Faith That Shines On A Dark Night

If the Creator is revealed or at least comes a bit closer to a person according to the equivalence of form one has attained, a person mustn’t allow himself to be lightheaded and to enjoy this pleasant feeling during the ascent. On the contrary, the time of the ascent is the most suitable place for working when we are required to add maximum exertion in order to more tightly hold on to the study, the group, the books, and dissemination.

We should try to maximize this time and understand that no one guarantees that all this won’t stop the next minute. Therefore, you must now, using all the means you have, tie yourself to the state of ascent, so that even if the pleasant state changes into the exact opposite state and becomes dark and unpleasant—a state of fogginess, confusion, helplessness, and powerlessness—then even in such states which are full of despair, you will want to remain adhered to the Creator.

This closeness will not sustain the pleasant states, but although you feel bad now in your desire to receive, you wish to remain loyal and to adhere to the King. So neither the ascents nor the descents will affect you if you feel or don’t feel a filling in your vessels of receiving. On the contrary, it is when there is no filling that you can be sure that you are operating without any self-reward, in order to bestow.

In order to do that you need a “covenant.” If you yearn for bestowal, you discover that you can form such a covenant with the King, and that the Creator will keep this covenant. Thus you can be sure that when the descents come and you feel that you are totally empty and cannot hold on to bestowal, thanks to your earlier work, you will be able to remain adhered even in the “dark.”

Our whole work is actually done at “night,” where bestowal and faith are. As it says: “Say your grace in the morning and your faith at nights,” since it is at “night” that faith and bestowal are revealed.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/17/12, Shamati #76