Bold and in quotes: Original text of Baal HaSulam
Regular: Commentaries of Rav Laitman
lowercase italics: emphasized words
Capitalized italics: transliteration from Hebrew
Now we are continuing the article of Baal HaSulam from the book, Kabbalah LeMatchil, a book for beginners, page 22. In English, it is “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” section “Two Conducts: From Above Downward and from Below Upward.” We have two conducts in the relationship between the Creator and the creature. Nothing else exists in reality. There is only the arrangement, the relationship between the Creator and the creature. We picture them above and below according to their discernments, their attributes. There is an order between them. It is called “from above downward” in Aramaic, and the other order is “from below downward”— two conducts. It's a dialogue, a reciprocal relationship.
It's not only a co-relation, as Baal HaSulam writes, there is a kind of flow of reality; it is a process of evolution that unfolds — from above downward and from below upward. It is not that this connection exists reciprocally in every degree and in every state; but we have the Creator, who created reality, and this reality descends, distances from the Creator to something called “this world,” through the worlds Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya. In this world, reality also goes through a certain process, and then returns to the same state it was created in to begin with. In the same worlds — Assiya, Yetzira, Beria, Atzilut, Adam Kadmon — in those same worlds, we ascend.
The disparity between above and below, in the descent, is as occurs before we are born. We used to be a drop of semen; we evolved in the mother's womb, until we were born. So, prior to our birth there were several preparations in the Olamot, worlds, which function to build a special place for us, like our world. These worlds in spirituality are the place where we can later exist, and here the Neshamot, the souls, are built from the world Atzilut downward. The souls come to our world, and afterwards, they ascend in the degrees of the worlds. The place where the souls are created is called “the world Atzilut.” The division between the world Atzilut and the other worlds is called “Parsa.”
This world is separated, isolated from the Spiritual Worlds through something called the Machsom, the barrier. In this world, we split up our existence into unconscious existence, over thousands of years, until we begin to ascend spiritually. We'll explain it later on in greater detail.
"Two Conducts: From Above Downward and From Below Upward
The wisdom of Kabbalah is generally divided into two parallel identical orders like two drops in a pond. The only difference between them is that the first order is drawn from above downward to this world and the second order travels from below upward, precisely through the same routes and make-ups imprinted at the root when they appeared from above downward.
The former conduct is called — “the order of descent of the worlds, Partzufim and Sefirot,” with all their occurrences, whether lasting or transient. The latter is called — “attainments or degrees of prophecy and Holy Spirit,” that a person, who attains it, is compelled to follow the same paths and attain each detail and each degree, step by step, precisely by the same rules that were imprinted in them upon their emanation from above downwards.
A revelation of Godliness does not appear at once, but gradually, over a period of time, depending on the cleansing of the perceiver, until all the degrees from above downward are revealed, and because they come in an order of attainment, one after the other and one above the other, as do rungs of a ladder, they are called degrees (steps)."
We learn that the Creator is a will to bestow, the bestower of abundance to the good and to the bad; in an absolute state of rest and wholeness. Because of His desire to give, He desires to create the creature, in such a way that the creature will reach the genuinely good state, and the genuinely good state is the Creator's state. If He exists as the only thing that is eternal and complete, anything less than His degree is not considered good. Also, it's impossible that the creature, if it is created by the Benevolent, the Absolutely Benevolent Creator, will be even one degree less good than the Creator.
That is why the purpose of the Creator, because of His desire to give, He is seemingly prompted by this desire to create the creature, and bring this creature into endless abundance. So the creature must reach the degree of the Creator, absolutely, as it is written, “Return O Israel, onto the Lord your God.” This degree where the creature reaches the Creator is called Dvekut, adhesion. Dvekut is equivalence of form, equivalence of state, equivalence of everything that exists in the Creator. It is the absolute good state that the creature will acquire. But in order for the creature to reach that state, it must feel the opposite state from it.
If there is a plus, it must feel the minus, the opposite from Him. From that minus, the creature must have a desire to reach the Creator's state. If the Creator is the attribute of bestowal, the creature should have the nature of reception. It should be whole, complete, and as great as the bestowal — equal to it. We say that the Light that comes from the Creator, builds the Kli;
According to the measure of the Light, it creates the Kli. The Light is called “pleasure,” and it creates the Kli, which is called “desire.” Of course the desire, the Kli, is the result of the pleasure, the Light. If they combine together in this way, and the Light enters the Kli, it fills up every gap, every space, every hollow in the Kli, completely and perfectly. This is called, “the Creator clothing in the creature.”
That state of clothing one in the other, in an infinite way, is called “Ein Sof” — no limitation on the part of the creature, of how the Creator dresses in it. Why is there a limitation? Well, the limitation is conditioned upon the law of equivalence of form. In order for the Kli to receive the Light and enjoy it, the Kli has to be like the Light; it has to have the same properties and attributes as the Light. So the creature, when it comes to a state where it’s desire, instead of desiring to receive, as I wrote up here, will be a desire to receive in order to bestow. For that to happen, it has to correct itself. The correction that the creature puts on itself is called a “Masach,” “Screen.” Through the desire and the Masach, the creature wants to give pleasure to the Creator, precisely as the Creator wants to give to the creature.
Why precisely? Otherwise they won't be equal. They have to equalize in their desires, and in their giving of pleasures to one another. Thus, when they equalize the giving of the Creator and the giving of the creature, that state is called Dvekut. Dvekut means that the creature, in its every action, every intention, every desire, and in its status, equalizes with the Creator. Dvekut doesn't mean that they stick to each other, one next to the other. Dvekut means that one enters the other with the pleasures that it gives to the other, because there is the desire to give on the part of the Creator and the desire to receive on the part of the creature, which was inverted into a desire to give. So both, with their pleasure must fill up the desires, the needs of the other. Hence, the creature fills the Creator, and the Creator fills the creature. Both feel themselves completely equal, like two partners. That is the state the creature should come to.
If the creature doesn't want to enjoy, if it's not opposite from the Creator, there will be no creation, no creature. It must come to a completely opposite state from the Creator. So In order to create two opposites in the creature, where on the one hand it will want to enjoy, and the other hand it will want to give, to bestow, therefore to begin with, the Creator, or the Upper Light, builds a ladder of degrees of detachment, of furthering from above downward, from “above to below,” like Baal HaSulam says. These are the degrees of the five worlds, Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, Assiya.
Why are these degrees divided in this way? Because when the creature is created, he is created in five phases, five Behinot, five discernments, called “evolution,” called “Dalet Behinot de Ohr Yashar” — The Four Phases of Direct Light. We've already been through them, but I'll repeat them. The Upper Light that is entirely giving, bestowing, wants to create the creature. So in the beginning, it builds a desire, and this desire receives the Light. It is filled with the Light by compulsion; the Light itself is called Behinat Shoresh, the “root phase” or “root discernment.” The desire created in existence from absence, which receives the Light, is called Behina Aleph — the “first discernment” or the “first phase.” When the desire begins to feel and enjoy the Light, it gradually begins to feel that the Light comes from the Giver. Meaning, within the Light, there appears the attribute of bestowal, the attribute of the Creator.
This desire that was created then wants to resemble the Giver. This is called Behina Bet, the “second discernment,” the “second phase.” Instead of receiving, when it feels pleasure from reception, it suddenly wants to be the Giver. Why? Because it feels “I'm a part of the Creator,” of His nature, the Creator's nature, the attribute of bestowal. Which is in fact, the Upper One, It operated the pleasure. So the Creator operates on the creature, as we see, in two manners, two forms. On the one hand, He gives pleasure to the creature, and on the other hand He explains indirectly who He is — the Giver of the pleasure. He simultaneously gives pleasure to the creature, and informs the creature of His love. It's not that He reminds the creature that He is the Giver, no. The Creator seemingly relates to the creature… the Creator is always the Upper degree in respect to the lower degree. He relates to the creature in two ways. The Upper part is love, and the lower part is giving.
What comes out of this love? The giving manifests Ohr, Light, and the love manifests the attribute of bestowal. That's how we come to know the Upper One. It's as if we go and visit a friend, and he gives us refreshments, and within these refreshments, we see and feel him, the host; how much he loves us, how much he wants us to enjoy, how much he does for us. Through these two influences, the creature begins to change. He is constantly directed, led from above by these two influences. The influence of the Light upon him, or the pleasure, is called Direct Influence, because that is how this influence operates on the desire of the creature — operating directly on it.
However, this influence of bestowal, of love, seemingly operates indirectly. The Creator doesn't bring this influence directly to the creature, but the creature begins to receive that bestowal when it is clothed in the pleasure. I see the food, and everything that my friend has prepared for me. Through them I feel his attitude toward me. Meaning the love, the giving, appears from the Creator. It is dressed inside pleasure, in that both of them dress in my Kli, in my desire. First, my desire feels the opposite — the pleasure — and then it discovers the bestowal in the pleasure. What does that give us? It gives us degrees of development. That's why we say that first the desire was created, and afterwards was the attitude. This was already the attitude of the creature toward the Creator. It already wants to resemble the Creator. If here, it wanted to receive, then here, it wants to bestow.
Now, once it wants to bestow, the next trait appears. What does it give, in that it wants to bestow? What is bestowal? Bestowal can be expressed only if it begins to receive, that it begins to receive so that the Giver will enjoy. That is Behina Gimel, the “third phase” or “discernment,” or “state.” This is not an attitude as it was; now it is an action, an action of receiving and giving. Through this action, where in Behina Gimel it resembles the Creator, it is now like the Creator, similar to the Creator. In it, it begins to feel what it means to be a giver. Then it's will to receive operates unlimitedly, and wants to enjoy the status of the Giver.
Here, in Behina Dalet, the fourth phase, the creature acquires additional desire. It is not the same desire as it was in Behina Aleph,
which was created by the pleasure, which wanted to enjoy only the pleasure. Here, it wants to enjoy the pleasure and the status of the host, the host himself. That desire to enjoy the host himself, the status of the host, is a desire it feels which was added to it. It was not born with this desire. Rather, it evolved and came to know its desire. This desire is built in it. That is why this additional desire is specifically with respect to the host. This desire is what we call the creature, or Malchut.
We see that we have Shoresh, Aleph, Bet, Gimel, Dalet — five Behinot (discernments). Correspondingly, we have evolution in five worlds, and that is why we should have these degrees. We should have them arranged by five phases of evolution. Although it's a descent, it is nevertheless an evolution. Now, by these same degrees,in which the creature evolves and draws farther from the Creator, down to this world, and when it descends to this world, it also evolves over thousands of years of evolution until this world is made, through the billions of years of its evolution, and the creature that evolved over tens of thousands of years of evolution. After that came Adam, who was the first in this world to receive the development for spirituality, and Abraham, and the whole process that humanity underwent, within which there is the people of Israel.
Finally, we have come to a state that we are in the twentieth century and an interest in the essence of life (in the wisdom of Kabbalah) is formed in humanity, and Kabbalists say that now humanity must begin to rise by the same paths, the same degrees as before. Now it begins to ascend from below upward. This is the process, from above downward and from below upward. As we rise in the degrees, what are these degrees? The degrees by which the creature resembles itself more and more to the Creator. [Rav writes Creator = Light = creature = Kli].
How does it resemble itself to the Creator? By beginning to study, and through the study, come to realize the Wisdom of Kabbalah. What does it mean, “to realize the Wisdom of Kabbalah”? It means, to know the actions of the Creator, because you have to resemble Him. What does it mean, to ascend in degrees? You have to know what to do with yourself in order to open up yourself, to enter the Spiritual Worlds. So it goes through degrees that are called Double Concealment, Single Concealment, and then Reward and Punishment, and then Love. The attainment of love in the world of Atzilut, then in the world of Adam Kadmon, until it reaches Ein Sof,
Infinity. These are the degrees of love. The difference between the world of Atzilut, where there is love, and between all these previous preparations, is called Parsa.
This is the division between the concealed providence and guidance that the creature goes through, ascends, connects to the Creator, and the actual unification with Him. The degrees of Dvekut, adhesion, begin from the world of Atzilut up. The degrees by which it ascends are called “prophecy,” or “divine spirit.” So, who is a prophet? Who is a holy person? It is one who ascends in these degrees and acquires the attributes of Bina, the attributes of bestowal. Our entire reality, the Spiritual, above the Machsom and below the Machsom, is in fact scrutinized in the Wisdom of Kabbalah. What we find below the Machsom we call corporeal, or corporeality. What is above the Machsom is called Spirituality.
Question: How do Kabbalists, who attain from below upward, know what's created from above downward if it was created before they rose up there?
The problem is in what level I should answer you, because there is no time in spirituality. We'll explain it in a simple manner. When Kabbalists rise From below upward, what are they actually doing? What happens here? From Ein Sof, the beginning of creation down to this world, a desire was created that drew farther and farther away from the Creator. If here, in the beginning, the creature was like a fetus; it evolved to such a degree where its desire became independent. When it is in this world, it is independent. We do not feel so independent or dependent, because we still do not feel that we belong to someone, that there is someone before us, that we are independent against Him. Independent means there's a host, and I'm… independent; I'm not under his influence. When do we begin to discover this? When we cross the Machsom (the barrier).
Let's say that now a person comes, who feels the point in his heart, meaning the desire to evolve spiritually, he begins to evolve. Meaning, through the study, through the influence of society, as we studied in the article “The Freedom,” the creature begins to evolve; he begins to feel far from Ein Sof, Infinity, from the Creator — on the one hand. On the other hand, he feels independent. He begins to feel both these sensations simultaneously. If here, it evolved as a desire to receive, to be independent, a detached desire, so now it evolves from the degree of the fetus, up to being as the Creator. Meaning, the desire to receive is now evolving in it a desire to bestow, to resemble the Creator.
As it goes through the spiritual states, what does it do? How does it know the degrees it goes through? It takes the same state, let's say, the world Assiya, and processes it to bestowal. This is called ascending to the degree of the world Assiya. The same happens with the worlds Yetzira, Beria, etc. The spiritual ascent that a person experiences is built over the same descent, that occurred prior to discovering one's existence in the Spiritual World. That is why, our old reality, everything we feel, everything that happens with us, if we want to ascend, all our spiritual success depends on us beginning to relate to our lives as to a discovery of the Spiritual World, and process all this information correctly as it is in the spiritual degree. How is it in the spiritual degree? That's what we have to study.
Let's say that in fact I am in a spiritual reality; there's me, and my environment. I have to process my attitude toward my environment correctly. If I say that my environment isn't just this world, but it is Light, the Creator, that influences me in a special way, and because of that I want to relate to it in a special way. So then I relate to the world, even to this world that I feel in my five senses right now, I begin to relate to it as to a spiritual degree. It all depends on my attitude. If I relate to it this way, and begin to really connect to it this way, I begin to feel that, in me and in the world, there are already hidden spiritual forces. I'm not just below the Machsom, in the degree of this world, now I make of myself the Adam who is in a spiritual world. It all depends on my attitude toward my self and toward the world. Within this reality I begin to discover spirituality — the hidden forces, the hidden reality, that exist here. I don't have to fly to some star or do things to exit this world. Within this world I begin to discover it, and such another world, and another world, and another world, until I discover within the same reality, OlamEin Sof, the World of Infinity.
Eventually, while we are here, as we learned in the beginning, we have to reach the revelation of Godliness to His creatures in this world. Meaning, reach the highest degree of Ein Sof while being in our body in this world. In other words, within this world, we have to find the world of Infinity. It all depends on our attitude, on our subtlety, on our concentration, on our sensitivity, and how much we, within this reality, permeate it and discover it — the forces that stand behind reality, that activate and operate it; me and my environment. If I see these forces, and how they operate, this is called discovering the Upper World, the system of providence and guidance. The more I discover it as linked to me, the more I discover it encompassing me, it will appear like a higher world to me until, eventually, I and this world will become as one, unite as one. I will assume this guidance and providence, I will be like it and that will be the world of Infinity, in that a person begins to feel like he exists in an eternal world.
This happens specifically because there are these two ways, from above downward and from below upward. Meaning, it is initially prepared for us… [Rav repeats] this preparation initially prepares for us an order of degrees, and this preparation gradually draws us, brings us, deeper and deeper and deeper into matter — and we discover the worlds.
Question: How does the creature, by attaining all the worlds gradually up to Ein Sof, how does it know what came down from above downward to this world?
As much as it attains it. Say that I reach the world Yetzira, I am at the border between the worlds Yetzira and Beria. Within me I have processed all the degrees of Assiya and Yetzira. How do I process them? I process them in that I specifically feel the concealments in those degrees. We said that this is Double Concealment, and that is Single Concealment. Baal HaSulam talks about it in the “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot”… we studied it. If I resist the hidden guidance, whether double or single, and I process it correctly despite the concealment, and I break into it, and complement it so that there is no concealment but revelation; this is called “ascending in these degrees of the worlds Assiya and Yetzira, and
discovering for the first time the guidance called Reward and Punishment.” This is called “reaching the world Beria.” Why is it Reward and Punishment? Because here I feel for what I am rewarded, and for what I am punished. In other words there are good actions, bad actions. Accordingly I feel good or bad from the same Light. I have to complement this guidance through my own correction — which is incorrect; It [the guidance] is not like that, of Reward and Punshment.
It is entirely like it is in Ein Sof, it is entirely benevolent. Just like it is here in the Double Concealment and the Single Concealment. I also need to complement this benevolence. This is called “justifying the Creator's attitude toward me.” What does it mean, to justify? How do I justify it? I justify this guidance in my understanding of it, and since I understand it, I sympathize with it, and thus become like it. These are already degrees of equivalence of form. I then rise to the degree of Reward and Punishment, where I complement where I find punishment; I complement it with my understanding and correction. Next, I enter the degree of Love, where there is no longer work in my correction, there is no concealment anymore.
Here it's already complete disclosure. There are other degrees here because this is not just one person. Here one corrects oneself;, I correct myself in all of my desires, with love, and here I correct the world, meaning, the sum of all the souls. By that I become as Adam. Literally like Adam, Adam HaRishon. Each one, by acquiring all the souls, by loving them, just like the Creator relates to them, these are the degrees of the worlds. Eventually we reach the eternal love as it is in Ein Sof,
the eternal revelation, eternal life . All of it stems from one simple principle: That if the pleasure enters the Kli, if it enters the desire, it quenches the desire. Just like when we eat, and in this we actually ruin our appetite, and stop enjoying the food.
This way our lives end, the pleasure ends. We despair from receiving pleasures because they constantly bring us into emptiness. If I come with my desire in the receiving of pleasure, and return, I always have this circulation. How do you say it in Hebrew? A flow, a cyclic flow. So it constantly flows through me, and in that I feel eternal life. That is the difference between this life of a human, the corporeal life, and the spiritual life. One ends, and the other does not end, specifically because of the equivalence of form between the Light and the Kli, when everything returns to bestowal. So the Wisdom of Kabbalah, in short, is a method to reach eternal life.
What we learn is this whole system. How we are born in the Olamot, worlds, and how we rise up to eternity, to the place… [Rav repeats] the place… of eternal life, through those same degrees in the Olamot, worlds. That is why we have two conducts, from above downward and from below upward.
"Abstract Names:
Many believe that all the names and the words in the wisdom of Kabbalah are a kind of abstract names. It is so because it deals with Godliness and spirituality, which are above time and space, where even our imagination has not a hold. For that reason they have decided that surely, these matters speak of abstract names, or even more sublime and exalted than abstract names, as they are completely and from the outset, devoid of imaginary elements.
But that is not the case. On the contrary: Kabbalah uses only names that are concrete and real. It is an unbending rule for all Kabbalists that, “Anything we do not attain, we do not define by a name and a word."
Here you must know that the word “attainment” (Heb: Hasaga) implies the ultimate degree of understanding. It derives from the phrase - “that thy hand shall reach” (Heb: Ki Tasig Yadcha). That means that before something becomes utterly lucid, as though gripped in one’s hand, the Kabbalists do not consider it attained, but understood, comprehended and so on."
The problem with the Wisdom of Kabbalah, unlike any other wisdom of this world that one engages in, is that its topic is hidden; it is not felt, it is incomprehensible. There are no preparations in us, in our mind, in our understanding; we are born here in this world after having cascaded down here from Olam Ein Sof, the world of Infinity, past the five worlds. A person is born here, physically, being in resemblance, like a root and branch toward spirituality. What does that mean? We have Olam Ein Sof, the world of Infinity. Under it we have five worlds: Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, Assiya.
Below Ein Sof begin the worlds. Ein Sof is not a world; it is more like a state. Because a world is made up of gradations, according to its degrees, discernments. It has externality, internality, distances. It's got something — its own discernments. In Ein Sof, you do not have that. It is all unrestricted, and without any discernments. But all the worlds, Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, Assiya, operate according to the principle, which we call, “if you have not learned it, never mind, just know it ahead of time.” This is called “a Kli,” or “desire,” “ Masach” (“Screen”), “the intention to bestow,” and “the Light.” There is nothing else in reality. In Ein Sof we have only Light and Kli. In the worlds below Ein Sof we have Light, Kli, and the Masach (the Screen), which connects between them.
So these worlds which operate according to the same principle are similar. The only difference between them is the matter of more Ohr, Light, and Kli, or less Ohr and Kli. In the world Adam Kadmon, we have a big Ohr called Yechida. In the world Atzilut, we have an Ohr of Haya. In the world Beria we have a Light called Neshama. Ruach in the world Yetzira, and Nefesh in the world Assiya. These worlds are similar to Kelim: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut. These worlds are similar. Everything that exists in the world Adam Kadmon, which are five Partzufim, in each of which there are five Sefirot, etc. There also exists the same in the world Atzilut, [Rav writes:] five Partzufim, and the same in Beria, and Yetzirah, then Assiya.
The structure, the actual structure of each and every one of them, is the same structure. It is like building a blueprint of a house, made of pieces of wood and matches, pieces of paper that we glued together; we made all sorts of… Buts it's literally a model of a house, a whole and perfect blueprint. Then we take all its details into a wooden house, and then into a concrete house, then a stone house, and then of unique blocks, and so on… A metal house, glass house, whatever. So the difference is not in the structure itself, in the details in it, but only in the matter, the substance from which it is constructed. It is the same with these worlds. The difference between them is only in the substance — a thicker and thicker substance from world to world. Here the Aviut, thickness, the desire is Shoresh, root; Aleph, one; Bet, two; Gimel, three; and Dalet, four. The Aviut of, the desire.
But our world, this world, which is below all of these worlds, is special. How can the substance of each world differ if it is filled with bestowal? What does it mean, “bestowal?” It means that the desire, the Kli, has the intention to bestow, similar to the Light. In other words, whatever amount of pleasure comes to me if I am in a spiritual world, or I am a Partzuf in a spiritual world, someone or something in the spiritual world. As much pleasure comes to me, that pleasure hits the screen, and the screen absorbs it inwardly on the condition that this reception will be in the form of giving to the Giver. It turns out that the Kli which receives, becomes like the Light, the Giver. It receives inwardly only in order to give back, the pleasure. That is the principle that all the Upper Partzufim work by. Therefore the Kli equals the Light.
But with the substance of this world, is a Kli, desire, without a Masach. [Rav repeats] Without a Masach. As if, it wants to receive. But we know that if it wants to receive, and… it cannot overcome, if it cannot reject the pleasure, then the pleasure extinguishes the desire, and this is what happens to us in this world. As much as we want to fulfill ourselves, we can't. That is why the substance of this world is called “corporeal substance.” That is where the abstract names come from, because we think that when Kabbalists speak of something that happens in the spiritual world, when they talk about forces, Partzufim, worlds… they use names that are not familiar to us; not for us, but for them… yes.
A Kabbalist doesn’t know anything in advance. The Kabbalist begins to discover the Upper Worlds, and [Rav draws] here has some sensation, and from this sensation, the sensation itself produces a name for the sensation. Why? Because he receives some Ohr some Light, in his Kli, through his Masach, screen, and then tells us how he came to that sensation; by which Masach, by which desire, and by which pleasure was received, and which was returned. This, in sum total, is called a name, or what you know as Gematria.
Here there is information about the Kli, about the Masach, and about the pleasure; about all the components of the spiritual sensation. That is why Kabbalists have no problem calling names and real names, “genuine correct names,” because they know the exact situation they are in, in the spiritual world, what they've attained, by which kind of work, what are the reasons for what they feel, what are their thoughts, and what are their calculations. In other words, they build the name that they designate to a phenomenon that they are in, they perceive it. It is a true, full, real name, whereas in our state, in this world, we never know why — when we name something, we do not know the reason why it is apparent to us like that. Green, black, short, long, strong, not — it does not matter what. We do not attain the forces behind the phenomena in this world. That is why, in this world, our language is a language, that… is inaccurate.
Whereas the Language of Kabbalah, in spiritual attainment, is a very accurate language, because a Kabbalist himself creates the state which he is in. He thus knows all the order of events of that state, all the discernments. He actually creates the situation he is in, because he came to it from below upward, hence the name he gives, is a name from attainment of the Kli, attainment of the Ohr, attainment of all the components. Therefore, in the Wisdom of Kabbalah, the names are not abstract names, but absolutely very real names.
We'll talk more about it. That's why these names, the attainment of the spiritual degree, is literally called “attainment.” Because attainment is not just understanding. It is the understanding of the internality of the state, the reasons for it, the forces that built that state, all its components, where it comes from, what are the results. Meaning, knowing a situation in Kabbalah, means knowing its whole future — past, and present — as one. That is why the names are true, real names, and Kabbalists never err in those names. We'll study these things and see how essential they are. In this I think, we'll end the lesson for today, and continue tomorrow.