Know What Is In Your Heart

Torah, “Deuteronomy,” 8:2: And you shall remember the entire way on which the Lord, your God, led you these forty years in the desert, in order to afflict you to test you, to know what is in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.

The most important thing is that a person would know and go through this. Naturally, the Creator knows in advance what will happen to a person, even if he will or won’t be wrong. In other words, freewill exists for us when we think, “Should I act this way or that way?” However, for the Creator, this isn’t a question.

Even more, it is absolutely clear that a person will stumble. As it is said, “There is not a single righteous man who hasn’t sinned while doing good.” However to stumble, to realize it, correct it, and do the right thing is an accumulation of deep sensations, awareness, and a tool with which you reveal the Creator in all of his greatness from the beginning of the thought of creation to its implementation.

Question: What is meant by “…to afflict you to test you…?”

Answer: To afflict my “I” means to rise above egoism. To test is a state called faith above reason.

Question: Is it when you are given tidbits, and you can be seduced by them?

Answer: It is not only that. A person is given a state in which he doesn’t know which way to go, and here he can choose faith above reason.

If it is clear that it is against egoism, then there is no problem. You know that you either have or don’t have the strength for this. You must hate it or love it; the circumstances are absolutely clear.

When they are not clear, this is to test you. Here, a person is in limbo, and this is the hardest. You don’t understand which way to go. It is not like you have or don’t have the strength, or you really want to get away from what you are given. No, your state is so vague that it is as if you are between heaven and earth.

Such states are the worst because they extend time and kill the life of a person. It is called, “Fear an indifferent person.”

For or against are good states. Make mistakes or don’t, just keep going. But when a person is neither here nor there, and he is in a neutral state, it takes his entire life.

Question: How do we lead him out of these states?

Answer: It is only with the help of the environment. A person by himself will never be able to exit them. Only the environment gives him a correct direction, shows the way he must act, and he begins to suffer, to be jealous and envious. This is what leads him away from the state of passivity.

Question: So, it is not necessary to pull him out physically?

Answer: No, pulling him out physically is the simplest thing to do. The masterstroke is when, through a small hint from somewhere far away he feels that something great is happening there.

Question: It is written, “And thou shalt remember all the way… to know what was in thy heart, whether thou would keep His commandments, or no.” What does it mean to know what was in thy heart?

Answer: A person should scan himself at each segment of the path, all ten internalSefirot in all desires. All of them are measured with respect to Malchut, the egoistic desire, and with respect to Keter, the altruistic intention. In this way, he should check himself at any given moment.

This is what is meant by to know what was in thy heart. Does it fully agree with the Creator on the level where it is revealed to you, where you yourself know who you are, and you constantly move between Malchut and Keter like a toy yo-yo?
[191813]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/27/16