When we read The Zohar, we need to connect everything there is into one reality that already exists within our soul. The soul is what we call the Malchut of the World of Infinity (Atzilut), meaning all the worlds incorporated together, “I” or “the whole world and I.” All that belongs to my soul since my soul is a tool of perception.

Who is the Creator? It is the inner power that acts within my soul; it is the reason for my existence, the cause that forces me to pursue revelation of the universe and the Creator as the source of my life.

The Zohar tells us about the soul and its various parts as well as the states and processes it goes through. Because of my desire to learn more about the soul’s states and processes, the soul is revealed; I find the tools of perception with which I feel the actual world I live in, but which has, thus far, been concealed from me. Kabbalah is called a “hidden” wisdom since it is the study of the concealed world and the process to reveal it.

In addition to the study of Kabbalah, the group is given to us to help us disclose this world. The parts of reality which I call the “Kabbalah group” or my “fellow-group-mates” can help me with this task. They are the active parts of reality, the only active parts of reality. I can feel the group and want to connect them with me. Together with them, I can work to bring them closer to me.

I can’t work with the rest of reality this way because I don’t sense the same kind of feedback that I can get from the group. These active parts of reality are given to me by the Creator so that by working through them I can bring myself closer to the rest of reality as parts of my own soul.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - 1 Comment →

A question I received: What does it mean to “receive from the Creator in order to delight Him”? What is this referring to?

My Answer: Baal HaSulam explains this through the example of a guest and a host in “The Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah.” The guest comes to the host. The host sets the table for the guest because he loves the guest with selfless love, without any calculations, and the host really wants to give pleasure to the guest.

The guest feels how much the host loves and wants to give pleasure to him. The host knows ahead of time and prepares exactly the dishes the guest likes in precisely the proportions the guest would like. He has done everything exactly according to the guest’s desires – in quantity and in quality. Realizing this, the guest feels shame. What is he to do?

The guest refuses to accept the food, saying “I don’t wish to be a receiver! I wish to be a giver like you! You have shown me your love, and I feel it. How can I give the same in return to you?” The guest continues to think and recognizes, “But if I don’t receive anything, I am disregarding the host. Is this my response to his love?! What can I do?”

Accordingly, he finds the solution: “I will receive only for the sake of the host. Since the host has a desire to give, and he wants me to receive, I first need to enter his desire, so that this will become the goal for me. If I enter his desire, feel how much he loves me, how much he wants me to receive, and how much he suffers from the fact that I don’t accept his refreshments; I can work with his desire and think only about how to fulfill him. While I am inside his desire, striving to fulfill only him, I discover an opportunity to do this in me – by accepting the food and receiving pleasure from it. After all, I can bring delight to the host only through the pleasure that I feel. I must receive delight immeasurably, since I feel how I can fulfill him through this.”

In this manner everyone works with the desires of the other. The host thinks about how the guest will receive from him and experience pleasure. And the guest thinks about how he will receive and experience pleasure in order to fulfill the host’s desire to give him pleasure. Each uses his desires to fulfill the other’s desires. Meanwhile, each gains double, and even more than that; each comes out of himself, and in doing so, he feels infinite and boundless pleasure.

This patent seems very simple. However, if we begin to think about it, it appears difficult to achieve. Yet ideally if we understand it, we see this is our only opportunity to fulfill ourselves with infinite pleasure, since I use the desires of others outside of myself.

The Creator is an infinite desire, and I am merely a little point. However, if I begin to adjoin and connect to Him, I thereby acquire an infinite desire which I can fulfill. I begin to feel how I fulfill Him, and I feel how this desire is experiencing pleasure. It turns out that by treating Him with love, I receive infinite desires, an infinite life, eternity, and perfection. This happens if I treat the Creator as the goal which I must fulfill. Therefore, the science of Kabbalah is truly a science of reception (the word “Kabbalah” in Hebrew means “reception”), a science of how to receive and how to delight without limitation.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →