Q: Is the circulation of the wisdom of Kabbalah a real spiritual act?
A: It may be unclear how the physical dissemination of the wisdom of Kabbalah can be a spiritual act. However, there are “mediators” who help us advance toward the Creator by realizing the actual motivation behind our actions – to receive. Actions motivated by good aims are called Mitzvot. In our world, we carry these out between each other.
Any act should be followed by the intent of wanting to reach the Creator, to contact Him. That should be our motivation with regard to the group. Our connection with the Creator forces us to build a group and create social contacts with our group mates. That is the right use of our ability to act.
Otherwise, if we are incapable of acting “as we should,” then, as it says, “Sit and do nothing – is better.”
If I work without the intention of coming to the Creator, then what do I work for? If you take action without the intention to approach the Creator, you are doing harm. Such an act is destructive to begin with. Anything that brings us closer to the Creator is preferred to an act that takes us farther from the Creator.
The Creator wants to delight His creatures. He can delight them only to the extent that the attributes of the creatures match His. If you can help people bring their attributes closer to those of the Creator, you are performing the best possible spiritual act in the eyes of the Creator; an act that delights Him most.
How can we try to bring people closer to Him? Through the dissemination of Kabbalah. That is why it is the most effective means to produce spiritual closeness and equivalence of form with the Creator.
It only becomes the most effective means if we do it in order to come closer to the Creator, to please Him. If we seek, we will find the place where we can concentrate our efforts. We need not even search far: a thought about the Creator and the connection with Him will gradually bring us the means, both external and internal.
If the thought of the Creator does not precede the act, it is done on purpose, in order to come to us at the end of the act or during it. There are many reasons for that. But if we do not work systematically according the rule of “think of the end before you begin,” if we do not think that this act will intensify our connection with the Creator, we are not trying to draw near Him. Therefore, those actions belong to the “path of pain.”
Such actions put us on a dead-end street from which we must turn back and search for another way. They only extend the correction process.
Q: So where is the way out?
A: We have to keep thinking about our contact with the Creator. All our problems in this world indicate that we do not have contact with Him. It is the same problem everywhere – in individuals, in groups, in society and in the whole of mankind.