When The Dawn Comes

The Zohar, Chapter VaYeshev (And Jacob Sat), Item 114: There is not a person in the world who does not taste the taste of death at night, and the spirit of impurity is over the body. Because the holy soul has parted from man, the spirit of impurity is over that body and it is defiled.

This means that a person had a screen, the Light of Unity, the Light of Adhesion, and the quality of bestowal reigned inside him. But then everything disappeared. The Partzuf was emptied; all the Light came out of it. This could happen for an external reason or an inner reason, such as when a person's inner will to enjoy grows and new Reshimot begin to surface in him.

That is when a new, uncorrected desire awakens in him and reigns over him. A person submits to it, and guided by this desire begins to think about his life, about self-gratification and how to fulfill this desire.

Only if he prepared ahead of time for this darkness, for the night, the state when his desires rule over him, is he able to gather all the forces that enable him to view the darkness as a means to ascend to a new level. Then he makes a true request upward, to Abba ve Ima, asking them to take care of him (this is called "adhesion at midnight").

From midnight onward, he begins the corrections. A person begins to correct the entire additional desire to enjoy, which he had received and in which he felt the taste of death. But now he sweetens it.

This means that a person advances toward the morning, when he receives from Above the Light that Reforms, the first quality of bestowal. And then the dawn comes. A person begins to feel Light in his state, since he has acquired a screen over his previous desire to enjoy and he is now in the quality of bestowal.

This is why it had been necessary for him to experience the taste of death.

The Mirror Of Our Desires

Question from a Student: When I look in the mirror, I see my own image and it's clear that I can't communicate or work with it. But when we look at our reality, we essentially see ourselves, or images of our desire.

Dr. Laitman's Answer: This is why Baal HaSulam says that a person's desire is divided into two parts-the part that is perceived within, and the other part that seems to be outside. In one part, a person perceives himself, and in the other he perceives the world. This false, opposite form of perception was created on purpose, so we would transfer the part that is outside into our "inner" perception.

The fact is that everything on the outside, as well as myself, is actually perceived inside of me. There is nothing besides one, single desire, one world.

We are not supposed to correct our corporeal reality or the sensation of this division into "myself" and "this world," which is reality on its lowest level. Rather, we have to unite both parts of the desire by ascending up the steps of the spiritual ladder. The reality we are in now is the last, lowest level of reality, and it does not change when we ascend spiritually. It will change and disappear only at the End of Correction, when this world enters the general correction, the unified sensation inside a unified desire-the World of Infinity.

Until then, the picture of our world does not change. The Light does influences it; however, it influences Malchut, the desire, in order to unite both of its parts-the inner and the outer, into one. The Light influences all the other desires as well-our spiritual desires, where we have freedom of will. These are the desires we work with and have to correct. But in our world there is nothing to correct. We only have to correct the connection between the souls. That is where our desire unites into one, and in it, we reveal the Creator.

The layer of desire, where I perceive myself and the world around me, remains until the End of Correction. Even the greatest Kabbalist who ascends to the last, 125^th level and attains the general Final Correction will still perceive this world the same way as you. He will have to go to a doctor to heal his body, and he will have to use this entire world and to see reality as divided into inner and outer. Even though he knows that in reality this is not so, nevertheless, he will still see reality this way through his corporeal senses because this level of reality does not change until the very End of Correction.