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Thanks Gianni, that article is really helpful. I think I understand what I was asking more precisely now, so I’ll try to frame it in the article’s own language.
Is it possible for someone, through self-study and great yearning, to reach the first discernment before entering a ten?
The article seems to describe two paths:
1) A person first finds a genuine Kabbalist, follows his instructions, and is then rewarded with the first discernment.
2) Through great yearning, a person first attains “all the origins” by himself, and only afterward must labor to find a Kabbalist sage, submit to him, and receive the wisdom by conveyance “face to face” in order to progress further.
So it looks like the answer is yes, but I want to clarify what the article means by “first discernment” in relation to the work. Is it the same as the process of recognition of evil, feeling one’s helplessness, and reaching a sincere request for correction? Or is it referring to crossing the Machsom and attaining the first spiritual degree of correction, or something else?
Hey, in an archived Graduate Class, some one asked a question about starting the work while still waiting to be assigned a ten, and Igal answers something to the effect of “Every thing comes from the Creator, there are no accidents, everything is under control of the Upper Light and it precisely calibrates for our correction. What if you could attain the Creator without the ten?” and then asks rhetorically if the Light was given to a person without a ten would they reject it.
Now I know that the group work in the tens is the core of the work here, and this question isn’t meant to look for a loophole or excuse not to join one. But strictly speaking, could one come to any of the realizations/prayers needed for correction by studying on their own or learning from classes/lectures/articles and the Kabbalistic texts?
I understand for the vast majority of people they will need their hands held as they walk this path, but is it possible for some one to start studying and yearn for the Light and reach the state of prayer for correction on their own, without a ten? Say a person feels a deep shame growing for years in their life where receiving only makes things worse, and they keep trying to fix it by receiving more but the pain gets worse and worse every time. Finally they come to Kabbalah and learn about what they are experiencing and quickly realize they have no power in their correction and fall into a prayer begging the Creator for correction. Is this type of individual correction possible without the ten?
Yes that makes perfect sense and is what I was hoping to hear – going through this entire descent/shattering/ascent just to go back to the starting point before the thought of creation sounds pointless. So we are not “undoing” creation by correction, we are literally fulfilling the its purpose by living in a world transformed by corrected intention.
Essentially the Creator made a shattered world to give us the chance to be like Him, so yes I totally see how correction is just the beginning of the adventure.
I just finished the intro to Pticha course and have a question about what Kabbalah says about the end point of this entire process of correction: what happens to the vessel once it goes all the way back up from the point that it started from? Does creation go back to the state that was before the thought of creation, undoing Tzimtzum and then “disappearing” back into the Creator? Or are these 5 worlds now permanent features of reality and Malchut will always continue to exist, just transformed by correction?
Then what’s the point of the Masach and inverting our intention? I understand that correction comes from the Creator alone, but you’re saying the only thing we can do is practice in a group and allow the Light to do the work?
OK this is where the language starts getting tricky: “aim toward bestowal to others without any reception to self” sounds like a total nullification of receiving at all and only bestowing to others. But since our very nature is the will to receive, we have to use that quality with the corrected intention of bestowal so that it becomes receiving in order to bestow.
This is why I asked whether, at least in the first stages, “receiving not only for myself” is already counted as bestowal – where the correct form of receiving is not nullification of reception, but rather the Creator being included in the reception, so that it is no longer for my sake alone.
