5 Minutes Of Light From The Daily Lesson: The Creator’s Revelation And Concealment
Posted on December 23rd, 2009
If I feel evil forces, it means I am able to understand what good forces are, which are situated across from them. However, I am not under the influence of the good forces; I instead fall into the domain of the evil forces.
For example, I have a home, which is a good, warm, and safe place. But at night I find myself in a dark forest, where I feel scared and miserable because I have something good to compare it to. However, if I did not have a good, warm home, I would not suffer; I would simply accommodate myself to living in the forest. It would not seem dark and scary to me, but would be my regular life. In the same manner, we have gotten used to life in this world – the worst of all worlds.
This understanding should help us avoid being confused by the images that The Zohar describes. When we read about the scary characters, we have to tell ourselves that “all of this exists inside me.” These are my desires, in which I want to receive pleasure. All of these demons, spirits, and hell are right here.
We have to clearly understand this. Otherwise, we will picture all sorts of material images of hell and heaven, which are customary in religions that tell us: you are forbidden to go here, and allowed to go there. This is why Baal HaSulam created the commentary to The Book of Zohar; it was in order to help us get rid of all these made up images and to search for all of this inside of ourselves.
We are studying the inner part of the Torah, which tells us that everything is inside a person and a person is a small world. All of this is me, and there is no one except me in existence. The only thing that exists inside me is the Creator (the Light), or the opposite perception of Him. There is only He and I, and He tells me how to reveal Him from His own concealment. He purposely arranged everything this way, where as a result of my effort and my search, I would reveal Him.
By correcting my desire, I come to know Him, the One who created me in this form. By attaining the Creator, I attain myself – all of my qualities and capabilities. How do I attain this correction? I constantly ask for His help in collecting and understanding some parts of my soul. In response, He comes and reveals Himself to me, and we begin working together and uniting through this work.
This system that we work with becomes my soul, where He and I exist together. And The Zohar tells us about all of this.
In the wisdom of Kabbalah we study the soul – the sense that reveals the Creator. As a matter of fact, the Creator only created this specific sense, this specific space, and nothing besides it.
Right now we also perceive our lives with the same sense, but in a concealed form. This is the reason we refer to our current life as our body, this life, and this world. However, in reality, the Creator only created one desire. And the entire Book of Zohar describes how we can work with this desire in order to recognize the place where we have freedom of choice, where we can work and apply efforts in order to reveal this sense or this desire, and then perceive true life in it. This will not happen without our participation.
Malchut is incapable of being corrected on its own, since it is an inanimate desire. However, when it mixes with Bina (with the Nekudot de-SAG which descend under the Tabur of Galgalta), it takes on its qualities and begins to realize, “I want to bestow, I want to ascend and be corrected, and to become similar to the Creator!” This is how Malchut with the inclusion of sparks of Bina, sparks of bestowal, is formed under the Tabur.
However, during this inclusion, Bina receives Malchut inside itself and thereby separates into two parts: the upper part – Galgalta ve Eynaim, which is the pure Bina, and the lower part – ZAT de-Bina, Rechem (womb), or Ima (mother), which understands what kind of desires exist below.
The upper level contains a part of the lower level, and the lower level contains a part of the upper level. Stated differently, Bina contains a small part of Malchut and Malchut contains a small part of Bina. Now they can understand each other. Their relationship is analogous to a mother and a baby, where a mother understands what her baby is crying about, and a baby knows that there is someone to cry to. He instinctively feels that someone gave birth to him and is obligated to care for him.
If this did not occur, then the space beneath Tabur of Galgalta would forever remain empty and the creature (the will to receive) would never reach the goal – bestowal to the Creator. This is why each of our thoughts and desires contains a part of Bina and a part of Malchut. After all, if we only contained the part of Malchut, our world would be dead. All progress and development comes from Bina.
Even scientists are now discovering that when cells separate or when any other development occurs, there are altruistic actions taking place. There are always two opposite forces acting in Nature: the Creator and the creation, a plus and a minus. The inclusion of Bina inside Malchut is what enables creation to not remain locked in complete darkness and to begin moving in the direction of the Light. It’s because it gives creation an inner sensation that “There is someone who must help me!”
In much the same way, a newborn feels that the mother is obligated to care for him. He cries and yells because he knows that someone is reacting to him. He isn’t just crying empty tears, but directing them at someone.
In the article, “The Creator’s Concealment and Revelation,” Baal HaSulam describes how a person perceives the world once the Creator has been revealed to him:
“The person sees that all those who are on the Creator’s path are well-to-do, healthy, respected, calm and amiable, while those who do not aspire to the Creator are poor, sick, contemptible, stupid, and uncultured hypocrites.”
There is nothing but the desire to enjoy and the Light that fills this desire. The entire picture of the world that we see is determined only by the relationship between them. The world is not a reality independent from me, which I watch from a distance. Rather, each person sees what his desire to enjoy shows him.
Therefore, it is impossible to find two people who see the world the same way; the world can even appear completely opposite to them. This depends on the level of Light that fills the desire. That’s how individual our perception of reality is.
The Creator’s revelation is not measured by material parameters; it only changes a person’s vision. It is not the number of zeros in your bank account that changes, but your perception of them. A person who is illuminated by spirituality feels that he has enough of everything.
Meanwhile, even a billionaire usually doesn’t feel this way. A person who has 50 billion dollars is tormented by the fact that he cannot receive at least another half a million. He needs to see a little more added to his bank account everyday. It makes no difference how many billions are there already; the important thing is how much he was able to add today. This is what his life is all about!
However, if the Light is revealed to a person, then he needs no other awards, because he is already immersed in an ocean of goodness. If he has attained contact with the Light and constantly advances within it, he feels no lack for anything.
Is he healthy or ill in reality? He doesn’t feel that he is ill; he feels that everything is well. What will a doctor say if he examines him? It makes no difference, because everything depends on how the person himself perceives the world.
We don’t understand what this feels like or how it will occur. When the Light is revealed, a person does not rise above the illnesses and problems; rather, he remains with all of them and with the Creator. Otherwise, he would be erasing a part of what the Creator gives him, and this would take away from his relationship with Him.
Two questions I received about the nature of spiritual pleasure:
Question: If genuine fulfillment comes from bestowal, does this mean that at this point I am unable to be fulfilled?
My Answer: Right now the only way I know how to be fulfilled is by fulfilling myself. There are desires or empty spaces within me, and by fulfilling them I receive pleasure, temporarily satisfying my relentless “appetite.”
However, a different type of fulfillment exists, one that arises when I connect with other people and feel that I am fulfilling them. Depending on the level of our connection, we become a single whole, just like parents and their children.
In reality we are all part of one soul, and a soul is a desire. By connecting to other people’s spiritual desires, I fulfill them as if they were my own desires, and I take pleasure in doing so. That is what we call spiritual pleasure. It is also felt through desire, but the only difference is that previously I used my own, natural desires, whereas later on I start to sense pleasure through somebody else’s desires, which are not natural to me.
The desires of others seemed so distant that when I compared myself to them, I felt that the worse off they are, the better off I am. But now, after completing my correction, other people’s desires become my own; I obtain the opportunity to fulfill thousands of desires and to enjoy doing it. The pleasure is then much bigger than the fulfillment of only my personal desires.
The conflict between the desire and the effort I invest in it does not disappear. By replacing hatred with love, I only increase the difference between them, and thus enhance the pleasure. After all, Light is measured in contrast to darkness. Even in our regular lives we have a much higher level of appreciation for peace when it is attained after a long period of hostility.
Question: What is more important in spiritual pleasure: to broaden our spiritual horizons by finding answers to our questions, or helping others reach spiritual attainment?
My Answer: Both are important. Spiritual pleasure is something I sense when I connect with the Upper Force. The revelation of the Upper Force occurs even when I just begin to approach it, even if I don’t see it clearly yet.
The world is divided into two parts: the Creator and the creation. “Spiritual pleasure” means that I unveil the Creator as if He appears out of the fog. I start to understand and feel Him a little more; I follow His example and become more familiar with Him.
Studying helps this process because when I study the system He created, I receive an illumination. Even though I haven’t fully revealed Him yet, the connection with Him still shines on me from afar. It makes me more sensitive and I start to feel how I am getting closer to Him, and that I am under his control. Then out of the corner of my eye I begin to see the contours of spiritual phenomena.
Of course, my sensations are still egoistic: I feel good, more secure, tranquil and hopeful about the future. Yet, the spiritual pleasure is felt from a connection with the Upper Force, illumination whereas material pleasure concerns ourselves and others who are like us.
The Zohar: The Creator said: “Here are a united people,” since they were joined as one and will therefore succeed at anything they do.
This is why the degrees were dispersed, each in a separate direction, and therefore all of these nations below were also dispersed, since they were the branches of those degrees.
It is written: “The Creator dispersed them from that place,” the Creator carried out judgment in their upper roots, and the branches followed.
If people collectively choose the wrong path and unite their worst qualities, they can achieve temporary success, since any kind of unity leads to the nullification of one’s ego for the sake of others. This is one way to implement spiritual properties because it is a step towards unity, towards bestowal among each other for the sake of the collective egoism. Even though this unity is done in order to harm anyone who is “outside” – the Creator, nevertheless the act of unity itself brings them partial success.
We have witnessed the experiments of trying to build socialism in Russia and in Israeli kibbutzim. Why didn’t they succeed if the ideas behind them were so good? It was because they were doing “good things” as a means to build their “unified, egoistic tower, reaching to heaven, but against the Creator.” The goal was still “against” someone, instead of a complete destruction of egoism in order to attain the properties of bestowal and love. It was merely a partial unity among members of a group, or among all the people against the Creator.
This is why the full scale of the ego, which is in need of correction, was not discovered initially; only a part of it was known. That’s what led to the idea that we can cope with everything on our own, without the Creator. However, it soon became clear that their ego was bigger than they thought and so they continued to forcefully “correct” it until their civilization collapsed.
Our time is the time of individual egoism. Even two egoists are unable to form a natural unity, a family, not to mention any other types of union. Everything simply disintegrates. We see that no matter how much we want to unite various countries and diverse groups of people, or to have them act together in order to do good in the world, all our attempts fail. And they will continue to fail.
The Zohar gives us advance warning about this, telling us that when we start our spiritual journey we have to establish the right goal: to attain similar properties with the Creator in order to unite with Him.
If, from the very beginning, our goal is to build then it’s no surprise that our unity will only hurt us and we will not succeed. We have already seen examples of this in our world. Let’s hope that we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past, like the “wise men” who meet at international conferences such as the “G20 summits” and the climate summit, aiming to bring prosperity to the world. They won’t succeed. The only question is: how many towers will they have to build and see ruined before they understand the reason for their failures?
If we don’t pursue the right goal, then any attempt at unity in our world will fail and bring more harm.
The single concealment is the reverse side of the Creator. This is a connection with Him, but a negative one. A person’s vision is clouded by everything: he has problems with his family, children and wife, with his boss at work, his bank balance, and his health. However, he always attributes everything taking place to the Creator and understands that this is simply the Creator’s way of playing with him.
If he doesn’t forget that everything comes from the Creator and does not lose this connection, he is already in the state of single concealment, the reverse side of the Creator. This state contains various sublevels, which depend on how one understands the reason for why the Creator is doing all of this. Perhaps it’s because He wants to punish the person for the mistakes he made in the past? On the other hand, a person may know that there is no such thing as punishment. Or, he might decide that the Creator has always treated him well, even in the past; or he breaks all of his ties to the past and focuses entirely on the future. In other words, he feels that the Creator sends him suffering in order to help him advance in the future. The Creator pressures him similar to how parents pressure their child because they want him to succeed.
Once a person reaches this realization, he begins to justify the Creator – either with regard to the past or the future, with the latter approach being more correct. However, the problems may be so great that a person becomes confused completely. He comes to the bank, or home, or work, and everywhere he encounters so many challenges that he forgets about the Creator and remains alone with his problems. His excuse for this is that he must first put his life in order.
It’s true – you really do have to work on your problems, but at the same time, you shouldn’t forget that they come from the Creator. You have to do everything that is expected of you in this world, but with the intention that you will attain the Creator’s revelation through these actions. The Creator uses all of these situations to reveal His opposite side to you. So the right way for you to see the situation is to correct the problems in the bank, with your family, and with your health, but to do it for the sake of revealing the Creator (“His face”), instead of thinking that the most important thing is to get rid of the problems themselves.
If you worry only about how to fix your bank account, your family problems and your health, then nothing will help, and even greater problems will come. But if you do all of this for the sake of revealing the Creator, or in other words – with a different intention, then everything will work out – even your bank balance.
The reverse side of the Creator becomes revealed to us through all of these situations in order for us to find the right attitude to Him and to reveal His face. This revelation will elevate us above all the problems.
At the lecture yesterday, someone asked me, “How should I act towards the people around me if everything exists inside me?” The problem is that there is the actuality and there is what we desire. The actuality is what we feel and sense, according to the principle, “A judge has no more than what his eyes can see.” This is what we should use to evaluate everything in our world and to act accordingly. In this world, the only ones that act are myself and the people around me
The desired is what we will discover in the future, in ourcorrected qualities. In that world we will be united with the environment and the Creator. We learn that there exists another reality where everything is perceived inside us and nothing is perceived outside of us. However, all of this is still unreal for us for now. It’s possible that everything we imagine as the picture of the future is actually nothing like it. We don’t realize just how much our life will change. It’s not that our world will not change in some way; rather, a completely new world will emerge.
Therefore, when we read The Book of Zohar, we have to tear away from everything that is familiar to us and try to immerse ourselves in this book, as if going inside it. When we read The Book of Zohar and we am in it, then we really live within it.
For now we cannot exist in two worlds simultaneously. For the time being, we are able to be only in one. Therefore, we tune out of this material reality and try to build another picture, like a child who wants to be grown-up. The child wants to be an adult in all aspects, such as in the clothing he wears, the way he acts, and the way others see him. He wants everyone to treat him like an adult.
In the same manner we need to imagine in all our senses and in all our fantasies that The Zohar is talking about our new world, in which we are situated. In other words, it is talking about our inner qualities in which we exist and in which we see a new reality. This “game” brings about the influence of the Light that Reforms, and then that new world is revealed.
It is not that a new world is revealed and the old one disappears, and we fly off into the sky. Rather, we reveal that we are living in desires; namely, two desires – ours and the Creator’s, which become revealed one against the other inside us. We feel them and exist between them as the middle line, which is our “I.” There is nothing except this; we exist between two forces.
A question I received: If a person has a serious illness, is bankrupt, and is having problems with his marriage, will all of this be fixed as soon as he enters the spiritual world? After all, we learn that all of this suffering is given to a person in order for him to correct himself. Otherwise, how would he ever be able to say that the Creator is Good and does Good?
My Answer: If the Creator is revealed to you, then you will say that He is Good and does Good. For example think of the tremendous suffering that Rabbi Akiva had to endure during his agonizing death, yet he still blessed the Creator. This is not a legend about a martyr, but a true state which each of us can experience – to suffer yet not feel the suffering.
“The Creator is revealed” means that I reveal the quality of bestowal in myself, above the egoistic desires. Along with all of my suffering, I am immersed in an ocean of goodness. Otherwise, how can I bless the Creator?
Our egoistic desires will never be fulfilled. The first restriction (Tzimtzum Alef) will never be annulled. We can only receive fulfillment inside different desires – the Kelim of bestowal which we build above our desire to enjoy.
Question cont’d: But in these Kelim, will I feel full or hungry?
My Answer: You will feel full, like a guest that receives pleasure from the fact that the Host is receiving pleasure from you. But are you receiving pleasure? No! That “you” which you are asking about today, the egoistic you, will never receive pleasure!
Another “you” – the corrected you, the one that receives pleasure from the Host’s enjoyment, will receive pleasure. But that egoist that just wanted to eat won’t receive anything!
Question cont’d: So will I be full or not?
My Answer: Yes, you will be!
Question cont’d: But how?
My Answer: By building new types of desires inside you and thereby becoming 613 times fuller! However, this pleasure won’t be felt in your former desires.
This is something we don’t understand yet. It constitutes the difference between being in this world and in the world to come. However, this will come.
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