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 from the book of Shamati page 30, Article #19, called What Does it Mean That the Creator Hates the Bodies in the Work.
Just before we read the article I’d like to remind you that we are talking about a person who feels that his substance is the will to receive. And what he feels within the substance of the will to receive is the only thing he can talk about. We learned this in the Perception of Reality; also Kabbalists tell us “from Your actions we know You,” meaning that we’re only talking about what is inside of us, what is received in our Kli (vessel), in our senses.
Therefore, if we are talking about the Creator one mustn’t imagine anything being seemingly outside of us. One says “above” meaning that for the time being above a person’s senses. If one’s senses purify, become higher, purer, then one will feel Him. But we are still talking about what is within a person and clothes in a person. Outside of us one mustn’t imagine anything, it goes completely beyond form clothed in matter and that is why it does not exist in reality.
Thus, if one is talking about the Creator, one is talking about a person’s senses. He purifies himself and prepares himself until he has such an attribute where he feels the opposite of his original nature. He feels that he has acquired the attribute of bestowal instead of the attribute of reception. This attribute is detached from his own nature (it’s not bestowing in order to receive, the egoistic way) and is rather pure giving without any self benefit and without getting anything in return, which is called “ Lishma.” Because of that this attribute is called “Creator” since this attribute is felt in him as the original that designed him, created him, directs and brings him to the purpose.
So when one reads these Shamati articles : There is None Else Beside Him, The Shade of Kedusha, The Shade of Sitra Achra (articles that have been read so far) and now (the article) Why the Creator Hates the Bodies, one mustn’t forget that they are only talking about (what happens) inside a person. It is because there is now a new discernment of “the point in the heart” within a person that gives a person the possibility to discern between his original nature, the heart—all of his desires—and between that “point.” In that point he identifies with the inner feeling in it, which for him is called “Creator” and he also identifies with the heart which is all of his natural desires.
We are only talking about what’s in his Guf (body), within the heart, and in the point of the heart; the relationship between them, and about the order of their evolvement. This is what we are learning and what the wisdom of Kabbalah is about. In general the whole of reality is within that, in one’s sensation. One mustn’t forget that there is nothing but that.
Therefore, when we talk about the Creator, we talk about the attribute of bestowal, which a person acquires and what clothes in him. In this attribute there are further and additional higher degrees, but it’s all still what is dressed, perceived, felt and understood within a person. We shouldn’t look for what we are studying to be found in some different place outside of us or outside of our bodies, regardless of how we picture our bodies for the time being.
What does it mean that the Creator Hates the Bodies in the Work
The Holy Zohar says that the Creator hates the bodies. He said that we should interpret it as referring to the will to receive, called Guf (lit. Body). The Creator created His world in His glory, as it is written, “Every one that is called by My name, and whom I have created for My glory, I have formed him, yea, I have made him.”
Therefore, this contradicts the body’s argument that everything is for it, meaning only for its own benefit, while the Creator says the opposite that everything should be for the Creator. Hence, our sages said that the Creator said, “he and I can not dwell in the same abode.”
There is one root called “Creator,” the attribute of bestowal, which is absolute: only to benefit, only to give. This attribute is the only original attribute of which He created the opposite, a replication of, called “the will to receive.” And the oppositeness of the attributes between the will to bestow, the attribute of bestowal and the will to receive is called “hate,” “rejection,” “resistance.” The goal is for that will to receive to evolve to the extent where it feels itself opposite from the attribute of bestowal, will feel how limited it is compared to it and will want to resemble it with all the strength, in every possibility that it has, every option in its disposal.
When it searches, it will find that it can’t do that by itself. And then, even though it hates the attribute of bestowal, it will be able to turn to the attribute of bestowal to receive strength from it to change itself according to this attribute. Then, when one acquires the attribute of bestowal on oneself (one doesn’t actually acquire the quality, but its form on oneself), this is called that “the will to receive acquires the form of the attribute of bestowal.” This form, on top of the will to receive is called “Adam” (Man/Human) similar to the Creator, to the attribute of bestowal.
We are talking about desires: the will to bestow, the will to receive, the attribute of bestowal. We are talking about attributes and how they’re felt and perceived within a person, not that they’re out there somewhere as an abstract form. But rather everything is clothed in matter, even what we think of a person, of the Creator. One mustn’t think of anything that is not clothed in matter. Meaning, also the Creator is what one feels in one’s desire with the point in the heart; but what a person actually feels within his understanding, and perception, and hopefully within his feeling.
The will to receive and the will to bestow are two contradicting attributes to one another. This is so because the Creator, the will to bestow, bestowal, or the attribute of bestowal, designed the will to receive as a replication of it and this is why it is called “distance” and “hatred.” These are two contradicting attributes, contradicting desires that are in rejection of one another, which is called “hateful of one another” and accordingly cannot be together.
It follows, that the principal separator from being adhesive with the Creator is the will to receive. It is apparent when the evil comes; meaning the will to receive comes and asks, “Why do you want to work for the Creator?”
Why does this question even exist? Because we are talking about people who have two points: the will to receive and the will to bestow. The will to receive is called “the heart” and the will to bestow is called “point in the heart.” Because a person already has these two discernments, it’s as if one is in between them. Through the point in the heart one feels that there are some attributes other their own, that’s why it attracts the person. One doesn’t know what it is exactly in the beginning. And in the will to receive one feels oneself, the world that one is drawn to, what one needs.
One then begins to feel (not immediately, but as one evolves through the study, through presence in the society that is concerned with spiritual evolvement) how one’s will to receive is opposite from that point. There is some type of collision between them. A person is told that with one’s ego one cannot progress to spirituality. For the time being the person only listens. It might take many months, even years before the person begins to feel that this is really so.
What is written in the books and what is said is not the same as seeing oneself from within one’s inner sensation, which is already the recognition of evil. “The recognition of evil” means that the will to receive is opposite and cannot help one increase the point in the heart. One begins to feel it as bestowal, the will to bestow. The person identifies this desire with the Creator. This is the Upper Force, the highest thing, the highest attribute, and the will to receive cannot help one in that, on the contrary.
Then there begins to be collision between them and a person can agree with what our sages said that “he and I cannot dwell in the same abode.” Meaning, that if a person (a person is called “the abode”) has these two forces it is impossible for them to be together, either one prevails or the other prevails. Either a person is under the will to bestow and gets greater power and then it’s as if the will to receive is not present in one, it’s inactive in a person, or the opposite, that the will to receive suddenly erupts and the will to bestow surrenders. When this happens then a person is under the authority of the Klipot (shells). But they can’t both be in a person in one’s understanding and sensation standing one against the other; because when one rises, the other falls.
It follows, that the principal separator from being adhesive with the Creator is the will to receive. It is apparent when the evil comes; meaning the will to receive comes and asks, “Why do you want to work for the Creator?” We think it speaks as humans do, that it wants to understand with its intellect. Yet, this is not the truth since it does not ask for whom one is working. This is certainly a rational argument, as this argument awakens in one with a rational.
Instead, the argument of the wicked is a physical question, meaning it asks, “What mean you by this service?” In other words, which profit will you have for the exertion you are making? It means that it asks, “If you are not working for yourself, what will the body, called will to receive, get out of it?”
Since this is a bodily argument, the only reply is a bodily reply, “He blunted its teeth, and had he not been there, he would not have been redeemed.”
In other words, they both ask. Actually, the will to bestow within a person asks too, "what do you get from the will to receive?” One sees that one constantly loses with it, that it brings a person only trouble, that one keeps failing, because one is chasing pleasures, money, honor, knowledge; all kinds of fulfillments, mundane fulfillments. A person sees that it doesn’t give one any fulfillment that it all vanishes the next day or the moment you get it, which is called “today” and the next moment is called “the next day.” It vanishes and if it vanishes what’s the use if it all. That’s what the will to bestow asks.
The will to receive says differently, “I don’t see any benefit in the will to bestow. The fact that I give to someone, it only vanishes from me so first of all, how can I work? Even to listen to you without any reason or sensation, I can’t do that because I don’t have the motivation for it. And second of all what should I do? Let’s say, that I am in the attribute of bestowal, what will that give me?” Meaning, the will to receive is unable and doesn’t want, and will never agree to give anything without having fulfillment. They are in unprecedented contradiction of one another because by nature there is no such thing as a will to receive being able to give without reward.
Therefore, when the will to receive awakens, a person has no answer to this question. Of course, working with the will to receive in bestowal is certainly impossible. What is the answer that Kabbalists give us? “Blunt its teeth” meaning, go with force.
Where will one take these forces to go above one’s desire? First of all, one doesn’t see what for, that’s already an egoistic question. One doesn’t know or understand the kind of fulfillment one will get. It turns out that one’s entire beginning is already built on receiving the Upper Force from the will to bestow. If the desire (this point from within, from which one has questions about the continuation, about bestowal, about exiting the will to receive), if that point gives a person strength and grows and dominates the will to receive, then one will be able to perform acts called “acts of bestowal.” A person feels that such a thing can be because one has that spark. One recognizes it from the egoistic feeling of bestowing in order to receive.
This means that such a thing can be, if that Force comes from Above, above nature, and by that the will to receive gives a person the ability to work with the fuel of bestowal. How can that happen? We don’t understand. But this is called “a miracle, the miracle of the exodus from Egypt.” Thus the will to receive, although it enjoys only when it fulfills itself and according to the fulfillment gives a person the ability to perform an act as an act of bestowal (which in the end it feels as an act of reception), this same will to receive will feel fulfillment from giving without any reward.
It comes from the additional attribute in the will to receive called “ Masach” (screen)—the intention to bestow—when we begin to measure the filling with Ohr Hozer (Returning Light), with bestowal. Just like the example we always give in this world of a mother and a child because the mother has a very strong possession, which is love for her child. This is what a person begins to receive, love for the Creator, or something that is outside of oneself, which is the same.
So from that one gets the motivation to perform acts of bestowal without any thought of oneself. The mother and the child do think of themselves because it’s a natural connection, physical one, animate one. Whereas here, in our case, a person acquires the attribute of love for the other. It is outside of the person and can be anything that a person sees as being outside of himself, which is all in all, the Creator. So when one acquires that attribute, one can give and the giving itself gives one strength and fulfillment because it is based on the love.
Something like that is unfelt in a will to receive before we acquire this attribute. And the reception of this attribute comes after a person exerts in it to reach Arvut (Mutual Responsibility/Guarantee). The next phase after Arvut is “love thy friend as thyself.” Arvut is the condition and if a person exerts, one acquires the attribute of love. The attribute of love gives one a possibility to bestow without any thought of oneself and according to this giving, one is in equivalence of form with the Creator, and the Creator is clothed in that person.
“He blunted its teeth, and had he not been there, he would not have been redeemed.” Why? Because the will to receive for itself has no redemption even at the time of redemption. This is because the matter of redemption will be when all the profits permeate the vessels of bestowal and not the vessels of reception.
When the will to receive is corrected in us, it is like a tool with which we can bestow. What can a person give? A person can give only what one has. Let’s say, just like in our world, one has love for one’s family, so one works hard. A person sweats, worries about how one will earn more in order to come to them and give them what one has earned. The love forces one. It compels the person to obtain the filling so as to give it to the loved one.
It’s the same here. The minute there is love, the will to receive begins to feel how it is a means to realize the love, because if one just loves without giving something it’s not considered loving. Where is the realization? Where is the proof? Where does one feel it?
According to the measure of what one receives, of one’s efforts to receive and then to give to one’s loved one, a person’s love is measured according to that. The measure of one’s bestowal is a measure of one’s love. Then, we can see that the will to receive can work in such a way to be eternal because the measure of bestowal is eternal, it is outside of a person. Then also the will to receive which joins it and serves it is also eternal. Eternal in the sense that everything that passes through it also remains in it. It doesn’t do it in order to gain and keep these profits for himself, but that sensation, this acquisition that one acquires through love, the love itself (for another, the one he fulfills) it remains in one always.
The will to receive for itself must always remain in deficit because the filling of the will to receive is actual death. The reason is, as we have said above, that creation was principally for His glory (and this is an answer to what is written, that His wish is to do good to His creatures and not for Himself).
The interpretation will be that creation is essentially to reveal to all that the purpose of creation is to do good to His creatures. This is specifically when one says that he was born to honor the Creator. At that time, in these vessels, the purpose of creation appears which is to do good to His creatures.
For this reason, one must always examine oneself, the purpose of his work, meaning if the Creator receives contentment in every act that one performs, because he wants equivalence of form. This is called “All your actions will be for the Creator,” meaning one wants the Creator to enjoy in whatever one does, as it is written, “to bring contentment to his Maker.”
Also, one needs to conduct oneself with the will to receive and say to it, “I have already decided that I do not want to receive any pleasure because you want to enjoy. This is because with your desire I am forced to be separated from the Creator, since disparity of form causes separation and distance from the Creator.
One’s hope should be that since one cannot break loose from the dominion of the will to receive, he is therefore in perpetual ascents and descents. For this reason, one awaits to be awarded the Creator opening his eyes and giving him the power to overcome and work only to benefit the Creator. It is as it is written, “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after,” meaning the Holy Divinity, and one asks, “that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,” and the house of the Lord is the Holy Divinity.
Again, we are talking about a person, and how next to that person’s egoistic desires, through all the incarnations, the desire for spirituality, the desire for bestowal, and for love grew. And for the time being, that person is slowly discovering what this desire is that speaks in him. The person doesn’t immediately discern all these discernments in it.
For the time being, one discovers that one is dissatisfied with one’s will to receive, that this world can’t give one anything. One is depressed. “What’s the meaning of my life? How will I satisfy myself? I have no pleasures, no flavors in life.” Then one begins to be drawn to all kinds of places, situations, and means to satisfy oneself and thus comes to the wisdom of Kabbalah, begins to take interest in it.
For the time being, through all these actions, the point in the heart begins to show itself, to grow, to manifest its action. And then, a person perhaps begins to hear after some time that what one needs is to increase that point, to understand what it really asks. That point asks for an approach to others, which eventually should appear as “love thy friend as thyself.”
A person through the study and within the group after a long time begins to understand that this attribute of bestowal, of love for another is outside of him, unfelt in him and that one cannot acquire this attribute. Then that person is in a situation that contradicts the point in the heart (because one still identifies more with one’s heart) although the point in the heart becomes important to the person because the environment gives one the importance of the point. One begins to feel that without clinging to it and detachment from one’s ego, from one’s will to receive, one won’t be awarded anything in life.
One will be as dead as the will to receive is dead and without bringing one any benefit. One wants to profit, one wants to live. Then one begins to cry and ask and to look for where one can take the ability to make the point in the heart stronger than the heart so as to cling to it. One begins to feel oneself as being between two forces, the egoistic will power and that point, which talks about bestowal (about something above the egoistic desire.) Here the person begins to then feel despair, as one tries to do all kinds of tricks and sees that they don’t work and then out of this despair (one constantly despairs and attains something, despairs and attains something) it begins to bring one understanding from Above. This means that from within the will to bestow (which is hidden inside the point in the heart) is from where the salvation can come to him.
If one really wants with all one’s strength, one will find within that point a great desire for bestowal, which is called “that the Creator will shine for him.” He gives it to him from within, from without, it doesn’t matter how we picture it, but actually it’s all inside a person. It’s all inside a person’s feelings. From the outside we feel nothing. That point, there, that’s where all of these hidden forces of bestowal are, called “the Creator.” There the spiritual nature is. Then, a person cries, “One thing I ask of the Creator, this is what I ask, I will sit, dwell in the house of the Lord.”
In other words, (he asks) to make that same point into a spiritual Kli, as bestowal, as love and to increase it in oneself. This will be called “the house of the Creator;” that the attribute of bestowal will be in that person, and the Creator—the source—will clothe in it, and that the person will discover Him inside.
It turns out that to the extent that one rises, the other falls. The will to bestow, the point in the heart, is where one feels more internal discernments, identity and connection with the Creator (who is internally in that point). There the person now feels that with this one begins to be connected to the source of bestowal. And by that one becomes detached from one’s ego, from one’s will to receive, and begins to live and is dependent on that sensation, i.e., on that point of bestowal. By that one becomes an embryo.
Then, afterwards it refers to the evolution of the embryo where this whole evolution comes again, against the will to receive. This constantly serves for a person as a substance which one adds to that point and on top of that substance one increases the point and one’s connection with the Creator.
The process is where this substance becomes the left line, and the point becomes the right line. And as much as one can, one adds this substance, one’s ego, to the right line and it will be called “the middle line.” That’s one’s connection, that’s one’s life, that’s one’s Partzuf, one’s soul.By that one already reaches the entrance to spirituality. There within that sensation, within one’s previous point, which has already grown, that’s where one finds the spiritual dimension and the eternal life.
Then one begins to understand that the whole sensation of the previous life was the sensation within the will to receive, within one’s previous attribute. There is no life and no existence outside of the attribute of reception or bestowal since in the attribute of reception the fulfillments constantly disappear when they meet the desire. That’s why life is called “incidental” and “transient” or “imaginary.” However, when one begins to feel one’s existence through the attribute of bestowal, one begins to feel that everything in the attribute of bestowal comes and adds and adds and does not vanish. This sensation gives one a sensation of eternity and completeness.
Now we can understand what our sages said about the verse, “And ye shall take you on the first day.” It is first to count the iniquities. We must understand why there is joy if there is room for an iniquity-count here? He said that we must know that there is a matter of importance in the labor, when there is a contact between the individual and the Creator.
It means that one feels that he needs the Creator. This is because in the state of labor, one sees that there is no one in the world who can save him from his situation but the Creator alone. It is then that one sees that “There is none else beside Him,” who can save him from the situation he is in and that he cannot escape.
This is called having a tight contact with the Creator. One does not know to appreciate that contact. It means that one should believe that then he is adhesive with the Creator, meaning that one’s entire thought is of the Creator, meaning that He will help him. Otherwise one sees that he is lost.
However, one who is awarded private providence, and sees that the Creator does everything, as it is written, “He alone does and will do all the deeds,” he naturally has nothing to add, and one obviously has no room for prayer for the Creator’s help. This is because one sees that even without one’s prayer the Creator still does everything.
Hence, at that time one has no place to be able to do good deeds since one sees that everything is done without him by the Creator anyhow. Thus, in that state one has no need for the Creator to help him do anything. Obviously, at that time one has no contact with the Creator to need him to the extent that he is lost if the Creator does not help him.
It follows, that he does not have the contact that he had had with the Creator during the labor. He said that it is like a person who is between life and death, and asks his friend to save him from death. How does one ask of one’s friend? One certainly tries to ask one’s friend to have mercy on him and save him from death with every power at one’s disposal. He certainly does not forget to pray to one’s friend, since one sees that otherwise he will lose his life.
However, one who asks of one’s friend for luxuries, which are not so necessary, the pleading is not so adhesive with his friend to give him what he asks for to the point that his mind will not be distracted from asking. You find that with things that are not related to life-saving, the pleading is not that adhesive with the giver.
Thus, when one feels that he should ask of the Creator to save him from death, meaning from the state of, “The evil in their life are called dead,” the contact between the person and the Creator is a tight contact. For this reason, for the righteous, a place of work is to need the Creator’s help; otherwise, he is lost. This is what the righteous crave, a place to work so they will have a tight contact with the Creator.
Once a person begins to feel that one is in between one’s natural will to receive and the will to bestow (which one begins to feel awakening in his heart) and that there is value to this attribute, one then begins to pay attention to this attribute, and to cultivate it. One begins to feel that bestowal does have a higher value and that other higher lives were connected to it, and one worries about exiting, about not being connected to this attribute (even before the Machsom (the Barrier), in an egoistical way.) One begins to understand how dependent one is on the power in this attribute to awaken in him and that it’s not up to him. Since if the egoistic desire in him rises, then a person falls and if it weakens, a person is able to pay attention to the attribute of bestowal.
And so one sees that one is on some type of swing, a pendulum, going this way or that way. And one sees that one’s own situation is not up to him. Gradually out of searching, from out of despair, from the desire to still determine one’s own state with respect to bestowal (to be attached to this point, to this attribute) one begins to feel that here one must find contact with the Creator.
This is not the attribute of bestowal or the attribute of reception which are in the person, but rather that in the attribute of bestowal there is a special Force, called “Creator.” Besides this attribute, there is someone’s desire who is moresuperior to man and that a person is dependent upon that desire.
If that desire wants, it will increase the attribute of bestowal within a person (this internal desire is within the point in the heart). And if it grows, the person will be attached to it and will leave his will to receive. And if one doesn’t, one will be attached to the will to receive and thus, die in that way. Meaning, that within the will to bestow, i.e., within the point, a person begins to feel a higher authority that one is dependent upon. And then one begins to develop a special attitude to the will to bestow, that it's not just the attribute of bestowal in him but that in it there is the Upper Force. The Upper Force is called “above a person,” a person feels it as above him, with a desire above him, the thought above him and that he is dependent on it.
Then, one begins to understand and realize and ask for that Power. Meaning the attribute of bestowal is the attribute of bestowal, it is giving, love. It’s an attribute. But within the attribute there is the Upper Force, more correctly the Upper Thought. This is what he calls “the Creator, the Thought of Creation.” Then, one begins to relate to it as in the example that Baal HaSulam gives us here of relating to one’s friend and asking bitterly of him, “Save me.” But not “save me” from my own will to receive because my will to receive is bad. One begins to feel that that Force plays with him, with the will to receive and the will to bestow, with the both of them. It (the Force) is above them and plays with the person this way.
It turns out as if the Creator is (discovered) as a Thought. Even though a person discovers Him in the attribute of bestowal which one feels, one discovers the Creator as above it. Opposite bestowal, there is reception. And a person is connected to both the will to receive and the will to bestow. This is how one feels oneself dependant.
The Creator is discerned through both the will to receive and the will to bestow in a person (the person is me, meaning one who feels his “I”.) So in this way, one begins to locate the Creator within the attribute of bestowal although the Creator plays with a person through these two forces.
Then one feels that this Thought activates these two forces that It is the one that acts, and that’s why it’s called “Creator.” It designs all the attributes in a person. There is nothing in a person other than reception and the point in the heart, the bestowal that one feels. That’s all there is. One feels that this is all of one’s Kli of sensation. What is inside them is called the “Creator.” And then one begins to relate not to these attributes but to the Creator. One begins to ask of Him to manage him through these attributes of reception and bestowal in such a way that one will be attached to the attribute of bestowal because one wants to be adhered to the Creator.
What is Baal HaSulam telling us here?
For this reason, for the righteous, a place of work is to need the Creator’s help; otherwise, he is lost. That's what he asks for, to have the connection with the Creator. This is what the righteous crave, a place to work so they will have a tight contact with the Creator.
That’s what he is asking, to have contact with the Creator. Then perhaps one is happy when one receives from the Creator (through the will to receive) all kinds of influences even if one feels them as unpleasant. This is so because these influences awaken a person to turn to the Creator, to be in tight contact, connected, dependent, as needing this necessity and not having it. This is already called “pains of love” i.e., when one wants to increase the connection and doesn’t have the means for it. Then the Creator gives one some concealment and through the concealment (it’s like a spiritual flirt) the person yearns; one has some kind of a place where one can express one’s craving and outburst of love.