A question I received: What is the difference between darkness and Light in spirituality?

My Answer: When a person brings the Light of Hassadim into the darkness, he reveals that that darkness is the Light of Hochma. This is how Kabbalah defines the difference between darkness and Light.

Night is when the Light of Hassadim is absent, and day is when the Light of Hassadim is present. The Light of Hochma is always present because Hochma is essentially the Creator.

Therefore, it always shines 100%. But after Tzimtzum Alef, the Light of Hochma is revealed only to the extent that the Light of Hassadim (the intention to bestow) is generated by a person.

Therefore, the darkness and suffering that we feel today are also coming from the Creator. They signify that the Upper Light is coming closer to us, but we feel it as darkness, evil, and problems because we are still opposite to it.

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Two questions I received about pleasure and suffering:

Question: Why does the Creator make us suffer?

My Answer: It follows from the rule, “the greatness of the Light is seen from darkness.” For example, soccer fans can’t be fully satisfied with a game unless their favorite team goes through difficulties. Research showed that fans of a winning team that had gone through negative emotions due to a risk of the team losing had keener and more positive feelings about the match. Negative emotions play a key role in positive sensations.

Question: I have a question which has bothered me for a long time and thus hindered me in my acceptance of Kabbalah. Why did God want to please Himself (by pleasing His creation – since we are one); why not just maintain His perfection? That must have meant that He also had an egoistic desire to bring pleasure to Himself.

My Answer: You reason this way because you do not understand the quality of bestowal. You think that it includes some kind of reference to oneself, but it does not.

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Each soul is connected to the World of Infinity by a chain or a ladder of spiritual rungs that gradually weakens the Lights and Kelim. I awaken this system the moment I establish a connection with Infinity. Actually, this whole system is inside me; it only seems external to me.

There are two entities in the universe: man and the Creator. Man has to feel that he exists outside of the Creator in order to understand the meaning of “being separated from the Creator.” He has to learn what opposition to Him is and what it is to be close or far from Him in order to then be able to experience adhesion with Him.

This is why I was deliberately created with a perception of reality that is divided into what is inside and outside of me. This makes it easier for me to understand what the Creator is and what I am, what the breaking and the adhesion are, what a state of unconsciousness (concealment) is as opposed to the state of being close to Him and merging with Him into one whole.

The Creator tosses outside everything that I feel inside me, and as a result, my perception is divided into two parts: internal (which is everything I receive), and external (everything that I give, but without the correct intention).

The external world is my Kelim that are purposefully portrayed to me as foreign in order for me to understand what bestowal means. If I begin to relate to them as to parts of me, then I will understand how far I am from bestowal, and how opposite and undesirable it is for me. I will then see that loving my neighbor as myself is not that simple; in fact, I cannot do it. And that means I cannot bestow or come close to the Creator.

“But hold on,” you are thinking, “I want to be close to the Creator!” Well, if you want it, then you need to show it, and bestowal is the only way to do that.

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The Zohar, Chapter “VaYeshev (And Jacob Sat),” Item 114: There is not a person in the world who does not taste the taste of death at night, and the spirit of impurity is over the body. Because the holy soul has parted from man, the spirit of impurity is over that body and it is defiled.

This means that a person had a screen, the Light of Unity, the Light of Adhesion, and the quality of bestowal reigned inside him. But then everything disappeared. The Partzuf was emptied; all the Light came out of it. This could happen for an external reason or an inner reason, such as when a person’s inner will to enjoy grows and new Reshimot begin to surface in him.

That is when a new, uncorrected desire awakens in him and reigns over him. A person submits to it, and guided by this desire begins to think about his life, about self-gratification and how to fulfill this desire.

Only if he prepared ahead of time for this darkness, for the night, the state when his desires rule over him, then he is able to gather all the forces that enable him to view the darkness as a means to ascend to a new level. Then he makes a true request upward, to Abba ve Ima, asking them to take care of him (this is called “adhesion at midnight”).

From midnight onward, he begins the corrections. A person begins to correct the entire additional desire to enjoy, which he had received and in which he felt the taste of death. But now he sweetens it.

This means that a person advances toward the morning, when he receives from Above the Light that Reforms, the first quality of bestowal. And then the dawn comes. A person begins to feel Light in his state, since he has acquired a screen over his previous desire to enjoy and he is now in the quality of bestowal.

This is why it had been necessary for him to experience the taste of death.

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A question I received: How should a person feel after the lesson?

My Answer: A person should come away from the lesson with a few main impressions:

• I haven’t achieved anything yet!
• I have just received a very powerful, potent medicine which will bring me much closer to the goal. These hours of my life were eternal because their benefit is priceless. I will never lose what I have gained just now and no one can take it away from me.
• It is good that I feel empty. If I felt fulfilled, it would mean that I am content with my present egoistic desires.
• It is written, “Your heart will delight in the Creator,” which means that when I am corrected, I will feel fulfilled by fulfilling the Creator. This is the kind of correction I should expect to come to me.
• All the reception and all the bestowal should come “from me” in the middle line. The right line is where I receive the Light of Correction, the Light of Bestowal, from above downward. This Light corrects me if I am completely open to it, if I let it enter me. In the left line, I use my egoistic desires to the extent that they are connected to bestowal. This means working with the Light of Hochma from below upward.
• All the changes that I expect to take place within me will bring me closer to bestowal. If I think this way, then it is impossible to feel bad.

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A question I received: Why does spiritual work always have to be done joyfully?

My Answer: Joy is a sign that you are acting for the sake of bestowal and that you are not doing it by coercion, because you have no other choice or because you are afraid of bad things happening to you. We know how happy a mother is when she succeeds at feeding her child well, because she receives pleasure from this. Bestowal that comes from love, like with the case of the mother, always comes with joy. Joy is a sign and a consequence of good deeds (bestowal).

However, if a person is under the power of his ego, he feels tense and is angry at the Creator. Therefore, the force of kindness and faith is expressed through serenity, rejection of oneself in the face of the Upper Force, a willingness to receive its influence and its correction, which will change your qualities to bestowal. Then the Upper Force comes and gives you strength, and all of this is accompanied by joy.

A true plea to the Creator cannot occur without joy. If a prayer is heard by the Creator, it is called “the gate of tears” (Shaar ha-Dmaot), which means that a person wishes to be similar to the Creator (from the word “Dommeh” – similar). Therefore, he “cries,” meaning that he really wants to become similar to the Giver. However, these are not tears of sorrow; rather, a person feels joy because he has reached this great desire.

An appeal to the Creator cannot be sorrowful. If you cry, it means you blame Him for arranging all of this for you and are unhappy about your path, which you follow out of hopelessness. Then you cannot be righteous. Therefore, if a person does not feel joy in every state that comes to him (be it the greatest state imaginable or the worst possible state), this means that he is in his egoism and has no way to appeal to the Creator.

A person has to ascend in order to always remain in joy. Then he won’t care what is happening to him, since his only request is to acquire the force of bestowal. In that case, he will receive it.

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The Zohar: When darkness comes and Malchut connects to it, she governs and shines in Hochma, which is her governance. And since she lacks the Light of  Hassadim, all her openings are blocked from all sides, for all the Lights freeze within her and there is no vent in her, through which any Light can appear.

She is filled with Light, but the vents are blocked. Afterwards, when the middle line awakens in her and opens the vents, they will receive the illumination of Hochma from her, which was blocked within her at that time. It is written that they crave to permeate the Nukva precisely when she is discerned as small ways and blocked vents, since only then is the Hochma in her complete.

The night is actually full of Light, but we are unable to see in the night since we lack the Light of love and bestowal (Hassadim) to see the Light. Only in the Light of Hassadim can we compel the Light of Hochma to reveal itself and to shine in the Light of Hassadim. The greater the Light of Hassadim, the greater the revelation.

Night or darkness is a state where I am in an ocean of the Light of Hochma, but I have no Light of Hassadim. If I begin developing inner qualities of love and bestowal (the Light of Hassadim), then the Light of Hochma begins to shine for me little by little. This means that I awaken dawn, the Light of morning, and then the day.

From noon and further on, the Light of Hassadim, my force of bestowal, weakens and I begin descending from the level of Hassadim that I once had. It is as if dusk, a lessening of the Light of Hochma in the Light of Hassadim, sets in. That is when evening comes, followed by night. Stated differently, my desire to enjoy has grown and it leaves no strength for me to remain in bestowal and love (Hassadim); it gains more and more power over me. The dark forces of night seize me and I give up, descending into the darkness and becoming incapable of love and bestowal.

But then, while in this dark, I again accumulate the strength to give, and starting from midnight, I begin combining Hochma and Hassadim, so that one Light shines within the other. This is how I reveal the Light.

All of this is done by a person if he overcomes his desire to enjoy through his aspiration for bestowal; then he sees the Light. And vice-versa, he sees darkness to the degree that his egoism overcomes him. That is how we advance through our spiritual development, from day to night, again and again. Everything depends on the person alone, since on the part of the Creator, the Light permanently surrounds us, as it is written, “I did not change My HaVaYaH,” and, “The law is given and one cannot break it.” Everything is already given to you, and from now on you are welcome to do whatever you want.

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The Zohar: It is known that there is World, Year, and Soul in everything. In the stony heart (Lev HaEven), too, there are World, Year, Soul. World is the primordial serpent (Nahash Kadmoni), which Samuel rode; Year—the ninth of Av; and Soul—the thigh-vein sinew (Gid HaNasheh).

The Zohar tells us that there are two ways of perceiving the reality that we feel. There is the perception “for one’s own sake,” where one feels an egoistic “year, world, and soul,” which belong to the stony heart (Lev ha-Even). There is also the altruistic “world, year, and soul,” where one’s perception of reality is directed in the opposite direction, away from oneself. One perceives through bestowal rather than reception, and therefore one perceives the Upper “World, Year, and Soul,” because it is perceived through bestowal (sanctity).

What’s the difference between the perception of reality by way of absorption and reception, when one separates the perception into world, year, and soul; and the perception of reality by way of bestowal, when one also separates the perception into world, year, and soul? This is, in fact, a big difference between these sensations, because by absorbing into oneself, one is limited and feels that he exists in rigid boundaries of time. One feels that he lives and dies; he feels suffering and problems. One constantly wishes to fill himself, but this fulfillment fades immediately. One’s whole existence in these egoistic bounds of “world, year, and soul” takes place in reception, in the stony heart (Lev ha-Even), in absorption “into oneself.” However, in spite of the suffering, one is forced to continue existing in this manner because one’s environment conditions him that this is how he has to live. The environment obliges a person to strive to be successful at this egoistic absorption, and one is compelled to listen to them and thereby to kill oneself.

However, it is possible to perceive reality different – through bestowal, by exiting out of oneself. There, “world, year, and soul” are infinite dimensions, not limited by the considerations of how a person can fulfill himself. One feels the spiritual world, eternity, and perfection.

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The most important thing for us right now is to formulate the correct approach to the study. Indeed, there really isn’t anything to study in the books of Kabbalah, since we can study only what we can sense with our feelings and investigate with our reason. However, what we’re presently doing is waiting and counting on a miraculous force (Segula), the Upper Light, trying to draw it to ourselves.

We exist in the state of concealment (single and double) until we cross the Machsom and begin to sense the Upper World. For now, our task is to come out of the unconscious state and start feeling that we’re in the state of concealment, that something is being concealed from us. This discovery (or sensation) of concealment is what will bring us to revelation.

We should feel as though we’re in the dark, and there is someone waiting close by, watching us through cracks and windows, “Metziz Aleynu Mi Halonot.” When we reach revelation, the first stage will be “bestowal for the sake of bestowal,” the qualities of Bina, Hafetz Hesed.

At this stage there’s no investigation; we merely acquire the quality and force of bestowal. That’s the state of single revelation. We then advance to “reception for the sake of bestowal” where we are able to conduct investigations. That’s the state of the double revelation.

If we relate this to human stages of growth, then the first stage of concealment (in which we presently exist) is like infancy. Then we rise to the level of “bestowal for the sake of bestowal” and acquire spiritual qualities – the qualities of Bina. This can be likened to the stage of accumulating knowledge and learning, or in other words, adolescence, youth, and formation (school, university).

After that we begin to receive for the sake of bestowal. At this stage we are like scientists that investigate and learn about the world, making new discoveries. That is where the science begins; it is when we’re working with desires actively by receiving inside them for the sake of bestowal. Therefore we are able to investigate them on account of being similar to the Creator.

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When a person begins to read The Book of Zohar, oftentimes he is in a state of “sleeping” and from there he has to start attuning himself to reading and penetrating into the material. Depending on how correct a person’s intention is, how he positions himself, turns himself around and pushes in a particular direction, he will move further in the right direction as he reads the book. Therefore, it is important to tear one’s feelings and thoughts away from all earthly matters and refocus them on the manner in which The Zohar is written.

There are many ways to “organize” yourself and prepare for reading the text of The Zohar. Here is one of them:

Only one thing was created: the desire to be filled by the Light (the Creator). This desire, inside a person, can be filled by making yourself greater, higher, stronger, and more powerful than other people. Alternatively, the same desire can also be filled outside of you, by fulfilling others. In that case, the more you fulfill others, the more you are filled with the sensation of others’ fulfillment. By measuring this fulfillment inside of you, you yourself are fulfilled.

In both cases you use the thickness of the desire, all five levels (or layers) of it, but you either do so for your own sake or for the sake of others. The Zohar tells us about the sensations that are felt in the desire to bestow. The Zohar says that the desire to fulfill yourself is unnatural, because what’s natural is the Creator. The Creator, the quality of bestowal is contrary to the way we have become used to feeling because we were born with this perception.

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