Games With Pharaoh

Question: How do we acquire the power of faith?

Answer: We acquire faith through a request. But the request must be as close as possible to the power of faith. This means that I must clarify why I need faith and how I give shape to this demand inside of me. Through my demand, I attract the power of faith to me, like using a magnet, forcing it to be revealed in me.

The difficulty is that it’s impossible to want the power of faith without acquiring it. This is a closed circle, one contradicts the other. But in my physical state, I “pretend,” playing as if I need the power of faith and am bestowing, then this power illuminates me from a distance. It hasn’t yet reached me because I don’t yet have a true deficiency for it. But I pretend as if I have a deficiency for it, and this attracts the Light that Reforms to me that changes me.

With the help of exercises like these, time after time, I attract more and more Surrounding Light and begin to become familiar with the characteristic of bestowal. Even in the dark, I can identify which actions are greater or lesser acts of bestowal. I learn to orient myself in the dark, even work with Pharaoh, to play with him.

During this game, the power of faith begins to illuminate me from a distance. But only on condition that I invest effort in being like it; I attract it, draw it into me, so I am changing a bit all the time. This period of concealment is called work in Lo Lishma, through which we reach Lishma.

The only thing that we need now is the power of faith. And for this we must carry out physical actions, because in the spiritual world, we still cannot do anything. So we make a game in a group, with dissemination, we build systems that are like spiritual systems, like children imitating adults.

Children and even animal cubs do this naturally, and we don’t; so we need to play. Children also attract the Light that Reforms and that is how they develop. All creatures develop according to this principle.

This is the difference between inanimate matter and the matter of higher levels that are capable of development: the vegetative, animate, and speaking. They have the ability to play with the next level and do this to attract the Light that Reforms to themselves. This is the goal of the game with whose help plants, animals, and humans develop. Within their cells there is a mechanism that makes it possible for them to play at being more mature, which draws them towards reaching that. This is like our game in a group, but with them it is done automatically, mechanically. So plants or animals attract additional Light, and through this they grow. The same principle exists everywhere.

We must do this consciously, and with them, it’s not through desire, rather it’s done by nature. But every creature, meaning plant, animal, or human, all of them attract Surrounding Light. In humans this is expressed more prominently because they always aspire toward building something new, reaching new heights. That is how new Reshimotfrom a higher level are revealed, forcing us to attract the Light that Reforms.

The main thing is not to forget that it’s up to us to work, not in order to remove the concealment, but in order to attract the Surrounding Light, the power of faith. It’s up to us to go less deeply into bad thoughts, bad desires, and characteristics, for “you are wherever your thoughts are.” We must think how it’s possible to emulate the appropriate action for the Light more and more. And then the Light will influence us.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/14, Writings of Rabash