LIFE AND DEATH

The sensation of death or life begins with the admittance to the spiritual world, and not when a physical
body is born or dies. “Death” is an exit of Light when the sensation of the Creator is gone from the Vessel,
the soul. Our present state is considered worse than death because we don’t feel the Creator whatsoever.
We do not even feel that we are denied of any Light, any sensation of the Creator. Feeling the Creator
means receiving a soul, the awakening of that point in the heart in each of us. The word, Kabbalah, is
derived from the word, Lekabel (to receive). Kabbalah is the science that teaches how to receive a soul and,
through it, to attain eternal life. “Death” means distancing from the Creator to its opposite pole (opposite
attributes). The precondition to receive a soul is the existence of a Vessel, and a Vessel is the aim for the
Creator.

Creation is eternal. Time and motion do not exist. We only speak of inner sensations of the creature.
Changing inner situations evoke the sensation of time and motion. The Zohar speaks of spiritual degrees
and of situations of the eternal soul, about measures of its fulfillment with the Light of the Creator. But the
sensation of animate life can accompany a soul if a person receives it. Otherwise it is as it says: “…so that
man hath no pre-eminence above a beast” (Ecclesiastes 3, 19).