Question: I just can’t seem to understand: What is the Light that reforms? And how can I demand it during the study?

Answer: 1. At the very least, try to recognize all of these qualities inside of you which we read about in The Book of Zohar. Try to discern where they are inside of you, “rummage” inside of your desires, thoughts, and inside yourself.

That is how you expand your inner Kelim, desires, and qualities of perception. As you search among them, you begin to differentiate between them. But all of these qualities already exist inside of you.

2. If I don’t have a need for correction, then to me the words “the Light that reforms” are devoid of life. If I require correction, then I expect this Light. But if I don’t have this need, then I don’t know what this Light is.

I am told, “You have to wait for the Light to come.” Fine, so let it come. The sages say it’s good, and I agree. If that’s my attitude, then I cannot attract it.

It is written that one must await salvation at every moment. “The Creator’s salvation comes in the blink of an eye.” This is talking precisely about the correcting Light, the Light that reforms, bringing us back to the Creator.

The action we demand from above must always be preceded by our desire, the need for it. Otherwise it will never happen. Either we elicit the suffering inside of us on our own, which is “the suffering of love,” a passionate desire for the Light, or it will come in the form of compulsory suffering, by the path of “Beito” (in due time).

However, without suffering, without a question and without a desire, I cannot attain the correcting Light. That’s because the Light is at absolute rest. We only need the desire so the correcting Light would influence us.

We could say that the Light is present inside of the desire, but is revealed only when this desire reaches the true measure.
[40438]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/11, The Zohar

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Question: Even though our world is an imaginary reality, Kabbalists treat it very seriously. Why is that?

Answer: It’s because we grow and act while being inside of it. Even though this reality is definitely imaginary, you have to take it seriously and arrange things in it as if it really exists.

Imagine that you joined a group of children and are playing with them as seriously as possible, making the game real the way they do. The little ones are running around, trying to put something together and arguing over toys, but to them—this is life. And you participate in their life, helping them put its parts together so they would grow quickly and correctly in this “sand-box.”

This requires a serious attitude. It takes great efforts to raise a child in this world, and a person must treat himself in exactly the same way. This is how he should treat the spiritual child that is growing inside of him. You cannot make any compromises in this regard: I take care of myself, my family, children, and parents, and all the material needs. And even though all of this is obviously an illusion, that doesn’t matter.

The pictures of the material world are depicted in my brain by the egoistic desire and I cannot correct that desire because it is on the still level. Even the great Kabbalist Rabbi Shimon had to eat, drink, make a living, and take care of his students. Do you really think they were floating up in the clouds, not worrying about their families and about putting bread on the table?

This world is part of my growth, “including toothaches,” as Rabash used to say. The only difference is that I must aspire upwards over and over again, toward bestowal, toward the spiritual world. Kabbalists have a different problem: How to remain serious inside of this children’s sand-box. And they are obligated to do that. That is why they have such a responsible attitude to upbringing and other areas in the material world. A person has to provide for all of his vital needs.

Corporeality disappears from our sensations only at the end of correction when there is no more need for this game of the imagination.
[40484]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How does The Book of Zohar teach us the methods of the connection between us?

Answer: Baal HaSulam adds a commentary to The Zohar to stave off the materialization of The Zohar‘s text. It lays ground for the formation of the spiritual state within us, beyond space and time, beyond the images of our world, to make us want to experience it within and not outside of us.

The Sulam commentary, like all the books of Kabbalists, is written for people who have already acquired spiritual attainment to help them understand what they’re already feeling. I am being explained what I am feeling right now; I’m at the level where “a person’s soul teaches him.” Then by reading Kabbalistic texts, I begin to understand what I am feeling.

Before spiritual sensations arise in me, however, the Kabbalistic texts are not a source of knowledge but “Segula” (a miraculous force) for me because while reading them, I am exposed to the influence of the upper Light, washing over me like a stream of living water.

Hence, I don’t want to explain what each phrase in The Zohar means from the standpoint of Sefirot and Partzufim so that a student will not be satisfied with superficial knowledge. I want him or her to search inside, within their feelings, wondering what it is really like. Then they will have a greater yearning for revelation and thereby form a desire, a need, for it.
[40370]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/11/2011, The Book of Zohar

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati #59 “About The Rod and the Serpent”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Passover, Bo (Come Unto Pharaoh),” “And It Came to Pass at Midnight,” Item 114
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Talmud Eser Sefirot 6, Part 15, Item 41
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Writings of Rabash, Dargot HaSulam “Time of Redemption”
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