Article No. 45, 1990
It known that in observing Torah and Mitzvot [commandments/good deeds], there is the act, and there is the intention. An “act” means that a person should observe Torah and Mitzvot with all its details and precisions, in return for which a person should believe that he will be rewarded. It is as Maimonides says at the end of Hilchot Teshuva, “Hence, when teaching little ones, women, and uneducated people, they are taught to work only out of fear and in order to receive reward. Until they gain knowledge and acquire much wisdom, they are taught that secret little by little.”
It follows that they are looking at the practice of Mitzvot as being for sake of those engaging in them. This is called “the revealed part of the work.” It means that a person can see if his actions are in order, and when another person looks at how he observes Torah and Mitzvot, he, too, can see. This is called the “revealed part,” since the actions that a person does are revealed to him, as well as to others.
This is not so with the intention, meaning to aim that these actions will be for the sake of the Creator. With the intention, a person does not see the truth. He might deceive himself because a person cannot see the truth. Because one does not find fault in oneself, it follows that the intention is called the “concealed part.” That is, it is concealed from the person himself. He cannot know the truth.
And especially, the intention is concealed from his friend, for one cannot see what his friend intends when he performs Mitzvot. This is why this part is called the “hidden part” of the work.
Accordingly, in our work, we should discern a revealed part, which is called “actions,” a concealed part, which is called the “intention for the sake of the Creator,” and we should discern between the work of the general public and the work of the individual. In the work of the general public, a person sees that he is making progress. That is, each time, he acquires more Torah, more Mitzvot, and therefore has motivation to work and is always happy. He cannot understand why all people do not connect to Torah and Mitzvot, since he feels a good taste in Torah and work.
This taste shines to the general public as Surrounding Light, and it is called “still of Kedusha [holiness].” In other words, as in corporeality, all the plants emerge from the still, so in the work, every “vegetative” in the work comes from the “still of Kedusha.” Without the “still,” there is no “vegetative.” This Surrounding Light shines in the general public if they take upon themselves the burden of Torah and Mitzvot.
But the main point is that they have no intentions that go against the “body,” called “self-benefit,” since with the general public we should learn as Maimonides says, “in order to receive reward.” To the extent that they believe in reward and punishment, they already have fuel to advance in the work happily and willingly.
This is not so when a person wants to walk on the path of meriting to work in order to bestow, which is against the body’s nature. At that time, the body immediately begins to resist his path. Then, the faith that illuminated for him as Surrounding Light is not enough for him, and he sees that he is lacking faith in the greatness of the Creator, to have the strength to overcome the body’s questions.
Then begins a procession of ascents and descents, and the person thinks that he is not worthy of being a worker of the Creator with the aim to be able to do everything for the sake of the Creator. He sees that foreign thoughts keep coming to him, which he cannot overcome.
However, according to what Baal HaSulam said, we must believe that the Creator sends us these thoughts so that by this we will receive a desire to pray to Him from the bottom of the heart, as it is written in the article “Other Gods,” from the year Tav-Shin-Hey. Thus, we must only increase our prayers to the Creator to give us the desire to bestow, and we cannot obtain that desire by ourselves.
We must only seek advice in two manners: 1) to seek advice how to feel that all that we are missing is the power to bestow, 2) to ask Him to give us this power. This is called “613 Eitin [Aramaic: counsels],” meaning 613 counsels how to come to have a Kli [vessel], called “lack,” and the filling, which is called “light.”
In other words, the Creator gives the desire to bestow. This is called “Whatever you can do with your hand and strength, that do.” At that time, the Creator gives him the second nature, called “desire to bestow.” Only once we achieve the desire to bestow can we be rewarded with 613 Pekudin [Aramaic: deposits], which is the light that is clothed in the 613 Mitzvot.
According to the above, we should interpret the verse, “The concealed things belong to the Lord our God.” This pertains to the intention, which is to aim that all his actions will be for the sake of the Creator. This belongs to the Creator. In other words, it is not within man’s power to obtain this force by himself. For this reason, a person needs to know, when he sees that he will never be able to come to work for the sake of the Creator, at that time a person wants to escape the campaign because he sees that he will never achieve it. This is why the verse says, “The concealed things belong to the Lord our God.” This means that the concealed part, the aim to bestow, is out of one’s hands, but in the hands of the Creator to give the second nature, called “desire to bestow.” This is why it is written, “concealed,” and it belongs to the Creator, as He should give this.
However, when a person is rewarded with the desire to bestow, he should not pray for the will to receive to die, since then, if the will to receive dies, the person will not be able to see the lowliness of the will to receive. It follows that the will to receive within him will die without repentance, but the person wants the will to receive to repent, for by this he takes vengeance against the will to receive.
That is, a person sees how the will to receive must work according to the will of the desire to bestow, for “repentance” means that the will to receive surrenders to the desire to bestow, and the will to receive must now work in a manner of receiving in order to bestow. But if the will to receive were to die before a person could subdue it, so it receives in order to bestow, it follows that the person did not correct the will to receive.
According to the above, we should interpret what is written (Psalms 59:11), “The God of my mercy shall meet me.” RASHI interprets, “Will help me before the hand of my enemies governs me. ‘Will see me in my victory,’ Which I crave to see. ‘Do not kill them,’ as this is not an apparent vengeance, ‘lest my people forget,’ for all the dead are forgotten. ‘Move them with Your power and bring them down,’ Rather, move them from their assets so they become poor. This is a vengeance that will be remembered for many days.”
We should understand who David cursed like that, telling the Creator not to kill his enemies but leave them alive and poor, whereas if He kills them, they will not suffer, so he asks Him to keep them alive but poor. Only in this manner will he be able to take revenge from them, by bringing them down from their governance, as it is written, “Bring them down.”
How is this matter interpreted in the work? First, we must understand who is David. David is called Malchut, which is the kingdom of heaven. Malchut of Kedusha is the desire to bestow, and its opposite is the desire to receive for oneself, which is called Sitra Achra [other side]. This is the opposite of Kedusha and is the enemy of Kedusha, as it is written, “The wicked watches the righteous and seeks to put him to death.” That is, the will to receive wants to kill the desire to bestow.
David, who is the Merkava [chariot/structure] for Malchut of Kedusha, prayed that his enemy, the will to receive—who wants to kill the desire to bestow, which is Kedusha—that the Creator will hurry His salvation so that the will to receive, meaning the enemy, will not be able to govern him.
This is the meaning of “The God of my mercy will meet me,” meaning that the Creator will deal mercy with me first. In other words, the desire to bestow, called Hesed [mercy/grace], will govern the will to receive. However, “Do not kill them,” for this is not an apparent vengeance, “lest my people forget,” since the dead are all forgotten. “Move them with Your power and bring them down,” meaning move them from their assets and make them poor. This is vengeance that will be remembered for many days.
To understand these curses in the work, we should interpret that he was cursing the enemy, the will to receive for himself, that it would not die. That is, if the will to receive were to be cancelled, the will to receive would not witness the domination of the desire to bestow. In other words, “vengeance” means that the other one sees how he must be subdued. Here, it means that the wholeness is the sweetening of the judgments, which is called “delighting Gevurot.”
For this reason, if the will to receive is cancelled and only the desire to bestow governs, this will not complete the purpose, since the purpose of creation was to do good to His creations, and not for the creations to bestow upon the Creator delight and pleasure. It is known that the reason why the creatures must bestow contentment upon the Maker is only a correction for the creatures, so there is no apparent vengeance here, since the will to receive does not surrender to the desire to bestow, since the will to receive is no longer in existence.
But when the will to receive is alive and must accept the governance of the desire to bestow, this is called “apparent vengeance.” In other words, it is apparent to all that the will to receive is now working only thanks to it, meaning by taking upon itself the desire to bestow. This is called “receiving in order to bestow.” That is, it accepted the purpose of creation to do good to His creations, and at the same time, he is in Dvekut [adhesion] with the Creator, for he wants to give contentment to his Maker. At that time, he feels what he can give to the Creator so He will enjoy. He sees that only by receiving from the Creator delight and pleasure the Creator enjoys, as this was the purpose of creation.
According to the above, we should understand the meaning of the sweetening of the Gevurot. Gevurot means Hitgabrut [overcoming], which pertains primarily to when a person works and uses the vessels of reception. Normally, we learn that the acts impact the intention. Therefore, when he uses the vessels of reception and wants to aim the opposite of the act, meaning to bestow, this requires extra overcoming. Usually, the Gevurot are called “judgments” because there were Tzimtzum [restriction] and judgment over the vessels of reception, that it is forbidden to use them without the aim to bestow.
Hence, when a person is placed under the rule of the desire to receive, these desires cause him a state of bitterness and he wants to get rid of them. He always thinks, “How can I get rid of them?” They poke his mind and if he could kill them so they would vanish from the horizon, he would be so happy!
But this is what David says, “Do not kill them, lest my people forget. Move them with Your power and bring them down.”
“Move them” means move them from place to place and bring them down from the height of their wealth so they are poor. That is, let them not receive anything in their vessels of reception but be poor without any abundance. His vengeance will be that the will to receive will surrender and take upon itself the control of the aim to bestow. His curse will be that they will all come into the Kedusha, called “reception in order to bestow.” This is called “sweetened Gevurot.”
This is the meaning of Rosh Hashanah [beginning of the year], called “terrible days.” The ARI says that Rosh Hashanah is the building of Malchut, called “the quality of judgment.” Malchut [kingship] means that the whole world follows her quality, since Malchut is called “the assembly of Israel,” in which all 600,000 souls of Israel are included, and the whole work of Rosh Hashanah is to accept the burden of the kingdom. This is why we pray, “Reign over the whole world with Your glory.”
In other words, Malchut means that we must accept and crown His kingship over us, so it does not have the form of Shechina [Divinity] in the dust, but a form of glory. This is why on Rosh Hashanah, we pray, “And give glory to Your people.” That is, we ask that the Creator will let us feel, so we will feel the glory of heaven. Since Rosh Hashanah is the kingdom of heaven, which is in a state of Shechina in the dust, therefore, Rosh Hashanah is the time when we must ask the Creator to feel the glory of heaven, meaning that the kingdom of heaven will be glorified in our eyes.
And since when we want to ask the kingdom of heaven to be revealed throughout the world, meaning that “the whole earth is full of His glory” will be sensed the world over, as it is written, “And will bring everything to Your servants,” this prayer applies to both the general public and the individual. That is, since “Man is a small world,” it means that he is included with the whole world. At that time, we ask that within our bodies, there will be no residue of desire to work for our own sake. And likewise in the whole world, meaning that it will be “The whole earth is full of the knowledge of the Lord.” In this manner, all the prayers on Rosh Hashanah are general prayers.
The order of the blowing [of the Shofar] is also according to the order of the work, which is in three lines. That is, when we begin with the work of the Creator, we begin with one line, since we can speak of “right” and “left” only when we have two lines. One line is called “wholeness,” and this is regarded as beginning with action.
That is, a person must say that since it is written, “This day, the Lord your God commands you,” and our sages said, “Each day, they should be as new in your eyes, as though today you were commanded them,” it follows that each day is a new beginning. Hence, when he begins with one line, he should be happy that he has the privilege of observing the law of the Creator.
Afterward, he shifts to the intention, meaning to criticize how much he needs to do everything for the sake of the Creator. At that time begins the real work, since then he sees that he has not a single organ that wants to do anything for the sake of the Creator. This is already called “left line,” as our sages said, “the left rejects.” That is, he sees how far he is from the Creator, and he must believe that the Creator pushed him away so that by this he will exert to make more efforts.
Afterward, he returns to one line, called “wholeness.” But now the one line is called “right line,” since the left line makes the one line become “right.” Then the person is rewarded with the middle line, called “the Creator gives the soul.”