Heavenly “Milk”

Question: Can we come to the suffering of Shechina from our state?

Answer: Many of us have pets: a dog or cat. They know who their owners are and they follow them around the house all day long. Wherever their owners go, their pets go there too. But if their owner grieves or cries, the pets don’t “feel” the owners’ tears because their desires are at a much lower level. In the same way, the suffering of the Shechina are at a higher level, and we simply are unable to sense it.

Moreover, if I never suffered in this life, I cannot sympathize with others. For example, the majority of people have never experienced famine. They never starved. For our generation it is normal. It’s quite rare that someone has no food at all for several days in a row. It sometimes happens that we are hungry because we had no time to eat, but none of us ever experienced real starvation. That’s why for us it is impossible to understand what those people who have absolutely nothing to eat go through. We cannot share their pain.

We can’t feel the Shechina’s sufferings because Her pain is generated by a desire to give everything She has, but there is nobody who wants to take it. Subconsciously, people suffer because of their inability to exist at the level of the world of Infinity, but they don’t acknowledge or realize this fact. However, we have to rise to this level.

The Shechina’s affliction belongs to the next level. Can you imagine your dog crying when you are upset? Let’s say, your friend died and you are crying and mourning. Can your dog share your pain? No! The dog can only sense that you are in a bad mood, not more than that.

This explains why we are incapable of connecting with the Shechina. If not for the Upper Light that develops the desire through the four stages of the direct Light – from the initial inanimate level to the vegetative, animate and speaking stages, we won’t be ever able to climb to the top. It is the Light that does it for us; we are not the ones who do it. If we want to rise from our animate desire to the speaking level called “man” (Adam, similar to the Creator and the Shechina), we need the Upper Light to help us.

However, after the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels, including the highest step of the animate desire (a human being, the last variation of “monkeys’ that belong to this realm) were created, the Upper Light stopped the process.

In order to rise to the next step, we have to be the ones who trigger the Light! Then, It will develop our desires to the next level, because a desire is the only material of creation. The desires of the next stage will be the desires of the Shechina, the revelation of the Creator, the property of bestowal. We have to attain this level because our job is to attract the Upper Light onto ourselves.

This is where the wisdom of Kabbalah steps in because it is a methodology of attracting the Upper Light, the system of self-development that allows us to seek the external help of the Upper; however, it happens only if we are the ones who trigger the Light.

If we don’t seek the Light, it’s similar to a cow that suffers because of an excess of milk; when she cannot carry it inside herself any longer and milk flows from her udders, and there is nobody to milk her.

However, the Upper Light continues pouring, but we don’t sense It inside our Kelim(vessels), but rather around them. We cannot receive the Light into ourselves because we don’t yet have similarity of properties with it. We don’t want to bestow or receive for the sake of bestowal; this is why the Upper “milk” pours all around us and we feel very bad. We realize that there is abundance around us, but not inside us.

So now the wisdom of Kabbalah is revealed. It never happened before, but it is happening now! All that took place before our time is called the “forefathers.” These are the steps that humanity had to go through in order to prepare the methodology of correction for us. Today, we must implement this methodology in life.

Kabbalah speaks about becoming similar to the Upper Light with the help of daily activities and by building relationships among us that exist at the spiritual level. If we start doing it, the Light will impact us to the extent of our efforts.

Then gradually, the drops of “milk” that Dvinity dispenses will penetrate into us, enlighten and correct us; thus, we’ll change. As a result, we’ll aspire to rise to the level of “Adam” and will want the same things as the Upper Light, Shechina: we’ll aim at receiving for the sake of bestowal; we’ll strive to be “Bnei Eichal”, i.e. the sons who comprise the UpperKli (vessel).

This state can be reached only by attracting the Upper Light that manifests in us only through our similarity with It in everything: in the way we interact with each other, disseminate, and to the degree of our exertions to correct the world through ourselves.
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From the International Summer Camp In Bulgaria “Day One” 7/11/14, Lesson 2