Q: Once I tried to picture a situation where I lost everything: my job, my home, my health, etc. but I took it as something good, as something necessary for progress and suddenly felt a great relief. Can such self-persuasion help, and should it be done consciously on a regular basis? Is it, from the perspective of the Kabbalah, the right thing to do? After all, the will to improve one’s health is an egoistic desire.
A: Many people have these feelings and thoughts. But to those who seek a way to the Creator, such feelings are intentionally given in larger amounts to make them feel that they need the Creator and want His Revelation. This is true even if this evolution comes as a result of an escape to save one’s own skin, such as escaping a threat to one’s life, financial bankruptcy, public disgrace, etc.
The Creator initially uses the ordinary means that He created for man in order to bring him closer. The purpose of everything we have is to bring us closer to the Creator. Redemption depends solely on our beginning to feel the Creator, and the expectation that the Creator will be revealed before us. But man’s will does not tend to accept the termination of its being “the owner,” nor the necessity to give up control over man.
This condition was also made by the Creator so that man would hate his receiving nature. Why? Because it contradicts the giving nature of the Creator so much, that man would want to eradicate it.
It is only because of man’s recognition that everything opposite the Creator is negative that we finally surrender and plead before the Creator. The Creator did this initially so that our desire for Him would be complete.