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Reward? We need to take it together with Punishment. Together they are a reward, the reward of seeing His manners of bestowal upon the world. But what you said is also correct.
To the second question, we have no problem if we reach an obstacle we can’t overcome. Then we turn to the Creator with a true prayer and He answers. Our problem is not wanting to overcome – meaning if I can’t overcome it with my own strength, I don’t want to ask for help. Or worse, I don’t want help to come because that will bring me above my beastly state.
Third question: everything comes down from Upper roots, and that’s why we shouldn’t be too impressed by who has everything and who has nothing. They have nothing to do with it, rather the Creator decides all, for reasons that He understands. And one cannot affect their destiny whatsoever. If I want to, the only hope is to actually become close to the Creator.
He defines 3 deficiencies: individual, public, and that of the Shechina. So it depends where the deficiency came from. Clearly that of the individual is ruled out. We have something to do in relation to the other two kinds. The public one, I need to check. If it’s the deficiency of the Shechina, of course it can be to bestow. But we can’t clarify this here. The practical work is searching for a deficiency that comes from the 10 and turning to the Creator with that.
Yes, agreement with all that comes from the Creator is the beginning thread of faith.
The second question I don’t understand. The connection between the society at large and the unique individuals – is that I need to never follow the collective when it comes to spiritual matters. They have no say in that. But in corporeal matters, such as what the doctor prescribes, or that I have to conduct business to make money to live – in these mundane matters, I need to follow the majority, and not think special exemptions apply to me. I have to thus divide myself in two, and work in two opposite ways, toward the world and toward the spiritual group. Toward the world the measure is to what extent on the inside I am with the Creator in agreement and wholeness, while appearing essentially like everyone else, a “good guy” but not overdoing it. Like the average. Toward spirituality you measure by all kinds of criteria we learn about, how much you can be in Equivalence of Form with the Creator.
Your last question I also don’t understand. I need to look like everyone on the outside but I can’t agree with their approach on the inside – because the masses will always think opposite to the way of the Kabbalists. Democratically it’s possible to arrive only to something that is opposite to the truth. They only know how to find the next touchstone on the path of suffering together. Surrendering the ego can only be in the spiritual society, to follow them in spite of my mind and heart.
It wouldn’t help but it would likely confuse a person because all we need is to turn to the Upper Force, a general, all-inclusive force. Which one is it? Doesn’t matter. For me, it includes everything. And like a fetus toward its mother, I have no hope of understanding what this mother I’m inside is in herself, nor would it add anything to my development.
One who is awakened, it means that they are the nexus of the universe and others rely on them to do the work first. I need to only want to bestow, so that the result doesn’t matter to me. I want the result to end outside of me with nothing back to me, not even the awareness of my success or not. Then my work is correct and then there may be other degrees. But I’m not worried about that but to be in this forever – because in this I’m like the Creator.
Turn to the Creator right away always. Or, if there’s something you can still do, do it right away as much as possible. I don’t care if I’m giving, praying, the thing is to be in one of these always.
I don’t mind answering many times because it takes time to internalize. It’s like a piece of furniture in the house which I no longer notice: it’s truly like it’s not there. This way, I have very large things in me I don’t even know are there but when I get to know them, I’ll see that they were always there. Or a dark room in which I only see the furniture when a candle is lit. Or I start seeing the furniture but only with a stronger light I see the dirt on it.
So, the desire to receive, we already have. It gets revealed a bit at a time. The spiritual desire is outside me, in the friends. To the extent that I can grow it, in the spiritual group, the desire to receive in me can be revealed and corrected – revealed to the extent that I can correct it, so that it won’t be like placing an obstacle in front of a blind person.
So it’s a matter of perception, whether we say the desire to receive in me has actually grown – because I used to think I was clean and a mirror is held up which shows me otherwise and although I now see that I was always so, nevertheless I now feel dirty and not clean. Or like the emperor who is the only one who doesn’t know he has no clothes, but it’s not the same knowing I’m naked vs. not knowing. So it’s all depends if a person prefers to live a lie – which is better if I don’t want to correct myself – or reveal the truth and correct myself. It will all be corrected when one can’t tolerate lies anymore, and that day will come – but some prefer to wait another day, another lifetime.
