We are poor creatures; we represent “a box” with five entrances, or five senses – vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Through these five senses we sense everything that happens around us, and we sense ourselves through them as well. However, this “reading” of reality is not correct, because all the wave vibrations that enter into us are subsequently processed by our egoistic mechanism – the desire for delight. So whatever we perceive as happening around us seems as such only according to our internal program – to it only.
People, who exit that internal mechanism, go outside of themselves, beyond the boundaries of “the box”. Say that the true reality around us is built entirely on bestowal, it is completely altruistic – altruistic in its entirety; and it can not be otherwise. We – the speaking level – as well as the still, vegetative, and animated levels that exist in our world are also altruistic, we simply do not see it.
If man chooses the path of the Torah, he can neutralize his selfish body and desires in such a way that they will no longer act as an obstacle between him and the Creator. Man and the Creator unite. This union is a throwback to the Procreation State, before the descent of the soul into this world, before the soul is “handicapped” by selfishness. Moreover, by correcting his selfishness man can climb the rungs of the spiritual ladder and reach the level of the Creator. Some creatures are devoid of selfishness and therefore have no tool to progress and remain at their initial level.
People in this world are all ordinary people. But to one Persian named Abram (and later Abraham), the Creator revealed Himself , and it is that revelation that made him special. He became a “Yehudi” (Jewish), from the word “Yechudi” (single-unique), that is he and the Creator became one. Who then is this Abraham? He is a man who was endowed with a spiritual spark, a sensation of the Creator. But other than that he was an ordinary person.
There is no difference between a Jew and a Gentile, other than that spark of the Creator found in the Jew. That means that if that spark exists in a person’s heart , that person is named Jewish. If it vanishes, the Jew again becomes a Gentile. The latter, however, is an impossible situation, because sanctity always increases and never decreases. It is a spiritual law, by which everything is brought closer to the Creator.
Our common sense tells us that the cause of every evil is egoism, “the desire to receive pleasure for one’s own sake”, or simply “the desire to receive”. This passionate pursuit of one’s own well-being, called forth by “the desire to receive”, is the reason for harming one’s neighbor, because the desire to receive aspires to be fulfilled. When creation gains satisfaction in its own well-being, then no one in this world will harm his neighbor. In addition, if we occasionally encounter a creature that harms another for reasons other than “the desire to receive”, the only reason for that lies in the habit that originated in this desire.
Pain pushes us forward. Whether we feel depressed, empty or confused, all bad feelings appear in order to make us think about their reason and purpose. In our world, we see only the outward shell of reality. We do not see what is hidden behind nature, society, a person or the cosmos, and we cannot control any of them.
As with embroidery, the links and threads traversing all the parts of the picture can only be seen on the reverse side. Likewise, we do not see the connections between events in our reality; we only see that “something suddenly happened for some reason.”
A person whose point in the heart awakened seeks spiritual pleasures, which Kabbalists describe as complete and eternal fulfillment and satisfaction. As we have said above, we can satisfy the desires for our earthly and human needs with fulfillments we already know, but when the desire for spirituality awakens, we no longer know how to soothe it.
Moreover, many people are frustrated because they have not yet realized that the desire for spirituality has awakened in them. They are unaware that this is the reason for their dissatisfaction and discontentment. The inability to fulfill the desire for spirituality evokes sensations of helplessness, desperation, frustration and purposelessness of life. This is the main reason for the ongoing increase in drug and alcohol abuse, as well as other means of escape from reality.
