Making Room for the Creator

If you build a desire for the Creator, He will reveal Himself in it. The wisdom of Kabbalah explains how

“If you build it, he will come.” This whisper from beyond the grave in the 1989 film, Field of Dreams, led Kevin Costner’s character to rearrange his life so he could build a baseball diamond. By doing so, he enabled deceased baseball players to miraculously appear and play a game of baseball that they had not had a chance to play during their lives. But only Costner’s character could see the baseball players; he was the only one who could interact with them.

Somewhat similarly, Kabbalists state that if we build a place for the Creator, He will emerge in this place and fulfill it. But only the person who builds this place will be able to feel Him and interact with Him.

Attraction to the Unknown

Unlike the mysterious voice in the film, the call to build a new “place” for the Creator starts with a feeling: an attraction to something unknown, beyond the boundaries of our entire life experience. First, we begin to search for something without knowing exactly what it is. We ask questions like, “What's the point of my life?” “Where did I come from and where am I going?” and we feel that we must have them answered.

The quest for something unknown indicates that a new desire has awakened in us—a desire to discover life's source. And this desire is precisely the “place” where the Creator will eventually appear.

This is not a physical place, but a place within our internality. It is a desire in our hearts that Kabbalists call “a point in the heart,” which gradually grows from a small point to an entire “place” where the Creator becomes revealed. This place, which starts out as a point in the heart, eventually grows into “the soul”—the vessel that holds the presence of the Creator.

The Soul - The “Place” to Build So He Will Come

Kabbalah explains that no one is born with a fully grown soul. It is rather something we create gradually. Our initial desire for something new and unknown is an initial “point” of the soul, which can be developed into a fully grown, eternally existing soul. It can be compared to the little dot of a fetus that you see in ultrasound photographs after just two months of its development in the womb.

However, unlike the case of a fetus developing into a baby, a point of the soul does not grow into a soul by us just sitting there and waiting for the developmental process to run its course. Rather, the process of developing our initial “point in the heart” into a fully grown soul is completely up to us. It depends on our active participation and the efforts we make to build this “place.” And to the extent that we cause the initial point to grow, we begin feeling the Creator within it.

The Wisdom of Kabbalah – the Tools for Building the Soul

The wisdom of Kabbalah provides the tools for us to grow our souls, the place for the Creator’s revelation. This method offers guided advice and instruction on how to work with that inner point, how to differentiate it from all the other desires one has, how to understand what it is and where it comes from, and how to assume responsibility for it. All this allows us to nurture this point and grow it into a fully developed soul.

What happens when the growth is completed, when the “place” is ready? The Creator immediately appears in it and fills this desire with sensations of eternity and perfection. These sensations come from connecting to our life’s source, which is perfect and eternal. Such an attainment, called “the revelation of the Creator,” is the goal of Kabbalah study. In fact, the entire method of Kabbalah is aimed at building this “place” for the Creator’s revelation.