It is nothing less than a miracle that the Creator created us with a split perception. Thanks to it, we are able to see our own ego as something alien to us. Because it seems alien to us, we don’t regard it indiscriminately, like a mother who looks at her beloved child and thinks that he can do no wrong.

But after we discern all of its flaws, we suddenly realize that they are all inside us. We are suddenly forced to recognize all the evil that we see on the outside as our own, and thus to shift our view from the outside to within. This is nothing less than a miracle.

All this stems from the initial oppositeness between the point of creation, which was “created from absence,” and the Light. This point compels my perception to be split in two: the inner and the outer. I am thus forced to regard myself from the outside as though it is not me at all, and later to accept that it is all within me.

Meantime, within me there is only the point in the heart. When I recognize the hatred and the evil that I see on the outside as my own, and connect my point in the heart to these qualities, I end up with a corrected Kli! It works a bit like a device that prints photographs – it turns a negative into a positive. In the same way, the only thing that needs to change is my outlook, which will allow me to see everything in the “Reflected Light.”

My entire perception is built according to this principle, including sounds, sensations, tastes, visuals, odors, and everything else perceived by my physical sensory organs. The same applies to all the degrees of desire – whether for food, sex, money, power, or knowledge. They are all seemingly external fulfillments that I must reveal within. So, the same principle applies not only to Kelim, but to Lights as well.

This is a difficult thing to understand at this time, but everything will be clear when we enter the spiritual perception and see the world this way.

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The Creator purposefully divided our perception into external and internal in order to give us the ability to recognize the opposition between reception and bestowal. If we felt everything only inside ourselves, we would not be able to understand it. We would be going around in circles like a dog chasing its own tail, while staying in the same place.

For example, each of us has numerous negative qualities that we may dislike, such as a weakness for lying, dominating over others, arrogance, and theft once in a while. I may hate all of these qualities, but they are all mine. Therefore, I acquit myself. But if I see someone else doing the same thing, then I am ready to kill him. If I always perceived everything inside of me, then I wouldn’t be able to get out of myself or my ego, and shift to the side of bestowal.

“Every person judges others to the extent of his own deficiencies.” This means that by perceiving these qualities as external to me, I see their true form. If they were in me, I wouldn’t relate to them objectively, since they are mine. For example, see if you can convince a mother that her child is not intelligent or beautiful. You can’t; she will always think that he is the most beautiful, intelligent and kind child in the world.

But since I relate to the external qualities as foreign, I view them with animosity and hatred, and therefore I am able to see these qualities (which are actually my own) in their true form. I am able to look at them without prejudice; I can criticize them wisely and correctly, and my ego helps me with this analysis, like a strict judge that pays attention to the minute details, revealing the true corrupted qualities.

However, later on I reveal that all of this was mine; it exists inside me, but because of my extreme hate for all other people, I see everything to the extent of my own corruption. Yet, others are not guilty of anything! It only seemed to me that one person was a thief, another was a liar, and I was right to hate all of them. Now, however, I see that my egoistic desire was really at fault. Yet, the external vision had opened my eyes and allowed me to recognize the deficiencies, in order to then learn that they are inside of me.

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Each soul is connected to the World of Infinity by a chain or a ladder of spiritual rungs that gradually weakens the Lights and Kelim. I awaken this system the moment I establish a connection with Infinity. Actually, this whole system is inside me; it only seems external to me.

There are two entities in the universe: man and the Creator. Man has to feel that he exists outside of the Creator in order to understand the meaning of “being separated from the Creator.” He has to learn what opposition to Him is and what it is to be close or far from Him in order to then be able to experience adhesion with Him.

This is why I was deliberately created with a perception of reality that is divided into what is inside and outside of me. This makes it easier for me to understand what the Creator is and what I am, what the breaking and the adhesion are, what a state of unconsciousness (concealment) is as opposed to the state of being close to Him and merging with Him into one whole.

The Creator tosses outside everything that I feel inside me, and as a result, my perception is divided into two parts: internal (which is everything I receive), and external (everything that I give, but without the correct intention).

The external world is my Kelim that are purposefully portrayed to me as foreign in order for me to understand what bestowal means. If I begin to relate to them as to parts of me, then I will understand how far I am from bestowal, and how opposite and undesirable it is for me. I will then see that loving my neighbor as myself is not that simple; in fact, I cannot do it. And that means I cannot bestow or come close to the Creator.

“But hold on,” you are thinking, “I want to be close to the Creator!” Well, if you want it, then you need to show it, and bestowal is the only way to do that.

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A question I received: What is the purpose of looking within ourselves for what’s written in The Book of Zohar before we cross the Machsom?

My Answer: Without this inner search, we will never cross the Machsom. The Machsom is inside of us and we have to make attempts to cross it by discovering within us what is written in The Zohar.

Do you really think that we could just sit there and wait for the time to come when we will cross the Machsom? It will never happen that way, and therefore, it’s useless to wait. The Creator could never reject our effort; therefore, without effort, it’s impossible to attain spirituality. Our current task is to make efforts, meaning, to try to direct our desire in a way that will allow us to comprehend, realize, sense, perceive and attain the spiritual properties that The Book of Zohar describes.

We want the Light to come and return us to the source – to build these qualities within us. This is what it means to “cross the Machsom.” Everything is defined and felt through desire. The Creator created only desire, but we have to shape it so as to reform it from earthly to spiritual. Then, we will sense spirituality.

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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYeshev (And Jacob Sat),” Item 120
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“Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 109, Lesson 44
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“Preface to the Book of Zohar,” Item 35, Lesson 11
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A question I received: How can I receive help from my group mates and help them while we read The Book of Zohar?

My Answer: You need to think of mutual responsibility (Arvut). We don’t have any means to advance spiritually except mutual responsibility for each other. I depend on everybody and everybody depends on me. It is like a circle, a closed loop.

We have to grant each other the force of spiritual development, because if we do not, we will be as good as dead. We can start with what we already have – a small force of the mutual guarantee. The Zohar will then expand and enhance this force like an amplifier. And at the same time, we have to exert effort to add to it as well.

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The Zohar, Chapter “VaYeshev (And Jacob Sat),” Item 114: There is not a person in the world who does not feel the taste of death at night…

If the Light (bestowal) doesn’t shine on a person and darkness (egoistic desires) come to rule over him, then even the most righteous person with the most powerful screens will feel the taste of death, because in this condition he is detached from the Light, the Creator. Later on he will overcome this gap and correct his desire, but at first, for some fraction of a second he still disconnects from sacredness (bestowal and love) and feels the taste of death. He falls under the power of the desire to receive, tastes it, and declares that it is the taste of death.

We have to sense this taste in order to feel that we are under its influence and power, We must then overcome it with the help of the group, since we are unable to do it on our own. Only another, external power – the influence of the group – is able to help me arrive at the conclusion that the desire to be pleased, which governs me at this time, is in fact, death.

If I don’t receive outside assistance, then nothing will help and I’ll remain under the power of the desire to enjoy and I won’t be able to see that amounts to death. I will feel as if I am living and everything is all right, the way we all do now.

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In spirituality, a dream is a certain way of sensing the Light. It is a state of the desire relative to the Light when I don’t use the desire because it has no screen. This is why a dream is called “one sixtieth of death.”

Obviously we’re not talking about a regular dream, but a spiritual state where I use only the smallest part out of all the huge desires that are revealed inside me. I perceive reality and my relationship with the Creator only in this part.

To “fall asleep” means to begin a new period, a new degree, when an old state ends and I begin to work with new, yet uncorrected desires. For this reason I perceive them as darkness, night, a reclined horizontal state wherein all the parts of the spiritual Partzuf (soul) – its head, torso and extremities (Rosh, Toch, Sof) – are on the same level, and there is no clothing of the Inner Light from above downward.

All of the Light is gone, and there is only a faint luminescence left in the Kelim, which animates them. It is called a dream (Kista de-Chauta). When I cannot feel or understand anything, when I experience the feeling of dreaming, it is called “one sixtieth of death.”

From this state or point, I must awaken and rise to my full height (GAR). And then, together with my new desires, I will lie back down again. And so the states succeed one another, cycle after cycle.

At first I surrender myself to the Upper Force, letting it care for me like an embryo inside a womb. And the more I cancel myself, the more it helps me to grow.

Then I begin to actively cancel myself, suppressing my desire to enjoy with my own strength. And then my Partzuf empties itself of the Light and I fall into a dream, until a new day comes, and with it, a new degree.

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A spiritual state never disappears; we just have to find our where it is taking place. For example, by identifying with the text, we can ascend and sense a state called “the breaking” to some extent.

All the spiritual states are constant, like images on an unrolled photographic film that contains all the pictures from beginning to end. If we want to advance along this film to a state called “the breaking” and to feel what transpires there, then the moment we desire this, that state influences us.

It is important to remember that when we read the text, we are being influenced by the Upper Force regardless of whether we realize it or feel it, or whether our perception is correct. The important thing is to expect the Upper Force to come and change us.

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A question I received: When I look in the mirror, I see my own image and it’s clear that I can’t communicate or work with it. But when we look at our reality, we essentially see ourselves, or images of our desire.

My Answer: This is why Baal HaSulam says that a person’s desire is divided into two parts – the part that is perceived within, and the other part that seems to be outside. In one part, a person perceives himself, and in the other he perceives the world. This false, opposite form of perception was created on purpose, so we would transfer the part that is outside into our “inner” perception.

The fact is that everything on the outside, as well as myself, is actually perceived inside of me. There is nothing besides one, single desire, one world.

We are not supposed to correct our corporeal reality or the sensation of this division into “myself” and “this world,” which is reality on its lowest level. Rather, we have to unite both parts of the desire by ascending up the steps of the spiritual ladder. The reality we are in now is the last, lowest level of reality, and it does not change when we ascend spiritually. It will change and disappear only at the End of Correction, when this world will enter the general correction, the unified sensation inside a unified desire – the World of Infinity.

Until then, the picture of our world does not change. The Light does influence it; however, it influences Malchut, the desire, in order to unite both of its parts – the inner and the outer, into one. The Light influences all the other desires as well – our spiritual desires, where we have freedom of will. These are the desires we work with and have to correct. But in our world there is nothing to correct. We only have to correct the connection between the souls. That is where our desire unites into one, and in it, we reveal the Creator.

The layer of desire, where I perceive myself and the world around me, remains until the End of Correction. Even the greatest Kabbalist who ascends to the last, 125^th level and attains the general Final Correction will still perceive this world the same way as you. He will have to go to a doctor to heal his body, and he will have to use this entire world and to see reality as divided into inner and outer. Even though he knows that in reality this is not so, nevertheless, he will still see reality this way through his corporeal senses because this level of reality does not change until the very End of Correction.

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