You are here: Kabbalah Library Home / Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) / Shamati Articles / 88. All the Work Is Only Where There Are Two Ways / Article "All the Work Is Only Where There Are Two Ways" Lessons / Article "All the Work Is Only Where There Are Two Ways"

Shamati, Article #88

Lesson by Rav Michael Laitman, Bnei Baruch, Israel

October 20, 2006

We are reading in the book Shamati, Article #88, All Work is Where There are Two Ways.

All the work is only where there are two ways, as it is written, “and he shall live by them, and he shall not die by them. And the issue of ‘shall die and not breach’ applies only to three Mitzvot: idolatry, bloodshed, and incest.” And yet, we find that the first Hassidim would give their lives over positives.

We learn from the wisdom of Kabbalah that the whole reality is a desire to enjoy, to receive, which was created by the Light, by pleasure and by bestowal. And that will to receive is operated through the Light. Other than the Light and the desire for the Light, there is nothing else in reality. First, there was Light, or the Creator, His Essence, it doesn’t matter how you call it. And then the desire was made as existence from absence, a desire to enjoy from the Light.

And that desire evolved. It evolved to a point where it began to feel on its own that it wanted; it developed an attitude to the source, to the pleasure, to the Light. It also began to feel its own qualities compared to the Light’s qualities. It began to determine who it is compared to the Light. It made restrictions and went through all kinds of breakage, meaning that it got to know itself better and better.

It then comes to a point in its evolution called “Adam in Olam ha Zeh (a person in this world).” And here, in Olam ha Zeh, we discover this unique creature that is man, who evolved over tens of thousands of years on earth from generation to generation in actually a very peculiar, very specific way. Life and death, generations of those creatures, those people come and go. And we see that man, his ego, his desire to enjoy evolves from generation to generation. And also throughout one’s life, the desire in him evolves.

But there is still a question. When can we say that this person is not controlled by the Light, like the desire that was created and made by the Light? But that one is free to some extent, and has free choice, free will; that he can do some kind of free act without being operated by the Light by one hundred percent?

We hear from biologists, physicians and psychologists that we are all controlled. There are genes that are responsible for all our actions. We don’t choose the qualities that we’re born with, even though we work from within them afterwards. But if we didn’t choose whether to be born with them or not, then we are not free.

Then, as we evolve through life, we are educated. We acquire influences from society, from family, from our teachers, from people on the street, from the state, from everything there is. None of us choose it, but that’s how it comes to us. That’s how it is determined for us and that’s what builds and shapes us.

So it turns out that by the time a person becomes a grownup, there is nothing in him that is free, that he chose voluntarily and wanted to be this way within him. And also, if we could choose, how would we choose? Based on what? On what criteria? Based on those that we would choose or those that we were given? So we have to start from something and that’s what we start from. And then we continue with our lives, with what we received from birth and from the environment. We have absolutely no freedom in this life.

That’s why Baal HaSulam says, “All the work is only where we have two ways.” Are the two ways before us in our lives here, in people’s ordinary lives? It turns out that they are not. We are all completely chained within those desires, qualities, conventions, and upbringing, whatever we received. If that’s the case, then there is no reward and punishment, no free choice.

The reason we think we have it is because we don’t know ourselves. It’s a concealment that operates on us in such a way that a person thinks he is free. But he only thinks so because he doesn’t know where the desires, qualities, and thoughts that awaken in him come from. If we knew the whole system of a person and the environment, then we could always see in advance what would happen with a person according to the way the environment affects him. And there is nothing here except this system that is hidden from us; these formulas of behaviors, of reactions. When does a person begin to have the ability to do something free? Or maybe he is never able to do so at all?

The wisdom of Kabbalah says there is no such thing as free will except when a person exits this world, tries to exit it. He tries to exit the nature he received at birth and the nature he received from education. Because education and the influence of society after birth become like a second nature; it adds to him. If he wants to transcend it (not that he wants to transcend it by taking a psychology book or some other method) and he begins to change his behavior, then that’s not him either. He is working with his old qualities, with his upbringing. He is taking some method and adopting it.

Freedom of choice can only exist when there are two ways, such that one way continues one’s existing nature without choice and the second way is if one chooses a way that is entirely above his first nature. The second way is the spiritual nature. This is when one chooses to go in a way that is called “above reason,” to acquire new desires, new Kelim (vessels), new thoughts, a new mind and new heart. He then has two ways before him.

Or, as it says in Kabbalah, he’s got two lines. One line—the left line—is his egoistic desires in which he is used to behaving in a certain way. And the other line is if he wants to discover the force above his own nature called “the Upper Force,” “Upper” meaning that it created him. When he wants his nature to resemble the Upper Force, by that he becomes free and independent. How?

Let’s say that a person’s entire ego is in one circle, and opposite it is the Creator’s force in another circle. And the person tries to have some part of him be similar to the Creator. It is as if he wants to give it to the Creator, to resemble the Creator, to have that part in Him. So, in one’s work and in this part, he becomes freed from himself. He is actually similar to the Creator in that part.

Then the part that he corrected, where he changed himself to be similar to the Creator, is called “a soul.” The other part (the uncorrected part) is a desire, but it is a desire in order to receive that was already in him. And the part that he changed is a desire in order to bestow, like the Creator’s nature, Who only gives. Only in this act does one have free choice between two forms of nature: the Creator’s nature (Nature No. 1 because man came from Him) and one’s own nature (Nature No. 2, the ego, the uncorrected desires) (See Drawing No.1).

When a person begins to choose which of his desires he can make similar to the Creator and which he can’t, he then discovers that within him there is something called “the three impure lines,” which cannot be corrected. He should only abstain from them. It’s called “GimelMitzvot (three commandments)” in which there is no correction.

“All the whole work is only where there are two ways.” This means a person either remains in his nature or works to be similar to the Creator. Those are the two ways. Before that, he is just in his own nature and does everything his nature tells him. There are no movements of his own; it’s all within the nature that he was born with and received. We don’t even call it a person. A person begins to exist by being similar to the Creator; the part which he changed is called Adam (Man).

So, Baal HaSulam says:

All the work is only where there are two ways, as it is written, “and he shall live by them, and he shall not die by them. ['Live by them' means that he chooses a way in which to live called “bestowal,” which is the eternal state.] And the issue of ‘shall die and not breach’ applies only to three Mitzvot: idolatry, bloodshed, and incest.”

In the uncorrected part, there GimelKlipot that cannot be corrected. And this is what they’re called: idolatry, bloodshed and incest. One can’t overcome them except to freeze them and not use them. All the other desires can be made similar to the Creator, whereby he then becomes human in all of his degrees, meaning in all the correctable desires.

And yet, we find that the first Hassidim [meaning people who chose free choice in every way possible]would give their lives over positives. [This means that they tried to correct as much as possible and even beyond.]

And we should know that all the work and the labor are only when one should keep the Torah. At that time one feels the heavy load that the body does not agree to the conditions of the Torah. But when a person is rewarded, and the Torah guards him, no heaviness is sensed in the work of God. This is because the Torah guards one, as it is written, “One’s soul shall teach him.”

Here, Baal HaSulam tells us when there can be choice. A choice is not when something is clear to me and I have the strength to act on myself, to correct my attributes according to the qualities of the Creator. It is in a state where I am in darkness, in uncertainty, in a state where I don’t know how to get along, when, as it says, I have to keep the Torah, to search within me to find which way I have to be.

At that time one feels the heavy load that the body does not agree to the conditions of the Torah.

What is called “my body” (see Drawing No.1) is my egoistic uncorrected desire, which wants only for itself. It is not the biological body. The body in Kabbalah is a person’s desires. When a person feels that he wants correction but the body does not, and he chooses correction, then he is in the situation of being in between, in a state where he doesn’t quite know what to do with his body (it’s like a seesaw that goes either this way or that way), then there is a choice since there can be two ways: this way or that way.

But when a person is rewarded, and the Torah guards him…

That is, when a person receives the Light from Above, and he has the strength to decide to go to the right, toward bestowal, knows how and with what to correct himself, and has the strength for it, then there is no choice. This means that the choice is only when a person for the time being corrects himself until he reaches Gmar Tikkun (the End of Correction).

…no heaviness is sensed in the work of God. This is because the Torah guards one [He’s already moved himself to being controlled by the force of bestowal], as it is written, “One’s soul shall teach him.”

Then everything that appears in that part of the desire, which became similar to the Creator, he understands and feels the whole system called “the Upper Force” and that guards him (See Drawing No.1) And then he doesn’t feel any heaviness since he is no longer working in order to receive but in order to bestow. There is no conflict.

It means that choice is something very temporary. It’s not for every person. It is only for those who position themselves under the influence of the Light on the one hand, and on the other, under the influence of their own egoistic desire. And then, while being in between, they have a state called “free choice.”

When they finish correcting themselves in that, it also disappears. And a person once again is dominated by the second, uncorrected nature. That is, when one switches from the second nature to the first, to the nature of the will to bestow, then the choice disappears.

Question: So then there are the three desires that can’t be corrected; idolatry, bloodshed and incest?

There are desires within us that we cannot correct; we cannot choose them. If such a desire awakens in a person, he cannot make a choice about it. He cannot switch it from reception to bestowal; he cannot be above the desire. He will always surrender to it. That’s how people are built. There is no fault in that. It’s just the foundation from which a person cannot exit. And that’s why it is forbidden to engage in them. One should not try to correct them. They are idolatry, bloodshed and incest.

We don’t know what they are in spirituality. We can interpret it, but it won’t be very clear. Idolatry is to seemingly bow before idols. Idolatry is in that same place where I cannot correct in order to receive, where the ego controls me or where I surrender. This is called “idolatry,” compared to the work of God when I work in bestowal.

Incest means progressing and even discovering those same desires which I cannot correct. That is called “incest.” To discover these desires even before you check if you want to correct them or not.

The desires that have no Masach (screen) over them (the intention to bestow) are called “the desires that are not your own.” You are forbidden to work with them. You can’t make Zivug de Hakaa (mating while striking) between them and the reception of Light to bestow. You can only make such actions with your wife, with your corrected Nukvah (female), with the will to receive that is corrected with the Masach in order to bestow. Then you have a Zivug de Hakaa between the Light and the Kli and that’s called “the person works with his wife,” with his corrected Nukvah within him.

Bloodshed is at the lowest degree of the desires to receive, called “still (Domem),” where Dam (blood) means “inanimate.” A person has to check these desires, to see to what extent he can be in them, test them and feel them in order to scrutinize them and to really be in them in order to bestow. It indicates that there is such exactitude in our work that we cannot discover it. For example, say you can’t discern something that is less than a millimeter. You don’t see it. So you are forbidden to engage in less than that because you have no choice there. You don’t discern anything there. So your whole work is limited up to that point. One is forbidden to go farther into his desires, i.e., (where he doesn’t discern anything) other than into that minimal exactness. That minimal exactness is called “bloodshed.”

You can explain idolatry, incest and bloodshed differently, but actually, it’s about desires which a person cannot deal with to correct them in order to bestow, either because he has no strength or he has no discernment. That’s actually the prohibition.

All in all we have Taryag (613) desires. And when we correct each and every desire, each one of the desires that is corrected is then called “making a Mitzvah (precept/commandment).” In total, there are Taryag desires, so a person should perform TaryagMitzvot (See Drawing No.1).

How does he make those corrections? Each and every desire is corrected with one’s free choice according to the Upper Force through the Light of the Torah. The Light of the Torah is that one receives from Above by studying Kabbalah. He doesn’t feel that it’s from Above; above his own qualities, from higher qualities. He receives a special strength that then helps him understand his desires, change and correct them. It’s called “the Light that comes and reforms him.”

And this comes to a person only on condition that he learns from genuine Kabbalah books. In no other books is there a Light that works to reform him. It works, but insufficiently to correct him. And we see the results of that in our world of those who engage in Kabbalah and those who engage in other books or methods.

Question: What does it mean that “One’s soul shall teach him”?

“One's sould shall teach him” means that if a person corrects his Taryag (613) desires, performs all the Taryag Mitzvot (meaning he corrects all his desires, his whole soul, and builds by that his soul), he then discovers that these desires are now precisely similar to the Creator, to the Upper Force. And he can learn from that. That now determines his whole life, the process that he goes through.

Similarly, in our lives before spirituality, we live from within our nature: the qualities we were born with, and the qualities we received, the upbringing and the knowledge. Let’s call this “a man’s body shall teach him.” What I have now teaches me. How do I choose, see, hear, and decide on things, what formed my opinions? That which I have received teaches me. That is, what teaches is me is what I received as fulfillment either from birth, genes (I was born with all kinds of qualities) or subsequently from my upbringing. This means that it determines the process that I will undergo, determines my actions, reactions and behavior.

Hence if a person changes his internality from his nature, his upbringing and what he received from birth, to the qualities of the Creator, qualities of the Light, then the Light that appears in the corrected desires, according to the corrected desires, teaches a person. It determines how a person progresses, how he will react to everything and how he will conduct himself in life. It’s called “a person’s soul shall teach him.”

This means that if we divide the system by names, we have the uncorrected desires that are called “the body” and the corrected desires, called “the soul.” So before the correction, the body determines what a person does. After the correction, the soul determines what it does.

But there is no difference between the soul and the body. They are the same desires, Taryag desires. We have nothing other than desires; the Creator created only desires. But desires that work for themselves, to fill themselves egoistically are called “the body,” or “Klipot” (shells)—it doesn’t matter what you call them, all those names. And when the same desires are corrected to be in order to bestow, they are called “the soul.” There is nothing else.

There is nothing else other than the Light and the Kli; the Force that gives and the desires to receive, which He designed as existence from absence. There’s nothing else in reality.

Question: It is written, “These are the three Mitzvot.”

Three Mitzvot, which are idolatry, bloodshed and incest.

Question (cont'd): What is the work with the Masach and the Returning Light. Is idolatry bowing before idols?

It’s not bowing before idols. Don’t be confused by what you read in other books and then try to draw it into Kabbalah, because other books speak to people superficially. They explain what good is, what bad is, seemingly in the framework of Olam ha Zeh (this world). Kissing some stone is not idolatry. That will not make you against the Creator with respect to the Upper Force; you won’t be opposite from Him. Idolatry is when a person’s actions are against the Creator who is the Giver. There is only one thing the receiver. Allegorically, it’s called “bowing before stone.”

What is stone? It is when a person bows before the stony heart in us, the will to receive in us. They used such names in the wisdom of Kabbalah. Afterwards, people started relating to it as if they weren’t just names but the objects themselves. So you are forbidden to bow before a stone or make idols. Making idols means that you take something which is “in order to receive,” and you begin to relate to it as if it is corrected to be “in order to bestow.” In other words, it is when you ascribe a human form to a stone. This means that the stone is the same material as “in order to receive,” you didn’t change it.

We are not speaking of the substance “stone” from the street. You didn’t change the substance; it remains in order to receive, but you gave it the form of a person. That means that you relate to it as if it is corrected, as if it is in order to bestow and you begin to relate to it this way. That’s forbidden. That means that all the prohibitions and transgressions and the Mitzvot are all either using a person’s desires egoistically, for oneself, or using them for love of man. There is nothing but that, only two ways, number one or number two; either this way or that way.

In our world, in our words and in all kinds of ways, we interpret things in such as way that we don’t distinguish between what is the will to receive and what is the will to bestow. I take a field and I divide the field this way or that way. I wait for three years to allow the trees and other plants to mature. I don’t discern in that if it is in order to receive or in order to bestow; where it resembles the Creator, where it doesn’t. Because there is nothing real in our world except that it’s an imprint in the still, vegetative and animate nature. But actually, all the conditions and all the corrections are within a person’s desires. So, that’s the only way that we should accept anything that is spoken of in the wisdom of Kabbalah.

People ask, “What’s the connection between keeping Mitzvot with our hands and legs in Olam ha Zeh and keeping Mitzvot that Kabbalah talks about?” There is no connection. And we see that people who haven’t corrected themselves (i.e., children, who don’t even know what in order to bestow means and what bestowal is) do all kinds of things that in our world are called Mitzvot. But actually, there is no room in Kabbalah for these actions. Because in Kabbalah, you talk about a person’s desires, not about actions he performs with his body or with the soil or with his animal, his beast.

Question (cont'd): How can you put a Masach on desires that are not corrected?

Correction of the desires; putting a Masach over each desire is called “making a Mitzvah” and that’s what we’re talking about. Making the Mitzvot means the correction of desires, which are Taryag desires within each and every one of us. You have to discern when you begin to work with those desires and correct them to build your soul. You discern in them conditions called “incest, bloodshed and idolatry.” It’s a limit below which you cannot enter with your scrutiny and correction because you have no power for that. It is only up to this point.

Question: If I understand correctly, we have Taryag desires. If I think about it, I can only think of about thirty or forty corrupted qualities that perhaps I can correct. So, the question is, how do I arrive at Taryag corruptions that we have to correct? Or maybe it’s something we have to do by phases?

I understand you’re bewildered. You are asking, “From where do I have so many desires?” And what’s worse, they are corrupted. Each and every one of us has them. In a similar way, our body, if it is a normal body with no defects, contains Taryag organs and tendons: 248 organs and 365 tendons.

Our soul is also built of Taryag parts, desires, which you do not identify. You don’t see any desires in it, and you don’t see even one desire of the soul. Why? Because we still haven’t reached choice.

We discover from the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah that we have evolved in this world through history until we come to the present time, the twenty-first century. Along the way was the ruin of the Temple and the exile, and, further down on the time line, we came to the land of Israel. And now we are beginning to feel the point in the heart. Something is wrong; a general crisis, global crisis, we are in despair. (See Drawing No. 8)

We begin to ask, “What are we living for?” And we’re beginning to ask ourselves, “What should we do with ourselves next?” Then a book comes along or maybe a rumor and we come to study, to hear something about evolution of the soul and then a person begins to evolve. He no longer evolves with the same desires as in every previous incarnation from generation to generation, which is how we evolved throughout our history, let’s say, from minus fifty thousand years up to our days on the axis of time. But he begins to evolve through learning, hearing, and reading about a different reality, not an earthly one, not on the earth which is called “Olam ha Zeh,” but about a different reality.

What’s the difference between the other reality and this reality? On the axis of time, the desires are with the intention to receive for one’s self. There’s a different reality with those same Taryag desires, but we won’t find them on the time line.

As the person who asked the question said, maybe I have 30 desires. What are those desires? Well, a soft drink, a sip of whisky, a little football, a little rest, something to drink, and maybe something else. I don’t know, maybe thirty desires. How many do I have? You’re willing to settle for ten, just for those to be satisfied, to receive what you want in them. I understand; I am the same way.

So we can suddenly feel those same Taryag desires, and within those desires, we ask what the meaning of life is. Why do you ask about the meaning of life? Why do you feel bad? Why did you get up and come here at 4:00 AM in the morning? For fulfillment, because you have no fulfillment. Even one desire that awakens and wants to be filled makes you feel bad, so you’re looking for the fulfillment.

Let’s say this: you still don’t know it, but you are not receiving fulfillment. The wise sages, the Kabbalists, explain that if the pleasure enters a desire, then the pleasure cancels the desire. I am thirsty so I begin to drink, but in a minute, a few seconds, I am no longer thirsty and I don’t feel pleasure from drinking. I drink, but it doesn’t give me pleasure anymore; the pleasure disappears.

And because we are built from a desire, the desire must feel pleasure. Then I hear on the radio, “Coca Cola tastes great!” I begin to drink Coca Cola. It’s the same, (the pleasure disappears). They tell me another drink, some brand of beer. I start drinking it and it’s the same. I keep chasing all kinds of fulfillments: maybe in them I will not neutralize the desire, I’ll fill it and I’ll just feel myself constantly in Nirvana. But it doesn’t happen, not now or yesterday or the day before yesterday. It is so for the past fifty thousand years.

What do we do? Our ego keeps growing. We come to a situation where the ego has grown and is empty. What do we do? So, the world looks the way it looks today: despair, drugs, terrorism etc. People don’t know what to do. They get divorced. Then they ask, “So, what do I do?” When you begin to ask what to do, you’re subconsciously asking, “Is there a way that I can satisfy myself? Give me a different method.” You’re no longer asking which fulfillments you can use to fulfill yourself. It’s as if you’ve already learned, you’ve gained experience from everything you learned during previous lives.

In the past, you said, “Instead of Coca Cola, give me a different drink.” Instead of this one give me that one. Now you don’t want it any more. You can see that the method itself is wrong. It is not able to satisfy you. Just from experience, you already know the principle that the pleasure cancels the desire. But what other principle is there? How is it possible for the pleasure to fill the desire and remain in it forever? That’s what you subconsciously want. You want that moment to remain, like it does in the tragedy, Faust.

So, you want to stop the ego so the pleasure remains. You want to live in that moment of ecstasy and pleasure. That’s how you’re built. So what do you do? You’re not really looking for a fulfillment but you’re looking for a method. And that’s why you end up in a different life.

You open books that talk about an essentially different method to fulfill your desires. They tell you that you have to fill them to satisfy them, but not as you’ve been trying to fill them. You’re told that we have a desire to receive, which is called “Ima (Mother),” which receives something, but gives it to her child and the child enjoys it. When the child enjoys, the desires constantly empty (i.e., they come and go), but they don’t empty in Ima. The more Ima fulfills her child, the more she enjoys.

This means that when a pleasure goes through you to others, i.e., when you use another’s desire to fulfill the other (but that gives you pleasure because you have love for that other), and when you feel the other’s desire as your own, then you can remain in an eternal state and fulfilled. It’s a very simple principle.

The pleasure cancels the desire only if they are together. But if the pleasure is in the mother and the desire is in the child, then the pleasure isn’t canceled in the mother. The more she feeds her child, the more she enjoys. The child doesn’t want any more but she forces another spoon and another spoon; it gives her pleasure, she has to do that. It compels her because the pleasure in her grows, it doesn’t vanish.

That’s the principle of the wisdom of Kabbalah. It’s the wisdom of how to receive pleasure without losing it. It’s very simple; you just have to love someone so that the other’s desires and needs will be as your own. That’s how you will feel them. So, when you satisfy them, you’ll feel pleasure.

From the beginning we are built in a different way. We feel any desire of the other person as detestable. That he enjoys and has pleasures? No. On the contrary, the less pleasure he has, the more I enjoy. We know it because we measure ourselves compared to others. So when many have problems, it’s a half comfort for me. I am willing to take out one of my eyes as long as the other will have both his eyes removed.

So, if we invert our nature, we will reach the eternal pleasure. The eternal pleasure gives us the sensation of eternal life because pleasure is life. So then you’ll feel that there is no life and death, but that you are in eternal life. It’s called “the Garden of Eden” or “the next world” or whatever you call it.

And then you feel the previous pleasure and desire, in the previous method, as a state of death. A person then begins to build within himself a different system of attitude to others.

When we were talking about our world, we used the example of the mother and a child. But if we are talking about souls rather than bodies, then we learn that the whole of humanity, all of us, are in a system called “Adam ha Rishon (the First Man).” And that system is deliberately built of parts of souls that are interconnected as one body. With respect to us, it appears as if we are opposite and divided and are distant from one another. It is as if we hate each other; each of us is in his own bubble, and the others exist only so I can use them for my own benefit. That’s how each and every single person feels. And this is deliberate.

Let’s say that I am within my own little egoistic bubble. If now I want to connect to others to fulfill them, then you can say I am crazy. Why should I think of others and satiate them? But if I begin to behave in this way, i.e., transcend this psychological confusion (and it’s only psychological) so that I will feel someone else and want to fulfill him, then I will immediately begin to feel pleasures that go through me to the other. I will feel those pleasures as spiritual, unending life. And as these pleasures go through me I will feel them as not just tiny pleasures, but they will be huge pleasures.

We learn it in Kabbalah. Let's say we have one Partzuf that draws the Light of Nefesh to itself. If another Partzuf passes through it, then the first Partzuf transcends the Light of Nefesh, and draws the Light of Ruach for itself. It’s the order by which the Lights enter the Kelim. There are foreign Kelim, which I connect to myself and which I want to fill. When I fill them, Nefesh comes down and Ruach enters; Ruach comes down and Neshama (Soul) enters; and then comes Haya and then Yechida. So, I end up with the Light of Yechida, uniting with the Creator.

I end up with the Light that exists in It on condition that I connect myself to all the rest of the Kelim, the other parts of the souls, which become like a single body to me, like my body. To the extent that I join with others, the Lights of Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya and Yechida enter me. It all depends on the extent to which I want to connect the rest of the souls to me and to be in them as an integral cell in the body where I serve the body. That is the law of life. Without it, I am not alive.

That’s how our cells behave in the body. Even though each cell is egoistic, it relinquishes its ego and serves the body entirely. If we do that, we will have NRNHY (Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya and Yechida).

What do we have before NRNHY? Before NRNHY we have life in Olam ha Zeh. This is called “the sweat of life,” just a tiny illumination that exists inside my Taryag desires only to sustain them, only that.

So the desires remain the same desires in a person. If he receives only within his own desires, then he is in a state of death from spirituality because he has no pleasures that go through him from Above. But he’s got this tiny livelihood that can wake up and he can start correcting himself. To the extent that he adds other souls to himself and fills them, then he switches to the principle of Kabbalah. This is called “the wisdom of Kabbalah.” It’s really a great wisdom: how to arrive at reception that is eternal. But what do you reach in the end? You reach complete fulfillment in all your desires.

Question: I still don’t understand, why do we have free choice here? What the difference between our desire for endless fulfillment and our desire to be in Buddhism or Zen or whatever?

Here is what you’re actually asking: when does one have free choice and in what do we have free choice? Kabbalists say that until you come to the wisdom of Kabbalah, you have no free choice. You just follow whatever instincts jump into your mind, into your heart, and into your hormones. And you calculate what’s worthwhile and what’s not worthwhile so that you are not beaten and chained, so you gain something here and there. You choose according to the formula that you know and understand. You are just a machine that does whatever awakens in your desires, genes, hormones, etc. There is no choice.

When you find a method of some sort, you still have no choice. You didn’t choose well in the past, until finely you say, “I see that my life has been completely worthless.” Let’s say you try to succeed in something, maybe in the wisdom of Kabbalah. You didn’t choose it. Suddenly a desire appeared in you, seemingly by chance and so, you came to it. And that’s what Baal HaSulam says that “The Creator brings a person to a place where he begins to learn.” He (the Creator) could bring you into Buddhism or whatever, of course. There are tons of examples. But if He brings you to the wisdom of Kabbalah and to that place where you begin to learn, then you gradually come to a point where you do have choice.

When you come to the place where you have a point in the heart that has awakened and you now begin to study and evolve from that point, that’s still not choice. You don’t know where you are, what for and why. You’re like a child who says “Yes” when he’s told something; he accepts what he is told. There are many things that he doesn’t understand; he even speaks and doesn’t understand what he says. It’s how we learn. What can you do?

But by being in a group and working with genuine books (i.e. Kabbalah books that were written by genuine great Kabbalists), and also by having a guide, then gradually you receive a certain illumination from Above as you study more and more. What is from Above? The Light that Reforms.

There is no above and below in this world. We are in the system of Adam ha Rishon, but each of us feels himself within his own bubble, through his five senses. What appears in those five senses is called “our world.” In short, what we perceive and grab in order to fulfill ourselves is the way that we feel the whole of reality. We feel everything that happens in the general soul of Adam ha Rishon as if it is the picture that we see.

But actually, we are in a different system, the real system. We just don’t recognize it. It is the system of souls interconnected as one body and acting by giving to each other. And it doesn’t matter that we are seemingly not in those actions. We are in concealment from that. But actually, we are in this system (See Drawing No.7).

When I begin to read about that system and how it works, I seemingly bring myself closer to the real situation. I read about it, about how the souls are connected to each other, how they work together, the laws that apply there. So out of my desire to know it, to see, to feel, to understand, I draw myself toward it, I push myself toward it, I pull some Light from there onto me. Out of my desire, I bring myself to be in touch with it. When I push myself to be in it, that proximity is called “that I reform myself, ” that I repent, I return. That’s the real repentance and that’s it. That’s the wonder that happens in the books of Kabbalah.

When I begin to know the system a little bit—that I am in my egoistic two lines and the Light in front of me, i.e. a person and the Creator—only then do I begin to develop a place for free choice: either me or Him. We have some sweating to do before we come to that, to free choice, i.e., to be free to choose between the one and the other.

We will learn what it is to be free. If the Creator is stronger, then I surrender. If I am stronger, then what do I need Him for? What does it mean to be “free?” In the middle? Neither righteous nor wicked, but an intermediate one, neither this way nor that way? If I am going neither way, how do I decide anything? And if I have some inclination toward some side and I have no choice.

How can there be a concept of a choice, anyhow? If I know that I am happy, say, if I like one beverage instead of another, I know that this is better or that is better? What if the two are the same?

There’s a joke about a donkey. If you place identical food on both sides of the donkey (he has good grass to eat on both sides), then he stands there and doesn’t know which to choose and just starves to death. That’s a real example. You have to come to a decision based on something. But if you arrive with something, then you have no choice already.

So we still have to see how such a thing happens that a person chooses. Baal HaSulam explains that it’s about strengthening, but let’s say that it’s an excuse for the time being.

Question: How is it possible that a person’s choice is in a state of darkness and uncertainty when he doesn’t know what’s before him?

You don’t choose; there is no choice in darkness. You talk about your life before you heard about Kabbalah and now you hear about it and, for the time being, you come here to listen. This is not yet the actual work of building your soul. So now, you’re not even in the darkness; it’s not the real darkness. The real darkness is when you begin to feel that your desires are dark and that you cannot have any Light in them. And the present state is called “the preparation period,” when you are preparing yourself like a little child who doesn’t know what he will have. But by the nature of things, he moves on and prepares himself for life.

That’s the situation that people are in when they come here to listen. We never try to hide that it takes many months of listening. A person should understand that each of the Taryag (613) desires in his soul grasps and absorbs these tiny illuminations that he draws when he takes interest and reads. He somehow brings himself closer until each of his desires absorbs this influence from reading, from hearing, from studying, and primarily, from acting in the group. It takes a long time, months, before a person makes sufficient effort to really absorb all of these powers.

It's because our soul, in truth, is infinite. Infinite does not mean in size; it is endless in terms of time, until I come to work in it. It is endless in a sense that it is like the whole of creation; one person or all the souls is the same. Each of us has to be like the Creator, each of us. This is why this process is a long one.

For example, you move your head back and forth, and in that time, thousands and billions of internal actions are occurring within you, in your inner structure, which you don’t even know about. It takes time until those billions of actions complete a certain process, even the shortest process, when you suddenly feel something’s changed in your mind or in your heart. You understood something, you felt something. These discernments in the mind and in the heart, which you suddenly see as if they are created in you, happen after many, many thousands of actions that you have to experience inside and you experience them unconsciously.

So if a person makes a little bit of effort in the group, the guide and the books together, then he comes to a point where the Light reforms him and he begins to gradually discover this system called “Adam ha Rishon.” He discovers that he is an egoistic part in it and he begins to feel that he is an egoist standing opposite the Creator. Then he gradually begins to change his desires compared to the Creator.

How does he change his desires compared to the Creator? How can he be similar to the Creator? It’s very simple. There is a system called “Adam ha Rishon.” Within that system are souls and I, with my free choice. And the Creator, bestowal, is in a different system. If in my whole Kli, in my Taryag desires, I take the force of bestowal from the Creator and give it to all the desires, all the souls (those in Adam ha Rishon with me), then my attitude toward them is the same as the Creator’s attitude toward them. And by that, I am similar to the Creator.

So then, I'm called “Adam (Man/Human)” from the word Domeh (similar). And only in that do you have free choice. I'm either trying to continue to draw something for myself, which is called “the Klipa” (Shell) because then I feel myself opposite the Creator, and have Someone to draw from, to exploit. Or, instead of drawing it for myself, I draw it through myself to others. Then it is called Kedusha (Sanctity). And then I receive all the Lights that can go through me to others.

Let’s say there are seven billion people in Adam ha Rishon and each of them has a soul. To the extent that each of them receives fulfillment from the Creator, all these fulfillments will go through me. This is called that I'm really in an infinite state, in a state like the Creator, literally. With respect to all the other souls, I will be used as the source of infinite Light, just as Him. And then I will feel like Him, i.e., be in a state as eternal and complete as His, but on condition that through me, I will give to the others the Highest fulfillment.

And that’s the wisdom of reception, Kabbalah, how to fulfill yourself. Because the actual purpose of the Creator is for us to fulfill ourselves and it’s impossible to fulfill ourselves in any other way.

On the one hand, we have to be in a desire to receive. Otherwise, how could we be outside of Him, because He gives. So, how can we be outside of Him, outside of bestowal, as his creatures? What else could He create? Only reception. So, if we learn from Him how to be similar to Him, then we come to a state as complete as His although our nature is to receive.

Question: Is the process you just described the righteous, who receive from the Creator and pass it on to others?

Yes. One who is righteous is one who understands how the Creator created reality and realizes that same reality de facto in himself. And by doing this, by becoming similar to the Creator, he is called “righteous” because he justifies creation from the very beginning. It was created as the will to receive, opposite from Himself, and is murky and terrible from the beginning, according to the nature of the creation. But now, he justifies the Creator for creating it this way because precisely through the will to receive in it, he can draw all the Lights from the Creator and then pass it on to others.

And this is why “Love thy friend as thyself,” when a person relates to others; to each and every desire of someone else’s as to his own desire, called “love thy friend as thyself,” is a great rule in the Torah. (See Drawing No. 9) It is when all the Light called “Torah” comes to a person and goes through him, because the Light in it reforms him. He corrects it to be with an attitude of love to others. And then He fills it; the Torah is the Upper Light.