When reading The Zohar, one must always think about oneself. The Torah does not say a word about history. However, every spiritual root has to touch a material branch, which is why all of these events also took place in our world.

Did the people described by the Torah understand who they were? This is indeed a question worth asking. Baal HaSulam writes that there was a time when someone “accidentally” decided to name a hill he saw “The Mount of Olives” because he thought it was a good place for planting olive trees. In reality however, he gave the mountain this name in a natural manner, instinctively, because every person acts according to his spiritual root. This root is instilled in every person from Above, and we carry out its commands.

So did Noah really exist? Yes, he did. Was he the most righteous person in all the generations? Did he understand what he was doing? This is a good question that we will discuss at some point in the future. Did he have sons called Shem, Ham and Jafeth? Yes, he did. Were they also righteous, and did they understand the Creator and speak with Him? All of this requires an explanation.

However, I am not interested in all of this history. The entire spiritual world has to be imprinted in a material form, inside me, in some way. It has indeed been imprinted there, but this isn’t important as far as I’m concerned. I have to arrange all of this in an orderly manner for myself in order to further my own advancement.

All of these Biblical stories are talking about man’s inner world. Therefore, I don’t care about anything else. The rest may as well be non-existent, as if there has never been any history, or Ancient Babylon, or this entire world. It doesn’t exist until I discover it for myself, instead of hearing someone else talk about it.

Right now I am inside an empty space where there is nothing. Everything takes place inside me. But who am I, standing in the middle of this empty space? I am someone that feels. And what do I feel? I feel what The Zohar tells me – and nothing exists besides this.

This is how I, a point inside an empty space, study The Book of Zohar, building an entire world out of the material that I absorb. It is the only world there is – not the Upper World or the lower world, but the only one. I make efforts to understand how this world is arranged and where every quality and action being described by The Zohar are found in this world. This is what I am always trying to imagine. I am just a point that tries to find these qualities.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar | 1 Comment →