A question I received: By studying The Book of Zohar, will I learn how to obtain a connection with global nature?

My Answer: No, you will not learn anything. However, you will rouse a certain force onto yourself, and this force will influence you, change you, and connect all the different qualities in you to equivalence to nature. To the extent that you become an integral part of nature, make yourself similar to it, and unite with it, you will also understand everything.

Understanding comes after everything, as a result of all the changes and unifications that you achieve. However, by merely reading The Book of Zohar, you will not understand anything. You need to read The Zohar with the intention for it to make you an integral part of nature, to make you in oneness with all of reality.

To the extent that you unite with it, you will begin to feel that you are part of one whole, and from this sensation you will already begin to understand. This is called attainment, the last stage, which you achieve as a result of the unification. This unification with nature is called “adhesion with the Creator.”

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The Book of Zohar — Selections, Chapter “VaYaera (And The Lord Appeared),” Item 67
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The Zohar, Chapter “Chayei Sarah (The Life of Sarah),” Item 41: Such are the ways of the Creator. If He gives wealth to a person, it is to nourish the world and to do His commandments. If he does not do it, but takes pride in his wealth, he will be struck in it, as it is written, “Wealth kept for its owner is to his hurt.”

…Similarly, when the Creator gave them of the beauty of the superior good of Adam ha Rishon, He gave it to them to keep His commandments and to do His will. They did not do it, but were proud; they were struck in that same beauty with which they were blessed.

Therefore, a person that cries, “Why does the Creator treat me this way?” has to understand that a person himself is provoking the harm. We are the ones who cause our own blows by not correctly using the opportunities that the Creator gives us in order to rise. We stumble on these very opportunities, fall down, then we essentially beat ourselves. This is what The Zohar tells us, “They were struck in that same beauty with which they were blessed.”

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Preparation to the Lesson
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Shamati #34: “The Profit of The Land”
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“Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 36
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The Book of Zohar — Selections, Chapter “VaYaera (And The Lord Appeared),” Item 61
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A question I received: Who is a person’s worst enemy in the spiritual work?

My Answer: The worst enemy is the person himself, his qualities, which are opposite to the Creator! They are revealed to us gradually, to the extent that we can oppose them. Otherwise, we would be paralyzed and unable to do even a single inner or external action. Therefore, the concealment is revealed to us incrementally, showing us that we really do not exist as some individual!

A small piece of truth is revealed to me only to the extent that I am able to hold onto the Creator. In regard to all other thoughts, desires, and qualities, I am not shown just how much I am controlled from above. It is instilled in me that I seemingly determine everything on my own. In other words, only gradually is it disclosed to me that I actually do not exist – I am just a puppet, whose strings are being pulled!

However, to the extent that I am able to annul myself before my environment and the Creator, and use my freedom of choice, I am granted independence. An opportunity is revealed to me to build more and more minor parts of my independent personality – until I ascend in all my magnitude. This means that I will exist in adhesion with the Creator – in the opposite desire, but in the same intention.

It turns out that we never come out from the authority of the Upper Force, but progressively the concealment diminishes according to our willingness to adhere to the Creator. It is as though a curtain draws apart in front of me. At first I am in pitch darkness, where I think that I exist and have independence. To the extent that I will be able to tolerate the fact that I am helpless, to endure this inner blow, this shame, and to adhere to the Creator, the curtain will be drawn apart more and more for me, and the concealment will fade.

Everything depends on my sensations. The state itself does not change – only my perception changes.

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A question I received: What is the most difficult revelation that we need to perform in order to reveal the spiritual world?

My Answer: In order to enter spirituality, we need to gradually cut off ourselves from our “I,” as though it does not exist. It is as though my former “I” dies. We don’t understand what the sensation of life is. For us life is a sensation of our own power and strength; it is when we think that we control ourselves and our lives on our own on both the inside and outside.

When we enter spirituality, we feel that our egoistic “I” dies. We become free from it, as it is written, “The dead are free!” I gradually reject more and more parts of myself as long as I rise above my ego. I want to be free of this dependence so much that I am willing to endure any blows to my own ambitions, as long as I rise above it. I even begin to like these blows, since I understand that it is due to them that I ascend and become free of this bitter enemy sitting inside of me. I don’t identify myself with my ego anymore. Instead, I want it to get what it deserves. This is already a sign of nearing the Machsom.

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There is a universal connection, a hierarchy, or chain in the common system of the souls. The development of the different types of souls happens according to this connection. In their development, the souls always depend on the preceding souls. They are connected like a father and son, cause and consequence, or teacher and student. However, there is one, special, exalted system above all the types of connections. It penetrates the system like a live organism and operates in different directions. This system is called the system of Rashbi.

It is the transition between the part of the system that is corrected and the part that is uncorrected. The corrected part is filled with Light and contains the corrected desires which are all ready for the common, final correction of the entire system. This part includes those that have already revealed the entire 125 degrees of the proper development of the common system of creation. The uncorrected part still needs to realize the state it is in and begin its correction. The uncorrected part is us, all the souls on the level of this world.

All of us will have to go through the step-by-step correction with the help of the system of Rashbi which is absolutely at the height of the 125th degree. The revelation and the influence of these corrected souls happens to us through those connections and preparations that they have built in the form of a system called The Zohar (the Light that descends from Arich Anpin of the world of Atzilut).They have created this kind of system for us so that we will find ourselves in a proper environment as we connect to it. After all, our entire development depends on the environment.

When we try to connect to The Zohar, we can receive everything we need for our correction from this system that represents the group of Rashbi and his students. These souls have made special corrections in the Upper Light in which we can clothe ourselves through The Zohar. Through them, we also can connect with the Light or with the Creator.

Rashbi uses The Zohar to reveal to us the gates that lead upward. He reveals them to the extent of the value that we give to the greatness of this system and our ability to connect to it with the purpose of using it to attain the spiritual goal.

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The Book of Zohar — Selections, Chapter “VaYaera (And The Lord Appeared),” Item 48
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In order to enter and become part of the system that Rashbi has created for us, one first needs to experience the state of a spiritual embryo (Ibur). I try to cancel myself in that state. With the help of the current Kabbalistic group, I cancel my egoism. Together with this group, I wish to attach myself to the Upper System that the Kabbalists speak of and to grow there.

I begin to find myself in a group higher than my own to the extent of my ability to annul myself before the group. Then, I begin to see forces of even higher systems operating between myself and my friends to the extent of my strengthening my connection with the others.

The system of Rashbi helps me with this. In this system, the same group of Kabbalists that had corrected itself to the 125^th degree during the times of the breaking of the common soul, at first serves as the mother’s womb for me (in my state of Ibur), and then nurses me (Chagat), and carries the Light of Mochin to me (Chabad). All the Light that passes through the three lines to the broken souls is passed through this carrier which connects us to the World of Infinity.

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