Question: What is the “faith” that Kabbalah is talking about?

Answer: Faith is the Light of Hassadim (Mercy), the force of bestowal or Bina, the Creator’s property, nature. If the property of faith starts taking over your will to receive pleasure, you come to understand what bestowal really is.

To receive an imprint of bestowal, you have to first start feeling it and know how it tastes. Thereby, you will know what it is. Such a unification of irreconcilable opposites may seem impossible, but the intention to bestow begins ruling over your desire for pleasure, and it wishes to be used to bestow.

Such a property is observed even in a selfish desire which feels another as part of itself. In that case, it can’t be authentic bestowal. This is like a mother who is considered as giving since nature forces her to feel that her child is a vital part of herself. It’s as though he is still inside her, and that’s why she bestows to herself. She cares more for him than for herself since she views him as the most precious part of herself.

Hence, even though a mother bestows to her child, someone outside of herself, it’s not considered that she has attained spiritual degrees and is acting for the sake of bestowal. This is merely a natural instinct.

In order for the will to receive to start working with the intention to bestow, it has to receive the upper Light, the special force. We only say that it comes from some place outside. In fact, it wakes up in a person and begets in him the desire to bestow to another, the love for him.

“Another” is a person for whom I previously felt hate, resentment, and distance. I didn’t feel him as related to me, but rather felt him as an alien, an outsider. Despite all this, I suddenly feel the desire, capacity, and aspiration to bestow to and fulfill him. I want to view him as myself, while I realize that I don’t need anything in return.

If I expect to receive pleasure in return, it’s as though I act egoistically. That is, bestowal shouldn’t bring me any pleasure. On the contrary, it makes me suffer since in order to bestow to another, I have to deprive myself. Then, what could possibly make me want to give?

Therefore, we receive a specific force called the Light that Reforms. I begin to feel that on one hand, I am dealing with a stranger from whom I desire to receive, to take something he has. However, instead, I receive an external force that allows me to bestow to him without receiving any pleasure or benefit from it directly.

If I were to enjoy bestowal immediately and directly, it would be egoistic. However, I don’t feel him naturally as part of me and do not enjoy bestowing to him. It is the other way around. I overcome my egoistic desire, which doesn’t get fulfilled and becomes even emptier than before, and transfer all my efforts and fulfillment to him.

If I were to be asked why I am doing it, I wouldn’t have an answer in my selfish will to receive. There is another answer, though. What I do feel is the Creator’s greatness, my connection with the upper one; I fulfill the desire of the One who is higher than I am. I am motivated by a much more exalted ideal. However, words can’t explain it since the ego will always twist it so as to get some compensation from it.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/29/2011, Shamati #40

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