Part ONE of THREE
1.
In this introduction, I would like to clarify matters that are seemingly simple. Matters that everyone fumbles with, and for which much ink has been spilled, attempting to clarify. Yet we have not reached a concrete and sufficient knowledge of them. And here are the questions:
What is our essence?
What is our role in the long chain of reality, of which we are but small links?
When we examine ourselves, we find that we are as corrupted and as low as can be. And when we examine the operator who has made us, we are compelled to be at the highest degree, for there is none so praiseworthy as Him. For it is necessary that only perfect operations will stem from a perfect operator.
Our mind necessitates that He is utterly benevolent, beyond compare. How, then, did He create so many creatures that suffer and agonize all through their lives? Is it not the way of the good to do good, or at least not to harm so?
How is it possible that the infinite, that has neither beginning nor end, will produce finite, mortal, and transient creatures?
2.
In order to clear all that up, we need to make some preliminary inquiries. And not, God forbid, where it is forbidden, in the Creator’s essence, of which we have no thought or perception whatsoever, and thus have no thought or utterance of Him, but where the inquiry is a Mitzva (commandment/good deed), the inquiry of His deeds. It is as the Torah commands us: “Know thou the God of thy father and serve Him,” and as it says in the poem of unification, “By your actions we know you.”
Inquiry No. 1: How can we picture a new creation, something new that is not included in Him before He creates it, when it is obvious to any observer that there is nothing that is not included in Him? Common sense dictates it, for how can one give what one does not have?
Inquiry No. 2: If you say that from the aspect of His almightiness, He can certainly create existence from absence, something new that is not in Him, there rises the question – what is that reality, which can be determined as having no place in Him at all, but is completely new?
Inquiry No. 3: This deals with what Kabbalists have said, that one’s soul is a part of God Above, in such a way that there is no difference between Him and the soul, but He is the “whole” and the soul is a “part.” And they compared it to a rock carved from a mountain. There is no difference between the rock and the mountain, except that He is the “whole” and the rock is a “part.” Thus we must ask: it is one thing that a stone carved from the mountain is separated from it by an ax made for that purpose, causing the separation of the “part” from the “whole.” But how can you picture that about Him, that He will separate a part of His essence until it departs His essence and becomes separated from Him, meaning a soul, to the point that it can only be understood as part of His essence?
3.
Inquiry No. 4: Since the chariot of the Sitra Achra (other side) and the Klipot (shells) is so far, at the other end of His Holiness, until such remoteness is inconceivable, how can it be extracted and made from Holiness, much less that His Holiness will sustain it?
Inquiry No. 5: The matter of the rising of the dead: Since the body is so contemptible, that immediately at birth it is doomed to perish and to be buried. Moreover, The Zohar said that before the body rots entirely, the soul cannot ascend to its place in the Garden of Eden, while there are still remnants of it. Therefore, why must it return and rise at the revival of the dead? Could the Creator not delight the souls without it?
Even more bewildering is what our sages said, that the dead are destined to rise with their flaws, so that they will not be mistaken for another, and after that He will cure their flaws. We must understand why God should mind that they would not be mistaken for another, that for that He would recreate their flaws and then would have to cure it.
Inquiry No. 6: Regarding what our sages said, that man is the center of reality, that the Upper Worlds and this corporeal world and everything in them were created only for him (The Zohar, Tazria, 40), and obliged man to believe that the world had been created for him (Sanhedrin 37). It is seemingly hard to grasp that for this trifling human, whose value is no more than a wisp, with respect to the reality of this world, much less with respect to all the Upper Worlds, whose Height and Sublimity is immeasurable, that the Creator had troubled Himself to create all these for him. And also, why would man need all that?
4.
To understand these questions and inquiries, the only tactic is to examine the end of the act, that is, the purpose of Creation. For nothing can be understood in the middle of the process, but only at its end. And it is clear that there is no act without a purpose, for only the insane can act purposelessly.
I know that there are those who cast over their backs the burden of Torah and Mitzvot (plural for Mitzva), saying the Creator has created the whole of reality, then left it alone, that because of the worthlessness of the creatures it is not fitting for the Exalted Creator to watch over their mean little ways. Indeed, without knowledge they have spoken, for it is impossible to comment on our lowliness and nothingness, before we decide that we have created ourselves with all our corrupted and loathsome natures.
But while we decide that the Creator, who is utterly perfect, is the One who created and designed our bodies, with all their admirable and contemptible attributes, surely, there can never emerge an imperfect act under the hand of the perfect worker, as each act testifies to its performer. And what fault is it of a bad garment, if some no-good tailor has made it?
Such as this we find in Masechet Taanit, 20: A tale about Rabbi Elazar who came across a very ugly man. He said to him: “How ugly is that man.” The man replied: “Go and tell the craftsman that made me, ‘How ugly is this instrument you have made.’” Hence, those who claim that because of our lowliness and nothingness, it is not fitting for Him to watch over us, and therefore He has left us, do nothing but display their ignorance.
Try to imagine, if you were to meet some man who would create creatures, precisely so they would suffer and agonize their whole lives as we do, and not only that, but cast them behind his back, not wanting even to look after them, to help them a little. How contemptible and low you would regard him! Can such a thing be thought of Him?
5.
Therefore, common sense dictates that we grasp the opposite of what appears to be on the surface, and decide that we are truly noble and worthy creatures, of immeasurable importance, actually worthy of the Worker who had made us. For any fault you wish to perceive in our bodies, behind all the excuses that you give to yourself, falls only on the Creator, who created us and the nature within us, for it is clear that He had created us and not we.
He also knows all the ways that stem from the evil nature and attributes He has created in us. It is as we have said, that we must contemplate the end of the act, and then we will be able to understand everything. It is as the saying goes, “Do not show a fool a job half done.”
6.
Our sages have already said that the Creator created the world for no other reason but to delight His creatures. And here is where we must place our minds and all our thoughts, for it is the ultimate aim of the act of the creation of the world. And we must bear in mind that since the Thought of Creation was to bestow upon His creatures, He had to create in the souls a great measure of desire to receive that which He had thought to give them. For the measure of each pleasure and delight depends on the measure of the will to receive it. The greater the will to receive, the greater the pleasure, and the lesser the will, the lesser the pleasure from reception.
Thus, the Thought of Creation itself necessarily dictates the creation of an excessive will to receive in the souls, to fit the immense pleasure that His Almightiness thought to bestow upon the souls. For the great delight and the great desire to receive go hand in hand.
7.
Once we have learned that, we come to a full understanding of the second inquiry, in complete clarity. For we have learned what is the reality that can be clearly determined, which is not a part of His essence, to the extent that we can say that it is a new creation, existence from absence. And now that we know for certain that the Thought of Creation, to delight His creatures, necessarily created a measure of desire to receive from Him all the goodness and pleasantness that He had planned for them, that will to receive was clearly not included in His essence before He had created it in the souls, because from whom could He receive? It follows that He had created something new, which is not in Him.
And yet, we understand that according to the Thought of Creation, there was no need to create anything more than that will to receive. This is because this new creation is sufficient for Him to fulfill the entire Thought of Creation, which He had thought to bestow upon us. But all the filling in the Thought of Creation, all the benefits He had planned to render us, stem directly from His essence, and He has no reason to recreate them, since they are already extracted, existence from existence, to the great will to receive in the souls. Thus we evidently see that all the substance in the generated creation, from beginning to end, is only the “will to receive.”
8.
Now we have come to understand the words of the Kabbalists in the third inquiry. We wondered how it was possible to say about souls that they were a part of God Above, like a stone that is carved from a mountain, that there is no difference between them except that one is a “part” and the other is a “whole.” And we wondered: it is one thing to say that the stone that is carved from the mountain becomes separated by an ax made for that purpose, but how can you say that about His essence? And also, what was it that separated the souls from His essence and excluded them from the Creator, to become creatures?
From the above, we clearly understand that as the ax cuts and divides a physical object in two, the disparity of form divides the spiritual into two. For example, when two people love each other, you say that they are attached to one another as one body. And when they hate each other, you say that they are as far from one another as the east from the west. But there is no question of nearness or remoteness of location here. Rather, this implies the equivalence of form: when they are equal in form, and each loves what the other loves and hates what the other hates, they love each other and are attached to one another.
And if there is some disparity of form between them, and one of them likes something that the other hates, then to the extent that they differ in form, they become distant and hateful of one another. And if, for example, they are opposite in form, and everything that one likes, the other hates, and everything the other hates is liked by the first, they are deemed as remote as the east from the west, meaning from one end to the other.
9.
And you find that in spirituality the disparity of form acts like the ax that separates in the corporeal world, and the distance between them is proportional to the oppositeness of form. From this we learn that since the will to receive His delight has been imprinted in the souls, and we have shown that this form is absent in the Creator, because from whom would He receive, that disparity of form that the souls acquired separates them from His essence, as the ax that carves a stone from the mountain. And because of that disparity of form the souls were separated from the Creator and became creatures. However, everything the souls acquire of His Light extends from His essence, existence from existence.
It therefore turns out that with respect to His Light, which they receive in their Kli (vessel), which is the will to receive, there is no difference whatsoever between them and His essence. This is because they receive it existence from existence, directly from His essence. And the only difference between the souls and His essence is that the souls are a part of His essence.
This means that the amount of Light that they receive in their Kli, being the will to receive, is already separated from the Creator, as it is predicated on the disparity of form of the will to receive. And this disparity of form made it a part by which they were separated from the “whole” and became a “part.” Thus, the only difference between them is that one is a “whole” and the other is a “part,” as a stone that is carved from a mountain. And scrutinize this meticulously, for it is impossible to expand further on such an exalted place.
10.
Now we can begin to understand the fourth inquiry: how is it possible that the chariot of impurity and Klipot would emerge from His Holiness, since it is at the other end of His Holiness? And also, how can it be that He supports and sustains it? Indeed, first we must understand the meaning of the existence of impurity and Klipot.
Know that this great will to receive, which we determined was the very essence of the souls by creation – for which they are fit to receive the entire filling in the Thought of Creation – does not stay in that form within the souls. If it had, they would have to remain eternally separated from Him because the disparity of form in them would separate them from Him.
And in order to mend that separation, which lays on the Kli of the souls, He created all the worlds and separated them into two systems, as in the verse: “God has made them one against the other,” which are the four pure worlds ABYA, and opposite them the four impure worlds ABYA. And He imprinted the desire to bestow in the system of the pure ABYA, removed the will to receive for themselves from them, and placed it in the system of the impure worlds ABYA. Because of that, they have become separated from the Creator and from all the worlds of holiness.
For that reason the Klipot are called “dead,” as in the verse: “sacrifices of the dead” (Psalms 106, 28). And the wicked that follow them, as our sages said, “The wicked, in their lives, are called ‘dead,’” since the will to receive imprinted in them in oppositeness of form to His Holiness separates them from the Life of Lives, and they are remote from Him from one end to the other. It is so because He has no interest in reception, only in bestowal, whereas the Klipot want nothing of bestowal, but only to receive for themselves, for their own delight, and there is no greater oppositeness than that. And you already know that spiritual remoteness begins with some disparity of form and ends in oppositeness of form, which is the farthest possible distance in the last degree.
11.
And the worlds cascaded onto the reality of this corporeal world, to a place where there is a body and a soul and a time of corruption and a time of correction. For the body, which is the will to receive for itself, extends from its root in the Thought of Creation, through the system of the impure worlds, as it is written, “and a wild ass’s colt is born a man” (Job 11, 12). And he remains under the authority of that system for the first thirteen years, which is the time of corruption.
And by engaging in Mitzvot from thirteen years of age onwards, in order to bestow contentment upon his Maker, he begins to purify the will to receive for himself, imprinted in him, and slowly turns it to be in order to bestow. By that he extends a holy soul from its root in the Thought of Creation. And it passes through the system of the pure worlds and dresses in the body. This is the time of correction.
And so he accumulates degrees of holiness from the Thought of Creation in Ein Sof (Infinity), until they aid him in turning the will to receive for himself in him, to be entirely in the form of reception in order to bestow contentment upon his Maker, and not at all for himself. By that, one acquires equivalence of form with his Maker, because reception in order to bestow is regarded as pure bestowal.
In Masechet Kidushin it is written that with an important man she gives and he says – by that you are sanctified. Because when his reception is in order to delight her, the giver, it is deemed absolute bestowal and giving. Thus, one buys complete adhesion with Him, for spiritual adhesion is but equivalence of form, as our sages said, “How is it possible to cleave unto Him? Rather, cleave on to His qualities.” And by that, one becomes worthy of receiving all the delight and pleasure and the gentleness in the Thought of Creation.
12.
Thus we have clearly explained the correction of the will to receive, imprinted in the souls by the Thought of Creation. For the Creator has prepared for them two systems, one opposite the other, through which the souls pass and divide into two discernments, body and soul, which dress in one another.
And through Torah and Mitzvot, they finally turn the form of the will to receive to be as the form of the will to bestow. And then they can receive all the goodness in the Thought of Creation. And along with it, they are rewarded with a solid adhesion with Him, because through the work in Torah and Mitzvot they have been rewarded with equivalence of form with their Maker. This is deemed the end of correction.
And then, since there will no longer be a need for the evil Sitra Achra, it will be eliminated from the earth and death shall cease forever. And all the work in Torah and Mitzvot that was given to the world during the six thousand years of the existence of the world, and to each person for the duration of one’s seventy years of life, are to bring them to the end of correction – the above-mentioned equivalence of form.
The issue of the formation and extension of the system of Klipot and impurity from His Holiness has also been thoroughly clarified now: it had to be in order to extend by it the creation of the bodies, which would then be corrected through Torah and Mitzvot. And if our bodies, with their corrupted will to receive, were not extended through the impure system, we would never be able to correct it, for one cannot correct that which is not in him.
13.
Indeed, we still need to understand how the will to receive for oneself, which is so flawed and corrupted, could extend from, and be in the Thought of Creation in Ein Sof, whose unity is beyond words and beyond description? The thing is that by the very thought to create the souls, His thought completed everything, for He does not need an act, as do we. Instantaneously, all the souls and worlds that were destined to be created, emerged filled with all the delight and pleasure and the gentleness He had planned for them, in the final perfection that the souls were intended to receive at the end of correction, after the will to receive in the souls has been fully corrected and was turned into pure bestowal, in complete equivalence of form with the Emanator.
This is so because in His Eternalness, past, present, and future are as one. The future is as the present and there is no such thing as time in Him. Hence, there was never an issue of a corrupted will to receive in its separated state in Ein Sof.
On the contrary, that equivalence of form, destined to be revealed at the end of correction, appeared instantly in the Infinite. And our sages said about that: “Before the world was created there were He is One and His Name One,” for the separated form in the will to receive had not been revealed in the reality of the souls that emerged in the Thought of Creation. Rather, they were cleaved unto Him in equivalence of form by way of, “He is One and His Name One.”
14.
Thus you necessarily find that on the whole, there are three states to the soul:
The First State is their presence in Ein Sof, in the Thought of Creation, where they already have the future form of the End of Correction.
The Second State is their presence in the six thousand years, which were divided by the above two systems into a body and a soul. They were given the work in Torah and Mitzvot, in order to invert their will to receive and turn it into a will to bestow contentment upon their Maker, and not at all to themselves.
During the time of that state, no correction will come to the bodies, only to the souls. This means that they musteliminate any form of self-reception, which is considered the body, and remain with but a desire to bestow, which is the form of desire in the souls. Even the souls of the righteous will not be able to rejoice in the Garden of Eden after their demise, but only after their bodies rot in the dust.
The Third State is the end of correction of the souls, after the revival of the dead. At that time the complete correction will come to the bodies, too, for then they will turn reception for themselves, which is the form of the body, to take on the form of pure bestowal. And they will become worthy of receiving for themselves all the delight and pleasure and pleasantness in the Thought of Creation.
And with all that, they will attain strong adhesion by the force of their equivalence of form with their Maker, since they will not receive all that because of their desire to receive, but because of their desire to bestow contentment upon their Maker, since He derives pleasure when they receive from Him. And for purposes of brevity, from now on I will use the names of these three states, namely “first state,” “second state,” and “third state.” And you should remember all that is explained here in every state.
15.
When you examine the above three states, you will find that one completely necessitates the other, in a way that, if one were to be cancelled, the others would be cancelled, too.
If, for example, the third state – the conversion of the form of reception to the form of bestowal – had not materialized, it is certain that the first state in Ein Sof would never have been able to emerge.
It is because the perfection materialized there only because the future third state was already there, as though it is in the present. And all the perfection that was pictured there in that state is like a reflection from the future into the present. But if the future could be cancelled, there would not be any present. Thus, the third state necessitates the existence of the first.
All the more so when something is cancelled in the second state, where there is all the work that is destined to be completed in the third state, the work in corruptions and corrections and the continuance of the degrees of the souls. Thus, how will the third state come to be? Hence, the second state necessitates the existence of the third.
And so it is with the existence of the first state in Ein Sof, where the perfection of the third state resides. It definitely necessitates that it will be adapted, meaning that the second and third states will appear in complete perfection, no less and no more in any way.
Thus, the first state itself necessitates the expansion of two corresponding systems in the second state, to allow the existence of a body in the will to receive, corrupted by the system of impurity, thus enabling us to correct it. And had there not been a system of impure worlds, we would not have that will to receive, and we would not be able to correct it and come to the third state, for “one cannot correct that which is not in him.” Thus we need not ask how the impure system came to be from the first state, for it is the first state that necessitates its existence in the form of the second state.
16.
Therefore, one must not wonder at how it was that the choice had been taken from us, since we must be completed and come to the third state, since it is already present in the first. The thing is that there are two ways the Creator has set for us in the second state to bring us to the third state:
1. The Path of Keeping Torah and Mitzvot.
2. The Path of Suffering, since the pain itself purifies the body and will eventually compel us to invert our will to receive into the form of a will to bestow, and cleave to Him. It is as our sages said (Sanhedrin, 97b), “If you repent, good; and if not, I will place over you a king such as Haman, and he will force you to repent.” Our sages said about the verse, “will hasten it in its time”: “If they are rewarded, I will hasten it; and if not, in its time.”
This means that if we are granted through the first path, by keeping Torah and Mitzvot, we thus hasten our correction, and we do not need the harsh agony and the long time needed to experience them, so they will compel us to reform. And if not, “in its time,” meaning only when the suffering will complete our correction and the time of correction will be forced upon us. On the whole, the path of suffering is also the punishments of the souls in Hell.
But in any case, the end of correction – the third state – is mandatory, because of the first state. Our choice is only between the path of suffering and the path of Torah and Mitzvot. Thus we have thoroughly clarified how the three states of the souls are interconnected and necessitate one another.
17.
From all the above, we thoroughly understand the third inquiry, that when we examine ourselves, we find ourselves to be as corrupted and contemptible as can be. But when we examine the operator who created us, we must be exalted, for there is none so praiseworthy as He, as becoming of the Operator who created us, because the nature of the Perfect Operator is to perform perfect operations.
Now we can understand that our body, with all its trifle incidents and possessions, is not at all our real body. Our real, eternal, and complete body already exists in Ein Sof, in the first state, where it receives its complete form from the future third state, that is, receiving in the form of bestowal, in equivalence of form with Ein Sof.
And if our first state necessitates that we receive the Klipa (shell) of our body in the second state, in its corrupted and loathsome form, which is the will to receive for oneself alone, which is the force that separates us from Ein Sof so as to correct it and allow us to receive our eternal body in practice, in the third state, we need not protest against it. Our work can only be done in this transitory and wasteful body, for “one does not correct that which is not in him.”
Thus, we are already in that measure of perfection, worthy and fitting of the Perfect Operator who had made us, even in our current, second state, for this body does not defect us in any way, since it will expire and die, and is only here for the time necessary for its cancellation and acquisition of our eternal form.
18.
This settles our fifth inquiry: How could it be that transitory, wasteful actions would extend from the eternal? And we see that, indeed, we have already been extended as is fitting for His Eternalness – eternal and perfect beings. And our eternalness necessitates that the Klipa of the body, which was given to us only for work, will be transitory and wasteful. For if it remained in eternity, we would remain forever separated from the Life of Lives.
We have said before (Item 13), that this form of our body, which is the will to receive for ourselves alone, is not at all present in the eternal Thought of Creation, for there we are in the form of the third state. Yet, it is obligatory in the second state, to allow us to correct it.
And we must not ponder the state of other beings in the world but man, since man is the center of Creation, as will be written below (item 19). And all other creatures do not have any value of their own but to the extent that they help man achieve his perfection. Hence, they rise and fall with him without any consideration of themselves.
19.
With that, we also settle our fourth inquiry: Since the nature of the good is to do good, how did He create beings that would be tormented and agonized throughout their lives? As we have said, all this agony is necessitated from our first state, where our complete eternity, which comes from the future third state, compels us to go either by the path of Torah, or by the path of suffering, and to reach our eternal state in the third state (Item 15).
And all this agony is felt only by the Klipa of our body, created only to be perished and buried. This teaches us that the will to receive for himself was created only to be eradicated, abolished from the world, and to turn it into a will to bestow. And the pains we suffer are but discoveries of its nothingness and the harm in it. Indeed, when all human beings agree to abolish and eradicate their will to receive for themselves, and have no other desire but to bestow upon their friends, all worries and jeopardy in the world would cease to exist. And we would all be assured of a whole and wholesome life, since each of us would have a whole world caring for us, ready to fulfill our needs.
Yet, while each of us has only a desire to receive for ourselves, it is the source of all the worries, suffering, wars, and slaughter we cannot escape. They weaken our bodies with all sorts of sores and maladies, and you find that all the agonies in our world are but manifestations offered to our eyes, to prompt us to revoke the evil Klipa of the body and assume the complete form of the will to bestow. And it is as we have said, that the path of suffering in itself can bring us to the desired form. Bear in mind that the Mitzvot between man and man come before the Mitzvot between man and God, because the bestowal upon one’s friend brings one to bestow upon his Maker.
20.
After all that we have said, we come to the resolution of the first inquiry: What is our essence? Our essence is as the essence of all the details in reality, which is no more and no less than the will to receive (as written in Item 7). But it is not as it is now, in the second state, which is the will to receive for self alone, but as it stands in the first state, in Ein Sof, in its eternal form, which is reception in order to bestow contentment upon his Maker (as written in Item 13).
And although we have not yet reached the third state in actual fact, and we still lack time, it does not blemish our essence whatsoever, since our third state is necessitated from the first. Thus “all that is bound to be collected is deemed collected.” And the lack of time is regarded a deficiency only where there is doubt whether one will complete what needs to be completed in time.
And since we have no doubt about that, it is as though we have already come to the third state. And our body, too, given to us in its present, corrupted form, does not blemish our essence, since it and all its possessions are to be completely eradicated, along with the whole system of impurity, which is their source, and all that is bound to be burned is deemed burned, considered as though it never existed.
But the soul that is dressed in that body, whose essence is also purely a desire – but a desire to bestow, which extends to us from the system of the four worlds of the Holy ABYA (item 11) – exists forever. This is because this form of a desire to bestow is in equivalence of form with the Life of Lives and is not in any way exchangeable. (This matter will be completed below, from Item 32 on.)
21.
And do not be led astray by the philosophers who say that the very essence of the soul is an intellectual substance, and that it only exists through the concepts it learns, that it grows through them, and that they are its very essence. And the question of the continuance of the soul after the departure of the body depends entirely on the extent of concepts it has acquired, until in the absence of such concepts, there remains nothing to continue. This is not the view of Torah. It is also unaccepted by the heart, and anyone who ever tried to acquire knowledge knows and feels that the mind is a possession, not the actual possessor.
But as we have said, the whole substance of creation, both the substance of the spiritual objects and the substance of the corporeal objects, is no more and no less than a will to receive. And although we said that the soul is entirely a desire to bestow, it is only through corrections of Reflected Light that it receives from the Upper Worlds, from which it comes to us.
Yet, the very essence of the soul is a will to receive, as well. And the difference we can tell between one object and another is discerned only by its will, for the will in any essence creates needs, and the needs create thoughts and concepts so as to obtain those needs, which the will to receive demands.
And as human desires differ from one another, so do their needs, thoughts, and ideas. For instance, those whose will to receive is limited to beastly desires, their needs, thoughts, and ideas are dedicated to satisfying that will to receive in its entire beastliness. And although they use the mind and reason as humans do, it is, however, enough for the slave to be as his master. And it is like the beastly mind, since the mind is enslaved and serves the beastly desire.
And those whose will to receive is strong mainly in human desires – such as respect and domination over others – which are absent in the beast, the majority of their needs, thoughts, and ideas revolve solely around satisfying that desire as much as they can. And those whose will to receive is intensified mainly for acquisition of knowledge, the majority of their needs, thoughts, and ideas are to satisfy that desire as much as they can.
22.
These three desires are mostly present in every person, but they mingle in different quantities, hence the difference from one person to another. And from the corporeal attributes we can deduce about the spiritual objects, relating to their spiritual value.
23.
Thus, human souls, too, the spiritual ones, have only a desire to bestow contentment upon their Maker, through the dresses of Reflected Light received from the Upper Worlds from which they come. And that desire is their essence and the core of the soul. It turns out that once dressed in a human body, it generates needs and desires and ideas to satisfy its desire to bestow to the fullest, meaning to bestow contentment upon its Maker, according to the size of its desire.
24.
The essence of the body is but a desire to receive for itself, and all its manifestations and possessions are fulfillments of that corrupted will to receive, which had initially been created only to be eradicated from the world, in order to achieve the complete third state at the end of correction. For this reason, it is mortal, transitory, and contemptible, along with all its possessions, like a fleeting shadow that leaves nothing in its wake.
And since the essence of the soul is but a desire to bestow, and all its manifestations and possessions are fulfillments of that desire to bestow, which already exists in the eternal first state, as well as in the future third state, it is immortal and irreplaceable. Rather, it and all its possessions are eternal and exist forever. Absence does not affect whatsoever at the departure of the body. On the contrary, the absence of the form of the corrupted body greatly strengthens it, enabling it to rise to the Garden of Eden.
Thus we have clearly shown that the persistence of the soul in no way depends upon the concepts it has acquired, as philosophers claim. Rather, its eternality is in its very essence, in its will to bestow, which is its essence. And the concepts it acquires are its reward, not its essence.
25.
From here emerges the full resolution of the fifth inquiry: Since the body is so corrupted that the soul cannot be fully purified before it rots in the ground, why does it return at the revival of the dead? And also the question about the words of our sages: “The dead are destined to be revived with their flaws, so it will not be said, ‘It is another’” (The Zohar, Amor, 17).
And you will clearly understand this matter from the Thought of Creation itself, from the first state. Because we have said that since the Thought was to delight His creatures, He had to create an overwhelmingly exaggerated desire to receive all that bounty, which is in the Thought of Creation, for “the great delight and the great desire to receive go hand in hand” (Items 6-7). We stated there that this exaggerated will to receive is all the substance that He had created, for He needs nothing more than that, to carry out the Thought of Creation. And it is the nature of the Perfect Operator to not perform redundant operations, as written in the Poem of Unification: “Of all Your work, not a thing did You forget, omit, or add.”
We also said there that this exaggerated will to receive has been completely removed from the pure system and was given entirely to the system of the impure worlds, from which extend the bodies, their sustenance, and all their possessions in this world. When a man reaches thirteen years of age, he begins to attain a holy soul through engaging in the Torah. At that time, he is nourished by the system of the pure worlds, according to the measure of the purity of soul he has attained.
We also said above, that during the six thousand years that are given to us for work in Torah and Mitzvot, no corrections come to the body – to its exaggerated will to receive. All the corrections that come through our work relate only to the soul, which thus climbs the degrees of holiness and purity, which means enhancement of the will to bestow that extends with the soul.
For this reason, the body will ultimately die, be buried, and rot because it did not undergo any correction. Yet, it cannot remain that way, for if the exaggerated will to receive perished from the world, the Thought of Creation would not be realized – meaning the reception of all the great pleasures that He thought to bestow upon His creatures, for “the great will to receive and the great pleasure go hand in hand.” And to the extent that the desire to receive it diminishes, so diminish the delight and pleasure from reception.
End of Part ONE of THREE
Original Post Link - Introduction to The Book of Zohar
COURTESY: Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education & Research Institute
Copyright © 2006. Bnei Baruch. All rights reserved.
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