Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 252

What Does It Mean to Cross the Barrier?

A person who crosses the barrier is a person who has acquired an intention in order to bestow, even if it is the smallest possible intention. This is called “crossing the barrier.” It does not mean reaching some boundary in the middle of the road with a sign stating, “Barrier Ahead,” which can be removed to let someone through. Crossing the barrier in spirituality is the inversion that takes place when we acquire the smallest measure of Lishma from Lo Lishma, the smallest measure of bestowal.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 251
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 250
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 249

The Creator is that which relates to all souls with love. We know nothing else about Him: “Good and doing good to all souls.”

You will not be able to find the Creator (this quality) unless you focus your attention on Him through all the souls as if they were a radar. It will not work otherwise.

Therefore, when we speak of “a person and the Creator,” this necessarily means through the common Kli (vessel). Outside the common Kli, the Creator does not exist. You cannot sense or evaluate Him individually, for yourself alone.

The first sensation that appears before the Machsom, as you pass through it, when you exist in both realms and ask where the Creator is, reveals Him as the one who fills everything, governs all humanity, and dwells within it. By comparing yourself with His attitude toward people, you find yourself there as well. In other words, the meeting place between you and the Creator is within the souls of people. There is no other place.

This is what crossing the Machsom means: you begin to see the souls of people and the Creator there, because you receive forces and qualities from above that enable you to relate to them as He does, although at first only to a minimal degree. Initially it is Ibur (conception), Yenika (nursing), and Mochin (adulthood). That is the only way.
[362314]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson for the holiday of Sukkot 9/25/26

Three books open on Rosh Hashanah [Hebrew New Year’s Eve]: that of complete righteous, that of complete wicked, and that of intermediate. The complete righteous are immediately written to life. The complete wicked are immediately written to death (Zohar for All, Vol. 6, The Four Species and Hoshana Rabbah [Great Supplication, 7th day of Sukkot]).

One who has attained the level where they justify the Creator despite the entire desire to receive is called completely righteous. This means that they already possess the “covering” of Binah over all their receiving Kelim.

One who does not have the correction of Hassadim over the desire to receive is called completely wicked. They simply have not received the correction and are therefore called wicked.

“Wicked” is a degree. To be wicked, one must also be in the upper world. “Righteous,” “wicked,” and “intermediate” are states. When a person crosses the Machsom (barrier) and begins working for the Creator, these three possibilities arise.

We are not talking about people like us, not even when it comes to the “wicked.” We are not wicked. We are simply a zero because we exist below what is called the line of life. No qualities are attributed to us at all: neither “wicked” nor anything else. The Book of Zohar does not say a single word about what is below the Machsom.

The intermediate remain awaiting judgment until Yom Kippur. If they repent, they are sealed to life; and the wicked, who do not repent, are sealed to death.

Why? Because these represent either the completely right line or the completely left line. They are extreme, opposite states that come from the Creator in which either the Kelim or the lights are completely dependent on the upper.

What depends on the person? It is how to unite these two qualities within oneself, the left and the right lines, within oneself. It is finding the optimal combination to unite them, taking the Kelim from the left and the qualities from the right, and forging the middle line from them.

A person can reach a state where some of his Kelim that are undergoing correction, become “righteous,” while others become “wicked.” Some Kelim will be destined for life and filled with lights, while others will go to “death,” becoming increasingly empty until the very end, descend into darkness, and form the Sof (end) of the Partzuf.
[362322]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on the night of Hoshana Rabbah, 10/2/26

The night called “Leil Hoshana Rabbah” is known as the night of the “Great Salvation.” What is this night during which the correction of Zeir Anpin is completed? In brief, first a person descends into Egypt, into a negative Kli (vessel), and then receives a positive force, the Torah. Then he builds an idol for himself and destroys everything. This is what we are experiencing now, the destructive connections.

Then, gradually he enters the desert and reaches the building of the Temple, when Malchut and Binah completely unite with one another.

A person builds himself over the course of six days, corresponding to the six Sefirot: Hesed, Gevura, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, and Yesod. These are the six days of Sukkot, during which the surrounding light influences him. And the seventh day, when the light enters Malchut, is called the holiday of Simchat Torah, “the Joy of the Torah,” the joy of the Light.

What joy can the light have? The joy of being able to enter the Kli. In other words, after the correction of all six qualities during the six days, on the seventh day the light enters the Kli and fills the egoism. But the light that enters is not the full light of Hochma, but VAK of Hochma, a weak illumination. Keter, Hochma, and Binah are still absent; they will join on the holiday of Purim.

Therefore, after celebrating Simchat Torah, we leave the Sukkah, because according to the law we can no longer remain in it, since a person has already moved into the next state. There is no need to regret it and no need to strive to return to it. Only forward and upward!
[362369]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson for the holiday of Sukkot, 10/4/26