Springboard For Disinterested Bestowal

What’s most important is to feel the need for the Creator’s help.We are born completely disconnected from the upper force, like animals, and feel no need for the Creator. He is not included in any of our egoistic desires. In our entire existence in this world, we do not find any need for the Creator.

We try to build the whole world, all of its system, the family, society and the environment, only through the power of our egoism. We try to conquer nature in order to make ourselves comfortable and to put everything to our service.

This is the way we develop. Our egoism pushes us in the completely opposite direction from the Creator. If we do need the Creator, it is only to take advantage of Him. People have always tried to enlist the support of nature’s forces, such as the sun and the moon. If there is an even higher power, then it would be good to put it to our service, for our benefit.

However, when we talk about needing the Creator’s help, it means something quite different. It is not that the Creator comes and provides us with pleasant egoistic fillings, good sensations, and comfortable lives. All supposed “spiritual” practices that provide a person with the feeling that he is separated from taking care of himself are also aimed at making one feel better and more comfortable, free from the burden of egoistic experiences. This is only a more cunning way of egoistically using all of nature’s forces, as if also including the upper force.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is unique in that it requires a special amount of patience from a person in anticipation of the Creator’s help. You need to be patient and try to see the Creator’s work on you, listening attentively to your inner voice. This is how a person will gradually begin to discover that he constantly thinks about himself: that he lacks fulfillment, comprehension, and success. Where is the promised Creator who should fulfill me?

These are the natural requirements that appear in us all. We have to pass these stages on the way to the true correction. The Creator Himself awakens these questions and claims in us until we become tired of thinking about ourselves. We will despair from the impossibility of realizing our egoistic plans and will begin to hope that we will receive the fulfillment if we direct our thoughts in the opposite direction, in the only possible direction—to the Creator.

It is still an egoistic intention, but we already begin to discover that fulfillment can come only from caring about the neighbor, about the friends. This is bestowal for the sake of reception, but it is still great progress toward spirituality.

Desperate to fill ourselves with our own knowledge, achievements, sensations, thoughts, “me, me, me!,” we begin to feel that there is an opportunity to fill ourselves if we think about the friends or the Creator. If there is no fulfillment in receiving, can it be in bestowal, caring for the neighbor? This is egoistic bestowal, but I still partially exit myself and begin being included in others. In any case, I think about what they need in order to give to them and fill myself in this mode.

Here, a new attitude and work is born: everyone cares for others, seeing that this is the only way to fill themselves. Subconsciously, we still think about ourselves, but we already understand that without the friends, we will not be fulfilled. Also, we no longer try to use others directly for our own benefit. Instead, we use them indirectly, trying to do good to them because bestowal makes us content. We see that this is our only chance for success. If instead of receiving, I bestow and take care of others all the time, then I will be fulfilled with this concern. This is called “bestowal for the sake of receiving.”

My salvation from my own problems is in the thoughts about the Creator: they disconnect me from constant anxiety about myself, inner emptiness, helplessness, and doubt. This is how we start feeling the opportunity to rise by faith above reason and reach bestowal. Even if I still bestow for my own sake, it is already a springboard to pure bestowal.

Many lack patience and do not wait until the Creator takes care of them, bringing them to this type of bestowal, that is, for the sake of receiving a fulfillment. We should understand that this type of bestowal differs from the corporeal world’s egoistic bestowal, whereas the latter cannot be called bestowal at all, because it still comes from the desire to receive more although via an alternate route.

Here, we move to bestowal for the sake of receiving after a great disappointment, having made sure that it is impossible to be fulfilled by means of receiving. Therefore, we want to get rid of these desires, to put an end to this approach to life.¹
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/25/18, Lesson on the Topic: “Revealing the Need for the Creator’s Help in the Ten” (Preparation for the Convention “All As One” in New Jersey, 2018)
1 Minute 0:00-15:00