Chapter 3: Humanity’s Shared Origin Folder

In the previous chapter, we talked about the emergence of the desire to receive in Stage One, and the desire to give in Stage Two, as offshoots of the primordial desire to give in the Root. We also showed how because of its desire to give, the desire to receive was reactivated in Stage Three and maximized in Stage Four. Maximizing the desire to receive caused it to want not merely to enjoy, but to actually become like its progenitor—the Root Stage—and even to have the status of the Root Stage’s primacy. The subsequent realization that this was not (yet) possible induced a sense of inherent inferiority in Stage Four, which induced a restriction—elimination of any sensation of pleasure (light)...

Continuing the Partzuf/company allegory, the company, a.k.a. “Creation,” begins to sort out the “unemployed” desires on its waiting list, placing the weakest, easiest to handle desires at the top of the list, and the most intense, unruly ones at the bottom. Creation divides these desires into four categories, similar to the four stages in the evolution of desires. It refers to each category as an Olam (world), from the Hebrew word Haalama (concealment), since these desires must be kept separated and concealed from the lights until they can be operated correctly—with the aim to bestow...

In “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Baal HaSulam explains that the worlds ABYA are all very similar to one another: “Kabbalists have found that the form of the four worlds, named Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya, beginning with the first, highest world, called Atzilut, and ending in this corporeal, tangible world, called Assiya, is exactly the same... This means that everything that eventuates and occurs in the first world is found unchanged in the next world, below it, too. It is likewise in all the worlds that follow it, down to this tangible world...

As we will see in the following chapters, save for humans, the whole of Nature abides by a rule that aligns it with the laws of the spiritual worlds. We, on the other hand, must learn to abide by that rule by ourselves. By wanting to have the intention to give more than the gift that comes with giving (omnipotence and omniscience), we can mend Adam’s mistake. That is, by choosing the intention to give, the gift will still be attached to it and we will still receive omnipotence and omniscience...