What Is the Creator’s Image Built Of?

Usually we make a very common mistake, thinking that we have to reveal the Creator Himself. We wait, "When is He going to be revealed already!?" As if the most important thing is for Him to appear.

But that will never happen. What has to appear is precisely the restriction, our desire to conceal Him from our will to enjoy, from our understanding, so we would have the opportunity to work with Him only on the condition that we give Him pleasure in return.

Then concealment, the aspiration for true bestowal, called "Lishma," becomes our vessel. Inside of that concealment, we will be able to build the image of the Giver and to understand what bestowal is. Because we will aspire only to bestowal, without any other vestment of pleasure into our desires, we will therefore begin to really attain what spirituality means.

Every person would like to reveal the Creator in the depth of exile. But the issue is how to ask for none other than His concealment while we are in exile, how to preserve this concealment ourselves and elevate it. All the levels of ascent are separated from one another by how much we desire and are able to contain ourselves, to hold us back from revelation, and to reveal ourselves only for the sake of bestowal.

And inside of this attitude to the upper one, our desire to conceal Him, we build His image. The greatness of the Creator that is born inside of us by virtue of this concealment enables us to value him and start feeling His form. That is, the form of the Creator is determined by the form of the importance that we are able to give to Him.

This explanation does not lend itself to being understood easily, but it already directly touches upon the relationship between creation and the Creator in the spiritual world....

From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 07/21/11, Shamati

Without Concealment, We Couldn’t Reveal Perfection

Shamati #174 "Concealment″: Concerning the concealment, which is a correction, had it not been for that, man would have been unable to attain any perfection, since he would not be worthy of attaining the importance of the matter.

We were created by the Light as the will to enjoy, and therefore we are entirely in its power and do not feel ourselves as existing. Today we don't feel our existence yet. What we do feel is a deceitful sensation because it's only possible to feel separated, distanced, and apart on the condition that you stand opposite the one you are apart from.

But we do not feel that we are standing opposite the Creator, against the Light, and therefore we cannot consider ourselves existing. After all, we are obligated to perceive everything on the contrast of opposites: as "me" and something outside of me. Then, in relation to this "outside," I will be able to determine who I am.

But in the meantime I remain alone, just an object inside myself. I cannot say anything about myself because there is no one in relation to whom I could measure myself.

Therefore, before a person can stop himself and perform a restriction on his ego, meaning "pass the Machsom" (the boundary into the spiritual world) and stand opposite the Creator, he is not called creation yet. This is called the preparation period, when we are entirely governed from above.

Only after we are ready to take upon ourselves the concealment which arises between us and the Creator, we grow distant from Him and receive an independent existence. Concealment makes the higher goal important to me. To the extent I want to attain this quality and am unable to because it is concealed, that is how much I feel its importance.

Eventually I get to a point where I begin to value the concealment because it turns into my vessel for the Light. It is written, "Wisdom (Hochma) is given to the modest." Because I make my will to enjoy modest, I am able to attain the Light of Hochma that stands opposite to me, accepting it in the Reflected Light, for the sake of bestowal.

Therefore, concealment expands my spiritual vessel by "620" times and gives me a new necessity-instead of pleasure, I want to attain the importance of the Giver. All of the qualities of the spiritual vessel are present in the actual concealment.

From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 07/21/11, Shamati