<- Kabbalah Library
Continue Reading ->
Kabbalah Library

Baal HaSulam

Shamati
There Is None Else Besides Him Shechina [Divinity] in Exile The Matter of Spiritual Attainment What Is the Reason for the Heaviness One Feels when Annulling before the Creator in the Work? Lishma Is an Awakening from Above, and Why Do We Need an Awakening from Below? What Is Support in the Torah, in the Work? What Is, “A Habit Becomes a Second Nature,” in the Work? What Is the Difference between a Shade of Kedusha and a Shade of Sitra Achra? What Are Three Things that Broaden One’s Mind in the Work? What Is “Hurry, My Beloved,” in the Work? Joy with Trembling The Essence of Man’s Work A Pomegranate What Is the Exaltedness of the Creator? What Is the Day of the Lord and the Night of the Lord, in the Work? What Does It Mean that the Sitra Achra Is Called “Malchut without a Crown”? My Soul Shall Weep in Secret – 1 What Is “The Creator Hates the Bodies,” in the Work? Lishma [for Her sake] When One Feels Oneself in a State of Ascent Torah Lishma You Who Love the Lord, Hate Evil He Will Save Them from the Hand of the Wicked Things that Come from the Heart One’s Future Depends and Is Tied to Gratitude for the Past What Is “The Lord Is High and the Low Will See”? - 1 I Shall Not Die but Live When Thoughts Come to a Person The Most Important Is to Want Only to Bestow Anyone Who Pleases the Spirit of the People A Lot Is an Awakening from Above The Lots on Yom Kippur and with Haman The Advantage of a Land Concerning the Vitality of Kedusha What Are the Three Bodies in Man? An Article for Purim The Fear of God Is His Treasure And They Sewed Fig Leaves What Is the Measure of Faith in the Rav? What Is Greatness and Smallness in Faith? What Is the Acronym Elul in the Work? Concerning Truth and Faith Mind and Heart Two Discernments in the Torah and in the Work The Domination of Israel over the Klipot In the Place Where You Find His Greatness The Primary Basis The Most Important Are the Mind and the Heart Two States If You Encounter This Villain A Transgression Does Not Extinguish a Mitzva The Matter of Limitation The Purpose of the Work – 1 Haman from the Torah, from Where? Torah Is Called Indication Will Bring Him Closer to His Will Joy Is a “Reflection” of Good Deeds Concerning the Rod and the Serpent A Mitzva that Comes through Transgression Round About Him It Storms Mightily Descends and Incites, Ascends and Complains I Was Borrowed on, and I Repay From Lo Lishma, We Come to Lishma Concerning the Revealed and the Concealed Concerning the Giving of the Torah – 1 Depart from Evil Man's Connection to the Sefirot First Will Be the Correction of the World With a Mighty Hand and with Fury Poured Out My Soul Shall Weep in Secret – 2 Confidence Is the Clothing for the Light After the Tzimtzum World, Year, Soul There Is a Discernment of the Next World, and There Is a Discernment of This World On All Your Offerings You Shall Offer Salt One's Soul Shall Teach Him The Torah, the Creator, and Israel Are One Atzilut and BYA Concerning Achor be Achor Concerning Raising MAN The Prayer that One Should Always Pray Concerning the Right Vav and the Left Vav What Is “He Drove the Man Out of the Garden of Eden so He Would Not Take from the Tree of Life”? What Is the Fruit of a Citrus Tree, in the Work? And They Built Arei Miskenot Shabbat Shekalim All the Work Is Only Where There Are Two Ways – 1 To Understand the Words of The Zohar In The Zohar, Beresheet Concerning the Replaceable Explaining the Discernment of Luck Concerning Fins and Scales And You Shall Keep Your Souls Concerning Removing the Foreskin What Is Waste of Barn and Winery, in the Work? Waste of Barn and Winery Spirituality Is Called That Which Will Never Be Lost He Did Not Say Wicked or Righteous The Written Torah and the Oral Torah – 1 A Commentary on the Psalm, “For the Winner over Roses” And You Shall Take You the Fruit of a Citrus Tree Whose Heart Makes Him Willing And the Saboteur Was Sitting A Bastard Wise Disciple Precedes a Commoner High Priest What the Twelve Challahs on Shabbat Imply Concerning the Two Angels If You Leave Me One Day, I Will Leave You Two Two Kinds of Meat A Field that the Lord Has Blessed Breath, Sound, and Speech The Three Angels The Eighteen Prayer Prayer Still, Vegetative, Animate, and Speaking He Who Said, “Mitzvot Do Not Require Intention” You Labored and Did Not Find, Do Not Believe To Understand the Matter of the Knees Which Have Bowed to Baal That Disciple Who Learned in Secret The Reason for Not Eating Nuts on Rosh Hashanah She Is Like Merchant-Ships Understanding What Is Written in Shulchan Aruch His Divorce and His Hand Come as One A Shabbat of Beresheet and of the Six Thousand Years He Who Delights the Shabbat A Sage Comes to Town The Difference between Core, Self, and Added Abundance Dew Drips from that Galgalta to Zeir Anpin The Shechina in the Dust Tiberias of Our Sages, Good Is Your Sight Who Comes to Purify In the Sweat of Your Face Shall You Eat Bread – 1 The Lights of Shabbat Wine that Causes Drunkenness Clean and Righteous Do Not Kill The Difference between the First Letters and the Last Letters Zelophehad Was Gathering Wood Concerning Fear that Sometimes Comes Upon a Person The Difference between the Six Workdays and Shabbat How I Love Your Torah The Holiday of Passover The Essence of the War Only Good to Israel There Is a Certain People What Is He Will Give Wisdom Specifically to the Wise A Commentary on The Zohar The Work of Reception and Bestowal The Scrutiny of Bitter and Sweet, True and False Why We Need to Extend Hochma Sing unto the Lord, for He Has Done Pride And Israel Saw the Egyptians For Bribe Blinds the Eyes of the Wise A Thought Is a Result of the Desire There Cannot Be an Empty Space in the World The Cleanness of the Body Lest He Took from the Tree of Life I Am Asleep but My Heart Is Awake The Reason for Not Eating at Each Other's Home on Passover And It Came to Pass in the Course of Those Many Days The Reason for Concealing the Matzot Concerning the Giving of the Torah – 2 Concerning the Hazak We Say After Completing the Series What the Authors of The Zohar Said There Is a Difference between Corporeality and Spirituality An Explanation to Elisha's Request of Elijah Two Discernments in Attainment The Reason Why It Is Called Shabbat Teshuva The Customs of Israel Concerning a Complete Righteous You Shall Not Have in Your Pocket a Big Stone In The Zohar, Emor – 1 The Matter of Preventions and Delays Why We Say LeChaim Concealment And If the Way Be Too Far for You When Drinking Brandy after the Havdala Atonements Three Partners in Man Three Lines In The Zohar, Emor – 2 Honor Moses and Solomon The Discernment of Messiah The Difference between Faith and Intellect The Uneducated, the Fear of Shabbat Is on Him Make Your Shabbat a Weekday, and Do Not Need People Choosing Labor All the Work Is Only Where There Are Two Ways – 2 The Action Affects the Thought Every Act Leaves an Imprint The Time of Descent The Lots One Wall Serves Both The Complete Seven Rewarded - I Will Hasten It A Grip for the External Ones Book, Author, Story Freedom To Every Man of Israel The Hizdakchut of the Masach Spirituality and Corporeality In the Sweat of Your Face Shall You Eat Bread – 2 Man's Pride Shall Bring Him Low The Purpose of the Work - 2 Wisdom Cries Out in the Streets Faith and Pleasure Receiving in order to Bestow Labor Three Conditions in Prayer A Sightly Flaw in You As Though Standing before a King Embrace of the Right, Embrace of the Left Acknowledging the Desire Known in the Gates Concerning Faith Right and Left If I Am Not for Me, Who Is for Me? The Torah and the Creator Are One Devotion Suffering Multiple Authorities The Part Given to the Sitra Achra to Separate It from the Kedusha Clothing, Sack, Lie, Almond Yesod de Nukva and Yesod de Dechura Raising Oneself The Written Torah and the Oral Torah – 2 The Reward for a Mitzva–a Mitzva Fish before Meat Haman Pockets The Lord Is High and the Low Will See - 2 The Purity of the Vessels of Reception Completing the Labor Pardon, Forgiveness, and Atonement He Who Ceases Words of Torah and Engages in Conversation Looking in the Book Again My Adversaries Curse Me All the Day For Man Shall Not See Me and Live Happy Is the Man Who Does Not Forget You and the Son of Man Who Exerts in You The Difference between Mochin of Shavuot and that of Shabbat at Minchah Seek Your Seekers when They Seek Your Face Call Upon Him When He Is Near What Is the Matter of Delighting the Poor on a Good Day, in the Work? Examining the Shade on the Night of Hosha’ana Rabbah All the Worlds Prior to the Creation of the Newborn An Explanation about Luck A Thought Is Regarded as Nourishment Let His Friend Begin

Ramchal

Agra

Kabbalah Library Home /

Baal HaSulam / Lishma [for Her sake]

20. Lishma [for Her sake]

I heard in 1945

Concerning Lishma [for Her sake]. In order for a person to obtain Lishma, one needs an awakening from above, as it is an illumination from above and it is not for the human mind to understand. Rather, he who tastes, knows. It is said about this, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”

Because of this, upon assuming the burden of the kingdom of heaven, one needs it to be in utter completeness, meaning only to bestow and not at all to receive. If a person sees that the organs do not agree with this view, he has no other choice but prayer—to pour out his heart to the Creator to help him make his body consent to enslaving itself to the Creator.

Do not say that if Lishma [for Her sake] is a gift from above, what good is one’s overcoming and efforts, and all the remedies and corrections that he does in order to achieve Lishma, if it depends on the Creator? Our sages said about it, “You are not free to rid yourself of it.” Rather, one must give the awakening from below, and this is considered “prayer.” Yet, there cannot be a real prayer if he does not know first that without prayer it cannot be obtained.

Therefore, the acts and remedies he does in order to obtain Lishma create the corrected Kelim [vessels] in him that want to receive the Lishma. Then, after all the actions and the remedies he can pray in earnest since he saw that all his actions did not help him whatsoever. Only then can he make an honest prayer from the bottom of his heart, and then the Creator hears his prayer and gives him the gift of Lishma.

We should also know that by obtaining Lishma, one puts the evil inclination to death. The evil inclination is called “receiving for one’s own benefit.” By obtaining the aim to bestow, one cancels the self-benefit. Putting to death means that one no longer uses one’s vessels of reception for oneself. And since it is no longer active, it is considered dead.

If one considers what one receives for his work under the sun, he will find that it is not so difficult to submit himself to the Creator, for two reasons:

  1. One must strain oneself in this world in any case, whether one wants to or not.

  2. During the work, too, if one works Lishma, he receives pleasure from the work itself.

It is as the Sayer from Dubna said about the verse, “You did not call Me, Jacob, for you labored about Me, Israel.” It means that he who works for the Creator has no labor. On the contrary, one has pleasure and elation.

But he who does not work for the Creator, but for other goals, cannot complain to the Creator that He is not giving him vitality in the work, since he is working for another goal. One can complain only to the one for whom he works, to give vitality and pleasure during his work. It is said about him: “They who make them shall be like them, every one who trusts them.”

Do not be surprised that when one assumes the burden of the kingdom of heaven, when he wants to work in order to bestow upon the Creator, he still feels no vitality at all, and that this vitality would compel one to assume the burden of the kingdom of heaven. Rather, one should accept it coercively, against his better judgment. That is, the body does not agree to this enslavement, why the Creator does not shower him with vitality and pleasure.

The reason is that this is a great correction. Were it not for this, if the will to receive had agreed to this work, one would never have been able to achieve Lishma. Rather, he would always work for his own benefit, to satisfy his own desires. It is as people say, that the thief himself yells, “Catch the thief!” and then you cannot tell which is the real thief in order to catch him and reclaim the theft from him.

But when the thief, meaning the will to receive, does not find the work of accepting the burden of the kingdom of heaven tasteful, since the body accustoms itself to work against its will, one has the means by which to come to work only in order to bring contentment to his Maker, since his sole intention should be only for the Creator, as it is written, “Then shall you delight yourself in the Lord.” Thus, when he served the Creator in the past, he did not sense any pleasure in the work. Rather his work was compulsory.

But now that he has accustomed himself to work in order to bestow, he is rewarded with delighting in the Creator, and the work itself renders him pleasure and vitality. This is considered that the pleasure, too, is specifically for the Creator.