Seeing Darkness As The Greatest Chance

Get Through the Night, and Welcome the Dawn Those who work in the dark without sensing any taste of the reward should understand that this is very beneficial to their advancement towards bestowal. It is even more so if they don’t wish to be in any other state. Your effort is the reward, provided that you love the One who creates these circumstances for you.

You are given a chance to apply your efforts even while not being able to taste the reward resulting from your work. That way you have nothing with which to revive your egoism, your “evil inclination,” your arrogance, consciousness, intellect, and sensations. Precisely these conditions are the greatest chance to accumulate all your energy and to make that tremendous push, the effort that will advance you toward bestowal.

The reward for your effort is the chance to touch holiness from within the darkness. Then it’s clear that you are not being “bribed” by your desire to enjoy. Therefore, you should be happy for being placed into a state where you feel no pleasure, because that is how you grow.

To do this, however, you need the support of the group and the general inspiration from the world community of Kabbalists. This mutual support really helps.

Particularly during periods when you don’t get help from the Creator or from within yourself (which also comes from the Creator), you start to yearn for the support of your group. And indeed, it provides the best and most reliable support, directing you towards the goal. This is where you will find the point of applying the right efforts, as well as the opportunity for a collective prayer.

The Prayer Of Many

What Is Mutual Guarantee in a Virtual Group The Zohar: The prayer of the masses ascends before the Creator, and the Creator is beautified by this prayer because it rises with different requests: one asks for mercy, another – for courage, and a third – for pity. In addition, it includes several sides: the right, the left, and the middle.

However, the prayer of one person does not include all the sides and it has only one form: either he asks for mercy, or courage, or pity. Therefore, the prayer of one person is imperfect and it cannot be accepted as a common prayer is, since it does not include all three lines.

In order to come to a common prayer, a prayer for everyone as one whole, and in order to be one whole, one must first go through very difficult states of inner searching. A person has to understand that:

  1. The spiritual goal is more important than all other goals.
  2. It is impossible to achieve this goal alone, but only by creating one common aspiration out of all the individual aspirations. Then the aspiration will be similar to the Creator and the Upper Light will fill it.

Only this kind of request or prayer can be “heard,” meaning that only this kind of prayer is able to elicit the reforming actions of the Upper Light.

Reading The Book of Zohar awakens an inner realization that we need to be together, since without coming out of ourselves, it is impossible to attain bestowal, the Creator’s quality, and to exist in the Upper World.

It is written: “From love for the created beings to love for the Creator.” The Creator gave us an illusion that there are many people around us. We have to break through this illusion and understand that everything exists inside of us, and to ask Him to unify the whole world inside us.

Then the prayer of many will turn into a genuine prayer of one.

Reveal The Human Being In You

save Kabbalists gave us The Book of Zohar so that through it we would see the spiritual world and reveal the Creator. The science of Kabbalah is the revelation of the Creator to the created beings (see the definition in Baal HaSulam’s article, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”).

The Book of Zohar talks about me. Although its narration is rather strange, it describes what happens to me inside – and only inside! Much like my animate body consists of many parts and systems, so my spiritual body, the soul, consists of analogous parts and systems.

The matter of my animate body is the desire to receive and be fulfilled. The matter of my spiritual body is the desire to bestow and to fulfill. Only the spiritual body or the soul is the human being in me because the animate body cares only for itself, the animal, and exists only as long as this animal is alive.

So who is the human being in me? It is someone I have to discover, expose, and examine; this is the only thing that the science of Kabbalah and The Book of Zohar talk about.

I have to try to recognize my inner desires and their forms (qualities), which are described in The Book of Zohar through various names taken from our world. For example, the human being in me contains qualities called “Yaakov” and “Eisav,” a “bull” and a “mule,” “birds” and “trees,” “Adam HaRishon,” “Noah” and the “ark.” These are all qualities that exist inside me.

What do I get from engaging in this inner search? Do I actually discover all of these qualities? In truth, I do not! I will not find anything by searching. However, by exerting effort, I awaken the Upper Light – the revelation of the Creator. My attempts to recognize the Upper Qualities in me elicit the revelation of the Light and its Source, according to the principle, “Higati ve Matzati” – "I labored and found.”

He Who Gave Birth To Us Must Help Us

roots Malchut is incapable of being corrected on its own, since it is an inanimate desire. However, when it mixes with Bina (with the Nekudot de-SAG which descend under the Tabur of Galgalta), it takes on its qualities and begins to realize, “I want to bestow, I want to ascend and be corrected, and to become similar to the Creator!” This is how Malchut with the inclusion of sparks of Bina, sparks of bestowal, is formed under the Tabur.

However, during this inclusion, Bina receives Malchut inside itself and thereby separates into two parts: the upper part – Galgalta ve Eynaim, which is the pure Bina, and the lower part – ZAT de-Bina, Rechem (womb), or Ima (mother), which understands what kind of desires exist below.

The upper level contains a part of the lower level, and the lower level contains a part of the upper level. Stated differently, Bina contains a small part of Malchut and Malchut contains a small part of Bina. Now they can understand each other. Their relationship is analogous to a mother and a baby, where a mother understands what her baby is crying about, and a baby knows that there is someone to cry to. He instinctively feels that someone gave birth to him and is obligated to care for him.

If this did not occur, then the space beneath Tabur of Galgalta would forever remain empty and the creature (the will to receive) would never reach the goal – bestowal to the Creator. This is why each of our thoughts and desires contains a part of Bina and a part of Malchut. After all, if we only contained the part of Malchut, our world would be dead. All progress and development comes from Bina.

Even scientists are now discovering that when cells separate or when any other development occurs, there are altruistic actions taking place. There are always two opposite forces acting in Nature: the Creator and the creation, a plus and a minus. The inclusion of Bina inside Malchut is what enables creation to not remain locked in complete darkness and to begin moving in the direction of the Light. It’s because it gives creation an inner sensation that “There is someone who must help me!”

In much the same way, a newborn feels that the mother is obligated to care for him. He cries and yells because he knows that someone is reacting to him. He isn’t just crying empty tears, but directing them at someone.

Revealing The Creator Fulfills Us More Than 50 Billion Dollars

seeing.jpg In the article, “The Creator’s Concealment and Revelation,” Baal HaSulam describes how a person perceives the world once the Creator has been revealed to him:

“The person sees that all those who are on the Creator’s path are well-to-do, healthy, respected, calm and amiable, while those who do not aspire to the Creator are poor, sick, contemptible, stupid, and uncultured hypocrites.”

There is nothing but the desire to enjoy and the Light that fills this desire. The entire picture of the world that we see is determined only by the relationship between them. The world is not a reality independent from me, which I watch from a distance. Rather, each person sees what his desire to enjoy shows him.

Therefore, it is impossible to find two people who see the world the same way; the world can even appear completely opposite to them. This depends on the level of Light that fills the desire. That’s how individual our perception of reality is.

The Creator’s revelation is not measured by material parameters; it only changes a person’s vision. It is not the number of zeros in your bank account that changes, but your perception of them. A person who is illuminated by spirituality feels that he has enough of everything.

Meanwhile, even a billionaire usually doesn’t feel this way. A person who has 50 billion dollars is tormented by the fact that he cannot receive at least another half a million. He needs to see a little more added to his bank account everyday. It makes no difference how many billions are there already; the important thing is how much he was able to add today. This is what his life is all about!

However, if the Light is revealed to a person, then he needs no other awards, because he is already immersed in an ocean of goodness. If he has attained contact with the Light and constantly advances within it, he feels no lack for anything.

Is he healthy or ill in reality? He doesn’t feel that he is ill; he feels that everything is well. What will a doctor say if he examines him? It makes no difference, because everything depends on how the person himself perceives the world.

We don’t understand what this feels like or how it will occur. When the Light is revealed, a person does not rise above the illnesses and problems; rather, he remains with all of them and with the Creator. Otherwise, he would be erasing a part of what the Creator gives him, and this would take away from his relationship with Him.

Evening Zohar Lesson – 12.19.09

The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYishlach (And Jacob Sent),” Item 1
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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 12.20.09

The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYishlach (And Jacob Sent),” Item 21
The Book of Zohar forms a spiritual sense within us which is able to perceive the reality that is not yet visible to us, the concealed world. It is where the secret of our life is hidden.
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Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 79, Lesson 33
In the seven lower Sefirot, Bina discerns the desires of those that are below. Bina thus becomes a mother that understands her child, and the child has someone to cry to.
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The Creator’s Concealment and Revelation
Every person perceives the world according to his desires, and the desires depend on the Light which influences them.
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Moments From The Daily Lesson: Dissecting The Person Within Me

The Most Difficult Time Can Be The Best Time

Contradictions Bring Understanding One’s success at studying The Book of Zohar does not at all depend on one’s ability to mentally arrange everything it describes. For example, one day you might leave the lesson very excited about everything you were able to feel and understand, and happy about being able to understand what stands behind the names and words in this book. But the next day you leave the lesson disappointed, thinking, “I did not understand anything! The material was so dull and I just couldn’t concentrate. I made efforts for a few minutes at best, out of the whole hour and a half of the lesson.”

The truth is that you aren’t able to assess the situation correctly; your greatest gain came precisely from those several minutes when you were able to make an effort. We don’t know anything about the Upper World or ourselves, or the conditions for revealing it. All of this is concealed. However, if a person gives all of himself and makes efforts, then precisely when he is in a state of not feeling fulfilled or interested in the study, when nothing “shines” for him, yet he desires to prove that he wants to attain bestowal – that is the best time and the best state.

I can tell you from my experience that it often takes me several hours of working on the text of The Zohar until I begin to break through the barrier separating me from it. But it is the greatest joy in the world to feel how that impenetrable wall between us begins to dissolve…

The corrections you perform during those hours of “numbness” are the most important effort you can make on your path to the Creator! It is precisely in response to this effort that the Upper Light comes to you, instead of everything else that comes easily. Therefore, this hard work is the best possible state.

Head Toward The Creator And Don’t Look Back

Those Are Study Kabbalah Are Not Scared of Anything A question I received: Is it worth it to try to correct past mistakes?

My Answer: You are now at some point in your life. Everything that happened to you until now was not done by you at all. You were simply led to where you are now through various twists and turns and different situations. So what can you possibly correct? After all, it wasn’t the present “you” who did all of that, regardless of whether it was good or bad actions.

Let bygones be bygones. However, from this moment on, everything depends on you. So don’t torment yourself for the past; in fact, don’t think about it at all. By so doing, you will only stop your progress forward, like Lot’s wife from the Bible who looked back and turned into a pillar of salt. The most important thing is to always keep moving ahead and holding on to the present moment. Our main objective in the present is to find the means to help us move forward along the path.

I exist, and around me I have an environment which can help me expose the importance of the spiritual goal. I can only reach this goal by attaching additional desires to myself, because that goal is revealed inside those desires. And the only way I can attach those desires to myself is through the Creator, the shared Upper Goal.

Consequently, I have to combine myself, the environment, and the Creator into one point, and do it in the present moment. This is my only task and responsibility. Everything else, including the past, has no relation to this.