When I read The Book of Zohar, I want it to change me in some way: to take me through ascents, descents, impressions, and feelings. I don’t want to just hear the words, but I want to feel sensuous changes within me.

This does not happen right away. It is like a baby who does not hear or see anything during the first few days of his life, and then he begins to hear and see, but still doesn’t understand anything yet. After that he begins to actively learn about the world – and then there is no stopping him. He grabs hold of everything, climbs everywhere, he needs to touch everything and learn about everything. That is what we should do – learn from a baby’s example.

After all, this is how we are gradually born into the spiritual world. We need to learn from the example of a baby – to endlessly aspire to feel the spiritual world.

The spiritual world is the unification of all the individual aspirations to the Creator into one whole desire. It is within this desire that we will feel the Creator. When reading The Book of Zohar, we have to search for the sensations it describes inside us: “What is Atik, Arich Anpin, what does it mean to ascend, to descend, how do I join the AHP of the Upper Level, how does it raise me?” By doing so, you will be like a baby that grows and develops!

This is why it is written: “I labored and found.” It is up to us to make the effort and to desire the revelation. We have to aspire to attain the force of bestowal and unification, and then we will find it.

Some people find it difficult to feel, while others find it easy. However, when we are studying The Zohar in a group, everything averages out. If we all wish to achieve this, if each person strives for it according to his capabilities, then this will happen. It’ll simply happen to everyone sitting in the classroom or watching the lesson through the Internet or on TV.

We must only make a constant effort toward seeking out these sensations in us. Then we will gradually feel them inside us and will respond to every word in the book. What matters is not whether you understand what is written in the right or the wrong way, but the effort you make to awaken inner feelings and reactions to the words in The Book of Zohar.

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