Waiting For Payment

Question: What can we understand from the books of Kabbalists when they tell us about the spiritual levels?

Answer: It is said, “It isn’t the wise who learns.” Your understanding or you lack of understanding have nothing to do with your advancement.

Suppose there is a wise man who has read many books sitting next to you. On the other side, there is a person who isn’t very clever but who has a big heart. There people who excel neither in their feelings, nor in their mind, and there are others who have plenty of both, but all this has nothing to do with our advancement. It doesn’t matter whether you understand the material or not. We should understand one thing only: the principles. Can you hear them? Can you evoke yourself to that?

Sometimes you may want to hear them, but you don’t. Then patience and persistence are helpful. Even if everyone has already entered spirituality and a person may be ten years behind, he actually “gains” more by acquiring the depth of the clarification, the ability to see the global picture. In short, we should be patient and persistent. The main thing is not to leave the path, to subdue yourself no matter what comes from Above. It’s because eventually the Creator determines everything and although it may not be very simple, a person gains a lot by that.

Baal HaSulam writes about that in his article “The Attribute of the General Hidden Wisdom”: The undeveloped person cannot wait for the payment for a long time. He has no patience, like a child, who wants to receive the payment now, and cannot wait for even one moment. And he chooses jobs for which he is paid immediately, even if the wages are lower. One can learn how to be a taxi driver and receive an immediate payment from the passengers without any delay. On the other hand, he can spend years studying to become a musician, for example. And a more developed person can restrain himself and choose jobs for which one is paid more, even if the payment may be much later. And we should know that this is the scale to measure the wise, since it depends on the corporeal development of every individual, and whoever can prolong the payment can get much higher wages.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”