The Book of Zohar, “Bo (Come unto Pharaoh),” The Passover Sacrifice, Item 189: When the Creator came to Egypt, He saw the Passover blood written on the door, and the covenant blood—how they were standing at the door.

Question: How can I keep the right intention while reading The Book of Zohar?

Answer: There is no doubt that I can’t keep the right intention, but I need to imagine the state I want to be in now.

First I need to totally detach myself from the voice of the announcer, as if I don’t hear anything. I know that I am connected to a pipe through which the Light flows unto me and it can either help me or harm me: it can become the “elixir of life” or the “potion of death.” It all depends on how I hear!

It is as if I put on earphones, but I turn the volume down and don’t want to hear. First I want to know what energy, what force, reaches me through these channels, how the Reforming Light should influence me. Do I receive it like a bat and sink even more deeply into the darkness, or like a rooster that expects the dawn? It all depends on my intention and so I have to clarify this first.

So first I block my ears in order not to hear anything. What should I do now so that the Light that reaches me will heal me? I don’t want the snake that is the symbol of medicine, to turn into a real snake and poison me with its lethal venom. The same poison can be used as a medicine even though it comes from the same source, from the same snake. In order to do that I have to prepare myself, to be in a group together with the friends, to want to connect with them in my heart and soul to become one man in one heart, to attain such a love into which we can all dissolve and feel ourselves as one whole.

To the extent that we can reach that by the Light that Reforms us into one body, we will feel the force that unites us, the Creator, internally. We will feel the source of the Surrounding Light. The Light determines the connection among us. The source of the Light is the Creator who is revealed in the vessel that is arranged correctly.

First I have to imagine this whole state accurately. When I see it before me by imagining it emotionally and even visually, I gradually begin to unclog my ears. Then I turn on the volume in order to hear the announcer’s voice, as long as I can keep the image I have created in my mind. But if what is going on disturbs me from keeping that image, I turn the volume down again. If it doesn’t disturb me, I follow that voice.

I try to hear the announcer and no matter what is being said: whether it is about Passover, the blood of the circumcision on the door, the details about the exodus from Egypt, I try to find all these discernments in that image in which we are all connected.

I don’t depict the image according to the corporeal meaning of the words which the “language of the branches” uses, but rather translate them into the “language of the spiritual roots”: Sefirot, Partzufim, reception and bestowal, the connection between us and the Creator, and the unity of the concepts “Israel, the Torah and the Creator.” I immediately get rid of the actual words, as from an unwanted shell. It is as if I clean the shell off the nuts before I begin to eat them, and thus I get rid of corporeal concepts and immediately move on from the branches to the roots.

I try to imagine what it looks like in the spiritual roots: what is the meaning of “lintel,” “Mezuzah,” or “blood.” Even if I don’t understand, it makes no difference. The main thing is my efforts, wanting to know what is being studied, to connect to what is being studied. The Reforming Light influences me according to my efforts.

We must constantly repeat these exercises over and over again, in every book that we study: the articles of Rabash and Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, The Zohar, the Mishnah, Shulchan Aruch, all the books are about how to connect the broken vessel.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabblah Lesson 4/22/12, The Zohar 

Related Material:
The Passover Sacrifice
The Zohar: The Narrative About Unity
Through The Letters Of The Book Of Zohar

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