The Joy of Freedom from the Ego
“Freedom is when, on one hand, you feel that your egoism is holding your legs and does not let you get off the ground. On the other hand, you have the force that tears you away from it. And you are in between and you constantly control them.
This is freedom. Otherwise, if you break away from your egoism, you will not feel freedom. You need it to feel that you are torn away from it.” (Rav Dr. Michael Laitman’s words from KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 10/26/21)
“Freedom signifies rising above yourself to the next level. It is experienced relative to the previous level. That is when you can be considered to be free.
But with respect to the next level, you are once again no longer free. You exist below it and must rise to it in order to once again experience freedom. And so on, until you reach the final level where you attain equivalence with the Creator.
It is the highest level of freedom where all other levels exist below you. This is what we have to reach.Freedom is our final state, our goal. Kabbalah enables us to achieve it.” (Rav Dr. Michael Laitman’s words from the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian, 7/2/17)
“Freedom is associated with joy because it comes from the Creator. It is freedom from egoism and compulsion. Man is free because he is not opposed to the upper force, but he is equal and similar to it. This gives one a feeling of being fulfilled with upper Light, higher existence, and a higher understanding of the way of life.” (Rav Dr. Michael Laitman’s words from the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 7/2/17)
“The left line has to be loyal to its master by stating, “I want to be His slave. I want Him to govern me internally through the desires over which I have no control.” This is my freedom. My freedom is in choosing whether to remain under the domination of the Master or to leave Him. I choose His domination because I cannot feel any freer than when I am under His leadership.
Later, when I ascend higher, the level of the slave enters to the level of the son. The difference between the level of the salve and the level of the son is that I do everything my Father desires and not my Master. Now I want to carry out all His actions consciously, even if He doesn’t force me to do so. And, even if He didn’t know about it, here I work without connection to Him, and am like Him.
These two states have to be clearly felt by a person and then the third state appears between them, the middle line, when I am neither a slave nor the son. The middle line doesn’t exist in nature and is created and appears in the connection between the right and left lines, giving a person a feeling of complete freedom. It is like being in a vacuum, where the first condition of the slave doesn’t operate or have any impact on me, but neither does the second condition of the son.
I can totally disconnect myself from any connection with the Creator and be independent in all my actions, desires, and thoughts. Complete freedom!” (Rav Dr. Michael Laitman’s words from KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 6/18/14)
The Paradox of True Freedom
Freedom, as we understand it in the corporeal world, is an illusion. We imagine that doing whatever we wish — following impulses, desires, and ambitions — is freedom. But in Kabbalah, this is considered the deepest form of enslavement, because all our choices are dictated by the ego’s rule over us. The egoism that drives us to seek personal gain, power, and validation is our Pharaoh, our internal oppressor.
To control one’s fate, one must rise above this ego. This is not done by suppressing desires or disconnecting from life, but by entering a field of connection — with others, in a Ten or group of like-minded seekers — where one begins to feel the pull of a higher force that acts against egoism. It is between these two opposing forces — the pull of the ego and the pull of bestowal — that the sensation of true freedom is born.
Without the ego’s resistance, freedom could not exist. If the ego were annihilated, there would be no sensation of liberation, no independent self to choose the higher path. Thus, the Creator leaves the ego intact, powerful and alive, so that man can stand between two worlds — bound below by the gravity of self-love, yet drawn upward by the force of love for others — and experience freedom as a living tension between them.
Rising Above the Self
Kabbalists teach that freedom means rising above oneself to the next level. Each level of existence feels free only in relation to the one below it. A person who transcends his corporeal egoism feels as though he has taken flight, as though he has entered a new dimension of perception. Yet soon, he realizes that even this newfound freedom is a temporary station — a rung on the ladder of equivalence with the Creator.
At every step, the ego is renewed. The moment one conquers it, a higher degree of desire and resistance appears, demanding once again to be transcended. Freedom is therefore not a static state but an ever-renewing movement upward, from one level of enslavement to another — each time rising above the previous nature, expanding perception, and deepening resemblance to the Creator.
This dynamic process continues until one reaches the final degree of freedom — the state of total equivalence with the Creator, where there is no longer any separation between giving and receiving, between love and existence itself.
The Joy of Liberation
Why is freedom always accompanied by joy, flight, and lightness? Because it originates from the Creator Himself. The Creator is the source of all bestowal, love, and infinite expansion. When a person rises above the ego, even slightly, he touches that boundless state and feels the joy of the upper Light filling him.
This joy is not emotional excitement or happiness in the ordinary sense — it is the joy of harmony, of being aligned with the upper law of reality. It is the joy of no longer being in conflict with life, no longer constrained by inner contradiction.
“Man is free because he is not opposed to the upper force, but equal and similar to it.” In that equivalence, the soul experiences fulfillment, peace, and the exhilaration of existence in the flow of eternal bestowal.
The Three Degrees of Freedom: Slave, Son, and the Middle Line
The Zohar describes three fundamental states of a person’s relationship to the Creator: the slave, the son, and the free being who exists in the middle line.
- The Slave (Left Line — Malchut):
This is the stage of total submission to the upper governance. A person feels that the Creator rules everything, that he himself is powerless and dependent. Yet unlike the “bad slave” who resents his dependence, the true servant of the Creator accepts and even chooses it. He says, “I want to be His slave. I want Him to govern me through the desires I cannot control.” In this choice lies his freedom — because he aligns his will with the higher will. - The Son (Right Line — Zeir Anpin / Israel):
At a higher stage, one acts not out of submission but out of love. The relationship with the Creator transforms from Master-servant to Father-son. The son knows the Father’s will and fulfills it willingly, not because of compulsion, but out of conscious devotion. He performs every action joyfully, as if it were his own desire. - The Middle Line (True Freedom):
Between these two lines — the left of obedience and the right of love — appears a third force that does not exist in nature. It is born through their integration and balance. Here, the person is neither a slave nor a son; he is free. He stands as an independent being, detached from both compulsion and even from conscious obedience.
In this middle state, he can say, “I am independent of the Creator, yet I choose to resemble Him.” This is not rebellion — it is partnership. It is the Creator’s ultimate desire: that man should stand before Him as an equal, out of his own free will, choosing adhesion over separation, love over self-love.
Creating Man: Freedom in the Vacuum
The Zohar compares this freedom to existing in a vacuum — a space where neither the old state of enslavement nor the new state of sonship dictates behavior. In this vacuum, the soul feels entirely alone and free to determine its path.
But this freedom is not easy or quiet. It emerges amidst the turbulence of egoistic desires — waves of pride, envy, and self-importance that rise from the depths like muddy waters. Precisely on this background, one begins to build himself as a human being (Adam, from the word Domeh — similar to the Creator).
To feel free means to stand within that storm, sensing the full force of the ego’s pull, and still choose the Creator’s path — not out of fear or obedience, but out of love and awareness. This is the joy of freedom from the ego: to be in the middle line, alive, independent, and connected to the Source not by necessity, but by choice.
The Eternal Joy of the Chosen Path
Freedom is the thought of creation itself. The Creator did not wish to create obedient automatons or angels without ego; He created beings who could rise above themselves and become like Him.
Thus, freedom is not the end of the journey — it is the journey: the continuous choice to love, to give, to unite above all separations. Each time we choose this path, we taste the infinite joy of liberation, the sweetness of similarity to the Creator.
As we learn to live between the pull of the ego and the call of the Light, we discover the true meaning of flight: not escape, but elevation — ascending from bondage into love, from compulsion into choice, from separation into adhesion.
And this is the ultimate joy of freedom: to live, create, and love as a being who has become free from himself, and therefore truly alive.