Channeling one’s passions and lusts for G-d:
Above we mentioned the concept of turning darkness into light. What does this actually mean? So, here is a tangible example of turning darkness into light within one’s own soul. One of the central elements of every animal soul is the element of fire. It is this element that is responsible for one’s lusts and passions for all the physical pleasures of the world, which are considered mundane and dark, being empty of holiness. The way it works is as follows: The element of fire within the animal soul becomes naturally heated which leads to the creation of a flame of passion. This flame of passion that comes from this element of fire needs to be quenched, and it hence begins lusting after all matters that give a person pleasure. Unfortunately, this often leads to one falling prey to pleasures that are either forbidden in their essence, or are superfluous and not for the sake of serving G-d, which is also a level of evil. This is the natural darkness that the soul lives with in this world. However, the good news is that this darkness can be turned to light. How? Through quenching one’s lust for pleasure of his element of fire with service of G-d, with igniting a powerful and intense passion to cleave to G-d. Cleaving to G-d is no less pleasurable than whatever physical pleasures one enjoys, and on the contrary, the pleasure in cleaving to G-d is infinitely greater than any worldly pleasure that one can experience. To accomplish this however one must first remove his passion from the physical pleasures of this world through cooling off his excitement for them and repulsing evil. This will naturally cause the passion that results from the heating up of his element of fire to be channeled towards G-dliness.
- The Divine lesson: The above teaching is most insightful. It explains why in life there are times that we are emotionless and apathetic, lacking excitement for anything including its pleasures, and other times we are filled with excitement and passion. This has to do with the element of fire in our animal souls being heated versus being dormant. What subconsciously heats it is beyond our control and understanding, and it could be based on mystical changes taking place on high regarding our soul, or based on a specific mission that we need to accomplish that day as known only to G-d. However, there also exists conscious ways of heating one’s spiritual element of fire, such as by drinking red wine, or speaking of, or observing, those things from which one receives pleasure. This explains why on Yom Kippur we ask for forgiveness for sinning with our evil inclination, as although all sin is with the evil inclination, at times we’re the ones who consciously arouse it. Now, the greatest part of the above teaching is that from it we learn that one is not expected to suppress and extinguish his heat and flame of passion that comes from the element of fire in his soul, but rather simply to re-channel it to a different pleasure, a pleasure of holiness that is experienced through cleaving to G-d. Hence, next time one is aroused with a passion for one of the worldly pleasures, try taking out a book of Tehillim and reading some of the passages with great emotion knowing that by reading it one is cleaving to G-d.