The Renaissance and Beyond
Preceding every new stage in the evolution of desires, the appropriate precursor appears. First, there was Abraham; he was the Root. Then there was Moses, representing Stage One, followed by Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai (Rashbi), who corresponds to Stage Two. And now the time has come for Stage Three.
The emergence of Stage Three in the evolution of desires roughly corresponds to the advent of the Renaissance in Europe. Its harbinger was the greatest Kabbalist since Rashbi: Isaac Luria (the Ari) —founder of the Lurianic Kabbalah, the most systematic and structured school of Kabbalah. Today, it is the predominant teaching method, thanks to the 20th century commentaries of Baal HaSulam, who interpreted the writings and adapted them to the scientific/academic mindset of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Despite his short life, the Ari (1534-1572) produced numerous texts with the help of his prime disciple, Rav Chaim Vital. The Ari did not write his texts by himself. Instead, he would speak and Chaim Vital would write down his words. After the Ari’s early demise, Vital and several of his relatives compiled the Ari’s words into cohesive texts. For this reason, many scholars have ascribed the Ari’s writings to Chaim Vital and not to his teacher. Yet, even though Vital was the scribe, the provider of the information is undisputedly the Ari.
In Chapter 2, we described Stage Three as an “inverted” modus operandi, where the act is reception but the intention is to give. This was true for the initial four stages of desire. However, after the breaking of Adam’s soul, the prevailing intention in the collective soul—of which we are all parts—has been inverted and regressed from bestowal to reception. And because we are all parts of Adam’s soul, the hidden intention in all humans is to receive, as well. Clearly, when everyone wishes to receive, and none wish to give, it induces an unsustainable situation.
Yet, all stages appear so we may correct them. At every level of Nature, this correction occurs naturally, because the only way to sustain anything, from mineral through plant to animal, is to have all the elements contributing to the survival of the mineral, plant, or animal. Yet, in humans, as we explained in Chapter 6, this (one) sustainable state must be achieved through man’s awareness. Without awareness, we go where our desires take us, and in Stage Three, they begin to take an ominous direction.
Indeed, the period from the Renaissance to the beginning of the 20th century saw two processes that fundamentally changed people’s lives. One was the development of weapons, such as rifles and artillery, and the initiation of maritime discovery voyages by intrepid explorers who conquered new lands and subsequently exploited their native inhabitants and natural resources.
The other was the advent of modern science, but more than that—the “discovery” and extolling of the individual. This latter shift manifested in the thriving of art in all its forms, and most important, in the booming of humane movements such as Humanism and The Enlightenment. The Bill of Rights, the Edict of Nantes, and the Communist Manifesto are only some of the numerous changes that have laid down the basis for what we now call “the free world.”
Alongside these profound transformations, Kabbalah needed its own “reformer.” At the deepest level of existence, the shifts just mentioned were happening because a new level of desire had appeared, and this called for someone to “make sense” of these changes. This was the role of the Ari: to introduce the correction method for Stage Three. This is why the Ari’s method is the most systematic and structured compared to all his predecessors’ methods, matching the scientific, rational thinking of his time.