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 #140, How I Love Thy Law.
“O how I love Thy law! It is my meditation all the day.” He said that even though King David had already been awarded perfection, he still craved the Torah, because the Torah is greater and more important than any perfection in the world.
“How I love thy law! It is my meditation all the day.” This refers to speech, i.e., revelation (as a woman who talks to her husband), through which there is the revealing of the Upper Light that is intended for the creature. We shouldn’t think that this Light has any limit or portion that is intended for the creature. The fact that the Upper Light created the Kli (vessel), and supposedly the power in which it created the Kli is its power, is incorrect thinking. By adding to the process of its breaking and correcting, the Kli adds the intention to bestow.
This is why it comes out a completely different degree than it was created. It discloses the Upper Light not according to the volume of the Kli but according to the measure of the quality of bestowal, which is a quality that doesn’t belong to the Kli. It develops in the Kli as a result of meeting the Creator. And because the Creator shows Himself as the eternal, unlimited lover, hence, within the Kli it develops the intention, and the ability to give unreservedly as well.
That’s why after Gmar Tikkun, (the end of correction), the degrees that the Kli experiences are without any limitation. That’s also why there’s no end to the Torah.
The Upper Light that is called “ NRNHY ( Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya and Yechid),” iswhere the Kli seemingly receives Tarach (620) times more than at the beginning of the exposure of the Light in the First State. In the Third State the Kli, i.e. all the souls together, the corrected soul of Adam ha Rishon (the First Man), they receive Tarach times more of the Light that existed in the entire First State.
The Light still continues to develop and the intention, which is the real Kli, i.e., the Masach (screen) and intention, they grow indefinitely. There is still a question on top of what do they grow? If the entire Kli is corrected, on what then does the Masach grow? On what can the intention grow?
There are two interpretations of this (if it’s possible in the meantime to thus explain it), that there is Aviut, (thickness/coarseness) from the perspective of the Kli and Aviut from the perspective of the Light. The Aviut from the Kli is from deficiencies; the Aviut from the Light is from completeness. The Kli that ends its Tikkun (correction) is integrated into the Light and that gives us an additional, unlimited Aviut. Meaning that it can progress and build itself more and more and more out of wholeness, out of goodness, and out of love.
And this is why the Kli’s (the creature’s) intention to bestow can grow without any limitations and accordingly, the Light that is received is unlimited Light. This is also why we say that there is no limit or end to the Torah. What does it mean that there is no end? In our words it means that it’s above Gmar Tikkun. And this process according to our understanding (i.e., what we can now imagine according to our perception) is never ending, and we go from wholeness to wholeness.
The next wholeness doesn’t cancel the previous wholeness, otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to call it “complete.” But because we evolve from deficiency to completeness, we don’t have a choice but to call the degrees this way, from smaller to greater wholeness. We have no other words. We’re all made from deficiencies. This includes our vocabulary.
That’s why, “How I love Thy Law, it is my meditation all the day.” When King David, Malchut of all Israel, reaches GmarTikkun, he says that it is what he speaks of all day now that the Torah is revealed. He still talks and progresses in it and there’s no end to this big day.
Question: Until now we learned that Aviut can be measured from the perspective of the creature. What does it mean Aviut from the Light?
Aviut from the Light means you look at bestowal and you get a deficiency to reach that same ability to bestow. Even though from within you have nothing to build it on. You also have examples in this world, to some extent. When you’re impressed with good things that others have and you suffer because you’re not like that. You see others who can give, they can contribute, they can love, and they can be interested in others. You look at them and sometimes you say, “They’re stupid and who am I to do these things, irrational and unrealistic; to give to another, to love another without any reward. It’s crazy! Well, he was built that way so he probably gets pleasure from it.”
But sometimes you look at it and you weigh it differently, “Why am I not like that? Why am I not into it?” Also, you ask “Why am I not like that,” not because it would give me satisfaction or honor, or maybe even something from the Creator. It’s just the quality that you don’t have that brings you suffering. Not because you’re envious, but because you recognize the greatness and respectability of the act itself. So this is to say (more or less in some way), that Aviut comes from the Light.
Question: What’s the difference between the quality of bestowal that operates on us and the Light that Reforms?
The quality of bestowal that operates on us from the perspective of the Creator are the forces or the Upper Force, which is like the press of evolution, pressing us and pushing us ruthlessly toward correction, toward the goal. This is the simple Upper Light that fills reality and affects all the Reshimot (reminiscences), in all the souls.
The Light that Reforms is bestowal from Him , compelling it to evolve, instead of pressuring the Reshimo and awakening in the Reshimo the deficiency for evolution. And out of the deficiency to evolve is the awareness of what is missing in the evolution. And from that, the prayer for evolution, raising MAN, so the creature will ask for correction, meaning to be in bestowal.
And then after the acts of the Upper Light on the Reshimo you get these responses from the Reshimo.The Upper Light is opposite the demand of the soul itself, i.e., the Kli, and the deficiency. There’s already a demand for it, which it’s not just a cry, “I’m suffering.” But even though I’m suffering, I’m asking You above it, not to take away the pain, I thank You that I’m suffering. Because on top of that evil I begin to think.
I’m no longer in double concealment, I am not in single concealment. When on top of the bad, even though I feel bad, I say that, “bad is purposeful,” and I am asking You to correct me so that my suffering will change into good. So I will not feel the bad because I suffer. I want to feel good because otherwise, I will not thank You, I will not love You. When I suffer, I still curse You, even though I understand it is for my own good but I cannot love You, I cannot justify You.
If a person asks in this way, then he’s asking for faith above reason. He doesn’t want to remain in his own reason because reason causes him to not justify the Creator. This is single concealment. Then he has that request to be above in his intention to bestow like the Creator, justifying Him, This is really his only concern. Then he receives from the Light, not the push from behind through pains, but a pull from in front. This is called, “the Light that Reforms,” because he’s asking correctly, he’s asking for a correction. And then the Light pulls him from in front through the Machsom (barrier), to revelation, to reward and punishment. To the extent that he asks for it, he’s already in a state of recognition of reward and punishment.
We learned about all these elements. You need to try and connect them all together. We learned about double concealment, single concealment, reward and punishment, eternal love and how through affliction and through the Light that Reforms, a person develops by four stages.
That means that if we want to develop not ‘in its time’ but by accelerating it, we have to transcend in prayer above reason. This means that to come to a state where I do not check the situation according to my own benefit but I want to check it according to the extent of my relationship with the Creator. If that’s what I want to correct, it is considered that I am raising MAN. And then, as a result of my MAN, comes the Light and Reforms me. If I do not want that, if I still cannot bring it out of me, then I am progressing for the time being through pain.
But these pains are already special pains, because I still combine it with the study and with the group. But it’s still not the Light that Reforms per say. The time from three to five years does not begin from opening a book and beginning to read for the first time. It begins the moment you begin to ask correctly (more or less) for correction. I’m sorry but that’s the reality; just opening the book is meaningless.
He writes in the Introduction to TES ( Talmud Eser Sefirot), that the sages arranged a system for us, where instead of the afflictions etc., that the Light reforms you. How and over what period of time? When you’re asking that the Light reform you and you would be willing to torment yourself, be willing to sleep on the ground, eat a piece of bread, drink a glass of water, involve yourself with Torah and you’d be happy. “Suffer in this world, but in the next world things will be good.”
And if instead of those exact conditions that you were in before you want to reach the Light that Reforms, you want to use it, then you should understand the kind of dedication and intensity, i.e. how much effort you need to make in your intentions in order to draw the Light. This is only through the group and good effort. Then, over some time, a person has to get used to it, i.e., he has to be experienced in this way. So that takes a few months. Baal HaSulam says it is from three to five years before you begin to act consciously. Then it's not the Light that Reforms, but it is the Light that comes to the soul and acts in it as we learn in the degrees of Talmud Eser Sefirot.
Question: If the Light that Reforms the whole of humanity is expressed in a person as a press or pressures or pains then how can the sane creature call it?
The creature wants to progress; by progressing in a group, in dissemination, and by books, it comes to a point where the Light still works on it, even though there’s still no request. But we see that even as it is called, ‘He hears the prayer of every mouth,’ that the creature changes. As it changes, it comes through its own efforts from the study to a situation where it exerts and exerts and exerts. Even out of his own egoism, he’s already sorry about his own effort. What does he get out of his efforts? Nothing. He becomes like the case of the spy. Can he reach it or not? Where? What will he have? etc.
The Light still works on him. Then the person begins in any case to calculate, as a result of the influence of the Light, out of his efforts. Then he wants to be in the quality of bestowal, even though it doesn’t give him and won’t give him any profits but only to belong to this act, this quality. It’s a result of the influence of the Light. It’s not that all of a sudden, in the will to receive it can just grow out of itself, never.
But as the Light gradually affects the will to receive, it begins to have a kind of appreciation for the quality of bestowal. “I want to have it.” “Why?” “Because.” It comes from the influence of the group and the books. And then he goes from double concealment to single concealment.
What’s single concealment? It's when I care about how I relate to the Creator. That’s the single concealment instead of the double concealment. We measure the degrees with respect to our attitude to the Creator. All the degrees are about the attitude of the creature toward the Creator.
All the degrees are the Masach (screen) and Ohr Hozer (the Returning Light). The degrees are not that I feel good, that I manage in this or that. It’s not how I manage the reward and punishment, i.e., I make an effort, I get a reward. No. All the degrees are measured from zero, from the time a person opens the book onward.
From the first moment you touched the wisdom of Kabbalah onward, all the degrees are with respect to the Light, to the Creator, and to the quality of bestowal. It doesn’t matter what you call it. What does it mean that you go from double concealment to single concealment? He cares about the quality of bestowal itself and he’s suffering because he’s not in it.
Then he already begins to regret not having the contact and relation as he says, “For I’m lovesick. I want to be together with my beloved.” Baal HaSulam explains it in the letter or, (King David), in the Song of Songs. Meaning, he’s sorry that he feels bad in his will to receive because from whom does this bad come from? This bad is only from the Creator. If this bad is from the Creator, then how can he speak well of Him? I want to correct my Kli so that I will feel good, if only so as to think good about Him.
This means that he wants to go above reason, above his own sensation. He understands that because he’s corrupted, he doesn’t feel a good attitude from the Creator who’s benevolent to the good and to the bad. But that’s not what he feels, it’s not how he deciphers the message he receives. Only because of this does he wants to change it. Meaning, it’s all about the attitude towards the Creator. But it’s clear, and out of that, he raises a request only for the correction of his attitude toward the Creator. This is called MAN.
Read what Rabash writes about the correction between the Upper One and the lower one, The Association of the Quality of Judgment and Mercy. All of the changes in us are changes in our attitude toward the Creator only—attitude. Without taking into account what happens to us in our Kelim. If it is possible, this is called, “above reason.” What determines our degree is the extent to which our Kelim are biggerand to the extent that we do not want, or can’t, or can etc., be in accordance with our attitude toward the Creator or in accordance to our Kelim.
This is why, “he, who’s greater than his friend, his desire is greater than him.” If I rose to the attitude of the Creator, above my will to receive (it isn’t important to what extent within the desire), and whatever happens, I treat Him as benevolent, then my desire to receive is increased even more and in it I feel bad. Then I have to once again correct my attitude to the Creator on top of the will to receive that grew.
And this is called, “that I go with more faith above reason, with bestowal above reception.” And thus, as our entire climb from the level of this world, to the level of Ein Sof (Infinity), the whole 125 degrees. The 125 degrees are when the will to receive constantly opens up itself to me and on top of it I acquire the Masach.
What’s the Masach? The attitude to the Creator is not according to what I have in the will to receive, but even though I feel darkness in the will to receive, my attitude to the Creator is like the Light. The will to receive as it is, isn’t fulfilled; it’s filled only from the Returning Light. The Inner Light that comes into the will to receive is pleasure from giving. The pleasure of the will to receive, from receiving within it, doesn’t exist in nature. It’s somewhere after the revival of the dead.
Question: During this yo- yo act, how do you maintain the rope from tearing?
This yo-yo rope is not in your hands. That’s how you’re played with from Above. The rope you were thrown from Above, which you catch, is the end of the rope where you begin to feel that your attitude toward returning to the Creator begins to be built. That’s the end of the rope. Not from Above downward. Don’t worry. From Above downward the ropes are very strong. The will to receive is controlled entirely by the Light.
Question: Can we say that the whole of humanity is in a state of double concealment?
I wish the whole of humanity was in double concealment. Where do you have double concealment?
Remark: He was asking does it become clearer only to those who begin to study Kabbalah?
Only those who begin to study Kabbalah enter double concealment and sometimes, single concealment and sometimes, even the degree of reward and punishment, but that’s just fleeting moments in a person’s life before he crosses the Machsom. But we are at the beginning of the way before that revelation. Before one receives Lishma (for Her Name), he’s either in double or single concealment, if he’s at all aware even of where he is. Double and single concealments are if I am in self-control, self-awareness of what my attitude toward the Creator is; if I even think about it.
I can study Kabbalah for ten years, or twenty years and think about what it gives me and what I feel as the result. If I begin to ask what the Creator feels from me, if I have this question, then from that moment on, I’m either in double or single concealment. Double and single concealments are degrees; states according to the states we have afterwards, in reward and punishment and in love. And until a person in those two degrees of double or single concealment makes all the sins and all the mistakes that he has to perform, i.e. always gets up and falls, (a thousand times a righteous falls and rises), he won’t reach the degree of reward and punishment.
This is only on the condition that he craves justifying the Creator and falls, justifying and falling. When he falls, it is considered that he is in the breaking. This breaking isn’t “the breaking” as he wasn’t in correction but it’s called that, “he fell into a sin or into a mistake.” And he rose again and wants to perform a Mitzvah (precept/commandment), and wants to be in the sensation of bestowal, of love and justification of the Creator. And once again, he falls into a mistake or a sin and thus, over many times until he completes his portion.
Question: How can I relate to the Creator if don’t know who He is?
By doing all kinds of exercises in the group, in dissemination and in the study, he begins to somehow picture what the property of bestowal is. And his attitude toward the property of bestowal is his attitude toward the Creator; it’s the same. It’s not an image. He doesn’t have an image. It is not something that you can picture other than the quality of bestowal itself, a quality. Spirituality is qualities.