely has to because the spiritual space, the realm of the Creator, perfection, is located precisely above his will to enjoy. Then he is seized by fear: Will he be able to receive help in order to ascend above himself?

This fear can be egoistic, when I am worried about whether or not I will receive the spiritual fulfillment. This kind of fear is also useful: Even though I am thinking about myself (which is called Lo Lishma), at least I am thinking about the spiritual goal, the quality of bestowal (Lishma). It’s just that for the time being I interpret it as something that will provide me with personal benefit.

However, later on we reach “perfect fear,” when we understand that the results of acquiring the quality of bestowal must also be beneficial to everyone, and through benefiting the society, they will be beneficial to the Creator. All of this is done to a person by the upper Light, and therefore this entire process is called “Torah.”

On this path we always meet “an ugly man” who lives inside of us and doesn’t want anything besides personal benefit. He always tries to twist everything in a way that makes him be above others so he can assert his own power and pride. But if I am able to stand up to this freak, even though I fear this quality inside of me, and if I can avoid killing him, and even be able to recognize him and thank him for revealing my own evil to me, then I will develop the right kind of fear that will help me acquire the desire, vessel, or Kli for revealing the Creator.

Gradually all of the concepts will take on the right definitions and I will start to realize that spirituality is above my egoistic desire. I will understand that I will be able to reveal the Creator, perfection, bestowal, love for the neighbor, and the spiritual world only once I can rise above my “self.”

Therefore, everything is based on the force of fear and worry: Am I inside of my egoism without even noticing it, or did I really ascend above it already? And once we do ascend, there are many degrees of ascending above one’s desire, which we gradually discern.

At every level I think that I have already ascended above my egoism, in which case I rejoice and thank the Creator for what He has done to me. After that, I see that that’s not so: This was also my egoism, but it was just hiding from me. And then I have to rise above it as well.

At the beginning of the next level I rejoice immensely once again because I have finally succeeded in rising above my ego and now I am entirely aimed at bestowal. But then I again gradually reveal that this is still not the end and there are still egoistic calculations left inside of me. And then I hate my state all over again and demand a greater ascent, and this process continues until the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun).

It is written, “What is garbage for the upper one is food for the lower one.” That is how we continuously ascend up the levels by virtue of the Light that reforms. This Light is called Torah. It reveals fear (Iraa) in a person. And inside of that Light a person can see (Ireh) the Creator, the quality of bestowal that rules above everything, as well as the creation’s all-enveloping will to enjoy.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/5/11, Shamati

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The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion “Emor,” Selected Excerpts
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