Bold and in quotes: Original text of Baal HaSulam
Regular: Commentaries of Rav Laitman
lowercase italics: emphasized words
Capitalized italics: transliteration from Hebrew
Reader: We are reading in the book Shamati, Article #16, What is the Day of the Lord and the Night of the Lord in the Work.
Our sages said this about the verse, “Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! Wherefore would ye have the day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light” (Amos 5): “A parable about a rooster and a bat that were awaiting the light. The rooster said to the bat: “I await the light for the light is mine; but you, what need have you for light?’” (Sanhedrin 98). The interpretation is that since the bat has no eyes to see, what does it gain from the sunlight? On the contrary, for one who has no eyes, the sunlight only darkens more.
We must understand that parable, meaning how the eyes are connected to looking in the Light of God, which the text names “the day of the Lord.” They gave a parable in that regard about a bat, that one with no eyes remains in the dark.
We must also understand what is the day and what is the night of the Lord, and what is the difference between them. We discern the day of people by the sunrise, but with the day of the Lord, in what do we discern it?
The answer is, as the appearance of the sun. In other words, when the sun shines on the ground, we call it “day,” and when the sun does not shine, it is called “dark.” It is the same with the Creator. A day is called revelation and darkness is called concealment of the face.
This means that when there is revelation of the face, when it is as clear as daylight for a person, this is called “day.” It is as our sages said (Psachim 1) about the verse, “The murderer riseth with the light, to kill the poor and needy; and in the night he is as a thief.” Since he said, “And in the night he is as a thief,” it follows that light is day. He says there, that if the matter is as clear to you as light that comes over the souls, he is a murderer, and it is possible to save him in his soul. Thus, we see that regarding day, the Gmarah says that it is a matter as clear as daylight.
It means that discernments are not like ours. Day and night depend on one’s ability to discern the Creator’s actions and his own existence in their true form. Meaning that it is clear to me what is the real state. The real state means the state that does not depend on my corrupted attributes, on my inability to see. It is being equipped with the ability to see a state as it is.
What is the state as it is? There is no such thing as a state being as it is. As we are speaking we may be in Ein Sof, in something that’s undefined, as Atzmuto, which is the Light that fills the whole reality.
What is a state? A state means what I can feel according to what appears in my Kelim that are corrected according to the rule of equivalence of form. Of course I am in the Light of Ein Sof, about which we can’t say anything and we must just accept this assumption from Kabbalists, from where a certain desire or attributes appear. If we really want to feel the right state as opposed to the simple Light, we must reach equivalence of form with thissimple Light. Then according to the equivalence of form between our attributes that are found in equivalence of form, and the Light, we’ll feel the reality.
And here it is interesting. If I come with my attributes to equivalence of form with the Light and the Light is at rest, it is abstract and completely bestowing without any limitations, and I too now reach this kind of correction where I am entirely bestowing, then I too become abstract? What will I feel then in my Kelim?
Here, we are beginning to understand why creation is outside of the Creator in the attribute of reception. Because the will to receive doesn’t disappear. Even though a person reaches equivalence of form, he reaches it in his intentions. His desire remains there. Only then does he become open to perception, sensation and understanding what the Upper Light is. That is, our intention to bestow enables us to perceive the Upper Light and give it a form, a sort of an image that we can express, feel and understand. Otherwise it’s abstract.
It turns out that then a person reaches the state of “the day of the Lord.” And because he works with his vessel of reception, but should develop intentions to bestow, with respect to these Kelim his actions are first felt as creating night. A person limits, restricts his vessels of reception and he doesn’t want to see in them, that is, with respect to these Kelim reality is felt as night. When he develops attributes of bestowal, he sees the Creator within the attributes of bestowal—otherwise, it’s impossible to see and know—for him that becomes a day, that which previously was night.
Day and night is not that something appears from the outside. Rather these are two approaches that appear in a person who corrects himself, one after the other. What was previously night, he had to conceal himself and precisely go above reason against his intellect and feeling without being able to determine anything. But he had to go through the whole night.
As we learn in Talmud Eser Sefirot in part 12, “What is the Night and Preparation for the Morning and what is day,” so too a person should prepare himself, and then he goes through these phases of day and night from within his own Kelim. And it all depends on how he determines what are day and night, because the night, which he previously accepted and went with, later on becomes precisely day. The same screen that hides becomes the screen that reveals.
It’s no wonder that in Aramaic, which is the opposite of Hebrew, night is called “Orta,” which is Light. These are two languages which are front and back/anterior and posterior to each other.
It follows, that the day of the Lord will mean that providence; how the Creator leads the world will be clearly in the form of benevolence. For example, when one prays, his prayer is immediately answered and he receives what he has prayed for; one succeeds wherever one turns. This is called “the day of the Lord.”
Conversely, darkness, which is night, will mean concealment of the face, which brings one doubts in the benevolent guidance and alien thoughts. This is called darkness and night. It means that one feels a state where he feels that the world has turned dark on him.
It means that it depends on what he wants to feel, what he wants to reach. In a bad state, when he’s given a chance to think and wants to exit his state naturally, he should develop a different attitude to the bad. The bad that he now feels as darkness will be as day for him.
Now that I feel bad, I am awakened from Above and by that I can see my day. Specifically through the bad feeling, through sensing my existence as being the opposite of the Light and feeling it as bad, as darkness I now have a measurement of how much and in which direction I can change myself so that my night will become day.
A day becoming night and a day and night interchanging gives a person the possibility to reach a day which is all Light up to a state where the Kelim are so corrected that all the states in them will seem to one as day. Since the greatest desires are of reception, you’ll be able to use them with Ohr Hassadim them with Ohr Hassadim (the Light of Mercy), where you will always have the sensation of day, of luminescence.
Otherwise Ohr Hochma (the Light of Wisdom), which comes and stands as against the vessels of reception, gives one darkness. In the lack of concealment where we are now, there is Light of Wisdom and there is no Light of Mercy and no ability to feel. If we begin to feel darkness, it’s as if the Light of Wisdom shines and waits expects us to have the Light of Hassadim with us.
How do we feel the Ohr Hochma? Kelim awaken in us, which by correcting them we will feel that Light. These Kelim appear ascontradictory.It turns out that these discernments of day and night which come to a person during the work, come as the substance on which he has to work. And that night, which he feels in the descent, in the falls, in all kinds of observations with respect to his sensations, his intellect, discernments and attainments and especially his understanding, he can change and bring to the sensation of the day, to the understanding what is day.
This is why the rooster and the bat are two states in a person. Is a person in his state of a bat, when does not discern what night is and what day is in the right spiritual way? A day is called that he is equipped with vessels of bestowal and then “darkness will shine as Light.” When he doesn’t expect it, he does not distinguish and doesn’t want it, he is called a bat. Or he may is a rooster that all the time he is in the dark expects the Light and sings even before the dawn.
It depends on how a person directs himself. This is why Baal HaSulam in the Introduction toTalmud Eser Sefirot discerns precisely to whom his material, which he writes, is intended. For those who are in a state where they don’t discern between day and night, in a spiritual sense, or they do expect from something of their point in the heart to have a day, for them the wisdom of Kabbalah is intended.
Question: Baal HaSulam writes “Those who don’t have eyes, the Light as darkness shines more.”
“Those who don’t have eyes” means the ability to see the Light, where his Kelim are equipped with screens, the Lights of Hassadim. The more these Kelim appear to him, the greater darkness appears. Ohr Hochma without Ohr Hassadim provides the sensation of darkness, since it stands in the face of the vessels of reception and cannot enter them. It gives a sensation that something is in front of me and it’s hidden from me. That’s the sensation of darkness, of confusion, of this lack of feeling. It comes from the state between Ohr Hochma and the vessels of reception, and not even necessarily Ohr Hochma, but the Upper Light.
This darkness can brighten only if the Kli has an attribute of bestowal, which we call Ohr Hassadim or Ohr Hozer “the Reflected Light.” To the extent that the Kli wants to be similar to bestowal, to be the bestower, then, as Baal HaSulam writes, Ohr Hassadim extends to it, from Above. In that Ohr Hassadim, when the Kli begins to work on it and with it, the Ohr Hochma can already also be clothed.
This means that there is no difference between the Lights (and we will learn more about it). There is no difference in the Lights. It’s the Kli with the kinds of desires and the degrees of its Aviut it discerns whether it’s Ohr Hassadim, Ohr Hochma, GAR, VAK etc. On the part of the Kli there’re only two kinds of attitudes: reception or bestowal.
Now we can interpret what is written, “Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! Wherefore would ye have the day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light.” The thing is that those who await the day of the Lord, it means that they wait to be imparted faith above reason, that faith will be as strong as if they see with their eyes, with certain knowledge that it is so, meaning that the Creator guides the world in benevolence.
It means that a person has to perform a Tikkun (correction) in their vessels of reception, so as to not be dependent on those Kelim. That he would be able to work with all that is happening in the Kelim, in those great desires, disregarding the egoistic sensation of deficiency in the Kelim. And all of these natural desires to receive would be used in order to bestow. That is, a person takes the Kelim of reception, the natural vessels of a person as a means and not as something that belongs to him, and begins using them for something completely external, something that does not belong to him.
Then why are these Kelim felt as the person’s Kelim? Because otherwise, it will not be considered that he is working in bestowal. Bestowal is something built upon vessels of reception. We cannot otherwise picture who the Creator is, the Bestower but only from this form of receiving.
In other words, they do not want to see how the Creator leads the world in benevolence. This is because seeing corresponds to faith. In other words, faith is precisely where it is against the reason; this is called faith above reason. It means that they believe that the guidance of the Creator over the creatures is benevolent.
Believing is not when I now decide, “I believe.” Every one of us can decide that every moment, but these decisions don’t determine anything nor change anything in reality. Reality is the desire within a person and that desire is sustained by the force of the Upper Light that alone works on the desire. There is no ability on the part of a person to directly influence his desire, to change it in any way. Only the Upper Light, as we learn from the four aspects of direct Light, influences the desire, existence from absence, through a series of actions, and turns it into all kinds of manifestations, which are different from the former, fundamental desire, which is a black point.
Other than the black point that exists on the desire, all comes from the Light. It turns out that a person, if he wants to change himself, should understand that only the Upper Light, the Creator can make these changes for him. Then he turns with a request to change his nature and according to the sincerity of the request, it happens only on condition that a person really attained the deficiency of change from a will to receive to the will to bestow. This deficiency, as we learned in the Freedom of Choice, can only be obtained through one’s surroundings.