A Request
Posted on January 31st, 2010 at 9:47 am
Dear 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.
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Dear Rav Laitman, in answer to your request: I only recently started studying all your material on your blog, KabbalahToday, Twitter, etc.. By the way it amazes me how much you ‘produce’ every day again and for me everything of it is part of a puzzle. I am joining Bnei Baruch’s wintercourse and I realize that I am so fresh in this material that I have no right to speak or draw any conclusions. Nevertheless it awakened me for some reason and I will continue to let Bnei Baruch guide my feelings towards the right intention. Last december I received your books Shamati, The Zohar and Kabbalah for the Student. Of course I already read parts of The Zohar and until now it is one big mystery. It is that you wrote that it has a deeper meaning and nothing to do with corporeality, otherwise it is ‘just’ a (wonderfull) storybook… But as I said, I focus as best as I can on the deeper meaning. What helps me is following: I am a Tai Chi teacher and I have the honour to be student of world’s most skilled Chinese master. Now, allthough Tai Chi is totally on the corporeal level, I see similar things. Chi (energy) for instance is something strange, mysterious and the only way to discover more about it is practicing and interpreting what you feel. Every year I see my master twice, and sometimes he explains me something of which I would swear he explained it 180 degrees different the year before. But he always says: “I tell you the same thing every year, only every year you hear it different, because you grow…” I also sometimes discover (= feel) something new which make me finally understand a remark he made years ago and everything falls into place, everything I learned before but did not totally understand comes immediately on a higher level. So I know already I cannot understand everything immediately, but I am also sure that there is a reward if you keep studying seriously. And maybe reward is not the correct term because it refers to egoïsm, but I cannot find a better word. Like in Tai Chi: if you seriously invest your energy in your intention to discover all there is to discover, in time you will discover. So be patient, curious and never stop studying, that is my massage. I am one of the few people that stay with this Tai Chi master to a high level, most people leave him after a while because they want to learn faster then possible. Maybe not the answer you were looking for but I share this with you because it has become a conviction. Thanks to that attitude I will be able to read The Zohar again and again although I do not understand, untill I understand.
Warm regards, Jan Willem Bot (Holland)
Dear Rav,
Ever since I started to study the Zohar with the group (which is a short time, maybe 2 months maximum) I feel changed. I cannot say what “it” is that is changed. I don’t have a word in our dictionary to express it properly.
The closest thing I can describe is that “something inside of me has changed”. That is all I can say. Also, I feel a stronger connection with my physical group in Toronto.
I hope this will help others with their impressions and thoughts.
P.S. Some friends complain that The Zohar is hard to understand and some are disoriented. Well, to me, it feels familiar, very familiar, the stories in the Zohar, and your explanations afterward makes it easier to grasp. esp. the examples you give “taken from our world here” – that is a great help for me.
My feeling is as if the world as we know it is coming to an hult.
What lies beyond our perception is not being revealed yet, however its mass becomes thicker, denser and it draws us to it.
There is not much that I can do but desire to reveal it, so it will become apart of my perception, a part of me.
Lots of highs and lows in mood and in ability to function in work, family, etc.
Very strong feeling of the inability to connect, but a strong will to do, to find ways to connect.
Rav- when reading the Zohar, I feel nothing but anger and frustration that I do not feel, comprehend, or understand anything. Additionally, when joining the live lessons via Kabtv, I hear the words but understand nothing that you are saying; I might as well be listening to the lesson in Hebrew without an interpreter as it is all foreign to me.
The way I feel the text speaks to me is like describing a puzzle, and although it speaks about what I see in my individual piece of this puzzle, it does describe the edges of this piece, namely little details on the edges that I can recognize and match with I see in my relations with the others; the other pieces of this puzzle, so that I can rotate and arrange this individual piece that is mine in a way that will match these other details of the pieces that are seemingly outside, so that by connecting and nearing these pieces, the details start to combine in a way that make some sense, by revealing a new, larger picture.
Dear Rav,
What can I say but BRAVO! Your good works are being rewarded.
Dear Rav,
Thank you for teaching the revelation of the Zohar.
Right now I cannot stand to miss any Zohar lessons. I actually crave these lessons.
When you are teaching, I am mesmerized. When you are teaching I feel calm. (This is unusual for me.)
I understand, accept and am happy that I am not able to understand intellectually. Finally we are learning in ways that are not traditional and this is exciting.
During the day, my emotions are varied. I am experiencing BIG feelings – not overwhelming, but close at times. The emotions come as waves with space between. I receive them and feel them as the beginning of Reality – as if they are an experience – gifted from Above.
Also, I feel very tired and I wonder if the teaching of the Zohar has something to do with this. (?) As well, I am having a lot of dreams that I remember in the morning and stay with me during the day.
I am able to do my daily tasks without distraction and I am finding it easier to put Him at the front of all, more and more consistently. I also feel less attached to the details of this world. I attend what is necessary, without complaint but I’m not as engaged as I was emotionally. There has been a big shift in that area.
Things are moving very quickly right now. Thank you so much for teaching the Zohar. It is obvious that these lessons are quite necessary.
Zohar had a great impact on me, in one moment Rav’s lecture was happening, I was not aware of what really was going in on, but in the second later a huge awareness hit me come from nowhere, and I knew that was something great and unattainable, and knew in somehow that whatever happened to me in that second ago had to do within the Zohar text.
Now I want more and more classes, I want to know the real story, the wholly story about me, my friends, and the creator, I want to reveal what is inside me, I want to discover what is the infinity, and just try to understand the reason why we perish so much in this world.
I want to know what is behind the intention of the maker and what the roll is for it all, for the creatures on it. And most of all I want the great light of Torah, the light that reforms. Because I start to understand that if I stand alone I better be dead.
I start to understand that we have to unity, and one of the reasons for that is that we are already felling inside of each of us all the hatred, agony, fear, disillusion, towards others. It is the sign that this situation we are in now is out of control, can not exist, there is no more room for that in our lives.
I now understand that there isn’t any way out of it, especially if we depend in our power to do that. It is so clear now that does not matter what we will do we won’t be successfully if we don’t united.
Hopeless, week, and evil, is the natural state of the ego, but even that has an end, a remedy, the Torah, the light that reforms.
Thanks to Rav, and Bnei Baruch group and all the students in the whole world kli that keeps us united as one Man one heart. Thanks to the creator to gives all this unique opportunity to correct ours souls.
Dear Rav
The first thing that come in mind is the increasing of shifts and changes that have occured since we started studying the Zohar. Both pleasant and not so pleasant states like fealings shiftings from anger and darkness to states when you feel upplifted and warmth towards the friends. I´ve allso seen my bad qualitys in a more clear way more pointed out in some way. I can allmost recognize them like when I first came to kabbalah but in a more stable way, more prepared this time I guess.
I feel like the texts touches emotions inside and that it´s allways moving and shifting making it hard to keep up. Sometimes it´s like I get behind like I´m chasing it and then all I hear is empty words and sometimes it´s like riding a wave that speaks to me.
Dear Rav,
I cannot express how much the Zohar-lessons impress me. There is a continuous longing for the lessons, although I don’t understand what I read. I feel more warmth within me and advancements that I cannot describe, because I don’t understand them. I feel myself differently, as if unconscious ‘Things’ begin to reveal in me. It’s a wonder.
I am very, very glad with the Congress-program, I will be in Israel.
Thank you for your guidance!
Dorothea
When I first started with spring course, it wasnt allowed to study Zohar for new beginners.Silly me.. I have found it somewhere on the page and I began reading it. it was tough. it was a very difficult text. I wanted to close it down but I literaly failed to do it in my computer. it wouldnt close down. thus I read it although I could understand nothing.
months have pasted.Now I cant quite tell reality from illusion. There is probably no true way of telling all that I have been through. and I dont also think there is anyone literally reading these comments. so I dont really need to tell what has hapenned again.
I dont even know if there is a humanity out there..at times it gets better and I am dragged back into life through family and friends and then comes another wave and it gets a little deeper in the rabbit hole.
I like this blog though..I dont know if Rav Laitman is a real individual but it is a nice blog.
When I first started reading the Zohar it was like reading a foreign language…I had no idea what I was reading. But now I have felt something different happening. I feel a certain joy, and love, as if the words are alive, and around me, and I’m inside them. Too hard to describe in words…but it’s gentle and real.