The Zohar, Chapter “Miketz (At the End),” Item 85: Wherever the judgment is placed on Israel, and it says, “burden,” it is seemingly a burden on the Creator to punish Israel. This is a burden from both sides, as though He is burdened whether He punishes them or does not punish them. If He does not punish them, they will remain in the filth of the sin. And if He does punish them, He is seemingly suffering for the affliction of Israel. This is why it is bad when it writes, “burden,” concerning them.

It is impossible to make spiritual progress without revealing the will to enjoy. Our desire to be filled with pleasure is infinite, but it is concealed within us. When this desire gradually reveals itself in its uncorrected form, we begin to experience problems. Our heart becomes burdened and our advancement becomes even more difficult. Yet the process we undergo is inevitable because our correction occurs over our desire to enjoy. Therefore, it must be revealed this way.

Revelation of our uncorrected desires is a sign that we are ready to be corrected. This is why new layers of the uncorrected desire to enjoy are revealed, allowing us to work on them. For this reason, we must appreciate both the good and the bad.

There is no such thing as “bad,” but only what is called the “Revelation of Evil.” When that which was previously concealed becomes disclosed to us in the form of “wicked” (egoistic) desires, the process of correction is made possible.

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When we unite our desires to reveal The Zohar, every person contributes his own deficiencies, his unique work of the mind and heart, and his attempts to cling to the words in order to attain the goal through them. Every person has his own ideas about what spirituality is and how the qualities we read about, such as Aaron, the bull, the mixed multitude, Moses, and others are connected inside him.

Every person imagines these notions from the root of his soul, envisioning them in various, distorted forms. But it’s OK that they are distorted because “The advantage of the Light is revealed from the darkness.” Every person adds his own small misconception to the great, common, confused desire.

This results in a great, mixed-up ball, like a ball of yarn composed of something unclear and unknown. It consists of all the disappointments, deficiencies, and desires, but they all unite together inside this ball because through our searching we desire to attain unity and reveal the Creator inside us. As a result, we raise a prayer (MAN), which is the sum of all the doubts, confusion, and impressions we feel while studying The Zohar, while The Zohar is one for all of us.

We desire to unite all of our aspirations together, which means that we are standing around Mount Sinai (the Mountain of Hatred). However, we don’t understand what is happening. Therefore, while Moses ascends to the mountain, we construct a Golden Calf and commit all the other transgressions.

But then the Surrounding Light comes to us and illuminates our common desire (Kli), which consists of our confusions and doubts. It illuminates the darkness, the state of not being able to see where this picture is inside of us and where our connection with others lies. The Surrounding Light comes to us through the great cloud of doubts that we create together; it is through that cloud that the Light influences every person. Passing through this filter, the Light brings each of us the desires, deficiencies, and qualities of others, as well as its own qualities. And this brings about the revelation.

The Light itself does not have any form. When you desire to unite with others and with The Zohar, when you don’t understand anything and are confused, but you strive to be part of the great, common desire, then the Light brings you an imprint of these forms. It reveals the right connection between us and gives you the right structure, in which you are connected with everyone. You then start to understand the qualities that The Zohar describes.

These qualities don’t exist inside any one of us. I don’t have Aaron or the Golden Calf inside me; these qualities become expressed only inside my connection with others – whether I’m “for” them or “against” them. They cannot exist in a separate person. The impure force and the holiness that are being described mean “against unity” or “for it.” Therefore, the Surrounding Light that comes in response to your efforts brings you either unity or opposition to unity. But it happens in a clear, conscious manner. Everything is discerned only in relation to unity because the only thing we have to correct is the broken vessel of the common soul.

Therefore, a single individual cannot imagine anything that The Zohar describes. The prayer rises upward and the Light descends downward only through our common cloud of confusion and doubts.

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We think that the spiritual levels described by The Zohar are light-years away from us. But when spirituality becomes revealed, it happens very quickly, and if we unite at the upcoming The Zohar Convention 2010 , we will be able to attain the sensation of spirituality.

Besides, we have to keep in mind that all spiritual development until now took place on the individual level. It was done by select individuals, each of whom had to make extraordinary efforts.

But now is time of revelation, marking a shift in the number of people studying as well as the method of study. It is now the method of the whole world’s correction, the correction of the masses. The only thing required for this to happen is a slight desire on our part.

None of the Kabbalists of the past wrote about this state because they did not live in a generation such as ours. Now the correction has become global; it is the true correction where we must all unite together. Nothing like this has ever happened in history yet.

We are witnesses of the expansion and growth of this wave, which is enveloping more and more people. It is moving together with us, giving us support, and making us a necessary presence in the world.

Therefore, I have great hopes for the upcoming gathering, but everything will depend on you.

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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Ki Tissa (When You Take),” Item 44
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A question I received: Why is The Zohar so difficult to understand? Is it due to our incomprehension of the text, or our lack of feeling and inability to detach from our familiar world?

My Answer: There is only one difficulty: It is the necessity to undergo surgery without anesthesia, with full awareness and desire. We have to go through a surgical transplant that will extract our egoistic heart and mind and implant love for all, along with thoughts only about this.

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A question I received: During The Zohar lesson I feel that I’m thrown from side to side like a boat in a storm. Sometimes I feel good about it, and other times very afraid. Is this good for me, or to the contrary?

My Answer: We have to understand that there is no connection between what we read, what we feel, or in fact, what goes on inside us. During the lesson, The Zohar works on us as if we’re pressing buttons on a device whose functions we don’t understand. It is like a child, for example, who pulls a mobile phone out of his father’s pocket, plays with the buttons, and accidentally calls someone or sends a message. Similarly, when we read The Zohar we’re pressing “buttons” without understanding what forces we induce. Therefore, the reactions we feel in response are not at all connected with our initial actions.

We may think of our friends, the whole world, and the Creator with love, and suddenly become plagued with the opposite concern, wondering, “Why am I even trying to do this?” Or it may occur the other way around where we blame the Creator, the group, and ourselves, but suddenly something good appears that we didn’t feel we deserved.

The Zohar speaks to us like a parent would speak to an infant who doesn’t understand what is being said to him. The parent knows everything about the baby, but the infant doesn’t understand anything about the parent. In spirituality we are at the level of an infant. This is why we shouldn’t draw conclusions based on our sensations, since they are not properly connected.

It may be that we’re thinking everything is a mess and feel only problems and confusions, when in fact everything is perfectly arranged. We need to be mindful that regardless of what happens, we continue with our studies until deliverance comes. We are advised to avoid worrying about something which occurs along our path, and it is written, “Do whatever you want, but don’t leave!”

We need a certain measure of persistence, devotion, and patience on our spiritual path. Baal HaSulam writes in the “Preface to Study of the Ten Sefirot,” that “Only those heroes who possess real patience manage to climb the mountain and enter the King’s palace.” Thus, we need to allow The Zohar to influence us by means of the Surrounding Light.

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Good, bad, or indifferent – it doesn’t matter how we feel while reading The Book of Zohar. The most important thing is to carry on our effort regardless of what we may or may not feel. If we let it pour into ourselves like an infusion, then it will do its job within us.

We rise above our egoistic impressions by not paying attention to what our egoistic desire feels. Whether we’re in a state of fear or joy, whether we feel irritated or confused, we are above it. In other words, one thing doesn’t depend on the other and we continue to work despite what we feel.

The Creator intentionally trains us through our egoism and desire for pleasure. However, we have to constantly rise above this sensation and continue to walk the path as if nothing happened.

We have to say to the Creator, “It’s not Your gifts that are important to me; it is You who I need! Don’t confuse me with all the other sensations!” Only this kind of persistence will yield results.

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When we read The Book of Zohar, we have to demand spiritual elevation. The demand can happen even through our sensation of being close to this book, the feeling that we value it, that we want it to shines upon us and perform changes inside us.

Sometimes this feeling is very difficult to attain; it comes only after a few hours of studying. Nevertheless, it still has a great effect when we constantly apply effort in trying to feel the words of the text inside ourselves. As a result, we awaken the Light that Reforms. Gradually our effort adds up and the law of “I labored and found” goes into effect. We only need patience because nothing else will help.

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The Zohar, Chapter “Miketz (At the End),” Item 161: “And he put them all together in prison for three days.” These three days correspond to the three days of Shechem, as it is written, “And it came to pass on the third day, when they were in pain.”

The third day is always connected with pain. It is the hardest day in the process of correction because it is the day when the mutual inclusion of the right and left lines occurs. It is not like the first day, which is all about the right line and when we arm ourselves with the power of bestowal, nor is it like the second day, which is all about the left line, when we check which of its parts we can connect with the desire to bestow. The third day is about the reciprocal inclusion of one property into another, which results in the creation of a new, intermediate property.

Reciprocal inclusion exists only in spirituality; it never happens in our world. In this world there exists only one type of connection – when two objects unite. For example, the first object contributes its intellect whereas the other one donates emotions. They connect and replenish each other. This happens because in our world everything possesses only one property – the will to receive. Therefore, all inclusion in our world occurs only within this one property, which takes on various aspects and forms.

Mutual inclusion in spirituality, however, means that something brand new emerges – a third entity comprised of the first two. This is, in fact, a completely new phenomenon that didn’t exist previously. This “something” is called the Soul, the Human, or Adam.

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The Zohar, Chapter “Miketz (At the End),” Item 178: The Creator made it for man to strengthen himself in the Torah and to walk on the path of truth and toward the right side, and not to the left side. And because people need to walk to the right side, they should increase the love between each other. This is because love is considered “right,” and there will not be hatred between each other, which is considered left, so as to not weaken the right—the place to which Israel cling.

This paragraph seems to be speaking about life in a corrected society or group, but we still have to decipher what it means through our inner discernments. There is no difference when The Zohar speaks about an apparently external assembly of people or about a gathering of inner properties of our soul. It is the same thing since everything consists of the same ten Sefirot. We all contain the vessel of our common soul (Adam Rishon) and the same internal states of ten Sefirot exist in each of us.

This is why sometimes The Zohar uses inner definitions when it describes our properties or when it tells us about what the group should be like; sometimes it depicts only one person, or animals. We must try to see multiple levels at the same time: the inner level of our soul, the level of our group and our connection with friends, and the level of all humankind. In the future, all these levels will unite.

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