Question: You always say that The Book of Zohar can sometimes be a cure and sometimes poison, what does that mean?

Answer: Kabbalists describe this dilemma by using the allegory of choosing between the elixir of life and the potion of death, or by bringing the example of the rooster and the bat. Everything depends on a person’s intention: Is it the urge for the goal that drives him? This doesn’t mean that by opening a Kabbalah book he necessarily has to focus himself on the true goal because otherwise he will receive the potion of death. It is impossible to demand such things. So the Creator gives a person the right intentions, just like a baby who is under the full supervision of a grown up.

Even if a person comes to study without any basic knowledge and thinks about anything he feels like, it isn’t actually he who thinks and who is operating. From Above he is provided with constant supervision and care. If you could see this from the side, you would see that a person is like a newborn baby, that he has nothing of his own. It is simply a system, a “body” that functions according to a plan. He is equipped with everything that he needs, absorbing and emitting what he has to and thus grows. At this point a person has no freewill and no discernments.

Gradually, however, he grows and begins to move independently. At first he doesn’t feel responsible for what is going on, but later he begins to consciously perceive something and to shout intentionally at something, etc. Gradually he begins to understand what is good and what is bad and under which circumstances he feels good or bad. Accordingly he is played with and shown what he does correctly and what he doesn’t.

There are those who hear better and there are those who hear less, it depends on your innate attributes and on your upbringing. Generally speaking, it is about a huge system called Shechina that takes care of every one and brings everyone to the end of correction.

So, I cannot tell you when a Kabbalah book gives life and when it brings death. First a person is taught all this and after several years he understands that only in a group can he fulfill himself and move on from a corporeal connection with the friends to an internal, spiritual connection.

And then it his choice to reach for the opening of the spiritual network between the friends. It may be concealed from them, but he wants to reveal it. This means that he is attracted to life since this network is totally filled with bestowal.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/23/12, The Zohar

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