II. Before there Was Time. 8. Setting the Stage for Man

This chapter is the heart of the book, the core of Kabbalah. Here, we focus more on the individual in the process and less on degrees, worlds, and Partzufim. When you learn it, you will grasp the essence of the Kabbalistic journey toward spirituality, and how Kabbalah provides a way for humanity to correct itself for the good of all...

All the worlds, Upper and lower, are contained within...

We previously defined Kabbalah as a sequence of causes and consequences that hang down from root to branch, whose purpose is the revelation of the Creator to the creatures. But how do Kabbalists know that? As they reach the top of the spiritual ladder, they discover two things: that creation is made of pure, unadulterated desire to receive pleasure, and that the Creator is made of pure, unadulterated desire to give it to creation. This brings up another question: If the Creator’s only wish is to give, where did creation’s pure desire to receive come from? Kabbalists explain that the Creator had to create us; otherwise, He wouldn’t have anyone to give to. This is the beginning of the root and branch sequence...

In Chapter 7, we explained that the worlds, from top to bottom, are Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya. We also said that each world is made of five interior elements called Partzufim. Now let’s talk about how they’re made and how they work...

In Chapter 7 we said that the last phase (and the greatest desire) is to know the Thought of Creation. To understand the Thought of Creation, it was necessary to create a special Partzuf, which would exist in a special world, where this Partzuf could study the Thought of Creation of its own free choice. This is how the Partzuf of Adam ha Rishon was formed. Although Adam ha Rishon was not born in our physical world, it was quickly brought here (or should we say, dropped here?), and was given the name Adam, after its task, to be Domeh (similar) to the Upper One, the Creator...

In the Kabbalistic version, the story of the original sin has a twist or two that you may not know. Adam was commanded not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge so he would not entangle himself with desires he couldn’t handle. But his internal female, Eve, told him that if he did eat, he would be able to give to the Creator even more than if he didn’t. She was right, too, because in doing that, he would be using greater desires to receive in order to give to the Creator. But what Eve didn’t know was that to give to the Creator with such strong desires, you need to have a very strong Masach to handle them. Adam did not have that. You may justly ask, “Why didn’t the Creator tell Adam that he couldn’t handle such desires, did He want him to fail? What kind of a giving Creator lets his creation suffer?”..

Our desires are as strong as the Creator’s but our intentions are opposite from His...