Bold and in quotes: Original text of Baal HaSulam
Regular: Commentaries of Rav Laitman
lowercase italics: emphasized words
Capitalized italics: transliteration from Hebrew
What was created is the will to receive. It was created through the Light that, with respect to the will to receive, is called the “Creator.” He created it as “existence from absence,” as darkness from Light, because they are opposite in their attributes. The will to receive is actually something constant, existing.
However, in the wisdom of Kabbalah we talk about how the will to receive is impressed by the Light. That within it, the will to receive begins to discover all forms of impressions called “degrees of Aviut (thickness/coarseness),” and sensation, and at the same time understanding this sensation called “intellect.” Within the will to receive begins the awakening of all kinds of actions, intentions to be similar to the Light, the Creator. They’re seemingly opposite from what it naturally is. The whole wisdom of Kabbalah talks about how the will to receive, which was created, behaves.
Of course, its behavior is entirely a result of the influence of the Light on it, because how else can anything change in it, in this desire? However, the laws of the impression of the will to receive is what the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches and brings to a person. A person is a special composition of that will to receive and the Light put together. From this reciprocal act, from the connection between them, there is like a vacant space, a place for the will to receive to express its willingness to resemble the Light.
In this the will to receive is called “ Adam” (man/human), because it wants to resemble the name of the act. Thus, the article is called Man’s Connection to the Sefirot. From wanting to resemble the Light that same will to receive arranges itself, i.e., chooses the Light to affect it, to build it in a certain way. It doesn’t actually matter in which internal form it builds it, as long as its act will be similar to the Light. Accordingly, when the will to receive wants to resemble the Light, it determines which desires will awaken in it and in what order.
It doesn’t quite know how to do it. However, when it aspires to be like the Light, it asks for the Light and draws from the Light with its desire, with its prayer, with its MAN such acts that the Light helps it, builds in it. The Light discloses in it such desires, such relationships between them, and affects these desires so that in them the Masach (screen), the intention to bestow, will is formed.
It all depends on this MAN that comes from the will to receive to the Light as the demand of the Light to tend to it, to correct it, to turn it into something similar to the Light in return. That’s what happens to us in the whole of creation.
So again, we are talking about parts of the will to receive and how they are revealed so that what is revealed is, on the one hand, revealed to the maximum within the will to receive. On the other, this maximum desire that appears will still be a desire that is arranged by the same direction of bestowal as is the Light.
All the above means that one cannot correct one’s thought, but should only aim the heart—make one’s heart straight to the Creator. Then all of his thoughts and actions will naturally be to bestow contentment upon his Maker. And when he corrects his heart to have a heart and desire of Kedusha, the heart will then be the Kli in which to place the Upper Light. And when the Upper Light shines in the heart, the heart will strengthen and he will add and supplement continuously.
Now we can interpret our sages’ words, “Great is the study that yields action.” It means that through the Light of the Torah, he is led into action, as the Light in it reforms it. This is called “an act.” This means that the Light of the Torah builds a new structure in his heart.
Thus, the previous Guf, which came to him from the serpent’s skin, has been separated from him and he has been awarded a sacred Guf. The inner Guf, called “the Noga Shell,” which was half good, half bad, has become all good, and now the NRN is in it, which he attains through his actions, as he adds and supplements.
There aren’t several bodies, but if one falls, one rises. The same desires lose the intention to receive and acquire the intention to bestow. This is why it’s called “that a person goes from one body to another.” We are talking about the same desires that exist in Malchut deEin Sof. But it’s about how they can appear, i.e. in which order in each and every person, in which connection among the desires themselves, in order to constantly build the optimal holy body. It means the Kli for the inspiration of the Light is called the “holy body.”
Before he is awarded a new structure, although he tries to cleanse his heart, the heart is still unchanged. In that state it is considered that he is in the form of “that fulfill His word.” Yet, we must know that the beginning of the work is specifically in the form of “that fulfill His word.”
But this is not completeness, since he cannot cleanse his thoughts in that state, since he cannot be saved from thoughts of transgression, as his heart is of a Guf of Klipa, and one thinks only from the thoughts in one’s heart. Rather, only the Light in it reforms it. At this time the separating Guf departs from him, and the inner Guf, the Noga Shell, which was half bad, becomes all good. In that state, the Torah brings one into action through the making of a new structure. And this is called “an act.”
This means that one should do all kinds of acts, especially within society where it is certain that he will find how opposed he is from the Light, from the Giver. He is entirely within himself, within his own desires and his own thoughts, or all about how to fulfill his own desires. Through his actions in society he receives the impression of how important it is to exit himself and how incapable he is of doing it.
It is from those two impressions that will gradually build within himself the request, the prayer and the MAN. As much as he tries to do all sorts of things in between to change himself and sees that he can’t and it’s not working out, each time the desire increases and enters the same states as before. All of that is in order to bring him to a real cry so that he will understand that only the Light can help him and this is all that he wants.
Then the Light works on him, which inverts the elements in him and he becomes detached from the previous body. That is, from the arrangement of the previous desires and intentions comes a new state. He is revived in his new body, with the same desires as before. However, because they are all in the order to bestow, he doesn’t even see that they are the same desires. He thinks they are different. That’s how much the intention changes the sensation of the desire. Everything follows the intention.
A person lives within the intention not within the desire. The intention is far stronger than the desire. The desire is like the means, and the intention is the essence, the goal. Thus, he approaches the act. What is the act? Who performs the act? The Light that Reforms. A person invites this act and then he can call the act after the name of the person.
Question: How can one scrutinize in the group what belongs to the Noga shell?
Right now we can’t talk about the Klipat Noga, Mashkade Hivia, the three impure Klipot, being all good or half good and half bad. We can’t, it’s not in us. Now, below the Machsom (barrier) where we are, we are in concealment.
The name of the state, “concealment,” indicates that we are unable to clarify our state. Either we are under double concealment where we determine our state as bad and blame that state on all kinds of reasons, or we feel bad but to some extent we already feel that it comes from the Creator and perhaps there is a purpose to it all. That is also concealment. The first concealment is called “double concealment” and the second is “single concealment.”
The first concealment, “concealment within concealment" is concealment, one within the other. Of course, out of that concealment a person cannot see his own Kli and scrutinize it. With which Light (if he’s under concealment) will he scrutinize it and see what is good and what is bad? If it is 50/50 or 25/25 or whatever. He’s confused, he doesn’t know what happened to him and within him.
He needs only make the right effort as much as possible, and understand that if he’s in the dark he has been given an opportunity to make an effort even in the darkness in the right way, in the group. Imagine he is placed in a huge space without any walls, he would not know or understand where he is. It’s totally dark and he does not know where to make the next move and where to go. He can fall into a pit or get hit by something, he doesn’t know anything. He is afraid to make the slightest move. And then within that state, he is given the ability to progress through books and the group.
A person wants to describe the right state that when he is in total darkness. He can’t make a single move but only through these two things, i.e. to work in the group to get from it the deficiency on the two points that he cannot correct himself and that they give him the greatness of the goal. If he turns to the study with that, and during the study ask for the Light that Reforms, then it aims him in this dark space how to slowly progress toward the opening, the exit. There is no other counsel; it’s good that we have that.
The Creator broke the soul, the organized and holy soul, into many Kelim (vessels) , which can now seemingly try “in this game” to progress in the dark, to exit this space through the Light that Reforms. You have an opening and from there you have the Light. Only you just don’t feel it so it is called “the Light that Reforms,” the Surrounding Light. So how do you aim yourself toward this Light? You do this through the group, they show you how to aim towards the Light, so it will reform you. What does reform mean? You’ll get those discernments from the group. That’s all there is.
So these two means are the most important, and that’s what Baal HaSulam talked about. The Creator puts His hand on one’s good fortune and brings him to a place where he can receive guidance. Then he explains that we have to acquire the principle “a righteous lives by his faith.” We have to acquire faith. Through the Light that Reforms we have to receive the attribute of bestowal.
Question: Baal HaSulam writes, “Before he is awarded a new structure, although he tries to cleanse his heart.” I don’t know where it is written but it is written that keeping the Mitzvoth cleanses the Kelim. Is that the same thing?
Fulfilling Mitzvoth is already a fulfillment, it's after the correction. Although one can say it in other way too.
A broken Kli does all kinds of tricks to reach MAN. Through the MAN it receives Light that Reforms, which builds in it the force of the Masach. The force of the Masach is like glue, the force of bestowal, which glues all the souls together. It is through it that the broken Kli connects itself to the system and begins to work in it.
There is confusion in the names with respect to us because we don’t discern them. The fact that I do all kinds of things to reach a desire for a correction is also called “Mitzvah.” I will try and then I get this Light, and the Light of the Torah operates on me. With the Light of the Torah I receive strength from it, I put myself into action. This action is when I correct myself, as a vessel of bestowal that is called “reward and punishment.” Then I connect myself to the system called “the degree of love,” conditional or unconditional, and already bestow to the system.
This whole process is called “making Mitzvoth.” Because I correct my desires, which is a part of the Mitzvah. But the most important thing, the implementation of the Mitzvah, is when I work with these desires in order to bestow. So, I don’t know which part precisely you are asking about when you’re saying Mitzvah. We are talking about all of actions; everything that has to do with correction of the desire is called “Mitzvah.”
It turns out that in reality you have nothing but making Mitzvoth through the Light of the Torah that Reforms. It corrects the Mitzvoth to be in order to bestow, and then you can use them in order to bestow.
You have Mitzvoth, actions, to draw Light that Reforms. This is called “the preparation.” It is called “a Mitzvah” even though you cannot work with these desires defacto in bestowal. You work on this as much as you can. And when you receive this strength of bestowal from the Light of the Torah, you actually work in all of your Taryag (613-numeric value) desires in order to bestow. When you work in according to the resemblance to the Light, to bestowal, the Light fills you.
The first Light that gave you powers to bestow is the Light of the Torah” called the “Light that Reforms, which we call “ Ohr AB SAG” in Kabbalah. The other Light is the clothing of the Creator within a creature because it is called “ Morah,” the name of teacher, name of Torah. But it’s the same Light. According to the preparation of the Kelim it affects the Kli in different ways, either as reforming or as filling the Kli.
Question: All of the actions we learned are things we do in the group or in circulation. Between that and what I learned until now about of Shulchan Aruch, I don’t find the connection. Maybe that’s my mistake?
Shulchan Aruch, Jewish Court of Law, speaks like all holy books, about the correction of the Kelim, except it talks about it in a language of the branches. We have Taryag, actually Tarach (620- numeric value) desires, and each desire has to be corrected. We receive all those desires from the beginning, we are born with them, first in order to receive. We don’t feel those Taryag or Tarach desires, we feel the little desires we have here in this world according to the time we’re in it.
But when a person begins to discover spirituality, these desires appear, and then we can talk about Taryag desires and their correction into Taryag Mitzvoth. Then we begin to discover that we are working on the Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE). We are discovering that we have Ramach (248) desires called “organs.” When we work on our AHP (Awzen, Hotem, Peh), we discover Shasar (365) desires which are called “365 tendons.”
In the meantime, we feel neither. What we learn in the Holy books, the Torah speaks to us in the language of Kabbalah, the language of the branches.
Baal HaSulam explains it in the Inner Reflection, Part One, in Talmud Eser ha Sefirot that the people of attainment could not explain anything, even to one other because those were emotions that appeared in the desires, measures of Light appearing in the desires. How will you transfer them? You can’t transfer the measure itself because if it’s a Kli that belongs to you, you can’t pass it on to another.
The souls are divided according to the acts of the Light that operates in them. There was one desire in Ein Sof, the Light that operated on it. According to the act in the desire, it bought the desire into four levels of Aviut, and then it bought the desire into greater divisions, four within four within four, and they’re all incorporated.
So you have Olamot (worlds) and Partzufim and Sefirot and infinite divisions of details in each one. That’s how much the Light works on the desire, we cannot count in quantities or qualities.
We cannot express it in words, it is impossible. This is why we can’t transfer impressions of a particular Sefirot of one to the Sefirot of another. When the Light broke this whole system that it built, this complete system, infinite incorporations and everything in it, it broke it according to a very simple criteria.
The system broke according to the inversion of the Masach, from in order to bestow to in order to receive. This inversion of the intention brought forth separated Partzufim, separated parts of desire which we cannot even describe. We have an integrated system where everything is interconnected with infinite elements and all the Sefirot are all interconnected and we can’t separate anything here.
In what way were they separated? In the Masach that was inverted and that’s the only thing that separated them. We should only understand that the level of the breaking did not happen in desires; it happened in the Masach, in intentions, and desires remain as they were.
That’s why with the extent that we correct our intentions, we see that the whole system is corrected because it didn’t break in the sense that the desires broke but that the Masachim were inverted. Because this act is understood only to those who experience the return of that same transition, they understand that something happened here.
We can’t transfer acts of correction and after the correction the correct acts in bestowal in any way. How can we convey it? If we could talk to one another in an open scientific manner, then we would write formulas, which desires, with which measures of Light, with which Masachim or without Masachim in whichever kind of breaking they are. And one conveys to the other. What the other will do with it is also a problem because the other has a completely different form of reception and perception.
Regarding what you asked, it is impossible to convey from one to another the measure, or any kind of exchange of opinions but only in the language of the branches. When you take the vocabulary from Olam ha Zeh (this world) and fix it for the spiritual world. It’s a wonder that Olam ha Zeh exists that it’s possible through it to connect among Kabbalists who are in a spiritual world, even without us, who are here in the trash.
I am talking about Kabbalists. Say, one is the world of Atzilut, and the other is still in the world Beria. Both want to talk to one another speaking the language of Olam ha Zeh. This world is like a replica of the whole of spirituality from Ein Sof; it’s like threads that come down to this world. It doesn’t matter which reality you’re talking about, the spiritual worlds from Ein Sof down to Olam ha Zeh, or which degree. It has a name in Olam ha Zeh. This name indicates the root, which is normally in GAR de Atzilut.
In this way, one can convey to another because all the roots are universal. It doesn’t matter what you picture in your Kli and what I picture in my Kli. We can’t talk at all about the depiction and sensation. We cannot convey emotions from one another because each has his own Kli. If I give you a sign from Olam ha Zeh, you according to this sign go to the roots with your Kli and you know what I’m talking about. In the meantime I give another person the same word and he with that word from Olam ha Zeh, goes up to the root and knows what I told him. That’s how we talk.
Now, you can understand what is written in this kind of language in all Holy books, not Kabbalah books but the Holy books in general. They all refer only to the spiritual state, there’s nothing to write about Olam ha Zeh. It’s not worth writing about. All the words from Olam ha Zeh, the whole content is spiritual.
From that, you have several consequences and conclusions. Number one: for the time being, you don’t know what they are saying until you’re actually there together with them in the spiritual world so you can somehow identify the roots. You have no understanding of any of their writings. You just arrange their writings according to the way you understand them in Olam ha Zeh, so to you it’s not a Holy book.
If you’re learning what’s written in the book as it is written in the book, then you are in Olam ha Zeh, and you’re learning knowledge, replication of Olam ha Zeh. You’re not learning Kabbalah and not learning spirituality.
If you are referring to it as a spiritual book that explains about the spiritual actions, then all you need to do is demand the Light that reforms. There is a force hidden in them so, if you want, they will bring you to that connection. They will illuminate it for you from the roots so you will improve. To the extent you improve, you’ll enter spirituality and you’ll understand what it’s about. Before that you won’t, that’s it. That’s how we should relate to all the books.
Now, when they went out into exile and lost the connection with the roots, in the quantity of the whole nation, except for the chosen few that were left, then Kabbalists educated according to what people perceived, according to Olam ha Zeh. We understand from the language of the branches, that we have to do something with our hands and legs, so we do it with our hands and legs. It’s called “exile.” That’s the corrected form of the existence of a nation in exile. They lost spirituality so they should do it in corporeality. Why? Because they are in their internality, replicated in Olam ha Zeh. It is also in their body they should correct the Mitzvoth in this way. It’s adapted to those who are in exile, detached.
The minute the point in the heart begins to awaken in a person, it throws away this externality. People have always complained about Kabbalists how they are disrespectful toward practical Mitzvoth. I even heard that when I was in Rehovot. I heard that those who study Kabbalah eventually light a cigarette on Shabbat. That’s what those who wanted to distance me from the study told me about thirty years ago or more. They are disrespectful of externality and switch to internality. It means they want to rise to the roots, to identify with the roots. It’s natural.
Now the general time has come, where the generality is not that you have to correct the people, the masses because of the points in the hearts but because the general time has come; it’s because it’s time to act. Now we have to say, “There is keeping Mitzvoth in Olam ha Zeh, but that’s not the most important.” No one is disrespectful; no one says it’s wrong. Continue doing whatever you want to do, that doesn’t bother anyone. It's a hindrance only on the condition that one says it’s the most important and that’s all there is.
However, if you’re saying the most important is keeping Mitzvoth called “correcting the desires in man’s heart” (so that they will be in bestowal with respect to the Creator, in congruence with the Creator) and the rest is called “the framework” in Olam ha Zeh that you continue to maintain, then that’s okay. It’s the right order of externality and internality, where the internality is the most important and the externality is the least important. That’s what we want to come to.
So we will understand exactly how it should be arranged and so will everyone else. In exile we keep Mitzvoth, what is called “on earth,” in Olam ha Zeh. When we come to the end of exile, we begin to wake up to a spiritual, actual keeping of the Mitzvoth where each Mitzvah is a correction of the desires and not a replication of them in corporality. We rise to the roots and correct the desires themselves, that’s most important. So, the argument between us is only about what is the important and what is less important.
They say, “It’s the holy Zohar, put it in the back,” that was right for exile. Now, it’s the other way around. The Zohar and the wisdom of Kabbalah is important because we have to correct ourselves. The actions with our hands and legs are unimportant. The situation is inverted, it’s the inversion of the elements. There’s nothing you can do. The time has come. We can see this time that there is the crisis in our education including the orthodox education because the time has come. That’s what Kabbalists are determined that we have to go back to the roots.
Question: A student who is used to doing things and discovers that they’re just hands and legs, he feels that they are unimportant, that they just actions, should he continue doing it? Change his thoughts? Stop doing it? Understand why?
It’s not going to help us to tell people what to do and what not to do. The minute they are in an internal process, when they come to study Kabbalah everything is inverted in them and they end up in all kinds of situations. It is from these situations that they determine how much they hold on to externality, how much they hold on to internality, and a certain attitude between them.
It’s not going to help us to say, “Do this, do that,” and to what extent can we tell them. We can tell a person “do this or that” only as advice so that they will progress in the right way toward the Thought of Creation.
They will be inverted a thousand times along the way, fall and rise as it is written, “One does not make a Mitzvah unless he has failed in it.” It’s the way. And in this way there is no coercion. There is no coercion from the outside, it is only from within a person that can do everything. But from the outside there is nothing, at the most advice.
So whatever happens during the time of the correction, happens. As Baal HaSulam says about the whole process, every fruit comes to its ripeness. How unpleasant it is, how uncorrected it is along the way and how one sees others as uncorrected and bitter because he is still along the way.
We have to agree with it for the time being even though we don’t justify and don’t understand it. To say how it’ll fall into place in the nation or in the world, I don’t know. There are things that I still don’t know and don’t understand, it’s not my part to interfere. But there is a part that we have to do and a part that is done from Above.