All the troubles of the world, especially spiritual troubles such as
impatience, hopelessness, and despair, derive from the failure to see
the grandeur of God clearly. It is natural for each individual creature
to be humble in the presence of God, to nullify itself in the presence of
the whole -- all the more so in the presence of the source of all being,
which one senses as infinitely beyond the whole.
There is no sadness or depression in this act, but rather delight
and a feeling of being uplifted, a sense of inner power.
But when is it natural?
When the grandeur of God is well portrayed in the soul,
with clear awareness, beyond any notion of divine essence.
(p. 33)
The essence of serving God and of all the
mitsvot
is to attain the state of humility, that is, to understand
that all your physical and mental powers and your essential being
depend on the divine elements within. You are simply a channel
for the divine attributes. You attain this humility through
the awe of God's vastness, through realizing that
there is no place empty of it.
Then you come to the state of
Ayin,
the state of humility. You have no independent self
and are contained in the Creator. This is the meaning
of the verse: Moses hid his face, for he was in awe.
Through his experience of awe, Moses attained the hiding
of his face, that is, he perceived no independent self.
Everything was part of divinity.
(p. 72)
The essential quality to attain, the key to them all,
is humility, for this is the very first aspect of Keter,
under which all the rest are subsumed.
If you constantly strive to attain this quality, all the
others follow in its wake. For the first quality of Keter
is that it considers itself as nothing in the face
of its emanator. So, too, you should consider yourself
as actually nothing. This will lead to the attainment of all
the good qualities.
(p. 86)
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