Article No. 14, 1984
“One should always sell everything he has and marry a wise disciple’s daughter” (Psachim, 49). This means that he should sell all the possessions that he has acquired through his labor. That is, he should give everything and relinquish everything, and in turn take the daughter of a wise disciple.
This means that if he does not take a wise disciple’s daughter, all the labor that he has given in Torah and Mitzvot [commandments] his whole life is incomplete. Only if he marries a wise disciple’s daughter will he be rewarded with his completeness. This is why our sages said that he should sell everything he has, meaning that it is worthwhile to sell everything for a wise disciple’s daughter. Therefore, we should understand the meaning of “a wise disciple’s daughter.”
Baal HaSulam said that a wise disciple is one who is a disciple of a wise, meaning he learns from the wise, and then he is considered a disciple. A wise is the Creator, whose quality is only to bestow. One who learns from Him the quality of bestowal is called a “wise disciple” because he is learning from Him the quality of bestowal.
By that we will understand what our sages said, “One should always sell everything he has and marry a wise disciple’s daughter.” That is, he should give all the labor he has given in Torah and work, and in return receive a possession of bestowal.
This means that he will establish in his heart a new nature, instead of the one that he naturally has—a desire of self-love. Now he will receive a second nature: the desire to bestow. That is, his every thought, word, and action will be only in order to bestow upon the Creator, for this is the whole man. This means that one should achieve only this degree, for all we need to attain are the Kelim [vessels]. But the abundance, which is the filling of the Kelim, comes from the Creator, since more than the calf wants to suckle, the cow wants to nurse. Therefore, all we are missing is the power of bestowal.
By that we can interpret what is written in The Zohar (Pinhas, p 78, item 218), “If Israel are rewarded, He would come down like a lion of fire to eat the offerings. If they were not rewarded, He would come down there like a dog of fire.” It is known that lion implies Hesed [mercy], which is the right of the Merkava [chariot], “If they are rewarded,” where being rewarded means pure, meaning bestowal. Then we are shown an eye for an eye—that from above, too, comes the discernment of lion, meaning that the quality of Hesed expanded to the lower ones, and then the abundance was plentiful for the lower ones.
“If they are not rewarded,” meaning that they did not engage in bestowal, but only in self-love, then from above the discernment of dog would be extended. A dog implies, as it is written in The Zohar about the verse, “The leech has two daughters that howl as dogs, give us the wealth of this world and give us the wealth of the next world.” In other words, two daughters that bark like dogs: “Give us the wealth of this world and give us the wealth of the next world,” which is only about reception and not about bestowal. Therefore, from above, too, we are shown that we cannot bestow abundance downward, and this is called an “eye for an eye.”
It turns out that our work is only to be rewarded with Kelim [vessels] that are suitable for reception of the abundance, which are vessels of bestowal. Therefore, a person should focus all of his efforts on one thing only, called “vessels of bestowal.” This should be the only reward that he wants to attain from Torah and Mitzvot [commandments]. By that he will achieve Dvekut [adhesion] with the Creator, which is man’s purpose: to achieve Dvekut with the Creator.
We also see in the words of The Zohar that it was said about the verse, “The mercy of the nations is a sin,” “All the good that they do, they do for themselves.” This means their aim with all the mercy, meaning the acts of bestowal that they do, is not to bestow. Rather their intention is for themselves, meaning to receive reward for it. Otherwise, they cannot perform acts of bestowal.
But the people of Israel are capable of performing acts of bestowal. We should understand why the people of Israel can perform acts of bestowal, and we should also understand, according to what we hear from people who became religious, who say that before they became religious they were more capable of performing acts in order to bestow, but afterwards, meaning once they have become religious, it has become more difficult for them to perform acts of bestowal.
To understand the above we should remember the known that a person is called a “created being” only in that there is a will to receive in him, for this is called “created existence from absence.” It therefore turns out that by nature he is incapable of performing any act of bestowal unless he receives some reward in return.
The reward does not have to be that he receives something for the effort. Rather, it can be some pacifying that he receives. That is, if some compassion awakened in him toward another, and his conscience does not let him rest, to the point that he must help another, this, too, is regarded as reward. But simply doing something for another, for the other to enjoy, then he tells himself, “What will I get out of it?”
But the people of Israel, through the power of Torah and Mitzvot, are capable of obtaining a second nature. That is, instead of the nature they were born with—a desire only to receive—they will receive a second nature, where now they work only in order to bestow. He obtains this through the Torah and Mitzvot, which instilled in him sparks of bestowal that bring him a sensation of wanting to resemble his root. But without the Torah and Mitzvot, a person cannot come out of his own nature, which is the desire to receive only for himself, and he cannot perform any act of bestowal without reward.
By this we will understand what they asked about those who become religious and say that before they became religious they had more strength to perform acts of bestowal. But later, when they have become religious, they feel that it is more difficult for them to perform acts of bestowal.
We should reply to that, as is explained in “The Introduction to the Book of Zohar” (items 29- 30), where he writes that at the time of his birth his will to receive is only for corporeality. Therefore, although he has obtained the excessive will to receive prior to being thirteen, it is still not the end of the growth of the will to receive. The main growth of the will to receive is depicted only in spirituality, since, for example, prior to being thirteen his desire to receive wants to devour all the wealth and honor in this corporeal world, which is revealed to all, which is to him a transient world that is accessible to everyone, and is perceived by everyone only as a fleeting shadow.
But when he obtains the excessive, spiritual will to receive, he wants to devour for his own pleasure all the delight and wealth of the next, eternal world, which is to him an everlasting possession for all eternity. Thus, the will to receive is completed only with the desire to receive spirituality.
It turns out that before they have become religious they had a corporeal will to receive, which is not yet so great. This is why they had more strength to perform acts of bestowal. But once they have become religious and their will to receive has grown with the will to receive for spirituality, it has become more difficult because now the will to receive has more strength than when they had only a corporeal will to receive. Therefore, before they have become religious, they had some strength to perform acts of bestowal. But once they have become religious, obtaining the spiritual will to receive, it is now more difficult for them to engage in matters of bestowal.
For this reason, it cannot be said that now they have become worse, or to say that the religious are worse because it is more difficult for them to perform acts of bestowal. Rather, the will to receive has grown bigger, so it is more difficult to overcome it. For example, before he obtained the spiritual will to receive, his evil was thirty percent. Afterwards, once he has obtained the spiritual will to receive, his evil acquired another seventy percent. Therefore, now he needs greater powers to be able to overcome it.
However, we should not say that now his strength has diminished. On the contrary, now he must find the remedy to defeat the evil power he has obtained. And the remedy for this is keeping Torah and Mitzvot with the intention for the light in it to reform him.
It therefore follows that he has advanced and has obtained more evil in order to correct it. But every beginning is difficult, and therefore now he thinks that he has become worse. However, he should know that each time he is given more bad to correct until he is rewarded with correcting everything.
[For the continuation of the clarification of the article, see next article]