On Lag Ba’Omer, we mark the departure of the great Kabbalist Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, the author of The Book of Zohar, from this world.

He was a truly exceptional individual. The revelation he brought forth signifies the bestowal of Kabbalah, the science of correction, to the whole world.

Humanity developed from generation to generation amidst the pangs of birth until it reached Abraham, who revealed the science of Kabbalah in response to the crisis that broke out in ancient Babylon.

Subsequently the people of Israel faced enslavement in Egypt and the exodus from it, the construction of the First and Second Temples, and a succession of ascents and descents. All the terrible misfortunes endured by this people, and all of human history, can appear to be one ceaseless suffering. But the entire path we traversed until the coming of Rabbi Shimon was only our preparation for correction.

After the destruction of the Second Temple, the people of Israel completely lost the sensation of spirituality and went into exile from it. Then we received a gift from heaven: the arrival of a man, a sage of the Temple period (Tanna), a Kabbalist of enormous stature, who thanks to his special soul, included all previous souls within himself, and united them in one.

Therefore, together with his students, he was able to attain extraordinary heights: the final correction in his generation.

Baal HaSulam writes that there was never a greater attainment in history than in the time of Rashbi and his generation, and something similar can occur again only at the end of correction. We stand on this threshold now.

“Zohar” is the name of the light that is revealed in GAR of the world of Atzilut, in its Keter, in a special place, in the “concealed mind” of the system of Arich Anpin. Rabbi Shimon was unique in that he was able to connect such an exalted spiritual level with our physical world.

Through his attainment, he was on the degree of the final correction as it had been before the destruction of the Temples, and at the same time, in ordinary material life, he existed after the destruction of the Second Temple and the complete fall of the people from the height of brotherly love into unfounded hatred, that caused any sensation of spirituality to disappear.

Because he united those two vastly distant poles within himself, he was able to write this book, that is, to make the revelation.

And without this book, we would have no possibility to correct our souls and draw the light that returns to the source.
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From a Lecture for the Holiday of Lag B’Omer, 5/1/10

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