Answers

When man looks objectively at the situations around him and the human condition, he obtains a truer appreciation of creation. The existence of the Creator has implications for us, according to Kabbalists, who have actualized the inherent ability to commune directly with Him, and if He controls every­thing and creates the life situations we constantly find ourselves in, then the most sensible thing to do is to be permanently united with Him, and the closer, the better.

But if we tried hard and succeeded in achieving this realization, then, since the Creator is hidden from our perceptions, we would feel as if we were suspended in the air, without any support. For, without seeing, or feeling, or hearing, without any sensory input, we would be, as it were, crying in the wilderness.

Why, then, did the Creator make us such that we cannot perceive Him? Moreover, why should He hide from us? Why, even when man appeals to Him, does He not respond, but prefers to affect us in a way hidden from us, screened behind nature and other people?

If He were willing to correct us, i.e. correct His own "error" in creation, He could have done so long ago, whether covertly or overtly. If He revealed Himself to us, we would all see and appreciate Him with the senses and intelligence He bestowed on us, and, surely, then we would know what to do and how to do it in the world He created, supposedly for us.

And furthermore, paradoxically, as soon as man strives to reach the Creator, to feel Him, to come closer to Him, he feels his yearning for the Creator vanish, disappear. But, if the Creator gives us all our experiences, why does He deprive those who wish to perceive Him of this very wish, even placing various obstacles in the way of their attempts to perceive their Creator?

Man's attempts to draw closer to the Creator, and the Creator's refusal, and His inflicting suffering on those who seek Him can continue for years! Occasionally,out of despair the person might feel that the pride and arrogance he is told he should get rid of is infinitely more characteristic of the Creator!

Contrary to the statement that the Creator is merciful, especially to those who seek Him, man receives no response to his tears and appeals. If we ourselves can change something in our life, it means that He has given us free will but not enough knowledge to avoid the sufferings of our existence and development.

And if there is no free will, what, then, can appear to be more cruel than making us suffer senselessly for decades in the cruel world created by Him? Of course, such grievances can go on indefinitely, for, if the Creator is the cause of our condition, then we have a lot to criticise and blame Him for, which is what our heart does if it feels this way.

For if man is displeased with something, he blames the Creator just by feeling that way, even without actually addressing Him, even if He does not believe in the Creator's existence: for the Creator sees all that is going on in man's heart.

Each of us is right in what we maintain, whatever that might be, because we maintain what we are perceiving at the moment with our own senses and analyzing with our own intelligence. Those having vast life experience know how drastically their views changed throughout the years.

There is no saying that we were wrong before and now we are right, because our present point of view is also wrong, as we shall see tomorrow. Therefore, the conclusions we make in any situation are correct for this particular situation, yet they can be in direct opposition to our conclusions made in other situa­tions.

By the same token, we cannot reason about other worlds, or their laws, or judge them based on our own current criteria - the criteria of our world. We do not possess unearthly intelli­gence, or perceptions, or concepts, and therefore we cannot judge and pass the judgement, for we err constantly even within the boundaries of our own world.

Only he who possesses unearthly qualities can judge the unearthly. If at the same time he possesses earthly qualities as well, then he can at least describe the unearthly to us. Such a person can only be a Kabbalist - a person of our world, created with the same qualities as each of us and at the same time given from the heavens other qualities that enable him to tell us about what is going on in that other world.

That is why the Creator allowed some of the Kabbalists to reveal their knowledge to wide strata of society, in order to help others to learn how communicate with Him. Kabbalists explain to us in terms we can comprehend that the structure and functioning of the mind in the spiritual, unearthly world are based on laws that are contrary to ours.

There is no wall separating our world from the unearthly, spiritual world. But the fact that the spiritual world is, according to its properties, an anti-world, places it so much beyond our perception that, after we are born in our world, i.e. acquire its nature, we completely forget all about our past anti-condition. Naturally, the only way for man to perceive this anti-world is by acquiring its nature, its reason, its qualities. How and in what must we change our nature to the opposite one?

The basic law of the spiritual world is absolute altruism. How can man acquire this quality? Kabbalists suggest that we make a transformation within ourselves. It is only this inner act that enables man to perceive the spiritual world and start living in both worlds simultaneously. This act is called "faith above reason".

In our world we are guided only by our reason in everything we do. Only reason, i.e. purely egocentric, "reasonable" calculation, is the basis for all our desires and acts. Our reason calculates the amount of pleasure we experience and matches it against the amount of pain caused by the efforts made to achieve that pleasure, subtracts one from the other and produces the resulting wish: whether to strive towards pleasure or prefer peace. Such "reasonable" approach to our surroundings is called "faith within reason", when reason determines faith.

Man often acts without any calculation of benefit or effort, like, for example, a fanatic or a person conditioned to act in a certain way. Such "blind" acts are called acts in "faith beneath reason", for they are determined by blindly following the decisions made by someone else, rather than by reason or calculation. Or else, man's acts are dictated by his upbringing that has become his second nature, to such an extent, that he has to make an effort to keep himself from acting the way he was conditioned to, and therefore automatically acts from force of habit. Each of us does a lot of things for a similar reason.

The spiritual world is an altruistic one. All desires and acts that exist there are dictated - not by man's reason, or egocentrism, but by faith, i.e. by a sense of the Creator.

The transition from living in accordance with the laws of our world to living in accordance with the laws of the spiritual world requires that two conditions should be met. Completely disregarding the arguments of reason, man is, as it were, devoid of the basis for his actions, lacking all support. Hanging in the air, he grabs at the Creator with both hands - only the Creator's will determines man's actions. In a manner of speaking, man replaces his own head with the Creator's, he acts contrary to his own reason, he places the Creator's will above his own. That is why his behaviour is called "faith above reason".

Having accomplished this, man begins perceiving both our and the spiritual world and discovers that both function according to the same spiritual law of "faith above reason".

This desire on man's part to suppress his reason and be guided only by his desire to give himself to the Creator is the spiritual vessel in which he receives all spiritual sensations and realizations. The "capacity" of that vessel, i.e. the capacity of man's spiritual reason, is determined by the capacity of his earthly, egocentric reason that he is trying to suppress.

In order to increase the capacity of man's spiritual vessel, the Creator constantly generates in him bigger and bigger obstacles in the way of "faith above reason", gradually intensifying his egocentric desires and doubts as to the Creator's rule. This allows man to gradually overcome those obstacles, thus developing more and more powerful altruistic desires, increasing the capacity of his spiritual vessel and better and better perceiving the Creator in the world of his likeness to Him.

If man can mentally grip the Creator with both hands, i.e. ignoring the critical approach of reason and rejoicing in the fact that such an opportunity has presented itself, and if he can endure this condition for at least an instant, he will see how wonderful this state is, that it is in this state where he has attained the real, eternal truth that will not change tomorrow, just as all his former beliefs have, because he is now united with the eternal Creator and regards all events through this truth only.

As has been mentioned more than once before, progress is only possible along three parallel lines simultaneously, with the right-hand line being faith, and the left-hand line cognition and comprehension. These two lines are in disparity, for they are mutually contradictory. Therefore, the only way to mutually balance them is by means of the middle line, made at the same time up of both right- and left-hand lines, which is the line of such spiritual behaviour where reason is used only in accordance with the strengh of faith.

All of the spiritual objects, in the order they are made by the Creator, can be said to be encompassed in Him. All that is encompassed in the Creator in the universe exists only relative to the creatures, and all this is a product of the original creature called malchut. That is, all worlds and all creatures, all except the Creator are a single creature - malchut , called the root, the source of all creatures, which then falls into many smaller parts of itself.

And all of them taken together are called sh'china . And the Creator's light, His presence, He Himself filling the sh'china , is called shochen.

The time required for all the parts of the sh'china to be completely filled is called correction time . During this time the creatures make corrections in their parts of the malchut - each in its respective part it was created from.

And until the moment when the Creator can be fully united with the creatures, i.e. until He entirely reveals Himself to them, until the shochen fills the sh'china, the condition of the sh'china or the creatures it consists of is called the banishment of the sh'china (from the Creator), since in this condition there is no perfection in the higher worlds; and as for our world, the lowest of all, wherein each creature must also become fully aware of the Creator, so far everyone is busy satisfying the petty desires of our world and blindly following the demands of one's flesh.

And this condition of the soul is called sh'china in ashes , where everyone sees spiritually pure pleasures as fabrication and nonsense, and this condition is called the suffering of the sh'china .

All of man's suffering stems from the fact that he is compelled from above to completely reject all common sense and proceed blindly, placing faith above reason.

The more reason and knowledge he possesses, the stronger and more intelligent he is, the more difficult it is for him to tread the path of faith, and accordingly, the worse he suffers on account of rejecting his common sense.

By no means can he, who has chosen this particular way of spiritual development, agree with the Creator. In his heart he curses the necessity of such a way, and by no self-persuasion can he justify the Creator. And he cannot endure such a condition of having no support whatsoever, until the Creator helps him and reveals the whole picture of creation to him.

When man feels that he is in a state of spiritual elevation, that all his desires are focused only on the Creator, then it is the best time to delve into proper books on the Kabbalah in order to try to understand their inner meaning. Although he might feel that he cannot understand anything despite his efforts, it is necessary anyway to delve into the Kabbalah again and again, hundreds of times, and not give way to despair at one's failure to understand anything.

The meaning of these endeavours lies in the fact that man's efforts to comprehend the mysteries of the kabbalah are his prayer for the Creator's manifestations to be revealed to him, for the Creator to satisfy these yearnings. The strength of the prayer is determined by the strength of his yearnings.

There is a rule: the effort spent on attaining something increases the desire to attain it, and the strength of that desire is determined by the suffering caused by the unavailability of what we desire. The prayer is the suffering itself, not expressed in words but only felt within the heart.

Proceeding from this, we can understand that only after strenuous effort to attain what is desired can man pray so sincerely that he will receive it.

If during the attempts to delve into the book one's heart is still not quite free from extraneous thoughts, then the mind will not be able to devote itself exclusively to the studies, since the mind obeys the heart.

In order for the Creator to hear the prayer, it should come from the very heart of hearts, i.e. all one's desires must be concentrated in that prayer. And this is why one must delve into the text hundreds of times, even without understanding anything, just to achieve a true desire, so that the Creator should hear him.

True desire is such that it leaves no room for any other desires.

At the same time, while studying the Kabbalah, one studies the Creator's actions and, therefore, becomes closer to Him, and gradually becomes worthy of comprehending what he studies.

Faith, i.e. the awareness of the Creator, must be such that one feels that he is in the presence of the King of the universe. Then, undoubtedly, he will become imbued with the necessary feeling of love and fear.

Until he reaches such faith, he must always strive forward, for it is only this feeling that gives him a right to spiritual life and prevents him from sinking to egocentrism and once again becoming a pleasure seeker. The need for this awareness of the Creator must be permanent, until it becomes a habit, like a permanent need for the loved one that makes life without him or her unbearable.

All that surrounds man purposely smothers this need, since experiencing pleasure from something instantly reduces the pang of spiritual void.

Therefore, while enjoying the pleasures of our world, it is vital to keep those pleasures from smothering the need to perceive the Creator and thus robbing one of spiritual sensations.

In general, the inner compulsion to perceive the Creator is peculiar only to man, and not even to every one with the outward appearance of man.

This compulsion stems from man's need to understand what he is, and to comprehend himself and his purpose in the world, the source of his origin. It is the quest for answers about ourselves that leads us to the compulsion to seek the source of life.

This compulsion makes us spare no effort in solving all of nature's mysteries, leaving no mystery unsolved either in ourselves or in our environment. But only the yearning to perceive the Creator is true, since He is the source of everything and, above all, He created us. Therefore, even if man were alone in our world or were in other worlds, his quest for himself would still lead him to a quest for the Creator.

There are two paths in perceiving the Creator's influence on his creatures. The right-hand path represents personal control by the Creator over each of us, regardless of our actions.

The left-hand path represents control by the Creator over each of us depending on our actions or, in other words, punishment for evil deeds and reward for good ones.

When man chooses the time to be in the right-hand path, he must tell himself that all that happens happens only by the Creator's will, according to His plan, and nothing depends on man himself. In this case he has neither faults nor merits, all his actions are compelled by the yearnings he is given from outside.

He must therefore thank the Creator for all he has received from Him. And, realizing that the Creator leads him to eternity, man can feel love for the Creator.

Any progress is possible only on condition of the correct combination of the right- and left-hand paths, exactly half-way between them. Even if man starts out the right way from the right starting point but does not know how to regularly check and correct his direction, he is sure to deviate from the right direction.

Furthermore, if he deviates even a millimeter at any point of his journey, then, even if he keeps moving on in the right direction, his error will increase with every step and he will be getting farther and farther from his goal.

Before descending spiritual stairs, our soul is part of the Creator, His tiny point. This point is called the root of the soul.

The Creator places the soul in the body so that the soul, being in the body, may rise and elevate the body's desires and merge with the Creator again.

In other words, the soul is placed in the body, which is the birth of a person in our world, so that, overcoming the desires of the body and in spite of them, the soul may ascend even during the person's lifetime to the level it possessed before it descended to our world.

In overcoming the desires of the flesh, the soul ascends to the same spiritual level it descended from, experiencing far greater pleasures than it had in its initial state, being part of the Creator; and it turns into a voluminous spiritual body 620 times greater than the original point it was before it descended into our world.

Thus, in its complete state the spiritual body of the soul consists of 620 parts, or organs. Each part, or organ, is called a commandment. The Creator's light,which derives from the Creator Himself, which is the same thing, that fills every part of the soul, is called the Torah.

The true road to this goal runs along the middle path, which represents the merging into one concept of the following three constituents: man himself, the road he must follow, and the Creator.

Indeed, all three objects of creation are present: man, striving to return to the Creator; the Creator - the goal man is striving towards; and the road following which man can reach the Creator.

As has been said many a time, no one truly exists but the Creator, and we are but His creatures endowed with a sense of our own existence. Man comes to realize and perceive this clearly in the course of his spiritual ascent.

All our perceptions, or rather, the perceptions we see as our own, are but responses to His acts produced in us by Him, i.e. in the end, our feelings are only what He wants us to feel.

But until man achieves a complete understanding of this truth, he sees the three objects of creation - himself, the road leading him to the Creator, and the Creator Himself - as three separate objects, rather than a single whole.

However, once man has reached the final stage of his spiritual development, i.e. ascended to the same level his soul has descended from, but this time burdened with fleshly desires, he accepts the Creator completely into his spiritual body which envelopes the whole Torah, the whole light of the Creator, and the Creator Himself. And thus the three objects that used to be separate in man's perception - man, his road and the Creator - merge to become a single object: the spiritual body filled with light.

Therefore, to ensure his correct advancement, man must check himself regularly as he proceeds on his road, to make sure that he strives for all the three objects, so far separate in his perception, with an equally powerful desire from the very outset, as if uniting them into one even on that early stage, the way he should see them in the end of his road and the way they really are even now, but he cannot yet see them that way due to his own imperfection.

If he strives for one of them more than for the others, he immediately deviates from the true road. The easiest way to check whether he is on the true road is strive to comprehend the Creator's characteristics in order to become one with Him.

If I do not help myself, then who will help me? And if I am just for myself, I am nothing. This contradictory statement reflects man's attitude towards his efforts to achieve his goal: on one hand, man must claim that there is no one to help him but himself and act with the certainty that his good deeds will be rewarded and his evil deeds punished, and that all his actions have direct consequences, and that he himself is the builder of his own future. But on the other hand he must say to himself, "Who am I to be able to defeat my own nature by myself? But no one else can help me, either."

But if everything happens according to the Creator's plan, then what good are man's efforts to him? The fact is that, as a result of man's own work based on the principle of reward and punishment, he acquires from above a realization of the Creator's rule and ascends to a level of consciousness where he sees clearly that it is the Creator that rules everything and that everything is foreseen.

But he has first to reach this stage, and until he does, he cannot claim that everything is in the Creator's power. And until he reaches this state, he cannot live in it or act according to its laws, for this is not how he sees the way the world is run, i.e. man must act only according to the laws he is aware of.

And only as a result of man's efforts in his work based on the principles of reward and punishment does he deserve the Creator's complete confidence and the right to see the true picture of the world and the way it is run. And only then, even though he sees that everything depends on the Creator, does he himself strive to meet the Creator.

One cannot oust selfish thoughts and desires from one's heart and leave it empty. Only by filling it with spiritual, altruistic yearnings instead of selfish desires can one replace the old desires by those opposite to them and obliterate egocentrism.

He who loves the Creator is certain to feel revulsion towards egocentrism, since he knows from his own experience the harm done by any of its manifestations, but does not see any means of getting rid of it and realizes quite clearly that it is beyond his powers, since it was the Creator Himself that gave this characteristic to His creatures.

Man cannot rid himself of egocentrism by his own efforts, but the clearer his realization that egocentrism is his enemy and spiritual killer, the stronger his hatred of it, and then this will lead to the Creator helping him defeat that enemy, so that even egocentrism will serve his purpose of spiritual elevation.

In the Talmud, we read: "I created the world only for the thoroughly righteous or the thoroughly sinful." That the world was created for the righteous is understandable, but it is not understandable why the world was not created for those who are neither thoroughly righteous nor thoroughly sinful, but for the thoroughly sinful - can it really be that the Creator made the whole universe for them?

Man involuntarily sees the Creator's rule the way it looks to him: as good and kind, if it is agreeable to him, or as evil, if he is suffering. That is, man considers the Creator either good or evil, depending on how he perceives our world.

So there are only two alternatives in man's perception of the Creator's rule over the world: either he perceives the Creator, and in this case all seems wonderful to him, or he thinks that the Creator's rule over the world does not exist, and that the world is ruled by forces of nature. And even though he may realize with his reason that it is not so, it is man's emotions, rather than reason, that determine his attitude towards the world, and so he considers himself sinful due to this disparity between his emotions and reason.

He understands that the Creator's will is for our pleasure, which is only possible through drawing close to the Creator, and so, if he feels remote from the Creator, he sees it as evil and considers himself a sinner.

But if man feels himself so lowly that from his innermost heart he automatically appeals to the Creator to save him, to reveal Himself to him and thus give him the power to break out from the prison of egocentrism into the spiritual world, then the Creator helps him instantly.

And our world and all the higher worlds were created for such conditions of man, so that, having sunk to being thoroughly sinful, he would appeal to the Creator and rise to being thoroughly righteous.

Man can only become worthy of perceiving the Creator's greatness after he has rid himself of all conceit and come to realize his own impotence and the lowliness of his yearnings.

And, after he has cast off his shallow pride, the more he values his closeness to the Creator, the better he perceives Him, since he can find all the more nuances and manifestations in the Creator's revelation to him, and this admiration evokes feelings of joy in his heart.

Therefore, if he sees that he is in no way better than all others around him who have not deserved the Creator's special attitude that he enjoys, and who have no idea of intercommunication with the Creator and do not even aspire to perceive the Creator and comprehend the meaning of life and spiritual advancement, while he has somehow deserved that special attention by which the Creator even for a moment has him remember the meaning of life and his bond with his Maker, if he can appreciate how unique the Creator's attitude towards him is, he experiences infinite gratitude and joy. And the better he can appreciate his special good luck, the better he can thank the Creator, the more nuances of feelings he can experience at each particular point and instant of his contact with the Superior, the better he can appreciate the greatness of the spiritual world revealing itself to him, as well as the greatness and might of the omnipotent Creator, the stronger the confidence with which he anticipates his future unification with the Creator.

Contemplating the vast difference between the characteristics of the Creator and his creation, it is easy to arrive at the conclusion that they can only be compatible on condition of man's eradicating his nature of thorough egocentrism. If such is the case, then it can be said that he does not exist at all and, therefore, nothing separates him from the Creator.

Man can enter spiritual life and inhale spiritual air only if he feels that without spiritual life he is dead, the way the body dies when life leaves it, and that he ardently wishes to live.

But by which means can man rise to such a level that complete elimination of all self-interest and concern for himself and a yearning to give all of himself will become the only goal of his life, to the extent that, without achieving this goal he will feel as if he were dead?

Rising to this level takes place gradually and is based on the principle of counteraction: the more efforts man makes in his quest for a spiritual road, in study, in his attempts to artificially imitate spiritual objects, the more convinced he becomes that he is unable to attain it by himself.

The more he studies the works important for his spiritual development, the more complicated his study material seems to him. The harder he tries to treat his superiors and fellow students better, if he is indeed advancing spiritually, the clearer he feels that all his actions are prompted by thorough egocentrism.

Such results are produced by the principle "beat him till he is willing": man can rid himself of egocentrism only if he realizes that egocentrism is killing him by keeping him back from the true life, eternal and filled with delight. Man's hatred of egocentrism ejects it from his heart.

The most important thing is the desire to give yourself fully to the Creator, based on realizing the Creator's greatness. (Giving yourself to the Creator implies parting with your own ego and will.) At this juncture man should be fully aware of what is really worth working for in this world: transient values or eternal ones. For nothing we have created remains forever; all passes. Only spiritual structures such as altruistic thoughts, acts, feelings are eternal.

That is, while striving to imitate the Creator in his thoughts, desires and efforts, man is, in fact, building the edifice of his own eternity.

Yet, following the path of giving yourself to the Creator is only possible if you realize the Creator's greatness. Just like in our world, if we consider someone great, we shall be happy to render such a person a service and feel that it is really that person that has done us a favour by accepting something from us, rather than the other way round, and given to us rather than taken from us.

This example shows how an internal goal can replace an external mechanical act - giving or taking - with one opposite to it. Therefore, the greater man considers the Creator, the more readily he will give Him his thoughts, desires and efforts, while feeling that he is getting something from the Creator, rather than giving Him something, getting an opportunity to render a service - an opportunity that is only bestowed upon a few worthy ones in each generation.

This means that man's main objective is to elevate the Creator in his own eyes, i.e. acquire faith in His greatness and might, for this is his only chance to break out from the prison of egocentrism into the higher worlds.

As was noted in the previous article, the reason why man experiences excessive difficulties when he wants to follow the path of faith with no concern for himself, is the resulting feeling of being separated from the whole world and suspended in the void, with no common sense, reason or prior experience to support him, and abandoning his environment, family and friends for the sake of being united with the Creator.

The only reason for such a sensation is lack of faith in the Creator, i.e. lack of sensing the Creator, His presence and His rule over all creatures, i.e. lack of the object of faith.

But as soon as man starts sensing the Creator's presence, he is ready to give himself fully to His power and follow his Creator blindly, ready to disintegrate completely in Him, scorning reason, in the most natural way.

And that is why man's main objective is to sense the Creator's presence. And that is why it is worth giving up all our energy and all our thoughts for the sake of perceiving the Creator, because immediately on experiencing this, we shall crave a unification with the Creator with all our heart.

And that is why we should devote all our thoughts, occupations, desires and time to this aim only. This perception of the Creator is faith!

This process can be accelerated, if man considers this aim important. And the more important it is to him, the faster he can achieve faith, i.e. the perception of the Creator. And the more important the perception of the Creator, the stronger the perception itself, until it becomes ever present in man.

Luck is a special type of divine rule man can in no way influence. But man has been given from above a responsibility to endeavour to attain a change in his own nature, and after that the Creator, having appraised man's efforts, changes him Himself and raises above our world.

Before man makes any effort, his attitude should be that he should not count on any divine forces, luck or some special attitude towards him from above, but must get down to business, thinking that if he does not do it, he will not achieve what he is trying to.

But after his work, study or any other effort is over, he must think that all of what he has achieved apparently only as a result of his efforts, he would

have achieved anyway, even without doing anything, because it had been preordained by the Creator.

Therefore, he who wants to comprehend true rule, must even at an early stage try to reconcile this contradiction in his own life.

For instance, in the morning man must start his daily routine of study and work, leaving completely behind all thoughts of the Creator's divine rule over the whole world and over each of us. And work as if the final result depended on him only.

But when the work is over, he must not assume that what he has achieved is the result of his efforts but must realize that, even if he had stayed in bed all day, he would still have achieved the same result, because that result had already been designed by the Creator.

Therefore, a person who wants to strive to live a life of truth, on one hand must obey the laws of society and nature, same as everyone else, but on the other hand must believe in the Creator's absolute rule over the world.

All our deeds can be divided into good, neutral and evil. Man's main task is to elevate his neutral deeds to the level of good ones by joining their execution in his mind with an awareness of the Creator's absolute rule.

For example, a sick man, while quite aware of the fact that his cure is completely in the hands of the Creator, still must receive a proven medicine from a renowned physician and act as if only the doctor's skill will help him overcome his ailment.

But, having taken the medicine in strict accordance with the doctor's orders and recovered, he must believe that he would have recovered anyway due to the Creator's help only. Therefore, while thanking the doctor for his efforts on his behalf, he must at the same time thank the Creator. And by this he turns a neutral act into a spiritual one. And, by so doing in regard to all his neutral acts, he gradually spiritualizes all his thoughts.

The examples and explanations given above are necessary for the uncomprehending, for similar situations become stumbling blocks on their way to spiritual elevation, all the more so because they think they know the principles of rule and try to artificially strengthen their belief in the omnipresence of divine rule and, instead of hard work, instead of making an effort, in order to demonstrate their faith in the Creator or simply out of laziness, they assume, even before starting work, that all is in the Creator's power and so their efforts are not needed. And moreover, shutting their eyes in allegedly blind faith, they thus elude questions about faith, and by avoiding having to answer those questions, rob themselves of all chance of spiritual advancement.

In our world "thou shall earn your bread in the sweat of thy brow", but once man has earned something, it is hard for him to admit that the result did not depend on his toil or his abilities but it was the Creator that has done everything for him. Yet he must strive to strengthen his faith in the Creator's absolute rule over him "in the sweat of his brow".

But it is in the attempts and endeavours to assimilate the seemingly contradictory nature of divine rule, which stems from our blind­ness, namely from the clash between these contradictory and, therefore, hard-to-understand approaches to the actions required of us, it is owing to this condition that the one who is trying to comprehend them grows and experiences new spiritual sensations.

All that existed before the start of creation was the Creator.

Creation starts when the Creator singles out a certain part of Himself by giving it, in future, certain characteristics unlike His own.

By endowing this part with a sense of its own self, the Creator, as it were, evicts it from Himself. This point is our "ego". But, since neither place nor distance exists, the remoteness in characteristics is perceived by this point as a concealing of the Creator, i.e. it cannot sense Him, there is darkness between them generated by the selfish characteristics of this point.

When is this vast distance felt by man? Specifically when the Creator wants to draw him near to Himself. If the Creator does not want to draw him close to Himself, he does not feel any abyss, nor any distance between him and the Creator.

The dark abyss perceived by the part is, in fact, the everyday problems, troubles, suffering wrought by financial diffi­culties, or ailments, or family - in one word, problems of ordinary life, due to all that the Creator has built as the part's environment, in order to be able to influence it through that environment. How and why?

In order to show man that to save himself from suffering, he must rid himself of egocentrism, the Creator brings him to a condition of such unbearable misery through his environment - children, work, debts, illnesses, family troubles - that life seems to him a burden beyond all endurance as a result of his wish to achieve something, and the only thing he wants is to want nothing, i.e. to have no personal interests, to flee all selfish desires, because they bring such torment.

So, man has no other way out but to beg the Creator to save him from egocentrism, for only in this way can he escape all of his problems, as it is his egocentrism itself which brings him all his suffering.

And that is why Rabbi Ashlag writes in his Preface to the book "Talmud eser sfirot" (Section 2): "But if you listen with your heart to one famous question, I am sure that all your doubts as to whether you should study the Kabbalah will vanish without a trace."

And this is so because this question, coming straight from man's heart, rather than from his intelligence or learning, this question clamouring in his heart is about his life, about its meaning, about the meaning of his sufferings which are many times greater than his pleasures, about life so hard that death seems an easy deliverance and salvation, about life where sufferings are many times greater than pleasures, about life where there is no end to whirlpools of pain until we finally leave it, absolutely worn out and devastated. And who, in the end, enjoys all this, or who do I please by this, or what else do I expect from this life?

And although each of us is subconsciously bothered by this question incessantly, sometimes it hits us unexpectedly, driving us crazy, rendering us incapable of doing anything, shattering our mind, plunging us into a dark chasm of hopelessness and a realization of our own insignificance - until we succeed in blocking it out of our mind and finding once more the solution well known to everyone, and go on existing, same as yesterday, and drift with the stream of life, without pondering over it too deeply.

But, as has been mentioned before, the Creator gives man such sensations in order to make him gradually realize that all his misfortunes, all his anguish stems from the fact that he has a personal interest in the result of his actions, that his egocentrism, i.e. his essence, his nature, makes him act for the sake of "his own good", and that is why he is constantly suffering because his wishes are not fulfilled.

Yet, if man were to rid himself of all personal interest in anything, he would instantly become free of all fetters of his essence and would behold all that surrounds him without any pain or distress.

The method of breaking free from the slavery of egocentrism is found in the Kabbalah. And the Creator purposely placed between Himself and us, between Himself and the point of our heart, our world with all its misery, in order to bring each of us to a realization of the necessity to purge ourselves from egocentrism, the cause of all our distress.

Leaving behind this distress and perceiving the Creator - a source of delight - is only possible on condition of a true wish on man's part to get rid of his egocentrism. In spiritual worlds a wish is equal to an act, for true, wholehearted wishes are fulfilled immediate­ly.

But the Creator Himself leads man to a firm and final resolution to get rid of all personal interest in any of life's situations by making him suffer so much in those situations that he has only one wish left - to stop suffering, which is only possible if he has absolutely no personal, selfish interest in the outcome of all life's matters he is involved in.

But where, then, is our free will, our freedom of choice - which road to take, what to choose in life? Yes, the Creator Himself induces man to choose a certain solution. By placing him in a situation fraught with such misery that death seems preferable to this life, but not giving him the strength to end it and thus escape suffering, and then, amidst unendurable anguish, suddenly shining the light of the only solution, like a ray of sunshine through huge clouds - not death, not escape, but liberation from all personal interest in the outcome of any mundane matter. This is the only solution, only this can grant peace and rest from unbearable suffering.

And certainly, there is no freedom of choice in this, because man is forced into this choice by a compulsion to escape suffering. And free will and freedom of choice are manifested in continuing on the chosen way, once man has overcome his depressed state, and, strengthening his own determination, seeking a way out of the dreadful state he has just been in, this time by himself, in action, so that the object of all his thoughts became "the Creator's sake", for life "for one's own sake" brings suffering. And this incessant work and control over one's thoughts is called the work of purification.

Suffering due to personal interest should be so acute that man would be ready to "live on a bite of bread and a sip of water, sleep on bare ground" - anything just to eject from himself egocentrism, personal interest in life.

And if he has reached the inner condition that enables him to feel happy doing that, then he enters a spiritual sphere called "the future world" or "the world to come".

Author: Rav Michael Laitman, PhD