Acting out of the Box

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“It is a natural law for every created being, that whatever is to be found outside the framework of his own body, seems to him to be empty and completely unreal.”

Surely not! But remember that the word “body”, as used in the Kabbalah, is synonymous with the word “ego” or our desire for self-benefit. Then this sentence by Rabbi Ashlag, taken from his work Matan Torah, is not so far-fetched. To understand why this is so, we need to examine what is the paradigm of our usual thought. What is the web of concepts and thoughts that form the threads that make up the texture of our lives?

In his commentary on the Etz Chayim of the Ari, Rabbi Yehudah Lev Ashlag writes:

“You should know, that the aspect of the will to receive, that forms the created being, is its vessel. This vessel is all the material that stems from its created aspect; such that the rest of the entity, other than its created aspect, relates to the Creator.”

But it transpires, that since all our senses and our imagination are aspects of our created nature, we cannot actually know in a direct way the rest of ourselves, our essence. This why, all that is outside of ourselves seems empty to us. It explains why acting as a giver inside of a receiver is very hard for us to do.

But the words of the Ari offer us hope. Our created nature is not all of us. There is another paradigm through which we may act, the paradigm of light. It is there waiting for us.  Even if we cannot sense it directly.

 Podcast based on writings of Rabbi Yehudah Lev Ashlag, from the Histaclut Pnimit, Part One; Matan Torah and the Introduction to the Zohar.