The Ten—There I Find My Soul

The Creator constantly hides the truth from me, showing me various scenes that make me forget about Him. Therefore, the Creator disappears and I see myself and this world, but each time I need to forcefully bring back my reality to the truth. Above everything that He does, I need to return everything to the corrected form and determine that every state, my own and the world’s, is organized by the Creator.

The Creator confuses me as though He did not do it all. I am obliged to return Him to the head of everything. The illusory world, the imaginary self, it is the  Creator who creates this illusion. What’s best for me is to determine that the Creator governs everything that happens. This is called good. I am happy to elevate Him as the King not because it gives me positive sensations, but because I succeed in making Him the ruler.

The truth is that the Creator governs over everything, and it is unimportant to me how I perceive it in my sensations as pleasant or unpleasant states.¹

If a person wishes to know who he is, where he came from, and why he lives, the answers to all the essential questions, then that already is the beginning of the human degree. An animal does not ask why it is alive. There are also many people who don’t want to think about this since “the less you know, the better you sleep.”

A person wishes to succeed in this life: to learn, acquire a profession, and so on. However, if he must know why this life is given to us, what its purpose is, why the human being is created, he will be unable to find the answer in this life, no matter how much he searches. He can turn to biologists, zoologists, physicists, and no one will be able to answer him.

Scientists know how matter works. Yet, why the matter exists is unknown to them because the answer is above, on the next degree above the matter, in what preceded its creation. If I am bothered by that question, then I must solve it because it is ruining my life. Why should I study this life if I do not understand what it is for?

Finally I realize the need to develop myself to a new level of perceiving reality. If I could penetrate into the depth of reality, I would reveal its cause or root. Then, I find the wisdom of Kabbalah. It is clear that it is the Creator behind the scenes who leads me, reveals Himself, hinting which way to go.²

After one makes such an effort, the Creator is revealed. There are strict laws here: as soon as the extent of effort in terms of quantity and quality is reached, we reveal the higher root according to how much we invested. The more effort, the greater the revelation. From the side of the upper, there is no concealment; the concealment comes from our insufficient effort.³

If the upper providence was revealed, all the inhabitants of this world would automatically become completely righteous. The effort is the pledge whereby one does not act automatically and truly becomes equal to the Creator, not thinking about himself but only about bestowal.

This new Kli exists in the ten, in the ten Sefirot. Then we understand that we have no other opportunity to turn to the Creator, come closer to Him, think of Him, and direct our efforts toward Him. We need to reformat ourselves, adjusting to the Creator so that we connect and establish contact. That is possible only by forcefully inserting ourselves into the ten and through it reach equivalence with the Creator.

That is, all our effort should be for inclusion in the group with no reserves. By inserting ourselves in the ten, we find that the whole world exists there, billions of people, the whole universe, and the spiritual worlds. Our world is a tiny grain of sand compared to what exists in the ten. There we find our soul.⁴
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/3/19, Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot”