Pictures From The Unity Evening In Beer Sheva
Posted on August 22nd, 2010
Pictures from the Unity Evening that took place August 18, 2010 Beer Sheva, Israel.
Pictures from the Unity Evening that took place August 18, 2010 Beer Sheva, Israel.
The Zohar, Chapter ”Lech Lecha (Go Forth),” Items 146-150: He said, “When a man goes to sleep on his bed, his soul departs from him and goes up, as it is written, ‘At night my soul longs for You.’”…
Afterwards, she walks and roams and rises according to her degree.
That Nefesh that was rewarded with rising appears before the King and adheres with a desire to be seen, a sublime craving to see the pleasantness of the King and to visit His palace. This is a man who always has a share in the next world.
What is the soul (Nefesh)? When I desire to unite with the others and feel how through this aspiration I connect with similar desires of the others, the place of our oneness and unity is called “Nefesh” in relation to me. Everyone may feel it differently, but for me Nefesh is the first spiritual step. If I can later strengthen this connection despite my growing egoism and obstacles, I can attain the next spiritual degrees: Ruach, Neshama, Haya, and Yechida. But the place of my very first contact, my desire for unity to occur, is called Nefesh.
I have to create a place for all of our desires to come together! And when everybody is there (and so am I), when I have connected them with my effort (and they have given me the opportunity to enter and join them), there, in the place of my exertion and my oneness with all the others, I will finally undergo all the spiritual states that The Zohar tells us about.
All I need is to desire this connection and feel as if I’m already in it, which will indicate my entering the state of Nefesh. The Zohar tells me about what happens next, in this oneness. There is only one relationship which experiences ups and downs, various adventures, and spiritual states. The Zohar doesn’t discuss anything else. As a matter of fact, The Zohar talks solely about the spiritual world since spirituality can be found only in our oneness.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/27/10, The Zohar
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What is it about the Aba Ve Ima of the world of Nekudim that makes them the “head” of the world of Nekudim with respect to the body, the ZON (Zeir Anpin and Nukva)? They have the illumination from the Upper Partzuf, Keter. This illumination is protection from egoistic desires; it’s the Light of Hassadim guarding them from the desire to receive pleasure. Even if this desire emerges suddenly, the Light of bestowal protects them from egoistic reception. For this reason, Aba Ve Ima is the head.
What is the difference between the head and the body? In the material world they are made from different material: the brain and the flesh. However, what’s the difference between the spiritual head and body (Rosh and Guf)? How does thought differ from desire? Isn’t desire the only thing that was created by the Creator?
The spiritual head is the separation from the desire to receive pleasure that allows a person to carry out actions above the desire to receive. By receiving an illumination from Hassadim, the Light of bestowal, the desires or spiritual vessels (Kelim) become the head. This Light allows them to disconnect from the desire contained within them and perform a calculation above it, as though looking from the side objectively, like an independent observer.
A head is the part where an objective decision can be made. This separates a human being from an animal and, in general, from all of nature (the still, vegetative, and animate). Spiritually, the differences lie in the fundamental essence and not in the material itself, like in our world.
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/5/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot
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Question: Fear for our lives in this world arises in us instinctively; it’s beyond our control. How do I obtain the same dreadful fear that I may not attain bestowal?
Answer: We are not helpless in the face of fear of this world. When a person embarks on the spiritual journey, he receives such odd fears that he starts to realize that fear isn’t real; it’s a game.
A person feels that this fear is projected on him from Above as if with a beam, and his only choice is to rise above it by “faith above reason” in bestowal. If he exists in bestowal, there is nothing to fear. He can simply close his eyes to all fears that come solely to force him to rise above caring only for the self and to teach us to live in aspiration for bestowal.
As opposed to some instinctive animate fear, a person perceives this state consciously. He sees that it’s coming to him from the Light that Reforms, and he is aware that his sensations are projected to him from the Source whose purpose is to advance him. Then, he understands that nothing happens without a reason and these fears have a purpose.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/17/10, “The Matter of Fear and Happiness”
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Excerpts from my upcoming book, A Guide to The Book of Zohar
The correction of attitudes in a Kabbalistic group from love of self to love of others is possible only with the help of the very Upper Force that created “the evil inclination,” our egoism. Only this Force can turn the evil inclination to good, as it is written, “I created the evil inclination, and handed down the Torah for its correction since the Light in it Reforms”; that is, it unites us in love.
In fact, even now we exist in perfect reality. We are tightly connected with each other as parts of one body in mutual love and adhesion with the Upper Force that created us and filled with love and abundance. We just need to awaken to the feeling and awareness of this reality in the same way as a person who is unconscious has to wake up in order to feel alive.
This awakening, the resurrecting force of the Light that Reforms, can be felt only when we come together. In the group, we try to be connected in the love between us and rise above our instinctive egoistical emotions. Together, we read The Book of Zohar.
This book talks about unity among us and our corrected state of existence. So, our collective reading of The Book of Zohar with the intention to attain oneness arouses the Light that brings us back from oblivion. Gradually, we begin to feel the connection and within it, the Creator. In doing so, we achieve practical realization of the essence of the science of Kabbalah: the revelation of the Creator to the created beings.
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Dear Friends, please ask questions on the passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.
Who Is a Kabbalist?
Were it not for sages [those who have attained the Creator by equivalence of form], people [those who have not yet attained Him] would not know what is Torah [methodology of correction]and what are the Mitzvot (commandments) of the Creator [sole governing force], and there would be no difference between man’s spirit and the spirit of a beast [at their final state].
– The Book of Zohar with the Sulam (Ladder) Commentary, Chapter “Shemot” (Exodus), Item 84
Mysteries and secrets of the Torah will not be revealed as a result of one’s earthly powers, but only as thanks to the Upper Light [correction and fulfillment] that stems from the Height of His Divinity [the World of Infinity] with the help of His messengers and angels or prophet Eliyahu [the force of creation].
– Chaim Vital, “Introduction to Shaar HaHakdamot”
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I have strong hopes that you will understand what the spiritual stimulator that we want to build is. The group is something extremely vague, unknown, and elusive; it’s as if it is hanging in the air somewhere. Meanwhile, the stimulator is a very tangible place on the Internet where questions, answers, aspirations, goals, and clarifications are concentrated. You can think of it as a third party. For the time being, this kind of attitude toward the group, the soul, the spiritual world, and the Creator is more understandable to us.
The spiritual world is revealed in our connection, in the network that connects us. This is why we have to build this space on the Internet so that it will connect us. Think that it’s a connection between us, and give more strength to it every time. Everyone can enjoy great impressions and inspiration by taking part in it because it is less obscure and a more tangible environment that one can actually “touch.”
Today people live on the Internet and reveal the whole world of senses and a new dimension there instead of in our material life. If we attain the state in which the group influences and awakens us through this stimulator, then we won’t miss a single moment in spiritual advancement.
It may be that a person’s entire life is just one moment which can remain unfinished. This is because a moment begins from Above and is finished by us below. The Creator awakens a person and he has to react. If he responds to the proposition of getting closer, then the moment is finished and the next one begins.
Life is composed of such moments; they make up our advancement and determine how much we will achieve during this life-cycle. However, if the person does not respond, a moment never finishes…Seize the moment!
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/13/10, Baal HaSulam’s Letter 18
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The Zohar, Chapter “VaYechi (And Jacob Lived),” Item 24: The third exile is the long exile that we are in, which corresponds to 100 years in Jacob’s life compared to the forty (years) in the exile in Babylon.
We shouldn’t view this story as an historic recounting. There is no such thing as history. The reality we think we live in transpires within us as imaginary pictures; it unfolds inside of our desire (Kli).
All we are supposed to do is to correct the program of our perception. As we do that, we will sense genuine reality through our authentic properties (that are similar to the Creator who makes them).
This is why we have to treat The Zohar’s narrations as an invitation to reveal everything it describes from within, in our sensations and consciousness, and our minds and hearts.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/16/10, The Zohar
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Question: How does a person situated in an isolated capsule of his egoism know what true and false is?
Answer: Now you will understand how greatly the primordial snake helped us, having pushed us to “sin” with the Tree of Knowledge. Specifically, thanks to this revelation of the immense egoistic desire called “the snake” we received an opportunity to ascend from the spiritual degree of an “animal” to that of a “human.”
The difference between the two degrees (the Delta symbol in the drawing) is called “the snake.” If you wish to ascend from one spiritual degree to the next, please go ahead. But you have to work against this snake, against the empty space that he created in you. Yet, if it were not for him, you would have remained an “animal.”
Precisely this force, the force of the egoistic snake in us, cultivates a human in us. All the breaking, sins, and transgressions described in the Torah are useful acts. They are the templates for the evil desires through the correction of which we discover the Creator. An additional desire for ascension is given to us by the “snake,” and its correction comes through the Kabbalah books, the group, the teacher, and dissemination.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/17/10, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”
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People are starting to make jokes about Kabbalah:
A man sits and weeps. Seeing his grief, a friend asks, “What’s this all about?”
“That’s it, my goose is cooked. A fortune teller said I have one month to live. It’s destiny, she said. Nothing can be done about it.”
“That’s if you do nothing, but if you study Kabbalah, you can control your destiny.”
“And you seriously expect me to believe this baloney?”
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