A question I received: When I read The Book of Zohar I cannot connect to it. What should I do? We have looked forward for so long to this cherished moment when we would open The Book of Zohar, but now we feel disappointed.

My Answer: Baal HaSulam wrote that there is no better moment in a person’s life than when he senses complete disappointment in everything he has done up to this point. He sees that nothing has helped him, that there is no source of salvation, and no hope of spiritual ascent if everything continues as is.

Once he reaches this realization, he then reveals a new feeling of hope. However, he does not know who he should rely on. Eventually he realizes that only the Creator can help him, and that’s when he cries out: “Save me!” That is when he receives help.

Studying The Zohar is not like regular study where you receive knowledge immediately, by the principle, “You apply effort and receive.” In this case, another principle comes into force, “You apply effort and find.”

You probably hoped that as soon as you opened The Book of Zohar, miracles would start happening. But nothing can happen in the very beginning. My teacher Rabash gave an example of a man who bought a little gosling and wanted to turn it into a big, fat goose. So he started incessantly stuffing food down its throat. He would stuff the gosling and then immediately check whether it got fatter, which it didn’t. He kept stuffing more food into it, but the gosling still didn’t gain weight. Smart people told him: “You should wait a month or two to begin to see the difference.” The same applies to a child – the parents have to invest a lot of effort before the child can get up, walk, and become strong.

If we observe our soul we’ll see that it grows in the same way. When I want my point in the heart to grow into a soul, I have to treat it as a newborn baby within me that has just started to develop. It will take time for a soul to grow out of this point.

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A question I received: What is the fastest and most effective way to disseminate Kabbalah in the world?

My Answer: A variety of ways are required as we are now climbing stairs that no one has stepped upon before. Up to now, Kabbalists went their own way and taught their students using the same method that originated from Adam, the first Kabbalist. Later on Abraham established the methodology and the group that eventually became the people of Israel. However, they later fell from that spiritual level and for the past two thousand years Kabbalists have been transferring their knowledge from one to another.

Now, however, we are living in an era when millions of people around the world are waking up to the desire for spiritual ascent and are walking side by side with us. Studying Kabbalah on an individual basis has become a thing of the past. Today we are returning to Abraham’s original intention to offer correction to all Babylonians.

How should we disseminate Kabbalah under these new conditions? I can only say what I think and feel, but we won’t know for sure until we accumulate enough experience. Even Rabbi Shimon wouldn’t be able to give us advice since these new states of development have yet to be explored.

In Baal HaSulam’s time, he had hoped that his newspaper would change the situation, but it was shut down right away. He then published books and his disciples thought that these would cause a spiritual revolution and people would finally see that they are in the dark. But the world continued on as if nothing had changed.

This is why we presently are trying various methods and approaches to determine the most effective ones. One thing is clear: Dissemination has to be conducted as widely as possible in all languages and for everyone in the whole world. Abraham wanted to reach out to all of Ancient Babylon, and today, Babylon has expanded to include the whole world.

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Our perception of the world and sensation of life are found inside our desire since in truth, our desire is the only thing that was created. Therefore, we live and perceive everything within the self. However, there are two pictures (or formats) of our perception. We perceive one part of the picture as “us,” and the other part as the “world around us.” This perception within our desire is split in two – inner and outer, “us” and “our environment.”

Likewise, our picture of reality divides into circles that expand from inside out. These circles are comprised of the soul, the body, our immediate surroundings, and our distant surroundings. In reality, however, this whole perception exists within us, within our desire. Therefore, if we want to change the world, we have to change our desire. It’s because our perception of the world depends on our desire, and moreover, the whole world is perceived within it.

Our perception that the world exists outside of us is an illusion. The world exists entirely in our desire, but we currently don’t feel it. We relate to nature and to humanity, which are actually parts of ourselves, as something alien, and as a result of this attitude, we suffer. If only we realized the harm we cause ourselves with this imaginative view of the outside world.

It is a mistake, an optical illusion! It only appears that there are people around us whom we can disregard. We simply don’t realize that in so doing we bring miseries and problems to ourselves. Our entire lives are filled with problems and suffering only because we have this terrible and twisted perception of reality.

The science of Kabbalah teaches us how to unite our disconnected parts. Alone we are incapable of it, but we can make a request for the Light to correct our perception. Then we will see one reality, one desire, and inside it – one soul and one Light.

As we move toward this goal, we should try to aim ourselves toward unity. When reading The Book of Zohar we must continually bring ourselves back to the sensation of “the entire world is inside me.” Whatever the text may speak of, all of it is describing forces, qualities, and desires that are inside us.

All the spiritual worlds are within, while outside there is nothing. The world must not be divided into inner and outer, because it is one common soul.

By remembering this we draw upon ourselves the influence of the Light which unites together the separate parts of our perception.

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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYeshev (And Jacob Sat),” Item 61
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“Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 102, Lesson 41
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“Preface to the Book of Zohar,” Item 27, Lesson 8
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYeshev (And Jacob Sat),” Item 37
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A question I received: How should a person feel after the lesson?

My Answer: A person should come away from the lesson with a few main impressions:

• I haven’t achieved anything yet!
• I have just received a very powerful, potent medicine which will bring me much closer to the goal. These hours of my life were eternal because their benefit is priceless. I will never lose what I have gained just now and no one can take it away from me.
• It is good that I feel empty. If I felt fulfilled, it would mean that I am content with my present egoistic desires.
• It is written, “Your heart will delight in the Creator,” which means that when I am corrected, I will feel fulfilled by fulfilling the Creator. This is the kind of correction I should expect to come to me.
• All the reception and all the bestowal should come “from me” in the middle line. The right line is where I receive the Light of Correction, the Light of Bestowal, from above downward. This Light corrects me if I am completely open to it, if I let it enter me. In the left line, I use my egoistic desires to the extent that they are connected to bestowal. This means working with the Light of Hochma from below upward.
• All the changes that I expect to take place within me will bring me closer to bestowal. If I think this way, then it is impossible to feel bad.

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Preparation To The Lesson
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Shamati #25 “Things that Come from the Heart”
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“Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 18, Lesson 11
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYashev (And Jacob Sat),” Item 11
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We have to understand that The Zohar is intended for revealing our point in the heart, and not for fulfilling our regular senses or intellect that belong to this world. You open the book and fall into despair because you don’t understand or feel it; but what kind of sensation or understanding do you expect? The Zohar impacts you in a different way, not the way you think it would.

You have prepared a barrel or a bucket (egoistic desires) and expect them to be filled with what seems like spiritual fulfillment, while you actually desire egoistic fulfillment. The Zohar, however, gives you a different type of receiving vessel – one that’s bestowing, anti-egoistic, as well as the corresponding fulfillment – the pleasure of bestowal.

These are the normal phases that every person goes through, gradually revealing his Kli, his attitude and the fulfillment he should expect. As a result all the delusions eventually fade away and one reveals the right Kli which is ready for the right kind of fulfillment.

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In the News (from Time): “The ’00s: Goodbye (at Last) to the Decade from Hell” The dreaded millennial meltdown never happened. Instead, it was the American Dream that was about to dim. Bookended by 9/11 at the start and a financial wipeout at the end, the first 10 years of this century will very likely go down as the most dispiriting and disillusioning decade Americans have lived through in the post–World War II era.

My Comment: In the past, suffering pushed us to develop and so we saw a brighter future ahead of us. Now, since egoism has reached its peak and we have become globally interconnected, egoism doesn’t need more growth. It only needs correction.

Therefore, suffering will not push us forward (in other words, there is no future), but will worsen our current state, until we agree to correct our nature.

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Laitman.com Post: Egoism Has Reached The End Of The Line
Kabbalah Today Article: Connecting the Dots (the Kabbalistic Version)
Attaining the Worlds Beyond: “Eradicating Egoism”
Video: Why Disseminate Kabbalah?-5 Minutes Of Light (5:05)

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