Question: I sit in the lesson reading The Zohar and exert effort along with the others. Can it be regarded as “sacrificing desire”?

Answer: No, it can’t. How do I know what you are reading? Perhaps you are simply enjoying what The Zohar explains in such easy, attractive, and exciting language.

Why does it excite us, and what does it wish to explain? The Zohar explains that if I wish to be connected with you, I will undergo the states it describes. It’s that simple! What do the author’s of The Zohar say? “We gather while feeling hate for each other; we are separated by a total abyss. And then we start trying to unite.”

At that time, there was no Book of Zohar in front of them; they were just about to write it themselves. What do they write then? They begin mutual work and start searching: “How do we get closer to one another? What can we do to experience any closeness at all?

How can we find connection between us, the network tying us together, which already exists? What relations define this connection and what are its stages? Which internal forces within us are at work: envy, lust, hate, strife for recognition, the right, left, and middle lines? If we correct it, make a restriction, then a screen, and if we rise above our will to receive pleasure (desire), how do we achieve anything? I reject this and that, act this way or the other….”

And so, they started writing The Book of Zohar based on what they underwent in their mutual connection, until they reached such exalted spiritual degrees that each degree was ten times higher than the previous one: from ones to tens, followed by hundreds, then by thousands, and tens of thousands (Ribo). Do you see what levels they reach?! This is the power of their unification. And that is what they wrote about.

Therefore, if you wish to imagine yourself in the same state, then everything they have described will affect you so that you, too, get closer with the others and in your connection with them undergo the same states, until you reach the state where the perfect Kli (desire) is filled with the infinite Light.
[30913]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/27/10, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “You Are Partners with Me”

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