Spark Of Faith

What’s most important is the force of bestowal, the force of faith, and Malchut, the desire to receive, always remains under restriction. The restriction never disappears; it is only possible to rise above it. Within Malchut, we experience darkness and helplessness; that is, we want to grab, take, and possess everything around us, but it will never work. The restriction will always be there and Malchut will remain empty without Light.

In this world we are given an illusion that we can fulfill ourselves, but this is only so that it is possible to exist and discover the higher laws of nature: bestowal instead of reception, Bina instead of Malchut, faith instead of reason, Light instead of darkness, good instead of evil. We are building an anti-egoistic screen, separating reason from faith, the desire to receive from the desire to bestow.

We are refusing to use our desires to receive pleasure directly. Instead, we want to use them in the opposite form, rising “above them” in order to bestow. Of course, we understand that we do not have the strength for this because our entire nature is based on reception. But, in certain people in whom the point in the heart is revealed that awakens them to spirituality, there is an opportunity to actualize this.

The point in the heart is the seed of faith, a spark left over from the screen that existed even before the shattering of the collective soul. This spark appears within the desire to receive, within the darkness, within the egoistic reason.

Reason is constantly growing under the influence of the internal engine of evolution: spiritual and material development. However, faith grows within us only when we draw the upper Light to ourselves, which then draws us closer to the source. The upper Light acts on us and changes us.

The Light’s influence on us depends on our effort to rise in faith above reason, to use our desire to receive as little as possible only when it is necessary. Simultaneously, we act out building an environment within the group as if we are already in the desire to bestow and love and unity dwells between us.

Even though we have neither the strength nor the desire for this, we still make an effort and draw the surrounding, reforming Light to ourselves. This is the same Light that filled our soul in its corrected form before the shattering. This Light lights up the point in the heart—the spark left in us from the screen that existed in the collective soul, in Adam HaRishon—and the spark gradually grows into a screen.

That is how we arrive at the restriction (the screen) and the reflected Light and receive a new Kli (vessel). The desire to receive—reason, Malchut—remains in the dark, while above it, the Light builds a screen and the sensation of the qualities of bestowal and unity. To the extent that this occurs, we feel the quality of bestowal or, in other words, faith. We become aware that it comes to us from a certain force, and depending on our similarity of form with it, we experience the general quality of bestowal or, in other words, the Creator.

We can then make a comparison. Depending on the difference between our quality of bestowal and the general quality of bestowal, the Creator, we experience either concealment or its opposite, revelation and attainment. This is how, through concealment and revelation, we begin to attain the Creator. The relationship between us and the Creator is called “this world” or the extent of revelation or concealment of the upper force from us.¹

“Reason” is the way in which I see and experience myself and the world. I need to make a restriction on this. That is, I need to live not in this reason, but above it. I want to understand the world differently, in the way it is seen by the Creator, as the world of bestowal, unity, and love. Then it is as if I live in two worlds: in the reason of this world, which I perceive through my five sensory organs, and in faith, in the reality I would be in if I were corrected together with the friends, a corrected group and the Creator clothed in us.

Between us we build the type of connection where the upper force can be expressed because of the similarity of our qualities, all the way to its complete revelation. In other words, we construct a spiritual society.²
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on 8/17/18, Lesson on the Topic “The Work Within Reason And The Work Above Reason”