🍇 SATURDAY PRAYER: MALCHUT- GRACE FOR THE FIRST SHABBAT MEAL
READING: SUNSET FRIDAY
SALT AND PEPPER IN SPIRITUAL WORK
-by Rabbi Michael Laitman
Now a person is able to distinguish between “strong spices” and the “food” itself. On one hand, he needs his desires to receive as “spices.” But on the other, he does not enjoy them, but the real “food” whose flavor they bring out—his degree of bestowal. One is built on the other.
And one does not need a lot of pepper, salt, or mustard to bring out the flavor of food, even though you cannot manage without them either. The same happens with our efforts to add our own aspiration to the work of the Light. It does not need to be big; a big effort is not required of us. But this effort is necessary and it helps us “find.”
This is why we need to try to evaluate every state we experience: Whether our states are really spiritual and stand for spiritual advancement? Or perhaps these are additives with an opposite flavor: pepper, salt, and mustard, and not the flavor of the Light and bestowal. These additives help to separate the form of bestowal, the Light that comes to us, on their background—the form that is expected of us from Above.
But this work is very important; it is necessary for preparation of spiritual vessels. Our work is to make efforts, which leads to a “finding,” as it is written: “I have labored and found!” This is the main principal of spiritual advancement.