Where Do We Come From?
“We have to know that all of the souls extend from the soul of Adam HaRishon, for after he sinned in the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, his soul divided into 600,000 souls. This means that the one light that Adam HaRishon had, which The Zohar called ‘Zihara Ila’a’ [upper brightness], which he had in the Garden of Eden at once, spreads into numerous pieces.” — Kabbalist Baruch Ashlag (RABASH), “What Is the Degree One should Achieve In Order not to Have to Reincarnate.”
We now live in an existence of discrete states, which are separate and distant from one another, and even opposite in some ways. These uncombined, elementary and fundamental states hold no resemblance to one another, although they are all fragments of a single desire, which in the language of Kabbalah is called “Zeir Anpin on the level of Keter of the world of Atzilut,” and which Kabbalists describe as being a state that is divided into 600,000 parts. In other words, our distance and separation from each other emerges from a certain shattering that took place at a spiritual level before we can even start discussing our existence and sensations in the reality we know of as our world.
Following the initial shattering into the many discrete, separate and distant states from the single desire that we were initially created as, there emerged the descent of the shattered particles into our world. In other words, the initial pure desire that was created underwent a gradual spiritual coarsening and distancing from the quality that created it: the quality of love, bestowal and connection. Naturally, the quality of love, bestowal and connection within each particle increasingly diminished and each particle seemingly fell lower in its state until it reached the lowest state — a coarsening of desire to the point of it becoming egoistic: a desire to enjoy for self-benefit alone with no shred of a desire to love, bestow and connect to the others.
The inner part and nature of the egoistic desire, which initially does not reveal itself, seems to shed its outer shells that came from its creator: the quality of love, bestowal and connection. Its own structure, desire and nature — the desire to enjoy for self-benefit alone, which is an absolutely egoistic desire enclosed within itself — then becomes increasingly apparent. The latter egoistic desire is the desire of the person in this world, which we are born into and live through in our lives that we currently know.
We are now in a process of evolution of this egoistic desire. Its constant growth makes us increasingly egoistic, leading us to a point where we will realize that it is not our primordial and true nature, and living solely in the egoistic desire ultimately brings no genuine and lasting benefit to our lives. Today, as we head into this discernment, which Kabbalah calls “the recognition of evil” of our egoistic nature, we become readier to shed this egoistic shell from our innermost desire, rediscovering and reawakening our true connection as one great big desire, which Kabbalah calls “the soul of Adam HaRishon.”
As we transition from our inborn egoistic desire to the desire to love, bestow and connect that unites us all into a single great big desire — one soul — we accordingly shift from a perception of life as separate beings, which is transient and incomplete, to one where we all connect into a new interconnected entity, and where we discover eternity and wholeness. The wisdom of Kabbalah grants us the ability to undergo that transition faster, with more understanding and awareness, and with less suffering than if we were not to absorb its wisdom.