Article No. 34, 1988
It is written, “And God called the light, ‘day,’ and to the darkness, He called ‘night.’” We should understand what this comes to teach us in the work, that He called the light “day,” and to the darkness, He called “night.” What does knowing this add to us? It appears that naming the light and the darkness was for the purpose of some correction. Thus, what do we understand better by Him naming them, which adds to us in the work of achieving Dvekut [adhesion] with the Creator?
Afterward, the verse says, “And there was evening and there was morning, one day.” This, too, we should understand. After He said that darkness is called “night” and light is called “day,” how did the two become one? After all, night is not day, so how can the two of them together be one day? That is, what makes them one day as though there is no difference between day and night?
Concerning “day” and “night,” we see that the verse says (Psalms 19), “Day to day expresses speech; and night to night utters knowledge.” In that regard, we see that it is written (in the Haggadah [Passover narrative], in the poem, “Then, Many Miracles”), “A day approaches that is neither day nor night. Exalted One, make known, for Yours is the day; Yours is also the night. You shine as the day, the darkness of the night.” Thus, we should understand what are day and night, and what are light and darkness.
In order to understand all this, we must return to what we discussed several times—that we should always remember what is the purpose of creation and what is the correction of creation, so as to know what is required of us, meaning what state we should achieve so we can say that we have reached our destination.
It is known that the purpose of creation is to do good to His creations, as our sages said, that the Creator said about the purpose of creation that it is like a king who has a tower filled with abundance but no guests. For this reason, He has created man, so as to give him the delight and pleasure.
Thus, what does it mean that a person has achieved wholeness? It is precisely after a person has come to a state where he receives from the Creator delight and pleasure. This is regarded as achieving wholeness. If he has not come to a state of endless delight and pleasure, it is considered that he has not achieved wholeness. This is the purpose of creation.
Conversely, the correction of creation is that since it is the nature of creation that the branch wants to resemble its root, and since the Creator is the giver and the creature the receiver, there is no equivalence of form here. For this reason, in corporeality, too, we see the rule that when a person receives something from another, he is ashamed. It is as our sages said about the verse, “Chrome is vile for the sons of men,” meaning that when a person needs other people, his face becomes as chrome.
For this reason, a correction of Tzimtzum [restriction] was made in the upper worlds, that the upper light does not reach Kelim [vessels] that receive for themselves. Rather, the light shines only to Kelim that have the correction of the Masach [screen] that raises Ohr Hozer [Reflected Light], meaning that it receives from the upper one because there is contentment to the upper one when He bestows upon the lower one.
In other words, the fact that he has great yearning to receive delight and pleasure still does not necessitate that he will receive delight and pleasure, since the pleasure is from having equivalence of form with the upper one, called Dvekut [adhesion]. In every possible way, he tries not to part due to disparity of form, and for this reason he does not receive although he yearns to receive delight and pleasure. But at the same time, he derives more pleasure from adhering to the Creator. Hence, he does not receive.
At that time, a person looks at two things: 1) He does not want to part from the Creator. In other words, even when he thinks that he has still not been rewarded with Dvekut, at least he does not want to be more separated than he currently is, since any reception for oneself makes a person farther from the Creator. For this reason, he does not want to receive for himself. 2) By doing what he is doing, distancing himself from reception, this causes him to adhere to the Creator. Although he still does not feel these discernments, he says that he believes in the sages who said that this is so. For this reason, he trusts them and is careful with self-reception.
Because of this, a person tries to do things that will bring him this force of wanting to do things that yield the power to be able to aim to place on every act the intention to bestow. At that time, he is fit to receive delight and pleasure, since now all his actions are for the sake of the Creator.
Accordingly, we can understand what is light and what is darkness. Light is when it shines for a person to walk in the path of the Creator. “The path of the Creator” means that he wants to walk in the way that the Creator walks, and His way is to bestow. When he has light and life by engaging in the work of bestowal and he does not care for his own benefit, this is called “light.”
This is called a “time of ascent,” meaning that the person has ascended in degree. That is, instead of serving a lowly, inferior person, now he is serving the Creator. This is called an “ascent in degree,” for he is serving the King where he used to serve a simple man.
Clearly, the opposite of light is darkness. That is, a person finds no taste in the work of bestowal because he has begun to worry only about his own benefit once again. He finds no flavor in the work of bestowal or has any aspirations. Rather, he settles for satisfying only the passions that his body demands. This is called “a descent,” since he wants to serve the body and not the Creator. This is called “darkness.”
We should know that “day” indicates a complete thing, which consists of light and day, and darkness and night, as it is written, “And there was evening and there was morning, one day.” We should understand how can it be said that evening and morning are one thing. That is, we do not say that evening and morning are both called “one night,” but rather that the two are called “one day.” What does it imply to us in the work, that specifically both are called “one day,” as though there cannot be wholeness of a day without darkness.
The answer is that when a person says, “And God called the light ‘day,’ and to the darkness, He called ‘night,’” it means that the person believes that God gave him both the light and the darkness. But why has He given him the darkness? It is possible to believe that He has given him the light, meaning that he says that the Creator wants to bring him closer, as our sages said, “He who comes to purify is aided.” Hence, on the ascents that a person has, he can believe that they come from the Creator. But why are the descents?
When a person believes about the darkness, too, as it is written, “And God called … and to the darkness, He called ‘night,’” meaning that the darkness is also “night,” which is part of the day, meaning that there cannot be a day without a night, then the darkness, which is called “night,” comes to teach us that as there cannot be a day without a night, there cannot be light without darkness. Darkness is the Kli [vessel] and the light is the filling of the Kli, following the rule, “there is no light without a Kli.”
In other words, it is impossible to appreciate His salvation without feeling the suffering and pain from the state one is in. Between people, to the extent that one feels that his friend helped him in his distress, to that extent he feels the joy about the help he has received from his friend. That is, there is a difference between helping one’s friend with accessories, which one can live without, and helping one’s friend by saving him from death.
Since the help that comes from above is regarded as lights of Kedusha [holiness/sanctity], as The Zohar says, “He who comes to purify is aided,” and The Zohar asks, With what is he aided? “With a holy soul.” Yet, if a person does not appreciate the soul he has received from above because he thinks that it is not that important, the suffering that a person suffers from the states of descent makes him appreciate the help from above. Otherwise, he loses it and it all goes to the Klipot [shells/peels]. It follows that the darkness helps him, meaning that it gives him the possibility to know how to appreciate the importance of Kedusha so he does not lose it for lack of awareness.
Our sages say about this, “Who is a fool? He who loses what he is given,” since he does not know or understand the importance of the nearness when the Creator brings a person near. That darkness is called a Kli, meaning a place where the abundance can be. It is as it is written, “Who will ascend up the mountain of the Lord, and who will rise?” That is, even when a person ascends but does not know how to maintain the value of the importance of nearing, the Sitra Achra [other side] takes it into his own authority. Therefore, the light must depart. This is why there is no resurrection, but each one must descend according to his degree.
Yet, there are several corrections about this: 1) The Klipot must not receive what he has. Therefore, they have nothing to receive from the person because he no longer has Kedusha for the Sitra Achra to receive from him. 2) Once a person has come to a descent and begins to recover and see the state he has come to, meaning after exerting so much work in order to be rewarded with some Kedusha, he suddenly sees that he is left bare and destitute. That is, he is in a state of lowliness that fits a person who did not exert and work in order to be regarded as “You are called ‘man.’” Rather, he is much worse than an ordinary person, meaning that the will to receive for himself has become developed in him to an extent that he never dreamed would be, and the pain and sorrow he feels over it give him the need to appreciate and value the time when he is brought a little closer from above. Now he knows how to be careful and respect that state, and he guards himself from anything so as not to mix that state. At that time he knows that he should be afraid that a stranger might interfere.
It therefore follows that the descents are things that are called “corrections,” which allow longevity when they are rewarded with some nearing on the part of the Creator. By this we can interpret the verse, “And God called the light, ‘day,’ and to the darkness, He called ‘night.’” It means that if a person says that both light and darkness come from God, this is “And God called.” At that time, both the light and the darkness make one day. That is, as there cannot be a complete day without evening and morning, so the light and darkness serve one role—both together are called “day.”
By this we can interpret the words, “Blessed is our God, who has created us for His glory.” We should understand how can we say, “Blessed is our God, who has created us for His glory,” while we are immersed in self-love and our body is more content if we can say “Thank You very much” for creating us for our own glory. Thus, clearly, we are not telling the truth when we bless Him for creating for His glory. It is a total lie.
According to the above, when we believe that “He who comes to purify is aided,” it follows that the Creator gives a person this power to be able to feel the importance of the matter, that when a person feels that he is serving the King, it is worth a fortune to him and he has no words to express its importance. Instead, he says, out of the pleasure and excitement that he feels, “Blessed is our God,” for letting us feel the importance when we are serving the King, and for delivering us from the self-love in which we were immersed. It never occurred to us that we would ever be able to emerge from it. All of a sudden, we see that He has given us this feeling of finding flavor in being able to serve the King.
At that time we say, “Blessed is our God, who has created us for His glory.” We bless Him for this gift that He has given us, which is the most important thing in the world, and we would not be able to obtain this by ourselves. Rather, it is a gift of God. This is why we bless Him for this. This is the meaning of the words, “Blessed is our God, who has created us for His glory.”
However, before a person is rewarded with feeling flavor in His creating us for His glory, how can he say this? We should say that it is like all the blessings and thanks that we say for the future. It is as our sages said about the verse, “Then Moses will sing.” The Zohar asks, “It did not say “sing” in present tense, but rather “will sing,” which is future tense. The answer is that the righteous sing about the future. That is, they believe that they will be rewarded with wholeness. For this reason, even before they are rewarded with wholeness, they already sing.” Based on this, we say, “Blessed are you, our God, who has created us for His glory.” The Sulam [Sulam (Ladder) Commentary on The Zohar] interprets the verse, “Day to day expresses speech; and night to night utters knowledge.” These are its words: “Before the end of correction, meaning before we have qualified our vessels of reception to receive only in order to give contentment to our Maker and not to our own benefit, Malchut is called ‘the tree of good and evil.’ This is so because Malchut is the guidance of the world by people’s actions. And since we are unfit to receive all the delight and pleasure … we must accept the guidance of good and evil from the Malchut. This guidance qualifies us to ultimately correct our vessels of reception in order to bestow and to be rewarded with the delight and pleasure He had contemplated in our favor.
…
“Often, the guidance of good and evil causes us ascents and descents… This is why each ascent is considered a specific day, and similarly, each descent is considered a specific night.
“It is written, ‘Day to day expresses speech.’ …At the end of correction, they will be rewarded with repentance from love... At that time, we will evidently see that all those punishments from the time of descents, which made us doubt the beginning, purified us and were the direct causes of all the happiness and goodness. Were it not for those terrible punishments, we would never have come to this delight and pleasure. Then these sins are inverted into actual merits.”
The words “Day to day expresses speech” mean that all those nights, which are the descents, suffering, and punishments that stopped the Dvekut with the Creator until they became many days, one after the other, now that the nights and the darkness in between have also become merits and good deeds, the night shines as the day and the darkness as light; there are no more breaks between them.
Now we can understand what we asked about the meaning of the verse, “And God called the night, ‘day,’ and to the darkness, He called ‘night.’” The meaning is as Baal HaSulam says, that as we see that “one day” is actually the connection of day and night. Likewise, it is impossible to have light without darkness. That is, the Creator has given us darkness so that through it, the light will appear. This is called “and God called.” That is, the Creator has arranged for us the order of the work to be this way. Although we must believe that it could have been otherwise, since He is almighty, so why did He arrange for us specifically this order? We must say about this that we have no attainment in the Creator, to understand His thought. Rather, everything we learn is only by way of “By Your actions, we know You.” In other words, by looking at the works of the Creator after He has created them, we begin to speak. But to say that He could have done things differently, our sages said about this, “One must not ask, ‘What is above and what is below?’”
Accordingly, we can interpret what is written in the Haggadah: “A day approaches that is neither day nor night.” This refers to the end of correction, when there is a day that does not consist of day and night, but is a day in and of itself. This will be done by “Exalted One, make known, for Yours is the day; Yours is also the night.” It is so because at the end of correction it will be known to all that “Yours is the day; Yours is also the night.” That is, since His will is to do good to His creations, and good means day, so how can it be said that the Creator gives darkness? It is against His purpose! However, the darkness, too, meaning the night, is regarded as “day,” even though the person feels cessations in Dvekut with the Creator, which are called “darkness” and “night.”
But at the end of correction, when it is known that He has given the darkness, too, this is certainly light, as well. The proof of it is that then the sins become as merits. Thus, at that time we know that “Yours is the day; Yours is also the night,” since both belong to You, meaning that both are You, meaning the Creator has given both as “day.”
Conversely, before the end of the work, it is impossible to attribute the cessations that a person has in Dvekut with the Creator to the Creator, that He has sent him this, since this contradicts the purpose of creation. This is the meaning of the words, “The darkness of the night will shine as the light of the day.” That is, since the sins have then become to him as merits, everything becomes day.
Now we can understand what are day and night in the work. A person should know that he must feel what is darkness, or he will not be able to enjoy the light, since in anything that a person wants to taste any flavor, whether it is worth using, he must learn one from the other, as it is written, “as the advantage of the light out of the darkness.” Likewise, a person cannot enjoy rest unless he knows what is fatigue.
For this reason, a person must go through a process of ascents and descents. However, he must not be impressed by the descents. Instead, he should exert not to escape the campaign. For this reason, although during the work he must know that they are two things, at the end of the work he sees that light and darkness are as two legs that lead a person to the goal.