Bestowal Isn’t What You Think It Is

Real bestowal is unlike bestowal in our world, which can happen even against our will—out of fear or for another reason. That is not bestowal. Bestowal is when I have no personal benefit or satisfaction from it. A mother takes care of her infant because it is in her nature and she receives contentment from it. But this is not the bestowal that the science of Kabbalah discusses. Spiritual bestowal brings me no reward, no material satisfaction, everything is directed toward the one I want to bestow to.

If we really think about it, we will understand how far we are from true bestowal and what vast distance separates us from it. Feeling the limits of bestowal and trying to keep pushing it further and further each time is beneficial. Thus, through prayer and effort, through work in a group, and through examples shown by the friends, we will advance in order to bring this bestowal out from within ourselves. Obviously, it is quite complicated, but if we make an effort, the light that reforms will come and help us.

This is a whole process because we receive a new, spiritual desire. In the corporeal world, we understand bestowal in relation to our loved ones, out of fear, out of duty, that is, from various egoistic motives. However, through these examples, we can draw parallels to the desire to bestow that is independent of our state, which is further removed from our desire to enjoy.¹

The exercise in expanding the limits of bestowal is the work in a dynamic ten, which keeps expanding and contracting. Thus, we can control the limits of bestowal ourselves: to either expand or contract them. We bestow to the Creator, to the world Kabbalistic group, and to the Creator. We must try to bring it together, which is called “Israel, Torah, and the Creator are one.”

The Creator can only be found inside a spiritual vessel (Kli) and in order to create a Kli, we must become fully integrated into our friends and feel ourselves as one whole. To the extent that we disappear inside this Kli, we begin to transition from feeling ourselves to feeling the group, and from feeling the group to feel the Creator.²

Bestowal in our world takes place for satisfying one’s desire, like a mother taking care of her baby. It can be a lioness, a woman, or a bird, every mother takes care of her young because it is in her nature to do so. But we must feel how the most distant people will become our closest friends. Nature will not obligate us to love them, but only gives us examples of how to care about the whole Kli so that we will care about the Creator from it. I am trying to obtain the will to bestow that I have no desire for so that it will become my intrinsic need, as in the examples of this world, and not allow me to rest.³

This world gives us the ability to perform physical actions against our will. I do not want to work, but I am embarrassed before others so I go to work. Although, as I begin to work, I see the others’ example and get inspired. I want to be like them so that I too would be respected. This is all based on egoistic motives; the whole world operates this way. But if I am a part of a society that aspires toward a spiritual goal, then we are influenced by the upper force that is shining on us and changes us.

Whether I want to or not, I begin thinking about bestowing, unity, the purpose of life, and the goal of creation. By changing the structure of society, we can bring ourselves to a new level of existence. By getting involved in society by means of simple physical actions, I can rise to the spiritual degree since I received the importance of the goal, unity, and efforts.

All thanks to the fact that the upper force dwells in this society. The Creator has purposely gathered those with sparks of spirituality in their souls, people who have a point in the heart. Therefore, even if we unite over physical work for material, egoistic purposes, the upper light begins to affect us and change us in such a way that we begin to feel pleasure from uniting and getting closer to the spiritual goal. At every level, we change our previous material concepts about achievement into more spiritual ones.⁴
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/19, Preparation to the Europe Convention