A Person On The Path
A question I received: What are the three lines?
My Answer: The left line is the uncorrected desire that must first be restricted (Tzimtzum Aleph). The right line is the force of bestowal, the force of Light. And the middle line is the result of the work of combining them, connecting the two lines.
Our entire work lies in the middle line, and all of Kabbalah’s materials speak of this. The right and left lines are given to us from Above, from nature or the Creator. If we don’t work in the middle line, we remain as animals, acting by compulsion of these two reins: the right and the left lines. However, when we receive the first spark from the middle line, called the point in the heart, it is an opportunity, an invitation, to gain control over our lives, and to stop moving like a horse, maneuvered by two reins from above.
We need to assume these reins and to become “human.” The point in the heart is the beginning of the human within us that will rein his animal, and move toward similarity to the Creator. The spiritual work consists solely of driving oneself, from within the point in the heart, toward merging with everybody else.
Then we relate to all our qualities as conditions given us from Above. We no longer identify ourselves either with our body and its inherent qualities, or with the Light, given to us to correct this body. That is, we relate to these two lines, the right and the left, as perfection created by the Creator, as an invitation extended from Him to begin to build ourselves.
I no longer worry, rejoice, or get distressed over the left or the right lines, instead I relate to the states given to me as an opportunity to properly combine these two lines and move forward, driving my animal and aiming it straight to the goal.
At every moment my animal throws itself this way or that, in a direction unknown to me. And I have to imagine the goal to myself: the Creator, merging with Him, and being equal to Him in properties as much as I can imagine it to myself. I have to try see my environment as a perfect, balanced system, linked and interconnected with all parts equal and in mutual guarantee, so as to be filled by the Upper Light.
Having clarified the goal, I have to correct my animal, so as to guide it in the proper direction via the two reins. This work does not stop for even a second. Every time I imagine the spiritual goal more clearly and in greater detail, and, accordingly, in greater confusion, for light is known only from darkness. I have to always strive toward this goal, that is, to plant myself in the general system as its inseparable component.
Therefore, when I read The Zohar I need to act like a car driver, pushing the gas pedal, watching the road, steering the wheel, and feeling the brakes, all at the same time.
Similarly, when I listen to what The Zohar speaks of, I want to imagine all of it before me. As though being on a tour, I try to move along with The Zohar and participate in it.
In other words, I want to know what it is that I study, to connect to this material, to be in this process. To know is to merge, as it is written: “And Adam knew Eve (his corrected desire).”
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/1/10, The Zohar
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