The Right Intention For Reading The Zohar

Correction Depends Only On Desire, Not Knowledge Before we read The Book of Zohar, we have to be aimed at the goal. All the previous life cycles we had gone through were developing us in the material plane, where we were closed off inside ourselves. We only aspired to increase our internal will to enjoy, trying to fulfill it as much as possible. We experienced a connection with others only in order to use them for self-gratification.

This developmental process eventually brought us to a point where we have exhausted all the possibilities of being fulfilled. This caused a feeling of disillusionment in our attempts to feel perfection or pleasure in this manner. We know we cannot attain a perfect, eternal life, even though our ever-developing desire hoped for this. We feel that there is nothing left for us to do with this aspiration for ceaseless self-gratification.

But suddenly, together with the disappointment from this life, we reveal the point in the heart – a desire to find the answer to the question of how it is possible to attain that sensation of a perfect, eternal life. This desire pulls us outward instead of inward, away from the place where we had always tried to find fulfillment and perfection in life.

“Outward” means changing your attitude to other people, although you will only realize this much later. You always aspired to use your neighbor in order to fulfill yourself, but now you have to understand that there are no other opportunities besides changing your attitude to your neighbor from reception to bestowal.

By bestowing to your neighbor, you acquire a new desire – the desire of others, who are actually inside of you. You will discover that their desires are actually yours; they are the desires of your soul. If you acquire the right connection with them, then all these desires will become yours. They will be your vessel of perception (your Kli).

But is this really possible? Indeed, it would never be possible if we tried to achieve this on our own. However, this is what we have to accomplish in order to acquire the sense to perceive the spiritual world.

The spiritual space lies beyond your body. It is your attitude to that which is “outside of you.” Right now it seems non-existent, unreal, and unattainable. You reject these desires, which are “outside of you.” You cannot imagine that they belong to you, and therefore you can’t imagine what the spiritual world is. You can’t even surmise that when you attain these desires, within them you will reveal a fulfillment called “the Creator.” In the meantime, however, they seem non-existent or empty to you.

This blindness keeps you from feeling that the spiritual world is comprised of those “foreign” desires which are outside of you. Right now you perceive your attitude of reception to them as “hell.” If your attitude to them changes to bestowal, then you will feel that you are in “heaven” because you will feel everything that fulfills them – and you will desire for all of it to fulfill them as well. In other words, you create hell or heaven yourself, “outside” of you.

Therefore, in the beginning of your spiritual development, the Creator brings you to a Kabbalistic group. However, you don’t see it as being great or spiritual. It is written, “Every person judges others to the extent of his own faults.” Baal HaSulam explains in the article “The Creator’s Concealment and Revelation” that your attitude to others determines what you will find in them: emptiness or fulfillment, this world or the spiritual world, and even the World of Infinity.

Therefore, you have to convince yourself that spirituality lies in your attitude to everything outside of you, which is beyond the limits of your corporeal desires. It is written, “The Shechina dwells outside of man” (beyond man’s skin or surface, which refers to one’s animate desire on the level of Aviut Dalet – the skin of an animal).

A person has to accomplish this inner change using help from outside – from the group, which will give him the right sensation, understanding, and confidence. The group will convince him of this because the environment is capable of convincing us of anything. This is our primary task. This is why we hold friends’ gatherings, meetings, congresses, and all sorts of events; it’s to enable every person to be influenced by the right environment, which will convince us that spirituality is attained precisely by changing our attitude to others.

The entire study of the science of Kabbalah is intended to help us understand this, to be convinced of it, and to reveal the right attitude of bestowal, even love, for our neighbor. Through this attitude we will also reveal our true selves – our soul, or more exactly, our common soul, Malchut of Infinity. We will reveal the Shechina and the Creator ruling over everything together, as it is written, “He and His Name are One.”

This is the intention we should have when reading The Book of Zohar.

Becoming A Vessel For The Light

dependsonus A question I received: What is the connection between us, the place where you told us to look for all the qualities we read about in The Zohar? What is it a connection between?

My Answer: It is a connection between all parts of the universe including the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels, corporeality and spirituality, and between everything. The connection has to be common, integral, and complete in every way. All the parts have to be connected to the full extent, 100%. This will be called Malchut of the World of Infinity – the vessel for the Light.

It is a corporeal and spiritual vessel where everything in existence connects together without any differences. All desires, all phenomena, and anything I can possibly think about, imagine, feel, and understand must all merge together in a single harmony, complementing each other.

Right now all of this seems imperfect, divided, distant, opposite, and opposed to each other in all kinds of ways because we are looking at it with the wrong outlook. This is why we are seeing a corrupted picture.

Even in the physical world, quantum physicists are discovering that when they observe a phenomenon, they influence the occurrence by their observation. This finding is really true; they’re not imagining it. They have revealed an objective law. But they have only revealed a part of the law – the fact that everything is attained through a connection. But the second half of the law states that we feel everything inside of us, rather than outside, as it seems to us.

I am the observer and everything happens inside of me. This is why I change what is happening with my outlook and attitude. It’s because it all happens inside me, in my changing qualities. When I look at the world, I judge it according to my own flaws because it is through them that I observe the world. I influence the results by changing myself.

The whole world is the Creator’s kingdom, but it depends entirely on how I look at it. If I look at things positively, then everything is good, and if I look at them negatively, then everything is bad. Thus, the only thing I have to correct is my outlook.

“I Labored And Found” – A Guide To The Zohar

A Reshimo Is One's Complete Future State A question I received: When we read The Book of Zohar, why is it so difficult to follow your advice, and why can’t we seem to find these qualities inside us?

My Answer: There is only one advice: Keep going. It is written, “I labored and found,” and, “One is rewarded according to one’s suffering.”

As a child grows, years pass. The years are made up of many months, months consist of weeks, weeks consist of days, days – of hours, hours – of minutes, minutes – of moments, and in this manner, moment after moment the child grows more and more.

Growth takes time. However, in spiritual development, time is the number of actions performed by a human being. In our world we labor for twenty years not to change our inner nature but simply to adjust to corporeal reality which compared to spiritual reality, has no real form. We consent to our slow maturation in the material world, accepting it as “reality.”

However, in the spiritual world it seems to us that we can enter without any effort: open it to me, and I will enter. Of course, we say this only because we don’t understand that the entry occurs to the extent that we are similar to the spiritual world.

There is a law of equivalence of qualities, meaning how similar we are to the quality of bestowal. As soon as we discover how to use the spiritual world correctly, we will be allowed to enter it. However, before this occurs, we need to go through all the necessary preparation work.

The Book of Zohar is meant to bring us to equivalence with the spiritual world in the most quick and comfortable manner.

Preparation Is The Most Important Time

above Only the Light can reveal the truth to you; you cannot do anything on your own. The advice that Kabbalists give you is: Try to achieve love for your neighbor. As a reward for your effort, you will feel that you hate everyone!

And an even greater reward given is realizing your own evil. Following that, yet another, higher reward will come: You will understand that you are able to act in order for the Upper Light to correct you. We need to go through all such stages and it is impossible to do this alone. This is why we are brought into a Kabbalistic group. After all, we are able to feel all of these things only in the connection with others, by practicing mutual bestowal.

This initial stage of realizing one’s evil is the most important and difficult stage. Everything else, after the realization of evil, is carried out very quickly and relatively simply.

Therefore, the greatest challenge is to overcome the first degree. It is written that “a thousand begin to study and only one comes out toward the Light.” Everyone stumbles on this first degree; they fall, leave, run away, and are thrown off the spiritual path.The most difficult time is the time of preparation because this specific degree of preparation readies us for the rest of the path.

Right now, while we are in this world we are unaware that we are preparing ourselves for the degrees that will come later on, after a thousand different actions. And later when a person has attained high spiritual degrees, he receives freedom of will specifically by virtue of going through the preparation. It provides the foundation for all the other actions and gives us the ability to make those actions freely.

It is impossible for us to have freedom otherwise, while being on the degree of reception for the sake of bestowal.

It is only when we reveal the “transgressions” of the past – from the period of preparation – that we gain the opportunity to feel separate from the Creator, and therefore, free. This is an exceptionally high state where you are situated completely within Him, but in spite of this, you have the opportunity to say, “I can still be independent!” This is why our preparation today is so important.

A Request

clip_image001Dear Friends!

We are pioneers in revealing The Book of Zohar to all of humanity. We are personally perfecting the method of revealing the Upper World.

I understand how difficult it is for you. In order to shorten our path and accelerate the revelation, I ask that you send me your feelings, thoughts, impressions, and conclusions related to the study and perception of The Book of Zohar, as well as your reactions to how this text affects you.

I hope that this will help us to optimize our efforts and accelerate our revelation of the world of The Zohar.

There Is No Perfection In The World

clip_image001We think that the breaking occurred in the past. However, there was no breaking. We need to reveal that we are situated in a broken state.

Our desire seems whole to us now. Our life doesn’t seem broken to us; it seems perfect. We wish to advance by following the same path of our life. We think that we can continue the same way as always, find success and make new revelations.

However, in truth, if we are to advance, we have to apply effort to reveal that we are not situated in a perfect state, but rather in a broken one. We just don’t see our present state correctly, similar to how Pharaoh in Egypt sees himself as the supreme master and proclaims, “Who is the Creator for me to listen to His voice!?” But this false pride lasts only until he discovers that he is broken into parts.

He sees that the “nation of Israel,” his internal “Israel,” is taking him somewhere. He sees that he has no power over it anymore and feels the ten blows coming down on him.

The same goes on for us until we reveal our broken ego. We don’t receive the sensation of a broken state initially. That’s why we are currently living in it, yet it doesn’t seem broken to us.

To the extent we discover that it is broken, we receive even more egoism. It is revealed to us this way in order for us to discover spirituality in its true form, rather than the broken state.

Our task is to reveal the breaking. We need to ascertain that we are broken relative to perfection.

The Virtual Lesson – 01.31.10

“Beginning to Study  Zohar” – Lesson 13
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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 01.31.10

The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Miketz (At The End),” Item 7
My perception of people’s greatness or lowliness depends upon my own imperfections and my attitude towards others.
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“Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 130, Lesson 56
When the creation discovered to whom it was bestowing, it sensed an enormous pleasure. This caused it to break apart because it didn’t have a screen for this pleasure.
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Introduction to the Book of Zohar” Item 16, Lesson 8
Each step forward can be made either by running toward the good or by running away from the bad.
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It’s Your Choice To Study Kabbalah

alone.jpgTwo questions I received on why the study of Kabbalah is necessary:

Question: Can you please elaborate on why you see the study of Kabbalah as essential and as a condition for the ego to have the common soul shine in it? In my view, this is not essential. One can have the same effect through Tikkun Olam (correcting the world, in whatever form it may take, be it practical or spiritual), even if one does not study Kabbalah.

My Answer: You have not tried everything that’s out there yet, and what you do is your choice. Continue with your various attempts while you have the possibility and while the world still exists. Meanwhile, suffering will make you wiser and eventually you will choose Kabbalah.

Kabbalah invites you to find a rational proof, a precise theory, practice, and power to correct yourself, instead of choosing a technique with your eyes closed.

Question: You refer to how we will be pushed to spirituality and Nature will give us blows until we accept your teachings, not to mention the secretive ways you use in instructing your students to disseminate Kabbalah. To be honest it sounds like threats, and to be horribly blunt it sounds like “Nature” is violating its own laws. If the Creator violates his own laws, then why should we obey them?

My Answer: What are you talking about? There are no secretive methods. Come to our center and see for yourself.

There are no magic forces and secrets in the world. Everything is open to you. You just have to grow up.

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Evening Zohar Lesson – 01.30.10

The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Bo (Come Unto Pharaoh),” Item 230
The Book of ZoharSelections, Chapter “Miketz (At The End)” Item 1
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