Question: Participating in Hebrew Book Week, I observed an interesting phenomenon: A person walks by the book stand, sees the book Unlocking The Zohar, and his reaction shows that he was waiting for this moment all his life. He looks at the book, not daring take it in his hands, then he walks by, and circles back to return to it. It is obvious that there is an internal struggle.

Many people hesitate to take this book, feeling some fear as they face it, although subconsciously something tells them that the truth is hidden in it. They even walk away with pain that they did not take the book with them. How do you explain this fear?

Answer: This is one of the problems which we have to cope with and to help people overcome this fear. This is correction. Nobody is to blame, as it is said: “Go to the Craftsman who made me.”

We exist in the egoistic nature which has to feel denial, fear, rejection of what is supposed to bring us correction. This becomes dressed in some kind of fear of the book and the results of reading it, as if it can harm us. In essence, this is preparation for correction.

This fear arises not because people were told about the prohibition to touch the book. Nothing happens without a reason. On the contrary, our ego, our will to enjoy, prepared us in such a way that we keep a certain distance from corrections.

There is no choice: We will have to work on it, explain it, and put effort into it. But in any case, do not blame anybody. No one did this on purpose. The very nature of our ego, of our will to enjoy, sets us against everything associated with correction, forcing us to stay as far as possible from it.

It is worthwhile to study this behavior. A modern young man who is not worried about anything suddenly feels an inexplicable fear before The Zohar. This is nature. Even if he did not hear anything about this book, he discovers in himself some primeval, medieval prejudices, as if he is not a modern person any more.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/22/2011, The Zohar

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Question: What can I do during the day to prepare myself for the morning lesson, especially for the reading of The Book of Zohar, to get maximum results?

Answer: It is desirable for a person to always keep a book with selected passages from The Zohar or Kabbalists’ sayings next to him. If during the day a person can listen to a recorded lesson, let him listen; if he can read, let him read; if he can only think, let him think.

There are people who cannot read, listen, or think about spirituality at work because their work absorbs them entirely, and they return to the intention only occasionally. There are different situations.

Rabash always used to say that it was desirable to choose a simple physical job that requires no mental or emotional efforts. But today, we hardly have jobs like that. Thus, a person should establish a definite schedule, for example, disconnect from his work every hour and connect with spirituality for five minutes.

Each person should try to do everything possible in the situation he finds himself in. These efforts are his exertion.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/22/2011, The Zohar

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Question: Can we use the reading of The Book of Zohar to correct very difficult conditions in which many people in the world find themselves today? The wisdom of Kabbalah has been revealed, and everybody may read The Zohar. Would it help a person who does not feel the need for the group, studying, and understanding?

Answer: We have to realize that in reality, the use of the wisdom of Kabbalah is effective only if a person wants to advance towards correction. We see that time passes until people who come to study the wisdom of Kabbalah join the group and begin to understand and hear what is going on. These are very slow, internal, stage-by-stage changes in a person.

Hence, we need to understand that “Segula,” “a special effect of the Light,” starts much earlier than a person realizes that he or she is under its influence. The Light that Reforms works on him or her like on a baby who does not know yet how he is developing, for what,  or to where he should advance. He is attracted by an interesting game and plays with his toys; this is our environment.

We are in the group, and this is our environment. There are people who do not have a group, but it does not matter. The key is that in some way they use the means of attracting the Light that Reforms: The Book of Zohar, the works of Baal HaSulam, Rabash’s articles and letters, Kabbalistic music, songs.

Thus, reading The Book of Zohar in any condition, even if a person is not thinking yet about the group and unity, but wants to improve his life, still helps. If the entire world has already entered the stage of development whereby we must achieve unity among us, then any use of the sources that bring the correcting Light is beneficial.

Not everybody has to sit together with us and thousands of people around the world during our morning lessons. We also have to awaken people who have no connection with us, who have never heard that one should study for the sake of unity among people. Baal HaSulam says that we have entered the period of  the Messiah, and the entire humankind must advance in this direction.

Hence, it is desirable for a person to be connected with the primary sources even without any intentions.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/22/2011, The Zohar

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In Baal HaSulam’s Letter #1 there is a parable about a king who grew so fond of his servant that he wanted to raise him above all the ministers….

He appointed the servant a guard at the city gate, and told a minister who was a clever joker to pretend to rebel against the kingdom…

The minister did as the king had commanded and with great wisdom and craftiness, pretended to fight against the king’s house. The servant risked his life and saved the king, fighting devotedly and bravely against the minister, until his great love for the king was evident to all.

Then the minister took off his costume and there was great laughter for he had fought so fiercely, and now realized that there was only fiction here, not reality. … Every single item in this terrible war became a round of laughter and great joy. …

[Then for a second time the king] said to that minister that he must disguise himself as a robber and a murderer, and wage fierce war against him. The king new that in the second war he would display wondrous wisdom (Hochma), and merit standing at the head of all the ministers.

In the meantime, the servant inherited “wisdom” (Hochma) from after-knowledge, and “love” from fore-knowledge, and then has been erected for eternity.

It is true, that all the wars in that exile are a wondrous sight, and everyone knows in their kind interior that it is all a kind of wit and joy that brings only good. Still, there is no tactic to ease the weight of the war and the threat on oneself.

We really do not know why we have to go through all of the suffering, problems, wars, and confusion, and on the other side of that, clarification, successes, and failures…. What is the use of all this suffering?

But later on this path, we gradually realize how from this we acquire knowledge, wisdom, power, and understanding of the general system. We study the Creator’s actions that are done to us, and as a result we attain and understand Him, as it is written, “We will know You from Your actions.” To the extent we understand Him, we start to sense Him.

Yet, the reason why we definitely had to reach this by such a difficult path is not clear to us. And now, while we are still on the path of correction, we won’t be able to understand it, but only when we rise above its limitations to the state of perfection. Then we will gain the necessary mind and feelings, the means enabling us to discover the justify this path.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/26/11, “A Parable about a King”

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My Good Environment – Dr. Laitman’s Advice for the Week

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The spiritual reality is above time, motion, and space, in a state that we are unable to imagine. We perceive everything with relation to time, in which we imagine motion, or with respect to motion that we imagine in time. And all of this happens in a certain place to us.

On one hand, these three parameters in which we perceive the world limit us very much. But on the other hand, for now precisely they give us the only opportunity to feel our reality inside of them. If we were not limited by time, motion, and space, then we would not perceive the world at all.

Our entire reality lies inside of the boundaries of time, motion, and space, even though these notions do not exist in reality! Therefore, the world we now perceive inside of these three limitations is called an imaginary world.

But when we begin to develop spiritually, we reveal the true reality in which there is no time, motion, or space. We attain it from our level and higher, meaning by advancing upwards, toward an increasingly greater quality of bestowal, revealing the root that moves toward us from above downward: from the absolute quality of bestowal to greater restrictions in order to be able to reveal itself to us.

But in this reality, there are obviously no changes, not from below upwards nor from above downwards. The entire expansion of the worlds form the world of Infinity, various Partzufim, Sefirot, and breakings, until our state in this world, and our attainment where we ascend up along the spiritual levels, all of this exists only in relation to the person attaining them.

Inside of him, in his attainment, he reveals a reality that seems to have been organized for him before from above downwards, until the level he now reveals. And he ascended to that level from below upwards. However, all of this exists inside a person and is felt in relation to his revelation and self-correction.

In reality, before him there were no actions from the Creator’s end. Everything was completed in one initial act of creation. And it is also something we cannot understand: What does it mean that creation did not exist and then it emerged? After all, that already presupposes the existence of some sort of time, a beginning and end? But that’s just how we describe it using our human language.

These two notions: the expansion of the worlds from above downwards and the attainment of reality from below upwards, create the perception of the world that allows us to exist for now. And the higher a person rises up the spiritual ladder, the greater the gap he perceives between these two meeting points, understanding how relative his perception and he, himself, are.

In essence, this is talking about the will to enjoy that attains itself or its creation by the Creator. All the levels of revelation that are contained inside one, single act of the Creator are revealed to us gradually, one after the other, in order to build the right perception of reality in us.

Therefore, we now need two levels of attainment until they finish developing in us by virtue of our efforts and the desire to connect them together. But in the end they will merge and the entire expansion of the worlds from above downwards and our ascent from below upwards will unite in one point of total unity, which is called Malchut of the world of Infinity.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/11, Shamati

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People’s desires are not sufficiently developed yet to grasp the altruistic message. And they couldn’t bear it either. They would immediately run away. That is why there is a concealment preventing us from perceiving the idea of love. People start hearing its reverberations and changing little by little.

Everything happens by means of the upper Light. However, under its influence people do not get smarter because we are not talking about regular wisdom. Spiritual ideas can only be grasped with the help of the Light. When it pours upon me, I start understanding something, and that’s how it happens again and again. After a period of despair and pressure, I suddenly feel that the time did not go by in waste. It turns out that this was a transition to a new phase of inner development.

Everyone experiences these transitions. We are still unable to prepare for them or to control them, to regulate their ascents and descents, the fillings and revelations. However, the time will come when you will control them, as it is written, “I awaken the dawn instead of the dawn awakening me.”
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/11, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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We are created with egoistic nature and can only think about filling ourselves with pleasures. That is why if a thought about bestowal occurs in our minds, slightly raising us above our egoism, and we start thinking in the opposite direction, it certainly does not come from our inner nature, but from the Light, from the Creator.

There are only two forces in the universe: the force of the Creator, the desire to bestow, and the force of the creature, the will to enjoy. Thus, if the desire to reflect on what is higher than one’s earthly existence, that is, about the meaning of one’s life, suddenly awakens in a person, this means that the upper Light started acting upon him.

Then, a person is brought to the group, or he comes across a book about Kabbalah, or all of a sudden he hears an interview—everybody encounters Kabbalah as if completely “by chance.” However, we should understand that there is nothing accidental here. And when a person is brought to the right place and given an opportunity to connect with the teacher, the books, and the group, he should not miss this.

Not everything depends on us, and everybody will have to go through a process, but there is some part in it that we have to organize ourselves. And if the Creator has called us to spiritual development, from the moment when we recognize this invitation from Above, we should not miss it.

That is why we get together in groups, come to the lessons every day, inspire each other with the importance of the goal, and organize various events. All this should convince me of the importance of the process of spiritual development. If the group is constantly thinking about how to reach the goal, this affects each of us and forces us to be empathetic.

Then, if I am given any opportunity with thoughts about advancement and the greatness of the spiritual goal awakened in me, I immediately react to this. These are very important moments. Everything depends on how a person responds to the Creator’s call.

In reality, every day we get several such invitations. And if we react correctly, then tomorrow, we will get even more of them, and the day after tomorrow, even more!  This way, you can reach the state when all the time you will feel that you are in a dialogue with the Creator, until in all these opportunities, thoughts, and desires changing in you, you feel a constant connection with the Creator.

There are several levels of this connection that should increase more and more and acquire different types. It comes and goes to awaken a greater desire in us. It is like a game, a flirtation, with which the Creator inflames a desire in us so that we chase Him. As it is said: “’My Beloved is like a deer” that always looks back, running away, disappearing and getting closer. Thus, the Creator is playing with us.

The key is not to miss the opportunities as they arise and to react properly. In those moments when you feel an awakening, you should not forget that it comes from Above, and you have to answer this call. As it said: “Call upon Him while He Is Near!”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah World 6/24/2011, Shamati #241

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Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”: Prior to the giving of the method of Kabbalah, the children of Israel had assumed the relinquishment of any private property to the extent expressed in the words, “a Kingdom of Priests,” and the purpose of the whole of Creation—to cleave unto Him in equivalence of form with Him: as He bestows and does not receive, they, too, will bestow and not receive. This is the last degree of Dvekut (adhesion), expressed in the words, “Holy nation”….

How do we exit this world? We enter the period of preparation. After that we cross the Machsom (the barrier separating us from spirituality) and rise to the level called “Hafez Hesed,” that is, bestow for the sake of bestowal. This is the degree of Bina.

Then, we rise to the degree of Keter, to reception for the sake of bestowal, and receive the Light of Hochma (Wisdom), while on the level below, we received only the Light of Hassadim (Mercy).

On the degree of Bina, we cancel “private property,” meaning arrive at the state of Hafez Hesed and are not supposed to use our receiving desire. This is also preparation, the phase of the correction of the vessels. The reception of the Light takes place on the next degree.

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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah World 6/24/2011, “The Freedom”

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Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Table of Questions and Answers for the Meaning of the Words“: Question 25. [What is a spiritual vessel] Kli. The will to receive in the emanated being is the Kli.

However, the will to receive alone is not enough: We know that it requires the intention to bestow. In other words, this desire needs to be corrected, supplemented.

The spiritual vessel is initially created as desire: the place for receiving fulfillment. But later on, it changes and builds a new vessel above itself, which is regarded as the “screen” and the “Reflected Light.”

Before the First Restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph), the emanated being’s will to receive served as the vessel for the Light. But afterwards, by the decision of the lower ones and with the approval of the upper one, the vessel for the Light can only be the screen and the Reflected Light created by the emanated being, instead of its primordial desire to receive pleasure that it has rejected as defective for receiving the Light.

Desire is a raw material that is handed to us from Above through the informational genes (Reshimot), the influence of the upper Light. It isn’t up to the creature. But the latter says: “I reject this vessel given to me to receive the treats, and I refuse to work in this way! I don’t wish this egoistic desire to control me as a blind instinct!” I don’t want to forget who I am and thoughtlessly do only whatever pleases me. I want to make every move with an understanding, consciously, upon my own examination and according to my decision.”

“This is the way I wish to be now, from now on and forever! Please help me to become it, I am begging you! I don’t wish to remain a beast; I wish to become a human! To be human means to know who you are and make your own decisions. Please give me this chance! From now on, let us agree that the vessel (desire) that You created in me is unfit. Give me a chance to choose on my own how to use if first. And then, the screen and the Reflected Light become the vessel.

I plead with You so that You build this vessel for me, which I don’t naturally possess. I hate my selfish nature that makes me act unconsciously. I don’t want it. I want to be aware of what is going on with me from the beginning to the end and to choose on my own.”

In that case, I receive an opportunity to make clear, precise, and allegedly final choices regarding everything that concerns my nature: about reception and our relationship with Him, which will be regarded as my spiritual vessel. It is a device that I created to be able to receive the treats from the Host.

The primordial desire remains since without it, it’s impossible to do anything. But where I am concerned, I don’t wish to use it to act. The new desire requires of me to learn how the Host feels about me and how I can become similar to Him, and I reveal my primordial desire only in accordance with it.

This means that we do not reject the natural desire as it is, but only its “traditional” use.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/22/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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