What Is the Definition of a Correction in Kabbalah?

In Kabbalah, a correction is a change of the intention — from an intention to receive to an intention to give — upon the desire to enjoy, which is our nature.

We undergo such a correction, the setting up of the intention to give or to bestow, with small bits of the desire to receive, from the smallest to the greatest, and not on all desires at once.

By correcting our intention upon the desire to receive, we ascend the upper spiritual worlds, also called “the ladder of spiritual degrees,” from the lowest — our world — up through the worlds of Assiya, Yetzira, Beria, Atzilut and Ein Sof. When we reach the world of Ein Sof, we attain the state called “the end of correction,” which is the final destination to which we are all headed.

The wisdom of Kabbalah lets us attain our corrected state with more awareness, speed and enjoyment than if we were to continue remaining solely in our desire to receive with an intention to receive for self-benefit. Before we make a correction, we have no spiritual sensation. We merely seek to satisfy our desire to enjoy for self-benefit on degrees of food, sex, family, money, honor, control and knowledge.

How do we then even start recognizing the need to start correcting the intention upon our desire? In every generation, some people are granted a desire for spirituality beyond the corporeal desires. The desire for spirituality, which Kabbalah calls a “point in the heart,” is a tiny desire that emerges among our desires to receive, and it cannot find satisfaction in our corporeal desires. It can only be satisfied by performing the aforementioned correction. By doing so, we equalize our intention with the spiritual quality of bestowal, and we then discover the upper spiritual worlds.

Ultimately, we all evolve to undergo that correction as it is the only way we can feel true, eternal, perfect and everlasting fulfillment. Such fulfillment is the purpose for which we were created. That is, we were not created solely to receive transient corporeal pleasures in our desire to receive for a few years, but rather to achieve the eternity and perfection of attaining the same intention to bestow as the Creator upon our desire to receive. We will then delight in everything that the Creator has prepared for us.