Since we've established that the desired product of the Unification of Attributes is that Infinite Light that is drawn down...if so why must we intend that in the unification of Wisdom and Understanding [Father and Mother] that through Wisdom the Light should be drawn down into Understanding, we should intend for the Infinite Light to reveal itself in Understanding alone?
...and the answer...that G-d implanted in the nature of the sephirot that they must receive the light only from one another... A man has a mind and feelings and although all have their source in the essence of the soul nevertheless the light of the soul can only dwell first in the mind...
In the revelation of the soul in the body, there is an order, and there are certain defined pathways. There's a mechanism for the revelation of the soul. In general, the mind precedes the feelings. Sometimes a person revels in a feeling as if it's divorced from a mental foundation. But the feelings always come out of the mind. "Man is born like a young donkey" (Job 11:12). Sometimes he stays a young donkey until the age of 5 and sometimes until 15. A young donkey doesn't plan out his desires, but his desires are still based on his mental cognition.
I don't always sit down and think about what I should desire and from this thinking start to love that thing. In fact, some people aspire that their feelings should always spontaneously appear without thinking. They don't want to sit and think and create categories of preferences. Nevertheless, it's irrelevant - since if I desire a strawberry it's based on mental mechanisms, that have a preference for a certain color, a certain taste, a certain smell. A small child does not actively use these cognitive mechanism but this doesn't mean that they are not present in the child.
The power of desiring is not limited to any particular object. But the object of the desiring is determined by one's cognitive values. Therefore the things a small child desires are based on his limited cognition. With time, and experience, and learning the objects change. We can still remember what objects in our lives we pursued because we valued them at that time.
A woman told a story about how she met the "Queen" of her third grade class. And she saw that she was neither pretty, nor smart, nor successful. So she had a feeling of triumph. It's possible that I was attracted to a certain girl in third grade because she had green ribbons in her hair. So as we mature we abandon the smaller things and seek the larger desires. The greatest desire being to love and fear G-d.
There are pre-determined ways for the Light of G-d to come into the world. He structured the sephirot as blueprint for our mental and emotional faculties, and we operate according to the order of these attributes. And since the structure is orderly, everything about our lives has an underlying order to it, emanating from preset mechanisms and pathways in our mind. The better we understand these mechanisms, the better we can understand our feelings and desires.
(The text in italics are the words of Derech Mitzvosecha by the third
Lubavitcher Rebbe, the Tzemach Tzedek. The bolded words are Rabbi Adin
Steinsaltz's commentary as heard on his shiurim on hashefa.co.il. The
rest is my commentary. All rights reserved to Rabbi Steinsaltz. Pictures courtesy of Moshe Schlass.)
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