Evening Zohar Lesson – 04.12.10

The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Shemot (Exodus),” Item 50
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5 Minutes Of Light From The Daily Kabbalah Lesson: The Role Of Israel

Zivug de Hakaa

A question I received: What stands behind Kabbalistic terms? For example, what is Zivug de Hakaa (coupling while striking)? How can I imagine it?

My Answer: “Coupling while striking” is when two opposites are able to unite and enter each other specifically as a result of striking. Initially they are opposite to each other, but each of them strikes his own nature. Although they are opposite in nature, each of them strikes against himself, arousing an opportunity to become alike in the desire to unite. Thus they merge with each other.

I’m opposite to you in all of my properties, yet I want to unite with you. Thus I strike my own properties, transform them into being similar to yours, and now can unite with you. This is called “coupling while striking” to such an extent that we enter each other and merge at the level of deep understanding and feeling, growing into and completing each other.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/10, “Exile and Redemption”

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Everything Is Relative, Even Exile And Redemption

Exile and redemption are relative things, depending on where one fell from and where to. I can feel that I am in exile, detached from spirituality, only if I feel the spiritual world and feel the fact that I am disconnected from it. However, if I don’t feel what it is I am disconnected from, then this cannot be called exile, for what am I exiled from?

With respect to spirituality, the Babylonian exile was higher than the state of the exodus from Egypt. Yet it is called an exile, for it caused tremendous suffering.

When is it that I regret having fallen from the spiritual degree? Precisely when I exist in spirituality, for how else can I appraise it? When do I regret having descended from the state where there was love, bestowal, the correct connection, and similarity to the Creator in my love of others? When can I say that I have fallen into exile? It is when I already possess all those qualities and see that they are not enough, not satisfactory.

The sensation of exile is a very exalted state since it is when I suffer from lacking the qualities of bestowal and love of others.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/11/10, The Zohar

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Rambam On The Laws Of Idolatry

Rambam (1135-1202), Mishneh Torah, “The Laws of Idolatry,” Chapter 1 (abridged):

1. The sages in the days of Enoch and Enoch himself decided that since God created the stars and heavenly spheres in order to govern the world, they are His faithful servants. Thus the stars are worthy of praise, and it corresponds to God’s will.

2. With this idea in mind, they started to build temples for the stars, make sacrifices to them, and laud them. All of it was done with the aim of fulfilling the Creator’s will. This marked the beginning of idolatry.

3. Thus idol worshipers do not claim that a concrete star is a god. Everybody knows that only You are God. Yet people err in that they consider the unwarranted actions to be fulfillment of Your will.

4. Many days have passed and false prophets have surfaced. They started telling that God ordered them to convey to the people: “Serve some star, make sacrifices to it, build temples to it, and create its image so that people could worship it.” They showed the people a certain form that they themselves invented and said, “This is an image imparted on me in prophesy.”

5. This is how they started creating images in temples and gathering there for worship. They suggested to the people that the image can bring evil or good, and one should fear or serve it. The cult servants convinced them: “Propagate the service and it will bring you luck; do this or that, or don’t do this or that.”

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While The Wheel Is Spinning

By going through such spiritual states like the “New Year,” each time, a person reaches some part of the final corrected state. We cannot reach the Final Correction at once; rather, we attain it in portions, time after time. Thus each year the state of the beginning – the beginning of the year – returns. This continues until the corrections accumulate and the common and final End of Correction occurs.

Like a spinning wheel, we return to seemingly the same corrections again and again until they accumulate and we reach the final corrected state. It happens precisely as in a bicycle when its wheel seems to be spinning around its axis in the same place. Yet in reality, due to this spinning, the bicycle is moving forward because the outside conditions change.

From the Evening Zohar Lesson 4/7/10

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The Theatrical Mask Of The Upper World

A question I received: Perfection always emanates from the Upper One; the role of the lower one is to figure out his attitude towards perfection. The Zohar says: “Everything that occurs Above is perfect. Everything, whether it is a miracle or a judgment, is one whole and occurs in one place. It’s not split into two, where one half is a miracle, and the other, a judgment.” Why is that so?

My Answer: When we play with a child, we use various images so that he can discern within himself various states and relationships, react correspondingly, and thus grow.

We undergo changes all the time. Our advancement is built upon our perception of Upper properties that are not always enjoyable. Particularly by triggering within us unpleasant feelings, the Upper One compels us to grow. As Baal HaSulam writes in his story about a servant, the Creator assumes the form of a rebel, robber, or murderer.

What is the purpose of the system of the worlds? It serves as our permanent educator. It is a system of filters that hides the infinite, benevolent, and perfect Light from us. By passing through the worlds (filters), the Light educates us.

We constantly face (oppose) this system, yet each time it has an impact on us in the best possible way. It gives us exactly what we need at each given moment. Our job is to find within ourselves the correct reaction to it. If our reaction is right, the system encourages us: “Good for you! Now, you’ll be getting the next impact!” If our next reaction is adequate, the system encourages us once again: “Wonderful! Now you’ll get the next one!” This is how we advance.

To us it seems that the Creator constantly changes His attitude as if he wants us to see Him from different angles: sometimes He turns to us with his benevolent side and sometimes we see His “evil” side. It is similar to the theatrical masks that consists of a laughing and crying face.

This is how the Upper One constantly relates to the lower one in order to raise him; this is how the system of worlds treats us.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/7/10, The Zohar

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State Sponsored "Kabbalah Today" Mailing

In the News (From Lenta.ru): “The Chamber of Accounts of the Russian Federation informs that the Federal Post Office included mailings of ‘dubious entertainment quality,’ “Kabbalah Today” among them, into the list of state sponsored mailings. The Chamber of Accounts deems such actions of the Federal Post Office an ineffective way of spending state funds.”

My Comment: I don’t know how it happened, since our organization bears no relation to it. Yet if somebody wished to disseminate Kabbalah at the state’s expense, he or she did their homeland a big favor. Such action attracts the Upper Light that brings good. There is no better way of spending taxpayers’ money. I can only advise to follow this example throughout the world.

Our World Is But A Corridor Into Spirituality

europe5 A question I received: Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. Can spiritual revelation through the science of Kabbalah prevent another catastrophe from happening?

My Answer: The world is facing enormous problems. We feel this, even though we still have good lives. It’s like the joke about a person who’s falling off a ten-story building, but in the meantime, while he’s still flying through the air, he thinks that everything is ok.

All the experts are speaking about the perilous state of the world, even when it comes to the economy, which seems to be blooming. We are cooking up a powerful bomb for ourselves in all areas of life, although its action is delayed for now. The science of Kabbalah is being revealed as the general solution to all of the world’s problems. However, this is not happening in order to rid the world of these problems. These problems are given to us precisely in order to turn the world to a new direction.

The science of Kabbalah is not a remedy against misfortunes, so that instead of the misfortunes you would feel good. Rather, it is intended to elevate man to a different dimension.

Therefore, as long as people don’t feel that they shouldn’t merely get rid of their troubles, but also have to attain a different life, one that’s eternal and perfect, it will remain difficult for us to disseminate the science of Kabbalah. It does not provide a temporary or partial solution, but talks about your entire life, this entire reality which you now feel. It tells you that this reality is incorrect, transient, and imaginary, urging you to ascend as fast as possible from this reality to the true, eternal reality. Your current existence takes place in obscured senses, in a state of unconsciousness, like a patient in a critical state. You have to save yourself by ascending.

Humanity does not feel this yet, but gradually, step by step, by virtue of the dissemination of the science of Kabbalah, the public opinion must be brought to the realization that our world is but a corridor leading to the Upper World, and we have to ascend from this world to spirituality. Then we will attain it.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/10, "Exile and Redemption"

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Shifting From One Screen To The Next

Dr. Michael Laitman Kabbalah uses words that we are all familiar with, but they can either be interpreted in the material sense or the spiritual one. When one is just starting to study the science of Kabbalah, one imagines everything it talks about through images of this world. Later one starts to think that Kabbalah does talk about spirituality, but in whatever form one imagines it to have. In reality, what he imagines is not yet spirituality, but just his own fantasies about it. Thus, one imagines various charts and images.

It’s not easy for a person to shift to the spiritual perception since it can only be felt through qualities that have no time, motion, or space. A person is unable to immediately imagine it in this form, and therefore he depicts various pictures and images. This is how he shifts from one screen to another, as if in a computer, until he finally corrects his perception.

Yet, the vocabulary and terminology remains the same throughout. I have thousands of changing screens, like in “Windows,” which are described by the same words. However, the picture is always changing. At first you imagine every term in the material sense, but gradually you start to imagine it more and more spiritually. Instead of imagining arms, legs, an embrace from the left, an embrace from the right, Rosh (head), and Toch (torso), you start to imagine qualities that don’t have any material form.

Even in the material world, quantum physics has revealed that there are no “solid” particles such as electrons, protons, and myons. Everything is smudged, like some sort of disappearing electron clouds that are actually closer to the notion of qualities. Nevertheless, the names remain the same because we don’t have any other place to take names besides our world.

But why do we have to be so pedantic and never change a single word? It’s because a word is the material branch that points to its elevated spiritual root. If we change the words, then we will confuse the connections between the roots and branches. Then it won’t be a science any longer. Imagine that we are chemists who randomly change the names of substances, and then start mixing them according to a formula to produce a chemical reaction. We will come up with a completely different substance.

This is why we always keep the same language, but constantly try to improve our perception of it, moving toward a more advanced, truer spiritual form.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/10, “Exile and Redemption”

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