Bold and in quotes: Original text of Baal HaSulam
Regular: Commentaries of Rav Laitman
lowercase italics: emphasized words
Capitalized italics: transliteration from Hebrew
Baal HaSulam's article, TheLove of God and Love of Man, from the book PriHacham, Maamarim (Fruit of Wisdom, Articles) page 91, paragraph: “Why was the Torah given to Israel.”
Why Was the Torah Given to Israel?
Now we can answer the question, “why the Torah was given to the Israeli nation without the participation of all the nations of the world?”
First of all there's a question: why is the Torah called, “the means for the correction of man?” In order to bring man to the most corrupted state in this world, to the state where there's nothing worse, and then to bring him to the attainment of the highest and eternal level called “man resembling the Creator.” The means through which it is possible to undergo such great changes of true oppositeness from one state to the other, is only by the force from Above called the Torah. That's why it's said “the Light in it reforms.”
If Israel is like the corrected part in the world, the “merit of the patriarch,” and so on, then in comparison the nations of the world are harsh and even more corrupted. As we learned from the wisdom of Kabbalah [Rav's drawing], in the structure of Adam ha Rishon (the First Man) , there is the part up to the Chazeh, the Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE), which is called Israel. The lower part is the AHP or the nations of the world.
Israel is the vessels of bestowal. The nations of the world are vessels of reception. We must give the Torah, according to what it says “the Light in it reforms,” to the nations of the world. Thus Israel doesn’t require this Light.
Who is Israel? Israel is not even accounted for among the nations as they say. In the AHP you have seven Sefirot or seventy nations. Seemingly, this aspect called Israel belongs, as they say, neither to this world and nor to these nations.
The Torah must be given to those who really need correction. Therefore why was the Torah given to Israel and not to the nations of the world? It's the opposite of what it ought to be. That's what Baal HaSulam's trying to explain here, so that’s why he's asking, why the Torah was given to Israel. This is the internal content of this question.
The truth is that the purpose of creation applies to the entire human race, none absent. However, because of the lowness of the nature of creation and its power over people, it was impossible for people to be able to understand, determine and agree to rise above it. They did not demonstrate the desire to relinquish self-love and come to equivalence of form, which is adhesion with His attributes, as our sages said, “As he is merciful, so, you be merciful.”
This means that in the breaking and the Nefilah (fall) of the vessels the corruption in the AHP part was so great that they cannot from within this breaking and fall, connect to the Upper Light, to the intention of bestowal, at all. It turns out that it is not possible to give the method of correction to these vessels in a direct manner. We're not talking about a person or bodies, but we're talking about the essence of the vessels within which the desires are to be found as well as the essence of those desires.
The desires found in humanity are desires that are extremely coarse. What does this mean? It doesn’t mean that they're not intelligent, or that they don't want to behave well in relation to one another. No. They’re crude, coarse, as they're far from understanding this principle of correction, this principle of how to correct themselves.
The vessels, which are found in the depth of the fall, are not able to correct themselves. They need some other means here; these vessels must combine with additional vessels called Israel. For this purpose these vessels (Israel) actually exist. They actually perform a task, so that those vessels we call the nations of the world which are found in such a fall will be able to connect with the Lights. There is a need for something that coordinates between them, between the Light and the vessel. Let’s say this is the attribute of bestowal that is corrupted.
Question: How is it that there is such a deep breaking that in “the initial thought of the final action,” it is as if there's no solution?
There is a solution, and hence, this is the solution. But how can there not be such a deep breaking? The question is different: If you have a desire to receive which is opposite to the Light and from the Light it received additional coarseness ( Aviut), then without the Light which adds from its attribute the desire to receive, that desire to receive would have remained only in the first discernment, the first phase of thickness ( Behina Alephde Aviut).
What do we have? We have the Light, which comes from Above—that's the aspect of the Root ( Shoresh). It built the will to receive, which is the first phase ( Behina Aleph). That is the difference between them, the two parts—the root and the first phase—that’s it.
Then this will to receive, desires to receive the attribute of the Light. This is what it adds to itself, the additional attribute of the Light. Then it is made thick or coarse in the second phase ( Behina Bet).
Then it also adds to itself besides that attribute an action like the Light. It wants to resemble the Light in action. Then from within this process it receives the awareness of its Aviut in comparison to the Light, and this great Aviut called the fourth discernment, the fourth phase ( Behina Dalet).
The whole process of the will to receive depends upon this: that it brings into itself the attributes of the Light. By this it grows, it becomes broader. So if it does not reveal itself as truly opposite to the Light, it will not be able to reveal inside what the Light did to it, performed in it, and how the Light performed in it this whole process. Thus, the will to receive will not be able to stand against the Light and change itself to be like the Light. Here things must be disclosed, revealed in their oppositeness, as they are to be found in their root which is existence from existence and existence from non-existence. That's it.
Question: Weusually define Israel as a person who has the desire to ...
We define Israel as desires that seek to bind themselves to that same operation of the Creator—to bestowal. This happens when one strives to resemble the absolute form of bestowal, which is disconnected from everything in this world that we can ascribe to ourselves. Rather, it is a pure bestowal, without any connection to who or what bestows. It is to bring one's self outside of the self in order to fill the lack of the “other”—this is called bestowal. It doesn't matter who is bringing out, to whom he is bringing out is, and it doesn't matter to him what he is bringing out. He takes the deficits of the other, as if he himself does not exist, and he fills this deficit.
If there is such an object, a force, then this attribute that does this is called “the attribute of bestowal,” meaning that a person here does not exist. It doesn't matter who does it, either the desire to bestow alone which is called the Creator or desire to receive that has the correction to bestow which is a man, Adam.It doesn't matter.
Very simply, there is a deficit, a lack in a person arising from someone or an outside source and he works upon this deficit. He fills it. If he behaves in such a way, it doesn't matter who he is at all here. Call it an X. There is nothing here in us to say what it is or who it is. Then he is called the one who bestows.
Question: Is there any connection to whether a person is Israeli or Jewish; does this matter?
We're not talking at all about a person. We're talking about the attribute. What does it matter in which person the attribute exists? It may or may not be a person. We'll call it “X.” The attribute of bestowal, that's it. Does anybody have any more questions? Yes?
Question: Can we describe it as a whole process that has occurred but that it's happening through all the four phases and the breaking, as if we're always talking about the same process?
Yes, you could say that. Okay, let's continue.
Thus, because of their ancestral merit Israel succeeded, and over 400 years they developed and became qualified and sentenced themselves to a scale of merit. Each and every member of the nation agreed to love his fellow man.
Being a small and single nation among seventy great nations, when there are a hundred gentiles or more for every one of Israel, when they had taken upon themselves to love their fellow person, the Torah was then given specifically to qualify the Israeli nation.
What do we see here from history? This is what happened: There was a worshiper of idols called Abraham, who was in the state of “in order to receive,” in a lack of connection with this “One Force,” “Unique and Individual,” “There is None else beside Him.”
He started to reveal the truth, that the force which operates in the world is single and it operates only in order to bring the person to correction. But to which kind of correction, and accordingly what does a person has to do? He by this underwent changes, and began to perceive the Upper Reality, meaning the forces operating in reality. He then became the leader of the movement of all those who desire to resemble the Creator. According to the goal, they are called “straight to the Creator,” Israel.
The ones who take this method upon themselves are referred to as those that have the merit of the forefathers in externality, while the merit of the forefathers in internality means that they have purity within their soul.
There are people in this world who are born with a sensation which draws them to that same attribute of bestowal. Not that they want as if to fly in the sky, or that they want some other methods of spirituality. Rather, those people intentionally have, despite everything else, some purity, some attraction to the attribute of bestowal. However they could be very crude and vulgar people on the outside. Externally they do not appear as such immediately, but they have an urge only for that, bestowal, which they call truth; thus they are called Israel. They cannot be without it. It does not depend upon which nation they belong to or on their age. Rather, it depends only on that same point which draws them to the truth. That's it. They follow the same path as Abraham, from existing just as some citizen of Ur of the Chaldees (a Babylonian city), a Bedouin, to reaching a state where he was corrected into a state of bestowal.
Now, among those six billion who are in that same collective system called Adam,there are those in whom a point in the heart is revealed, and they are called Israel. But there is the merit of the forefathers in them. What is, the merit of forefathers? Forefathers and sons are two levels, where the forefathers are the previous state and the sons the next ones.
Let's say Galgata gives birth to AB. Galgata is called the father and AB is called its son. What does this mean, the merit of the forefathers for their sons? Those same people who already correct themselves in the aspect of Israel, in their incorporation, influence the others with their corrected parts. They add purity to their vessels, further elevation, bestowal, a greater connection to spirituality, to bestowal. Thus this is referred to as having merit. They become purer. This is out of the incorporation of the souls.
That's why it's called the “merit of the forefathers:” whoever has corrected himself influences those who still have not corrected themselves, and brings them closer to correction so that they should awaken, and be uplifted.
Question: Those, towards whom the correction is bestowed, don't feel it. It's not that they suddenly feel that a Kabbalist is performing corrections for them?
Don't worry. When you become more sensitive, and purify yourself a bit, you’ll feel how the rest of the Kabbalists operate, how they help you pass from one stage to the other. You will feel it, a unique soul that helps you move between the states, between the degrees. As it is written in the Zohar, you will feel it.
Question: Israel wants to resemble the Creator. In our work from below upwards, we have to see what deficits a friend has and fulfill them. Now, if you want to resemble the Creator then the Creator also bestows and creates the deficits as well. Does the action of the elevation also create deficits?
The Creator created evil, the desire to receive. If I want to resemble him I have to do the same thing. The Creator, by bestowal, created a desire to receive in order to bestow to it.
Previously there was eternal Light, bestowal. Then by bestowal, the vessel was created, reception. It was filled with Light. There was no cessation from the Creator’s side which would leave the vessel empty. He created a deficit as a dressing, a cover for the pleasure that already existed. He never created an empty deficit, but the deficit he created is like a clothing upon the pleasure that already existed, and because the deficit comes as a result of the pleasure, it is not felt as a deficit. This is the problem. That is why the creature must now pass through the operation of awareness, that truly he is in deficit.
In order to feel this deficit, he must disconnect from the Light and feel himself as opposite from the Light, truly in his nature, then once more to resemble the Light and return as clothing upon the Light, but already according to that same equality of form, that same bestowal, that desire to be like this.
This means from the Creator’s side there is no negative action towards man. No operation of deficit toward man comes from the Creator. The entire breaking and all of the deficits come from the vessel that separated itself from the Light. It wanted to separate from the Light and feel, “Who am I?” Because it started to feel that to the extent to which it is found with the Light together, and filled with the Light, it seemingly does not exist. The independence is not revealed. This is what we call “shame.”
We have to grasp these terms, even though it's hard to. The beginners have a problem in grasping these terms. We can say perhaps ridiculously that He made evil, He created a deficit, and I also seemingly say this myself sometimes. But we have to understand that no deficit ever comes from the Light, because it is initial or preliminary. Even though He creates a deficit, it is created by the Light. It (a deficit) is immediately filled; it is immediately feeling wholeness because it is in connection with the Light. Only when it's separated from the Light does it start to feel its independence, the negativity. Rather, all the flaws that are in us are actually produced by ourselves and not the Creator. We have to contemplate this a little further, but that's the direction.
Question: How does a person conceal himself and become independent?
How does a person conceal himself from himself? This is called by the attainment of “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
[Rav's drawing] This means that I will be an X, as if I don't exist. I exist only as an operator inside the deficits of the other. This X does not exist by itself. It’s only as a supplier of pleasures of the deficits of the others. This is called “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” But you feel the others as your own deficit and you operate towards it. And so, who are you? You don't exist. You are entering entirely into the others. In the meantime, what is with you?
All is okay in relation to yourself, because you consume only what is necessary. You don't need more than this in order to bestow. Then what do you bestow? You bestow to him what he truly wants, meaning that you are the intention, and he is the vessel. Do you understand? It is yourself along with the deficit of the “other.”
[Rav drawing] We have Adam ha Rishon, the entire vessel of all the souls, and you are that intention to fulfill them. This is what you do with the Upper Light: you become the thought of Creation as the Creator. You don't have your “I” your “self,” your vessel. The X just disappears from your sensation. In this, you attain eternity and wholeness. How do I so operate? You operate with all your strength and all your desires but you don't feel that they are yours, that they exist.
In essence, you transform to function only as an intention, only for an intention. This is called “reaching resemblance to the Creator.” This X which is existence from absence is not felt. It is truly non-existent.
Question: When a person tries to interfere with nature, no matter what his intentions are, he only causes harm. We see this by contemplating in this world. Baal HaSulam writes here: “The aim of creation is among the human, although from the lowliness of the nature of creation and its creatures, nobody would understand or determine to which degree to rise above it.” This means that if a person accepts upon oneself the concept that nature is lowly, and he would be the one to exert oneself in order to correct it, wouldn’t he be implying that the “Thought of Creation” or “The Purpose of Creation” is incomplete and I am the only one able to complete it.
Wait a minute. Who is nature? We learn that nature is man. In the inanimate, vegetative, and animate, there’s nothing to correct. There's no corruption in them. They're in their complete state. They operate by instincts. They have no freedom of choice. They have nothing to change in themselves because they operate through the commandments of nature and that's it.
What can be changed is only in man, also in men, referring to those who belong to the man level, not to the animal level. Meaning, we have desires, bodily desires to eat, to drink, to have children, a family, to sleep, desires for sex, for rest; deficits in an animate body, similar to an inanimate level, like in animals or beasts. Those same deficits that we will carry out at a level of necessity also exist on the animate level.
There is no bad, good, bestowal, reception—nothing. This is nature. I need to give the body so many calories and sleep and so on. My body demands it, otherwise I do not exist. In relation to this, I am not the master. This is called the measure of necessity that a person must receive. What is beyond this, such as indulging in a lot of food and sex and creating a family and building a house and whatever already belongs to the level of man; this is already corruption, as it is also in respect to money, control, knowledge, and so on. This means that only the degree of man in us, above the animate level, is corrupted. This is the only thing that needs to be corrected. What are you asking about this?
Question (cont.): I don't understand why it's corrupt.
Why is it corrupt? Because it is entirely egoistic. I want to swallow everything that is outside of me in such a way that we cannot exist,
We are discussing the system of nature as an entirely integral and closed system in which the law or the force of life is such that although each part is egoistic, any cell or limb in it operates only for the benefit of the system in its entirety. Otherwise it has no life, no liveliness and there's no life for the system. But by neutralizing itself and operating for the good of the system, it then attains the life of the entire system. This is what is called spiritual life.
Should humanity start bestowing unto one another, each one in return to the other, meaning to be in an integral system, it will then resemble the Upper Light and will start feeling itself similar to it, eternal, complete and perfect.
This sensation of eternity and completeness will be felt in each one of the souls. To the extent that we fail to achieve this, the still, vegetative and the animate in this world remain corrected , andonly the speaking which isoutside of this whole system will remain uncorrected. And so, this causes all the problems and incompleteness. The difference between itself and the Light, the Upper Light, is then felt by him as suffering.
Actually, the collective law in nature is that everything desires to be balanced. Inside the animate body, there must be a balance in all the degrees, balance between all thoughts, desires, liquids, and electricity. Everything must be in balance. If we are balanced as external and internal forces we feel ourselves as well pleasured, delighted, and contented. However we are not in balance with the Upper Light and this is what we feel. In order to harmonize with it, we must resemble it. It is very simple.
The still, vegetative and the animate have no freedom of choice, as they only carry out the commandments of nature. In their regard you cannot talk about resemblance or not. There's nothing to bring out of them to reach this resemblance (nothing because they don’t have freedom of choice). Man is the opposite. In being like the egoistical part, he is like a cancerous cell. Each one of us in the system consumes the entire system for the good of oneself and thus causes death of the whole system.
If you type the word “altruism” in an internet search you will suddenly see thousands of articles written by biologists and geneticists, and those in all fields of the science of nature, describing how far nature operates according to this force, the law of altruism. This is true in relation to the whole universe, everything on the globe, on this planet. Each one interacts with the other in order to survive, to live. This is the law of animate bodies; otherwise the animate does not survive.
Only in ourselves, in the human system, on the human level, is there corruption; in our attitude and our relations, meaning in our intentions toward one another, we are corrupted. We do not operate as an integral whole system. All the worlds and in our world and in everything you can mention, in this part, in your heart and your mind, is what is flawed. That is what we need to correct. If we correct it we will be like Ein Sof (Infinity).
I'm telling you, if we look at how the scientists, not the Kabbalists, investigate the still, vegetative and animate nature, they say (and look at how right they are, it's amazing): each part, each cell must operate, although individually egoistic, in an altruistic way in order to connect and to be able to live together.
How through the evolution biological life evolved? As the biologists say, there was an individual cell that was egoistic, but in order to develop onwards, it had to connect with another one and another one and another one.
Connect means to let go of something from itself, to nullify itself in some degree, for the good of connecting with the others, because each one has an internal interest inside of its self. But in order to live together, we must be partners.
You do something and I do something. You receive part of the reward, and I receive part of the reward. This is already separation from each another. This is how life started to develop.
We, on the other hand, develop in our society in the opposite direction. Every time, the ego gets bigger. Thus we come to such crises and states. Also, if this truly functioned according to the law of nature, then we wouldn't exist. Rather, intentionally, the Upper Light maintains us and allows us to come to the recognition of evil, the worst state, because we have to have the opportunity to decide, by ourselves, are we okay or not, and what can we do about it?
But according to the law of nature, as it is in the still, vegetative, and animate state, our society’s state as is could not exist. If the wolf eats the sheep, it is not causing harm. This is clear for us, right? It carries out its existence and he benefits the sheep as well. We know this as well already by now. This is how nature balances itself. Its intention is not to cause misfortune. It does not eat twice. This is all arranged and directed only by the internal commandments of nature, except for man.
If we do not organize the collective system, then we are lost. The suffering that will come as the disparity between the Light and the speaking, will be such that they will force us to be corrected.
The wisdom of Kabbalah in all is the law of balance—how we can balance ourselves in accordance with the Upper Light, how actually to build a society. What do we learn? As if we're learning about the worlds, the Upper World, spirituality, what do you mean? Out of our study we are learning how to build a human society, how to build that society that will conform to the Upper Light, to bestowal.
Thus we need to learn what bestowal is, what is the Upper World, how it is built. But in the end, the correction is only in our world, only among human beings. So it is as if we learn Kabbalah and come to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” "What do you mean? Give me worlds, angels, spirits, whatever. Why are you bringing me back to deal with human beings again?" But this is how it is, because the corruption is entirely here.
Question: Why do we, in order to correct our attitude, have to learn about the whole system? You know, if a lion came to a psychiatrist and said “I'm sorry, I ate a deer,” and the psychiatrist tells him “don’t worry about it, it’s nature, that’s how it is.” He doesn’t have to spread in front of him an explanation about the whole universe, the vegetative, the animate, egoism and altruism. Why don’t we just tell people, “friends, you're okay, go home and feel good?”
You're right. Yep, you're right. The problem is that this is not only a matter of correcting relations between ourselves, so that we would be a model human society, you know, like in a drawing: all holding hands and happy, standing on the globe, where one person is black, the other red, the other yellow, and so forth. The issue is that we must not make a nice society which is altruistic, communistic or,whatever else is on this globe, this planet. We must reach the level of the Creator. Thus, we need to learn His thoughts, His actions, His intentions, about Him, what He did, why and how, and to resemble Him.
By bringing our society in balance with nature we reach a balance with the Creator and so we build a system inside according to His mind. So seemingly here in the human society it is as if we are in a laboratory. We are by ourselves behaving like a child who is working and playing with games and toys. We're building here the system which helps us to understand who He is, what He is, and to resemble Him, meaning to reach the degree above this world, above the human society, above this good life, however you might, I don’t know, make it.
In managing this “good life” here, you must reach Ein Sof (Infinity). Thus, we have to learn about everything that is “Above” and cause the same picture below in our relations between ourselves.
Our material, our bodies, our world is arranged in such a manner that if we here will reach this balance in our society under all the conditions that we have here, we will bring ourselves higher and higher in the degrees of the worlds, till the world of Ein Sof.And here in human society we are actually revealing the world of Ein Sof, among the attitudes, the relations between us.
Through our intentions we start to reveal the spiritual world, and we don't yet feel the difference between corporeality and spirituality. The corporeality kind of disappears. It is as if it is sponged up into spirituality. It evaporates. You really start to feel, “I don't exist in corporeality, what corporeality exists here?” None, there are no bodies or anything. There are only intentions, only spirituality.
This grasp, this awareness of reality changes the internal sensation of man and his world in such a way that he stops feeling “matter” because the matter we feel now is because of our corrupted vessels.
As you start to correct your vessels, you will see that everything disappears. All that remains are feelings and intentions, so you're right. Why do I need to learn the wisdom of Kabbalah? You need it in order that here in this world you will build the corrected society. Why? According to what is written there? Not in order that you will have a nice corrected society here, but so that you, with this entire society, will reach the state of the Upper Vessel in the degree of the Creator.
However, the Israeli nation was to be a “transition.” This means that to the extent that Israel cleanse themselves by keeping the Torah, so they pass their power on to the rest of the nations. And when the rest of the nations also sentence themselves to a scale of merit, then the Messiah will be revealed. That is because the role of the Messiah is not only to qualify Israel to the ultimate goal of adhesion with Him, but to teach the ways of God to all the nations, as the verse says, “And all nations will flow onto Him.”
This means that everything depends on the nation of Israel, upon those that have the knowledge about the purpose of creation, about the means to reach it, meaning the wisdom of Kabbalah, about all the operations that a person must carry out, the order of operations and so on.
Since they act with purity towards the purpose of creation, they are drawn to it, they yearn for it, and they have an inclination to it. They must, in accordance with what is written here, correct themselves and be as a transition to all nations, and to include them into that same correction that was made by the Upper Light called Torah, Kabbalah. They ought not be satisfied by correcting themselves solely, but rather they have to be as a passage, a transition, for that was the reason that each one of them received this elevation, this awakening from Above.
If a person, who received this awakening from Above to yearn for the purpose, the goal of creation, does not carry out his role toward the rest of humanity, then he doesn't even understand what the purpose of the wisdom of Kabbalah is, and what the purpose of creation is. Rather, there is a yearning, but it seems that the method that he was taught, that he himself let's say revealed from the books is incorrect. This is because the correct study must bring man to materialize his mission in the world, to bring the world in its entirety to adhesion with the Creator. What he is saying here is that “when the rest of the nations also sentence themselves to a scale of merit, then the Messiah will be revealed.”
This means that only on the condition that most of the world also desire to reach the purpose of creation by means of suffering or through the Torah. It doesn't matter which path . If this desire is sufficiently revealed, then the great force in the world called Messiah will be revealed, whose purpose is, other than what Israel contemplated for the final purpose, to reach this ultimate goal of adhesion with Him. This means that through him we attain final adhesion. This is actually what might happen only by the work of Israel.
Question: How does the nation of Israel pass on the Light (what it receives) to the rest of the nations?
Baal HaSulam writes about this in a book, which is coming out soon called, The Future Generation. It has to be done through a person’s work in the entire world.
Baal HaSulam went to Poland in the thirties. There they were starting to establish socialism with the workers, the laborers, to unite them for mutual advancement as one socialistic society together. He thought that even the Polish people in the same country did not exactly perhaps create the right place for it. But in any case, on the one hand you could say this was a very naïve action. For instance let's say he took part in the First of May celebration. There were such times. But we have to understand that every motion between human beings to unite themselves towards mutual help is part of sanctity. Although it is perhaps revealed as an unripe fruit, as something that is out of place, still it is something somewhat resembling sanctity. That's why he took part in it and he was happy about it.
As for us, in our times and in our operations, we already need to perform actions for dissemination into the whole world. Like he says, the world has already reached a state where it can begin its correction. In action this should be carried out. Everything that is in your power to do, you must do. There is nothing that stands against us, seemingly. Everything is dependent only upon us.
Then, the Messiah will be revealed, meaning that this force of the awareness of the Upper Force will be revealed. This means that the Messiah is a force, not a person who is riding on a white horse. It's a force of the knowledge of the Creator, let's say. In the world, this is Messiah. For this is what draws a person from his corrupted desire into correction. The Upper Light that is revealed that gives you the importance of the goal, the understanding, the sensation, and elevation of what the goal is; this is what draws you towards it. This is called Messiah
Question: Why is there a difference between every nation? Why isn't everybody of one race, from the point of view of souls?
This belongs to the processes of corruption and correction. It's not important in the collective system of the human society. Each one belongs, in any case.
Even from within a nation, you could say an entire nation by itself could be divided like the whole world into parts, so that in each nation exist many races, such as the nation of Israel on the corporeal level which has Chinese, Germans, and Indians. It's not important. It's a division of the souls in their incorporation of their attributes of one into the other. That's it. That’s how they are divided. There's nothing special in it. Everyone must reach correction in any case. Everyone operates from within his deficit, from within his nature.
Question: A while ago, you said that the correction is of human beings. It is known from Noah's Ark that there was a decision to destroy most of the world, including the animate level. Have the animate acquired correction from this or something?
Was the flood on the entire globe and did everyone drown as well? What happened to the fish? It's interesting.
Question: So there was an intention to leave the fish alive?
Not everyone. They have their own world. They're in the water. Look, first of all we must see what the flood is? Like we learned, this is a Gvurot in Bina that corrects the world. Who is Noah? And so on. We learn this separately. This is not for now for sure.
It's the order of corrections that the vessels go through, from the breaking of the vessels, from the breaking of Adam ha Rishon, ten generations from Adam to Noah and ten generations from Noah to Abraham. So before the state of Israel they build these vessels so that they can go through descents, breaking, corrections, and the incorporation of Bina and Malchut together. This is the process.
Now you're asking about Noah’s Ark and as to why it concerned the vegetative and animate together with the speaking level, man. So it's written there. It is because of man that the whole world received a curse, and so the world must be destroyed.
Man is the fourth level, the fourth degree, and all the rest of the degrees are the first second and third—the still, vegetative and animate, and man is the level of speaking, the fourth. The fourth incorporates all of the other degrees and everything depends upon man. Together with the still, vegetative and animate everything ascends and descends. Even now man influences the still, vegetative and animate, and they suffer because of him. Inversely when they correct themselves, they will all blossom and be on a more complete level of their existence.
Everything depends upon man. This is also written in the beginning of The Introduction to the Wisdom of Kabbalah where Baal HaSulam explains this also. The still, vegetative and animate are all dependent upon man. In the Torah, in Bereshit (Genesis) it's written that because man has reached such corruption, the entire world now needs to enter into this great pool, this whirlpool ( Mikveh). What else do we have?
Question: As Baal HaSulam wrote that only the actions will push humanity forward, how does the action encourage the understanding of these matters? Isn't it the opposite?
No. The opposite we learn from the books, where man learns that he is in a group. One thousand and one things are explained to him but all the explanations and knowledge that he absorbs is external. It does not change the vessels. We feel everything according to our vessels. If I, like a child, do and do and do, arrive at some kind of new work that we don't know how to perform, but start to work, and out of this, I begin to receive a new sensation, then I start to receive like in an artistry, as I start to be a specialist. What does this mean? I already have sensations, new vessels that are developed within me out of my experience, out of my work. Thus, I can learn for a thousand years, but if I do not work in it (like I work in a profession) then I do not correct inside of myself, I do not create within me internal vessels.
Therefore, only out of the action, we can say, comes the degree of man. We learn only in order to understand which operations we need to perform in order to change ourselves. And our sensation that “Oh Israel complained from the work,” meaning that a person who wants to correct himself works at it, corrects himself towards society, as we see according to this whole drawing, so that all the work is directed towards the others. If we don’t exert ourselves in this direction and check ourselves, we will not feel how much we are opposite.
In theory everybody's righteous, everybody's good, everybody desires the good for everyone and for the rest of the world. But when we begin to try to do this and examine each action, not like the nice guy types do, but rather to examine ourselves according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, vis-à-vis absolute spirituality, then “what am I doing?” “How am I doing it?” We start to reveal the evil within ourselves, the difference between myself and the Light. This is what we drew here, this difference between the level of the speaking and the Light, this delta. When I begin to reveal this, then the awareness, the recognition of the evil standing between the Light and I brings me to correction.
I cannot accomplish this without the study and without its concretization in human society, since to work at first with human society, which is so large might bring me to a situation where the people would not understand me. I also would not understand what the correct reaction should be from them, so thus we must build our society within, as Baal HaSulam says, our small society, and start to concretize all these laws of correction. We will then learn and advance truly towards resembling the Creator.
What will be revealed in us will be revealed as spiritual worlds. The sensation between the others and myself will ascend in degrees of greater and greater bestowal called “my ascension in the worlds.” Then I will feel the matter in a different manner, the spirit. We will live in a spiritual dimension. All of this as a result of the simple actions between fellow men.