Spiritual Search: What Do We Find?

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 93: These are the words of our sages “I labored and found, believe.” And we ask about, “I labored and found, believe,” that the words seem self-contradictory, since labor relates to possession, and a find is something that comes without labor at all, absentmindedly. He should have said, “I labored and bought.”

However, you should know that this term, “find,” mentioned here, relates to the verse, “those that seek Me shall find Me.” It refers to finding the face of the Creator, as it is written in The Zohar that He is found only in the Torah, meaning that one is rewarded with finding the face of the Creator by laboring in the Torah. Hence, our sages were precise in their words, and said “I labored and found, believe,” because the labor is in the Torah, and the finding is in the revelation of the face of His Providence.

We act in order to discover a deficiency, a need for a certain phenomenon. If this deficiency is right, if it matches that phenomenon, then this phenomenon is revealed. Only then can we see what it actually is, because it is a “find.”

I lack the power of bestowal, the Light of bestowal, but I don’t know what it is. This is because my deficiency comes from below and it doesn’t exactly match the final phenomenon. This phenomenon belongs to an upper degree that is so different from me, like the degree of animate differs from the degree of vegetative. Every new discovery raises me to a new qualitative level and every time it is as if I turn from a dog into a man.

When the Light fills the vessel, it gives it a Godly mind and feeling that stem from the root that preceded the creation of man. The Light gives a person the knowledge, the feeling, the perception of reality that is above his root. We can hold on to this only if we come to life and want to resemble Him by that, above ourselves.

Therefore it says, “I labored and I found.” This find is always one level above the deficiency and the current exertion. This is how all the Partzufim of the spiritual ladder are built. There is nothing to be ashamed of here, because when I work on a lower level, I prepare myself for the total self-annulment before the higher level.

This is how the love of parents in our world bears children, takes care of them, and fills them. It is the same here, of course, where there is the love of the Creator, but at first I use it to rise to its level and to complete it to resemble the Creator.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/12/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”