In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Now the earth was unformed and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters. And God said: 'Let there be light.' And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
Bereshit (Genesis), the first chapter in the Torah (Pentateuch) starts with these words. They evoke a certain picture. We have heard various interpretations of these words at the level of Peshat (literal meaning). However, these simple interpretations leave a tremendous amount of questions; they lack logic and a scientific approach. Kabbalists explain this as follows:
All sacred books talk about only the spiritual world, the way it was created, and how later our world was created from it. Moreover, these books do not just relate to what exists but also they teach a person to be able to see that world.
Gradual revelation of the Upper world is called the spiritual ascent of a person, or rungs of the spiritual elevation. Several techniques are used in the books to describe the spiritual world. Kabbalah is the science about the structure of the Upper world; it uses the language of Sefirot, Partzufim, graphs, and drawings to describe it. The Torah describes the Upper world using everyday language. There is also the allegorical language and the language of laws. Now, we will try to translate the language of the Torah into Kabbalistic language.
The Torah describes the emergence of the Upper world, its structure and evolution and then it depicts the process of our creation. But this is not a person of our world. The Torah talks about the creation of the will to receive (called the Soul or Adam) with the goal to fill this creation-desire-soul with eternal and absolute delight. This desire to delight is the only creation. Besides it there is only the Creator. Thus everything besides the Creator is nothing but various measures of the desire to delight.
The same thing happens in our world. The only thing that separates all objects from each other is the different amount of the desire to delight, which determines all properties of each object. The desire to delight consists of five levels, and these five parts of desire-creation are called the Sefirot: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Tifferet, and Malchut. The Creator wishes to completely fill creation with pleasure until creation senses perfection and eternity. This is because the Creator Himself exists in this particular state, and wishes to bestow it to us.
The Creator is perfect and the only one. Being perfect, He wishes to bestow perfection, His own condition to His creatures. This is why the goal of creation is to reach the Creator's perfection, and to be able to receive that which the Creator wants to give.
Kabbalah does not deal with the events in our world. It researches the events in the Upper world, from where all the powers descended into our world and generated and instigated all that happens here. By learning Kabbalah, a person starts seeing the Upper world. A person is able to attain the Creator and the way He created the spiritual world. In Kabbalah, this act is called "The First day of Creation". In His subsequent actions (so called subsequent days), the Creator made governing forces of the Upper world. The last, sixth, act of the Creator (the sixth day of creation) was making of Adam.
Since Adam was the final act of the Creator, he is the purpose of entire creation. Everything created prior to him was created for him. So what is Adam’s destiny? Adam must attain similarity with the Creator, become completely equal to Him, and himself rule over the entire existence and his own destiny. What's more, we are obliged to reach this highest and perfect state on his own. To reach it on his own means that first we have to reach the worst state (opposite the state of the Creator), and after rise from it on our own accord.
With the help of Kabbalah, a person sees both worlds - our world and the Upper world - as well as the interaction between them. The information emanates from the Upper world and realizes into matter before our eyes. Our reaction to this (which descends from above in the form of information), rises back to the Upper world and determines in which way (good or bad) our future will descend and materialize. Hence, the Creator (existing at the utmost level), created creation from the property opposite to Him. He filled it with the light, and later by emptying it of the light, lowered it down to the condition of "our world".
By ascending the rungs of the spiritual ladder, creation becomes worthy of receiving the delight that is many times bigger than it had before descending to this world. Moreover, creation must have the strength and opportunity to act freely between two opposite forces, its own egoism and the Creator, and then to independently choose and its path.
To place these conditions at creation's disposal, the Creator has to do the following:
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Completely distance creation from Himself
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Provide it with an opportunity to evolve and attain this Existence,
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Provide it with an opportunity of free choice
The Creator gives us such conditions gradually. Initially creation, sensing the Creator (filled with the light) is not independent. It is completely suppressed by the light and the light dictates to creation its own rules and transfers it its qualities. In order to make creation independent from the Creator, He must distance Himself completely. In other words, creation, freeing itself from the light, gains freedom of action. The act of expulsion of light from the spiritual Kli (vessel) is called the Restriction.
The Torah starts with the words "at the beginning" (Bereshit), which is the beginning of the process of the Creator's distancing from creation. The word "Bereshit" originates from the words "Bar" – "outside". That is, it recounts the exit from the Creator into a separate condition, between heaven and earth. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Heaven is Sefira Bina with its altruistic properties. Earth is Sefira Malchut with its earthly, egoistic properties. In between these two polar properties, which give the basis for the entire system of existence, hovers our soul.
The Torah starts with birth of creation, the Upper world and making of man. It does not start with the end of creation. The function of the Torah is to give people of this world the instruction on how to rise to the best most perfect state. In its initial state, creation (the soul or Adam) is not corrected. It must correct itself and to reach the state of "Final Correction". Imagine that you have a broken work tool which you need for work. It follows that first you have to fix it, and use it only afterwards. So the Torah instructs us how to fix this broken instrument: the soul we received from above.
During the correction, a person exists in between two worlds: upper and lower. In the process of correction, the soul obtains the necessary skills, knowledge, and experience. Most importantly, a person acquires new sensations and new, spiritual properties. When a person corrects his soul completely, he acquires properties which allow him to exist in Upper world in its full entirety; in eternity, peace, and perfection.
Neither Kabbalistic sources, nor Torah describe this special state. It is impossible to describe it, for there are no analogues to it in our language. Only those who pass all the preliminary states of correction and reach the Final Correction attain this state. Whatever lies beyond the Final Correction is not described anywhere. This is exactly where the "The Secrets of the Torah" rest.
There are only a few hints in such books like "The Zohar" and Talmud. These special, secret states are called "Maase Merkava" and "Maase Bereshit". But these are only hints. In reality, these states, spiritual realms cannot be described in words, because our words, letters, and terms are taken from our system of Correction and are effective only there. We are completely unaware of that which exists beyond our system of Correction, and it cannot be transposed into a human language and squeezed into our system of definitions and beliefs.
“In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth” refers to making of two properties: egoism and altruism. The egoistic property of “earth gets corrected with the help of altruistic property of “heaven”. The correction process consists of seven states, called “seven days of creation”. Naturally, this is a conditional name. It has nothing to do with the seven days on earth; it does not refer to either day and night or light and darkness on earth. Rather, it refers to the spiritual states and spiritual sensations of a person who passes through these stages of correction. It talks about the system in which one’s soul is corrected while existing at the level called “earth”.
It is necessary to rise the soul from the level of Sefira Malchut to the level of Sefira Bina. This means that the egoistical property of Malchut has to be transformed into altruistic property of Bina. This can be achieved by the way of seven consecutive corrections called “seven days of the week”. The Torah explains what man we must do with our soul “each day”.
First Day
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Now the earth was unformed and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters. And God said: 'Let there be light.' And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
What does it mean: “and God divided the light from the darkness”? In our corrections we must follow the acts of the Creator. Therefore, the very first commandment we have to fulfill is to sort inside of ourselves our thoughts and desires in order to see which of them are pure – “heaven” and which are dark – “earth”. This process is called “Akarat haRa” (the realization of evil). This happens when from the study of Kabbalistic books and from the relationships in the Kabbalistic group we start analyzing our properties. Contrasting spiritual and animalistic properties against each other, and dividing and separating them from each other, is what constitutes the first step towards the correction. This is the first day of man creating a Human inside of himself.
Second Day
And God said: 'Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.' And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.
After we have separated inside of ourselves egoistic and altruistic properties, we need to begin to correct them. This is done by using the special light of the Creator, Who emanates two kinds of the light: the light of Hochma and the light of Hassadim. Using the property of the light of Hassadim (mercy), called “water”, we master the property of bestowal, altruism.
“Earth” is the egoistical property to receive and to absorb everything inside is our initial nature. Water is the property of bestowal, and it saturates the earth and creates an opportunity for life to appear. The property of bestowal corrects egoism and allows us to use it correctly, for personal benefit and for the benefit of others. In egoism, corrected by bestowal, one senses the Upper Word (the Creator) and sees his own previous lives and the path toward the purpose of creation. The soul is eternal and goes from body to body. Thus it is precisely where one sees of all his previous reincarnations. He who has not corrected his soul cannot behold anything above this world.
Third Day
And God said: 'Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear.' And it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters called He Seas; and God saw that it was good. And God said: 'Let the earth put forth grass, herb yielding seed, and fruit-tree bearing fruit after its kind, wherein is the seed thereof, upon the earth.' And it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, herb yielding seed after its kind, and tree bearing fruit, wherein is the seed thereof, after its kind; and God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.
The waters gathered together under the heaven and the dry land appeared. Part of the primordial Earth appears out of the waters. After the water corrects the earth, it becomes suitable for life to emerge, because the earth now contains both the properties of water, and the properties of Earth. The water itself is as devastating for life as dry land. Remember how Noah sent a dove from the ark to find dry ground. Precisely the right combination of altruistic and egoistic properties of “heaven” and “earth” inside of man's soul forms the basis for correction and the application of the properties of Creator inside of a human being.
This correction is called “Kav Emtzai” (the middle line). Our natural egoistic nature is called earth and represents the left line. The right line represents the properties of the Creator, that is, the properties of water, altruism, or bestowal. The middle line is precisely what a human being needs to achieve, that is, to “ choose life”. In other words, one has to take as much “water” as it is needed to combine it with the “earth” so that these two lines complement each other and yield fruit. From this combination of properties the earth bears the “The Tree of Life” which represents the spiritual person who is able to sense the entire creation and exists in all of the worlds happily and eternally.
We exist eternally because we identify ourselves with the eternal soul and not the ephemeral body. We start sensing ourselves as the soul, and perceive our body as a temporary shell. This transition towards identifying oneself with the soul instead of the body is purely psychological and occurs as man gains the property of Bina.
Fourth Day
And God said: 'Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth.' And it was so. And God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; and the stars. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.
On day four, the light in the firmament of heaven emerged to signify the change of the day and night, months, and years. Correction happens in even the tiniest part of the universe as well as in the entire universe in general. Creation, in its totality, is called Adam or the Soul; its components are called individual souls, or “Bnei Adam” (the sons of Adam). Each individual soul is subject to the same stages of correction as the common soul.
Fifth Day
And God said: 'Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let fowl fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.' And God created the great sea-monsters, and every living creature that creepeth, wherewith the waters swarmed, after its kind, and every winged fowl after its kind; and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying: 'Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.' And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.
The book of Zohar describes that each day is the erection of “Eichalot” (heavenly dwellings), the erection of emptiness (desire). As soul’s egoistical properties are corrected to altruistic, they are gradually filled with the Upper light. People who have experienced clinical death have in part sensed this Upper light, and later describe a special magical heavenly sensation of peace and joy. This gradual filling of empty spaces leads all the souls toward the state of final correction and perfection. There is no time in the Upper world as time disappears because all these states are perfect. The same goes for the narrative of the Torah: there is no separation of time and all the events are connected only through cause-and-effect-relationships. We will see that man was created on the sixth day and existed for just a few hours before committing a sin and falling into the lower world. With him fell the entire world.
Sixth Day
And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; … and God said unto them: … have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth.'
What does it mean “in His own image”? In the Torah “in His own image” is written as “Be Tselem Elokim Bara…”. “Tselem” signifies a part of Bina, which descends from Bina into the soul and imparts into the soul properties of Creator. In other words, Partzuf Bina represents the instrument of the Upper Governance, which commands all the souls, their ways, and order of correction. Everything that happens with us originates in Bina. Malchut is the collection of all the souls that need correction. To correct Malchut, a special instrument emanates from Bina. It penetrates Bina and allows her to correct. This self-help system, which the Malchut of each soul receives from above is called “Tzelem” – “image”. By this we mean a collection of properties, the Creator’s image.
Without having information about the program of creation, and without sensing the spiritual worlds, we do not know how to act, what steps to take. We are unable to understand what is required of us. For us to have these necessary means for advancement, the upper degree, Bina, has to teach us what we should do. This is what Tselem (the auxiliary instrument descending from Bina) does inside of us. It implants itself into our soul and summons all kinds of necessary corrections. Therefore it is said that Tselem helps to turn us into a Human.
On the seventh day man climbed higher and higher. He performed corrections inside of himself six times: Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod. These six consecutive corrections are called six days or six thousand years of creation. The last Sefira (i.e. Malchut) is not capable of correcting itself. However, after Malchut absorbs the properties of the six previous Sefirot, it is able to receive their properties. This is why the essence of the seventh day is that everything that was accumulated and created in the course of the six days enters Malchut. Saturday is considered to be a special day, because in this state the souls are filled with the upper light. The only condition is “not to hamper” this process, which is symbolically expressed in the laws of Shabbat.
Question: Is there a connection between seven days of creation and the years of spiritual chronology?
Yes, such a connection exists. For mankind, these seven days of creation pass by as six thousands years. Six thousands years are equivalent to the s ix days of the week (weekdays) during which mankind corrects itself, first, unconsciously and later consciously through their own work. Eventually, mankind reaches the seventh millennium, or the seventh day of Saturday. This is the state when the Upper Infinite Light of pleasure and abundance fills mankind's corrected properties.
Question: Does a number “seven” have some secret meaning?
The system that governs our world consists of seven parts. In our world we have many divisions into 7 or 70: seventy nations of the world, seven days of the week; man’s soul consists of seventy parts, man’s life is considered to be seventy years long, and so on. The entire path of mankind consists of six days – 6000 years of correction. Common conscious correction of mankind started in 1995 (5755). During the time left until 6000 years, we, the entire mankind, have to correct ourselves, and later, in the seventh millennium, receive a deserved, earned reward.
Question: Can we influence these processes, “compress” the time, and shorten our path towards the purpose of creation?
The only thing that we can do is to accelerate the seven thousand year long process set upon us from above. Those who can approach this process individually, enter into the Upper world and perfect reality earlier. Also, the very path of correction (if done consciously by applying one’s own efforts), is felt as a reflection or romantic urge rather than a constant blow of fate.
We study the structure and functioning of the entire existence to be able to clearly understand how to intervene and alter this process. In general, man cannot exert a direct influence upon his root/origins. He exists at the lower degree as the upper’s derivative. However, by correcting ourselves and becoming similar to our root, we are able to change our inner sensation of what we receive from above. Instead of blows of fate, constant problems, and daily difficulties, we start to experiencing bliss, peace, perfection and complete knowledge. The Creator has put us into this world so that we can, by using Kabbalah, master the Upper world and start ruling over our own destiny.
Luckily time works in our favor. The time of inner–spiritual and outer-physical deliverance of the entire humanity is approaching, according to the Preface to the “Book of the Zohar”. As man cannot exist in our world without any knowledge of it, similarly man’s soul after the death of its body cannot exist in the Upper world without receiving some preliminary knowledge about it. This is why the knowledge of Kabbalah guarantees comfortable existence in our world and affirms eternal and perfect existence in the world to be.