Regarding the sefirah of kingdom, it is said, “It has nothing of its own.” This refers to a crisis that does not arise from anything external or incidental. In the previous part of the lesson, we discussed three deep anxieties, with the most complex—and most fitting for the modern age—being anxiety over existential emptiness.
It is possible that someone feels loved and connected, they are doing well and succeeding, both materially and spiritually, they have good livelihood, peace at home, success in their mission and in society—"everything is fine"—but they feel that nothing is "worth it," that they cannot find their place in the world, "Why am I here?!" They don't know why God created them and what their purpose is in this world. On the contrary, the greater their success, the more emptiness they feel. This experience causes deep frustration, without being able to pinpoint the cause of the frustration and ultimately leads to a crisis.
This is the death of the king Ba'al-Chanan, who is the secret of the famous verse, “grace is false” (which blemishes the sanctified grace of kingdom)—the feeling that the entire reality is without charm and meaningless. At a deeper level, this feeling belongs to someone who takes ownership of grace but does not feel that grace is entirely a gift from God. Out of his pride—opposed to lowliness, which is the sanctified quality that emerges from kingdom—he experiences that although everything seems fine for him, and he is graceful in people’s eyes, he does not receive a fair response from the exterior reality, one that would elevate him and his significance. As a result, reality appears empty and meaningless in his eyes.
If we reflect on the location where each of the problems in every crisis is found, we see that in knowledge, the problem is “mine”—the breaking of the very essence of the “I,” my self-awareness (this is the breaking of the essential quality of “I will rule,” which plagued the kings of chaos). In loving-kindness and might, the problem is "yours," meaning that the blame is placed on the environment (the cheftza of “the object”)—while those close to me do not love me and threaten me. In beauty, victory, and acknowledgment, the problem is "mine" (the gavra, the person). The feeling is that I do not fit into society and am unsuccessful. In foundation, the problem is in the energy between us—between the two sides of the crisis in Shalom Bayit. Finally, in kingdom, the feeling is that no matter who is to blame for the problem—the main issue is that I suffer from it to the point of breaking. In essence, the problem is with the Creator, as if He created a world without meaning, which is the secret of the first contraction, where God withdrew the light of meaning and left a void and emptiness.
