Bold and in quotes: Original text of Baal HaSulam
Regular: Commentaries of Rav Laitman
lowercase italics: emphasized words
Capitalized italics: transliteration from Hebrew
We are continuing the article, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah.” We talked about “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah ,” meaning, what is the definition of the Wisdom of Kabbalah? We talked about the order from above downward, and from below upward. We also talked about the abstract names that exist in the Wisdom of Kabbalah, and how Kabbalists name the things they find in the Upper World, how they take their names, and why these specific names and not others. Now we are in the section “The Actuality of the Wisdom of Kabbalah.”
Page 23 in the book Kabbalah LeMatchil
“The Actuality of the Wisdom of Kabbalah
Actual things are found even in the corporeal reality, set before our eyes, though we have neither perception nor image of their essence. Such are the electricity and the magnet, called ‘fluidum.’ Nevertheless, who can say that these names are not real, when we vividly and satisfactorily know their actions? We could not be more indifferent to the fact that we cannot conceive the essence of the subject itself, namely electricity itself.”
Actually everything we perceive, whether it is more or less perceivable or completely ungraspable, we only perceive the actions that stem from it. These things are very unclear. We did not know about magnetic force a few hundred years ago, and a hundred years ago we had no idea about radioactive radiation. Perhaps there are other forces that, only now I am beginning to think that such forces exist — like the power of thought, for example, the power of the mind — which is said to be even more powerful than the others. The more concealed the force, the stronger it is. The force of an atom bomb per kilo is more powerful than tons of regular dynamite. So of course some things are hidden, but it does not mean they do not exist. They are even more powerful and have more of an impact upon us than what we feel in our five senses.
Our five senses are only physical senses. I would even say they are animalistic, like what an animal has, or as with all animate beings. They too have the same senses. The difference is only in the addition of a brain that processes them in a more advanced manner. I feel and discover the crudest of forces that exist in reality, naturally as I grow in this world, and I am only now discovering the most hidden of forces, which I will perhaps discover more of in the future. However, this is only according to my discovery. It is not that they did not exist before and now they appear. It is only with respect to me. That is why we have to relate to these things as one continuity; they all operate in nature, and they appear in an equal manner, as reality, to a person who studies Kabbalah.
That is why the physical reality and the spiritual reality are the same reality; only with respect to us the physical reality is revealed, and the spiritual reality is concealed and appears gradually. The more we learn, the more we discern powers of reception and bestowal around us, and the more we delve deeper into matter, discovering and feeling the forces that operate matter, the more this reality appears to us. These powers do exist, even now, and the ones that are still concealed will be revealed. In other words, we should take reality as one and not divide it into concealed and revealed, but understand that a person, individually, subjectively, separates what one feels and what one does not feel.
“This name,”
meaning electro - magnets,
“is as tangible and as close to us, as though it were entirely perceived in our senses.”
Meaning, in the revealed reality that used to be hidden. It was hidden because we did not perceive it in our senses directly, but only through instruments, through additional Kelim. So in this hidden reality, we discover things that are very, very real, and we should then determine and get used to the fact that our five senses perceive the smallest part of reality. If we rely only on them, we are operating no higher than the animate level, thus not entering the speaking level, because these senses exist in the animate.
The difference between the corporeal person in this world and the animal, is that a corporeal person has a little more intellect, but no more sensation, or senses. With intellect, we add to our sensations of time, space, motion and we thus see things a little more in the perspective of an ongoing process — something that animals do not feel and do not perceive in this manner. It is nothing more than a little addition of intellect in humans. That is all we have. Rather, the Wisdom of Kabbalah adds additional senses to a person and, of course, the intellect comes along with them. That is why, here, he enters a completely different level of research, a higher, additional one; the research of an additional reality. Here, we too discover things that operate, in fact even now, upon us.
“Even little children are familiar with the word ‘electricity’ as well as they are familiar with words such as: bread, sugar, and so on.”
When we too would discover the upper reality with additional senses, additional intellect, it will be very ordinary for us, like kids today who know how to play computer games better than us, and they master these sophisticated systems that did not exist ten or twenty years ago. So, in a direct, simple, and natural fashion, we enter the revelation of the hidden reality, perceive it, and become incorporated in it, just like in our reality. In other words, the additional reality that comes to a Kabbalist, comes completely naturally.
“Moreover, if you wish to exercise your tools of scrutiny a bit, I shall tell you that as a whole, as there is no perception of the Creator whatsoever, so is it impossible to attain the essence of any of His creatures, even the tangible objects that we feel with our hands. Our whole acquaintance with our friends and relatives in the world of action before us is nothing more than ‘acquaintance with their actions.’ These are prompted and born from their association of the encounter with our senses. They render us complete satisfaction though we have no perception in the essence of the subject. Furthermore, you have no perception and attainment whatsoever even in your own essence. Anything you know about your own essence is nothing more than a series of actions extending from your own essence.”
Here there is another question. We are no longer are talking about additional senses. We might have more senses, additional understanding and intellect, but now we are talking about the depth of attainment in each sense. I have my five natural senses. I might have another sense, a sixth sense — a Masach (Screen) and Ohr Hozer (the Returning Light), or a soul — it does not matter. In all of them, both in the natural senses, and in the ones I attain though my effort, I develop, within me, from my rudimentary point, this additional sense. Still, in all these senses I perceive actions, because I am the Kli in which the Ohr, Light, enters and I do not feel the Light. I do not know who it is or what it is. I feel the results of it, of its influence. I am not able to say at all whether there is or is not anything. I can only discover that I seemingly react to something, meaning, I experience all kinds of changes.
My experience of these changes is what I perceive. Also, there are great precisions in my perceptions, that if not for the changes happening in me, I would not feel anything, I would be seemingly dead. I discern not in the act itself, but in the difference between the actions, between the states. This is, more or less, what gives me the sensation of time, the sensation of life and livelihood. I perceive the difference between things, the gap between them, and not the activation of the sense itself. It is just like the opposition between the Ohr and the Kli, between what pressures and what strikes the sense. Our scent nerves or our hearing give us such examples. There can be a great noise, but if it stays level I will stop hearing it. There has to be changes. Meaning, my senses receive stimulation. I might even activate them, not externally, but also internally, and they will react in the same way; I will feel the same as if something was influencing me on the outside.
[Rav points to his head] I might put in here some electrodes and awaken things in me that happen seemingly on the outside and I could live in some genuine illusion. But who knows, maybe we are now in an illusion and there is an actual reality outside it? I should always compare my experiences between them, or between this and that, and only according to a comparison can I determine my relative state. Meaning, in our senses and perception, there is a very big limitation in how we perceive what we sense. This limitation is, in fact, what directs us correctly toward exiting this limitation.
Question: If a person were to be living alone in the world, without the environment, without society, would he still need to call these differences in sensory impressions by a name?
Of course, what does it matter if I am alone or not? What does it mean to name something? When I feel a certain phenomenon, there is an inner language that I seemingly determine from myself — “that's the way it is”— it is like an inner registration. I still have to give it some kind of discernment and then it is imprinted in me according to the Reshimot. When I want to deliver these Reshimot to someone else... Let us say I felt something yesterday. It is imprinted in me as my Reshimo. Now I want to pass it onto you, so I wonder, “How can I explain to you what I felt yesterday?” It is already an exterior language, it is something else. Yet still, the inner language has to be, it is how our Reshimot are registered in our memory cells.
Question: You said that there are changes, and that there is the me that feels those changes. Who is the me that feels those changes? Changes happen to me; So, there is a me and the changes that happen to me?
I understand you. It is as if you are asking because I said: if there are no changes then there is no perception and no sensation of my reality, as if I am dead. So who is the “me” that determines those changes? “Me,” are those natural attributes in me and only in me, in a certain blend from which I determine. From these unique attributes, I determine reality and its motion, and read it in a certain way. I am the sum total, so to speak... It might be easier for us to use the language of Kabbalah. [Rav drawing] We exist as a root in Adam Ha Rishon. Your root is here and I am here with my root, and he has his own roots, and each has his own place. In other words, in some place in Adam Ha Rishon, meaning , these preliminary attributes — you, me, and him are there. It is called “the root of the soul,” and it is constant and determined for everyone. It cannot change.
Question: If it is predetermined and cannot change, so what does change?
What changes is your perception of the rest of reality, how much you are connected to it, the extent that you can read this reality correctly, and the extent you can correct yourself, to connect with the rest of reality, and through it, feel yourself and everybody else. If you are not connected with others, then within, you only feel your own impression of yourself. Meaning, you still have not exited your own little cell. To the extent that you connect to others, you begin to feel, through them, the reality that you are in. The difference is, what you feel within is this world, and what you feel through others is the Outer World. That is what we call “the Spiritual World.” That is the difference, and it is a huge difference, because when you exit yourself and through love and the connection with others, begin to feel the impression of their Kelim, through their Kelim, . What do you perceive after all? You perceive everybody else’s impressions. Why do I need everybody else’s impressions? What does it give me? The connection between them and you, gives you the addition of the attribute of bestowal to your own attribute.
It is not that I feel this world, and someone else also feels this world. Why do I need, besides my sensation of this world, which is not very pleasant, more so to add your sensation of this world? Who needs that? To add more troubles to myself? But when I connect to you with love, in the connection between us, I build a spiritual Kli for a different dimension. I then do not discover this world, but I discover the Spiritual World, a different dimension. By that, I switch to a sensation of the Upper Force. From the Kli, I move to the Light. Otherwise, why do I need this trouble? “One who is pained in the sorrow of the public, is privileged in the consolation of the public.”
Question: When a person reaches Gmar Tikkun, does he still sense changes?
The changes at Gmar Tikkun are not out of negativity. That is a good question.
Until Gmar Tikkun, we rise from this world, we correct our 613 desires in the soul, which is called “fulfilling Mitzvot,” and fulfill these desires with Lights. When we reach Gmar Tikkun, our Kli is actually corrected, and filled with Lights — the stony heart too, everything is filled. From there onward we advance, but not out of negativity. Here it is through Tikkunim. Our whole path consists of recognition of evil, and coming to a good state. When we reach eternal love ( Gmar Tikkun) and continue to rise onward or upward, there we rise, not from lacking and correction, to reach a supplement, a filling, but through a perpetual addition of evolution. We do not understand how that can be in our world: evolution that is not out of a preceding deficit. But there the preceding deficit... I do not know, you might express it verbally, I am not sure, I do not feel these things, they are beyond… There is no limit in love, seemingly. There are no words to describe it. Even in our words, Kabbalists do not write about what belongs to GmarTikkun; almost nothing. The TikkuneiZohar explains these things a little bit. But they also do not explain it, because there are no words there.
The whole language of Kabbalah is inside the Worlds BYA.[Rav repeats]
Within the Worlds of BYA. The root of the Otiot,
letters , is Zat de Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut in the World of Atzilut. We have, in all, from EinSof to our world, the Worlds AdamKadmon, Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira and Assiya. Here is where we exist, in the Worlds BYA — the souls exists here — and here below is this world. That is where we are.
It follows that our purpose is to rise to the World of Atzilut. The root for our guidance is in the World Atzilut. In the World of Atzilut we have Partzuf Atik, ArichAnpin, Abba ve Ima, Zeir Anpin and Malchut. The guidance is from ZatdeAbba ve Ima, Zeir Anpin and Malchut — that is how it comes to us. Zat deAbba ve Ima, is Otiot, letters, Aleph(א)through Tet (ט) . In Zeir Anpin is the Otiot from Yud (י) through Tzadi (צ); and in Malchut is Kuf (ק), Resh (ר), Shin (ש), and Tav (ת) [Hebrew Letters]. The use of the letters is actually in the worlds of BYA, or to the extent that BYA can join Atzilut.
We will talk in a simple manner. It is like in the old days when they used to arrange text in the printing house. They would use lead letters to arrange the text. When I raise something from below, from BYA, from my awakening to Atzilut,
I seemingly add my will to receive by desiring to correct it, either to Malchut or to ZeirAnpin or Ima.It is as if I choose a letter, with which letter I can equalize or identify, and repeat this again and again. Thus, I seemingly connect letters into words, within the World of Atzilut, out of the Worlds of BYA. Through the addition of certain desire, I raise it from BYA, thus determining the forms of letters in Atzilut and their connection into words. If I connect them correctly, I then perform an action. However, I might not connect them correctly, so then Baal HaSulam explains to us in the article “Thou Hast Hemmed Me in Behind and Before,” that the whole sentence is removed from the beginning if there is a mistake somewhere, and you start over. It is not actually starting from scratch. By that you learned something, and in that too, the corrections come.
Back to our topic. In our research of reality, we are completely limited because we have the essence, the abstract form, the form clothed in matter and the matter itself. So our matter is reception , the will to receive. The form clothed in matter is called the intention. Why do I use my will to receive? Through both we can receive reality correctly. The abstract form is mere bestowal, which is not in me anymore, but I can somehow describe it outside of me, something which is completely detached from me, completely abstract, then I cannot rely on it. And the essence is something completely unknown. It is not known what this is. It is some kind of root to the coming HaVaYot(plural for HaVaYa).
"Now you can easily deduce that all the names and appellations that appear in books of Kabbalah are indeed real and factual although we have no attainment in the subject matter whatsoever. It is thus because those who engage in it are completely satisfied with their inclusive perception of its ultimate wholeness, meaning a mere perception of actions, prompted and born of the association of the Upper Light and its perceivers."
So all-in-all, we have Ohr, (Light), [Rav drawing] which created the desire, and consequently from the Ohr comes all kinds of changes in the desire; the four phases of Direct Light ( Dalet Behinot de Ohr Yashar), the evolution of desire, and then the First Restriction ( Tzimtzum Aleph), the Kav, the Second Restriction ( Tzimtzum Bet), the Shevira (breaking), and the Tikkun (correction). So everything that happens is an action of the Light in a desire. Until the breaking of Adam HaRishon, everything that happens is the actions from above downward, and the correction is already actions from below upward. So, in the actions from above downward, we have the construction of the Kli, and in the correction from below upward, we have the correction of the Kli. That is why we do everything from within the Kli. Meaning, what we feel, what we understand, everything we discover and that we will ever feel — whenever — is always actually the sensation of ourselves and the actions that we experience. I never feel the sensation as it is outside of me or where it comes from. We are completely detached from that. By understanding this principle — of our limited perception of reality — by keeping it and sticking to it, we open before us the door to know the full reality. The understanding of where we are limited is actually the knowledge of how to get rid of this limitation. Its written about more elaborately in the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Secular Sciences,” and other articles of Baal HaSulam .
Question: If you detach one from the five senses one would stop feeling one’s existence. But ifeveryone’s senses are detached, then is there reality or isn’t there?
Reality is what one feels. If you detach one person’s sensation, then that person would not feel reality; if you detached everyone’s then nobody would feel it. Is there reality? What is reality? Reality is what we feel. So who will feel? And what? Of course not! There is no reality that exists outside of us. All the worlds, as he (Baal HaSulam) writes... What do we have in this article, “Introduction to the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” (in the book Kabbalah LeMatchil, on page 272)? Look at what Baal HaSulam writes to you in item 1 of the “Introduction to the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah.”
"It is explained that all the worlds, Upper and Lower, are all included in us ( Adam), and also the entire reality,"
and so on and so forth…
"…is all for us"
— it is included within us. Meaning, there is nothing outside of us. You cannot say that there is anything outside of what you feel. How do you know? Do you feel there is something outside of you? What you feel, you feel in your own sensation. That is why there is no such question as; does anything exist outside of my perception? What I perceive is already perceived in my Kelim,
in my understanding, and that is how I picture it. Another animal will feel it differently. But what is outside of us Kabbalists call “Abstract Upper Light” or “Surrounding Upper Light,” “ Atzmuto” (“His Essence”); all kind of things that are meaningless to us, because one cannot define them if one does not feel them. You define according to what you feel, how you relate to it, how it operates on you. Outside of you, you can only say that “perhaps something exists, which brings me this impression, this sensation.” That is it. Perhaps something is there. Perhaps, because you do not feel this, you only want to assume with your intellect that these things exist. Kabbalists come a little closer to this limit, and they say that, yes, they attain that they do not attain. Meaning, there is some kind of perception in the root, in what is outside of us in Atzmuto (His Essence),
where we do not feel who “He” is, what “He” is; so we do not talk about “Him,” but we attain “Him” from a negative perspective, so to speak. It is a form of attainment. It is hard to say that it is from a negative perception. Our language is just limited.
Question: He writes that even in your own essence you have no perception. What is he saying, that I do not know myself too?
Of course! How do I know myself? It is not that I should go to a psychologist to be taught to know myself. Rather, a person cannot know himself, because in order to know yourself, you have to exit yourself, and feel yourself in different Kelim, from the outside. What does it mean, “to feel myself,” “to know myself”? It means that there is me, and something that I feel. How can I do that? I can imagine, in my mind, that I can seemingly exit myself and know myself. But it will never really be “me.” [Rav drawing]
If I am in my Kelim — let us say that is me, those are my attributes, my desires, everything I have, and I, in them, feel something. Afterwards, I connect it all and that gives me knowledge. This is my whole world. So how can I now know myself? I have to take a different Kli that will be impressed with this Kli, just like a Light that enters my attributes. How can I know myself? I myself am here. In order to know myself, I have to be someone else who knows me: two things. It is not possible for me to exit my Kelim to other Kelim of mine and know myself as I was before. This limitation also exists in spiritually, not just in corporeality.
We have to understand that we are only a desire that was created by the Light. The way this desire is impressed with the Light, the process by which it happens, the four phases of Direct Light, the First Restriction, Kav, the Second Restriction, Shevira (the breaking), the mixture with the attributes of bestowal, the correction of the Kli... it is the path of the correction. I have no other choice. I am always a Kli. But the forms that I adopt upon my Kli, that travel through me, the bestowal that travels through me — I want to resemble that form, as if I give to someone, to the Creator. So these forms that I adopt, all sorts of forms, they give me knowledge and a sensation of something outside of me, and that is something that really is outside of me. That is what I call “the Spiritual World.” It is how I describe it. But these are forms of the will to receive, which the will to receive adopts. It is not bestowal, like in the Creator. It is a will to receive that engages in bestowal. But by engaging in bestowal, by having mind and sensation, it comes to completely understand the form of bestowal that comes to it, meaning it reaches Dvekut (adhesion).
“However, it is quite sufficient.”
Meaning, all our imaginations or impressions, everything within us, if we engage in it correctly, it gives us complete satisfaction, so let us not start regretting that we do not have perception of abstract form and essence. It is pointless regretting things that we cannot regret, because we do not have Kelim for them.
“It is quite sufficient, for this is the rule: “All that is measured and extracted from His providence so as to be realized into the nature of creation, is of complete sufficiency.” Similarly, one cannot claim a sixth finger in his hand, because the five are quite sufficient.”
Because we are built in such a way that if the Upper Light fills our desire — in all the depth that can appear in the desire, this being called “my vessels of reception and bestowal,” in all sorts of forms, and in all the worlds, meaning in all the manners and connections between them, and myself with respect to all the other creatures, as I connect myself with all of them as one body, and that this body is filled with all the possible forms of bestowal that can be outside of me, and when this body begins to resemble these forms of bestowal — we reach, in our sensation, according to our similarity to the Upper Light, an unrestricted form, which is called “ EinSof,” (“No limit” or “Infinity”). I will never be able to say that something is missing in the state of EinSof.
The Kli feels and determines that state is called “ EinSof” (no limit). Therefore, when we learn in the Wisdom of Kabbalah, that there is also the abstract form and the essence outside of our perception, how did Kabbalists attain it? If we do not attain them within our Kelim?
By reaching Dvekut with the Creator, they begin to attain the phenomena above their Kelim as well. How, in what form, if it is not in their Kelim?
Additional understandings open up in the connections between the Creator and the creatures, and out of the difference between the Creator and the creature, such that from there, Kelim accumulate discernments that are outside of the Kelim. The creature then comes to understand the Creator, understand the Thought of Creation. Where previously, we had the Thought, and then the World of Ein Sof, because it is the act of that Thought on the part of the Creator; and then the creature, who already having went from above below, as we learned, through a descent from the World of EinSof, and from ascends and corrects himself from below above up to the World of Ein Sof. So by reaching the World of Ein Sof with its own Kelim, it comes to resemble the Creator, entering the Thought of Creation. It then knows the Thought, and this Thought precedes the building of its Kli. The birth of its Kli is here.
[Rav draws] This is the birth of the creature. The creature comes to understand and perceive the Thought of Creation — what the Creator thinks, why He began the world the way it is, and why He created it this way: “From Your acts we know You,” as it is called. When the creature reaches the understanding of the Creator, it rises to the Thought that precedes its creation. This is called “reaching these special forms that do not exist in our Kelim, in our perception, called Abstract Form and Essence.” But that too happens inside my Kelim.
Question: We learn that when something evolves it loses the previous form and adopts a new one. When a person reaches spirituality, why does that person keep both forms, the old and the new? Why does it continue in this world?
It is because our corporeal, physical senses do not change. They cannot be better or worse. We only have to correct our attitude to the Creator, between the Tet Rishonot (the Upper Nine Sefirot) — the attributes of bestowal, and Malchut — my vessels of reception. My vessels of reception of Malchut, is what I receive from the Creator. The vessels of bestowal of Malchut are in order to give to the Creator. We are not dealing with our five senses here at all. [Rav drawing] What is “this world”? Five senses in which we feel our corporeal desires: body, money, honor, knowledge. That is it. That is how our desire evolves; and in the five senses — sight, hearing, scent, taste and touch — yes?[Rav comments about his writing] So what I want to say is that these things do not change. Whether you are smart or stupid, even in a cow or in a person — it is all in the animate level. So if I engage in knowledge, in honor, in money, and all the more so with physical pleasures, it does not matter, this is all the animate level. My senses are being operated and bringing me to it. It does not change. I just have to find, after thousands of years of development — yes? Say, six thousand years of evolution — I have to discover the point in the heart. This point does not belong to the five senses, or to the will to receive that develops in them. It is the connection with the Creator. What does it mean, “a connection with the Creator”? There is a Klipa here. This point is the last degree of the Klipa that wants to enjoy from the Creator, to receive from Him, from the Ohr, on the smallest level. I begin to learn, to connect to the group, I do everything in order to enlarge that point. This point then begins to grow. So it grows in LoLishma. I then want to enjoy more from the Light, from an even greater Light, from the Creator, until I grow to such an extent that it is called... as is written in the letter from page 70, that he craves it all day and night, like a lover who craves a woman. He gives this as an example: “I am lovesick,” like a physical craving, because we have nothing else to compare it with.
If one has that kind of desire, as Baal HaSulam puts it, “a lust for the Creator,” which is actually the Klipa. So by that, a person crosses the barrier. What does it mean, “crosses the barrier”? He advances, in the meantime, in the worlds of the impure BYA, and it is called that “the Klipa guards the fruit.” Meaning, he is raised in such a manner that the Klipa protects him, and he grows inside the Klipa, like a fruit that is inside its peel. Then, when a person is born and goes out into the open world, so to speak, and with respect to the Creator, he now has mutual work — I give you, you give me. This is called Ibur (fetus), then Katnut (infancy), Gadlut (adulthood), and so on. But up until the barrier, we grow only under the system of Klipa. It has nothing to do with our desires, our senses.
A Kabbalist might be very wealthy or very poor, and we have had such examples in the past, such as in the times of the Temple. Everything here in this world — one’s senses, impulses, desires, the nature one is born with — all of it has nothing to do with one’s relationship with the Creator. It has to do with a person’s relationship with people, on the animate level. It is a big difference. We only have to correct our relationship with the Creator, through relationship with people who belong to the group who are like me. Yes, to the group, who belong to this process, to the collection of souls, who help me — with their books, the group, and the guide. But it is not that it will help me in any way in this world. I cannot improve my life in this world with the help of the Wisdom of Kabbalah. There is nothing I can do with these attributes in the Wisdom of Kabbalah.
I can open up spirituality only from within the point in the heart that I enlarge to the level of the spiritual Kli.
Not from within the heart itself, but from within the point in the heart. The point in the heart, being that part of God above, the Creator, which is actually a desire for Him. That is why those who come with a point in the heart feel the questions, “what do I want? I do not know. This world is worthless, but where do I receive something? Where am I drawn to?” That person begins to discover the Creator with this question. Then, as Baal HaSulam says, that the Creator brings him to some place, to a group, study, and so on, by which a person starts expanding his point to a certain measure, by which he will begin to feel his spiritual reality, which means he will start to feel the Creator. Because what we feel in the end, in our Kelim, is the Creator. We feel… Him. It is not that we feel Him, but I feel Him. Meaning, I do not feel His essence, and I do not feel the abstract form, but the form clothed in my matter.
To the extent that I equalize myself with Him, I feel Him. What does it mean, “I feel Him”? I have substance, and that is my desire. When my desire acquires, through some place or desires [Rav points to drawing 52:58], the form of bestowal, in that I become like the Creator, like the Upper Force. How do I know? Because this force controls these desires: the attribute of bestowal rules. Otherwise I will not feel Him. According to what I did, in how I resembled Him, I can say “that is Him.” So who is the Creator? The Creator is the attribute of bestowal that can clothe in a person, in his desire. This is called“figurative learning” — the form clothed in matter. We have no need for more than that. I just wish we would come to that.
Question: When he said that we do not need a sixth finger, does it mean that everything that we do need is part of a natural structure?
We have to come to a desire that we have... Let us put it this way. [Rav drawing] We have to acquire the full desire of Adam HaRishon. Right now I have the point in the heart, like in the Shoresh (root), but now it has awakened in me, within me. I have to come to an understanding that I have to acquire this entire desire that exists here, that all of it, this whole sum of souls, will be me. That is it. If I acquire all these desires and make of them the image of the Creator, I will then be like Him. That is all. That is what everyone must reach, and in that we will stop reincarnating.
Question: So how do I come to that? By yearning to live the desires for money, honor, and knowledge in others?
No, no, no. You increase your own desire for spirituality. You connect to people who also belong to a group. [Rav Laitman showing previous drawing] Did you not see the previous drawing? I wrote “a group” here. The sum of souls that I connect to me is a group. What is a group? It is not just people, it is their desires for that goal. By connecting with them I build my Kli, and that is how I advance, okay?
Let us continue. Where are we? Oh, alright, it is not worth continuing. Yes, Oren, please…
Question: What does it mean, “a group”? People are watching us right now at home on television. What about them?
People who are at home in front of a television or a computer, are together with us, because in this Adam HaRishon, we are all together. Whether we like it or not, we all influence each other. The more we want the same goal, the more we are in a force that connects us from above. But it is very desirable that we, on our level, will be connected to each other, to have a little better contact with each other through our own effort, and not that the Upper Force will connect us. By that, we will definitely feel great progress. That is why Baal HaSulam writes in his article “The Last Generation,” that those who study the Wisdom of Kabbalah will eventually accumulate. It does not matter where they live, because there is a reason why communication, like the Internet, is so advanced right now: it is for Tikkun, for the purpose of correction. Those people will eventually connect together, in a mutual connection, and that will increase each of their desires for the true goal. In that we accelerate the times. For the time being, we will end the lesson and continue tomorrow.