Your First Steps

When the point in the heart is turned on in a person it draws him so strongly to the Creator that he is ready to do anything in order to satisfy this desire. This stems from the fact that it is the uppermost desire of a person.

So it is with burning eyes, a person finds his way to the study ofKabbalah and is ready to accept any conditions. But in the beginning he doesn’t understand or hear anything of what is being taught, but is as within a cocoon, inside himself.

He comes to study regularly and participates in all the events because he wants to be accepted as a member and be part of the group of those who study the wisdom of Kabbalah. After a couple of months he gets a feeling of a descent and sinks into darkness, indifference, weakness; the Light diminishes and he doesn’t understand what is happening to him.

This is a sign that the first layer has been revealed in him, the lightest layer of his spiritual egoism, besides his everyday earthly egoism in which he was before just like all the other people. This means that a new spiritual layer of the ego is being revealed under the layer of his earthly ego. Although a person doesn’t understand what is happening to him and doesn’t feel any change, this state is different from all the other states he has been through in his life, a foggy state, which he doesn’t understand.

The revelation of the new layer of egoism occurred as a result of attending Kabbalah lessons in a group, of his participation in group events; as a result of his participating in a Kabbalistic group, he now receives his first portion of the Light that Reforms. The Light reforms a person and brings him back to the Creator, to the Light, to the attribute of love and bestowal to the friends, and gradually to all of humanity through advanced mutual actions.

It is written, “Thou hast hemmed me in behind and before.” First it reveals a new layer of the ego in a person, the evil inclination, and then the right response for it is expected from a person. Generally speaking a correct response means a prayer, a person’s request for help from the Creator to ascend above his egoism so that despite the disturbances he will consider that the egoism was sent to him and is revealed in him by the Creator Himself. The Creator gives him a chance to rise above the obstacles so that he can constantly be aware of the Creator’s uniqueness, and His absolute good leadership, (that there is none else besides Him and that He is good that does good).

The problem of a beginner is that he cannot control himself when he discovers the new desire in him, the change in the size of the desire. It seems to him that the world collapses, that the method is not realistic, etc. He has many complaints not to himself and not even to the Creator but to the teachers and the place of study.

At this point many usually leave the study with a negative attitude. We don’t see such massive numbers of people who leave in any other method because nowhere do people study how to exit their egoism. On the other hand, in a group of students like in Bnei Baruch we are taught how to “sacrifice” our egoism, our nature, and instead how to acquire the attribute of altruism, the Creator’s nature.

Therefore, it is said with regard to the wisdom of Kabbalah that “a thousand enter the study and only one comes out to be an instructor (to the Light).” But the 999 students who don’t attain the Light are also in contact with it and their reward is very high. (See the writings of Baal HaSulam). Those who leave the method and especially those who speak against it because they cannot acquire it because they are too lazy, keep themselves even further away from the correction of their soul.
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