✔️ FRIDAY PRAYER: SOME KABBALISTIC DEFINITION – THE SPIRITUAL MEANING OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS

FRIDAY PRAYER: THE SEVEN LEVELS OF SPIRITUAL CLARIFICATION

READING: between afternoon and sunset of THURSDAY

THE SPIRITUAL MEANING OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS

-by Rabbi Michael Laitman

A question I received: Will I always feel darkness while being in the preparation stage, where my desires are not corrected yet?

My Answer: How can you feel darkness if you don’t know what Light is? The darkness you feel now comes from the fact that you feel bad from not having fulfillment in your desire to enjoy. However, this darkness is egoistic, rather than spiritual.

The Zohar talks about a different kind of darkness. It’s when you want to ignite your desire with love for the neighbor, bestowal, and a connection with others. It’s when you desire the Upper Light in order for it to reveal the connection between you and others. This is what Kabbalah means by Light and darkness. It’s when you reveal evil within yourself, work on yourself and want to connect with other people in order to bestow upon them, but you are unable to do so. This sensation is called “night” because you sink into the darkness of egoism.

However, if while being in this dark state, the night of egoistic desires, you make efforts during the study and you desire the Light to come and correct your attitude toward other people, and you believe that love for others is Light and day, then the night gradually dissipates and a tiny luminosity called “dawn” begins to emerge. You begin to feel your attitude to others changing,  you really want to bestow upon them, and you start to feel much closer to them.

Suddenly, you understand that Light means bestowing upon others. Light is kindness, the feeling that all others are parts of you. Previously you wanted to feel love and goodness inside these desires, but you couldn’t, and that’s why everything was so dark. But now in these same desires, you feel that you can be kind to others, and this means that the Light is shining from them upon you.

The difference between darkness and Light is only your attitude, whether you can bestow inside your desires or not. This is called spiritual Light. In order to attain it, the Surrounding Light has to come and correct your perception, thoughts, attitude, and definitions of good and evil, as well as what is Light and darkness, night and day. In spirituality, everything is measured relative to the force of bestowal.

-Rabbi Michael Laitman