What Is, “The Children of Esau and Ishmael Did Not Want to Receive the Torah,” in the Work?
Article No. 36, 1990
It is written in The Zohar (Balak, Item 138), “When the Creator wanted to give the Torah to Israel, He went and invited the children of Esau, and they did not accept it, as it is written, ‘The Lord came from Sinai, and dawned on them from Seir,’ meaning that they did not want to receive it. He went to the children of Ishmael, and they did not want to receive it, as it is written, ‘appeared from Mount Paran.’ Since they did not want, He returned to Israel.”
It is said in The Zohar (Balak, Item 140), “Rabbi Shimon said to him: ‘This question is settled. The Lord came from Sinai, and from Sinai He came and was revealed to them. ‘And dawned on them from Seir’ means that from what the dwellers of Seir said, that they did not want to receive, from this it shown for Israel and added to them much light and love. Likewise, He appeared and shown to Israel from Mount Paran, from what the dwellers of Paran said, that they did not want to receive, from this, extra love and illumination were added to Israel, as it should be.’”
We should understand why it says that because the children of Esau and Ishmael declined to receive the Torah, it added extra love and illumination to Israel. It seems as though no one wanted to receive the Torah, and only Israel saved the day, and this is why He shown for Israel and added more light to them. It seems that otherwise, the additional love and illumination would be missing from Israel.
In the corporeal world, we can say that sometimes a person wants to give to someone something nice, but there is no one who wants to receive, and this pains the person. Therefore, someone feels sorry for him and accepts it, and then the person loves the person who did him a favor by accepting that thing. But how can such a thing be said with regard to the Creator, that the extra love and illumination that the Creator gives to Israel is because the children of Esau and Ishmael did not want to receive the Torah, while Israel did receive it?
To understand this in the work, we must remember that in the work, man himself is a small world, as it is written in The Zohar, that “Man consists of all seventy nations and contains the quality of Esau, the quality of Ishmael, as well as the quality of Israel.” As we learn, the quality of Israel is in exile under the governance of the seventy nations of the world, which are generally called “will to receive for oneself,” while Israel are called “desire to bestow upon the Creator.”
It is known that there are two discernments:
1) The purpose of creation, which is to do good to His creations, namely for the creatures to receive delight and pleasure. The Creator’s desire to bestow created in the creatures a desire to receive delight and pleasure, meaning that wherever the created being sees that there is something to enjoy, it immediately yearns to receive the pleasure. This is called “the Kli [vessel] that the Creator created,” as it is written, “Which God has created.”
2) The correction of creation. However, there is the matter of the correction of creation, meaning that in order to prevent the shame, a correction took place, where it is impossible to receive with the Kli that the Creator created, and which is called “will to receive for oneself.” Rather, man must make a new Kli, called “desire to bestow,” like the Creator, whose desire is to bestow upon His creations. Likewise, the creatures must make this Kli, or the delight and pleasure that the Creator wants to impart upon His creations lie under concealment and hiding. This is the meaning of the words, “which God has created,” meaning the will to receive, “to do,” meaning what the creatures must do, which is the desire to bestow, which is absent in the creatures and they must make it, so they will have a desire to bestow.
We should ask, How is it possible to do the opposite of what the Creator created, which is the will to receive for oneself? How is it possible to revoke the work of the Creator, called “will to receive,” and do the opposite? It seems as though a person is acting against the Creator?
The answer is that man cannot revoke the will to receive that the Creator created. Thus, why is it required of us to do everything for the sake of the Creator, since it is against our nature?!
However, there is the matter of light and Kli. A Kli is called “desire,” and desire is called “a lack,” and “light” is the filling of the lack. The rule is, “There is no light without a Kli.” Hence, the creatures must provide for themselves a Kli, meaning a lack, for there is a rule that any lack pertains specifically to the creatures, and not to the Creator.
It follows that the creatures must perform actions and seek ways to find in themselves a lack, which is that they want all their actions to be for the sake of the Creator, but they cannot, so the creatures see and feel this lack of a desire to bestow, which they cannot obtain by themselves.
However, in order for it to be clear that they cannot obtain the desire to bestow, the creatures must first exert on their own. Otherwise, how will they know that they cannot obtain that lack by themselves? However, we should ask, Who needs this awareness that man is incapable of obtaining the desire to bestow by himself?
The answer is that man himself needs this awareness. Otherwise, he will not ask the Creator to help him, since he will think that he has time to do everything in order to bestow, since it is within his power to do everything in order to bestow whenever he wants.
For this reason, man must first work by himself to obtain the desire to bestow, and only then can he make an earnest, heartfelt prayer, meaning have a real need for the salvation of the Creator, that He will give him this desire to do everything for the sake of the Creator.
By this we can interpret what is written (Psalms 119), “Happy are those who treasure His testimonies, who demand of Him with all their heart.” We must understand the connection between his saying, “Happy are those who treasure His testimonies,” meaning that they observe the Mitzvot [commandments/good deeds] of the Torah, and “who demand of Him with all their heart.” As said above, we must obtain a need to feel that we are lacking the desire to bestow. Before we obtain this, meaning before we obtain the desire to bestow, we are unfit to receive the delight and pleasure, that the Creator wants to give to the created beings.
However, how can one obtain that lack? We are told that observing the Mitzvot of the Torah, this can bring one this awareness that he must obtain the desire to bestow. That is, by observing Torah and Mitzvot, when a person aims—by observing the Torah and Mitzvot—to come closer to the Creator, meaning to achieve Dvekut [adhesion], called “equivalence of form,” this can bring him to feel the lack of the desire to bestow. It is written, “Happy are those who treasure His testimonies,” meaning that this will give him a lack, after which he will be able to ask the Creator to give him this lack.
This is the meaning of the words, “who demand of Him with all their heart,” meaning that afterward, he can demand of the Creator to give him wholeheartedly, meaning to give him the desire to bestow, so that everything he does for the Creator will be with all his heart. It follows that then, by observing Torah and Mitzvot, he will come to a state where he can demand of the Creator to give him the quality of “with all his heart,” meaning that it will be for the Creator. In other words, he demands that the Creator will give him the desire to bestow, called “with all his heart,” since this is the only reward he demands in return for observing Torah and Mitzvot.
It follows that man’s work is to obtain a lack and a need that the Creator will give him a desire to bestow instead of the desire to receive that He has given him upon creation, for by this he will be rewarded with Dvekut with the Creator. Hence, although he asks for a different desire than the one that the Creator gave him, the Creator wants this. Baal HaSulam said about this that the Creator said, “My sons defeated Me,” in that they want a different desire than the one that the Creator gave them, meaning that they demand of the Creator to give them a different desire from the one He originally gave them.
Yet, the will to receive that the Creator gave, which is called “existence from absence,” is the axis of the whole of creation. However, the will to receive must undergo correction, which is called “the correction of creation.” That is, creation is called “will to receive for oneself,” and on it, an intention to bestow is placed. It follows that in the end, the will to receive remains, but has acquired a correction of the aim to bestow.
It follows that we should ask, According to the above, when a person begins to ask of the Creator to give him the desire to bestow, meaning to be able to do all his deeds for the sake of the Creator, why does the Creator not give him the desire to bestow as the person demands and asks? In the order of the work, we see that when a person wants to walk on the path toward obtaining the desire to bestow, he sees that he is going backward instead of forward. That is, the evil appears in him more intensely than it was disclosed in him while he was working in order to receive reward.
The thing is that we must know that the desire to bestow is only the correction of creation and not the purpose of creation, for the purpose of creation is that His desire is to do good to His creations, meaning for the creatures to receive delight and pleasure. Hence, if He gave them what they want right away, meaning the desire to bestow, they would be satisfied with the work in that they are bestowing upon the Creator and have Dvekut with the Creator, so what else do they need? For themselves, they need nothing, which is called “desiring mercy,” and they have no need to receive anything from the Creator, so the matter of the purpose of creation, which is His desire to give to them, would remain untouched.
But the purpose of creation, which is the objective, as it is known that everything is calculated according to the goal and not according to the means, for the desire to bestow is only a means by which to achieve the goal, so if he were to receive the desire to bestow, he would be satisfied with it and the goal would remain as an unturned stone, since no one would need it because they would already be satisfied in the work.
This is as it is written in the book A Sage’s Fruit (Vol. 1, p 118): “From all the above, you find that the soul is destined to acquire all 620 holy names, its entire stature, which is 620 times more than it had before it came. Its stature appears in the 620 Mitzvot where the light of the Torah is clothed, and the Creator in the collective light of the Torah. Thus you see that ‘the Torah, the Creator, and Israel’ are one.”
This means that this is the purpose of creation—that a person must achieve his completion and be rewarded with the Torah in the manner of the names of the Creator. It is not enough that He wants to bestow upon the Creator. Although this is a great thing, it is not the goal. Rather, man must achieve 620 times the amount that his soul had had before it clothed in a body. However, if he were to receive the desire to bestow immediately after a few prayers and litanies, he would have no need to obtain the goal for which he was created. This is the reason why a person does not receive the desire to bestow, and moreover, sees that he is receiving an even more excessive desire to receive than he had before he began the work on bestowal.
However, we should understand why after a person makes efforts to come closer to the Creator, which means equivalence of form, called Dvekut, as it is written, “And to cleave on to Him,” and they explained, “Cleave unto His attributes, as He is merciful, so you are merciful,” it was enough that a person did not receive what he asked for, meaning the desire to bestow. But why is he now getting an excessive amount of the will to receive, each time more than he had before he prayed to be given the desire to bestow? It seems as though it is a mistake from above, as though it is thought above that he is asking for a desire to receive, and is therefore given a greater will to receive. But he asked for a desire to bestow, so why is he given from above a greater will to receive?
The answer is that in order for him to need to receive the purpose of creation, to be rewarded with the Torah, called “the names of the Creator,” he is given a bigger will to receive each time. That is, to the extent that he does things in order to achieve the desire to bestow, he receives from above a desire to receive. And since when he asks for help from above, since he sees that he cannot emerge from its control, what is the help? It is as it is said in The Zohar about the words, “He who comes to purify is aided.” He asks, “How is he aided?” He replies, “with a holy soul. If he is rewarded more, he is given Ruach.” That is, through the help he receives from above, he is rewarded with assistance until he obtains his NRNHY. It follows that each time, he sees that he has more bad, and must ask for greater help each time.
This is as I heard from Baal HaSulam, who said about what is written regarding Abraham (Genesis 15), “And He said unto him, ‘I am the Lord, to give you this land to inherit it.’ And he said, ‘How will I know that I will inherit it?’ And He said unto Abraham, ‘Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and they will be enslaved and tormented four hundred years, and afterward, they will come out with many possessions.’”
He asked about the answer that the Creator gave him, “How will I know,” that the people of Israel will be in exile in Egypt. That is, this is the guarantee by which Abraham could know that after this act of being in a land that is not theirs, from this Abraham knew for certain that they would inherit the land. He asked, What is the answer? meaning that Abraham understood that this was the right answer. As we see, Abraham could argue with the Creator in Sodom, where Abraham kept asking, “Perhaps?” But here it is implied that he understood that this was the right answer and asked no further.
He said that the answer was to the question that Abraham had asked. This is perplexing. There is a question about Abraham, of whom it is written, “And he believed in the Lord,” so why did he suddenly ask such a question as “How will I know that I will inherit it?” He said that Abraham saw what inheritance the Creator wanted to give him, namely the inheritance of the land, and the whole purpose of creation is included in this land. But since there is a rule that there is no light without a Kli, meaning no filling without a lack, he therefore asked how it was possible that they would inherit the land when they have no need for it. As soon as they would receive some spiritual illumination they will be satisfied and serve the Creator with gladness and will not worry about anything, since they do not need more. Thus, they will have no need to inherit this land, which is the purpose of creation. Therefore, the question was that he did not see that they would have any need, and without a need, nothing is given, especially something as serious as the inheritance of the land.
To this the Creator replied, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs.” Eretz [Land] means Ratzon [desire]. That is, they will be under the rule of the will to receive, which does not belong to the people of Israel but to Egypt, and this is called “a land that is not theirs.” And they will be tormented four hundred years. “Four” is a complete degree, which the four Behinot [discernments/qualities] of HaVaYaH, which are from Bina, who is regarded as vessels of bestowal. It follows that “tormented” means that the Egyptians did not let them work with vessels of bestowal. “They will be enslaved and tormented,” in what? in “four hundred years,” meaning in the Sefirot of Bina.
It is known from the book of Sefirot that Malchut is called “units,” ZA is tens, and Bina is hundreds. This is the meaning of “four hundred,” that they were not permitted to work. When they prevailed and worked in the quality of Bina, which are vessels of bestowal, they had a big war with the Egyptians. It follows that Egypt enslaved Israel when the people of Israel worked in a manner of bestowal, and then they felt that they were in exile. But when we do not work with vessels of bestowal, we do not know that the Egyptians resist this work.
This is the meaning of what he says (Exodus 2:23), “And the children of Israel sighed from the work, and they cried out, and their cry went up to God from the work.” That is, by asking for help, they had to be given new lights each time, as he says in The Zohar, that the help that is given from above is regarded as a “holy soul,” and by this, the people of Israel will need the great lights because otherwise, they cannot emerge from the control of the Egyptians.
It follows that the Creator’s reply was that He would give them the need to ask for help, which is that each time, He will show them more bad, so they will constantly need to ask for bigger help. By this, the light of the purpose of creation will be revealed to them. This is called “this land to inherit it.” It follows that had they received from above the desire to bestow when they asked for it, they would have been content and would have no need to inherit the land. But since He gave them the will to receive and not the will to bestow, they received a need for the Creator’s help, by which it became certain that they would not be satisfied, but would receive the inheritance of the land.
It follows that specifically by being in a lowly state, it caused them to receive the great lights. This explains why when they wanted a desire to bestow, they were given a desire to receive, meaning that the will to receive grows where the lower ones should have received the desire to bestow when they asked for it. Hence, a person cannot say that he sees that his prayer is not heard above, and the evidence of this is that he is not given the desire to bestow. Instead, he must know that his prayer is being considered, and the evidence of this is that he is given an answer from above by being given what is good for him now, since now he will have a need for wholeness.
According to the above, we should interpret what we asked, Why does The Zohar say, “and dawned on them from Seir,” meaning that because the dwellers of Seir said that they did not want to receive, it illuminated to Israel and added to them much light and love? Likewise, “He appeared and shown to Israel from Mount Paran,” from the dwellers of Paran saying that they did not want to receive, this added extra love and illumination to Israel, as it should be.
We asked, Can such a thing pertain to the Creator, meaning that in truth, the children of Israel did not deserve to be given much light and love? Because they did not want to receive the Torah, for this reason He gave to Israel, meaning added to them. Otherwise, He would not be able to add to Israel much light and love.
When we speak of the work, we speak of one person. That is, if the children of Esau in a person and the children of Ishmael in a person did not resist the Torah but would agree to take upon themselves the desire to bestow, the quality of Israel in a person would be content and would not need the purpose of creation, as mentioned in the Creator’s reply to Abraham, saying, “Know for certain that [your descendants will be] strangers.” Specifically by being enslaved under the governance of Egypt, they will have a need to ask to be given help. And through the help, it will be possible to reveal to them the purpose of creation. It follows that precisely when there is resistance in the body, when we do not want to receive the Torah, it enables the Creator to add to them much light and love.