Fragment from the article “Giving of the Torah” by
Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag with Hearot veBiyurim (Notes and
commentaries) by Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Gottlieb
7)
However
the Kabbalist sages have stopped here and asked: why from the beginning did not
He create us as great as He wanted in order to cling to Him, praised be He, and
for what purpose did He, praised be He, put upon us all this burden and all
this hardship of the created being [before its self-correction] along with the
Torah and commandments?
Hearot veBiyurim
50)
However the Kabbalist sages have stopped here and asked: why from the beginning
did not He create us as great as He wanted in order to cling to Him, praised be
He? Explanation:
Is not the entire purpose of the Torah and commandments to liberate us from the
dominion of the desire to receive and to bring us to the state of altruistic
desire and loving other people? And was the Holy One, praised be He, unable to
create us to have already achieved perfection, that is
in the state of loving other people and clinging to Him, lest we need all this
heavy burden of the work and labor in Torah and the commandments? And why was
it necessary for the Perfect One, praised be He, to create His created beings
deprived of perfection?
51) Explanation: The
Creation [of man] itself was hardship, because the essence of [the Creation] is
that man, who in reality is a soul, had to be clothed in the material of flesh
and blood, which is a great hardship. For the foul odor of the body [1] reaches
Heaven in two ways: physically and as an opinion [that egotistic desire is
disgusting]. Because the end of the material body testifies that its beginning
is no more than decomposition, and as for the body [as a container] for the
soul, that is as for the human desire to receive, this great distress consists
of the very desire to receive, since if it has one hundred, it wants two
hundred [2] and is never satisfied. And the Torah and commandments also are
sources of great distress for the body because “the slave prefers to satisfy
his desires in a non-obligatory way” [3], and desires no limitation, no laws,
and no enslavement. And as a result all these limitations of the Torah and
commandments are a great torture for it. And for what purpose did He, praised be He, need to bring all these sufferings upon
us?
[Text by Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag
(continued)]
And
they have answered: Because one who eats that which is not his [i.e.,
the bread of another person] feels ashamed to look in his face … [4]
Explanation: This is due to the fact that the one who eats and enjoys the labor
of his fellow, is afraid to look him straight in the face, because he [starts and
continues to feel] humiliated until [the point that] his human form is
destroyed.
Hearot veBiyurim
52)
Explanation:
A man differs from an animal in only one way, as a result of which he may be
characterized by the names Adam and Enosh [5], and this
is his ability to take actions that overcome his nature characterized by receiving,
that is to attain the state of loving others. In contrast, animals are unable
to go against their nature, and as such they are wholly under the reign of their
nature, which is self-love. So it turns out that one who enjoys the labor of
his fellow, receiving an unearned gift, receives for his own benefit and
completely ignores the others; and as such he does not deserve to be called a
man. And because of that haShem, praised be He, made
it so that the person receiving an unearned gift, feels ashamed, in order not
to leave him in this condition, but to oblige him to correct it.
[Text by Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag
(continued)]
And
since it is impossible to find any deficiency in [the reality] that
comes from His Perfection, praised and exalted be He, He has given us an
opportunity to earn the desired [spiritual] elevation with our own actions, by
observing the Torah and commandments.
Hearot veBiyurim
53)
Commentary:
Therefore, He, praised be He, has not created us to have already become perfect,
for if He created us to have become perfect and if we did not have to work at
all, it would turn out that His G-dliness, i.e. the
Good, would have been revealed to us from Him as a free gift, absolutely
without any effort on our part, and as such there would be [for us] the blemish
of shame. And since haShem, praised be He, is Perfect,
then the creation of the beings that are not perfect is not befitting to Him,
and because of that He has arranged that we earn our perfection by our own
labor; so that when we receive the Good and bliss that He wants to give to us, we
will have a feeling of perfection.
And,
in this regard,
two questions arise:
1) Did not HaShem create the situation in which whoever receives a
free gift feels the lack of perfection? And if so, a difficulty arises again:
why did He create a sense of shame when one is receiving [the free gift]? It
was possible not to create the sense of shame, and as such we could have been
created perfect!? And this difficulty may be resolved as follows: the sense of
shame itself serves for our benefit, for the sense of shame compels us not to
be receiving beings, and in this way we are obliged to become identical to the
Creator, since the concept of receiving is absolutely non-existent with respect
to the Creator, but He has only altruistic qualities. And since He wants to
bring us merit with His qualities, so that we are identical to Him, as our
sages of blessed memory said: “Just as He is gracious and compassionate, so be
gracious and compassionate” [6], and as such He gave us an inherent quality to
feel ashamed when we are receiving a free gift, such that the created beings
are obliged to become altruistic in order to give them the merit of being equal
to Him in qualities.
And
do not ask further: since He is Almighty, could he not create us receiving by
nature and equal to Him at the same time? Because this question already goes
beyond the nature given to the Created Being, and we have no power to go beyond
this nature, as the Mishnah says in the tractate Hagigah that it is prohibited
to ask about the things that are above you [7], that is, about the things not
related to the reality within which the Created Being exists. But all the questions
must be asked only about the reality that we feel and see in order to clarify
the reasons for this reality and what purposes it pursues. Therefore, since we
see that the created beings are receiving by nature, we may ask why He created
the nature of this kind. The answer is: since His desire is to give pleasure to
those He created [8], He created an aspiration and passionate desire in the
created being to enjoy and get pleasure. On the other hand we see that the
Torah and commandments oblige us to oppose the desire to receive, and now we
need to ask why. The answer is: because in this way we can become equal to Him
in qualities. And now we need to ask: why has He not created us as equal to Him
in qualities, that is committing altruistic acts? And
this gets resolved as follows: lest we feel ashamed. Now we need to ask why He
created the shame. Again the answer is: in order to force us to go beyond the
nature of receiving beings.
2) This is what Rabeinu [15] Baal haSulam asked
about the answer mentioned above: a man who merits to reach [the level of]
clinging to haShem also merits attaining the eternal
Good and bliss. The question is how the man is able to deserve attaining the
eternal Good and bliss for the work in the transient world. Here he is using a
play on words when treating what is received as compensation for the work. For
when the man is receiving compensation for his work, he does not feel ashamed
because he absolutely does not feel that he is receiving, since he has earned
this compensation with his labor, and he is not considered “a receiver” because
the compensation belongs to him. But if the man works one day and gets earnings
for a year, do we think that the damage caused by the shame stays with him!?
This is resolved as follows: our sages of blessed memory do not mean at all
that the man earns the reward with his labor and the compensation corresponds
to his labor. But they mean that the man has to toil solely in order to attain
altruistic desire with his effort; and even if he is working for ten minutes
and attains the altruistic desire, then he will already have overcome the shame
that people feel when they get whatever they have not earned. For all the shame
originates from the fact that the man receives, but if the man fully restricts
himself by not receiving, if he attains the altruistic desire, and all his
deeds pursue doing good to other people, then he does not feel ashamed. For a
giving one does not feel ashamed. Therefore, when a man attains altruistic
qualities with his labor and all his deeds pursue giving satisfaction to haShem, and also if he receives the Good and bliss from haShem, praised be He, then this occurs not because of his
desire to receive, but solely because of [his] love for haShem,
and then he receives only because he knows that this is the will of haShem; therefore receiving of this kind does not involve
any shame.
Thus it is explained
that the idea of labor does not correspond to what is seen on the surface,
i.e., a compensation equivalent to the value of the labor, as this is
impossible, because the labor is limited by time, while the reward is eternal.
But the purpose of this labor is that the Creator wishes the created being to
attain a [different] nature, that of altruistic desire, and as soon as he
attains this desire, he will already not feel ashamed.
Therefore haShem, praised be He, wants us to receive the Good and
bliss from Him [8], that is, He wants His Divinity to be revealed [16], and
from this it follows that any healthy human wants to enjoy his living. And if
anyone does not want to enjoy, then there are two possibilities: he is either
an angel or a sick person. Before a man achieves the Sanctity, the pleasures
that exist in man are: some of the desires of the material world, honor, money,
learning Torah, and so on. The desire to enjoy varies for different people,
because each person wants to enjoy different things. On the other hand, He
wishes that the receiving will not separate the created beings from the
Creator, because the Creator does not receive. Therefore: 1) He gave the
feeling of shame when one receives a gift that he has not earned; 2) He gave us
an opportunity to toil in Torah and commandments so that we attain an
altruistic nature. And when we attain this kind of nature, we achieve absolute
perfection, that is we receive the Good and bliss as He wants and at the same
time achieve a proximity in qualities to Him, and not a separation from Him,
for the man receives the Good and bliss not for his benefit, but in order to
please the Creator.
And
it is about
a labor of this kind that this is said by our sages of blessed memory: “[If a
man tells you]: “I toiled and did not attain – do not believe [it]” [17]; that
is if the man says that he toiled in order to attain the altruistic nature, and
did not attain the Light from haShem’s Countenance,
praised be He, one should not believe that, because this is a sign that the man
has not yet exerted the desired effort in order to attain the altruistic
desire. “And if the man says: I attained and did not toil – also do not believe
[it]” [17]. And we need to determine whether the state of attaining corresponds to the words of the verse “All
who seek Me, will find Me” [18], and if a man merited to attain His
Countenance, praised be He, how is it possible that he can claim that he has
not exerted any effort in order to achieve this? But our master, teacher, and
Rabbi of blessed and pious memory [19] has explained that after [the man]
merits the Light of His Countenance, he considers his labor as having no
comparable correlation with the Light of His Countenance. However to “I toiled
and attained” – believe [17].
***
Above
we
asked the question whether it in fact was not possible for [the Creator] to
create us as altruistic beings. This difficulty may be resolved in the way
transmitted to us by our sages (and this way is different from that suggested
earlier): the Holy One, praised be He, wishes to purify us through [our]
acceptance of the yoke of His Kingdom, and accepting the yoke of His Kingdom
requires the created being to feel that He, praised be He, did, does, and will
do everything that is being done. And therefore, His original intention was to
create us not perfect, so that we feel that He is the Creator of everything,
and we need Him in our lives at every turn.
Still the question
arises: why do not we feel any problem in receiving and receive all that we are
given? And why don’t we feel ashamed at all? We need to say concerning this
that when we speak about the relations between man and his fellow man, where
there is no need to believe that the other person gives and I receive,
certainly shame is felt. But as for the relations between a man and the One Who
contains the whole world within Himself, the man does not feel ashamed because
he absolutely does not believe in the reality of the Creator, praised be He, so
that he does not feel ashamed before the One in Whose existence he does not
believe, and certainly he does not believe that haShem
gives him something. And as this is the case, since our faith is not strong
enough, we do not feel in a palpable way that the Holy One, praised be He,
gives us life at every single moment, and provides our food for us, and
communicates all our good thoughts and all our ideas to us. But if man were to
feel that the Creator is truly real, it would not be that simple for him to ask
something from haShem. And at the moment when the man
attains the faith in the reality of haShem and in the
fact that He does good to the world, he will definitely become ashamed.
Therefore two conditions
need to be met in order to make a man ashamed: the first condition is that he
has to realize that another person has done good for
him, and the second condition is that he has to feel that he is receiving. If
one of these conditions is not met, then this is not a situation in which he
becomes ashamed.
There
are
numerous examples in which a receiving one thinks that he deserves to receive,
aside from the situation of an employee and the owner of the house [20], for
example, a son thinks that he deserves to receive from his father.
***
Also
it is necessary
to emphasize that the shame is related to material requests,
that is to the requests that arise in order to benefit the man himself,
but it is not related to spiritual requests. Before the beginning of Tehilim, it is written: “May it be the will
… From your treasury of grace that is undeserved, be gracious to us”. My Rabbi of
blessed and pious memory [19] asked the question whether man is permitted to
ask for undeserved gifts. Our sages of blessed memory answer to this that the
Holy One, praised be He, said to the people of Israel: Do not expect to get
paid just as I do not expect to get paid [21], – in the same way as I do
[everything] for you free of charge and do not expect anything from you in
return, I ask you to love each other selflessly and not to expect reward.
Therefore “from the treasury of grace that is undeserved” means that we ask the
Holy One, Praised be He, to give us as a gift the strength to do [good] to
another person unselfishly, to love him selflessly. The gift, that is giving us
the strength to love selflessly, originates from haShem’s
treasury which is a treasury of selfless love. And with such a request, which
is a spiritual request, there is no shame. For when a man asks for the strength
to do good to other people and this is motivated by the love of other people
and not by self-love, there is not any shame, but on the contrary such requests
are welcome. For the shame is related to receiving, but to ask the Creator to
give strength for giving and for the emancipation from self-love is an
achievement.
Therefore it is not
shameful to attain the altruistic desire itself, for it is clear that all the
created being has it must receive from the Creator, but the Creator has decreed
that the shame arises when the created being receives from the Creator for its
own benefit, but everything that it has to receive from the Creator in order to
become a giving one, does not cause any shame.
***
Summation: It should be
noted that the simple meaning of the words of Rabeinu
[15] Baal haSulam in section 7) implies something
different from what we wrote; but the sense is that if He had created us in
all desired greatness, that is with an altruistic nature, this would have been
harmful for us, causing the shame!? But in one place (Teaching of ten Sfirot, histaKlut Pnimit, Part 1) Rabeinu writes that when a person is honored with the
altruistic desire, then he does not feel ashamed, and also, it is not shameful
to ask for that, for all the shame is related just to the desire to receive.
And the labor does not come in order to destroy the shame that we would feel if
He gave us altruistic desire, but the labor comes in order to destroy the shame
that we feel because we are receiving, for the labor comes in order to cause a
want in us, a desire to become giving ones. And after that haShem,
praised be He, satisfies our want and gives us the altruistic desire. And we
need to say regarding that which is written in section 7) either that
this [reflects] the order of development of wisdom, [such that] the initial
part of this discourse did not contain the conclusion that was reached in the
latter part, or when it is said “desired greatness” the meaning of this is that
inside our desire to receive we will get all His Light, praised be He, when
clinging [to Him], and it is about this that he answers that this is impossible
[to achieve] without toil and so on.
[Text by Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag
(continued)]
These
words
are very deep, and I have already explained them to a sufficient extent in the
books Panim Masbirot [which is a commentary] to the Tree of
Life [by Arizal], branch 1; and in the book Teaching
of Ten Sfirot ,An Internal Look, part 1; and here it is
possible [to explain] them briefly, in a manner understandable to everyone.
8)
For
this is similar to a wealthy man who called a man from a market, fed him and
gave him to drink, and gave him every day some silver and gold, and every
desirous thing, and every day gave him an increasing number of gifts. Finally
the wealthy man asked him: tell me whether all your desires are already
fulfilled. And the man answered to him: my desires are not yet fulfilled, for
how much better and nicer this wealth and luxury would be for me if I got them
as a result of my own labor as you did, instead of gettting
them from you as charity. And the wealthy man said to him: if so, then a human
capable to satisfy your desires has not yet been created.
And
this
is natural, for on the one hand he feels a great pleasure that becomes stronger
and stronger, proportionally to the multitude of gifts received by him, but on
the other hand, it’s hard for him to stand the shame caused by receiving all
the benefits, that the wealthy man showers upon him each time. For there is a
natural law in the world: receiving free of charge from a person who is kind
and compassionate and gives аs charity, [a man]
feels something like shame and is unable to stand that. And from that we derive
another law: it is impossible to imagine anyone in the world who is able to
fulfill the desires of his fellow by trying to satisfy them, since in any case
he is unable to give [the feeling to his fellow that that which is received by
him has] a character and traits of “something rightfully belonging to me”,
because only with [a feeling] of this kind the perfection is attained
completely, as desired [from Above].
Translator’s
notes
---------------------
[1]
Here the word “body” means “physical body” as well as “egotistic desire”.
[2]
In Kohelet Rabba two
verses: Kohelet 1, 13: “It is a bad occupation that
God has given to the sons of men to languish from it”, and Kohelet
3, 10: “I have seen the occupation that God has given to the sons of men to
languish from it” are commented as following: “When man is leaving the world
even half of his desire is not fulfilled, and when he has one hundred, he wants
to make them two hundred, and when he has two hundred, he wants to make them
four hundred, in order to languish from that”. In the Hebrew text of Hearot veBiyurim the words “one
hundred” are replaced with “a maneh”. Maneh is a coin worth one hundred zuzim.
[3] “The
slave prefers to satisfy his desires in a non-obligatory way” – Babylonian
Talmud, tractate Gittin, p.13A. A slave prefers
non-obligatory relations with a female slave, who does not limit his freedom,
always is available to him, and does not show off in front of him, to an
obligatory marriage to a free woman, which is the only possibility of legal
spousal relations in case he becomes a free man.
[4] One
who eats that which is not his [i.e., the bread of another person] feels
ashamed to look in his face – Jerusalem Talmud, tractate Orlah,
chapter 1,
halachah 3.
[5]
Adam and Enosh – English for each of these two words
is “man”. In the book of Zohar these words characterize different levels of
man. See Zohar for the
weekly Torah reading Tazria, fragment “Adam Ish” (paragraphs 106 – 118).
[6]
Just as He is gracious and compassionate, so be gracious and compassionate
–Babylonian Talmud, tractate Shabbat, page 133B.
[7]
[They say] about everyone who tries to research four things [listed below]:
it’s a pity, it would be better for him not to appear in [this] world. These
things are: what is above [the Created Being], what is below, what was before,
and what will be after – Mishnah, tractate Chagigah, chapter
2, Mishnah 1.
[8]
When He, praised be His Name, wished to create the world in order to give
pleasure to those He created and so that they cognize His greatness and become
worthy to be a chariot soaring in order to cling to Him [9], praised be He, He
created one point and bestowed His Light upon it, one point of ten (that were
ten Sfirot [10] of Akudim
[11] located in one vessel [13]), and they did not show up – Tree of Life by rabbi Chaim Vital [14], Portal of common
principles, beginning of chapter 1.
[9]
In order to cling to Him – Dvarim 11, 22; 30, 20; Yehoshua 22, 5.
[10] Sfirah (in construct form: Sfirat,
in plural: Sfirot) – an element of a spiritual object and is
itself a spiritual object. The word “Sfirah”
originates from the word Sapir (sapphire). It may characterize both a vessel
and the Light that the vessel receives. Like a precious stone variegates and
like colored glass transmits light of certain color, different Sfirot characterize receiving the different
amounts of the Light of different qualities by a receiver. According to another
interpretation (See
Tree
of Life, part 1, p.23) spiritual objects are called Sfirot when they are finite and characterized
by certain measure or number. Spiritual object is divided into ten Sfirot and into five main Sfirot.
[11] Akudim is the name
of the world in which the internal Light and surrounding Light are connected with
each other and collide with each other. As Baal haSulam
explains in General Introduction, section 5, this name originates from “And he
bound Yitzchak” (Bereyshit 22, 9). (Hebrew for “and
he bound” is “vayaAkod”, and this word has the same
root as “Akudim”). See Introduction to the Wisdom of
Kabbalah, sections 33 – 42, for explanation of the words “the internal Light
and surrounding Light collide with each other” [12].
[12] The internal Light is the pleasure that a
created being is able to receive with altruistic motivation. The surrounding
Light is the pleasure that a created being is unable to receive with altruistic
motivation. Colliding of the internal Light with the surrounding Light is a
conflict between the created being that wants only to receive the pleasure that
it is able to receive with altruistic motivation, and haShem
Who wants the created being to receive all the
pleasure He wants to give.
[13] Located in a vessel – received by a
receiving one.
[14] The Tree of Life – one of the most influential
books in Kabbalah, written by Rabbi Chaim Vital, Arizal’s
disciple.
[15] Rabeinu – our Rabbi (our
teacher, one who is spiritually higher than we are)
[16] The intention of Creator, praised be He,
regarding the created being from the very beginning of its creation is to let
another being know about His Divinity – see Tree of Life [14], branch 1, section
Bet.
[17]
If a man tells you: “I toiled and did not attain” - do not believe [it], and “I
did not toil and did not attain” - do not believe [it], but “I toiled and
attained” – believe [it] – Babylonian Talmud, tractate Megilah,
p. 6B.
[18]
Those who seek me eagerly will find me – Mishlei 8,
17.
[19]
Our master, teacher, and Rabbi of blessed memory – Rabbi Baruch Ashlag.
[20]
Relations between the employee and the owner of the house – relations between
employee and employer (See Rabbi Baruch Ashlag
“Secret and visible in serving haShem”).
[21] Do not expect to get paid just as I do not expect to get paid – Babylonian Talmud, tractate Nedarim, p.37A.