Preparation From Above And Our Work

It is written, “Anyone who mourns for Jerusalem is rewarded with seeing its joy.” This means that we need to pray for the public, but what should we ask for? Does the public have a desire for spirituality? The fact is that all the desires existing in the public belong to a person working on correction. Desires are within people, and a Kabbalist must develop intentions. Desire and intention are two separate categories; they do not exist in the same place. When a Kabbalist works with a screen, restriction, and reflected light, the desires start falling into place and change according to the intention with which he wants to use the desires.

The intention is called Rosh (head) and the desire is called Guf (body). We work on the Rosh, on the intention, so that it will suit the Guf, and then we will be able to use the Guf, meaning the desire. The disappearance of such compatibility after it existed is called the destruction of the Temple. If such compatibility between the intention and the desire is restored, then it is the construction of the spiritual Partzuf, its birth.

The vessel is the intention to bestow. The entire correction consists of achieving the correct intention. The desires exist. They are just arranged incorrectly, unequipped with the correct intention. There are no new desires. The shattering, restriction, and concealment all happens so we can scrutinize desires and start connecting them. Like a baby, who was born and starts growing, we correct the shattering and grow our soul.¹

We work on the intention to make it in order to bestow, directed to bringing contentment to the Creator. In order to bestow to the Creator, it is necessary to concentrate the correct intention and select from the shattered desires those that will be able to work under its control. By doing so, we build the spiritual Partzuf, the extent of our bestowal.

This is why there were breakages, preparations for the correction that occurred through no fault of ours. There is almost no work of the lower one in this. The Egyptian exile, the desert, the destruction of the First Temple, the Babylonian exile, then the Second Temple, which was also destroyed, and the exit to this last exile—how could all this happen?

It was just preparation from above. Now, all we have to do is make a final correction. Only the work toward the final correction is considered the person’s work; all the rest was preparation.²
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/11/19 “The Ninth of Av”