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Shamati, Article #66:

Lesson by Rav Michael Laitman, Bnei Baruch, Israel

September 22, 2006

We are reading in the book Shamati, Article #66: About Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah, page 94).

The issue of the giving of the Torah that occurred on Mount Sinai does not mean that the Torah was given once and then the giving was stopped. Rather, there is no absence in spirituality, since spirituality is an eternal matter, unending. But since, from the perspective of the giver, we are unfit to receive the Torah, we say that the cessation is by the Upper One.

The reality is that the Upper Light is in complete rest. There is a field such as a magnetic, electrical or gravitational field, where we exist. That field, that attitude to us from the perspective of the Upper Light or the Thought of Creation, is unchanging, while we do change. We are the Kelim (vessels) that sense that field, that general law of nature, the Elokim. If we are in a state of equivalence of form with that Upper Force, with God, then we feel It according to that simple law of equivalence of form.

This law exists in this world, too. And according to one’s equivalence, a person feels or doesn’t feel it. For example, we hear in a certain frequency because our eardrum can respond to a certain wavelength; we see in a certain range, etc. The whole of nature is drawn toward equivalence, toward comparison and equality, equality of pressures, equality of heat and cold. The same law, in a more global way, is the Godly Force, where to the extent that we, within our eternal Kli (vessel) called a soul, develop that Kli, we feel It.

Why do we feel It? Because we’ve reached equivalence of form. When we lose the equivalence of form, when we’re not similar to It, then we loose the sensation and don’t feel It. We feel that we are only in this restricted sensation called this world.

So actually, a person can increase his sensitivity and change his internal attributes in such a way that they will match that general field called God and then feel It. What is received from It will be called Torah (Light). The person will then feel that he has come to the reception of the Torah or that now the Creator (nature, the Upper Light) gives him the Torah and he is in such a state, such a connection with Him.

If one’s attributes get corrupted, he loses the equivalence of form with the Upper Force and stops feeling Him, it is called “going into exile.” And then the abundance from the Upper Force to a person will stop. This is called that “the giving of the Torah has stopped.”

And if once again, through tricks or means that exist at his disposal, he increases his sensitivity, his attributes to resemble Godliness, the Thought of Creation, the Benevolent Nature, the Comprehensive Nature, then he will feel Him once again. It’s called the appearance of the Creator to the creatures. And again, he will call what he will receive from Him “the giving of the Torah.” So it all depends on the creature. Can the creature reach equivalence of form by working on itself and thus feel the connection with Him?

However, then, at the foot of Mount Sinai, the whole of Israel were ready to receive the Torah...

They went through a very special process. In fact, Yisrael came from ancient Babylon, where the ego erupted within humanity that was concentrated there. One person in Babylon, whose name was Abraham, discovered that it is possible to work against this new attribute, and precisely through this special attitude, through internal work, to succeed in reaching equivalence with nature. He started teaching it to his neighbors, to the residents of Ur of the Chaldees where he himself lived.

Abraham himself was previously an idol worshiper. He was bowing to all kinds of natural forces, just like all of us. But as the Midrash says, he started asking why the stars and this universe exist. Why do we live? What’s to life? He started asking and thus started discovering the general law of nature: A person lives in order to reach equivalence of form with the comprehensive nature. He then discovered that law and that is called “God appeared before him.” This is what he started telling people and his friends.

He wanted to bring them out of being idol worshipers. Even nowadays, anyone who hasn’t yet discovered that One Unique and Unified Force of nature, i.e. before he discovers the Creator, is considered an idol worshiper. In other words, a person can think that there are many forces and feel that there are many things that operate on him like incidents and opportunities instead of feeling that it comes from this One general field. So those who don’t feel this Unique Unified Force are called idol worshipers, because they determine everything from their sensation of reality.

But if one reaches equivalence of form and equivalence of attributes with that field and discovers that there is only One Force, One Thought that works on him, this is called that instead of being an idol worshiper of statues and forces and fortunes, he becomes “a servant of the Creator.” It means that there is only One Comprehensive Force in nature.

So when Abraham discovered it, he started telling others about it. Only some of them listened and the rest didn’t. They continued to follow the desire that grew in them and prompted them to evolve; they started developing the new civilization. They started to expand in every side, to the East, to the West, in all directions. The evolution of humanity, which still continues today, started from that.

And Abraham organized a group, which consecrated itself to the disclosing of the One Force that works on humanity. This is why they called themselves Jews, since they were looking for unity with that Upper Force (the word Yihude comes from the root “unique”). They also called themselves Hebrew (in Hebrew, Ivri comes from the root Avar which means “passed to the other side”), because they crossed the Machsom to the sensation of the spiritual world. Beyond the barrier, they felt the actual reality, the general law of nature in which they and all of humanity live, but had not yet discovered.

They also called themselves Israel, because they realized that they came to a situation where all the direction of their thoughts and actions was in order to correct themselves according to the general law of nature. Yisrael comes from the words “straight to the Creator,” where only toward that law, toward that Force of God, do they want to progress.

Since then, that group expanded, grew and went through additional expansion of its ego, just like all of humanity. But it experienced it in great corrections where, specifically through the ego, it came into greater equivalence of form with the Godly Force of altruism, the force of nature. And when it overcame the next phase where the ego grew in it, then they were awarded a special revelation of God, of nature, called “standing at Mount Sinai” and the “appearance of the Torah.”

The forces and vessels were made in them in such a way that they started to feel, to decipher, to be connected to that Upper Force independently, through the Aviut, the will to receive that grew in them as being corrected. This is called the “reception of the Torah” or, if you look at it from the perspective of the Upper One,t he “giving of the Torah.” That’s what they reached.

…as it is written: “there Israel encamped before the mount, as one man in one heart.” [Meaning they each had to correct their egos in order to reach equivalence of form with the Upper Force.] At that time, the whole public was prepared; they had but one intention, which is a single thought about the reception of the Torah.

So the condition to receive the Torah is “Love thy friend as thyself”—to be as one despite the egoism that separates them. The more the ego grows and the more a person corrects it and unites with others, by that one becomes more and more equal to the general law of nature, the law of bestowal.

Five degrees of ego can grow in a person, which we call five degrees of Aviut. And every time the degree of the Aviut increases, you have to correct it. And through it you can then come into a greater sensation, greater understanding, greater recognition of that field, that Unique field of the Upper Force and live in it, experience it. This is called eternal or complete life. And the more the ego grows with its degree and the Aviut in us while we are not according to the Upper Light, we feel the gap between us and that Light, that field. This gap is felt in us as suffering.

So lack of equivalence of form pushes us to correct ourselves through the sensation of pain, because we don’t have a choice, because we suffer and we are ready to do anything in order not to feel it. The lack of equivalence of form is experienced in us as pains of all kinds: health, losses, death, anything that a person can even imagine, any kind of pain, anything other than eternity and completeness. Anything less than that is a result of the lack of equivalence with the Upper Force, with the attribute of benevolence— bestowal, complete bestowal.

However, there are no changes from the perspective of the Giver—He always gives. It is written in the name of the Baal Shem Tov that every day must one hear the ten commandments on Mount Sinai.

It means that every time all kinds of new desires increase in a person, he should come to a state where he corrects his Kli, his new attributes, completely. It’s called “his entire Ten Sefirot are being corrected” and that “the Light will appear in them,” according to this equivalence of form with these ten attributes, ten Sefirot in a person, which is called “hearing.” Hearing with the Light of Hassadim and discovering the Light of Wisdom. This is called “hearing the Ten Commandments,” the ten Lights, NRNHY that clothe according to the law of equivalence of form within the Kelim, KHB Zon of the Partzuf of a person.

The Torah is called the “potion of life” and the “potion of death.” We must understand how two opposites can be said about a single subject.

We must know that we cannot attain any reality as it is in itself. Rather, we attain everything according to our sensations. And reality, as it is in itself, is of no interest to us at all.

We operate only from within our Kelim. Let’s say we have five senses now, behind which we have the brain. The brain processes what is received within the five senses and what is integrated in the five senses, along with our memory of what we feel right now with our ability to compare and decipher. Later on, we feel all of that as a reality that we live in. If we lacked a few of the senses, then we would feel ourselves differently. We wouldn’t be impressed by sights or sounds and would be impressed by other things. We would feel ourselves existing differently, although it’s hard for us to picture that. We are used to what is always within us. That seems to us like the reality, like the world.

If a person attains the real Kelim, he sees that these Kelim of the five senses are imaginary Kelim. They just perceive something within them and are impressed with something that’s imaginary. That’s just the way they feel it. It is similar to when some electrodes in the brain create all kinds of figures within the human brain. They don’t exist in reality. We just connect electric potentials and the fluids that we have in our brain and so that’s how we feel as if things exist. It’s called an imaginary reality.

So our attainment is only according to our Kelim. But there are imaginary Kelim, the five present senses, that are impressed with something that doesn’t exist in reality, because they are not impressed by the Light, they are not impressed by the Giver, by the only thing that exists. They are impressed by what is imprinted in them, registered in them, in these incidental things. These incidents have their own set of laws, but the picture is not the real picture. So we begin to perceive the real picture, the real reality that exists, only according to the equivalence of form.

The only thing that does exist is the Light, “the simple Light that fills the whole reality.” Therefore, whoever corrects his perception to the quality that exists in the Light, meaning bestowal, perceives within him something of what exists. And it is said that he is perceiving spirituality, the true reality that exists, according to the extent of his equivalence of form with the Light. But still it is already something that is correct, that is true. That’s why spirituality is called the world of truth. But for the time being, until we feel that quality, we feel ourselves in a certain reality that is pictured that way only within us, and that’s it.

Hence, we do not attain the Torah as it is in itself, but only attain our sensations. Thus, all of our impressions follow only our sensations.

Therefore, when a person is studying Torah, and the Torah removes him from the love of God, this Torah is certainly considered “the potion of death.” Conversely, if this Torah that he is learning brings him closer to the love of God, it is certainly considered “the potion of life.”

But the Torah in itself, the existence of the Torah in and of itself, without consideration of the lower one who must attain it, is considered “a Light without a Kli,” where there is no attainment whatsoever.

This is because it’s about the Light without the Kli, the Upper Light that fills the whole reality. That same field, how it is by itself. And we are within that field, just unaware of it or we are aware of it according to our equivalence of form. That’s the whole picture. And actually nothing changes except our internal sensation. But that’s actually the whole of life, of vitality, our whole existence: It is in our sensation.

Hence, when we speak of the Torah, it refers to the sensations that a person receives from the Torah, and only they determine the reality for the creatures.

When one works for oneself, it is called Lo Lishma (not for Her Name). But from Lo Lishma we arrive at Lishma (for Her Name). Hence, if one has not yet been rewarded with the reception of the Torah, one hopes to be rewarded with the reception of the Torah in the following year.

In other words, as it is written, “and they will be new in your eyes.” In every degree, in every change, he hopes that if he really makes an effort to obtain equivalence of form with the Upper Light, then, at some moment in his reality, in his life, he will feel, will want and perhaps will come to a certain, maybe one percent equivalence of form with the Light. Then he will feel within that one percent the spiritual life, the measure of bestowal.

Of course, it is impossible to want the measure of bestowal. It is a contradiction to want to bestow, because wanting is already egoistic and bestowing is the opposite, so it is impossible to do that. But a person who labors, receives a new quality, which is called “giving in order to bestow.” We don’t understand how it is, what it is. You can’t feel this quality previously. It is received as something that is detached from the previous reality. And the way to reach it is to egoistically want to feel a new reality according to the law “I labored and found.”

It means you have to make an effort, but whatever comes, will come as finding. We cannot aim for that precisely, because it is a completely new reality that we cannot feel, that we cannot see in any way within our Kelim, within our attributes.

But when one has been awarded the wholeness of Lishma, one has nothing more to do in this world, since he has already corrected everything to being in the wholeness of Lishma.”

In other words, those who receive the attribute of bestowal no longer feel the attribute of reception called “being in this world.” Even though a person is among us with his physical, biological body, his qualities and the reasons for his actions are all according to the degree that he has attained, his higher degree. Because we are not in the spiritual world, we can’t detect such people and say that they are in spirituality, since we don’t have the quality to distinguish them from others. But a person who has reached spirituality, his physical actions, too, are certainly all from the equivalence of form with the Upper Light that he has attained.

For this reason, each and every year there is the time of reception of the Torah, since that time is ready for an awakening from below. This is because it is the awakening of the time when the Light of the giving of the Torah was revealed in the lower ones. Hence, there is an awakening from Above, which gives strength to the lower ones to be able to perform the qualifying act to receive the Torah, as then, when they were ready to receive the Torah.

Our world, meaning our state, is very special. There are people who can each have a personal attitude toward the Upper Force, to be in greater or lesser equivalence of form with it. It is also possible that all of us have some general attitude toward that Upper Force, because we originally are one Kli, one desire that was in equivalence with the Upper Light. By dividing that desire into billions of pieces, each of which received the ego, the lack of equivalence with the Light, all of us are distant from the Upper Light. And each of us can correct his ego to equalize with the Light by changing our attitude to others.

As the Light works toward all the souls in benevolence, with complete and utter love, a person who corrects himself to “Love thy friend as thyself” in order to reach equivalence of form with the Light (which is called “in order to love the Lord your God”), that person progresses toward equivalence of form with the Upper Light, with the Elokim, with the comprehensive nature. This process may be one of a specific individual. Within that individual process, there are periods that belong to the collective. An individual goes through special processes in his progress. Although everything depends on him, the environmental conditions change: they change from the collective.

We say that we have a Kli called Adam ha Rishon. The Light fills it all and we are in complete rest, in equivalence of form. Afterwards, that Kli seemingly lost the Upper Light, because the will to receive appeared in that Kli. That Kli was in the will to receive, say in Aviut Shoresh and Aleph—Katnut. That was Adam ha Rishon prior to the sin.

Afterwards, it received Aviut Bet, Gimel and Dalet called AHP. This is called “eating from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil.” And then it fell to the ego, the opposite, the contradiction that is between the Light and the Kli, the bestowal and the ego (See Drawing No.1).

And because the egoistic will to receive appeared in the Kli, the Kli was divided into many different pieces, say seven billion pieces. Maybe more, maybe less, it depends on the extent to which everyone must be in his initial force of ego. In total, together they make up Adam ha Rishon, that one Kli.

That Kli reaches the general correction through the Light that is in it. Now it doesn’t see the Light that fills it, as if the Light is absent in the Kli. We say the Light retracted, left the Kli. This is only with respect to the Kli. There is no motion in the Light. There are no changes in the Light; the changes are only in the Kelim.

The Kli doesn’t feel that there is Light in it right now. However, the Light works along with the Kli and they progress. The Light operates on all kinds of Kelim—seven billion, five, six billion that are here, it doesn’t matter. The Kelim divide if the will to receive grows more, and they are connect, if the will to receive decreases.

And that’s where the number of the world population stems from. We think that war comes and say a hundred million people died in World War II. That’s how we see it. Because the will to receive (the ego) decreased, there was no need for that many people. Each of them with a lesser will to receive could correct the ego that was previously there in two people. If it decreased in half, it can now be contracted into one.

Our world is just results and that’s what we see. We don’t see the reasons for it. The reason is only the changing of the ego within the Kli. Which direction does the ego change? The changes in population and in situations that happen between bodies are determined only according to that.

So the process that we go through affects everyone. Say there is a soul, and that soul senses its attitude toward others and others’ attitude toward it. Its own attitude toward others is called “private Providence.” It depends only on the individual. The others’ attitude toward this soul, of course, depends on the extent to which a person prepares himself to feel that attitude correctly, but it also depends on the attitude of the collective, the general attitude.

In the general attitude, we say there are all kinds of changes. The changes in the collective bring us changes that we call day, night, evening, morning, or holidays, such as the giving of the Torah, the beginning of the year, the Day of Atonement. These are general changes with respect to the soul, to that specific individual, that particular soul.

And that’s why Baal HaSulam says that there are times that are called “giving of the Torah” that seemingly operate on everyone. It’s like a wave, a general wave that the whole of humanity is experiencing. Of course, everyone feels that general wave according to their own preparation. Some feel that there is a great change in the whole of humanity while some feel it less and some don’t feel it at all, all this according to their level of sensitivity.

Where do these waves come from? These waves don’t come from the Light. The Light is at rest . But in the general correction that all the souls experience, after they go through some correction, standing opposite the Light or even against the Light, something within them changes. Then again, in a time of bestowal, there is still the comparison of one against the other and so again, something changes in the souls.

That’s how we say that there are days and nights, what we call times, in which there is a weekday and the Shabbat and the holidays and the beginning of the month, etc. All come from within the Kelim, not from the Light. It is because of gradual, periodical, sequential changes in the general cycle (See Drawing No.1).

Therefore, if one marches on a path where the Lo Lishma will bring him the Lishma, he marches on the path of truth. Then one should hope that he will eventually be rewarded with achieving Lishma, and will be awarded the reception of the Torah.

Yet, caution is required, to constantly keep the goal before one’s eyes, or he will march on an opposite line, as the root of the body is reception for itself. Thus, it always draws to its root, which is reception in order to receive, the opposite of the Torah, called “the tree of life.” This is why the body considers the Torah “the potion of death.”

These are very tough things. The truth is, how can a person correct himself to equivalence of form with the Light, to the complete attribute of bestowal if he is opposite from it? Where will he take the strength? He can take the strength only from the same Light that created him and changed him, made all those changes in him until it broke him. And now the person uses only that One Force that exists in reality to correct himself. But he himself chooses how to use the force of the Light. There is nothing else besides the desire and the Light.

So a person chooses: “how do I manage the whole process of changes in me? In favor of what do I use the Light? Is it in order to identify with it, to bond with it, or to finance the pleasure of my egoistic desires? A person is given the possibility to use the Light either this or that way. Of course, it is forbidden to use the Light to fulfill the ego, but if we do, by that we cause harm to ourselves and to all the souls.

How can we use the Light? What kind of connection do we have when we are not in contact with it, when we are not in equivalence of form with it or have no hold of it? So how can we use it? There is something called “holy books.” Those are texts written by Kabbalists that depict our corrected situationinthe state of Adam ha Rishon. That is, Kabbalists describe the corrected states.

Actually who are those Kabbalists? Kabbalists are those same souls who have corrected themselves and are in that corrected system. And they take the Light from the outside, and transfer it through them to the rest of the souls again and again, to the rest of the souls, and so on, and in this way help them. Actually, these souls don’t feel it right now, but that’s how the Kabbalists act (See Drawing No 1).

How do they transfer the Light to the souls? They write books. They can’t inject Light into us, because where will we be, then? We have to correct ourselves by ourselves. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have free choice, we wouldn’t have our own independent existence. So Kabbalists write books and in these books they describe their own state, how they feel themselves in a corrected way. When we, who should also at some point in the future be in this corrected form, read about it, we stir up within us Kelim that are a little closer to that corrected state.

A corrupted Kli seemingly fantasizes about how to be corrected, like a child who reads a book about a pilot and wants to be a pilot too. So that’s what the books do. The Kabbalists write about the corrected reality so that we’ll be drawn to that reality. How? By wanting that reality, we awaken upon ourselves the influence of the Light. We bring ourselves closer to the Light. That’s the effect of the study.

Now the question is this: When I want to get closer to the Light, let’s say I want to be a pilot, do I want it for my own good or for someone else’s good? In other words, according to my ego or according to the Light? For what reason do I want to be greater, closer to the Light: to draw the Light into me or to draw me into the Light? That is the question, actually.

And this is why one who wants to reach equivalence of form with the Light, when engaging in the Torah should constantly understand and think and be accountable to himself why he does that. Does he want to reach equivalence with the Light or does he wants to enjoy for himself?

It is written in the Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot in items 25-30 that in the beginning they didn’t allow the study of Torah, just like it wasn’t given to the nations of the world. Why? Because you can engage in the Torah, you can draw the Lights only in order to come closer to the Light and not for any other purpose. That’s the whole reason for the concealment of the Torah.

The Torah means Kabbalah books that describe spirituality for us. All the other books have been written during the exile for people who lived only during the exile. But prior to the exile and after the exile, they engaged only in spirituality, in the wisdom of Kabbalah. Therefore, those who take holy books, the wisdom of Kabbalah, the books of Kabbalah, (“holy” means separate from this world, “saint” means Above this world) those people should, first of all, think what is their purpose.

That’s what it says: “If a person is walking on a way with “ Lo Lishma” and it brings him to “ Lishma” (meaning, that he wants to reach from his ego to bestowal), then he is treading the path of truth.” And then his Torah , meaning what he does, brings him to the Light. And to the contrary, if he wants to gain by himself, it brings him to such darkness that he won’t even understand that he is in darkness. And that’s what happens with several people who don’t understand how to study Torah correctly.

And then, when he progresses and studies it from three to five years (the condition there being that he has to give sufficient effort in it), then he is awarded the reception of the Torah. It means the Light operated on him enough and he wanted to resemble the Light in such a way that he became similar to the Light in the smallest level in Aviut Shoresh. And this is called “the disclosure of the Torah ” or “the revelation of his Godliness” or “the reception of the Torah,” the revelation of the Torah. It doesn’t matter how you put it.

So now, since we are right before the holidays, it’s very good to study together, to be together, because then we use an addition, because there is a general awakening in a nation and in the group. So besides the personal awakening, we add to it the general awakening and then we can enjoy much more of the Light that Reforms.

Question: You said before that the more the ego grows, the greater the number of souls that should be in the world. [Rav Laitman: to have a weight, so to speak, that each one can overcome.] What about the East where the ego grows by the billions? Their ego will inflate, and there will be a complete explosion in the world.

First of all, I don’t see any disaster in it, and I don’t think that we should worry about that. We have to worry about corrections of every person and in general of the whole world. We shouldn’t care about the number of people or what happens in these inanimate Kelim of ours. What does it matter? There is nothing to correct in this world and there is nothing to worry about. It’s a result of what happens in the spiritual world, in the spiritual degree, where all the forces or operatives come from.

So what do you care if you have another billion Chinese or more or less? Will that make any difference about what happens here? Why should I even think about what happens here? Here I should think only about one thing—dissemination of the wisdom of Kabbalah. There is nothing more to do in this world. Everything else is a direct result of the descent of the forces from Above. Dissemination of Kabbalah to everyone here can enable us to interfere (so to speak) with how we are treated from Above. And we shouldn’t worry about anything else.

We shouldn’t care about how the desire grows in the Chinese. I want to care about how to bring the wisdom of Kabbalah to those who can use it to correct themselves in this world. And according to the measure of equivalence of form, the attributes with spirituality, one will affect spirituality. And all of us will begin to rise for the reception of the Torah and the disclosure of the Upper Force and the life, the spiritual, the eternal existence. That’s what we have to worry about, because that’s the process we go through. Everything else we go through is completely superficial.

We have no possibility to determine anything about it. We should open our eyes, senses and intellect and see that all through our history, humanity couldn’t affect anything. Everything happens according to some law, by some balance of powers that we don’t understand and can’t affect. So why should we worry, “Oh boy, what will happen if we have another billion Chinese?” What will that give me, that worry, if it’s not up to me? It depends on the balance of forces between the ego that appears in this world and the Upper Light that stands opposite it. So we should concentrate our influence where we make a difference.

Here in Israel, we understand well enough (well, we don’t understand, but we have enough clear proof) that in any ordinary way that we want to relate to life, we do not affect our lives. We don’t. You see how everything happens and what happens. Everyone works out of his own ego from the simplest person to the prime minister and that’s all that appears. So we should worry only about the correction.

Question: You said before that we can’t want to bestow, so how do you intend to bestow? How do you aim yourself toward bestowal?

When I said that we are not capable of wanting to bestow, it is because there is no such thing as wanting to bestow. I cannot want to be in a different quality than I am in right now, because what I am now is my desire. How can I want to be in a different desire than the one that I’m in? It’s impossible. It’s a contradiction in terms. This is why we have a means called Light, which I draw, and I draw this Light according to my attributes. It operates on me in order to bring me closer to its own degree.

This act is called a game. It’s like a child who grows. He does all kinds of nonsense. But by that he grows and becomes very smart. He doesn’t engage in real things. He wants to be a pilot. Does he know what it means to be a pilot? He doesn’t. But he does all kinds of things and through this nonsense that he does, he gets there. Why does he get there? Because nature arranged these forces and degrees of our descent from spirituality to corporeality, in case we want to move upward from below to any higher degree. As we ascend, it is enough to want that lie which seems to us like a higher degree while we are in the lower degree. That’s enough. From there, the Light operates and affects us.

Why? Because here I am at a certain high degree and here I am at a low degree. I don’t know what happens to me from one degree to another. There is some descent that affected me coercively. In my ascent, I can only express my corrupted desire, and that’s enough to ascend.

I wasn’t the one to corrupt myself; it’s enough for me to want, from within my corruption, in a corrupted form, to see myself above and then it happens. Because I didn’t make the corruption, but I should have the Light that affects me, the Torah, the Light that Reforms. With my corrupted desire I can transcend even though I can never really want my higher state, the one that I will end up in. I picture it in a false way, and I rise to the real form.

And that’s why it is called “I labored and found.” I’ll get there. Yes, I want to be a pilot. But once I get there, it’s nothing like what I dreamed of. I dreamed of flying, and what did I get when I reached there? So many rules, so many regulations, such hard work. I’m completely limited by everything I thought that I would be. I worked in the squadron. So I know that it is nothing like one dreams of.

So that’s the remedy of the Light that reforms. And this is why we have a problem. The one who engages in that means called Torah not in order to correct oneself, meaning to be according to the Light, he becomes more egoistic, more blind. He doesn’t understand his situation. He thinks what he does is right. He doesn’t see that his ego is growing even though it becomes egoistic. He just falls into darkness.

That’s why it says, “that’s what the land was angry at.” To begin with, it is forbidden to engage in the Torah at all and draw the Light if it’s not for correction. That’s why he says in item seventeen in Introduction toTalmud Eser Sefirot “therefore, the student pledges prior to the study to strengthen himself in his faith in the Creator.”

So before you study, you have to be ready to learn in order to reach faith. Faith is called “the force of bestowal,” to reach bestowal. You want to identify with the Light. Bestowal is its nature. Otherwise, you come to the situation that we have come to today, in the people of Israel. Well, that was at the time of the exile. There were reasons for it—to discover our real state. But now, at the last level we must no longer engage only in this kind of study. Otherwise, we will discover our state opposite the Light in such a way that it will bring us to destruction.