Understanding His Providence

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe are in a state of concealment, and we must understand that we are in concealment. A person is born and lives in this world in a state of total detachment from the true reality. He doesn’t know where he is and whether there is anything besides that. If there is, can it be seen?

When we feel the presence of something, it could be that it is hidden or revealed. So, the concealment is part of the revelation because I already know about the existence of something that is hidden. This means that people who are in a state of concealment are already on the way to the truth, although it is concealed from them at the moment.

This is already an advanced state because ordinary people don’t feel that something is concealed from them.

We go through four phases: double concealment, single concealment, Providence of reward and punishment, and eternal Providence.

As far as the two concealments are concerned, it isn’t detachment any more; neither a state of unconsciousness. In double concealment, I know that I am detached from reality and that I don’t see that the Creator determines everything that happens to me. In single concealment I feel that my life depends on my being in front of the Creator. But something that brought me to concealment instead of revelation depends on me.

So in a double concealment, I determine that I am detached from the Creator, and in single concealment there is contact, but I don’t perform His desire.

In the next phase, the phase of revelation, I receive reward and punishment according to the degree that I perform His desire. The punishment is eventually also a reward, because thanks to it, I advance. It shows me where I still have to correct myself, that is, where I am “behind” the present level, because a person is not demanded to do something that is beyond his power.

Eventually, I move on to eternal Providence after having corrected all my attributes, and I reach total mutual understanding with the Creator.

All these states were meant to make us understand the Creator’s Providence. This understanding is the sign, the means, the basis for all our success and wellbeing. If I know that I receive blows for some reason, it isn’t meaningless sufferings anymore, but a punishment that will do me good, or the good itself. Everything here depends on the level I am on and on my attitude towards the punishments.

It could be that as a result of the blows on my egoism, I will feel so happy that I will rise above these feelings and enter a state of Hafetz Chesed. So I have nothing, but I don’t suffer. Apparently this is impossible? Where is the envy, the lust, the honor? Everything remains below, but a lot of work is required in order to reach that.

So we gradually go through the phases of concealment and revelation, and go up the levels of the spiritual worlds. It is about individual discernments, about a person’s internal states, but it is clear that they are realized only if I try as hard as I can to be incorporated in the right environment. Otherwise I won’t be able to rise.

Sometimes it is hard to tie all the internal work with the work in the group. But actually, it isn’t a problem, I should only check and connect these two components more carefully. All the work is in the group; all the feeling is inside me.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot

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