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 reading in the book Shamati, Article #39, And They Sewed Fig-Leaves.
The leaf refers to the shade that it makes on the light, meaning on the sun. There are two kinds of shades: one comes from the side of Kedusha (lit. Sanctity), and the other comes due to a sin.
Thus, there are two kinds of concealment of the Light. As the shade conceals the sun, so there is concealment on the Upper Light, called sun. It comes from the side of Kedusha, namely because of a choice, as it is written about Moses, “And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look.”
The shade comes because of fear, and fear means that one is afraid to receive the bounty, that he may not be able to aim in order to bestow. It follows that the shade comes because of Kedusha (lit. Sanctity).
We learned that from the beginning the Thought of Creation is to do good to His creatures. The Creator doesn’t have time, space or motion; He doesn’t need an act or sequence of actions in order to realize His thoughts. The only thought, the only desire, to do good to His creatures, that same thought and desire, is immediately realized. The thought itself is the act.
Therefore, ‘at that moment’ (that’s how we say it) when that thought appeared, when that thought emerged, it was immediately realized and the creature came out filled with all the abundance and delight that is included in that thought.
In order to explain and to evoke the creature to understand and to bring it to sense what is included in the Thought of Creation (what the creature is in when it was created), for that purpose the Creator had to bring down a sequence of concealments on the creature, because “as far as Light excelleth darkness.”
This order of concealments and revelations prepare the creature to feel and to understand what is included in the Thought of Creation and where the creature is so it would not be like a miserable, little one, who doesn’t feel and doesn’t understand what the Creator had done for it. Rather, that it would feel and understand the full power of the Creator’s love for it. And for that we need the sequence of actions that unfold over the substance of the creature.
Also in these actions, there is a very important principle. These actions can’t occur on the creature without him being conscious of them. If it is passively happening, then it won’t feel, it won’t understand what those actions are and what their essence and content is. Therefore, the creature, from one act to the next, must improve, and become more sophisticated, and eventually participate in all of the actions that the Creator takes it through, each time more and more actively, independently in its powers, actions, in understanding and thoughts, and even in the planning. Until it comes to “because of Your actions we know You,” by knowing Him, it then participates in the Thought to such an extent that it comes to realize the Thought of Creation of its own volition, so to speak.
The actions that the creature performs are the exact same actions that the Creator performed on it. The Creator placed actions of concealment to distance the creature from the good states, where in the beginning the creature is included in the Thought of Creation, which is actually the only true state that exists.
The Creator creates a sequence of concealments on that state and distances the creature from the understanding and the sensation of that state. It is called that He lowers the creature from the world Ein Sof (Infinity) through the five degrees of concealment (five concealments for the five worlds) to this world. And then He gives the creature the opportunity by awakening only the point in the heart in a person, which stands opposite the black point, "existence from absence," from which the creature emerged.
Then that point gives the creature a chance to build over it its whole selfness, the essence of the creature, by acquiring that state—that Thought of Creation, that state of Ein Sof—with its own strength, independently, by its own planning and its own evolution. This is called the order of the ascent of the degrees from below upward, the attainment of the spirituality from the perspective of the creature, the degrees of prophecy and the attainment of godliness.
When the creature ascends these degrees, it should take upon itself the concealment on its own nature, and build itself above the concealment. It’s called above reason. And thus it hides its first nature, and builds on top of it a second nature which is called nature of bestowal, until it comes to the infinite measure in its perception, understanding and knowing the Thought of Creation, by which “From your actions we know You” and it becomes similar to the Creator.
It becomes similar to the Creator in its attributes, which are called, reaching Dvekut (adhesion). Dvekut in what? In his attributes. Then he acquires all of these attributes and comes to realize the Thought of Creation, which is “and to cleave onto Him.”
So the way from above downward is to build the levels of concealments which the Creator places as a preparation for us. And the way from below upward is attainment of the concealment. When we attain these concealments, acquire them, over our nature, and above those concealments, we build an attitude of bestowal like the Creator.
So, our whole work is to boast in the concealments, to love them, to buy them, and to play with them, because only on top of them can we build our independent attitude toward the Creator. This is why around every fruit from the tree, there are leaves that hide it from the sun and only inside the shade of leaves can the fruit grow so the sun doesn’t burn it. It’s a sign that we certainly grow in the Upper Light but on condition that we put the shade—these leaves—around the fruits, which are called resemblance to the Creator.
It follows that the shade comes because of Kedusha, meaning that one wants to cleave to the Creator.
In other words, Dvekut (lit. Adhesion) is called bestowal, and he is afraid that perhaps he will not be able to bestow. It turns out that he is adhered to Kedusha, and this is called “a shade that comes from the side of Kedusha.”
In other words, the creature itself does it or rather, it receives the shade that comes from Above, understands that it’s for its own good and realizes it, implements it, acquires it and uses it to build its attitude back to the Creator, an attitude of bestowal.
Then the Masach (screen) that hides it from the Creator becomes a Masach that builds the Partzuf of the creature itself (his independence) in the act of bestowal toward the Creator. Actually, the creature acquires also the Masach, in every power and way the Creator presents it to it, and turns it into its own Kelim as Baal HaSulam pictures it in his letters that the King gives to his son the shield and the sword.
Of course, the creature has no powers, preparations or wisdom of how to build itself, but it specifically uses the concealments, the disturbances from all that it receives from its own nature and from the environment. It understands that the Creator prepared all that for him only so that he would grow wiser and learn how to arrange all these elements in such a way that they will be as components of his attitude toward the Creator.
There is also a shade that comes because of a sin. It means that the concealment comes to one, but not because he does not want to receive. Quite the contrary, it is because one wants to receive in order to receive.
If it isn’t for this shade, the creature wouldn’t be able to differentiate where it is, in sanctity, or the opposite, and where the boundary between these two is. These two shades that come to a person show him what is in each of these states—in sanctity, i.e., in bestowal and in shells i.e., in reception— and how the Creator teaches him.
Where does He appear? He appears through the shades, where the creature is seemingly permitted to enter into both. But because the shade of sanctity comes or the shade of the shell, by that the creature begins to see his own relative attitude toward the Providence of the Creator, in relation to the adhesion with the Creator. Meaning, he no longer measures its state if he is happy or unhappy, but with respect to another shade—the true or false—and from which shade he prefers.
In other words, through using both these shades (it is impossible to progress without any shade, without the shade of sanctity and the shade of Sitra Achra (other side/evil inclination)), the creature builds its sensations, its understandings. Certainly, the more it progresses, it has more questions and greater concealments. From them it learns how to relate to them effectively, and creatively when it builds itself from these shades. We can’t say that only the shade of sanctity is good and only that should come and that he should never want the shade of Sitra Achra. If he never feels it, then he’ll never be able to build himself. Only through the contradiction between them does he acquire discernments, sensations and intellect.
This is the reason that the Light leaves, since the whole difference between Kedusha and Klipa (lit. Shell) is that the Kedusha wants to bestow and the Klipa wants only to receive, and not to bestow at all. [That’s what the creature attains through its own nature when it sees it from different shades that it feels, that it experiences.] For this reason that shade is considered to come from the side of the Klipa.
There is no counsel to exit that situation, except as it is written, “and they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves girdles.” Girdles refer to forces of the body that joined in the form a shade of Kedusha. It means that although they do not have Light now since the abundance departed due to the sin, they still overcome in serving the Creator by mere force, above reason, which is called by force.
This means that even though a person doesn’t feel any results, he specifically receives this shade because within that shade he can build himself. The Creator, who brings that shade to a person, by that gives a person the opportunity to express oneself there; either from the side of Sanctity or from the side of the Sitra Achra. But the shade is nevertheless, the place for free choice and free action.
It is written, “And they heard the voice of the Lord etc. and the man and his wife hid themselves,” meaning they went into the shade. This is the meaning of “and Moses hid his face,” [Meaning, by himself he placed the shade and then they had a room to express the reciprocal attitude to the Creator] meaning Adam ha Rishon (lit. The First Man) did the same as Moses did.
“And said unto him: 'Where art thou? And he said: 'I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” Naked means stripped of the Upper Light. The Creator asked, what is the reason that you came to the shade, called, “and I hid myself” for I am naked? Is it because of a shade of Kedusha or because of a sin?
When the will to receive that was uncovered by a Masach appeared without clothing, then he felt that he was naked in front of the Light and had to hide. That shade that he placed over himself is what brought him to a state where the Creator appeared to him and he could come in contact with Him and ask Him, “What do I do next?”
The Creator asked him: “Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?” [Meaning, you had a balanced state between the will to receive and the Light through the Masachim, and now your will to receive is greater than the Light. You used it, meaning it’s not that you have it and it’s restricted, but you used it more than your Masach, your shade, enables you.] meaning because of a sin.
However, when the shade comes because of a sin, it is called “images, image makers, and sorcerers,” [Meaning that a person attains the will to receive that has now grown in him and showed itself. He sees that this will to receive is now uncovered by shade, a Masach, and comes to him from the side of Sitra Achra], which is “God hath made even the one as well as the other.” This is because as there are forces in Kedusha to make changes, and to show signs and omens, so there are forces in Sitra Achra.
This is done deliberately from both directions with respect to a person, to give him the possibility to build himself separately from the revelation of the Creator and to be separated from the revelation of the will to receive. It is from both sides so that a person should be defended and build himself without surrendering to the pleasures or to the size of the desire. As we say, to build himself in between, in the middle line, where the right line can be pleasures, revelations; and the left line it can be the disclosure of desires beyond the ability of the Masach. A person should be protected from these two influences on him as he hides himself with respect to the Light, as Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at the Light.
And with respect to the will to receive that comes and all of a sudden—like Pharaoh, like Haman—it appears to him. With respect to that, he’s also not afraid, he sees the same attitude of the Creator toward him whereby that, gives him the opportunity to build the place to express himself.
Thus one is built out of these two influences, and he protects himself from these two influences. He needs these two shades, these two influences, and within them builds himself. There cannot be only bestowal from the Light, from the Creator, as we have in Ein Sof and there cannot be bestowal with respect only to the will to receive as we have in this world; but you have to have both balanced.
A person correspondingly builds his self when he controls both limiting the Light that appears to him and limits the will to receive that awakens and which seemingly wants to control him. Let’s put it this way: neither the great pleasures that turn his head influence him, nor the great troubles, or the great anxieties. From both sides he is protected and in between them he builds himself above reason, clinging to the Creator. By understanding that both these influences, the seemingly good and bad (with respect to his will to receive when he feels it this way) come from one source so that he will relate to them creatively only. Only the act of bestowal will be for him as Light along his way; as the purpose.
This is why the righteous do not use these forces, because of “one as well as the other,” so as not to give forces to the Sitra Achra to do as they do.
Only on exceptional occasions does the Creator not give that force that is in Kedusha to the Sitra Achra. [They work one opposite the other—the Sanctity and the Sitra Achra (that the Creator created)—to design a person.] It is like Elijah on Mt.Carmel who said, “Hear me” so they will not say that it is witchcraft, meaning that there is power to conceal the Upper Light.
Hence, girdles that comes from the side of the fig leaf, which is from the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, these leaves, meaning this shade that comes due to the sin, since the cause is not from the side of Kedusha. When they choose to take shade by themselves, but they take the shade because they have no other counsel, this can work only to exit the state of descent. Afterwards, however, the work must begin anew.
Every time one enters one of these two states or lines, he must begin the work anew, build his Partzuf at a new degree, at the next degree. Meaning that we shouldn’t see it as a negative thing but on the contrary, starting the work anew is called entering a new degree. That’s what we should believe. We increase sanctity not lower it. With respect to every person in this world and every situation which appears as good or bad to our sensations brings us closer to the goal. The fact that a person should start anew is a good sign because there is nothing worst than sitting idle.
Question: It is written that “Man and his wife hid” meaning, they went into the shade. What does it mean that a person hides himself from God?
When they hid, they performed a correction. He felt that he had a will to receive more than the Masach and that he couldn’t use this will to receive in order to bestow. So he hid that will to receive.
Question (cont’d): Is it what we call making a Restriction?
You can call it “Restriction.” It’s a correction. Because he hid, the Creator could appear to him and ask, “What’s the matter with you?” What does it mean, “What’s the matter with you”? It’s a revelation. It’s as if with this question, He shows a person the next phase in understanding, in attaining the situation. So, “What’s happening to you?” By having the special Light, this bestowal, the revelation of a greater attribute of bestowal is called that “the Creator appears to him” so, he says, “I am naked. I covered myself because I am ashamed.” Out of his actions (which he seemingly did now) he discovers, with respect to the Light, that it came to him because new desires appeared in him.
What should he do? He should build himself anew, at a new degree. This is called that “he was expelled from the Garden of Eden” and begins to work. But in the Garden of Eden he couldn’t express himself, he couldn’t build himself, he only had the vessels of bestowal.
Now, the will to receive has been added, and through it he was thrown out of that degree, which was entirely in the attribute of Bina, the attribute of bestowal. Now that he is below it, he can work on it to elevate this new AHP that appeared in him, into Bina and to go back to the Garden of Eden. However, now he builds the Garden of Eden in that will to receive that appeared in him.
This is called “ AHP de Aliyah,” (the raised AHP) when he elevates it to Bina. It’s not the Garden of Eden with respect to the Creator, vessels of bestowal only, but the Garden of Eden with respect to a person, when a person builds the Garden of Eden. “Until he builds the Garden of Eden on Earth” and the whole Malchut (Kingdom) will be in the form of bestowal. Not in the raised AHP, but in its place. This is called Gmar Tikkun (the end of correction).
Question: How a person can criticize himself and see that he is receiving in order to receive. If he recognizes that he receives with the wrong intention, it’s as if he is already at the degree above where he is.
It is only on condition that the Creator appears. Then, a person recognizes that he is in a greater will to receive than in the previous state; that this desire is what distances him from the Creator, from the attribute of bestowal. That he fell, that he descended, that he was separated. That is the status. It’s on condition he covers himself that he puts all these clothings on himself which he and his wife made. When he wanted to somehow cover himself, he covered his part, Galgalta ve Eynaim and his wife too—the AHP. But what kind of coverings are they?
But anyway out of his effort, the Creator, the attribute of bestowal appears in him—in Adam—and with respect to this attribute of bestowal a person begins to judge himself, “What is happening to me, what happened to me?”
Then, according to that scrutiny, as a result of it, he sees that he is no longer at the same degree of bestowal that he was before. It’s called being expelled from the Garden of Eden. It’s all according to what a person experiences. It’s not that some judge comes to you and punishes you, rebukes you. That is what a person experiences out of his efforts. That status can actually happen every time when a person scrutinizes his will to receive, which overcomes him more than the actions of bestowal (the corrections of bestowal) that he performed before.
Question: During the preparation period, does he have any control over the process?
The ability to hold onto the principle of bestowal towards the goal comes certainly out of effort, which brings importance. The importance determines the ladder of values. In the end, it’s what determines what happens with a person. It’s what we call brain washing.
Importance means that I ascribe values to all kinds of fulfillments or the lack of them, not according to the way they appear to my will to receive (that I don’t have to measure) since the will to receive itself measures. But I ascribe values to these states not according to the will to receive but according to other artificial discernments that are not in the will to receive.
It might be that society considers them, which is also indirectly in my will to receive. It might be because of shame, which is also within my will to receive, but maybe not so directly. But there is an ability to ascribe values to situations, which are completely opposite to the way they’re registered in the will to receive.
These states are measured in me by their proximity to bestowal. This value, that unnatural value, can be brought by the Light. We can’t do it, we can’t understand how it happens but this is how it happens in a person. He begins to relate to the attribute of bestowal as a sublime value, not as a corporeal value, the lower natural one, but as an unnatural value.
It’s engraved in him in such a way that within his nature it becomes like the primary asset compared to which he measures. The fulfillments or lack of them, he relates to them as means to elevate the importance of this value of bestowal. Meaning that if he used the whole world and everything that came to him to serve his will to receive, then now, he takes the will to receive and everything that have to do with it, in order to serve the will to bestow.
He inverted his values. This can happen only through the Light that Reforms. But it happens gradually, not all at once. Gradually a person gets used to it, comes to the level of the Machsom when he wants it. But this desire is still in order to receive until it is inverted when it enters this higher value, then he begins to develop as an Ubar (Fetus).
Question: What does it mean, “To eat of the tree of knowledge”?
Eating of the tree of knowledge means using the vessels of reception as they are. The vessels of reception, the AHP are covered in a person. When they appear without the covering, without the Masachim (screens) and a person uses them, it’s called that he eats of that tree, uses these desires for reception. This is called that he eats of the tree of knowledge. This is why our work is above it. We do not use the vessels of reception directly, we can’t, but we go above these Kelim in AHP de Aliya (the raised AHP).
You might say, “Then, why was that tree in the Garden of Eden?” Why between the vessels of reception and the Galgalta veEynaim (vessels of bestowal) do I have to have vessels of reception if we can’t use them? Why did the Creator place that tree? So that I’ll be afraid of it, so that I won’t touch these desires? Fine, okay, I’ll put a fence around that tree and I won’t touch it. But if that’s the case, I am an angel. I won’t grow. On the contrary, I need to understand what these Kelim are. They are my nature; they are me, because the Garden of Eden is not me.
I have nothing in the Garden of Eden that’s mine. Like the still, vegetative and animate, that’s how I am there, not like human. But if I am integrated in all this AHP, with all the true vessels of reception, and I mingle in them and I am incorporated in them in such a way that I completely lose my original nature, my Bina and it controls me, then from there, through all kinds of awakenings and troubles, all kinds of states, I gradually come to seemingly choose vessels of bestowal and want them and make efforts to reach them.
Then, I build the Garden of Eden within me, by myself. It is me building it, the raised AHP is actually me. I reconstruct the Garden of Eden with my powers and because it is my doing, then my point, the point from which I was created—the stony heart—it too disappears from its nature of reception over which there cannot be a Masach. With my effort I bring it to a state where I justify and correct "the existence out of absence;" because I stand on it and from it, I perform the other corrections in what I am permitted.
Question: Baal HaSulam says about the prevailing of Adam ha Rishon, “Even the abundance left, the Light left, still they prevail in serving the Creator above reason.” What does it mean, “by force”? With intentions, Mitzva (precept/commandment) with intention not de facto? Why does he emphasize it?
By force, or de facto, there are many interpretations to it. Even when we correct ourselves until Gmar Tikkun it’s called correcting ourselves by force not de facto. We’re not actually so because we’re not using the real Kelim.
Question: Is death the shade of Sitra Achra?
Yes, it constitutes all the shades, where if a person overcomes them, he comes to it. We have to understand that every shade, concealment, comes out of the Creator’s desire to bring us some kind of place for work. If a person doesn’t find the strength to work within the concealment, it’s a sign he didn’t use his environment correctly. He didn’t receive awakening and the strength.
But from the Creator, these concealments come by His own calculations to enable a person to do something. A person must only prepare himself to these concealments to be armed with powers, with all kinds of means, so that when concealment arrives he can do something with himself. It is called “Under His shade I sat and His fruit was sweet to my pallet.”
How can that be? Because he builds this fruit using the shade, without the shade he wouldn’t be able to build the fruit. Those who take all of the leaves off the tree, they shouldn’t wait for fruits, because the fruit can’t grow without the leaves; it’ll all burn without the screens (shade).
Question: Could you clarify the matter of powers of Sanctity that the righteous don’t use.
I said that the Creator has two attitudes toward the creature—from the good side, so to speak and from the seemingly bad side. When according to a child’s desire to receive his mother’s behavior doesn't seem for his own benefit, then the child then says that his mother is bad. Her behavior comes from a higher degree, so he doesn’t see the good intention in it to bring him to a better state. If his mother relates to him at his level and gives him what he feels as pleasure at that level, then she is a good mother. When she relates to him from a higher degree, then she is a bad mother because she doesn’t equalize with his will to receive. The gap between the degrees is felt in him as a shade, as concealment.
There is the Creator’s attitude from two directions: either He shows us the Kelim from the Higher Degree or He shows us the Lights from the Higher Degree. Both are problematic. If He shows us Kelim (desires under the Masachim that are already to bestow), then these desires seem to us like darkness because it’s a big desire, bigger than ours and in order to bestow.
As for me, give me anything but that. That state seems so dark to me, it’s like death. I don’t want to get into that; that’s how the future seems before me. It really is a greatest state, a state of bestowal or it might be that the Creator shows a person not the corrected Kelim more than a person has, but seemingly shows a person greater pleasures, greater Lights, than a person can perceive and receive. Then, he has to hide Himself, that’s what is said about Moses.
Where does one get the power to hide himself from the Creator? That’s according to the preparations that he receives usually from the environment, because he can’t attain it himself. All the next degrees will come from a greater connection to the environment. If a person receives from the environment (in the present state), the value of incorporating with society that’s greater than he is now, then that it is preferable. Even if some pleasure appears compared to it (to receive for himself) the value that he received from the environment of being in bestowal, will help him build a Machsom or Masach against this pleasure and he’ll prefer to be in bestowal rather than in reception.
The resistance to the pleasure that will appear can only come from the environment. Because it belongs to the next degree and in the next degree, a person can prepare himself to it only by effort to his environment, his group.
It turns out that the Creator behaves with us from two sides—from the side of the Kelim, the big and corrected Kelim, which seems to us like darkness, which we don’t want. It’s death for us. The future seems dark, our will to receive doesn’t see anything there; it's repulsive to us. We don’t want that tomorrow. Or, it seems like excessive pleasure that a person should be defended from, by preferring to be in bestowal against his pleasure. This is so if the society gave him that value of bestowal more than the degree he is naturally in.