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If we go to all the sages, we won’t be able to advance at all. The important thing is that whoever studied under that one sage with whom a thousand disagreed, his advancement would be utterly determined by his accepting what his teacher said, and not on his own exegesis. That’s how this works. I chose my place of study, I accept everything as-is. I can choose another place, but whichever I choose, I have to accept wholesale – even if the teacher’s teachings seem to contradict others.
While this association is strewn all across the writings of Kabbalists, more than the apparent phonetic and conceptual link, I doubt we’ll find elaboration on this connection in the sources. Even stranger associations between words that ordinary linguists would not make are found in the writings of Kabbalists, and until one attains those roots on their own, the option is to believe or not believe in the sages.
The Light works when we draw closer to some more developed state of connection before receiving a clear illumination from that state.
Every moment is new, a different level of coarseness in the desire, over which to elevate the Point in the Heart. When all the coarseness is risen above, it becomes permanent.
The difficulty is that we’re not in actual prayer yet and not in actual bestowal yet. We’re in some kind of inclinations that make the Upper Light work to some extent. They seem to us as prayer or bestowal. Like a child learning to speak, you gradually cleanse your Kli till you can correctly put together a sentence, or a story.
Yes, there’s a part in me that disagrees with the path, and has to be dragged – as it is written, “If you encounter this villain, drag him to the seminary [the place of study of Kabbalah].” This part in me can never agree as it has logical arguments for why I should focus on other, lower things. And it is right – like a child who has a logical argument for why the parents’ claims that eating a pound of candy is bad are only because they no longer wish to enjoy life and expect their kids not to either. But following that logic is to sadness whereas following the parent is to good for all. Carrying this resistance toward the goal, one is on the path of Light, or more precisely, what’s called ‘the way of the land’ – that is, not purely the path of Light, but in that overall direction.
