“Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Article “Two Points,” Item 121: This is the meaning of the locks on the gates. First, all the many contradictions to His uniqueness, which we taste in this world, separate us from the Creator. Yet, when exerting to keep Torah and Mitzvot with love, with our soul and might, as we are commanded—to bestow contentment upon our Maker—all those forces of separation do not affect us into subtracting any of the love of the Creator with all our souls and might. Rather, in that state, every contradiction we have overcome becomes a gate for attainment of His wisdom.

Question: What does it mean “every contradiction we have overcome becomes a gate for attainment of His wisdom…”? What is a contradiction?

Answer: A contradiction is something that can be resolved this and that. A contradiction is when one doesn’t see, agree, or understand. It’s something that does not connect with His uniqueness and with the notion of “there’s none else but Him” or with the concept of “Good that does good.” It just doesn’t fit together.

We get numerous blows from various sides. We have no idea whether they are right or wrong, but we still have to justify all of them. If we knew that it’s just a form of a punishment for something we did wrong or if we were sure that if our behavior were good, we’d receive an award instead of a punishment, then we would feel more or less fine. However, it’s against our logic. It is said: “The righteous feel bad.” There is nothing we can do about it. These states are called “contradictions” in the Upper Governance.

Question: What do “the righteous who feel bad” have to do?

Answer: Because they are righteous, they justify the Creator even though they feel bad.

Question: But the goal of creation is to bring contentment to creation. Does it really help when even though one feels bad one still justifies the Creator?

Answer: In fact, one feels good, but the truth is that there is evil in him. Obviously one suffers because of one’s own wickedness; however, one still continues justifying the Creator. That’s why one is called the righteous.
[125828]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/13/14, Introduction to The Book of Zohar

Related Material:
When The Gates Open…
These Beautiful Contradictions
The Last 50th Gate

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Spiritual Work, Zohar - No Comments →

Preparation to the Lesson

Workshop

Writings of Baal HaSulam  “Introduction to The Book of Zohar“

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, Shamati, #19, “Why the Creator Hates the Bodies, in the Work”: The highest degree, the farther a thing is from the clothing, the higher it is. One has to feel in the most abstract thing called “absolute zero,” since man’s hand does not reach there.  

It is a place that is totally disconnected from our desire. It is an abstract attribute which one cannot benefit from: absolute zero. Our senses, desires, and thoughts do not perceive this place and don’t operate there. One can exist in this place only in faith above reason since the desire to receive does not operate there but only the desire to bestow.

This means that the will to receive can only cling in a place where there is a presence of Light. Before one purifies his vessels, so as to not blemish the Light, it is impossible for the Light to expand in his Kelim (Vessels). Only when one is on the path of bestowal, meaning in a place where the will to receive is not present, whether in mind or in heart, there the Light can come in utter completeness. Then the Light comes to him in a sensation that he can feel the sublimity of the Upper Light…

It follows that the importance of the work is precisely when one comes to a state of absolute zero, meaning when one sees that he annuls his whole existence and being, for then the will to receive has no power; only then does one enter the Kedusha.

A person has to divide himself into two parts: One part is his desire to receive and the other part which he wants to attain is the desire to bestow. He has to lower himself to the level of absolute zero, which means to correct the desire to receive so that he doesn’t use it at all.

It is impossible to hide from it because it won’t leave me alone, but everything depends on my priorities regarding receiving and bestowing, and whether the society, the teacher, the Creator, the study, and the importance of the spiritual goal are above everything else.

We should see this as the most important so that everything else becomes an absolute zero, which means that my ordinary desire to receive will cease to function. Only concerns about the basic necessities will remain, and I would also love to be free from this as well, but it has nothing to do with the desire to receive. Then I raise the importance of bestowal above this absolute zero, and the upper Light can dress in me. I cannot perform these corrections by myself of course, but I can want to. I don’t even have the power to want that and have to be incorporated in the group for this. The group does not provide me with the power to do it but the Light that Reforms does, and this Light operates only if the group tries to connect. This effort is actually our freewill, and we have to ask the Light for it so that it will complete the work for us.

Although we yearn to become absolute zeros, our desire doesn’t disappear. On the contrary, it constantly grows, trying to overcome a person. We have to overcome it with the help of the environment. Thus we advance by tilting to the left and to the right, until we reach the first revelation. Then this work continues, but it becomes clearer and more irrevocable.
[126156]

From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/22/14

Related Material:
Faith Above Reason Is Bestowal Above Reception
Citizen Of Two Worlds
A Place For The Revelation Of The Creator

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

The Book of Zohar, VaYikahel [And Moses Assembled], Item 131: Then the twelve-letter name acted, lowering Malchut once more from the place of Bina de Malchut de Assiya to her place at the Sium of her ten Sefirot, and Bina and TM rising to their degree as in the beginning, above the firmament of Malchut.

And since Elijah was clinging to that Avir—Bina and TM that rose—it follows that he raised Elijah with him, above the firmament of Malchut, because of the equivalence.”

When we swallow, circular muscles push food further into the stomach. Straight line vessels act similarly: They create a consistent chain in accordance with the principle of cause and effect: pressure – relaxation, pressure – relaxation. The same mechanism is used in technology, for example, there are pumps that work this way.

Let’s say, I enter some place and the door behind me closes (A). How can I proceed further ahead? When the door behind me closes, there appears a new door right in front of me (B). Until then I hadn’t noticed it, but all of a sudden I see a new doorway. Again the door opens and I enter the next place where I see the third door, and so on.

This is a rigid order that works both in materiality and spirituality. The doors that open and close are “the firmaments.” While going through spiritual steps, Malchut continuously rises to Bina and then lowers from there. AHP also falls and rises over and over again. When it falls, it “picks us up” and raises us to a higher level where we associate it with Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE).

In AHP, we only nullify ourselves, whereas in GE, we turn into Hafetz Hesed of the current step that we occupy. It’s not just a self-nullification, but a small “childlike” state. Then, we feel the AHP of the Upper and self-nullify in front of him. Then he takes us up and the cycle repeats. This is how we gradually grow.

It goes without saying that our ascent during this process is accompanied by qualitative changes. We go through conception (Ibur), breastfeeding (Yenika), and adulthood (Mochin) each of which also is divided into three corresponding phases.

On this path, we go through awakening both from Above and below and through some other steps. Similarly, in this world we live in accordance with the calendar that does not depend on us. We adjust our lives according to days, weeks, months, years as if we are urged from “Above” to act so.

In the same way, in spirituality we sometimes should “fall into slumber” or act in a more reserved and passive way. Then we go back to a “day-time” regimen again. To make it short, there are more changes there than in this life including possibilities for personal initiative because the “awakening from below” depends upon us.

In general, all our work is becoming similar to the Upper. How can we test ourselves? We can only do this through our ability to attach lower vessels to us. That’s why it’s said “I dwell among my people.” Revelation of the Creator is possible only among “the people,” through others, through their broken desires, when we accept them as our own.

As a result, they become dearer to us than our own desires since they belong to deeper layers, and when as a result of our efforts they cling to us, we see that their structure and spiritual Partzuf are far more important than the ones that we had previously. Their vessels seem to be external to us since they were tossed far aside from us at the time of shattering. The ones that were the closest to us previously now seem to be the farthest from us.
[124922]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/3/14, The Zohar

Related Material:
In A Sea Of Light
At Every Moment There Is A New Sky And A New Earth!
Equality And Oppositeness All In One

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

The Book of Zohar says that its purpose is to lead the entire world out of the exile and bring us to deliverance. Interestingly, when we studied Kabbalistic texts in the past, we didn’t tune ourselves to The Book of Zohar. We studied The Study of the Ten Sefirot, “The Book of Life,” “The Gate-House of Intentions,” articles and letters written by Kabbalists, in short a lot of texts. On the other hand, The Book of Zohar looked great, but we did not feel it or feel particularly concerned about it.

It is not an accident! It’s said that The Book of Zohar will reveal itself to our generation when the process of final correction begins. Humanity went through a lot of suffering before discovering that there is The Book of Zohar and that its mission is to help us; now, we cannot abide without it.

We need a lot of time to develop internally and to be able to access The Book. One comes to the wisdom of Kabbalah, explores numerous sources, and only afterwards discovers that The Book of Zohar possesses a huge power and unusual possibilities that come with different clarifications and are accompanied by a new sensual and rational background. The Zohar is a book that encompasses everything there is. It’s not an easy discovery!

Many of our friends sleep during The Zohar lessons since they don’t feel any connection with it. In the course of time, they will be able to sense in the lines that they read various forms of bestowal and receiving, the correlation of the Lights and vessels, and will learn to connect them together: the Kabbalistic language of branches, the language of Tanakh and Agadah. Everything of which The Book of Zohar is comprised has to be regarded as one whole. It talks about the details of perception using different languages.

We can express various notions in different languages of this world; however, they all are about one sensation, one phenomenon. In The Zohar many languages are closely intertwined. There are numerous ways of presenting the material. The reader has to be educated and prepared; one has to sense the reality that is described in The Book, no matter what language is used there to depict it.

Similar to when we use words of foreign origin in our speech, there are Greek and Latin words in The Book of Zohar. At that time, these languages were very widespread and common. The authors of The Book of Zohar were not at all reluctant to use them. They could have used Gematria values, Hebrew or Aramaic equivalents, but they chose not to do so.

It means that if we learn at least a little bit of the languages that are used in The Book of Zohar, meaning that if we become more knowledgeable of the styles and forms of presenting the materials that are described in The Book, we’ll be exposed to many additional sensations to those previously experienced. We’ll see what its “multilingualism” is caused by: Every word or phrase in The Book of Zohar whether Gematria, the language of Sefirot, concepts of Tanakh, or terms of Halacha (the collective body of Jewish religious laws) reflects the spiritual essence.

When I turn on a Halacha radio station, I listen to things that are very clear to me from my prior experience: Halacha speaks about a preparation of our vessels,desires, about the ways of working with egoistic desires at the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels. This work is regulated by a set of laws named “Halacha.” It outlines a correct treatment of vessels, the order of their correction, and ways to ascend to a speaking level.

After all, this level gives expression to everything. We work internally with inanimate, vegetative, and animate desires, with the desires that correspond to our level and also with the desires of our neighbors. This is how preparation of all four steps happens. This is where an expansive and rich language of Halacha derives from; no other language is more precise than the one of Halacha.

However, let’s return to The Book of Zohar: Its authors and readers find the iridescent, multilingual sound of the book habitual and clear. It’s similar to using well-known foreign words in our speech. Habit is all there is.

Baal HaSulam writes that the language of Kabbalah includes everything. I hope that soon we will be able to understand that The Book of Zohar embraces the entire complex of notions and languages, includes all imaginable components, and delivers the “cure” to us in the best possible way.
[124936]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lessons 1/8/14, Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”

Related Material:
When The Book Reads You
Steps To The Zohar
You Cannot Replace A Diamond With A Formula

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Kabbalah Study, Spiritual Work, Zohar - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 33: And you must know that any contentment of our Maker from bestowing upon His creatures depends on the extent that the creatures feel Him—that He is the giver, and that He is the one who delights them. For then He takes great pleasure in them, as a father playing with his beloved son…

…to the degree that the son feels and recognizes the greatness and exaltedness of his father, and his father shows him all the treasures he had prepared for him….that for this contentment and delight with those whole ones, it was worth His while to create all the worlds, Higher and lower alike.

By means of these worlds we reach awareness of the Creator, the awareness of His actions, and to the degree that we discover them, we enjoy them. We enjoy the awareness of the greatness, awareness of the wholeness of the Creator and of His activities, for in our perception this is the same thing, and with this we give Him contentment.

So it is also pleasant for a father whose son recognizes his greatness more and more, that he is good and beneficent and loving. For this the son also improves and becomes better, becomes like the father, and in precisely this way he becomes aware of him and gets pleasure from this. In our world this is not so: Here, no matter how much you give to children, this doesn’t guarantee their right reaction in return.

On the other hand, in spirituality the Creator created a correct system of mutual relationships. The son must be like the father according to equivalence of form, and it is precisely this that makes it possible for him to be aware of the love and the wisdom of the father who does everything for the son but on condition that the son can receive all the good of the father without this harming him, rather the opposite, he advances towards a better state.

This is to say, you must be concerned about education. And only within the framework of education, through this, the son will reach pleasure in his life. And his pleasure will be for the sake of bestowal. So through this process he will become aware of the father and his love for him.

And the father himself withdraws his actions and suffers from it. He wants to give the son everything good, but is ready to withdraw solely and only so that the son will have the opportunity to correct himself gradually through the right education and this way he gets pleasure from the work, from the actions in the state that is completely opposite to his original egoistic desire.
[125991]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
The Whole World Is The Creator’s Face
Loving The Tough Father
The Uncompromising Upper Kindness

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 33: And you must know that any contentment of our Maker from bestowing upon His creatures depends on the extent that the creatures feel Him – that He is the giver, and that He is the one who delights them. For then He takes great pleasure in them, as a father playing with his beloved son, to the degree that the son feels and recognizes the greatness and exaltedness of his father and his father shows him all the treasures he had prepared for him….

Question: How does this “playing” mesh with the suffering on the way?

Answer: When a person begins to work with spirituality, he divides himself into two parts. On the one hand, he wants to acquire the desire to bestow and on the other hand, he wants to correct his desire to receive upon which he builds bestowal. Therefore he suffers within the desire to receive and has pleasure within the desire to bestow.

Question: Is it possible to feel the “playing” before crossing the “Machsom”?

Answer: No. For the “playing” is a relationship with the Creator where I am connected with Him, where we are together in an embrace, in love, where He fulfills me. How is it possible to feel this within the damaged vessels? If the Creator were to be revealed before the “Machsom,” I would remain forever within the vessels for the sake of reception and would no longer succeed in escaping from the “Klipa.” Even at the time of the “Shevirat ha Kelim,” the pleasure doesn’t enter into the desire to receive for the purpose of reception, for its “Masach” was shattered previously. So the glass also begins to be shattered before the bullet strikes it.

The spiritual pleasure that is received for the sake of reception would suck me in forever. Drugs and various additional addictions in our world are only a small taste of it. After the restriction (Tzimtzum) the light can no longer enter into the vessel without the “Masach.” The moment that it approaches, even before its entry, the vessels is immediately shattered, for it’s not ready to receive, to feel it. And so it remains only a “Ner Dakik” (thin candle) whose goal is to correct the shattering.

The Light never enters the desire to receive. This is because the law of equivalence of form that preceded creation is latent in the thought of creation, and it’s the desire of the Creator that the creature will be like Him, which is to say, perfect.

Precisely from the shattering, from the distance, we reach the “playing.” The way begins from great yearning, from thirst. For the “playing” is not merely pleasure. This is to say, I am constantly in contact with Him, I “taste” Him, experience a wide variety of feelings on all sides and in all manners. The “playing” is not “light and cheap” pleasure, rather it’s something that we never cease to enjoy, we discover more and more new possibilities. But in the meantime we don’t know what the true pleasure from bestowal is.
[125988]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
A Donkey And Cakes
Learn To Read The Creator According To The Letters
The Whole World Is The Creator’s Face

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Preparation to the Lesson

Workshop

The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts, “The Commandments of the Torah, the First Commandment,” Item 189

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - No Comments →

I am filled with anxiety about our convention in February. We are given work from above, an opportunity, responsibility for the souls, as if they are put into our hands in order to take care of them. This is a dear and great responsibility.

The Creator wants to be discovered and places before you conditions so that you must relate to this vessel as you would relate to the Creator. For precisely the right integration between all parts of the vessel, all parts of the Divinity, constructs the form of the Creator.

All of these desires that arrive from all ends of the world are the base; they are the area in which He is revealed. They invest so much, they are with us all the time. Many groups simply lock up their centers and come to the convention in full force.

And this imposes upon us a great responsibility. This is not talking about the organizational part, but rather, how we embrace and absorb them immediately and are absorbed within them. We are not hosting them; rather, we include them among us without any difference, in a completely new general condition that doesn’t exist in us or in them at the moment.

They are making supreme efforts, arriving from the most distant places, loaded with an unprecedented intensity, and we must reach a new state for connection, for the yearning for mutual bestowal within which the Bestower will be revealed.

Question: If we succeed in melting into one another and becoming integrated within an immense common desire, will this create a world vessel on a new level? How will we not waste the opportunity? This is the realization of everything that we have been waiting a lifetime for.

Answer: We must awaken one another, be responsible for each other. Each one is now determining his fate.

Question: It is up to us to acquire the deficiency of the friends. How do I pay for this?

Answer: By renunciation of the ego. There is no other price. It is as if we peel the shell from the heart in order to adhere to the friends until we feel their desire as our desire. We connect the desires that yearn for the discovery of the Creator. We connect and expect the arrival of the Light that Reforms, the power that will connect us and be revealed in us as the power of bestowal. And then we will flow within the characteristic of bestowal. From now on, all of our deeds are derived only from this feeling; We feel that we are in a sea of bestowal. It envelops us in warmth from all directions and obligates us with subtlety to carry out our obligations. I nullify myself and then this characteristic of bestowal works through me.

But this is only mutual integration. And after that it is up to me to grow like an embryo, to hold the characteristic of bestowal within my ego. It is like a boat set into the sea; I want to increase the activity of the general bestowal that is revealed in me on the first level, the initial stage of the Light of Nefesh de Nefesh”. Through my willing combination with this characteristic, I strengthen the action, they say 620 times in 125 spiritual levels. And all of this is the result of my participation, of my efforts in a sea of bestowal in which I discover myself like an embryo in the water’s of its mother’s womb.

In the beginning I give myself up over the growing desire to receive, nullifying it in order to dwell within the characteristic of bestowal, identifying with it. And this is active work, active nullification of myself, and is realized over an opposing ego. The “flesh” that is added to the embryo awakens opposition and it is as if it builds from itself a negative image of itself.

Question: So how do we attain all of this? How do we acquire the deficiency of the friends?

Answer: This is through faith above reason. I want the characteristic of bestowal to dominate in me above all of my intellect and feeling. I already understand that I am not the master of my own house. In every moment of my life something dominates me that is revealed against my will. But there is also free choice. I choose the dominance of the characteristic of bestowal. In the face of all the desires that are revealed in me and arouse rejection, indifference, and additional negative things in me, I want bestowal to dominate in me.
[125893]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/19/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
The Power Of The Intention Is In Its Constancy
The Creator’s Triple Attack
My Heart Is In The Hands Of The Friends

Filed under: Conventions, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

There is nothing besides the Torah and prayer, that is, the discovery of the shortcomings that I must clarify, sort through. I must connect with the friends in order to create the right deficiency that is imperative for the correction that will take place through our closeness, our integration with each other, the connection and adhesion of all the shattered parts.

As a result, we reach the inability to connect, and we clarify that there exists some kind of obstacle among us that disturbs us. It could be that the Creator won’t allow us to do this or it is our egoistic nature itself, which was also created by the Creator.

In other words, we discover disturbances on the way towards connection, correction, and restoration of the whole vessel, the one collective soul in which we can discover the Creator as a single power, and in this manner we realize the goal of creation, this being our personal goal as well.

If we work on all of this, then we reach our true shortcoming: our inability to attain connection. And about this it is said: “The One who makes peace on high will make peace for us,” will complete our unification, and will connect us. A prayer like this will be accepted immediately and we will merit an answer to the prayer.

The answer to the prayer arrives in the form of the Light that Reforms that connects us. This Light is called Torah. Therefore it is said, “I created the evil inclination,” the desire that separates us and doesn’t allow us to connect. At the moment that we want to connect, to be included with each other, to melt into one another, we discover the evil inclination that is awakened in us. And before that it doesn’t show itself.

It is concealed inside like a snake and we don’t feel it. But the moment that we begin to approach each other with the intention to connect, then the snake shows its head and doesn’t allow it. It secretes its poison, and then we understand, feel, and discover what that “evil inclination” is.

But against this evil inclination, the Light that Reform comes and transforms it into the good inclination. That is, without this ego we would not succeed in reaching connection; it is specifically the evil inclination that becomes the good inclination. It is like snake venom, which on the one hand is poisonous but on the other hand is used as a remedy. Every remedy is a poison, but a poison taken in a very small dose that can be used to treat the disease.

Poison is at the foundation of every remedy, but not every poison is a remedy. If we match the poison of the snake to the poison within us, then the Light of correction is revealed within. That is how we reach the Torah; that is, we already have Torah (the Light that Reforms) and prayer.
[126149]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/21/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
Taking The Medicine Together
Meeting The Master Of The Serpent
A Perpetual Motion Machine That Runs On The Light Energy

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Prayer and Intention, Spiritual Work - No Comments →