When we are attracted to someone, we are immediately filled with joy, even without actual intercourse with that person. As in corporeal love, so is the case with love for the Creator. But in order to prevent us from being satisfied with mere desiring, the Creator makes us feel that our situation is a low one, lacking unity. If the Creator hadn’t done that, we would be satisfied with pleasures of desiring, without actually attaining anything. The feeling of lowness added to the desire for the Creator forces us to rise to the spiritual coupling and enjoy the unification with the Creator.
Question: Can one attain the spiritual coupling by oneself?
Answer: Our sages said, “Time will do what the mind does not.” And as Baal HaSulam interprets it: “Time is a sum of situations that eventuate from one another by way of cause and effect, such as days, months and years (Talmud Eser Sefirot, part 1, Questions and Answers, Answer 16). The Creator sums up and gathers all the situations that he brings to man. He shakes man up by unpleasant incidents and situations, until there is enough torment to create a desire for the loved one, and needed tension to create a spiritual coupling.
That is why the soul descends from the upper world to this world and dresses in a body to incarnate in this world, so as to return to the root from which it came, and cling to it again. But the soul cannot attain eternal adhesion in one cycle; it has to do it in phases.
Before the soul dressed in a body, it was joined with the Creator. That adhesion has to exist despite the obstructions of the body, while in this world. This includes both corporeal and spiritual obstructions. Man must correct his body, meaning not feel the obstructions as such, but as necessary help for connection with the Creator.
It is precisely because one feels the obstructions and tries to struggle with them in a heroic battle, that one increases one’s desire for the Creator – so that one can unite with him in the same power and intensity before the soul was clothed in a body. It is the number of the connections and separations from the Creator, when man struggles to maintain and strengthen the contact with the Creator, which deepens the adhesion between them.
There is always contact between man and the Creator, but in order to give us the possibility to show his love for us, the Creator places an obstruction that is called the “body” – the desire for every pleasure possible, apart from the Creator. Man must gradually uproot this obstruction, thought by thought. Meaning, we must recognize the fact that each pleasure that distracts our mind from the desire to the Creator is a bad one. As a result of one’s struggle with obstructions, there is a new feeling toward the loved one after each obstruction.
The Creator counts everything he does to us, and when the right amount is reached, and when we earnestly desire for adhesion with the Creator, with all our strength, non stop, only then comes the moment of adhesion.
It is only then that we can justify what the Creator sends us, from the lowest situations to the highest spiritual acts. Only then does one feel that everything that happened to him, was because of the Creator’s love for him and his desire to unite with us. That, in turn, creates in the creature a never-ending and unlimited love for the Creator.
But as long as the soul is not filled with light, the sensation of sadness increases as he approaches, because his desire is not yet satisfied. Because of that he feels torments and tortures as much to the extent that he yearns for adhesion. In the beginning of each situation, a person must situate himself correctly toward everything that happens to him. First he must obtain the feeling that there is “me” and there is everything around “me.” Then he must realize that the pressure that he feels from his environment has a purpose, and finally decide that the environment is an upper force that acts wisely and with a feeling and intent, with a predefined purpose and plan. The Creator knows what he does and why, whereas you do not. All you have to do is recognize the fact that it is all done in your favor.
The Creator and the creature strain to renew the connection between them. Man tries to see that every situation comes from the Creator; hence the Creator keeps sending him new thoughts, usually in the form of obstacles. For each new thought that comes, man should conclude that he received it from the Creator in order to attain the goal of adhesion with the Creator.
Man must look for the good, the eternal and perfect about the adhesion with the Creator. He must look for it specifically in the Creator, because that is where our soul comes from. Only when it is there with the Creator, can it be fulfilled.
We should detect that there is “I” and “he” and there is the incident, meaning what happens between us, is in everything that happens. The Creator creates situations with the intention of bringing me to contact him. At first, they are only thoughts. But afterwards they become feelings and sensations. In the end, we will find that the entire body, meaning all the desires, the thoughts, the entire spiritual and corporeal systems, and all the worlds will no longer be concealed. They will no longer be screens and obstacles between man and the Creator. You will feel that the obstructions, concealments, and the entire system called body, will become an inner system for you, and will intensify your connection with the Creator, because that is its purpose – unification, not separation. Know, that all the worlds are inside man, though at the moment you feel them as external. However, this is only a result of the corruption of our vessels.
We learn that the innermost part of the Partzuf (the soul) is the root, called “the root of the soul.” Then there are outer layers, which are called (from inside out): Neshama (soul), Guf (body), Levush (dressing/clothing), Heichal (temple, palace); or Adam, Levush, Bait, Hatzer, Midbar (Adam, dressing, house, yard, and desert, respectively). Thus we see that spiritual attainment is always attained gradually. Our current image of reality is a consequence of the second restriction, where a part of the vessels, the desires of the soul, went ‘out of order’, meaning they stopped being inner vessels and became external ones, which are forbidden for use.
These external vessels - Bait, Hatzer, Midbar, create the sensation of an outer world in us. Everything we perceive as ‘external,’ will become ‘internal’ at the end of correction, when these desires are corrected and the world as we know it will vanish.
Baal HaSulam writes in the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, that all the worlds exist inside us. At the end of correction, the whole world will ‘enter’ us; the substance of the world will become inner substance, over which man will feel the presence of the Creator.
The most important thing is to maintain contact with the Creator at all times and in all places, even in the lowest degree. Baal HaSulam also writes that the greatest punishment for man is the detachment from the thought of the Creator, even for a moment, because that disconnects man from the source of life.
Question: Why is it that strengthening the connection with the Creator can only be done through obstructions?
Answer: The connection with the Creator can only be strengthened through obstructions, because when a person feels good he becomes addicted to that feeling, and forgets to think about the origin of the feeling. But when he feels bad, he immediately begins to search for the source of the bad, in order to abolish it.
At first, the Creator purposely sends us sensations of fear, insecurity, shortage and lack. But this is just the first part of the process, where the nearing is done coercively. We approach the Creator only in order to overcome those negative feelings. But after some time man begins to want the Creator independently, until he comes to a situation that he ‘cannot sleep’, because he is ‘love sick.’ It is a state of corporeal-egoistic love, meaning – for himself. That is precisely the situation we should come to; it is called Lo Lishma (not for her name).
We are advancing in such a way that this entire Lo Lishma, called the “time of preparation,” below the barrier and right before we attain spirituality, is essential in order to increase the desires, the vessels of selfish desire for the Creator. Only then comes the opposite operation, the passage from Lo Lishma, to Lishma (for her name), from egoism to altruism, from the will to receive to the will to give.
Question: But what if I still can’t feel the Creator clearly?
Answer: If you still can’t feel the Creator, at the very least you can think about him. If one cannot even think about him, then man is not responsible for what happens to him, meaning he is still not in the degree of preparation where the Creator already awakens him to contact him. But if there is a thought, it is the beginning of the way for you to work with that thought. The primary obstacle is to learn not to lose the rope. It is a great deal of work, an inner effort that we constantly have to make, and it is the only thing we should concern ourselves with.
Afterwards, it becomes clear that in fact, there is indeed nothing but the thought of the Creator. As Baal HaSulam says, “everything that happens, everything around you, with you and without you, everything that happens inside you, in your thoughts and attributes, everything you feel in your mind and heart toward yourself or toward your surrounding, from the smallest details to the greatest, from the atom to the galaxies and the entire universe, it ALL happens so that you will strengthen your contact with the Creator.”
Those who seek an open contact with the ‘giver’, with the Creator, advance toward the goal. But their inner efforts promote not only them, but also the entire creation. Baal HaSulam explains it in the Introduction to the Zohar (See appendix 2 “From the Sources” in the article about Internality and Externality).
Question: How can reality change because of this inner work?
Answer: Reality changes, because if one strengthens one’s contact with the Creator, there will no longer be a need for pain; the very same pains that are ‘initiated’ from above. Thus, the external circumstances will change. The only purpose of the troubles is to intensify our contact with the Creator, though people search to change their reality through charms or blessings.
If the rule is that the individual is ‘squeezed to the bone’ by the Creator in order to obtain the connection with him, because this is the aid and the calling which the creature receives from the Creator, then to many others, the Creator relates differently: he settles for slowly and egoistically tuning them toward him. It might be described in the following way: the individual is at the top of the pyramid and the majority is at the bottom of it, and because of that they are treated differently. Also, the individual develops the aim, while the masses join their collective desire to him. That is why their work is so different, though they are both a part of the thought of creation.
People do not understand how changes in the world occur. But the torments they suffer make them search subconsciously for an upper power, and pray to it because there is no one else to rely on. That prayer, that earthy still prayer, works. Even the land of Israel was given to us because we searched and prayed, though it all took place in our unconscious. And so it happens today: using the torments, the Creator puts us in a no-win situation, and corners us until we actually start looking for an alternative planet to live on, but it will not be found, except in the Creator.
Question: Why did the Creator bring his people to corporeality instead of to spirituality, to the corporeal land of Israel, rather then to the spiritual one?
Answer: The return to Israel was a result of a prayer that was lying in our subconscious and was a result of the pain and suffering; we were praying for our own place. If we only add to our prayer a little bit of understanding that all this happens for a certain purpose, then our prayer, the prayer of the unsatisfied mass, would be aimed correctly and a new solution would rise on a different level, a spiritual one. And because spirituality is the reason behind corporeality, the new circumstances will descend to our world and change the processes that unfold here.
Question: But why is killing, disease and torment such a substantial part of man’s life?
Answer: Life abides by the law that says that everything must return to its root.
The Creator is a collective law, that relates to the situation we’re in. It stands above all other emotions and relationships. According to the Kabbalah, there is only one law: the law of “equivalence of form” which strives for total bonding. All the situations from the beginning of creation to its end are included in that state of bonding. The complete state of bonding is defined as complete and dominates all the other specific situations. That is why it is possible to say that in fact, that final situation is the only one that actually exists. All the other situations stand below it and exist only in our transitory feelings, according to how corrected we are. The highest place is where the soul is cleaved to (in adhesion with) the Creator. If one is in a lower degree than that, whether it is in the spiritual or corporeal world, then that law of unification, the law of equivalence of attributes, draws one to return to one’s root, coercively, in a power that changes according to one’s distance from the purpose of creation. It is like a piece of metal in a magnetic field, or an electric charge in an electric field, or an object under the influence of gravity. If there is no equivalence of forces between the body and the field, that law works to bring him back to a state of balance, a state of equality with the field, the origin of the field.
When the soul is disconnected from its contact with the Creator, the root, and descends to a body and the egoistic desires of our world, it feels this detachment as an obstruction, as clothing called “body.” This body is not the physical body, but a collection of desires, inner desires, which separate us from the root. These obstructions were formed during the detachment of the soul from its root. They are rungs she climbed down on and became coarser (more egoistic). Hence, neutralizing these obstructions, these attributes, can be done by bringing the soul back to its root. And there is only one way to neutralize this egoism – if we FEEL that it is the obstruction.
Question: How can I feel it?
Answer: It is precisely through disease, destruction, and merciless fear of death that knows no favors. It is the one law. If Einstein would want to find a formula that connects the entire universe and all the worlds, then it is this law; this formula of drawing toward the center by equivalence of attributes that is the answer.
It is not that we should aspire to perform only this law of equivalence of attributes, for we cannot change our inner traits, but we should only want to change everything inside us according to that law. We should want that law to exist even if we could cancel it, to the point, that even if it did not exist, we would still do it the exact same way. This is called “agreeing with the law.”
The way up is always according to the principle of “Above Reason,” meaning above the mind. This is the only way we can adopt higher qualities, ones that we still do not posses. There is no example in our world for such a process, because our mind cannot attain the mind of the Creator, the upper mind. All we can do is develop the mind we already have.
But in the spiritual world there is a switch: man’s mind is replaced with that of the Creator. It is a slow and gradual process. In each degree a person gets an additional portion of the mind of the Creator, to use instead of his own. That is why in every degree, a person should get rid of his own mind, and take in its place the mind of the Creator. In order to help us, the Creator sends us an image of the world that we cannot understand with our mind; we cannot accept or justify it and see it as a picture that comes from the Creator in order to benefit us. The Creator sends us a picture that was created by the mind of the adjacent degree; the one we should rise to.
In other words, the discrepancy between that and the current image of the world our mind creates, lets us understand that the events unfold according to the mind of the Creator and our own. Thus, a person realizes that he has no choice but to change his mind, so that he can agree with the picture of the world that spreads before him.
A person who progresses this way is called “righteous” because his means of advancement is to correct himself in such a way that he can justify (think that the Creator is “right”) in every situation. A righteous person is one who thinks that the Creator is right.
If one is aware of the fact that when he feels dissatisfaction with his life, he in fact, curses the Creator in his heart, then that dissatisfaction with life is tantamount to dissatisfaction with the origin of life. It hurts him that he has to curse the Creator, and then he asks for one thing only: the power to justify the Creator in every situation.