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In the stories of Abraham it is sometimes explained that he and his wife are too old to have children because they have already corrected all their desires and they have nothing more to do unless the Creator gives them more.
And in some other videos I have seen Rav describe food and eating and processing of foods as working with desires, similar to making bricks out of straw and dust. Everything is working with the desires.
And these two things made me think about the process of aging. The body makes fewer and fewer enzymes, antioxidants and substances for metabolizing foods. It secretes less hormones. It slows or shuts down some processes. I am wondering if this corporeal scenario is our interpretation of the process of rejecting desires we cannot work with, or giving up on them because we’ve experienced that we cannot achieve them through egoistic means?
If this were the case, would aging processes actually be a good sign that a lot of desire has been sorted, worked with, and rejected, and that the ones that are left are for things not in this world?
I’m not going to make such innovations in the Torah – but surely as one ages, one overcomes all kinds of silly pursuits, in part because he cannot receive them in any case; it’s just that now he is wise enough to know it. Sure, there’s a spiritual root for it, being the purification of the Masach [screen].
Hi Gianni,
Shamati 114 says: We must understand why a prayer is considered “mercy.” After all, there is a rule: “I found and did not labor, do not believe.” The advice is that one should promise the Creator that he will give Him the labor afterwards.
What does it mean the advice is to promise the Creator that he will give Him the labor afterwards? What is promise here? What does it mean to promise?
It’s still “do not believe”, so whatever one might think they found, it’s not what the Creator wants to give, it’s an imagination, right?
Thank you in advance!
Hi Zorica,
I don’t know that Baal HaSulam wanted to say that the ‘finding’ is imaginary, but ‘do not believe’ means that you will lose it, because you did not labor, so you’ll lack the Kli. That’s why I need to promise that I’ll give the labor afterward. To promise means to be prepared to give the labor, and to do it as soon as possible. Because there are some states in which one has no room for labor.
Hi Gianni, I read the transkription of the lesson on Shamati, and I felt it to be really helpful.
There was this one question saying… that while as we reveal more , “that a person measures his true state nearing the Creator through faith in the Creator?”
What is faith in the creator in this context?
“Faith” is bestowal, but it points to the aspect of bestowal above reception, above my understanding, without evidence and even against my evidence. And to what extent I can stay in the state forever, that is without any calculations.
Thank you for this answer:) How can I keep any sort of confidence in getting to bestowal, while all I feel is my ego trying to navigate me to a place it wants for me? Even if I focus on the friends, it seems egoistical, because behind any of my actions, unless I can annul myself for a moment, my ego makes all these calculations. And any minute I am not fully aware of what I am doing, I get distracted and absorbed with corporeal issues. And when after a while I resurface, more or less, I see the opportunities I have missed to connect, to be there for a friend. I feel I wish to be able to really feel „faith“, but is it possible to get there, and then even to remain there at one point? I can love the friends, and want for them, but it feels, even that is a calculation of my ego. So, whatever I do, it gets me back to myself. What is the right approach?
Still, through the accents and descents, we gradually build a complete desire, to finally leave the Will to Receive permanently. What does it mean that I go back to my Will to Receive’s dominion? I don’t want to leave it for good, but a little bit, I can. There’s an accumulation of these data, and eventually one decides with finality: I don’t follow my ego. Then the Upper Light makes a cut between me and my ego, and I can be above it, and it can’t drag me into the swamp. Above the Will to Receive, I give it everything it needs, but never again without a calculation. We only need to help each other reach this “never again.” The Creator will not do it until we want it.
Hi Gianni, thanks for answering all these questions:) I understand our substance is that of a lack. What is the substance of a ten then?
The substance of the ten is also the Will to Receive but if we’re talking about a spiritual ten, it’s a Will to Receive in a form of collective bestowal, where friends work as a system, through the Arvut, in order to bring contentment to the Creator.
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