How To Understand The Zohar

Dr. Michael LaitmanNo matter what we are reading, The Book of Zohar, the Babylonian Talmud, or the Bible (the Torah), all “sacred” texts speak of the work I am unable to perceive and understand. I have no comprehension of any of its tiniest details.

How does the mind, “understand,” work? When my mind possesses an example of what I see, hear, or read about, I am able to collect and arrange an image within myself, which corresponds with what is taking place outside of me. However, this method doesn’t work when we study Kabbalah. I don’t have any matching example. How, then, can I put an image together?

Suppose I say that ZA (Zeir Anpin) is “10,” and Malchut is “5.” How much smaller is Malchut than ZA? 10 – 5 = 5. Excellent! It means you do know. But what is it you know? Do you understand what ZA is? No. What about Malchut? No. What is “5,” the difference between them? You don’t know that either. Then, what do you really know?

However, we study these definitions since they are the Upper roots, and they affect our points in the heart, expanding them. It is the only possible act from the entire science of Kabbalah upon us, who are situated below the border dividing us from the Upper World. Therefore, as Baal HaSulam informs us in the “Introduction to the Study of Ten Sefirot,” Item 155, Kabbalists obligated every person to study the wisdom of Kabbalah since this action draws the Light that Reforms and returns us to the Creator.

The entire Torah was written without the use of commas, periods, and spaces between the words; from the very beginning to the end, it is one unbroken sequence of letters. Letters are desires, Kelim (vessels). The attributes of bestowal and reception, Hassadim and Hochma, which share a special connection build for us the shapes of the letters.

However, I have to create the same properties, Kelim, within me from my will to receive. When my desire exists in the properties of Hassadim and Hochma, then it will acquire the same forms of the letters. These attributes will live in me as 22 sets of spiritual stencils. I will be able to create words or actions from them. From words, I will build phrases, complete programs.

You have to equalize your desire with these symbols. Kabbalists passed this information to us in the form of symbols so that you could make the same forms from your will to receive as described in the Torah, starting with the first letter, Bet (the first letter of the word Beresheet, “In the beginning”), and to the last letter of the Torah, Lamed.

Take your desire, use it as dough, and sculpt these forms from it. The result will be a completely corrected you.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/10, The Zohar

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Letters Are My Properties

One Comment

  1. Dear Rav,
    What are the properties of Hassadim and Hochma which we should aspire and want our desire to exist in?

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