Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

All the Languages Are Included in the Wisdom of Kabbalah

The names, appellations, and Gematrias [also] belong entirely to the wisdom of Kabbalah. The reason they are found in the other languages, too, is that all the languages are included in the wisdom of Kabbalah [they derived from the wisdom of Kabbalah and represent its particular languages]. This is so because these are all [nothing else but] particular cases that the other languages must be assisted with.

But one should not think that these four languages, which serve to explain the wisdom of Godly revelation, evolved one at a time, over time. The truth is that all four appeared before the sages simultaneously. In truth, each consists of all the others [the other three]. The language of Kabbalah [for example] exists in the Bible, such as the standing on the Tzur (rock), the thirteen attributes of mercy in the Torah and in Micah, and, to an extent it is sensed in each and every verse. There are also the chariots [the Upper systems of governance over the worlds that are described] in Isaiah and Ezekiel, and atop them all [King Solomon’s] The Song of Songs, all of which [in spite of their earthly romantic character] is purely the language of Kabbalah.

It is similar in laws [written in the style of legal documents] and in legends, and all the more so with the matter of the un-erasable names [of the Creator], which bear the same meaning in all the languages [meaning that all of them speak solely about one main point: the revelation of the Creator to a person].
– Baal HaSulam, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and its Essence”
[22853]

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Question: What do I do if while reading The Book of Zohar I keep thinking about various things including my new business?

Answer: This is wonderful! Let your egoism pray together with the group about the revelation of evil and its correction and also about the prosperity of your business. But it has to be everything together!

There is nothing outside of the system of correction. It is said that all “sinners” (egoistic desires) will be corrected and join the “righteous” (desires of bestowal and love). Why can’t your business be inside them? Don’t neglect anything; include everything into correction.

When the words “escape from the Pharaoh” are said, they do not mean running away from the Pharaoh, but rather ascending above him. It is said, “We left Egypt with great belongings.” We take everything there is, our entire ego, and exit. Thus, our ego becomes corrected.
[22826]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/7/10, The Zohar

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Question: When reading The Zohar, is “to receive the force of bestowal” the correct intention?

Answer: We do not need anything but the force of bestowal. There are only two forces in the entire reality: reception and bestowal. We do not lack the force of receiving. When we correctly prepare ourselves by working in the group and studying Kabbalah, the force of reception, our evil inclination, becomes revealed to us.

However, if I have not yet begun to arrange myself with the group or the study, I do not reveal the egoism against the Creator in me as something that hurts me, as evil. At first I need to reveal my evil. If I do not see the evil in me, I have nothing to begin correction with.

But when I reveal the evil in me, I reveal it in the group, and for this reason I already have the Light to correct it. After all, it is where I reveal my rejection of friends that I find the strength to overcome this rejection.

Question: If I do not feel the need to read The Zohar, do I still need to do it?

Answer: A person beginning to study Kabbalah needs to know that it is specifically the reading of The Zohar that helps him go through the stages of the revelation of his evil and its correction. The evil will keep being revealed, while he will keep rising above it until he reveals the entire altitude of evil, the entire 125 degrees between our world and the World of Infinity.

He will rise high, above the evil being revealed, to the top of the mountain as if he were on a funicular. This is why he needs both: the mountain, the evil that is being revealed, and the funicular, the force of the Light that lifts him to the top.

This is the reason we need to study Kabbalah, which reveals the evil to us. This is called “I created the evil inclination,” and then we need the force of correction, which is called “and I gave the Torah for its correction because the Light in it Reforms,” that brings me to the top of the mountain.

This is why in the beginning the Creator told Abraham: “Your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own,” meaning that they will be under the influence of the egoism, but they will leave with great wealth (egoism), and they will need its correction: the reception of the Torah, the method of correction with the force of the Creator, the Light. Having stopped using egoism (Egypt) and having turned it into a “desert,” they will then use it for the sake of bestowal and turn it into the “Land of Israel.”

There is only one desire, but the gradual changes of the intention over this desire turns the desire into “Egypt” (in Hebrew “Mits-Raim,” “the concentration of evil”), then into the Sinai desert (in Hebrew “Sinai,” hatred), until it turns it into good, the “Land of Israel” (in Hebrew “Eretz Yisrael,” desire towards the Creator). That is, one goes through the stages of the evil inclination – “Egypt,” then “bestowal for the sake of bestowal” – “the Sinai desert,” and then “reception for the sake of bestowal” – “the land of Israel.”

The desire to receive pleasure remains the same, you only determine your attitude toward it, which becomes increasingly corrected every time.
[22830]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/7/10, The Zohar

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Question: Despite the fact that you so meticulously keep trying to explain to us the mechanics of the spiritual worlds described in Talmud Eser Sefirot (The Study of Ten Sefirot), I still don’t understand anything.

Answer: I cannot be meticulous because there are too many details in it, which you are unable to remember. A person can remember what he feels and not some mechanical data. Even the latter he has to translate into impressions and only then he may remember them. Although memory seems to be part of the mind, it is the sensory experiences that are preserved in the memory cells.

Suppose I am entering some information into the computer now;  this data is the outcome of my sensory experiences since my substance is based on feelings. It perceives good and bad in multitude of forms. When I enter this information into the memory, I give my impression a definition; otherwise, it won’t be recorded.

I have to assign a specific place for this in my memory, give it a title and definition, similar to how we specify the complete passage through many “slashes” when we are dealing with a link on an Internet page. In the same manner, the “address” in our memory is formed. And even though this memory is “mechanical,” it still records impressions. If I begin to remember an event from the distant past, I suddenly experience my forgotten feelings and remember a scent, a sound, and so forth.

Therefore, if we have never felt the spiritual world, we cannot remember information about it. That is why Baal HaSulam was so angry when he met “Kabbalists from Jerusalem” who were practicing mechanical memorization of  Kabbalah theory and thought that it was enough to succeed. This is not our way. We try to study Talmud Eser Sefirot, but do not evaluate our spiritual advancement by how much knowledge we obtain. We measure it by how much we can feel!

What can you possibly know if you don’t feel the words, as it is written: “Taste how wonderful the Creator is”? Does a person know what these words mean? Has he ever felt what they signify? If not, then his knowledge is worthless. We are studying in order to draw the Light that Reforms! Our desire, as described in The Book of Zohar and Talmud Eser Sefirot, gives us an opportunity to connect with the material.

But we don’t understand what it means that Zeir Anpin is falling asleep or is ascending with MAN to Bina; for us, they are merely words for now. Hence, for now, the entire Kabbalah is an empty science, but it gives us the foundation for a desire, preparation, and the cause for revelation. I wish to know it since everything in the text is talking about me and what is happening within my soul!

Who is ascending from Malchut to Zeir Anpin and Bina? My soul ascends, receives fulfillment there, and returns back down! All these actions are occurring in me right this instant, but I don’t feel it. I wish to finally feel what are they like? Why do I suddenly have such eagerness? This is because your spiritual gene, your  Reshimo, has woken up.
[22845]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/7/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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The Creator planted in us a special property called “shame” as a means of growth. If I realize that I am a receiver in regard to another, I feel “ashamed” since it hurts my “self,” my status, and the perception of my character. Indeed, the Creator created us with His Light, and we descend from this very high source where feeling as a receiver is opposite to it. Hence, we feel humiliated.

Only a beast doesn’t feel shame. A dog will eat food thrown at it without feeling any embarrassment. If something is thrown to a person, then his feeling will be determined by his state of existence.

If he is dying from starvation and by eating the food is saving his life, meaning that he descended from the human to the animate level, then he won’t feel ashamed either. In this case, a person either doesn’t care for shame and pain at the moment, or he grew up in the environment where it is natural to receive. But if someone tries to “throw a bone” to a person who has pride and integrity, he will feel insulted.

The Creator intentionally made us this way so that we would feel how despicable and low it is next to the desire of the Creator to bestow, and this distinction gives us strength to ascend.
[22840]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/7/10, “The Love of the Creator and Love of the Created Beings”

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Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “And Jacob Sat at the Land Where His Father Dwelled”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYechi (And Jacob Lived in the Land of Egypt),” Item 770
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 15, Item 145
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence,” Lesson 2
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