“Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “The Seventh Commandment,” Item 225: In the Merkava [chariot/structure] of the throne, the face of a lion is on the right and the face of the ox is on the left. The ox is called “a whole [Tam] ox” since in the Merkava of the throne there is an inscription of the covenant.

Question: Is it possible to create a dictionary of spiritual terms appropriate for our level, which would explain the different words from The Zohar, like “ox,” “structure” “(Merkava),” “lion,” “serpent,” and so on? This would help to replace the words that remind us of physical images with spiritual forces according to their definition while reading. Is this a correct approach to studying The Zohar?

Answer: Everything depends upon the way we agree to speak between us. When we have a common perception, we speak according to this sensation. When we do not perceive the events in the same way but understand them (a lower level than perception), we, let us say, speak using scientific terms and formulas.

This excerpt of The Zohar uses words like “ox,” “donkey,” “throne,” and so on. If we were to replace them with forces, we would need to specify the kind of force it is, from which Sefira or property it comes. While here, one word is used to refer to the same force, for example, “ox” or “whole ox.” This language is more concise because it relies on your understanding to what it refers.

This only refers to the Lights and Kelim (desires) because we have nothing else about which to speak. How can I convey to you the connection of the Lights and Kelim in a specific form? Should I draw it for you in a graph? Play a tune? Give you a formula? Describe the image of this world that results from their connection? How can I explain to you the exact spiritual state, the combination of the Light and the Kli, about which I am speaking?

This is why Kabbalists have found four languages to describe the upper system of governance of our world: the language of Tanach, Hagaddot (Legends), Kabbalah, and Halachot (Talmud), and they use them to convey their attainments to us. These languages are mixed in The Zohar.

The Zohar itself is mainly written with the language of the Talmud (Midrash), even though it also uses a little of the language of the Tanach or the Legends, and Baal HaSulam adds the language of Kabbalah to it. And when they are parallel, you can more or less keep the correct direction of thought.

But how can languages help you if you do not have spiritual attainment and you do not perceive to what the text is referring? Nothing can help you! You only need to think about receiving more influence in order to begin to perceive.

It works the same way in our world: You can tell me anything you want, but if I have never experienced it, whatever you are telling me is dead to me, or in the best case scenario, I might be able to imagine it through an analogy to something with which I am already familiar.

But if I do not know anything about the spiritual world, there are no tales that can help me. For this reason, our entire study comes down to striving to perceive these spiritual notions, to want our eyes to open.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”

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Question: Why did Kabbalists keep the wisdom of Kabbalah secret for so many years if someone who isn’t ready for it can’t use it?

Answer: The science of Kabbalah was open to anyone who wanted to study it until the ruin of the Temple. The destruction of the Temple was the destruction of the spiritual sensation in the people of Israel.

Just as it is dangerous to reveal regular science to egoists who lack the correct vision of the world and its purpose since disclosing the knowledge would arm them with weapons that can hurt them and others, similarly, people who fell from the spiritual degree of brotherly love into the unfounded hatred were banned from studying the science of Kabbalah. After all, they could have used it incorrectly and become confused.

They were unable to use it once they fell into the egoistic desire which was beginning to develop. They first had to become entangled in the desires of this world, to plunge into the darkness, to mingle with the desires of all the peoples; in fact, this was the purpose of the nation of Israel going into exile.

How would it have been possible to give people the wisdom of Kabbalah at that time; it would have been contrary to the purpose. The people fell from the spiritual degree and lost that knowledge precisely in order to live on the same level as all the other nations. Up until the end of the Middle Ages, the people of Israel and all other nations led a very simple and primitive life. It was a time for their mutual inclusion.

But despite the fact that the people of Israel lost their spiritual degree, the high, inner spirit persisted in them, and there were many sages (Kabbalists) and people who understood the purpose of creation.  It wasn’t like today’s state of complete lack of understanding of the purpose of existence.

This decline happened in the past 100-150 years, but before that, there wasn’t a person among the people of Israel who didn’t know what he was living for. That allowed them to endure all the years of exile and preserve themselves despite all the persecution, inquisition, and pogroms. After all, it wasn’t just blind faith: They felt and knew that there was a purpose.

However, the wisdom of Kabbalah had to be kept secret from the people of Israel precisely because they had to mix with the desires of other nations and to complete the period of exile. That was the reason why Kabbalists concealed it, alienated the people from it, and intimidated them so as not to confuse them and to give them time to correct what needed to be corrected.

This was the form in which they were performing the correction at that time. After all, we can’t see the inner development that was going on inside. For billions of years, all matter has been evolving unconsciously, but we can’t grasp the process in its entirety with our limited mind. If we maintain this view of reality, we can’t justify anything in it. If we want to understand anything, we first need to reveal the entire picture.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/2011, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Man is naturally able to take only his own egoistic desire into consideration. Wherever it might throw him in, whatever it may give value to in his eyes, he considers only what is important to his ego. This is how a person evolves.

Advancement by the orders of the will to receive is conducted on the scale of “bitter or sweet.” Without being aware of it, a person always turns in the direction of unfolding egoism. He carries out internal orders of egoism unconsciously, having no idea where they come from. This is how we live our lives, without free will, obeying internal urges of our egoistic Reshimot (informational genes).

If a person is presented with an opportunity to establish connection with the Creator and undertake another type of analysis, on the scale of “true or false,” then in order to carry it out, he must immediately arrange support for this analysis for himself.

Support is the environment. Without it, a person will remain in “bitter or sweet” experiences forever and will surely continue to choose sweet over bitter, in various forms, according to the degree of the development of his egoism. And he will always have an illusion of advancement, although in reality, time after time, he just chooses a more refined sweet.

If a person really wants to grow toward independence, he can do so only if he counters the “bitter or sweet” sensations with the “true or false” analysis. This analysis has to be done according to the external criteria that lie outside of his egoism, which only the environment can provide.

In this case, it’s all in the hands of luck: Does a person hear what independence that he has a chance to form and implement involves? If he does, at least to a small degree, he nullifies himself before the teacher, Kabbalistic books, and the group (the environment).

He puts this in front of him, and then realizes that his advancement depends solely on the awareness of the importance of how high he elevates his view of the importance of this environment compared with the sweetness of egoistic desires.

This is the nature of our work. Is a person able to employ the power of our studies, prayer, and analysis in full and accept the view of the right environment? After all, it isn’t something external, not just the faces of the friends. He forms an internal image of the environment and is willing to lower his head before them. And then, by virtue of the environment, a person receives an awareness of the Creator’s greatness.

Initially, there are only two: a person and the Creator. And now, he starts actualizing this principle. If the environment (the means) is as important to him as much as the goal (the Creator) is, he starts working with this tool correctly.

A person’s job is to value the environment as highly as he values the Creator. And this requires constant work. If a person values the environment because it brings him to attainment of the Creator, then to that degree he advances.

Consequently, one can test himself in practice: What motivates him each moment? Is it internal urges, such as “bitter or sweet” sensations or values absorbed from the environment, such as “true or false”? And “truth” is the greatness of the Creator. That is what a person works for: the integral force of love and bestowal, which he wants to connect to until the point of total adhesion.

Therefore, the opinion of the environment has to be firm and consistent so that it may obligate each friend to remember about the goal (attainment of the greatness of the Creator) and about the means (attainment of the greatness of the group. If the environment thinks about it and places this analysis as mandatory before all of the friends every moment, thereby, it provides great support to everyone.

Here begins the mutual guarantee, and a person receives a chance to come to the revelation of the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/2011, Writings of Rabash

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We work in a “binary,” discrete form, by way of individual impulses: yes or no, connection or no connection, ascent or descent, right or left. In this way, little by little, we add one step after the other, and all of this finally forms into one integral whole.

When it is necessary to calculate the area of a certain complex shape, scientists use an integral equation: They fill this complex form with squares that can be measured and make them smaller and smaller, and in the end, they sum it all up.

On one hand, the connecting grid that works between the souls within which we reside is discrete, with individual impulses and actions. But in the end, as a result of our attainment, when we penetrate it deeper and deeper, it gets transformed into an integral network. In other words, there is such an enormous amount of ties and actions, which depend on each other so much, that we get infinity.

It isn’t just a sum at the rung where I accumulate all these properties and actions, but it is also their “summarizing” component that has another essence, from a higher spiritual degree. Conversely, from the discrete form we are moving toward the integral one. The “integral form,” the sum of these discrete forms is the Creator, One, as it is written: “He and His Name are one.” We are approaching this integral form discretely, yet by accumulating a little more with each time, by adding our little “bricks,” we connect to the One.

We, ourselves, can never reach this One. We do everything we can at our current degree, accumulate the necessary sum of efforts, and reach the degree equal to “10 Sefirot.” And finally, the leap to the next degree occurs.

But I cannot leap on my own; the upper force gives me a lift. This force is the “summing up factor,” the One. And then, instead of “10,” I reach 1 (One), like a calculator which after 10 of my clicks jumps to the next digit.

This is how we keep accumulating all our corrections until the force of “Rav Paalim u-Mekabtziel” arrives, and Gmar Tikkun (the final correction) occurs!
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/2011, "The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah"

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Question: Where does a person get the energy to do inner work while he isn’t corrected yet?

Answer: Even the smallest possible step made in desire, thought, or action is possible only by virtue of the importance of the goal. Only the importance of the goal gives us energy.

There is no other “energy source” that’s able to motivate us to make even the smallest movement in action, thought, or desire. Only the importance does it. There is nothing besides it.

Initially I have the importance of the egoistic desire, and I must continually acquire greater importance of the spiritual goal, the Creator, making Him higher in my eyes. The only way to work on this is by means of the environment. Who’s more important—me or the Creator? The environment is built in a way that if I desire it, it will help me place the Creator above myself.

Why is that? It’s because the environment is able to oblige me to do things I would never want on my own. Since I have received a point in the heart, the environment can do everything else, as long as I contribute my share.

Therefore, our entire work amounts to just this: Who’s more important? Me or Him? I must always check this and turn to the group in order to elevate the Creator, meaning the quality of bestowal and love, above myself, meaning above the quality of reception and repulsion from others. If I work correctly, then the environment is able to gradually provide me with the fuel for advancement so the important thing would become revealed to me as the Creator, the goal, the efforts, and the attainment of connection and adhesion.

Only the group is able to do this. If a person builds himself correctly, then he always has the fuel and has no problems advancing forward. But it happens only on the condition that he checks himself at every second: Who is more important to him?

We should look at everything in life from this perspective. First of all, arrange your priorities so the important thing is the goal, the Creator, adhesion, and bestowal. Then you can look at anything else—your children, work, family, friends, the world, and anything else. In that case you are on the right track in order to attain the goal through them.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/11, Writings of Rabash

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The question that just won’t be silenced and has to be answered with a “blow to the jaw” is the question of who’s more important: me or the Creator? Me or the neighbor? The force of bestowal or the force of reception?

If this question stands clearly before me and I understand that whether I will progress or get into a fiasco depends on my getting a clear answer, then the need for the constant support of the environment becomes obvious to me. But on the other hand, what is that environment? And what kind of support does it give me? In essence I receive my own Kelim, desires, to the degree I want to bring them closer to me. After all, all of reality is me.

By working with the environment, I raise it in my eyes and in it I find the importance of the Creator. In essence I have been given the force of the breaking so it would help me work on myself in this way.

My “I,” which includes all of reality, divides into two parts:

1. the part that I experience as myself
2. the part that I experience as the world, other people, and everything that is outside of me.

Why did the creator break me in two? It was in order to make it easier for me to correct the part that is outside. I raise its importance in my eyes by awakening the importance of the friends and motivating them to work on me as if they have freedom of choice or more independence than I attribute to them.

We have to understand that the force of the breaking acts for our own good. The part called “the neighbor,” meaning everything that is outside of me, will be corrected by me if I treat it precisely as the neighbor. I correct these desires which seem foreign to me by placing myself in front of them and wishing to unite with them.

My “self” is just the point in the heart, while “the neighbor” is my entire Kli, the entire vessel of the soul. If I weren’t divided into these two parts, then I would not have the opportunity to correct the “external” desires. I would never be able to analyze, check, and sort them, or to demand the forces to work with them.

However, I am located outside of them and correct my attitude to them. This is the illusion I get—as if I correct my attitude to the neighbor by the principle of “love your neighbor as yourself.” And I do not yet perceive, understand, or feel that in essence, this is my soul. I was given the force of the breaking, which depicts a deceptive picture of “others” in my eyes. But that is exactly how I can start correcting my Kelim, working against the force of repulsion by striking it, blow by blow.

Thus, it is possible to imagine our work this way: A person initially receives all of creation in the capacity of his soul and understands that all the forces of disunity are a fantasy intended to confuse him. In actuality, reality is not cut off from him at all. That is why a person strikes and “blunts the teeth” of this force of the breaking, this illusion. He should see this as the entire work that he has to carry out.

And he keeps going until he knocks out all the teeth, plucks out all the weeds so the rose growing among them, so Malchut would bloom in its real form, full force. This is the Shechina, the common soul.

It is in this light that I have to see the environment, the friends, and the Creator. Everything that seems external to me is an inseparable part of me. The force separating me from the only thought and desire, from the Only One, is the force of disunity that I must break.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: You touch upon very high matters when you speak about working with the environment.

Answer: I do not speak about any high matters at all. I speak about immediate realization, about what needs to happen between us. It’s not above us, but on our eye level, on the level of our hearts.

Question: But don’t I work with myself artificially?

Answer: Of course, artificially. We acknowledge and admit our hypocrisy. Yes, we play; we openly “lie.”

For example, right now, my grandson is occupied with a toy garbage truck. He looks for garbage around the house to put it in his truck. Is this a game? If he were able to explain it to you, you would understand that this is life. However, you, grownups, are playing with your toys. He sees it this way; we see it the opposite way. These are two levels, and there is nothing that you can do about it.

So, I know that I am submerged in egoistic desire, that I hate my neighbor, and I only think about myself. Nothing else interests me, and I came to the group to receive even more because I no longer receive satisfaction from any of the things I previously had.

My neighbors are satisfied with their position, and they look at me as if I were mad: “What does he want in life?” However, it is not enough for me, and this is why I am here.

Day after day, I keep discovering hatred of and disdain for everyone. I do not need anyone, and no one matters to me but my darling me. I am aware of all this, but at the same time, I know that rising to a higher degree means to come out from within myself, my desire, my thoughts, toward something completely different. I want to be born anew.

So, I play on my level in my egoism as if I were already on a higher degree. Naturally, all of this is pretend play. It is all a lie, but it is a useful lie. I do not have another possibility to develop, unless I play a game of something I want to attain.

This is what children, plants, and animals do. This is the condition that operates in all of nature. Every element that wants to develop in the consumption and emission of certain matter turns itself into a certain image, a model of whatever it is aspiring to. It must strive toward its future form.

Then, the upper Light comes. When the development is caused by nature, it passes automatically. Plants and animals do not know how they develop, and yet the Light also operates on the still, vegetative, and animate levels.

There is no other force, but we must evoke this Light with our strengths, our comprehension, our analysis, our estimations, our understanding, and our thoroughness. Not only do we need to be present in this creation, we must control it.

This really is a game. It is written that the Creator plays with the leviathan. He actually plays. Any changes that occur when something or someone goes from one degree to another are a game. After all, we evoke them by playing a game of something that we have not yet attained or acquired, something we have not yet turned into. This is a very serious thing.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/15/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: When a person is convinced that he can feel the Creator, is there a way to test whether this is a real sensation or a religious fantasy?

Answer: One must not try to convince a person that what he is feeling is not real. After all, you cannot put your head on his shoulders.

Let us say that you really know something, and he does not, but he incorrectly imagines something. If you were to pressure him and try to convince him that you are right, then instead of the image he was previously imagining, he will receive a new image from you. However, it will also be an imaginary image, even if to you this is an obvious fact and the truth (although this is also questionable). Once it goes over to him, it merely will become a new fantasy.

This is why Kabbalah does not allow this. One should not get himself involved with trying to convince people otherwise, even more so because your truth also changes all the time. When you rise from one degree to another, all your previous knowledge fundamentally changes.

You constantly experience polar states as you are thrown from side to side until you cross the Machsom (the barrier separating us from spirituality). It is written: “Do not trust yourself until the day you die (meaning the death of your egoism).”

This is why you should not be changing anyone’s mind. We only explain to people how helpless we all are in the given situation, and we encourage them to genuinely examine things, to have a sane approach. This is considered to be a direct attitude: We have five senses, so let us only rely on them.

However, it is written that it is possible to acquire additional senses. Once we develop them from a scientific, sane, and logical approach, without taking anyone’s word for it, and discover another reality, then we will begin to examine it. We will then begin to understand it and acquire new knowledge, once again based on the same principle: “A judge has only what his eyes can see,” on the basis of a real sensation.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/2011, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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In the world, in reality, there are only two forces: the force of the Creator and the “force” of the created being that the Creator intentionally gave to it in the opposite form. This force is opposite to the Creator, thanks to which the creature steps outside the boundaries of His degree and acquires its own reality. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be able to exist.

In our world, a “created being” is someone who possesses matter of the still, vegetative, or animate degrees. If spiritual existence signifies a personal reality outside of the upper force, then in our world, the upper force doesn’t manifest to us openly, which is why we define reality by the existence of matter.

In spirituality, it is not the matter but autonomy that counts. In order to be a created being, one has to be autonomous. The degree of the creature’s independence determines to what extent it can consider itself as an authentically existing being.

In our world, we do not take babies and children seriously because they have not gained independence yet. Only as an adult does a person become autonomous, and then he is treated accordingly.

Likewise, in spirituality, no matter what rung the creature is at (the still, vegetative, or animate), the determining factor is whether it has a personal status before the Creator. And in order to stand before the Creator, a person first has to become aware that the Creator exists, meaning that He exists before him, and that they are opposite to each other.

Then, in this opposite state, the work begins. A person divides the entire reality into two: the Creator and I, the reality that I observe. And afterward, he chooses what is more important.

In fact, in order to give independence to the creature, the Creator brought it outside Himself and gave it a sensation of existing on its own. And now, the creature must make a correct use of getting to know itself outside of the Creator, as if He doesn’t exist at all, as if He disappears from its view, from its desire. With the help of forces and instruments that the Creator provides, the creature must find the correct attitude to Him. And this means that it has to accept the Creator’s power over itself, over its independence, without annulling it.

Then, on one hand, the creature keeps its status outside of the Creator, meaning it continues to receive pleasure into the receiving desires, without nullifying itself before the Creator. But on the other, by being autonomous in regard to the received pleasure and over it, the creature acquires equivalence to the Creator. Thus, the created being receives complete, total, autonomy.

However, it can occur only if the creature obeys both these conditions: It is willing to annul its attitude to the Creator if it doesn’t harm its desire (the will to receive). Thereby, the creature evolves in the middle line. On one hand, it keeps the desire for pleasure, while on the other, it acquires the form of bestowal that is the attribute of the Creator. In this way, the image of man, Adam, gets formed in it.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/2011, Writings of Rabash

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