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; page 103, Article #78: The Torah, the Creator, and Israel Are One.
One might say that it stems from the secret of creation because “before the emanations were emanated and the creatures were created, the simple Upper Light filled the whole of reality.” And then when the creature, the emanated that was made or created, it was the will to receive that was created. The internal degrees of desire, of self recognition of its own state, are all that we have besides the Light that created it. So we have the Light and the desire that was created by the Light.
So what does the Torahand the Creator mean? If it is One, and if it is all of the Light that one talks about, then why are there two: the Torah and the Creator? From the Creator, there’s only one attitude—love, but it is expressed in many forms, expressions, and manners, with respect to us, the creature.
Out of that attitude, the creature was created with all of its qualities that are different, indecent, and bad, far from the Creator, opposite. This was so that the creature would come to know the depth of the Creator’s attitude toward it, the depth of the love. Otherwise it would not have attained this. When the creature exists and attains the Creator’s attitudes toward it, in all kinds of forms, manners, qualities and degrees, that’s what it actually talks about; the creature has nothing else to talk about.
It may be that this creature feels and tells, and writes that it feels and attains the very same Creator, but it is in the concealed form. The creature doesn’t know it’s the Creator, nature, the environment, or Him; it only knows that it appears to him in this way. Or if it feels the Creator more clearly revealed, then that’s already called attainment.
But in any case, with respect to the creature, whether it is concealed or revealed, the creature that feels itself and feels its own reality, all in all, feels the Creator’s love toward it in the way it is expressed, according to the equivalence of form and the creature’s understanding. This is every word, every emotion, and every utterance of the creature, That’s the only thing the creature can talk about: how the Light works within him, within the desire, generating the desire, and operating it.
Therefore, with respect to the creature, reality, the existence of reality, and the creature within reality are divided into many different modes. These modes are divided into time, place, and motion; but all in all, we have here someone who feels the Creator.
And to determine that for certain, Kabbalists tell us that truly everything is in wondrous unity, “Israel, the Torah and the Creator are One.” This creature is called Israel because according to its internal desire, which is not yet revealed to the creature, it is in Dvekut (adhesion) , in adhesion with the Creator. It is filled with the Upper Light unboundedly, in the state of Ein Sof (Infinity). But with respect to the creature, there is still division between Israel, the Torah and the Creator.
The Creator is the root for which we yearn. The Torah is divided into means through which we come to what we yearn for, the Creator. And the parts of attainment of the Creator are also called Torah. And then the Torah and Creator are One, and Israel connects to them.
But in order to not be scattered with all kinds of thoughts and sayings, it is worth remembering that in reality there is nothing but the Light, the Creator, the Bestower, the source, and the Kli (vessel), the creature, the affected, that senses only the source.
“The Torah, the Creator, and Israel are one.”
Hence, when one is studying Torah, he should study Lishma. This means that he studies with the intention that the Torah will teach him, meaning as is the name of the Torah, which means “instruction.” And because “the Torah, Israel, and the Creator are one,” the Torah teaches one the ways of the Creator, how He is clothed in the Torah.
The Creator (Boreh in Hebrew) is not something that is attained within the creature. The corrections are, as in the word itself, Bo—Reh (“come and see” in Hebrew), the root for which the creature yearns, appearing each time in front of the creature. The Torah is the higher means that one uses to bring himself closer to the Creator. The means and the goal become as one because they are forces of bestowal, qualities of bestowal, and there is no difference between them.
There is even no difference between them or the creature while they are attaining one another in one place, which is then called at the same time and the same place. Namely, the same deficiency, the same intention, and the same fulfillment, are Israel, the Torah, and the Creator. Then they become as One within the creature.
But because one always talks only with respect to the creature, the attaining individual, it turns out that while one is still in the state of incomplete work, while he is in states that contain one’s uncorrected Kelim, within the feeling of his still uncorrected Kelim, in restriction, concealment, one feels the lack of unity. While within the feelings of his corrected Kelim, he feels the unity.
And that's why for the time being, with respect to the creature, there is a division between Israel, the Torah and the Creator and one can’t say that they are actually One. Of course the goal is for the desire that was created to return to its root, as it is written, “Hear O Israel, God is our God, God is One.” God is the HaVaYaH, filled with all the Light that created it, in equivalence of form with the Light, and then they become as One. All the creatures return, united as one, to the world of Ein Sof, where the Light and the Kli join without any difference between them.
For the time being, while they return 125 degrees to the world Ein Sof, the Torah is the illumination that corrects the Kelim, and fills them. And this illumination helps bring a person to the state of Ein Sof.