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 #108: If You Leave Me One Day, I Will Leave You Two.
This is the meaning of, “The stranger that is in the midst of thee shall mount up above thee higher and higher; … He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him.” The “stranger” is the will to receive (when beginning to serve the Creator, the will to receive is called “stranger.” And before that, it is a complete gentile).
“He shall lend to thee.” When it gives strength for work, it gives the strength by way of lending. This means that when a day in Torah and Mitzvot has passed, although it did not instantaneously receive the reward, it still believed him that afterwards, he would pay for the powers for the work that it has given him.
Hence, after the day’s work it comes and asks for the debt that he had promised it, the reward for the powers that the body gave him to engage in Torah and Mitzvot. But he does not give it, so the stranger cries, “What is this work? Working without reward?” Hence, afterwards the stranger does not want to give Israel the strength to work.
The stranger is all of our desires, the 613 desires versus the point in the heart called Israel, which wants to pull into itself all of the desires in a person. In total, there is a will to receive within a person which was created by the Light. That will to receive is divided into 613 particular desires. Each and every desire first appears in us or awakens in us as a gentile. And then by awakening the point in the heart, we begin to relate to these desires as strangers. And when we pull them toward correction, toward using them in order to bestow, they then enter to what we call Israel. It means that there is the gentile, the stranger or proselyte, and Israel; a corrupted desire, a desire that’s about to be corrected, and a corrected desire.
“And thou shalt not lend to him.” If you give it food and you ask that it will give you strength for work, then it tells you that it has no debt to pay you for the food that you are giving it. This is because “I gave you the strength for the work to begin with; and that was on condition that you would buy me possessions. Hence, what you are giving me now is all according to the previous condition. Therefore, now you come to me so I will give you more strength for the work, so that you will bring me new possessions.”
So the will to receive has grown clever, and uses its cleverness to calculate the profitability of it. Sometimes it says that it settles for little, that the possessions it has are enough, and hence it does not wish to give him more powers for the work. And sometimes it says that the way you are going in now is dangerous, and perhaps your efforts will be in vain. And sometimes it says that the effort is greater than the reward; hence, I will not give you strength to work.
This means that a person, while not seeing a reward and has new desires which awaken for correction, has all kinds of calculations which arise.“What do I have from the effort?” And you can’t answer the will to receive when that question comes because the will to receive, in its own eyes, is correct. It makes an effort because it thinks that it will gain.
I remember when I came to the study. I opened these books and I wanted to know how reality was built; how I could control my life, what I would get out of life. And I remember thinking how I could use it in the best way for me, how I could swallow the whole world, the whole of the universe in my awareness, in my consciousness, and everything would be clear and understood and I could control. That’s what the will to receive demands.
And the more it progresses, the more truth is open to a person and it begins to receive greater pains. In the beginning, it doesn’t see that it has a lot of work, and it sees that it can receive a reward in whatever and wherever it is; the will to receive, as it is, doesn’t have to change. That’s what a person thinks at first and a person also thinks that he can just acquire more and more. Then it begins to see that no, I don’t have what I want for my effort. What does it mean to acquire? I don’t see that anything comes and that I can get anything. Again and again, I have to work and work.
It’s like working with a little baby who is told, “A little more and you progress, a little more and you progress.” Or with a donkey: you cover its eyes, dangle a carrot in front of it and it will keep walking in circles unaware that it is walking purposeless. Its purpose is at the human degree, but for the time being, he is just turning the stones to grind flour. That’s why we also have to understand that our work in the will to receive is at the animate level and the reward is at the human level. That’s why we have nothing with which to repay the animal.
And that’s the problem. If a person turns to all kinds of rewards such as honor or control instead of the one reward, which is adhesion with the Creator, by that he becomes a receiver and it’s even worse.And he stretches his way—perhaps he is going backwards or sideway—but not towards the real goal. That’s why we are forbidden to blur it, to confuse the matter to ourselves, to the human level as if we are about to acquire anything physical, meaning “for thyself.”
This won’t happen; it’ll always be the other way around. Those who are integrated in the group, those who receive the beatings in their evolvement, will gradually understand that the goal and the reward are at the human level. The goal is not at the animate level, not with honor, not with power, not with knowledge, but only with resembling the nature of the Creator.
That’s why we have nothing to pay back to the body; to those desires which are termed, body. They are those desires that work in corporeality, meaning with the intention to receive reward. And that’s why we make an effort. A person gets out of bed and he comes to study, participates in everything because he (whether he likes it or not) subconsciously, if he moves before the barrier, signifies that he wants to get money, honor or knowledge. There’s nothing else. That’s why he moves, otherwise he wouldn’t.
Where else does he get the fuel if not from this goal which he pictures? It doesn’t matter what he expresses verbally; what matters is the desire to receive within him understands. What do we do with the desires in a state where they come and ask for a reward? They appear at the human degree because the desires are the beast—the intention is the human. When they rise and seemingly come and ask for a reward, what do we do?
Then, when one asks it for strength to walk in the path of the Creator, in order to bestow, and that everything will be only to increase the glory of Heaven, it says, “What will I get out of it?” Then it comes with the famous arguments, such as “Who” and “What,” that is, “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice?” as Pharaoh’s argument, or “What mean you by this service?”[Like the Pharaoh; Pharaoh is the collective will to receive in the corrupted person.] as the argument of the wicked.
All this is because it has a just argument, that this is what they had agreed between them.
If the will to receive says, “what mean you by the service?” That is, where is the reward at the money degree? That is called wicked, wanting only for itself. When Pharaoh says, “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice?” He is not talking about money; he is talking about honor and power, “Why should I obey His voice?” Meaning, “I don’t care about the reward; give me millions, I don’t want to serve Him.” It is a higher degree than money.
Some subjugate themselves; “I don’t care if he yells at me. Do you know how much he pays me? So, he can scream but I come home, thank God.” And some say, “Even if he gives me millions, I won’t do anything for him” and that’s the thing about honor and power. So it depends on how the will to receive awakens and accordingly, he’s called wicked if he thinks only about the reward. But if he thinks about money and power, that’s Pharaoh, the real power.
And this is called, “if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord,” then he complains because he does not keep the conditions.
But when you hearken unto the voice of the Lord, meaning right at the entrance (entrance is a constant thing because every time he has a descent he must begin anew. This is why it is called an “entrance.” Naturally, there are many exits and many entrances)…
Actually, that’s the way we feel, that there’s an entrance and an exit, ups and downs. But there is no such thing; it’s only in our sensation when we decipher it this way or if we determine our state that way. From the perspective of the Creator, He adds Light and He adds a desire. He adds Light and He adds a desire. It is all about additions.
But when He adds a desire, we feel that we are in our increasing ego that’s complaining what’s happening here. And then we feel ourselves in descent because we have nothing to answer. We have nothing that the Creator can add to our will to receive in the desires that now awakened. This is called a descent according to our sensation.
And afterwards, when we make a little effort or when time will do what the mind doesn’t, there’s some awakening, a little ascent. That’s what we feel. But actually, “you don’t decrease in sanctity, you only increase in sanctity,” there is only an increase of Light and vessel.
...he tells his body: “Know that I want to enter the work of God. My intention is only to bestow and to not receive any reward. You should not hope that you will receive anything for your efforts, but it is all in order to bestow.”
That’s what a person should tell his will to receive and the ability to do that comes to him only by being sustained by society. It is impossible that within himself he will find the powers to do it. As we learn in the essay The Freedom, a person is dependant on society and society can bring him desires and new values in all kinds of directions. And society can bring him spiritual values without any comparison to corporeality and then he becomes spiritually strong. Anything that doesnot move, all that is within the will to receive for one’s self is called Nefesh and anything above it, Ruach, Neshama, Haya and Yechida is called spirit, alive, progressing.
If he succeeds in being integrated in a society and receives from it the powers, the values for aspirituality which are greater than the new desires which awaken in him and demand reward, then he succeeds and defeats them.
That’s how we should regard our triumph over the entire world. The whole world can stand opposite us and against us, “all are like hay-eating beasts.” They have only the inanimate spirit, which is Nefesh, being small within them. And, in the spiritual powers we—the few—win. Even in corporeality small groups that are strong in spirit bring humanity evolvement even in corporeality and, from time to time, a leap. This is how corporeality is also arranged; with all of the revolutionaries there are in culture or in social structure.
So, a person within himself should understand that with his spiritual powers alone, he defeats the great will to receive which is this huge animal that arose in him. If he shoots it down from the human level, he defeats it, but only from the human level. That is the importance of the goal that he receives from his society.
And if the body asks, “What benefit will you get out of this work?” meaning, “Who is it who receives this work, that I want to exert and toil?” Or it asks more simply: “For whom am I working so hard?”
The reply should be that I have faith in the sages who said that I should believe in abstract faith, above reason, that the Creator has so commanded us, to take upon ourselves faith, that He commanded us to keep Torah and Mitzvot.
This is very confusing: I have to believe in the sages who say that I should believe in the Creator who told us that I have to believe that He said that I have to keep Torah and Mitzvot.Three times we are told “to believe.” What is this all about? What does it mean to believe? In other words, I have to accept what I was told as a fact. Is this our way? That’s religion! That is not the wisdom of Kabbalah, nor the method of Kabbalah. What does it mean faith? We consider faith as attaining bestowal—the quality of bestowal, giving—that is what we call faith. What does it mean that I believe?
I believe only Kabbalists, that is what it is saying there. But I believe them in a method, like the grownups who are leading me correctly. Now I have to listen to them, because it is impossible that, while I am currently at a small degree, a greater degree will appear within me. This is so because I still cannot perceive it in my vessels. How then can it appear in me? It’s like a baby, like a child, or a person who still doesn’t know what it is. He has to do what he is told and then he will know what he is dealing with. In the study, we are always in a state of learning according to some books. We are performing an act and then seeing that it is so.
This is why he says that our whole study, our whole progress comes in 613 councils and then 613 deposits that correct the desire. And in order to correct the desire we use the Light that reforms and by that we use advice from Kabbalists to take a special book, a special group, to sit down, to read with the intention that I will attain what is written here.
We need to attain not what is written in the book, but to attain the state that is written about in the book; not in our intellect to attain what is written in the book but to attain the state. It means that I myself will become what iswritten about in the book. This is called attainment. It is not in the intellect, but it is spiritual attainment. In the intellect it is either corporeal or animal attainment; in my qualities it is called spiritual attainment.
And in that, I have to believe the sages who tell me to do this and to do that and you will acquire spiritual attainment. I can not first have spirituality and then see if the sages were right or not. I have to first prepare myself for the next degree, from below upward, and then I can enter that degree. Our lives are the same. Each little child has someone who teaches him—parents, kindergarten, school etc. Similarly for us, we are taught by Kabbalists in precisely the same ways children are taught. But a child learns within one’s nature in obtaining evolution; and we learn to attain evolution from one nature to another—from the nature “for oneself” to the nature “for the other.”
That is why there is always concealment here between one state and the other, between one side and the other. But actually, just as it is in our lives, we believe grownups when they say that we have to study so and so and then we will understand and attain so and so. The same applies in the Wisdom of Kabbalah, only there is the faith; it is called faith in the sages. But other than that, in everything else, a person should discover in his own Kelim (vessels) by himself.
Question: What’s considered an effort?
An effort exists on several levels. The effort is always against the desire; that is what the effort is, in general. My general desire is called the desire to enjoy the Light, because we were created by the Light as a replication of the Light. The Light is in complete rest. My desire always wants to be in complete rest and filled with pleasure, without any motion. All I want is to open my mouth and that is it, “give me,” I donot want anything else. I donot want to think. I do not want anything. I just want to feel fulfilled. We can see that in babies, in little ones, when you give them some food. That is all they want. That is our raw desire.
Within us there are desires at higher levels, according to the evolution of the desires from above downward in the four phases of Direct Light. Then, within us, these desires evolve from still, vegetative, animate, and speaking. Each desire that is more evolved suppresses the smaller desires, those which are undeveloped. It turns out that even though I seemingly have bread and water, meat and everything in my house, I still want something. So, I go out of my house and start looking everywhere in the world, looking for something else. Why? It is because my higher desires demand fulfillment.
If I just follow my desire to do all kinds of things, that is not an effort. For example, I am looking in a discothèque and see people constantly jumping about. Look at those movements they are doing! Is this considered making an effort or not? A thousand people gather in the same place and look at how much energy they are wasting. If we could measure it, we’d be counting it in mega joules. I’m serious, it is something terrible. Do they need reward for that? They are the ones paying to be allowed to jump.
That is not an effort. They are getting fulfillment on the spot, and that is why they came to the discothèque. Because here, we get pleasure this way; the more we jump, the greater the pleasure. That is the kind of pleasure they find, so, that is not an effort. Even though, we can evidently see if you bring someone who doesnot know what they are doing, they will say, “Ahh, this is hard work!” You see how strange it is? That is the way it is.
What is the difference between you trying to reach somewhere or just taking a walk? For example, I have to get to another town that is 20 kilometers away. I have to work somewhere but since I do not own a car I have to walk there. I take into account my time, how long it’ll take me, and the energy I will need to put into it. I also consider my health. I take everything into account and then I go off to make some money. Toa person who walks, the doctors tell him, “You have to walk an hour a day” so, he walks. For him this is not an effort. He doesnot ask for money to do it, he wants his health to return.
Another example is that your friend and you go for a walk together. You both walk those same 20 kilometers. It is a beautiful day. What’s the difference? The difference is that you are getting the instantaneous pleasure and you are not asking for a reward for it and that is called “a walk.” Whereas, when you went there, to get something there in that place, then it is called “work.” So, the effort is what we do against our desire. For that naturally, it is certain that we ask for a reward or else we cannot do it.
And perhaps, you would seemingly work very hard and make very difficult movements, like jumping in the discothèque, all that walking—20 kilometers. But for you it will be an immediate pleasure. That is not an effort.
This is a corporeal effort; it is on the same level. I make a physical movement, I have to get something in money; I give money, I buy with that, honor. I throw away honor and I want power; I give money, honor and power, and I want knowledge, awareness. I always rise in the level of my reward and I donot care about the effort. The reward, the fulfillment, is what determines. It covers the effort.
I make a calculation if the effort is not greater than the fulfillment; if it is more, then I lost. I worked for two days and I was paid for one. I had in my pocket a thousand shekels and I lost them. You know the kind of sorrow it is? I think about it for maybe half a year or maybe for years. I remember it. But if I wasted two thousand shekels, then I wasted them. In both cases I donot have them. Yes, but there is a difference; it is called losing from the basic money. It depends on how I evaluate the effort and the reward. Regarding that, there are a lot of different perceptions.
The thing is that it is problematic because effort at a corporeal level is before the Machsom (barrier), in this world, in desires for myself; that is the meaning of “in this world.” And the reward is beyond the barrier, in the next world, as it says, “A fund for the next world.” I don’t see the reward. I don’t understand it at the moment. I can’t feel it. The reward is in being able to love another. For me, right now, it’s not a reward.
If I could see it, if it weren’t so blurred, I would see that I just repel it with my hands and legs; anything but that, anything. Don’t pay me anything! I’ll work my whole life just to keep myself away from this. That’s how my will to receive is against giving to others, loving others, thinking about others, worrying about others.
Right now, we don’t even understand how we hate it; there is nothing worse than that. And we actually, in truth, have to give one hundred percent effort to receive only that reward and nothing else. To be given all the money, power, and knowledge in the world; I don’t need anything. I can be an idiot in my intellect, wrapped in my emotions, despicable, anything. Anything bad can happen to me, but I want to have only that as a reward. You understand the kind of oppositeness that we have to have here? How to bring a person to that state?
This is why there is concealment on the effort and on the reward. That’s why we identify with that donkey. However, we don’t see that it’s happening to us, that our eyes are blocked so that we don’t see anything; even a sack is placed on its head so it won’t see. But below, we put a sack with the food and then it goes and eats, goes and eats repeatedly. If it stops for a minute, maybe the food will be taken away from it. But it understands that it comes from the Host; some beatings are given now and then and, that’s how it keeps on going. It means, with respect to his beast, a person works needlessly. It’s an effort. He receives food and thinks that that’s the benefit.
But where he doesn’t see the benefit in its vision, there its eyes are blocked. It means, in some place there is a need to give energy and in another place there is a need to block, to hide. And then the effort increases until “the pennies accumulate into a great account and he fills his cup.” The cup is as his sack of labor and then he receives a reward. The reward is beginning to love others; that’s the first degree. And he transcends himself and has the intention to bond with others and give to everybody else. How is it possible, at the degree he’s in, to want to give to everyone, to bestow upon everyone? How could this be possible if he is connected to the animal degree?
When he rises from the first spiritual degree to the second, which is even greater relinquishment of oneself and loving others even more, he is then lowered right back, he falls; he loses everything and greater difficulties are placed on him. Let’s go back to that donkey turning the stones. You give him fifty more kilos on his back, so now he has to carry that too. Or his eyes are opened a little bit and he can see that he’s walking about needlessly. And all of that’s considered labor.
And we should also believe that the Creator derives pleasure when we keep the Torah and Mitzvot by way of faith above reason. And also, one should be glad at the Creator’s pleasure from one’s work.
Joy is for us a way to examine that we are going the right way because we are in the dark. How can I be certain that what I’m doing is actually done in spirituality; meaning, progressing toward the goal? Progress toward the goal is gladness. If I do something and cry about it, it’s a sign I’m doing it within my will to receive, not toward faith above reason. How can I, if I am in my states below the barrier, below the spiritual nature, below bestowal, be in faith above reason which is bestowal? This is done only by the group giving me appreciation of it. That appreciation is higher than anything else. If I receive this conditioning from the group that that’s how it is, I am willing to work just like that donkey. I don’t have a choice.
They give me this appreciation and I am ready for action. You might say, “Yes, but what you receive from the group isn’t yours.” Yes and no. It’s not my own. But I got it because I wanted to subjugate myself to the group in order to receive it. That’s one. You might say, “How is that different doing that in the group?There are all kinds of commandos, elite units who are trained to be that, and they are able to do it because they work according to high values. They are willing to pay with their lives, just so that together they will reach the goal. And the goal can be completely physical, barbaric. The goal can be... It doesn’t matter which goal. A person can be trained to do anything.
Here too, we need to see what the goal is and why it is like that, and we need to check if we needto be in the same states as those groups that are trained by group psychologists, etc. But in any case, through efforts, through society, through efforts in society along with society when we work—especially in dissemination—we receive in the end from that will to receive the need for a greater and greater reward. Because in every will to receive that grows, within it, has the beginning of bestowal, the desire to bestow. Where does it come from?
The desire to bestow comes from the four phases of the Direct Light as in the will to receive that received fulfillment through the Light. Within the Light it began to discover that there is a Giver. That’s how we discover with our effort, that within it there are more sublime goals than the ordinary reward.
Thus, there are four things here:
1) Believing in the sages, that what they said is true.
This means that in this way, we have to position ourselves opposite the goal, opposite the means, which is the group and the teachers and thus, begin our way.
2)Believing that the Creator commanded to engage in Torah and Mitzvot only through faith above reason.
That attaining the goal is possible only by transcending our nature. We don’t see those things right now.
3) That there is joy when the creatures keep the Torah and Mitzvot on the basis of faith.
This means that our work, our sweat is all in order to give joy Above, meaning, so the result will be higher than the will to receive I am working in. The donkey I am working with will always be at the human level, it’s called making the Creator glad. The Creator is the higher degree, the degree of bestowal above me.
4) One should receive delight and pleasure and gladness from having been rewarded with pleasing the King. And the measure of the greatness and the importance of one’s work is measured by the measure of gladness that one educes during one’s work. And this depends on the measure of faith that a person believes in the above.
This means that in the middle of the effort, I must be glad. Otherwise the effort is not purposeful, that I want that goal. If I want that goal, then even now, during the work, I am happy that I am exerting and making my reward. A person who comes to work and is given the work, knows that through it he’s receiving something important. He is very happy because the reward shines for him and this work is only a means to receive the reward. And then he appreciates it and loves it because of the reward. The reward covers the labor.
If that’s not the case, it is a sign that the reward he receives is not appropriate in his eyes. That’s why the effort has to be in gladness. How to do all that? In the end, the books and the society help us.
It follows that when you hear unto the voice of God, all the powers that he receives from the body are not considered receiving a loan from the body, which one should return, by way of, “if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord.” And if the body asks, “Why should I give you strength for the work when you promise me nothing in return?” he should answer, “Because this is what you were made for. What can I do if the Creator hates you, as it is written in the Holy Zohar, that the Creator hates the bodies.”
Moreover, when the Holy Zohar says that the Creator hates the bodies, this refers specifically to the bodies of the servants of the Creator, since they want to be eternal receivers, as they want to receive the crown of the next world, too.
An ordinary person who’s living in this world, like all those seven billion, besides those who are using the wisdom of Kabbalah to reach eternity—bestowal—they are neither good nor bad. They are operated by nature and that’s how they work, according to the will to receive that awakens in them every moment in their lives. But those who want to achieve, through the physical effort, a goal that is at the human level, then there, begins to exist the difference between the body in egoistic desires and the goal, which is bestowal. And there begins the hatred towards the egoistic desires that causes one to want to leave and transcend above them toward the degree of bestowal.
This is called that the degree of bestowal hates these desires, builds itself on top of them and this is called the Creator hating the bodies. The bodies of those who serve the Creator, He hates. The Creator is always the next degree with respect to a person at a lower degree, “come and see.” And that’s why the higher degree, of course, hates the corrupted will to receive which is in contrast to it because it’s in a lower degree.
And this is considered, “and thou shalt not lend.” This means that you do not have to give anything for the strength that the body gave you for the work. But if you lend it, if you give it any kind of pleasure, it is only as a loan, and it should give you strength for work in return, but not for free.
And it must always give you strength, meaning for free. You do not give it any pleasure and you always demand of it to have strength for the work, since “the borrower is servant to the lender.” Thus, it will always be the servant and you will be the master.
This means that there is no answer to the will to receive in its place, but only as it is written, “by blunting its teeth.” A donkey can’t be given an answer on why it is walking around this millstone. It can’t understand it. But we just have to give it a possibility to work; to shut its eyes, to give it food, to keep it well and that’s it. That’s why necessity is called neither praised nor condemned. It means, the will to receive should work like with a millstone. But the goal is not in it; it’s above it, it’s at the human level. In the will to receive there is never fulfillment from the Direct Light within it, only within the Returning Light, that’s called “above it.”
Question: It is unclear how an internal state as described in here and a person hates himself can be received in him with gladness? Both indicate correct progress, but they seem to contradict each other.
I can’t feel how we can be happy in this work that I’m working so hard and not getting anything in return? You’re asking within the will to receive, within it. How do I work and how do I give energy to the work? But I am not getting any reward, so how can I be happy about it? Gladness comes from the greatness of the goal. That’s what should shine. But how can this donkey be happy about the result, which is bread out of the oven? When the donkey looks at the breadit doesn’t understand that it caused it to happen. I wasn’t next to the oven. I am sure I didn’t work with the dough. I didn’t knead it. I didn’t bake the bread. That is man’s work.
But the donkey’s work is to prepare the first phase; so it doesn’t understand that. Therefore, can it be happy? No, but the man in you can be happy if you transcend the animate degree. This means not to be immersed at the animal degree but to rise to the degree of the goal, to the human degree. That’s where you have a reward.
You are made of two degrees: either you’re attached to the point in the heart that craves the goal, and you scrutinize the goal and hold it in your teeth so as you don’t fall. Or you fall to the donkey’s degree which is “what do you get out of it?” And then you are in despair and you will never find any fulfillment in your work. What [fulfillment]? Or maybe you should leave here and go elsewhere, where they talk about the reward within the same donkey. You’ll get money, honor, knowledge, you’ll get everything; here, you won’t receive anything.
At the animate level, meaning at the level of the will to receive with which you come, you don’t get anything until you reach faith, bestowal. That’s where all the answers are, all the fillings, everything is there.
Suppose a person is within his desires in the animate degree and he fell. He can ask from that degree, “what do I get? What are you doing here? Why? What for?” But there are no answers. What does it say? “Blunt its teeth,” because there is nothing you can do. It means only with respect to that, begin to work in the group; just shut your eyes and enter the study as a routine, the group too because you don’t have a choice and thus, rise to the human degree; those who can’t remain with their donkeys.
That’s why it says “that they were all like hay-eating beasts,” we had plenty of likeminded people. We had such delicate and intelligent people, people from the bohemia, from the theatre, beautiful people. So they remain in their donkeys. And persons like you, when they look at you, they see there’s nothing good about you. They see a donkey, but you’re gradually pulling yourself and rising to the human level. It’s the opposite of what you would think.
Question: Say, a person rises to the human level. From that, that gives him gladness when he looks at his own desires. But he still feels his desires as egoistic, and feels that he is bad. He doesn’t like himself at the moment he rises at the human level. I am asking “how can it be?”
No, if he rises to the human level, he doesn’t say that he is an egoist. He says that his desires are egoistic. He can differentiate between himself and what is in him. It depends on who he identifies with: with the point in the heart, with the human in him; or with the donkey in him, with the egoistic desires in him. He might say, “Yes, within me there is a donkey and I want to ride it; I want to be the donkey driver.” Then he sees these desires as purposeful, that this donkey, if he manages it as a human, then this donkey will bring him to the goal—specifically, this donkey, the matter,the will to receive.
Again, we still need the discernment of me above the donkey within the point in the heart; or me within the donkey, within my egoistic desires. That discernment isn’t quite clear yet. It’s not scrutinized. Pay attention to that.
Question: If a person acquires a degree of man and faith, believes in sages and carries himself along the way, how does he disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah to those who don’t have belief in sages or any faith at all?
Here, we have to go with faith in the sages. He’s asking what ‘faith in the sages’ means? They say that we are at the time of redemption now, meaning that the general will to receive in humanity, in general, is awakening toward spirituality. All the corporeal desires in each and everyone is awakening the point in the heart. And if people still don’t feel it, it is still closed to showing itself. And this is why people are in despair, feel helpless and don’t know what to do with their lives. They’re all as hypnotized.
You look at people andfail to see how they’re carrying on their lives. They just live because they don’t have a choice. People lived for years in concentration camps too. People live everywhere, in any situation. It depends on how they lower themselves. They can reduce themselves to a state that no other animal would survive, but they can.
Since Kabbalists say that now is the time when we have to begin to disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah, we disseminate. How do we turn to those people who don’t have a point in the heart? We don’t pressure them. We only bring them knowledge that hereis the reward. What are you trying to say with your paper, with your books? “My friend,” you turn to him and say, “Friend, my good friend, my dear friend,” you turn to them as friends, “Here, there is a reward” and that’s it.
Now, which reward can you claim? It’s a reward they understand. What do they understand? Money, power, knowledge, confidence; that is what you bring them. Because humanity is in crisis—in family, in education, in culture, in science, in human life, in security and in everything—you turn to them and say, “Here, we have an answer, fulfillment in anything you want.” That’s it. That’s basically the dissemination.
What are you disseminating? You’re saying, “You want something? I have it, it’s here,” that’s it. And afterwards, they grow like little children. You can’t show a person who has all the way to go to Ein Sof (Infinity) everything. They have such a long way to go. Because they are helpless, they don’t have the fuel or the energy. They don’t have any appreciation for that, so they lose the little energy that they do have. But gradually, as they grow, accordingly their desires are open a little more and more, to correct more, to make another effort and then they have the powers; the goal shines, society supports etc. That’s our way. You can’t help it. All of humanity will have to go through it.
Why did he call this essay If You Leave Me One Day, I Will Leave You for Two? I don’t know, it’s as if there’s nothing here that relates to it. He was saying that if a person is distanced one day, in the beginning he talked about it, but then he talked about something completely different. Because these were talks or maybe he was asked something or someone did something. I don’t know what. Maybe he started connecting things. This is not a written article. That’s why sometimes the first part has nothing to do with the next or the third in a talk. We have to understand that that’s the nature of Shamati.