A question I received: In books, there is always a main character of the story. When I read a Kabbalistic book and try to imagine all the internal forces are there also a central force as well as less important secondary forces?

My Answer: When you read a Kabbalistic book, what counts is not your understanding, but rather your effort. Spiritual revelation is a contradictory process. On the one hand, revelation is an intimate, individual process that occurs within me, and on the other, the forces that are needed to attain the revelation come from other souls through my connection with them. It looks like a contradiction in terms. I would rather my desire for spirituality stay one on one with the Creator and the Light that Reforms. Yet, if I wish to reveal spirituality, I can do so only in the Light of bestowal which comes to me through the group.

So it follows that I use my point in the heart (a desire for spirituality) to read the Kabbalistic book, and while reading to want to put together the picture within myself as it is described in the book. But what material serves me as a basis for the changes I undergo? For this practical work, I am given the environment, the group. Only by being interconnected with each other whereby I relate to them correctly and they do the same in return, can we raise our request, MAN.

In return, I receive the Light that Reforms; that is, I am granted a correct attitude that enables me to see what is written in the book. That is when I begin to transform myself and see my authentic connection with others. At this point, establishing union with others is no longer a problem. They become my world through which I implement what I read about; by connecting with others, I feel the property of bestowal, our interconnectedness that the book was depicting.

For now I only sense an irresolvable conflict. I agree to have a relationship between myself and the Creator, myself and the book, myself and the Light, myself and myself, myself and the world, myself and the group, but I always insist that everything starts with me! Here, however, I need to connect with the others in order to serve them, to act only for their benefit. This is something totally unclear to me.

How can I possibly switch the attention from myself to the others without feeling the difference between us? How can I open and give away my heart to them? At first, I refer to a Kabbalistic book using my egoism, but later on, I begin to understand that I need the force of bestowal. That is when I appeal to the group so as to receive a sensation of bestowal from it. And when I realize that I do not have and cannot have this property, I understand that I need the Light that Reforms which helps me transform myself in accordance with the book.

Having a common desire which we receive from the group, we all raise MAN. In return, I receive the Light of correction and begin to relate to a Kabbalistic book differently. I can build myself in accordance with the book’s instructions, like putting together a Lego set.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/10, The Zohar

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