Evening Zohar Lesson – 03.03.10
Posted on March 3rd, 2010
The most important thing when reading The Book of Zohar is to keep yourself naive and simple in regard to it. This book is so lofty and great that in relation to it we are like little children who have been given an encyclopedia and are hardly able to turn the pages.
We don’t understand any of what is written in The Zohar. However, this is irrelevant. If you study it to the extent that you are able to, then you will receive a great influence of the Light contained in this book.
You are not just reading or listening about what is written in a book, but it is as though you are standing by a touchscreen of a computer which is controlled by the touch of a finger. This is how The Book of Zohar works. By looking at some word, it is as though you press it and put a certain system into gear. By reading or listening to some word from The Book of Zohar, you “press” it and draw an illumination (Ohr Makif) upon yourself from its spiritual root.
This continues word by word, one illumination after another. In addition, The Zohar is written in such a way that it knows how to advance you. In the spiritual world we grow in the same manner as babies grow in our material world, naturally and instinctively. Much like a baby is affected by outside influence, simply opening up to it, we need to open ourselves up to the spiritual influence. As a consequence of this influence, we will acquire spiritual sensations and intellect.
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A question I received: The Book of Zohar takes me into an unknown jungle where I feel completely disoriented. Why is it helpful to detach from my corporeal intellect?
My Answer: You don’t have any choice. You find yourself in a situation where logic no longer works. You begin to see that you will only hurt yourself by continuing to use the same logic that you used in the past. When we start to learn something that’s brand new, it’s better to abandon all prior knowledge and approach the information like a child, with a blank slate. Then you can compare the information, and later on find parallels between them.
This is how learning happens even when studying modern sciences like genetics or quantum physics. You need to find a brand new approach; you cannot comprehend the theory of relativity by simply trying to apply Newton’s principles. But you have nowhere to find a new logic because it comes only from the Surrounding Light. Therefore, we have no choice but to wait for the correction to come from Above.
Because the science of Kabbalah only talks about what exists inside of us, it is called the inner Torah, an inner wisdom. In reality, our bodies and all of this matter do not exist. Therefore, this world is called an imaginary world. As soon as we begin to perceive reality correctly, we begin to feel that all this exists only in desire. Our desire gives us various levels of sensation that exist as the inanimate nature, plants, animals, and human beings. However, all this is actually different phenomena within the desire.
We need to realize that we live within a matrix of sensation in which everything exists exclusively in our sensation. This means that there is the desire to receive pleasure which perceives the phenomena that occur in it. Therefore, it is important for us not to forget this since this approach to the perception of reality, that “everything depends on me, rather than on what is outside,” directs us to our inner correction.
We perceive ourselves in our desires on the background of white Upper Light. Everything is on the background of the Upper Light. The World of Infinity is merely the white Upper Light. We don’t see ourselves there because we reach the same state, perception, reality, and qualities as the Light.
Meanwhile, the 125 degrees by which we descended from this state are the degrees of greater and greater distancing from the white Light, on the background of which we see ourselves. Therefore, everything we see around us is our desire which includes the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human levels. These are the 4 levels of Aviut (coarseness of desire) in all its various inner forms, and which are the measures of our difference from the white Light.
These pictures are in fact our reality which presents itself to us in the form of this world. Thus our constant effort to reveal true reality, to unite with the true picture of reality, forces us to correct and perfect ourselves; and in doing so to see that we are all connected together.
The more we unite with each other and tune into the white Light, we advance toward our eternal and perfect life in the World of Infinity. And all these phenomena which we see and perceive to be outside pass like a dream. In actuality, we live only inside white Light.
This fundamental point in the science of Kabbalah is extremely important, since it separates the science of Kabbalah from all the philosophical teachings, religions, faiths, and different methods. The science of Kabbalah tells a person that he needs to correct only his desire, to make it similar to the white Light. No physical external actions have anything to do with it.
The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Ve’Eleh Toldot Itzhak (These Are the Generations of Isaac),” Item 106
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“Beit Shaar HaKavanot,” Item 2, Lesson 2
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“Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” Item 57
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Every new state is born only under the condition that the former state completely exhausts itself, similar to how a grain planted in the soil needs to rot completely in order for a new stage of life to be born from its former state, which is then perceived as unneeded and useless. This is why it is written about the holiday of Purim that Zeir Anpin sleeps while Malchut becomes immersed in darkness due to this. Only from this state of darkness do we attain the greatest Light, the state called Purim, which corresponds to the End of Correction.
If Zeir Anpin does not bring Light to Malchut, we feel that we are in exile and cannot tune into Malchut and unite. However, suffering and darkenss force us to demand strength from Zeir Anpin to accomplish our unification, in order to tune into Malchut, the one common soul. This is how we give rise to our next degree.
The Zohar, Chapter “BeHaalotcha (When You Mount the Candles),”Item 142: “A person walks in this world and the Creator gives him wealth so he will be rewarded with the next world by it, and will remain with a capital of his money. The capital is money that exists forever, a place in which to bundle the soul. This is why he must keep this capital after him, and he will receive this capital after he departs this world.” Item 143: “…while the capital exists for him in that world, to be rewarded with it in the upper life, above.”
If one does not have an anti-egoistic screen, he cannot receive the Light for the sake of bestowal and thus, he has nothing with which to continue his life. Therefore, one is either forced to live like a beast and then die and return to this world once more, or move into the spiritual world, to ascend to the next degree.
After The Zohar Convention, we have received additional Surrounding Light, which has awakened additional egoism within us. This is the desire to enjoy that is now being revealed in every person. Every person is beginning to feel darkness and heaviness, loss of energy, strength, and desire. If we overcome this state with the help of the study, dissemination work, and our environment, then we will begin to attach the new desire to this Surrounding Light that shined for us during the Convention. In doing so, we will build our new degree and advance.
The Zohar, Chapter “Bo (Come Unto Pharoah),” Item 57:”And He planted that seed in one righteous, which is Yesod de Zeir Anpin, the garden’s gardener.”
I have to imagine that I have a property within me called “Yesod de Zeir Anpin,” also known as the “righteous man.” This is where my seed is, a point from which I will eventually grow.
“And He planted that seed in one righteous, which is Yesod de Zeir Anpin, the garden’s gardener. And the seed in the garden, which is Malchut, is the concealment and hiding of that light. This means that the concealment is not absence, but on the contrary, it is a seed of blessing, that the concealment itself will become light once more, like a plant that buds from the seed.”
Baal HaSulam mentions this example in his article “Freedom of Will.” We need to “implant” ourselves into a Kabbalistic group like a seed is sewed into the earth in such a way that we “reject” (diminish) ourselves before the group. If we do that we become a seed that decomposes, “rots” in the ground in order to let the tree grow.
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