The Creator Is The End, The Beginning, The Means, And The Purpose

All our efforts to unite our desires in a Kabbalistic group should be directed at our desires toward the Creator. All the efforts should be made only for the sake of revealing the Creator and uniting with Him. Then we will not repeat the mistakes made by the Soviet communists and Israeli Kibbutzniks, who considered the unification of "proletarians of all countries" a worthy goal, and it was to this end that they changed the society and viewed this as the necessary condition for perfection.

People don't understand that the world, as well as ourselves, was created for the sole purpose of revealing the Creator's qualities inside us, in order to reach His level of existence. This goal should be pursued in every action we make, both in the heart and the mind. For example, what is wrong with me simply doing something for the benefit of my friend, the environment, or the world? Although these actions seem good, the problem with it is that any action that does not initially include the final goal, the Creator, does not merit His forces. It is therefore not an action of correction, but on the contrary, it brings about our general crisis - the result of our "development."

In order for any action to be successful, it must be done for the right purpose; it has to include the Creator as the initial cause, and the One that causes me to perceive myself, the world, and the situation at hand. It has to take into account the fact that He determines the action's beginning, the need for the action, and its outcome, as it is written, "I am the first and I am the last!" A person is just the matter over which the actions are performed. However, he is not the master or the executor of the action.

Therefore, our only task is to clarify how to relate to what happens. Yet, by so doing, we do actually determine the extent of our desires' correction, and hence the perception of this world and the spiritual worlds.

If we don't accept the Creator as a partner, we will not succeed in any action. We will instead go into greater concealment and veer off the right path. When that happens, then it will take a great deal of effort and subsequent despair in order for us to begin to understand why this is happening to us. And then we will find the cause of the suffering inside the suffering.

The fact is that the Upper Force is everything! It determines every situation, creates it, participates in it, arranges everything about it, realizes it and provides the whole reward and fulfillment. Therefore, if we do not focus on the Creator, who is always present within our matter and all our actions, and if we don't make Him the main purpose of all our efforts, then this will be a grave mistake that will prove very costly for us.

Israel, The Torah, And The Creator Are One

When Baal HaSulam says that we must take the Creator into account and aim our actions toward the group in order to bring it "bring it satisfaction," we treat it as if there is some other partner whom we need to make efforts not to forget. The meaning of his words does not penetrate and awaken us. We must understand that the operating force, the force that brings us the mind, the emotion, the desire, the force that wakens our substance to be in motion and from our complexity to understand who we are and what we are; that force which moves us toward the connection, toward some advancement and slowly pushes us to inner changes, until we reach the final state - is what is called "the Creator."

It can also be said, that all the forms that exist in my substance, come from the Creator. And on the other hand, the "substance" itself is no more than a pile of desire, which contains nothing and is inanimate. It can even be said that it does not exist, but in the aspect of "Yesh mi Ayn" ("existence out of absence"). The substance of creation can be likened to computer hardware, for instance - there is no benefit to the hardware itself without electricity, which serves as its vitality. Without the program that operates this substance it has no existence; and so it without the data that it must process as well, without the process that it must undergo and the final result it must achieve. We can see clearly from the computer example that the hardware itself does not change, but only its inner organization - those electric signs that arrange themselves a certain way - are governed by the force of the Creator, which is clothed in the creature.

And therefore we, who are comparable to this hardware, to this iron, need to understand that everything except the iron-all the feelings, the thoughts, the changes, the form that we switch and constantly change until we reach the final form - is the Creator who is revealed in us more and more. And it is not that we connect among us like computer parts, but inside, inside all the actions, is the force of connection that comes from Him. Everything is Him.

Therefore it is not correct to perceive the Creator as some partner, who also deserves something from what we will earn. Rather, He fulfills everything from the beginning until the end, and we can only express the plea from inside of ourselves, the demand, the necessity of His revelation, of His actions, of this program, of the final form that will be clothed within the hardware.

Therefore this deficit, that the Creator will be clothed in our substance, is called "Yashar-El" ("straight to the Creator"), "Israel." And the force that implements it is called the "Light" or the "Torah," which is the revelation of the Creator's action. Whereas the form that is clothed in us is the Creator. Therefore the Kabbalists say that "Israel, the Torah, the Creator - are one."