Topics examined in this lesson:
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Spirituality vs. Corporeality
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Vessel Correction
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The Revelation of the Desire To Receive
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The Ari Method Arranged by Baal HaSulam
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The Creation in the Eyes of the Kabbalist
All sacred scriptures describe the feelings that a man is expected to live out. The message is always the same: that we are to prefer spirituality to the lures of the material world, and to praise the Creator.
The Creator does not stand in need of our praises, because He is totally devoid of egoism.
The only thing He wishes is to fill each one of us with delight. This is proportionate to our desire to choose Him amongst all other things, and to our aspirations to achieve attributes similar to His.
The glorification of the Creator is an indication of the correct orientation of the Kli. The delights from bonding with the Creator can become infinite, eternal, perfect and are only restricted by the intervening of a person’s egoism.
Altruism is a specific attribute, a means of correcting the Kli. Egoism does not bring any good, worthwhile thing. It is plain to see: the more people have, the more likely they are not to be satisfied. The most developed countries often have an alarming rate of suicides amongst young and old.
One may give everything to a person; this often results in a lack of feeling for the simple tastes of life.
Taste is sensed only when suffering and pleasure come into contact. The fulfillment of a pleasure leads to the quenching of the desire to receive it.
The Creator’s commandment to change the egoistic nature of the Kli into an altruistic one, is given for our benefit, not for His own sake.
The present condition of man is called Olam Azeh (This World), but its next condition is Olam Haba (World to Come). A world is what one feels at a present moment, the next, elevated perceived feeling leads to the perception of a new world.
Each student, even if he attended a short course in Kabbalah and then walked away, would still receive something that would keep on living inside him.
Each one of us feels unconsciously what the most important thing in life is.
People are all different. Some were born smarter and are quicker. Such people often gain success in business and in society. They become wealthy and begin to exploit others.
Some people are born lazy, they grow and develop slowly, they are not very lucky. Some might even work harder than the smart ones, but get little in return.
We are not able to assess in this world the efforts of a person, as they depend on a great number of inner qualities that men are born with.
There are no devices that could measure the inner, moral efforts of a man, nor the physical ones.
The Baal HaSulam, Rabbi Y. Ashlag, writes that approximately ten percent of people in this world are so-called altruists. These are people who receive delight from giving.
Just as an egoist may kill for not receiving, such an “altruist” may kill for not being able to give. Giving is just a means of receiving delight for him.
Such people are, in a way, egoists as well, because their intention is to receive something as a result of their bestowal.
Naturally they also have to undergo correction. With regards to the spiritual they are all the same. They have to go a long way in order to grasp the inherent evil in their not being genuine altruists. This is the period in which they realize they are egoists.
The “coarser,” the more egoistic a man is, the closer he is to seizing the opportunity to move on to spirituality. His egoism is as mature, as it is enormous.
Now, one further step is required, to realize that this egoism is evil to man himself. He must then plead with the Creator to change his intention from “receiving for one’s sake” to “receiving for the sake of the Creator.”
The attribute of shame appears in Malchut of the Ein Sof, when it realizes what Keter, Behina Shoresh is like. It is the sensation of the sharp contrast existing between the Light and itself.
Malchut itself does not perceive the Light, only the attributes and properties which are awakened in it by the Light.
Light itself does not possess any attributes. Those attributes that Malchut feels are the result of the influence that the Light has upon it.
All the reactions of the human organism are useful and necessary, whether we speak about the spiritual or material organism.
It is considered that all diseases are the reaction of the organism in order to maintain a state of balance.
Assume that a man has a fever. His organism produces a high temperature to kill germs, to protect itself. This reaction is always perceived not as an unhealthy condition of the organism, but as an outer manifestation, a reaction to an inner process.
That is why it is wrong to kill the symptoms of the diseases, i.e. to neutralize the reaction of the organism.
Our egoism is very clever. If there are any desires impossible to satisfy, it suppresses them in order not to bring needless suffering.
However, the moment certain conditions arise, these desires resurface.
The above is true for even a weak, ill or old person, who does not have any special desires except one: to remain alive. The organism suppresses the desires that are not to be fulfilled.
The evolution of the world is divided into the four stages of Ohr Yashar, when Behina Alef turned to Bet, Bet to Gimel and so on.
But when Malchut of the Ein Sof was formed, it absorbed all the desires of the upper Sefirot, which live in Malchut and do not change in any way.
The fact that other worlds were formed later on does not bear witness to changing desires, but to evolving intentions.
Depending on the intention, different desires are activated. But the desires themselves do not change. Nothing new that was not there previously is created.
It is the same with the thoughts that came to us today, but not yesterday. They were there before, but yesterday they were concealed from us.
Everything is in a latent state inside of man, and there is a time for the unfolding of each action. Nothing new is created.
It is impossible to transform two different things into one another. For example to change inorganic nature into organic, or beings of the vegetative kingdom into members of the animal one, etc.
The intermediate classes do exist, for example, halfway between the vegetative and animal worlds, i.e. the corals of the sea. Between vegetative and animal we may find a living organism feeding on the soil.
The ape is located halfway between the animal and human realm of existence. It cannot be a complete animal, but neither will it ever be a human being.
The only transformation that may occur is when a divine spark draws man to the spiritual and fosters the desire to attain, to reach for something higher.
At this stage then, this two-legged creature becomes a true man. There are only very few men that may be called “man” from the Kabbalistic point of view.
The development of science and technology is bound to reach an eventual deadlock and make us come to the conclusion that that is not the main goal. But first of all this state of deadlock needs to be reached.
Kabbalists have always organized groups of students. Under no circumstances are the students to be ranked or distinguished according to their desire to study.
Man is created with certain desires beforehand, and nobody knows why he is created that way and why his desires are displayed in a particular way.
Ranking and selection in a group takes place naturally before a permanent group is constituted.
Nobody, except for Haim Vital, understood the Ari properly. The Ari, Rabbi Isaac Luria, lived in the mid 16th century and taught in Safed.
It is known that Haim Vital undertook to study by following the new method worked out by the Ari. There were already great Kabbalists in the group of the Ari, but he nevertheless transmitted everything to Haim Vital exclusively.
The way a master in Kabbalah teaches depends on the type of souls which descend to this world.
Prior to the Ari, there were other systems of teaching, other methods. Following the disclosure of the Ari’s methods, it is possible for everybody to study; only a genuine desire is required.
The Baal HaSulam, Rabbi Y. Ashlag, did not modify the system of the Ari, he only extended it. He gave more detailed commentaries on the books of the Ari and the Zohar.
It is in this way that those in our generation who want to study Kabbalah and draw themselves closer to the spiritual realm may understand the inner essence of the studied material, and may establish analogies when reading the Bible (The Five Books of Moses, the Prophets and the Scriptures).
The souls that entered this world prior to the Ari perceived the spiritual as purely extrinsic. After the Ari’s death, souls began to descend, and they studied and analyzed themselves and the spiritual world by means of a spiritual and scientific method.
This is the reason why the books issued before the Ari, are written in a narration format.
The books subsequent to the Ari’s teaching, e.g. the Study of the Ten Sefirot, are written using the language of Behinot (Phases), the Sefirot and the Olamot (Worlds). It is a psychological engineering, a scientific approach to the soul.
For a great Kabbalist there is no reason to be engaged in the sciences of our world, to carry out different experiments and discoveries.
He may provide all the explanations from the point of view of the Kabbalah, because it is the source of all sciences.
Each science possesses its own language. If the Kabbalist is not a scientist he will not be able to describe different phenomena using the required scientific terminology.
The Kabbalist perceives the true laws of the Universe, which are the foundation of the material and spiritual essence of all things.
In what language might he write the correlation between two objects? And what are the relations between spiritual objects? How can he describe the spiritual force which holds this entire world together?
No specific formula in this world can convey all this. In the spiritual world, the Kabbalist may be able to pass on all his perceptions, though how can these perceptions be made available to the layman?
Even if it were possible to somehow narrate, nothing could be applied to our world until man changes his egoistic nature.
If people could modify their attributes to a higher level, they would be able to communicate amongst themselves in a spiritual language and perform spiritual deeds.
Each person receives and suffers according to the level on which he stands. To rise to a spiritual level, a Screen (Masach) is required and this is no easy task.
Man, as it were, is trapped inside a vicious circle from which he cannot escape. He thus ignores what is beyond it.
This is why Kabbalah is called a secret science for those who do not know about its workings.
In his Introduction to the Book of the Zohar the Kabbalist Baal HaSulam talks about the four degrees of knowledge: (i) substance, (ii) form clothed in substance, (iii) abstract form and (iv) essence.
Science may only study substance and substance with a form. Form without substance is a purely abstract conception and does not lend itself to accurate analysis. The last, essence, which is what animates objects and triggers reactions, is unknowable.
The same applies to the spiritual world. Even a great Kabbalist may, while studying something spiritual, perceive substance and its makeup, in whichever form, though never the form without a substance.
Thus, in the spiritual dimension, there is also a limit to our knowledge of the Universe.
Finally, when a Kabbalist reaches a certain required level, he receives a present from Above, and the secrets of the Universe are disclosed to him.