Dinner for the New Month of Tevet, 1995
Man's desire to know the divine equals the most intense aspiration to know oneself. Selfishness hinders man's aspiration because man's nature is to seek self-satidfaction and the saturation of his desires. Everytime man ceases to give in to illusions he immediately wishes to know the Creator, his Source, his true nature.
Baal HaSulam was ready to speak to everybody, to look after students and he published a newspaper whose excerpts later became a book "Matan Torah" (The Giving of the Torah). However he had practically very few students who would have wished to study. The paradox lies in the fact that before there were Kabbalists and no students whilst presently many wish to study but there are no Kabbalists.
It is the first time in history that we face such a situation: the desire to study is fostered from below while from above we find ourselves thrown into increasing spiritual darkness. This is a constructive situation because it bears witness to the fact that if our desire to progress spiritually is genuine the answers received will be proportional to its intensity.
What defines the power of love between man and the Creator? It is the degree of suffering and passion, the degree of suffering due to the absence of light inside the Kli and the passion following the penetration of the divine light when bonding takes place. This means that if man can feel true desires within himself, his desire will be fulfilled.
The problem of people who try to enter or perceive the spiritual worlds is that they rely on reason ignoring that it is the product of our selfish nature. This nature prevents us from becoming acquainted with the spiritual world and usually beginners in Kabbalah follow this path.
We are used to increasing our perception of things first and afterwards place faith above reason. This helps us understand that a Kli filled with selfishness matches the desire to feel pleasure and not the intention to please the Creator. A spiritual Kli is the desire to please the Creator through our deeds.
We open books study and try to understand with our reason. It is however impossible to feel what is spelt out by the intellect. The same goes with the barrier (Machsom) which seperates our world from the spiritual world.
Our perception of things, our brain are secondary because they process information and satisfy our desires. The brain is only an auxilliary mean. As soon as man understands that it is key for him to improve his sensations and not his awareness of things, the path to spirituality clearly opens itself to him.
Man usually does not trust his feelings. First he wants to understand, then feel and act. So why was the brain given to us if it is such an obstacle? So that we may use it and at the same time progress by placing faith above reason. The path placing faith above reason is based on trial and error and is full of hardships. This path helps man realize that all situations in life are help sent by the Creator to stimulate spiritual progress.
The Creator sends all sorts of forces and they are brought forth so that man can improve his self-control. A golden rule needs however to be applied and that is secrecy. We must conceal our goal to our own selfishness and even more to other people! The student in Kabbalah should behave discretely and not mention his goal to the first come. If this principle is not complied with, the student can draw against him very powerful negative forces.
When Kabbalah students get together, they must neither speak of their love for the Creator nor of their feelings for one another because by doing so they only express their personal opinion and subjective feelings.
The distance seperating man from the Creator is similar to a ladder with rungs. We occupy the lowest and the Creator the highest. Our task is to climb this ladder up and reach the Creator. There are several ways to progress. One consists in stimulation from below, it is our path: man longs for spirituality and elevation, begins to read books etc... There exists however another path with stimulation from above whereby the Creator lifts us and draws us closer to Him.
What is the difference between those two paths? The stimulation from above corresponds to the constant uplifting of our world regardless of each and every personal aspiration.
Those who manifest personal aspirations are guided toward the study of Kabbalah and it is preferable for man to take advantage of what has been sent to him. Man must behave seriously in his work as well as with the capacities that are sent to him.
There are 32 sparks within us Lamed bet Nitsutsim, the Lev ha Even or heart of stone. This corresponds to a type of selfishness which cannot only be corrected when the general light called Messiah is corrected. Only this type of light can free us form selfishness. We need to persevere in our efforts to rid of ourselves of selfishness and our desire helping the Messiah will appear and free the world form its chains.