The Zohar In Any Language

Dr. Michael Laitman A question I received: Do you have any recommendations to enhance the effects of reading The Zohar text while listening to the simultaneous translation during the daily Kabbalah lesson?

My Answer: People who gather around a Hebrew text reader unite even though they have no command of any other languages other than their native tongues; they sense how much the words of The Zohar influence, correct, and fill them.

We stay within a system that is called “The Zohar.” The Zohar is not just a book. Each of its words “presses” some buttons and triggers its elements to move. This is how we launch it. We have no idea what this system really is. Even if we knew the correct, clear, and accurate translation of each word, we wouldn’t know a thing. We don’t know what we activate by pressing the buttons.

Therefore, an accurate and beautiful translation into any language won’t help much. For a person who speaks Hebrew and for whom it is his/her native language, it becomes even more complicated. They listen to the familiar words, but don’t know what they mean.

If you heard a translation of my current words you would hear some abstract sounds, and yet you would strive to reach the spirituality that is hidden behind my words. Those who hear these sounds and at the same time understand what I say feel as if they are already satisfied. It is as if their desire to be pleased has been filled and they have received something. For them, it is much harder to penetrate deeper into the inner meaning of the words. They think about the “earthly” meaning of words in The Zohar like “banners,” “people,” “animals,” and “colors.” They listen to the text and draw pictures in their imagination.

But you don’t. You hear an alien language without any understanding of its meaning. That’s why you can link anything you want to the words you hear. You can be sure that we talk about the soul, the spiritual conditions under which it becomes filled with the Light, and about the revelation of the spiritual world. Imagine! It is the best!

After you learn Hebrew, it becomes more difficult for you. There is an advantage in NOT knowing the language. The mixture of the languages happened specifically to help us connect with each other. This “perversity” triggers the connection among us. In fact, it is not a perversity; but rather, a revelation of the remedy that helps to establish a union among us.

It seems to us that the mixture of the languages happened for the sake of separation. It is not true. It occurred intentionally to make our connection possible at the spiritual level rather than at the level of “everyday common language.” It is worth confusing our worldly relations to the extent of being unable to communicate with each other if, as a result of this confusion, we wish to attain a “heart-to-heart connection.”

The Zohar Is Our Life Buoy

Dr. Michael Laitman A question I received: How can we connect the articles from the book of Shamati, which we are studying during the preparation to the lesson on The Zohar to The Book of Zohar itself?

My Answer: Everything we study in the science of Kabbalah is meant to keep us in constant connection with the Creator. In order to be connected to the Creator, to hold onto Him, to know how to properly and purposefully work out all of our states and situations, and to remember that they are sent to us by the Creator, we need the Light that Reforms. This Light needs to constantly illuminate for us that everything comes from the Creator and that it is given to us in order to advance. I evoke this Light again and again, repeating this cycle.

Importantly, The Book of Zohar connects me to the source of the Light. The Zohar is protection, it is our life buoy.

Every Person Has His Own Egypt

Dr. Michael Laitman A question I received: I feel bad right now, while it is written that the Creator is “Good that does good” and “There is none else beside Him.” How do I turn this negative feeling into a positive one in order to truly feel that the Creator is good that does good?

My Answer: If you turn your desire into a good one, you will feel that the One who caused all this for you is also good and does good, according to the law of equivalence of qualities. It is written: “Even when a sharp sword is raised over you, you will not despair in His kindness.” After all, this all comes from the Creator and every person receives a “hardened heart” (like Pharaoh whose heart was hardened by The Creator) in order to come out of his state of Egypt.

Evening Zohar Lesson – 03.22.10

The Book of Zohar — Selections, Chapter “VaYaera (And The Lord Appeared),” Item 201
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Ask And You Shall Understand

Dr. Michael Laitman A question I received: How does the Light that Reforms work when we read The Book of Zohar?

My Answer: I have a desire to understand what is written in The Book of Zohar. I ask the Light to give me this opportunity. What does it do? It changes the intentions over the desire in me. This change works so that within this desire I begin to understand what is written in The Zohar. Everything I feel, hear, see, and think now is presented in my desire. The whole reality is carried out in it.

If I read a book and I don’t understand it, it is because my desire or my sense (Kli) does not perceive what is written in the book. How can I perceive it? This is possible only if some force comes and changes my desire. After all, my reality is clothed in my desire. The Light that shines within the desire creates all these forms for me. My perception and understanding change only if my desire changes. Therefore, all my aspirations, all my appeals are to the Light, for it to change these forms for me. In response, it changes them by changing the desire.

Within an improved desire I begin to feel new, more perfect qualities, the next degrees. Always the Light itself is constant. To the extent that our desire changes, we will begin to perceive a new and different reality. This is precisely what we need. After all, everything is a result of a change within the desire. And this change is performed by the Light.

What Kind Of Society Did Baal HaSulam Write About?

societywrite A question I received: What kind of “just” social framework does Baal HaSulam write about in the article, “The Nation”? Is he really concerned with organizing a more comfortable, well-fed life within the boundaries of this world? How can this be the concern of a Kabbalist who knows that everything is governed by the Upper Force, and we are temporarily placed within this world only in order to correct our soul?

My Answer: Despite what you say, Baal HaSulam also knew that people will reach a point in their development when they would reveal that they lack the Upper Force to correct their relationships. Then they will need the science of Kabbalah because only the Upper Light can correct the relationships between people. There cannot be a good relationship between people unless they are connected by the Creator. Only through Him can people unite with one another. In other words, life itself will force people to reveal the path and forces of correction.

Two people can never be connected with one another directly, but only through the quality of bestowal, which is called the Creator. Baal HaSulam understood this very well since he possessed the highest spiritual attainment. However, in order to bring the regular reader closer to this, he starts his explanation from afar. When a person understands what kind of unity and connection we have to attain according to nature’s plan, and that this is inevitable, the only thing remaining for him to do will be to reveal the means of implementing the correction: the Upper Light that Reforms.

Of course, Baal HaSulam did not think of socialism or communism as a goal in and of itself in order to create a well-fed life for the average person in this world. Rather, he had great understanding and personal attainment of the goal of creation.

Why Did The Marxist Theory Fail?

evilworld A question I received: Baal HaSulam writes about things that humanity went through a long time ago – socialism and communism. Aren’t these things ancient history now, and we don’t want to go back to them?

My Answer: Our entire reality takes place inside our egoistic desire, which develops and undergoes different stages as it gradually grows under the influence of the Upper Light. This is also why the desire invents various theories regarding what kinds of relationships are more beneficial for it to have with its nature and with human society. It is according to this that its attitude to socialism, Marxism, and all other periods’ changes.

This is not determined by how “developed” or “undeveloped” we are, but only by the Upper Light’s influence upon us. It leads us through various social structures in order to develop our egoism. Therefore, we have to understand the way by which the Upper Light leads us through all the socio-economic formations because then we will understand what Baal HaSulam writes about in the newspaper, The Nation, and this will also help us to understand the things happening to us today.

Baal HaSulam thinks that Marx reached an awareness of the process of correction by the Upper Force, but thought that people would reveal their spiritual birth, which is inherent in nature, on their own, through practice. However, Baal HaSulam ascertained that this theory can only be applied in a developed society, rather than Russia, which was socially and politically retrograde.

House Of Assembly And House Of Study

Dr. Michael Laitman The House of Assembly (Beit Knesset – synagogue) and the House of Study (Beit Midrash – request) are the rungs inside a person where he can fit all his questions, explanations, desires, and thoughts. The House of Assembly is a place for gathering all the means for achieving the goal. It is where he tries to pray near the Amud (column), the middle line. The House of Study is an even higher rung, like two rungs: return in trembling and return with love.

In the beginning, we acquire the forces of bestowal and after that we already can work with them by receiving for the sake of bestowal. The House of Assembly is a place where I gather all the forces to ask for and to achieve the property of bestowal, while the House of Study (Midrash – request) is where I am the one who begins to request and reveal the Light of Hochma inside the Light of Hassadim.

Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 03.22.10

Preparation to the Lesson – Shamati #10 “What Is Make Haste My Beloved In The Work
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

The Book of Zohar — Selections, Chapter “VaYaera (And The Lord Appeared),” Item 159
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

“Beit Shaar HaKavanot,” Item 46, Lesson 15
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Article – “The Individual and The Nation,” Lesson 5
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Entering The Spiritual World

Dr. Michael Laitman The Zohar tells us about the upper system which includes all of us. However, there is no need to explain it in great detail, because we simply follow the story and wait for it to influence us. Then the picture becomes clearer, as though appearing through the fog. It’s like a child who gradually becomes familiar with the world, learning about various things around him, how they’re connected, and how to use them.

Similarly, we naturally grow this way in the new world. Now we’re approaching that world and it is beginning to emerge more clearly before us. First we begin to “hear” something, and later on we start to recognize these sounds. This is the way we enter the sensations of the spiritual world.

Therefore, it doesn’t make sense to explain a lot since spirituality must be revealed in sensation, inside the desire rather than inside the mind. Instead of studying spirituality theoretically and being satisfied with that, we have to enter the spiritual world.