Bold and in quotes: Original text of Baal HaSulam
Regular: Commentaries of Rav Laitman
lowercase italics: emphasized words
Capitalized italics: transliteration from Hebrew
We are reading in the book Shamati, Article 10: What is Make Haste My Beloved in the Work.
Bear in mind, that when one begins to walk on a path of wanting to come to do everything for the Creator, one comes to states of ascents and descents.
Indeed, we have some confusion about what it means to come to the state of doing everything for the sake of the Creator. We say that from the perspective of the Creator the purpose of creation is to do good to His creations and that’s why He created man. The Creator is the first, everything starts from Him, and therefore, man seemingly participates in creation but he doesn’t start it. We should bring all of the definitions that Kabbalists introduced to us, to the roots and see how they fit with the purpose of creation.
From the perspective of the Creator, the purpose of creation is to do good to His creations and that’s the reason He created the will to receive, the substance of creation. The will to receive implements the purpose of creation by becoming similar to the Creator, to the desire to bestow. The Creator is a will to bestow and His state is the best possible state without any deficiencies. It is eternal and complete and to this state He wants to bring the creature. And the creature must be outside of the Creator in order to be called the creature. In what attribute can it be outside of the Creator? If the Creator is the will to bestow, then the creature must be the will to receive.
It turns out that the only thing that the Creator needs to create is the will to receive. That’s what He created. What else doesthecreature need? To transcend quickly from the state of the will to receive to the state of bestowal or to do it gradually in different special manners, in order to be like the Creator.
It turns out that it is possible to be like the Creator only if the creature feels the difference between the will to receive and the will to bestow. That means that the creature must attain the gap between them and keep the gap between reception and bestowal; and on top of that gap he must attain the Creator’s degree. On condition that the creature has all of this data, he’ll feel the same pleasure that the Creator feels when He delights the creatures. That condition determines the whole process, which the creature later on experiences.
All the states are incorporated in the thought of creation throughout the entire process, even in all of the details, including the smallest detail, which afterwards happens de facto (in effect) on us. Again, because the Creator is bestowal, the creature that is outside of the Creator, must be reception. To be like the Creator, it must put on itself the form of bestowal, meaning that it must have both reception and bestowal, as the one who receives in order to bestow. By that it becomes similar to the Giver. It must sustain these two attributes within itself. It must attain the difference between them and discover the disparity and the connection between them. It must build from the difference and connection between them an attitude to bestowal, so as to become identical to the Creator.
It’s a process in which the will to receive is not experienced so pleasantly, because it should feel how opposite it is from the Giver. That sensation of oppositeness is unpleasant because the Giver, by nature, feels Himself in a good state which is felt in the will to receive as pleasure. When the will to receive exposes itself and discovers the Giver, it feels itself as being in a smaller state than the Creator. The creature must experience these states; it must determine that its will to receive is unfit for reception of pleasures, as well as for giving. All the states that it experiences through its discoveries are called states of concealment, and they are felt as unpleasant states.
The work that a person does despite his feeling and the effort that he makes is called ‘work for the sake of the Creator.’ Why for the Creator? The Creator wants to do good to the creatures. As we said, it is because a person should come to the state of wholeness, and wholeness is called bestowal. Since bestowal is the attribute of the Creator, our entire work is called, for the sake of the Creator.
Actually, we have two opposites here. The Creator doesn’t need us to give Him anything, because He doesn’t have any deficiency that we can fill up. This is how our work is called with respect to our will to receive, to our nature, because we change our will from reception to bestowal.
Sometimes, one comes to such a great decline, that one has thoughts of escaping Torah and Mitzvoth.
A person should reach these points every time because our sensation, the sensation of creatures, is built on a gap between two discernments: Light and darkness, bitterand sweet, pain and lack of pain, etc. We can’t discern anything if it stands on its own as a single parameter, because that is the Creator. And the creature is outside of something, and it measures itself not relating to where it is, but where it is with respect to something. That’s how all our senses work. If I am in the dark I don’t see anything, whereas, if I am in the light, I don’t see anything. I have to know the difference, the gap between them, distances, and all kinds of emotions. Everything is measured relatively.
Therefore, to acquire Kelim for the infinite sensation that the creature must attain, it must experience these measurements from one edge to the other, from plus Ein Sof to minus Ein Sof. By this it should feel its own nature, meaning, on the one hand, to fall into the depth of the sensation within the will to receive, and experience how contemptible, empty and dark it is. And on the other hand, it should come to states of the sensation of the will to bestow, and know how eternal and complete that is. These two polar points must be impressed and be registered in the creature as points of measurement, and in between them it can start building itself, its Kli, and its relationships.
That’s why when we begin on our way, we begin to experience actions that are called ascents and descents. An ascent is a measurement regarding the degree of being closer to the Creator. Descent relates to being farther from the Creator with respect to the attribute of bestowal, the attribute of reception, also with respect to bad and good in the sensation, and with respect to being clear or unclear in the mind. A person constantly experiences these opposite points, from upward to downward in the sensation and in the mind. By that, it accumulates data, in order to feel spirituality later on.
Therefore, a person can’t feel anything good if he doesn’t feel something bad as opposite to it. As it is written, “there is no righteous man on earth who does good and does not sin first.” First he has to sin. One does not perform Mitzvah unless he fails in it first. First a person has to fail. In other words, we always have to experience two points, “He who is greater than his friend, his evil is greater than him.” That means that he who is greater, used to be opposite infall,in descent, and incoercion tothe greateststate.
The more we advance, this gap becomes bigger, and the descents and ascents become more polar. That’s the way. There is no other way, because one’s Kli is measured only from the gap between these two points of ascent and descent. “He, who is greater that his friend, his evil is greater than him,” and by that we build the Kli. A person who comes to study the wisdom of Kabbalah and begins to sense these states within himself, feels surprised about it. It’s new to him. Even nowadays a regular person feels these changes: sometimes good, and sometimes bad, such as depression and joy.
Yet here the difference is that he begins to discern through these ups and downs an attitude of spiritual advancement, toward the Creator. That it’s not just about feeling good or bad, but next to the good and bad he begins to discern the true and the false. He discerns the cause of the bad and that it’s worthwhile despite the bad. These ups and downs are not how it happens to most people, but they determine the spiritual Kli for the future, so he can work with it and discern with it, and determine his attitude to everything that happens to him.
Sometimes, one comes to such a great decline, that one has thoughts of escaping Torah and Mitzvoth, meaning thoughts come to a person that he has no desire to be in the domain of Kedusha (lit. Sanctity).
That means that the bad sensation is so great that he can’t stand it. Perhaps in that bad sensation he stops sensing that it comes from the Creator, so he feels only the bad. Of course we want to escape from feeling bad because our substance is entirely a desire to enjoy (in this case, only the preparations from the outside help.)
When a person prepared a framework for himself that can sustain him and somehow bring back to him the sensation, the recognition of the purpose and the necessity of his state, he’ll feel like a sick person who was being operated upon. Although this is a bad state and no one agrees to it of his own free will or dreams of this happening to him, yet when one become ill, he’s happy that it can be resolve and cured with an operation.
There are and there always will be more and more ups and downs, to every single one in humanity, and to those who enter the study of Kabbalah. A person should prepare himself for the coming declines. As much as one prepares himself, so he is given the speed of advancement. The preparation is only in the building of the society that can support him during the descent, where he’s like a sick person who pays for health insurance in advance. Thus [he] participates in building hospitals and all the systems, so that when he’s weak, unconscious and in decline, there are systems that support him. That’s how we should prepare.
If a person prepares it, he’s given hard declines, but they pass and he progresses. We can’t avoid the declines, but we can make the declines relatively quick and easy so that they’ll go away quickly.
In that state one should believe that it is the opposite, meaning that it is Kedusha that runs away from him. The reason is that when one wants to blemish Kedusha, Kedusha moves forward and runs away from him first.
It seems to us that we are in command of our actions, that we decide,we think, and that we act. But actually we don’t even have the Kelim to complete, or to determine anything. All of our Kelim depend on the preparation, meaning, that there are ideas that come into a person’s mind and accordingly he decides. In fact, he feels how a certain action happens within him. Because of the lack of consciousness in which everything comes to him as ready, he thinks that he decides. It’s like every person, whether a baby or a grownup, that thinks that he controls an action. But it’s actually the forces of nature that operate him, and that’s how he is operated on.
Here too, the minute he thinks that he’s doing something, of course, it’s a lie. The minute he thinks that he leaves his progress in spirituality, that’s also a lie. In fact, the Creator grows distant from him because he didn’t prepare himself enough in order to progress through a state of descent, and this is called ‘my beloved escaped.’
If one believes it and overcomes during the escape then, the Brach (lit. Escape) is turned into Barech (lit. Blessed).
That means, from the blessing he turned into the opposite. From coming close to the Creator which he could’ve attained through the descent, a detachment arose. Who knows how long he will be in a detachment now? It might be a day or two, or a few months, or a few years, or even an entire lifetime. And he’ll begin again from having another awakening. Perhaps he’ll think that he himself received or obtained the awakening, but those who are experienced understand that it comes deliberately from Above. Then after he’s received the awakening and is awakened, it depends on his preparation as to how he has prepared his time for the next descent.
We shouldn’t be afraid of descents and hard situations. Just as it is in the society and in the country where a healthy person acts, knowing that he has to worry about his future, about the possible changes of his present state. When he has strength and understanding and when he’s awakened, he must create a kind of storage for himself from which he’ll take strength when he falls.
We should see that all the systems in creation work according to these systems, (the electric fields, radio fields and the work of the cells in the body) There’s always accumulation and emptying, accumulation and emptying. There is a switch between empty and full in all kinds of ways, in substance, in potentials, in all kinds of states that a person feels.
It’s impossible to sense life without an opposing state. We feel the power of this state from two opposite states: the more opposite they are, the more connected they are. The thing is to take every negative thing and every good thing and bring them together. Although, for the time being it comes to a person in the form of up and down, descent and ascent—seemingly two opposite states.
But when he knows what to take from the descent and the ascent, he eventually connects these two states into one state, which is called ‘above time.’ There are no changes of times and states; only a permanent, endless, infinite state in which these two states, the up and down, are incorporated and can be present together, as it is said “when the darkness shines as Light.” And then both they create a sensation of Ein Sof.
This happens after all the descents and ascents that a person experiences, meaning, after he corrects all of his Kelim. A descent occurs when another layer of will to receive appears to a person and an ascent is when he overcomes this will to receive and strives to change it by performing an act of bestowal upon it. When all of the ups and downs in him change, as if from AC to DC (from alternatingcurrent to direct current), and he brings everything in one direction to the positive scale, then it is said that he completed all of his corrections in the disclosure the Kelim and correction of the Kelim. The disclosure of the Kelim is the descent, and the correction of the Kelim is the ascent. He’s then in a state where there are no ups and downs, and then he transcends from a state of escaping to a state of blessing.
Question: What should one do during the ascent? Prepare for the descent, not be happy that he’s in a state of ascent?
Our whole problem is how we behave during the ascent, because during the descent a person is controlled by the will to receive that has lately appeared to him. When one discovered one of his desires, he somehow got on with it (with his desire): somehow he worked, he thought and he functioned.
Suddenly, an additional egoistic will to receive comes to him and he feels himself as bad, because of his desires, his emotions, his goals, and his wanting more. He demands more and he sees the world as dark, unable to fulfill him. Spirituality cannot give him any answers either. In that state, if he has no support, he just sits in the dark and “eats his own flesh” and waits for something to change. He doesn’t have a choice. If he is made of a desire to enjoy and doesn’t have any support against it, which can help him aim his desire toward something, because what he discovers is only the will to enjoy, (a deeper layer of his nature), then he is stuck in and can’t get out.
Question: Why is actually the preparation toward the descent ascribed to the person himself, and all the other states are seemingly not ascribed to him?
Each and every one of us is created with his own Kli called Adam ha Rishon. We are in a completed state in which nothing changes except our consciousness of the state we are in. The creatures exist as a single system of souls called Adam ha Rishon. In this system, there was concealment with respect to these creatures who feel themselves as existing the way we exist now. Everything we have to experience is to want to come back to the state of disclosure and feel the real state we are in. To feel it, we have to have a desire within us: that is what’s called a desire to live in a spiritual life and spiritual state.
That desire is expressed in the preparation when we make an effort to have that sensation, that Kli, that sense. To feel, is a great effort, even in our world. People want to close the shutters, “leave me alone.” To participate in something requires great strength. That is why in this is the entire work. We are, basically, forcing ourselves to regain consciousness and it’s expressed in building all kinds of means for it.
Question: What does it mean to prepare an environment internally and externally?
To prepare an environment is just like the example that was just given. It’s to prepare ourselves here, in this world. If we are not certain of the future in which we might be sick, old, or have other problems, so we pay for my pension, for my health insurance, and perhaps we have some relatives to help if we are sick, etc. Can a person live without it? Of course, he cannot. Even with animals there are such relationships. On the speaking degrees all the more so because a person is so weak that he can’t do anything without the support of the environment. Without it he won’t be able to survive. If you throw a person into a jungle, utmost, he’ll decline to a level of an animal, if at all he can survive. But he’ll be like those animals around him, because to be higher than an animal state, to be in the state of Adam is only possible with the support of the environment.
Question: What should one do?
First of all understand what he lacks. Perhaps he lacks this and that. Then he has to see what kind of environment he needs accordingly. He has to open his spiritual sense to see what he lacks. The spiritual sense is called, Masach and Ohr Hozer, the attribute of bestowal.
To the extent that we are similar to the Creator, to the extent that we have this attribute, we will come to a state where we begin to see and feel, because we attain everything according to the equivalence of form.
We see only those things, according to the waves that we can create within ourselves. We hear by the same principle. All of our vessels of perception work according to the principle of the equivalence of form with what they feel. We don’t feel something that we don’t have in the internal sense.
They say that there is spirituality around us but we don’t feel it. Why don’t we feel? Because our inner sense is not developed. We just have a point but we don’t have a sense yet. Out of this point we have to develop now the whole sense. Just like a drop of semen grows into whole person slowly, so we have to create the whole Kli from the point in the heart. Then we will feel that we are in spirituality, in perfection, in eternity, infinity, etc.
And now we have to see how we accomplish this. To build a sense from a point, we have to add to it the attribute of bestowal. Where will we take it from? We don’t have the strength. We can only receive the strength from Above, from the Creator. How do we turn to Him? We turn to Him from a lack. But when we turn to Him from a lack, we don’t have a desire to turn to Him. Lack or deficiency means that we are in descent. When we are in descent we don’t want to turn to anything, we just want to be happy.
It follows that we have to be in a descent and also to understand it intellectually. In our heart we feel badly, and we don’t want anything, because that’s how our substance reacts to lack of pleasure. But our brain must now perceive something else: that we have, on top of our feeling badly, and that is to crave to the attribute of bestowal. We have to understand that this feeling badly helps us yearn not for the filling and pleasure but for the attribute of bestowal.
Where will you take a desire for it from? In the beginning, this is given to you from Above. It’s called the point in the heart but it’s just the point. Afterwards we can receive the support for it only from the right environment. During the descent the environment will remind us that wehave to, and that it’s worthwhile for us now to be drawn to giving and to bestowal. We cannot obtain such a thing within us. During the descent all we want is to sleep and to be detached as if to escape the campaign. But precisely at a time of the descent we must ask, “I call upon You from the depth.”
Where will you take it?” During the ascent when we feel yearning and craving, when we have strength to appreciate bestowal, then we arrange our society. During the ascent, we give this strength to society and we boost society with our elation. Then during the descent we take this strength from the society, which we accumulated there, and use it.
It’s as if we were ‘in a plus’ in ascent, then we gave that plus to society. Now we are ‘in a minus,’ and take that ‘plus’ back. That’s the whole thing with the society. We have a great desire, which corresponds to ‘minus,’ and we have the intention that is related to ‘plus,’ and that’s all we need. It comes bit by bit, through the strong society and through the deep declines. There comes as a state where a person is capable of opening his spiritual sense.
This is how all the systems of nature work, how we eat and how we ejaculate, etc. There is plus and minus in everything. It’s a combination of states, because ‘minus’ is the nature of the creature and ‘plus’ is the nature of the Creator; it comes to us from the Creator. The creature must connect those two states within.
If not through society, we have no means to transfer this ‘plus’ from one time period to another. Because these are two time periods, two states: ascent and descent. How can you draw powers from one state to another!? It’s like [transferring them] from generation to generation, for you it’s a different life! Sometimes when a person is in descent, he doesn’t know what he had in the previous state of ascent. Did he have that thing at all? It was so good, but now it’s so bad. Or maybe the opposite? It’s a completely different life.
As we take from generation to generation knowledge, technology of all kinds, economy, and culture, similarly we take through society all of our spiritual possessions that we have in ‘ a plus state’ and we receive it during the descent. That’s the most important. This is why if a person feels that he is not progressing, then the main reason is the environment.
Question: Why is this a paradox that when a person in a state of descent he says that if he had a little bit of livelihood, he would do this and that, and when a person rises to ascent, he feels confidence and forgets about everything that he was supposed to do before.
It isn’t a paradox, it’s natural. The nature of the creature is what works in it during the descent, and the nature of the Creator works in it during the ascent. We, meaning “I”, “my self,” being in the middle, between plus and minus; “I” is as if in a neutral state. Either a positive or a negative force operates on me (seemingly negative or positive force.) I am thrown one way, or another way. Why? Because without being thrown in both directions I will not build my [spiritual] sense.
I have to be thrown into minus and plus every time, but not just in minus and plus in terms of good and bad, but in all kinds of discernments with respect to all kinds of relationships, measurements, attributes. With respect to every single thing I have to be in opposite states. Otherwise, I will not feel it, like a little boy. How much does he feel of all the emotions of grown ups? I have to be in many states, in ups and downs and the more these states are extreme, the more a person is considered able of perceiving and understanding matters.
To go quickly from one state to another, or to go through more extreme states: all depends on the preparation. This is why to the extent that a person prepares himself for seemingly bad states, so these states come more quickly and pass more quickly. Also, they are experienced consciously and they are not felt as bad but as a means for obtaining the Kli, of attaining something good.
Question: Is this a plan for all people, men and women?
In the end, everyone must undergo this process of building the sixth sense, or as we say, the Masach and the Ohr Hoser, where the Masach is built at the place of the intention, of the ‘plus,’ but it’s built on the will to receive.
Everyone must come to recognize the state they are in, but now they exist in unconsciousness, by being unaware of it. We don’t have a choice. There is no creature, no person in this world born to a woman who is liberated from it. It depends on his roots in Adam ha Rishon, but he’ll have to come to his root. “They shall all know Me from the least of them to the greatest of them.”