Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah
Lesson 3
Last time we spoke about the beginning of creation, the construction of the created being through the four Behinot of Direct Light. I will now review this and then we will move on. If there are any questions relating to the subject please ask, we will stop and answer them, there is no rush, and I want everyone to understand the material.
It is clear to us that there is an upper power called Creator. Above it there is what is called “His Essence”, which we do not discuss, it belongs to the Sitrei Torah – the concealments of the Torah. When we will reach the degree of the Creator we will have vessels for discussing what is above it as well but for now we don’t. This condition is called that we do not involve with the concealments of the Torah.
From the Creator emanates Light, and this Behina is called Behinat Shoresh (Root Aspect) – His desire to bestow upon His created beings. His desire to bestow upon His created beings builds a vessel, which is made exactly according to His desire. That vessel is a desire to receive called Behina Alef (first aspect). The Light that fills Behina Alef is called Ohr Hochma (Light of Wisdom) and it gives pleasure to Behina Alef. Through the enjoying of this pleasure Behina Alef senses the Behinat Shoresh and sees that it desires to bestow. It then desires to bestow as well, and then Behina Alef becomes Behina Bet (Second aspect).
Behina Bet is already a desire to bestow, which is equal to Behinat Shoresh. When Behina Bet wants to achieve bestowal it realizes that it is equal to Behinat Shoresh. Behinat Shoresh is a desire to bestow, how does it bestow? It builds a vessel. It builds a desire to receive – Behina Alef, and fills it with Light. According to this realization Behina Bet gives birth to a new Behina, similar to Behina Alef, called Behina Gimel, (third aspect), and fills it with Light. In this way Behina Bet makes itself similar to Behinat Shoresh, and gives birth to Behina Gimel just like Behinat Shoresh created Behina Alef.
Drawing Nr 1
This means that the created being virtually repeats the same action done by the Creator. But if we observe all of these actions, we will see that Behina Gimel is already a desire to receive which is equal to Behina Alef in its size, same as what Behina Bet did, but now it is the created being’s desire. There is still an expansion of the desire here; it is the desire, which was created that eventually transformed itself into something which is similar to the host, the Creator, in terms of its action. When Behina gimel arrives to a state in which it receives, it is similar to when I sit in front of a table with food, sensing the food that the Creator really gives me. How do I feel? I have reached the awareness that He really wants to bestow. Out of His desire to bestow He built in me a desire to receive the bounty and filled me. How do I know this? Because I repeated all of His actions and so I now know all of them. I received all of these actions.
In Behina Alef I still do not feel that I received, I am not yet aware that He builds me and fills me; I am like a baby, a fetus in the womb of the mother. Once I have repeated all of these actions I realized what Behinat Shoresh is, what Behina Alef is, I understood what He has done to me. Out of this understanding of what He did to me I begin to penetrate further into my desire to receive, and through it I sort out who He is. I then begin to sense not just the Light that created me but also the One who created me, the desire of the Creator. I begin to feel what he gets out of my receiving, my enjoying. I sense the Creator’s pleasure from the created being.
So I look at it this way: there is a table and on it are the food servings that He prepared for me. I relate to the servings and I relate to Him. It is clear the He wants to give me, and it is clear what it is that He wants to give. Now, once I have gone through all of His actions, I sense that same pleasure of being a bestower. In this way I attain a desire for being a bestower.
And so, by sitting by the table, seeing five servings and seeing the host, I sensed the host’s desire to give me, and I sensed the pleasures of the food. Through the pleasures from the food I felt the host’s desire to bestow, by knowing the system I sensed how the host enjoys, I understood His vessel of enjoyment. I now want to attain His state; I want to have His stature, to be at the degree of a host myself.
Drawing Nr 2
So the vessel of Behina Dalet is the stature of the host. It is an entirely new desire that was not created by the Creator, and that is why it is called “the created being”. Who is the created being? The one who desires to be like the Creator. All else is not considered to be the created being. All else is a desire to receive the bounty, to somehow enjoy the bounty. This is the last Behina, there cannot be anything further.
The created being, wanting to receive and enjoy like the host receives all of the bounty from above, from Behinat Shoresh, Alef, Bet, Gimel, and Dalet, and senses itself in the last Behina as being different from the host. Because a desire to be like the host is considered receiving, wanting to be like the host, but not being a bestower like the host, is sensed as being opposite to the host, as something from nothing.
As a result of equalizing itself with the host, with the Creator, the created being reaches an action called The First Restriction. It does not agree with its own nature, with being created, and it begins to correct itself at any cost, to become completely equal to the host.
There is a desire to be at the stature of the host, in his place, and there is also a desire to be similar to him, to equalize with him.
The Creator wants to give twenty pounds of pleasure, and so He creates accordingly twenty pounds of desire to receive the pleasure. The created being wants to be like the Creator – to bestow twenty pounds of pleasure, and so it constructs its own twenty pounds of bestowal. Later, the created being sees that from bestowing the Creator has a hundred pounds of pleasure. It is like a mother nurturing her baby. The baby doesn’t know anything about the pleasure that it receives, for the baby it is just a little more livelihood. But the mother is entirely fulfilled. That is how the created being senses the pleasure that the Creator has. The created being desires that pleasure for itself.
Drawing Nr 3
What is the extent of the desire to receive? Lets say it is 100 pounds. That is the desire of the created being. As this desire of a hundred pounds starts to compare itself with the pleasure that the Creator has, it brings the created being, through this entire sequence, to the Creator. The created being now wants to enjoy this stature, the Creator’s pleasure from bestowal only, and the created being feels the difference between itself and the Creator.
What is actually the difference? In the Creator the pleasure is felt as bestowal, while in the created being the pleasure is felt as a desire to enjoy. The created being is something from nothing, while the Creator is something from something. That is the difference, and the created being wants to correct this difference, that is why it performs the Restriction.
Because of the way the created being feels after going through all that precedes it, Behinat Shoresh, Alef, Bet, Gimel, Dalet, feeling entirely different from the Creator, it performs the Restriction.
If you haven’t understood everything it is fine, we will review it some more.
The created being senses at this point that it is in its entirety a desire to receive, and it cannot be a bestower like the Creator. Its restriction is on its own source. It sees that even after repeating all of the Creator’s actions it still remains in its state of a created being.
It realizes that it desires the pleasure that come to it, and the pleasure is indeed meant for the created being.
The Light builds the vessel of Behina Alef according to its size. If the Light is infinite, is the vessel also infinite?
The Light is infinite, and so the vessel is also infinite. What does infinite Light and vessel mean? We discuss infinity out of the vessel that attains. We do not attain Light; we only attain Light inside a vessel. So the concept of infinity means no-limitation. If my vessel would be unlimited, then twenty pound that come to me would be infinite.
The state of infinity is when Malchut was filled entirely, with all of the pleasure that is in the Creator, but in order to receive. Malchut has a vessel of the same size as the Creator, but it is in order to receive.
The created being is “something from nothing” and the Creator is “something from something”, isn’t it the other way around?
The Creator is not some force or reality that we imagine, as described in books. In the Kabbalah the Creator is called the higher level in relation to a lower one; it is a definite step of attainment. As I attain this step or level, I have impressions, discernments from it, I attain Him, I see Him, I measure Him, I communicate with Him, I simply become aware of Him. A Creator is what is grasped in my vessels, what enters my vessel and is felt as superior to me. “Creator” in Hebrew is Bore – come and see, meaning that I see Him; I attain Him in my vessels. It is a science, and we measure the Creator in our vessels and describe Him, give Him names accordingly.
Each time we climb the steps from below to above, the higher level is called the Creator. The Creator becomes bigger as you climb up. It is always relative.
Where are we in all of this?
We will not talk about us now. We are not even in this picture. There are no worlds, souls, no spiritual world and no ‘this world’ here yet. We began from the beginning, before everything, nothing exists yet.
Except for what I am drawing now there is nothing here, not even space, no place for the worlds and the souls, a place still has to be created.
Can we assume that there is a level above the Creator, which we do not know about?
Kabbalists write about that. What we are studying in the mean time is within the limits of what we can talk about, attain, and hear.
Our path overall is divided into parts. We talk about the Creator. From the Creator we learned that the vessel was formed – Behina Dalet (fourth aspect). Later on we will learn about the First Restriction that the vessel performs, and after the First Restriction we will learn how the worlds of Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira and Asiya are created, and below them this world where we are. From this there is an additional expansion downward to the lowest state, from which the creation begins to be implemented.
First is the path from above to below. Then there is the barrier, and below it begins this world. The evolution of the creation from above to below reaches all the way down to the bottom. Everything is spirituality, including this world. From here begins the corporeality, the corporeal evolution, meaning inanimate, vegetal, living and speaking of this world, in the universe.
And then the First Man came called Abraham; and later on each one of us followed. From there begins the spiritual evolution up to the level of the Creator.
This barrier is the line beyond which a person begins to sense spirituality. Anyone who reaches Behina Dalet (called Infinity) reaches the End of Correction. Above the End of Correction there is a level, which is a future level, and more levels exist there that we cannot discuss.
Drawing Nr 4
Why? Because as we are now in this world, having received some desire for spirituality, we are in a state which precedes spirituality. It is said that if one works properly, one can cross the barrier within three to five years. It may take six to ten years as well. It doesn’t matter. Any person who has a desire for spirituality must fulfill it in any case, either now, or next time, in another incarnation. The path has to be gone through. The period from the time when the point in the heart is revealed until the entrance to the spiritual world and the end of correction is within one lifetime, as many years as one may have, fifty, sixty, seventy, no matter how many.
We, being in this world, do not feel very capable of discussing spirituality; we have no vessels, no language for it. Kabbalists who are beyond the barrier tell us about their experiences in words that we can understand, so that we, under the barrier, can read their books, and receive Surrounding Light from beyond the barrier. In this way they can somehow tell us what happens at those levels of correction, our correction. But they cannot tell us what happens beyond the Correction. Only someone who is corrected may understand a little of what is beyond the End of Correction.
But from this point, which is beyond the corrections, at the end of correction, there are almost no books. There are some very unique scrolls that are impossible to understand. I have a few such writings by Baal HaSulam. Believe me; don’t even try, for not even one word can be understood.
Anyone who is below the barrier can read the Kabbalists’ writings, even though they did not write in order for us to understand what they wrote. We truly do not understand anything. We will only understand once we cross the barrier with the help of the Surrounding Light and be able to see for ourselves. Otherwise, anyone who is in this world has no way of understanding what is above the correction – it is impossible. We have no vessels in our heart or in our mind for grasping it.
The fact that we are above Abraham and Abraham is lower, and the First Man is even lower… I am talking about development, spiritual development, it is called – the evolvement of the worlds, the Partzufim and the Sefirot. All of it reaches all the way down, to the last level, and then this state begun to carry out, to clothe itself in a corporeal form. The universe, the earth and all that is on it, began to develop – inanimate, vegetative, living, and later on speaking. This development went on for millions of years until the first time there was a state in which a soul was clothed in a body; a connection was created between the soul and a biological body – forming a point in the heart. It was someone called Adam, and later on someone called Abraham, who wrote the “Book of Creation”. That is when the point in the heart begun acting in people in such a way that the connection with spirituality begun to be revealed. After Abraham came Moses and then many more people who started to perform spiritual corrections while living in this world.