Responsibility For What Is Happening

The Torah, The Book of Numbers, 33:55, 33:56: But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall come about that those whom you let remain of them will become as pricks in your eyes and as thorns in your sides, and they will trouble you in the land in which you live. And as I plan to do to them, so I will do to you.

We need to alienate from ourselves our own desires, meaning to correct them within ourselves. The desires do not disappear anywhere; it’s impossible to cut them off and to throw them away. There exists an enormous desire created by the Creator, as it is said: “I created the evil desire (evil inclination) and gave the Torah for its correction.”

The intentions for this desire can be either egoistic or altruistic. The desire itself is inert. In its original application it is an absolute zero, but it is given to us in a negative form. Therefore, we need to correct its negative application into a positive one, which can be achieved by changing the intention. This is called driving out the nations that exist within your desire.

Those whom you let remain of them [will become] pricks in your eyes and as thorns in your sides, [that is, these desires won’t let us perform any spiritual actions of bestowal, love, and mutual connection] and they will trouble you in the land in which you live. This reminds very much of our current state. After all, we do not work on ourselves!

Today the so-called nation of Israel are those who were given the opportunity to reach spiritual correction. However, we don’t do anything! Therefore we constantly receive pricks and punches, knives onto our backs and necks—what our neighbors do to us. And that’s because we don’t do our job! There is no need to blame them, only ourselves! We need to find the correct formula in order to change the state that passes only through us.

If we do not follow what Kabbalah says, we will suffer, we won’t achieve anything. We need to do something about ourselves.

We find ourselves at the epicenter of the “potential atomic explosion,” and we don’t understand what we evoke upon the entire world through ourselves. We have to acknowledge our responsibility for what is happening.

Comment: But doesn’t this concealment come from the upper degree?

Answer: Concealment is given specifically so that we can correct ourselves quickly, in connection with others, to feel the upper state and bring it upon the rest of the humanity.

This concealment is for our own benefit. If it didn’t exist, we would function automatically, following the instructions from above mindlessly, with no feeling or reason, as if we were a wound up mechanism. In that case we would be called angels. But man needs to be higher. He needs to rise to the level when he himself chooses to be similar to the Creator and brings His idea into the world.
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From a TV Program “The Secrets of the Eternal Book”