From All Talk To All Walk

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt is written: “I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as a spice.” This phrase contains the entire itinerary of my inner changes, corrections. I possess not a mere desire, but an evil one. How so? It is evil because it isn’t aimed to the Creator. I don’t see value in bestowal.

However, is it really bad in my eyes not to be in bestowal? Surely, it feels good to be receiving. As to bestowal, it makes me feel quite uneasy. What should I do? There is no need to change the world since I am the whole world. Hence, all I need to do is change my own values.

Presently, I value the opportunity to receive. This is the essence of my whole life, my credo, the instinctive and rational approach to everything I do. Yet, further on, I have to perform an inner transformation and replace the value of receiving with the value of bestowal.

Thereby, I identify with the Creator and aspire to come closer to Him. I contemplate how to bestow to Him and transform myself into the vessel that receives His good. As I do to Him, so does He to me.

For this reason, the Torah is given to us as a spice, the wisdom of Kabbalah, that will eventually allow us to change the order of priorities, having placed bestowal, not reception, on the top of the list. Naturally, we can’t even think about something like this; we resist it kicking and screaming. Even when we are presented with an opportunity to do so, we avoid it at all costs.

Therefore, we were given an environment. Out of poor little egoists, the Creator formed a society that keeps talking about bestowal and love of others. Why mere talking? It is because everything else is up to a person.

A person first has to start viewing his friends in a different light, not to force them to bestow, but to change his attitude toward them. On the outside, they will always remain only “speakers,” but everyone has a chance to see greatness, bestowal, love of others, and oneness of hearts in them.

Everyone is free to see in the group what they will. If a person understands that this is his chance, then the friends’ “talking” is viewed by him as the most important aspect in life, the most exalted value. Suddenly, the environment starts affecting him, filling him with awareness of the value of the Creator or bestowal.

Self-imposed motivation brings real results, and the person draws the corrective force of the Torah to himself. This entire process lies in his own hands; he doesn’t need anything. The Creator has provided him with the desire and led him to the group, but a person arranges everything else by his own effort, not forcing anyone to do anything.

Everything depends on attitude. Some relate to the group with their egoistic benefit in mind; others keep “earning” the value of bestowal through it. There are many variables between the two. Herein lies the free will of a person: Does he acknowledge the group as a means of elevating the Creator in his own eyes?
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/17/10, “The Creator Created the Evil Inclination, and He Created the Torah as A Spice”

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