The Zohar Opens The World For Us

clip_image001It seems to us that The Zohar talks about the same thing over and over – the three lines. But that is only because the evil inclination is afraid of the three lines. As a matter of fact, the three lines express the principle of connection between all the parts, all the details in reality. However, this union occurs in different forms on billions of levels. Therefore, The Zohar presents this through various descriptions which awaken different forms of connection within you. All this is done in order to attune them to yourself, check, and organize them within you.

In reality, there is nothing except the desire to receive and the intention for the sake of bestowal. However, a new story appears each time because there is an infinite number of different unions. We simply are unable to feel a new mood, experience a different taste, a different connection, or a new revelation each time.

When we begin to feel every action that The Zohar tells us about, then we will understand that it instructs us to check a particular union, a particular action, then another one, and so on. It reveals new connections to us continuously, thereby opening the world for us.

“Let The Earth Put Forth Grass”

bees The Zohar, Chapter “Bo (Come Unto Pharaoh),” Item 66: And God said: ‘Let the earth put forth grass.’ The earth is Malchut. (In Hebrew Earth is “Eretz,” originating from the word “Ratzon,” desire.) And the “herb yielding seeds” are the Light that grows out of the sowing of the hidden Light.

How can something grow out of a desire? Growth is possible when the force of bestowal is present in it. If an inanimate desire receives the intention of bestowal and aspires to the Light, then it transforms into a vegetative desire.

Initially, there was only an inanimate desire. But if you take the part of the inanimate desire that can become like the Light, it can transform into a plant. In other words, the plant is the same inanimate desire with an additional Light operating inside it and developing it.

In order for a plant to transform into an animal, an additional portion of Light is needed to influence the desire and transform it to the higher level. The same applies to the “human” level.

Everything grows from a still desire (“earthly dust”) due to the Light’s influence on it. The Light that influenced the desire to receive, “Yesh Mi Ain” (existence from absence) created the desire’s degrees from above downwards. These degrees are: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human.

yeshmiain

The same happens during the ascent from below upwards. The Light acts and builds a plant from the inanimate desire by bringing in its own quality. Then it takes the plant, adds a bit more of the Light’s quality – the quality of bestowal, and thus creates an animal. Then it takes the animal, adds some more quality of bestowal, and thus makes a human being. But everything comes from the inanimate level of matter.

It says in Beresheet that the Creator took some earth and water and made a man, which means that He influenced the inanimate matter by His force of bestowal. Then He took some of the inanimate desire and transformed it into a plant, and then He took some from the plant, added His desire of bestowal to it, and thus derived an animal.

In any case, only the Light’s influence develops a desire and builds the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human levels. This is the primary act of creation (Beresheet).

Preparation Time Depends On The Root Of One’s Soul

Awaiting Correction With Less Bloodshed A question I received: Does the duration of the preparation period depend on the root of a soul? Can The Zohar speed up this period, which is said to normally take “three to five years?”

My Answer: If you use your freedom of will and work on achieving the goal, then The Zohar helps to shorten the preparation time, saving you several more lengthy incarnations. This is the meaning of the verse, “I labored and found.”If you make efforts, you will be rewarded.

How much of an effort should you exert? As much as necessary according to the root of your soul. No one knows how much he should exert in advance. It is written, “The salvation from the Creator comes in the split of a second.” It comes suddenly, like the exodus from Egypt.

We Are Rewarded According To Our Efforts

clip_image001The Zohar, Chapter “Bo (Come Unto Pharaoh),” Item 68: It has another way of approaching the herbs: When the quiet Nile returns from Malchut to its place, when it rises and falls. Since its waters are still, it walks quietly and the great monster climbs unto those Niles and is not there in the still Nile. And all the herbs grow around that still Nile on either side. Then, that monster climbs unto the herbs and grows among them, and then returns to all these Niles.

In this section, The Zohar explains how the Direct Light is revealed in the Reflected Light. To the extent that the desires in Malchut can work with the Reflected Light, the Direct Light clothes into it. If the Reflected Light is reduced, the Direct Light vanishes from it.

What does this story do for us when we don’t understand it and can’t connect it to our desires and their fulfillment? The Zohar doesn’t give us any explanation to go along with the story. It doesn’t tell us exactly what is happening here or give us anything to “grab” onto.

The answer is that it doesn’t want to clarify the story. The Zohar could have explained it to us in the language of Kabbalah or in another more sensory, psychological, and understandable manner. However, instead The Zohar leaves room for our efforts to understand and feel, “What is this? What is it for? Where is it inside me?” Everything it describes undoubtedly occurs in every person.

I am performing all the actions that are described in The Book of Zohar. After all, my true state is that I am in the World of Infinity right now, but there are 125 degrees of concealment between my present state and the World of Infinity.

The Zohar purposely presents the story this way so that I would seek out these things within me in order to return to the sensation of the World of Infinity. The search itself gives birth to new qualities, senses, and inner differentiations within me. It helps me begin to feel what I presently don’t feel by developing the senses that perceive the spiritual world.

Therefore, the effort is mandatory. It is written, “One receives a reward according to one’s effort.” In the spiritual world, nothing will help except your effort. It is also written, “I labored and found.” When will you find spirituality? When the Upper Light influences you to the same extent as your effort. Then, it will fulfill your sense of spiritual perception. This is what happens every time you ascend from one degree to another. However, the most important thing is to rise at least to the first spiritual degree.

A Book Of Adventures

expanding A person who really aspires to spirituality will not calm down with a small attainment. He will always feel that he does not understand or know anything because he does not feel spirituality. The point in the heart is expressed precisely through this need to feel the Upper World.

You have to feel this spiritual picture inside of you. The Zohar is a book of adventures. But it’s not a book you simply read or a movie you watch on a screen. You have to enter inside The Zohar. And it’s not like entering our illusory world, but it can only be done once you get rid of all your illusions and fantasies. You don’t need special 3-D glasses to feel that you are inside this movie (like when watching a movie such as Avatar).

This demand comes from the point in the heart and it can only be increased with the help of the group. Only the group can give a person the strength needed to reach the goal in addition to his point in the heart. If he doesn’t cancel himself before the group in order to receive this force from it, then he won’t attain anything. This constitutes our mutual guarantee without which none of us would have a spiritual vessel (Kli).

The Secret Formula For A Miracle

Faith Above Reason Is Bestowal Above Reception Through The Book of Zohar the Creator shows us all kinds of examples that are intended to give us different impressions. Meanwhile, we don’t know what this is, similar to how a baby doesn’t know anything but still tries to imitate the examples he sees.

If you don’t want to or cannot do it, then turn to the group and the books for help. Either way, you have to look for something that will push you forward and help you unite with the states and actions that The Zohar tells you about, despite not being able to understand any of it. What’s important is that you want to understand.

The Zohar is talking about higher states of spiritual bestowal, which you desire to feel and experience. How can you do this? These are the questions that should constantly worry you.

It doesn’t matter if you can’t remember any of what you read. If you want the text to influence you so you will enter its world, so you will feel what it is talking about, then you will feel a very powerful sensation of how the reading influences you even though you don’t understand a word of it. You will experience a change in mood, in various qualities, and in your outlook on yourself and the world. You will start to feel different changes happening every day until one day, you will make the leap.

All of this will happen as a result of the reading, even though you have no idea what you are reading about and what it wants to tell you. You have no connection with the book besides one desire: You want the book to be revealed to you!

This is how the Surrounding Light works; it is a wondrous, miraculous force. The influence that affects us from the Upper World is nothing short of a miracle because it works despite you having no connection with it. There is no connection between the will to receive and the will to bestow. The whole connection is realized through the Creator, who is the root of both qualities. This concealed connection is called a miracle (Segula).

This follows a strict law of the Light and the desire (Kli) according to a fixed formula of their interaction. However, this form of connection is concealed from you, and that’s why it is a miracle in relation to you. You push the button in one place and something pops up in a different place. The entire system is concealed from you and you don’t understand how this connection works.

You were simply told that you have to read and desire – and the rest happens by itself!

Evening Zohar Lesson – 01.28.10

The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Bo (Come Unto Pharaoh),” Item 169
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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 01.28.10

The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Bo (Come Unto Pharaoh),” Item 148
The terminology used in The Zohar only seems familiar to me. In reality I will have to uncover the meaning of these words within me.
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“Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 27, Lesson 55
The Partzufim of the World of Atzulit switch to receiving for the sake of bestowal not for their own sake, but in order to give birth and raise the lower Partzufim.
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Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” Item 14, Lesson 7
My entire reality, including my “self,” is an illusion. The only spark of actual reality I have is the point in the heart, a beginning of a spiritual impulse.
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