Bold and in quotes: Original text of Baal HaSulam
Regular: Commentaries of Rav Laitman
lowercase italics: emphasized words
Capitalized italics: transliteration from Hebrew
We will continue reading the article Exile and Redemption by Baal HaSulam, in Pri Chacham (Fruit of the Wise), page 96, sub-header: “The Difference between a Secular Ideal and a Religious Ideal.”
“A secular ideal stems from humanness and hence cannot raise itself above humanness,”
Meaning, we understand our structure, which consists of a body and a soul. In the body we are no different than any other creature, having the same living body as any animal or beast, with the same processes occurring in us. Our desires are a little greater and hence our brain a bit more evolved, but all in all it is a result of the evolution of man in this world.
We have the same five senses, whereby we attain reality through them, and can see that which gives us pleasure. That is, what we should do to feel more and more comfortable in our existence. Therefore, if a person thinks of himself without any connection to spirituality, then he thinks only of how to enjoy, how to feel more comfortable. This is why Baal HaSulam writes that a person’s ideal cannot be greater than that of humanity’s ideal. Humanity is something that humankind invents, since humanity invents everything out of itself. In other words, if humanity is not in the spiritual world, if it does not feel the spiritual existence, its goals, its laws and processes, then everything stems from the human body, from things that people invent as they evolve in this world without exiting beyond the Machsom. It follows of course, that their ideals are also in this world, below the Machsom, below the (barrier).
Without attaining the spiritual world, that is, being and living in it, then it’s impossible to substitute the human ideal with the spiritual ideal. The religious ideal that Baal HaSulam refers to here is the ideal of Kabbalah. It isn’t implying orthodox people who, by taking certain additional actions upon themselves, feel it gives them greater hope for pleasure in the next world when life in this world is over. In this, the ideal still seems to continue, the same human ideal. We see this in every nation on Earth, wherever people are—South Africa, South America, Australia, Asia, or in America, it doesn’t matter where. If these are people that are not above the Machsom, then their ideals are human ideals within this life.
Even if they work only in order to be awarded eternal life in the next world, or want to go and kill other people like a suicide bomber, perhaps fight for a cause or even kill themselves to achieve something, they‘re still considering things from within the human ideal in the body; with bodily egoistic calculations of how to gain in this world. Since he realizes that we all die, he thinks “Okay, so how do I get the next world too?” Meaning, the way he imagines the next world to be, which has nothing to do with the spiritual ideal. Hence wherever Baal HaSulam writes “religious,” he means “spiritual.”
...whereas a religious idea, which stems from the Creator, can raise itself above humanity...
Meaning, because you take the idea from above the Machsom, that is, you take the goal and the ideal. What is the ideal? It is transcending above the Machsom. We live now, not after 120 years when we die. To live now in a degree, in a quality which is in this attribute of spirituality, that is the spiritual ideal. So let's not be confused with the word 'religious,' that we ascribe to people who do things in order to gain something else in this world, or after they die. The spiritual ideal, the Kabbalistic ideal, the religious ideal that he refers to here is to obtain spirituality; to live in it and to reach adhesion with the Creator. In other words, here in this world, this is the ideal, the goal. That’s why there’s reincarnation specifically now, in this life.
...because the basis for a secular ideal is equalization, and the prize of glory in the eyes of man, and he acts in order to boast in the eyes of people.
This is because it’s all we have; ourselves and the environment, the society. So with respect to whom can I test myself? Since we all have our ego, which is our primary substance, we have to feel unique with respect to the environment in some sense. Even if we’re the worst: say I’m the worst in some sense, I’m special in being the worst. That keeps me as a separate element from everyone, it justifies my existence, and that is why we measure ourselves with respect to the environment. A Kabbalist who wants to be spiritual measures himself with respect to the Creator, with respect to the attribute of bestowal, which is what we call the Creator.
...although one is sometimes disgraced in the eyes of one's generation, one still relies on other generations and it is still a precious thing for him, like a gem that fuels its owner though no one knows of it or cherishes it.
So if a person lives somewhere in the jungle, he too feels that he’s a unique creation in some sense. And even if others don’t see this it doesn't matter, it justifies his existence; otherwise he wouldn’t have this justification to exist. Without it, that person would have been a beast, an animal. What’s the difference between a human being and an animal? After all, in body we are like beasts, that’s why it says “they are all like hay-eating beasts.” The difference is that a human being needs to justify his existence somehow. Normally it’s through gossip, or slander: others are less, I am more, or I’m special in this or that. A person has to take pride in something. Pride is a sign of the existence of the will to receive. Otherwise, the will to receive in the human degree couldn’t exist.
When we see that people reject or relate badly to each other, it’s actually their inner drive, because the will to receive compels them to. Otherwise, they don’t feel their own life as a separate life from others.
A religious idea, however, is based on glory in the eyes of God.
Meaning, what does it mean to be liked by the Creator? It is according to equivalence of form. The Creator is the attribute of bestowal. Hence a person who wants to be liked by the Creator is one who wants to acquire the attribute of bestowal over one’s natural Kelim, over natural desires which are egoistic; meaning one wants to correct his nature.
Hence he who follows a religious idea can raise himself above humanity.
Meaning, he raises himself from the secular ideal, a human ideal, from measuring himself with respect to others, to measuring himself with respect to the attribute of bestowal, to the Creator. Does he obtain it, and to what extent?
And so it stands among the nations of our Diaspora. As long as we followed the path of Torah we remained safe...
Meaning, there was a gap between the ideals. I have a spiritual ideal to reach the spiritual world and the spiritual life, which is the spiritual attribute of bestowal. And my neighbor wants human things from this world or maybe the next world, but he interprets it as profit in the next world. Different ideals, and by this we don’t stick to each other. It is simple, I just can’t be together with him.
...for it is known to all the nations that we are a highly developed nation, and wanted our cooperation...
Meaning, in fact, the nations of the world used Israel for all kinds of human desires, but Israel kept themselves to themselves. They gave others what they needed in order for them to survive, and didn’t harm the spiritual ideal. That is, giving service to the nations of the world, helping them on the human level with their ideals, yet remaining in their own ideal. That is how we were when Israel existed as a nation during the First and SecondTemple. We were neighbors, and there was commerce and relationships. But there was a difference between ideals so that one did not touch the other, and that lasted hundreds of years. Yes, but...
...and to exploit us, according to their own selfish desires.
This isn’t bad, because in fact I give them my corporal abilities, human abilities which are something I’m good at in this world, yet my spiritual ideal I keep to myself. In that way they could continue to exist.
Yet we still had great power among the nations, for after all the exploitation, there still remained a handsome portion left for us, greater than for most citizens of the land.
Because although we gave them what we needed to give for all kinds of reasons, still our ideal remained, we lived within it, because of it, and for it; we advanced spiritually. That’s how it was, and why he says that we still have a nice portion.
But because people rebelled against the Torah...
That is to say, as the will to receive grew during the First and SecondTemple, because it grows all the time. With the evolution of the Reshimot in their souls, people couldn’t overcome the will to receive that erupted. When the will to receive erupts it draws a person to the ideal it sees in order to satisfy itself with the will to receive, which is called this world. Fulfilling itself in order to bestow is called the spiritual world. Suddenly some of the people felt like taking satisfaction with pleasures of this world. These are the rebels who fell from the spiritual ideal to the human ideal. And...
...in their aspiration to execute their selfish device, they lost the purpose of life, meaning the work of God.
This actually explains what he explained before, how it happened at the time of the temple.
And because the sublime goal was switched with the selfish goal of the pleasures of life...
When several people rebelled in this way, the will to receive grew among many people, rebelling in masses which caused the whole society to start tackling the secular ideal with the spiritual, or religious ideal.
...anyone who attained fortune raised his own goal with glory and beauty. And where the religious scattered...
Meaning, those with the spiritual, religious ideal, during the time of the ruin of the Temple; those who remained religious.
And where the religious scattered his monetary surplus on righteousness and good deeds and other such collective needs, the selfish ones scattered their surplus on the joys of life: on food and drink, clothing and jewels, and were equalized with the distinguished in every nation.
Do we understand this? That is what happened during the time of Sadoc and Baitos. We read prior to this that those who had a greater will to receive could have advanced more but fell instead. They swapped their ideals and showed everyone how their own ideal was comfortable and good, and how they enjoyed life, their families, money, health, and everything. Their actions of course were opposite from what was common in the nation before the wave of this big will to receive came, washing over like a tsunami during the time of the First Temple.
By these words I only mean to show that the Torah, as a natural law of development, even when accompanied by blind fate, goes hand in hand in wonderful unity, in a way that the bad incidences in the Diaspora, that we have much to tell of from the days of our exile, were all for the reason that we embezzled the Torah. If we had kept the commandments of the Torah, no harm would have come to us.
Meaning, from above there is a law of evolution, where one is brought or introduced to situations, to obstructions to the extent one can tolerate. Seemingly they could tolerate these situations and obstructions of the increased will to receive during the time of the First Temple, but, it didn’t work out. We can mention several other reasons why humanity had to evolve toward it, but right now we’re talking about these particular people. We often have a problem explaining general providence and particular providence or guidance. The private guidance is “If I am not for me, who is for me?” And the general guidance is “There is None Else Besides Him.” They contradict each other. If there’s "If I am not for me" then only I operate, so what does it mean “There is None Else Besides Him,” that only the Creator operates?
But now, before the unification of Him and I, it is impossible for me to understand how these two go together, yet they exist together because we’re in one world. If we live in another world, fusing these two worlds within us, then private and general guidance will unite with no contradiction. With this historic outlook of the Temple for example, why couldn't they cope with the erupting will to receive? Because from above one is never failed, everything is always given to the extent that a person can tolerate it, overcome it. Baal HaSulam writes too, that even blind fate goes hand in hand in wonderful unity with the Creator.
Seemingly they could’ve handled it according to the conditions they were in, but it didn’t work out. Why didn't it work out? Here there is general providence, because from the perspective of the Creator, it shouldn't have happened. Still, He didn’t give them something they couldn’t handle. We have to get used to these things and understand that we’re confused here because we’re not in both worlds at the same time. If we attain the spiritual world as well, then our corporal reality and spiritual reality will unite. We won’t have a problem understanding whether I operate or the Creator operates, I determine something or the Creator determines something with His actions, or He knows what I will do and how, etc.
So in any case, they substituted religious, Kabbalistic, spiritual ideal with the human ideal, a corporal secular one. Meaning the spiritual ideal is to reach spirituality now, in this world, in this life, reaching the revelation of the Creator, by equivalence of form with Him, the attribute of bestowal. The secular ideal, the egoistic one is to enjoy this world, and if I believe there’s something left for the next world, then I’ll enjoy that as well.
“Congruity and Unity Between Torah and Blind Fate and the Development of Human Calculation”
Hence, I hereby propose to the House of Israel to say to our troubles, enough! And at the very least, calculate a human calculation, regarding these adventures that have come upon us time and time again, and here in our country as well, where we want to start our country anew.
He writes this almost at the time of the establishment of the state of Israel.
We have no hope of clutching at the ground as a nation; as long as we do not accept our holy Torah without any extenuations, to the last condition of the work Lishma, and not for oneself, with any residue of selfishness as I have proven in the article "The Revelation of Godliness" ( Matan Torah).
Since there is a root and a branch, we can live as a nation of Israel, in the land of Israel, only according to the spiritual state of Israel, which is called the souls of Israel that want the Creator in the spiritual land of Israel, in the attribute of Bina. Bina is called Eretz Israel, The Land of Israel. The attribute of Bina, it can’t be any other way. That is why he says that it’s not going to help us to establish a country or state here, a Jewish state of Israel if we don’t keep the spiritual condition here in this land. As long as we don’t want it, don’t want to come closer to it, we’ll feel this place as the worst possible place of all places.
Because specifically, if you behave badly where you’re supposed to be good, then of course the pressure on you is greater and felt more strongly, and the place seems more dangerous than any other place. On the other hand, in exile too, it’s impossible for the nation of Israel to be saved. There will be good waves, bad waves, but in the end we’ll have to come to a resolution to live in corporal and spiritual root together, meaning that everyone will come to the corporal land of Israel and at the same time obtain the spiritual land of Israel.
Question: I wanted to ask about the previous paragraph when this tsunami of the will to receive came, and failure was predicted. In retrospect, more will to receive is added and we are bound to fail. So what kind of thought should we keep in mind?
Are you are talking about your own work? Or about our work?
Question: There is an additional will to receive.
You’re talking about your own work, not something that comes from above, yes? So what can we do? Unite. I have no strength to resist the additional will to receive that appears in me .I can’t receive any strength except from the group and study. There’s no other way. The will to receive comes from the outside, it’s alien to me. Another layer of the will to receive appears in me but I don’t have defense against it, where can I get defense from it? I have to appreciate spirituality more than before. So where do I get the strength to do it? That’s what Baal HaSulam writes in his article “The Freedom. ” Only through the environment; the environment should bring me importance against my egoistic will to receive, it should give me the importance of the altruistic desire and then balance it. The environment depends on the extent to which I give myself to it in order to get help from it.
This is the only way, and that’s what happened to them. It isn’t about one person wanting to become an egoist, and another or a third, no. The problem is that the ones who fell didn’t turn to the environment to receive strengthening. Instead they turned to an exterior environment. Had they turned to the environment it would have fueled them, sustaining them in spirituality. This is why on the part of the Creator there’s no difficulty. He gives the will to receive, He increases it. But from the creature’s perspective, the creature doesn’t do what he must according to his only freedom of choice, he doesn’t turn to the society to receive additional forces against the growing ego.
That is the meaning of preferring the human ideal. When they started turning to humanity, meaning instead of bowing before a spiritual society and receiving strength from it like they did before. The will to receive constantly grew, not just one tsunami that suddenly came. These waves come all the time. In the past they were kept, and were safe because they turned to society. Now however, it happened in such a way that they stopped turning to society.
Question: So could they have reached Gmar Tikkun then?
Could they have reached Gmar Tikkun during the time of the FirstTemple? Of course not, because according to the plan, the people of Israel must be broken in the ruin of the First and Second Temples, and fall from its spiritual degree to a corporal level of the nations of the world, and slowly, meaning over 2000 years of exile, unite with them. That unification also came gradually. First, the ten tribes left the people, and vanished so to speak. They imprinted themselves, drowned themselves in the nations, and there are the remaining two tribes.
This exile should now be over. The ten tribes should reappear. These twelve tribes are the complete structure of the people of Israel. The Wisdom of Kabbalah should appear with its implication on the people of Israel, in the land of Israel. Because of that, the Hitkalelut, the incorporation of Israel in the nations of the world, it should appear in them as well. The primary correction is for the nations of the world as the Midrash says; the Creator went to all the nations and asked each of them if they wanted to receive the Torah.
Meaning to you; seemingly all nations, the 70 Sefirot of Zeir Anpin. Can you be in order to bestow, in Kedusha, in adhesion with the Creator by equivalence of form? You cannot. So He went to the nation of Israel and they said “Yes! We will do and we will hear. ” No problem, because they were in the degree of Bina. It wasn’t a problem for them because they didn’t need the correction. As we learned in the breaking of the vessels, the degree of Bina should break in order to be incorporated in all the nations, meaning in the AHP; all the nations of the world of the AHP. This entire process is actually for the nations of the world. For the people of the Israel it is a means.
That is why the people of Israel, called the “Chosen People,” have a mission of bringing Tikkun to the world. Actually the entire process is for all the nations, not for Israel. Israel resembles a means, it has no right to exist on its own, but only for this mission. This is why it isn’t considered or counted among the nations. What about Rabbi Akiva?
Question: Regarding this question, could there have been a correction then, as it is written that Rabbi Akiva was happy after the ruin?
Yes. Well go on.
If we do not establish ourselves accordingly, then there are classes among us, and we will undoubtedly be pushed right and left as all nations are, and much more, because it is the nature of the developed that they cannot be restrained, for he who has a developed mind, his mind is important, and will not bow before anything and knows no compromise.
Yes, so evidently it isn’t our fault, rather the will to receive next to which the big mind grows, compels us to be aggressive, stubborn, stiff-necked, and obstinate with our corrupt opinion, or the opposite, if we with God's help acquire the spiritual ideal then according to our development, that is what we’ll discover. We’re the most conspicuous in every way, for better and for worse. For the time being the Jews are the worst.
Question: Again. What does it mean to turn to the society?
I don’t understand what you are asking about.
Earlier we said what does it mean to turn to society?
Meaning when an additional will to receive comes to me, and I don’t know what to do. How do I turn to society? What does it mean to turn to society? To help me increase Godliness compared to the will to receive. Despite the new will to receive which is now appearing, I’m not chasing all kinds of abstract ideas, like suddenly saying “Oh, this world is filled with pleasure.” Television, radio, football, music, food, trips; all kinds of things that make me feel comfortable.
So if such a fall from spirituality comes to me, what do I do? That’s the problem. How do I turn to the society if I don’t want to? Falling means I don’t want society, their ideals, their spirituality, adhesion with the Creator, or lights, vessels, spirituality. I suddenly do not feel that it’s tangible, I don’t feel it as attainable, that I need it, and I don’t miss it. So how in a situation such as this, do I turn to society as if I do need it, and need only that?
If you just approach society, “guys, let’s have a beer together,” it’s not a society, society means that spiritual force, spiritual ideal that’s in it. And you demand that they influence you with their ideal so that it becomes your ideal once more. Where do you take the powers for it? If a person sets up the correct system of life for himself, where he’s like an ox to the burden and a donkey to the load always participating in society, then even if he doesn't want to, he gradually acquires, and receives the heaviness of heart. Although he doesn’t want it, gradually he receives illuminations from it, even if studying without intentions. He gradually remembers that there’s an intention of the study here that will give him a great addition to what he’s learning.
Meaning spiritual attainment, where the habit becomes a second nature, whereby studying in society and circulation is that rope one should catch, and if he grips it, then whatever turbulence he has on the way he comes out from. There is no other way because when you fall you lose everything, and you’re willing to laugh at spirituality, at the group. “Why should I turn to them, who are they?” You lose everything. We’re made only of a will to receive, and the heights, the intensity of the will to receive determines what I’ll want.
That is why our sages said Israel is the fiercest of the nations, because he whose mind is broader, is most obstinate. It is a psychological law. If you don't understand me go and study this law among the contemporary members of the nation, and when we started to build, time was already showing us our fierceness and assertiveness of mind, and that which one builds the other ruins.
Meaning, you can feel it among the nations. There are nations that live in huge groups. All the villages, the whole city like brothers. There is no such thing as one going against another; they all feel themselves as brothers. But we don’t feel ourselves as brothers, these are just nice words, ‘as brothers,’ and how it used to be for generations. The more the will to receive grew, the more people began distancing from one another in their desire to receive. They started their own families. Today no one can live in his own family, everyone divorces, it isn’t merely a fashion.
The will to receive has grown so much that no one feels he can live with another person. Rather, one goes against another; envy, hate, unfounded hate actually. The will to receive compels them to do that. That’s why Baal HaSulam says there’s no choice here, no other choice, either we accept the method of correcting the will to receive, or it will kill us. It is one of the two. You don't want to listen? It’s a psychological thing. Look how it works on us, look what happens to us in society. Just think about it and you will draw the right conclusions.
There are no abstract ideas here such as perhaps we should do this or another thing for some purpose, some abstract goal; no, it isn’t so. It is the Wisdom of Kabbalah, it’s a correction of our nature. Today we have to do it in order to be saved from mutual destruction, from all the blows that the world is about to suffer now. That’s why Kabbalists say that the Wisdom of Kabbalah should now open and show itself.
Baal HaSulam wrote this article in the 1940s. The magazine, Ha Uma (The Nation), began publication, and of course at that time the situation wasn’t that clear, though he already wanted to advertise it. Although people were already in it, they still hadn’t discovered it. Today these things are slowly appearing. Psychologically we can see how it works within us and in the human environment. We’re beginning to recognize our weakness to handle human nature. Gradually, we’ll come to know only the Wisdom of Kabbalah can correct the situation, and that without it we’ll end in complete destruction through natural catastrophes and wars, as Baal HaSulam writes, a third and fourth world war.
…It is known to all, but there is only one novelty in my words, and that is that they think that the other side will eventually understand the danger and will bow his head and accept their opinion.
What happens to us? We see it with MPs and politicians. They’re all trying to prove that they are right with all kinds of charts and graphs, attempting to convince others. But the others will never accept their opinion even if it’s absolutely right. Instead, the other will insist on his lie, convincing everyone that he’s right. Because it doesn’t matter who’s right, but what matters is that no one is willing to lose his identity by accepting the other’s opinions. That’s why a person will always remain in his own opinion.
The more evolved the people are like in Israel, the more obstinate it is, and it doesn’t matter if one is right or even what is right, no one seeks justice. Everyone wants to submit the others by every means, at every opportunity possible. It’s a sign of evolution without correction, and the problem is that along with ego comes stupidity. A person doesn’t understand that he’s unable to convince another, as if everyone will suddenly agree with my opinion.
Let me speak, for instance, before the government. I’ll convince everyone what to think and what to. Why don't they understand, isn't it obvious? He doesn't understand, since we think they don't know what’s happening, that they don't understand how to resolve things. Yet these stupid journalists think that they can suddenly recommend something to another, and it’s going to solve everything. Thus everyone remains in his own opinion and won’t accept another's opinion, and the more the other appears to be right, the more I hate, resist, and object to him.
We need a special evolution, above the ego, for me to want to learn from another. To see how dangerous it is to remain in my opinion. We feel this happening in our senses. This is why he says they’ll not stop thinking they can convince each other, and why eventually they will all remain in their opinions. When they remain in their opinions, it will always yield division and crisis, in government and society, until it brings war.
...But I know that even if we tie them together...
Meaning even if we tie them together in one basket, that is, even if we force them through some exterior formidable threatening element, they will still not agree to be together, to be in the same opinion.
...one will not surrender to the other as full note, and no danger will interrupt anyone from carrying out his ambition.
That is how strong the will to receive is in a person. Kill me, but I can’t, it isn’t up to me. Here there can only be correction from above, through the Upper Light, or you’ll be able to kill him and he won’t be able to change his mind. We have to understand that nature is nature. It isn’t that I can beat him up and then he’ll think differently. By this I only suppress and oppress him but I can’t convince him. Only the Upper Light, that comes over one’s intense opinion and fierce ruthlessness, over that strong will to receive, only the Upper Light can correct it. How? With the ideal of realizing itself: by shifting it from realizing itself egoistically, to realizing itself altruistically.
By this it moves it to a different goal altogether. The will to receive moves from this world to the next world, to the spiritual world, from one level to another. The Upper Light doesn’t cause people to be different in this world, that’s impossible. Instead of wanting to do harm to others, now I want to do good to others, no. The Upper Light does not do it, but only by spiritual attainment. When one attains the spiritual ideal, he then adopts the spiritual behavior in this world, as a giver, only this, and not that the Upper Light comes and creates a good life in this world.
“Ahh forget spirituality, we first have to get along here in this world.” There is no such thing. Only to the extent that you acquire a spiritual degree do your relationships and actions in this world improve with respect to others.
In one sentence: As long as we do not raise our goal above the corporal life, we will have no corporeal revival, because the spiritual and the corporeal in us cannot live in one basket, for we are the children of the idea. Even if we are immersed in 49 gates of materialism, still we will not give up the idea. Hence, it is the holy purpose of His name that we need.
It will not help the people of Israel to drown in corporeality because there’s a spiritual spark in each and every one of us. Whether we like it or not it will tear us apart, into little shredded pieces. And we’ll still have to feel we’re drawn to something above. We’ll find peace and tranquility only in substituting, exchanging the corporal ideal with the spiritual ideal. Those in whom the spiritual desire is not felt vis-à-vis the corporal ideal, they can’t feel it and only feel it as a psychological problem.
Those who feel the point in the heart and a desire for spirituality a little more, for them it’s already as Baal HaSulam writes, feasible for them.
Question: The spiritual ideal is in fact the same corporal ideal that is not scrutinized or...?
No . The spiritual ideal is when the point in the heart appears in a person, and in order to cause it to appear we can just sit and wait, there are millions like that. Rather, we can do it by disseminating this ideal, and then these people start reading and taking interest in it. Accelerate this evolution, and the will to receive begins to awaken more quickly in them; they start wanting. First they want spirituality, thinking spirituality is about acquiring additional things. They know that spirituality is pleasures in this world, in spirituality there are greater pleasures. So that’s what they want until they start finding out, which is a result of the study and participation in the process, in our process. Gradually they start realizing what the spiritual world is, what the spiritual ideal is.
That’s something that we don’t want to advertise so quickly because people have to get used to it. That world is opposite from this world. The spiritual reality, the spiritual life, is very different from ours. This ideal appears slowly but it comes instead of the corporal ideal, the human ideal. In the human ideal I want to be more than everyone; to succeed more, to exploit everyone. It makes me feel more alive and more successful so I enjoy it more. 2,000–3,000 years ago people lived on bread and water and they were happy not knowing anything else.
Today the poorest people get a million times more than what ordinary people received then, and it’s not enough. It isn’t about something relative to the body, rather, it’s the will to receive that grows in a person and demands, “I need this, I need that.” Go to any village or undeveloped peoples, they’re relatively happy with life. But go to developed people, no one is happy to the point of committing suicide. So it’s all measured with respect to the will to receive, relatively to the sensation of a lack.
It’s not how much we receive according to fulfillment that’s important. “You receive, great. You received, everyone's received.” No, it never happens this way. The idea, the spiritual idea isn’t to suppress the will to receive, but to satisfy itself despite that it is big. It is something that will never happen in the corporal world. The more we grow in the will to receive here, the more we want, and the emptier we feel. Only with the spiritual ideal will we reach fulfillment.
Meaning, you have no solution for the problems of the world that people feel here, with the human ideal. You have no other solution but to acquire the spiritual ideal instead, replacing the human ideal, because by that you reach fulfillment, there’s no other way. It’s not that we should handle and fight them. By acquiring the spiritual world, you reach complete satisfaction. You don’t have to restrict yourself or relinquish anything. All your desires are fulfilled, completely.
Question: The Revelation of Godliness to His creatures is only on the condition that the will to receive evolves to the maximum? Meaning, all those who are not evolved will not discover His Godliness?
Every single one in the world, every woman born, everyone must reach the revelation of the Creator in their Kelim and fulfill all their Kelim, all the desires that were ever created, in Malchut Ein Sof, and in all its parts below Malchut Ein Sof down to this world. All the souls, all the creatures, in the still, vegetative, animate that are incorporated in people, everyone must reach complete fulfillment. Complete, meaning in quality and quantity and in every dimension we understand, such as time, space, and motion. Eternal and complete, I don’t know how to express it.
Question: If that is the case then how do Kabbalists and people in the past, when the will to receive was not that evolved, how did they reach such great fulfillments?
How were there Kabbalists in the past without such a great will to receive? First of all, privately every single one had the heaviness of the desire, and the blows. Their will to receive suffered regardless of the time they lived in. People who advanced privately personally received the heaviness of the heart. Personally, that's one. Two, there was also disclosure from the perspective of Light and from the perspective of vessels. As it says about the fathers, that the fathers received and kept the whole Torah out of the purity of their soul, their Kelim were pure. That is a different story altogether.
It is a different story because of the purity of the souls they received the Kelim from above, and the Kelim are pure. They don’t need, as it is written, “drink a glass of water and eat a piece of bread.” That way you receive the whole Torah, you receive all the Light. Today it doesn’t help, you need the Light that reforms, as Baal HaSulam explains in The Introduction toTalmud Eser Sefirot.
We will end it here, and we'll talk about it. We also talked about it in the article The Last Generation, and The Peace, and The Nation. Baal HaSulam touches all these things, and you can see them on our site. All our material is there, open for all. Thank you very much, and have a good day.