A question I received: If I give something to my son, he doesn’t feel shame because of my love for him. Why then should we feel ashamed before the Creator if He gives to us?

My Answer: A son doesn’t feel shame in receiving from his father because a son belongs to his father and perceives himself as part of the parent. He receives from the father since he is entitled to it, and everything he gets is not his, but his father’s. Yet, the son doesn’t develop independently this way.

This form of development is called “conception” and “feeding,” meaning that the son, being small, receives everything from his father, the adult. But then children grow up and don’t wish to receive from their parents any longer because by this they remain under their parents’ authority. Thus, a father starts to feel the need to distance himself from his son so that his child will grow into an independent adult, eventually becoming a parent to offspring of his own. Therefore, according to the degree of their independence, children separate from their father, no longer wishing to receive from him, and begin to make a living on their own.

The Creator wants us to become independent and similar to Him. To achieve this, He performs a restriction and hides Himself, giving us an opportunity to become like Him through our own devices, to earn our own perfection, greatness, and fulfillment. Otherwise, if we continue receiving from Him, we will remain small and all our work will consist solely of annulling ourselves and begging the Creator. So after we go through the stage of being small, while learning from the Creator how to be like Him, we acquire independence.

However, the Creator does not want us to remain in such a state. Hence after the initial stage, when we, like the little ones, learn from the Creator how to become like Him, we acquire independence. In spiritual development, even during the stages of “conception” and “feeding,” we act against our nature, and this is why these degrees are already levels of independence.

The sole problem in making a creature is in nurturing its independence, allowing it to detach from the Creator. Hence, there is no creature without separation from the Creator. Detachment is necessary and obligatory; it is our essence. Otherwise, we will not feel ourselves as existing.

However, as of yet we don’t even feel ourselves as a drop of semen in the Creator.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/29/10, Article, “The Need For Love of Friends”

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