The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Shmini (On The Eighth Day),” Item 49
The Book of Zohar allows us to see the connection between our reality and the forces that form it.
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“Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 120, Lesson 49
The first restriction allows one to work with all of one’s desires, whereas the second restriction leaves only half of each desire in a working capacity.
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“Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” Item 1
The problem isn’t that the Creator created us corrupt, but that we don’t appeal to Him for help.
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A question I received: How do you tell if a person is ready to study Kabbalah or if it’s too early or potentially harmful for him yet?

My Answer: A person’s own desires will show him his path, as it is written, “Let a person study where his heart desires.” Therefore, Kabbalah never lures people in; it actually even pushes them away to determine if their heart’s desire is genuine.

Even when a person feels that he is finding all the answers in Kabbalah, it still doesn’t mean that he is in fact studying Kabbalah. Most people join our studies not exactly understanding why they have chosen to do so, similar to how in our world most people live by “whatever happens, happens.”

Such a person participates in the studies and even succeeds in acquiring knowledge. However, this knowledge is external because he doesn’t aspire internally to change his likeness to that of the Creator. And that is about 99% of the people coming to study Kabbalah. While they do carry out the intense job of correction, only a limited number of them have a persistent internal concern about the question regarding the goal – the precision and execution in attaining it.

Therefore, even those who engage in Kabbalah with a question about the meaning of life often remain entrenched as others in facing normal life challenges. They might even settle for religious observance or secular dogmas.

No matter who comes to study Kabbalah, we need to understand that the pyramid of desires in people is structured this way and therefore, it’s enough to have a limited number of people attain unification with the Creator. They will pave the way to Him for the others.

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I receive many questions about studying The Zohar from old-time students as well as total beginners. People write, “We used to understand what we were studying. Talmud Eser Sefirot and “Introduction to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” (Pticha) gave us knowledge about the structure of the universe. Articles about the group made us think about unity and the goal that the group has to reach. Baal HaSulam’s articles explained Kabbalah’s connection to other sciences and its attitude to religion, philosophy, and freedom of will. It was clear that these articles dealt with the structure of the external society as well as man’s inner structure, which are questions related to psychology. But what the heck are we studying in The Book of Zohar?”

These questions indicate the wrong attitude to the study because everything must eventually unite into one. For example, the group is a collection of souls that have to unite together. It only seems to our vision and sensations that there are different, foreign souls and desires around us, and that we want to attach them to us in order to see the true picture.

It is impossible to study Kabbalah theoretically; this wisdom can only be attained practically. This is the whole point of studying the science of Kabbalah: it is intended for revealing the Creator to the creatures in this world.

The Creator (Bo-reh) means “Come and See” – come experience the quality of bestowal by revealing it inside you, by going from “love for the neighbor” to “love for the Creator.” The true perception of reality is when reality is no longer divided into “myself and others,” but everyone is united together into one whole. But how can we attain this unity and perception if we are still unable to feel all the souls as one man with one heart, to unite them with the Creator, and to feel this whole world inside us? How can we discover and understand it?

All of this has to be done to us by the Upper Light. The Light must bring us to the state where “There is none else besides Him” and “He is Good that does Good,” despite anything that happens to us. These two forms of concealment have to come together and unite; we just don’t know how to make it happen.

This is exactly our purpose when we start studying The Zohar: we have to desire for it to reveal the true reality to us, for the Creator to become revealed to the creation here and now, for the desire to be revealed together with the Light in it! In addition, we have to add a bit of sensitivity, concern, and fear to this approach. Each one of us should ask himself: Am I doing everything that has been allotted to me? Am I making the required amount of efforts that I am supposed to? This, in turn, depends on our sensation of the spiritual goal’s importance and a constant inner concern about it. Then we are guaranteed success.

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You are leading a double life, but you don’t even suspect it. You are sleeping, unconscious with respect to the other reality, which is governed by bestowal instead of reception. Do you want to discover it? Do you want to wake up? If so, then the science of Kabbalah is here to tell you about the other side of the double life you are now living.

When this new life is revealed to you, it is so powerful that your entire life of the past turns into a dream, as if it was not real. Your present life is short and temporary, but you can gradually reveal a new awareness by virtue of a means that the Kabbalists have given to us.

Why does the spiritual reality turn out to be more intense than the current one? It’s because it is eternal, harmonious, and perfect. We just have to reveal a connection with that reality while living our current life. We have to reveal a new desire, similar to how this might happen in a dream, as if you are sleeping and then suddenly you wake up because a powerful desire emerges, like an a alarm clock ringing.

We are all sleeping in this world, but suddenly we feel a yearning for a new reality. If we want to awaken, we will receive the means to do it. But why can’t we wake up by ourselves? It’s because we have to understand, build, and create the new reality in order to learn all of its finest details starting from scratch. Then we won’t be “sneaking” into this reality like a tiny worm that crawls somewhere it isn’t supposed to. We won’t be connecting to it from below, but will bring all of it inside us. We will encompass it all within us and will thereby become equal to the Creator, the force that governs there.

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A question I received: Is order important when reading The Book of Zohar? What if I’ve only joined the study recently? Should I read everything you’ve studied up to this point?

My Answer: First of all, it makes no difference which part of The Book of Zohar we are reading. It is written: “There is no time in the Torah.” So it doesn’t matter where you start reading: from the middle, end, or beginning.

It also doesn’t matter how much you understand or don’t understand, or whether you’ve joined the study just now and this is your very first lesson, or you’ve been studying a long time. You may join the study from the very beginning or be tuning in midway through the lesson, when half of the material has already been covered.

Everything we study are processes that take place in Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut (AHP), where all the Upper Forces are located above Bina. That is to say, Bina is the Upper Forces’ relation toward us; Zeir Anpin is a system that conducts the forces of Bina to us along the three lines, and Malchut receives these three lines. We connect to Malchut and work on our connection to Zeir Anpin in order to connect to Bina.

The picture remains the same at all times – Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut. There is nothing else. Therefore, no matter what Kabbalistic text you read, be it chapters of the Torah or parts of The Book of Zohar, the text invariably talks about the same thing – the correction of the soul in the system of AHP, ZAT de Atzilut.

This is why you will see a great deal of repetitions in The Zohar, which are all different descriptions of how the Light affects the soul. We do not know why the authors of The Zohar wrote it the way they did and why they chose those specific words and sequence of words. But they did it naturally; their writings reflect the correct actions of the Lights upon the desire as the soul ascends upward.

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Children are a great example for us to follow because they have infinite energy and aspiration to learn about this world. They don’t tire of playing the same game a hundred times over, and they don’t care about anything; the most important thing to them is to do something all the time, even without thinking. The mind comes after the feelings.

Likewise, once you enter the spiritual world, you will understand everything. However, if you try to understand it first, you won’t be able to because the mind cannot precede the feelings.

Mental attainment is the last degree after all the sensual feelings have been attained:

• Stage 0 (Behina Shoresh) is when I just begin to feel something.
• Stage 1 (Behina Alef) is when I began to understand a little.
• Stage 2 (Behina Bet) is when I learn of the reason for everything – that it all comes from the Creator.
• Stage 3 (Behina Gimel) is when I become similar to Him and understand what kind of a relationship exists between us.
• Stage 4 (Behina Dalet) is when I know, understand, and feel all the reasons and consequences; I then attain His mind.

Our development occurs according to these four stages, but it starts with feeling something for the first time. Until we feel something, the mind will only get in our way because we will be using the egoistic mind of this world.

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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Shmini (On The Eighth Day),” Item 33, Lesson 2
While a person is asleep, the only thing he can do on his own is to desire to awaken.
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“Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 118, Lesson 48
After the breaking of the vessels, the creation recreates the image of the Creator within itself by connecting the broken pieces into a picture that is similar to Him.
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“Preface to the Book of Zohar,” Item 40, Lesson 15
No individual has the strength to advance. However, we have the force of desire, which we can and must share with each other.
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A question I received: Before we started studying The Book of Zohar, our inner states and our ascents and descents were more balanced. Now they are much more dramatic and extreme, like black and white. Why is this happening?

My Answer: It is because we are being affected by The Book of Zohar, which is a tremendously powerful book. And in addition, we are all reading it together.

The Zohar’s influence allows us to feel whether we are actually connected with each other or not because it was written by a group of Kabbalists who were completely connected with each other and had attained absolute correction on all 125 levels.

When the Light comes and influences us from such a high source, it creates awareness of where we are relative to the Light. Therefore, we will surely go through dramatic and extreme conditions ranging from confusion to inspiration, anxiety, total fatigue, insensitivity, and much more. This will enable us to build ourselves in order to start sensing spirituality.

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If we don’t correct ourselves on time, we will have to experience suffering on the animate degree in order to cultivate the human degree in us. However, it is in our power to advance without suffering! All the illnesses and misfortunes are there to “force” us to come to correction, but why should we correct ourselves this way?

Let’s look for problems and illnesses in advance, like an old man who walks hunched over as through he has lost something. Even if we don’t feel in our present Kelim that there is a lack of correction, let’s reveal it. After all, no matter what, we will have to go through a great deal of correction until we reach the final correction.

So how do we go about revealing the corruption? We have to search for it on the border between “root, soul, body” and “garments and castles,” meaning our inner and outer Kelim, Galgata ve Eynaim and AHP. That is where all our problems lie: in the relationships between us and everyone else, rather than in us or in them.

We have to desire to attach the “garments and castles,” which are the external souls, to ourselves, to “root, soul, body.” That is how we will achieve a whole and perfect Kli, a single soul.

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I have this false perception that there is somebody existing outside of me, that there are people close and far whom I can push away, cheat, or exploit. But all of this is nothing but an illusion. It is an intricate game, an exercise that lets me scrutinize and invert my desire until I begin to love others more than myself. Then I will give others my last chair and my last pillow, because I will come to view their desire, which has been so abhorrent to me before, as more important than the one I used to regard as my own.

There are desires that exist in me from the beginning and which I perceive as my “self.” These are actually the weakest desires, pertaining to Aviut zero. The first level of Aviut appears as being separate from my “self,” such as my family and relatives. The second level is even further away, such as the people who provide me with all kinds of benefits and on whom my wellbeing depends on in some way – for example, doctors, scientists, and so on.

The third level is further still – these are people I want to exploit, but I’m willing to let them live. The farthest level is the fourth; these are my mortal enemies.

It follows that the further away the desire I perceive, the greater its power compared to my own desire. Therefore, when I attach these “external” desires to myself, I experience them as much stronger than those which previously appeared as my own. This is why I am so willing later on to give my “last pillow” to these desires.

I prefer them to my initial desire of Aviut zero because it is so weak. Indeed, what is really the extent of my current desires for food, water, family, money, and knowledge? They are truly insignificant when compared to my other desires, the desires of my “friends.” These are the desires that enable me to acquire the spiritual worlds and higher states.

If I manage to attach the desires of my friends to myself on the first degree by making them my own, this is called reaching the World of Assiya. What follows is the Worlds of Yetzira, Beria, and Atzilut. These worlds represent the distance between me and my friends.

Therefore, “love your friend as yourself” is not a slogan for this world, appealing for world peace. It’s talking about the correction of the soul, where I attach the entire universe to myself, correct my vision and perception of all reality, and attain eternity.

All the worlds are me; I am Malchut of the World of Infinity – the whole of reality created by the Creator.
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