Evening Zohar Lesson – 04.29.10
Posted on April 29th, 2010
The World of Atzilut is separated from the Worlds of BYA by a special screen called Parsa. This is not just the end of one world and the beginning of another, but a special shield the World of Atzilut has from the lower worlds, separating them and not enabling them to connect.
The protective shield has the quality of Bina, the quality of bestowal, mercy. If anyone wishing to receive approaches this boundary from below, the sensation of this quality throws him back because he is an egoist.
This is how all the qualities of Bina operate (such as Noah’s Ark, womb, city walls, and the letter Samech). They indicate what is spirituality: that it is “for the sake of bestowal.” That’s why a person who is an egoist runs away from it if he is not ready for it.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/29/10, Beit Shaar HaKaVanot
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A question I received: Do I feel just my reaction to the Light and never the Light itself?
My Answer: That’s right. “The Light” is my reaction to bestowal and I don’t know where or from whom it comes from. The Light is what I feel within me; it is my desire to bestow, the impression inside my will to enjoy.
The same thing is true in our world: I don’t know what causes my pleasure. I take a piece of cow, make a steak out of it, put it in my mouth, and enjoy it. Can you explain that? The cow is surprised, thinking, “I have half a ton of meat, so why don’t I enjoy it?”
In other words, everything depends on the desire, not the fulfillment. The spiritual vessel is HaVaYaH (Yod, Hey, Vav, Hey) or desire, and the Light in it is designated by additional letters, meaning other desires. Yet, we use them to designate the Light, the desire. I never feel the “meat,” but only my impressions of what I call “meat.”
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/29/10, “Matan Torah”
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A question I received: Why does it sometimes take many years before a person begins to hear about the need to unite?
My Answer: We exist in this process throughout all of history. From one generation to the next, in all our reincarnations, our entire development is meant to bring us to a state where we will be forced to unite. Our whole history began with the breaking of the common soul, our spiritual vessel. From that time on, all these fragments collide with each other, hate each other, and do not understand who they are, where they came from, and why they exist. The most important thing for these fragments is the constant battle between them.
Gradually, step by step, we must come to a thorough understanding that due to our hatred and egoism, we miss out on a lot, in fact, so much so that we must unite. Why? It is because gradually, in the process of our development, we discover that we are connected. We can either kill each other or live together in peace.
However, there is a problem for those who feel an aspiration toward spirituality. The whole world advances toward unity by the path of Beito (in due time). Out of hopelessness, by thinking logically, a person sees that the world must unite. Yet on the other hand, one reveals that we are incapable of it. This is what the whole world feels. Whereas those in whom a point in the heart has awakened begin to hear that we must unite, and that only by uniting can spirituality be reached. However, they do not feel a need for unity. It turns out that some reveal a need to unite, but don’t know how since they have no means for it, while others have the means with the help of which they can unite but lack the inner need for uniting, although the rest of the world has it.
It appears that these two groups, the outer and inner parts, will need to come together and augment each other. We present them with a method of unification, and they give us a need to unite in the same manner that a baby transmits its needs to the parents, and this helps the parents obtain what the baby needs.
Therefore, the external society is the carrier of an inner need for unification, and we are possessors of the method of unification. In this way, we complement each other.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/10, The Zohar
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The Zohar, Chapter “BaHar (On Mount Sinai),” Item 78: And even though he is called “a son,” a firstborn son to the Creator, as it is written, “My son, My firstborn, Israel,” He should not exclude himself from being a slave, serving his father in all the works that glorify his Father. Thus, every person should be a son to his father, to search in His secrets and to know the secrets of His home, to exert for them and to be as a slave to his father.
Everything depends on one’s properties and desires. In small desires, when a person doesn’t have anti-egoistic screens, he is a slave. Upon acquiring big desires and the screens, he is a son. Yet not a single spiritual degree, no matter how great it is, erases the previous ones. Nothing disappears in spirituality: the degrees co-exist without cancelling one another.
What’s the benefit of preserving small degrees (Katnut) on a big degree (Gadlut)? In the Final Correction, they all come together into one picture that contains all previous degrees and attainments.
The reason is that once we begin to understand our previous states and correct the “wicked” (sins and transgressions), they don’t disappear. We see how wrong or right we were on these degrees, how we blessed or cursed the Creator. The entire scale of properties – both extreme right and extreme left, from the past or the future – join together, offering us the full might and richness of revelation.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/10, The Zohar
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A question I received: Do we attain the properties that we read about in The Zohar during the preparation period or after crossing the Machsom?
My Answer: We begin to discern within ourselves various reactions to all these names and terms even before crossing the Machsom. To the extent that we want to rise above our desire to receive pleasure, we begin to differentiate between the giving and receiving desires. Ultimately, there is nothing more to scrutinize.
It is said, “In the future the angel of death will become an angel of sanctity.” This means that there are no bad or good desires, only the desires for the sake of bestowal or for the sake of receiving. Everything depends on the way we use them. “Haman,” “Terah,” “Abraham,” “Elazar,” “Rachel,” and “Laban” differ only in their intention and in strength.
Therefore, by trying to keep one’s intention for the sake of bestowal – to learn, understand, and discern it through the group – a person will also react differently to every name and definition, so much so that that he will reveal their “tastes” or sensations: pleasant and not so much, shining and irritating. He will start discerning various shades in them.
However, after the Machsom, a person attains them in a clear and precise manner. Then they are clothed in him and he discovers them in practice.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/10, The Zohar
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A question I received: There are people who do not study Kabbalah and yet they understand the importance of giving; they try to take actions to help others. Will they reveal spirituality by doing so?
My Answer: Why would a person want to help someone else? His egoistic nature tells him, “Take care of yourself first. If you can profit from the other, treat him well, if not don’t.” It corresponds with the law of nature.
The problem is that people think they are “outside” the laws of nature because they don’t know them. They invent their own laws that allegedly can be applied to our society and people. Communists exterminated millions of people realizing this abstract principle.
We have to study nature and understand how we are supposed to act rather than invent new laws of our own. Otherwise, we’ll arrive at the same result as Russia. It strived to be an example for the world and actually did so, but only as an example of how not to act.
A person will never simply do “good” to others since it goes against his nature. Our nature is to receive the maximum while giving the minimum. That’s the law. Ask any psychologist, sociologist, or biologist. Our history and nature teach us that we are unable to unite on our own, although nature forces us to do so. All attempts to unite usually trigger wars.
Kabbalah reveals itself to the world at the time of its tragic deadlock and desperation, and offers the Upper Force as an instrument for correcting our nature. At first glance, this solution seems unrealistic. However, the very idea of changing human nature is equally unrealistic. Yet it is simply inevitable for our survival. For this reason, humanity will eventually accept Kabbalah. The only question is how much more suffering will it take.
[13338]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/10, Article “Matan Torah”
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Egoism, which is rooted in our nature, is the reason for our suffering. Since nature is inescapable, people attempt to limit the use of egoism by reaching all sorts of agreements, realizing that otherwise egoism will lead to confrontation and war. Countries make all possible efforts to sign treaties while at the same time they realize such treaties won’t radically change the situation, yet they understand that it is necessary to counter-oppose the power and the egoism, to curb it by force.
If only people knew that it is possible to correct our nature, that evil reveals itself through us specifically so that it could be corrected and bring us to something great and supreme! If only we knew that we can escape hardship, rise above death, and attain eternal and perfect life!
This is the knowledge that we try to bring to others, since merely understanding it will bring humanity tremendous relief. No one knows how much time it will take since nowadays time accelerates exponentially. This is why we have to keep working and not despair; we will see the fruit of our work in the nearest future.
We have to explain to the people why everything happens (for our correction), what the goal is (eternal and perfect life), and the good path to it (how to realize the goal with the Light’s help). Then people will understand what real life is, that it’s not just something we perceive at a given moment in our limited egoistic desires.
We sense transition from one Partzuf to another as death and the loss of everything there is. But if we perceived the world through the desire to bestow, this transition wouldn’t be felt as a loss since we would sense a larger, general system. Upon losing one’s Partzuf, a person still stays within the system and enters a new Partzuf. If one connects other people to his desire, he feels the eternal flow in everything that he undergoes.
Today, we don’t perceive eternity and it seems a disaster for us to lose our Partzuf and the ten Sefirot that we envision as “this life.” We don’t know anything except it.
It’s not so hard to explain this. Any person gains so much from listening to this information that he would want to know more. Ultimately, everybody dreams of eternity and perfection.
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/25/10, Article “The Peace”
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A question I received: Why do women devote so much time to their appearance? Why is it so important for a woman to be beautiful in her own eyes and in the eyes of a man? Does this phenomenon have a spiritual root?
My Answer: A woman’s desire to dress up and beautify herself stems from the Upper root. “To beautify” means “to correct oneself” and to attain similarity with the Creator, the power of love and bestowal.
This aspiration finds its root in the depth of the soul. Our “point in the heart” forces us to beautify ourselves and decorate our “disgusting” egoistic nature. To be beautiful means to be similar to the Creator. A person becomes handsome when the Light of the Creator illuminates him.
Why particularly do women beautify themselves? It is because in our world women symbolize Malchut, the root of creation. A man and a woman, a bride and a groom serve as an illustration of the relationship between the Creator and the creation. The creation is a woman, the Creator is a man.
Thus it follows that each of us (both men and women) have to beautify their souls and become good-looking!
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Preparation to the Lesson, Shamati #146 “A Commentary on the Zohar”
At the basis of my spiritual “I” there are two polarities, Light and darkness. I build myself on the contrast of the two opposites.
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaEra (And I Appeared),” Item 26
The Zohar explains the connection between small details. By aspiring toward a single interconnection I keep my focus on the Source and attract the Upper Light.
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Beit Shaar HaKavanot, Item 114, Lesson 36
The worlds are corrected from above by the Light of SAG, whereas the souls are corrected from below by our plea for correction.
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah),” Lesson 4
The entire universe becomes revealed in my attitude towards others. It’s like a “set” that was created on purpose so I could examine reality.
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