When reading The Zohar, we should try to keep in mind that all of the corrections amount to unity between us. We should see everything taking place in the world today as the revelation of disconnection. At the end of the day, hatred, disorders, and all of the problems that arise are being revealed so we, and then the whole world, will feel that we have to fix the connections between us.

To the extent we work on dissemination and speak about the connection between everyone above the separation and opposition between all parts of the nation and the world, to that extent we prepare and demand unity during the study.

Therefore, the more we exert an influence and disseminate this knowledge, the more we talk about unification, trying to bring the nation to unity, the more we will demand it during the study, and then we will merit conducting this Light to us, and from us—to the nation and the world.
[50862]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/10/11, The Zohar

Related Material:
The Cure For All Troubles
The Zohar Becomes Revealed In Love
Keeping Ahead Of Nature

Filed under: Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Kabbalah Dissemination, Kabbalah Study, Prayer and Intention, Suffering, Unity, World, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: Many various methods and groups say things similar to what Kabbalah says. How do we protect ourselves from the influence of these thoughts? Is there any danger in this, and how should we position ourselves in relation to them?

Answer: Due to the nature of my work, I have had the chance to study different methods and even took exams in these subjects while working on my PhD thesis. There is a huge abyss between Kabbalah and all other methods. All other methods are engaged only in some sort of moral, earthly improvement of man, mostly directed at making him feel calm and relaxed.

Kabbalah isn’t. Kabbalah is directed at changing the nature of man himself. Because the world only exists within our subjective perception, this is what needs to be corrected. This means that a person should keep all of his or her egoism, rather than destroy it, and above it, build a new nature, the so-called upper world, which he or she will be able to feel in this second nature. It’s an altogether different method.

However, if you are studying other methods, nobody is going to tell you not to do that. Study Kabbalah, and you will gradually begin to see the difference between it and other teachings.

None of the existing methods are based on the true nature of the world, the three lines, the three forces that control this world, on raising altruism above egoism without destroying egoism, but using it correctly in oneself, and so on. This also can be seen from Kabbalah’s ancient roots and the power of its sources: the number of books and the depth of all the explanations. What you see in front of you is a truly enormous means for the correction of all humankind.

There are people who truly strive for correction, want to reach the goal no matter what, and are ready for it. There also are people who would like to reach this goal, but not by any means. That is, they consider what they have to pay with and how much they need to work for this. That’s why essentially, a lot of people would do it, but there aren’t that many who really desire it. However, every day, there are more and more.

We hope that we will reach the final correction quickly, easily, and in our century, in our time, in our generation. Even I, an elderly man, am hoping to still see how all of humankind will directly and briskly take one spiritual step after another in order to achieve the final correction.
[49936]
From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 7/31/2011

Related Material:
One Principle From Abraham Until Today
Many Methods, Little Success
Praying In order To Change

Filed under: Kabbalah Study, Lectures - 1 Comment →

Question: How can the reading of text that I do not understand help me connect with the group or to desire this?

Answer: By itself, the reading of text is not effective. The thought of what it is exactly that I desire does help. It is like a source of strength.

Suppose you are given a medication, and you cure what you intended to cure with it. The medication affects the entire body, and you have to decide exactly what you want to treat, be it the leg, arm, head, a wound, or whatever you wish. The medication itself is universal.
[49832]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/31/2011, The Zohar

Related Material:
An Obvious Demonstration Of Your State
Expect To Be Healed By The Zohar
A Wonderful Infusion

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Kabbalah Study, Q&A, Zohar - No Comments →

In order to reveal The Zohar, we have to reach the state that is suitable for revealing it. The upper Light is at absolute rest. The Creator is simply concealed inside of creation because creation is unable to be in a state where the Creator would be revealed in it.

Therefore, the changes can only happen inside of creation. Creation has to change so it will attain the conditions for the Creator’s revelation, according to one law: equivalence of form.

As soon as we attain any measure of equivalence with the Creator’s quality, we reveal Him. The minimal quality in which we reveal the Creator by becoming similar to Him is attained when we unite with one another with a minimal connection.

How is this possible? Above the force of repulsion that separates us from one another, above the hatred and the unwillingness to unite, we try to awaken a desire inside of us, a persistent need to unite in our internal aspirations, in mutual bestowal, to create a state that expresses the quality of the Creator—mutual connection, bestowal, and unification at least to the smallest degree.

But even if we are unable to make this happen, we have to desire for it to happen. Then the force concealed in us, the Creator, will help us, will bring us closer together, and will build the state of unity inside of us, making it come true.

In essence, there is nothing else for us to think about other than to try to reach unity between us from the repulsion and hatred, and to reveal the latter, we also need constant persistence and aspiration.

Therefore, while reading The Book of Zohar, we have to try to constantly think about the network of connection among us, which already exists, but it exists in mutual dislike, the lack of the importance of unification. And we have to desire for it to transform to its opposite form—unification between us. When our unification becomes at least somewhat similar to the Creator, to the Light, then the Light will start flowing through it, which is called the revelation of the Creator to creation.
[50038]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/1/11, The Zohar

Related Material:
A Detector For Revealing The Creator
When The Book Of Zohar Becomes Revealed….
The Upper World Becomes Revealed Through Love

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Kabbalah Study, Prayer and Intention, Unity, Zohar - No Comments →

The reading of The Zohar can be compared to a long awaited meeting with a person you love, someone you wished to be closer to. When the two of you finally meet, it doesn’t matter to you what exactly he is saying. The most important thing is that while being next to him and hearing his voice, you feel your closeness. The actual words are not important. Let him talk. You don’t even listen to them that closely. Through the words, you want to feel how you come closer to him and feel him more.

And it’s the same with The Book of Zohar. All the different words and stories that are written in it seem to confuse us, but then, we understand why this is written there: It is because all of it are names of our connections. But I don’t care about what is written in the book exactly, what it is talking about. What matters is that I am close to it at this time. Because I rejoice at being connected with it, I don’t really pay attention to its words. The most important thing is that we are close.
[49413]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/27/11, The Zohar

Related Material:
In A Circle Of Great Kabbalists
The Point From Which One Enters The Spiritual World
The Ladder Of Properties

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Kabbalah Study, Prayer and Intention, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: Essentially, the wisdom of Kabbalah gives a very precise technical description of the degrees of spiritual development. Why do Kabbalists present this description using so many stories, allegories, and names in which it’s so easy to get lost? Why don’t they give a clear set of instructions, including the order in which the actions are to be performed?

Answer: Say, I will write: “Take desire No. 28 and desire No.35, mix them up with desires No.43 and No.62, then multiply them by the coefficient, and afterward, build an intention for the result, consisting of certain components. Now, coping with the resistance, overcome, and so on….” It’s the same as getting a chemical formula that consists of unknown words with numerical values. Now try to combine all the ingredients in such a way that final unification will result in adhesion.

What would you do with this? Moreover, the term “adhesion” itself is unclear to you. The word is familiar, but the meaning isn’t.

And that’s why Kabbalists clothe their message in different forms so you have a chance to understand it. They only have one option—to bring it to you in the language of analogy using words that correspond to the spiritual roots. This language is called the language of branches.

If you only received technical instructions, you would not find anything to hold onto. But this way, although you’re confused, you at least make efforts to find the right path leading to the Light from the confusion of our egoism. Egoism is what confuses you, picturing a seemingly external world. On the other hand, it is exactly this confusion from which you go towards the truth; it is from it that you can reveal the true picture. First, you ask yourself a lot of questions, and only then you start getting closer to the answers.

Indeed, by means of the language of Kabbalists it is hard to understand the truth, but without it, it is simply impossible to reach it. Only later will we understand the integrity of this approach.
[49107]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

Related Material:
The Spiritual Flowers Under The Spiritual Sun
This World Is A Dictionary Of Spiritual Terms
Widen Your Desire
TES: A Kabbalist’s Personal Diary

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Kabbalah Study, Q&A - No Comments →

A Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Filed under: Kabbalah Study, Q&A, Spirituality - No Comments →

All Kabbalistic texts are intended for Kabbalists in order to convey inspiration and impression among them, as well as knowledge of the connecting network between the souls in which they exist. The aim of this is to reveal the upper force, the Creator faster, and to move other souls closer to correction.

We can also use these books without even knowing or understanding what Kabbalists write to one another because each of them writes on his own level. But when we read them like little children, aspiring to find out what they write there, what they want to convey to one another, and what they want to describe to us, when we open up these books by great Kabbalists, wishing to become similar to them in unity and mutual bestowal, meaning to join them, to join the system of souls where they exist in a connection with one another, to take our place among them, to gather in the same circle, then, with the help of these manuscripts, we merit coming closer to them.

That’s because the texts written by Kabbalists contain their force, their thoughts. And if we desire to cleave to them, then by trying to unite with one another and by reading their texts together, we are asking to enter this system and to join the state they are in.

Therefore, while reading The Zohar, we should try not to forget that with the help of this text, we want to become corrected and included in the same system that already contains the souls, and we are the only ones still missing there in our unity. We come there once we connect with one another and desire to enter the same system where all the great Kabbalists already reside. In essence, this state already exists there and we are only searching for it. After all, The Zohar talks about our future state, which we reach and join.

So let’s imagine ourselves in the common system of souls, among these great Kabbalsits—and let’s ask for it!
[49097]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/11, The Zohar

Related Material:
Let The Book Of Zohar Talk About Me
Resting In The Hands Of The Great Kabbalists
How To Enter The Book Of Zohar

Filed under: Collective Soul, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Kabbalah Study, Kabbalistic Sources, Spirituality, Unity, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: What is the reason for the fact that when we read The Book of Zohar and keep a very tangible intention, it suddenly disappears, and we understand that it has disappeared only once we remember about it?

Answer: That’s obvious! This is given to us so we would demand the sensation. We are unable to keep two thoughts in our mind. What can be better than attuning myself correctly before reading The Book of Zohar, together with the friends, in a circle, and inside of it desiring to reveal what we are reading?

However, what happens is that I attune myself and start reading, and suddenly I become immersed in the text slightly more deeply. Then I no longer use it as “Segula” – the special quality of the Light, wishing to reveal it in the connection between us. Instead, I switch my attention to the text itself, aspiring to understand it and to attain it, the way I read regular books, wishing to find out what they’re talking about. I don’t perceive what is written there as something that happens inside of me, between us, inside of us, but as something that exists outside of me. I immediately shift to the external picture.

After that, all kinds of alien thoughts come to me and I start “traveling” in these fantasies and calculations.

This happens until a person sees that he is unable to come out of this and it deprives him of the right approach where he would literally be able to “latch on by the teeth” in order to hold on to the right attitude to the reading.

What should he do? Eventually he reaches a demand that he needs the sensation—not to get to know the text or hear it, but to enter this picture, to attain it. He wants this to happen, for this picture to become clear to him. Just as he is in this earthly reality now, so he has to find himself inside of that spiritual reality.

Therefore, this entire confusion, all of these states have to bring us to such despair that we will desire only the sensation, while clearly realizing that we are incapable of anything on our own, even of keeping the intention. But nevertheless, we will clearly discern exactly what we do need.

Then, on one hand you understand that there is nothing you could do and there’s no point even in opening up the book. You reach total despair. But on the other hand, you know that you are unable to leave this path because your entire life is in it. And then, you receive it….

This point is truly critical because from it, you can enter the spiritual world. And that is what really happens.
[49094]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/11, The Zohar

Related Material:
Desire And You Shall Reveal
The Path To The Upper Oneness
Reveal The Zohar Within Yourself

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Kabbalah Study, Kabbalistic Sources, Prayer and Intention, Q&A, Spirituality, Zohar - 1 Comment →

Question: In his article “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee),” Baal HaSulam writes that we have to act without any payment, without any compensation, and without any admixture of self-love. How can we cleanse ourselves from the expectations of reward, of good results?

Answer: You have the tools: the Kabbalistic method called the Torah and the group. If you want to unite with the entire group and build a future world in it as a proper example for everyone, do this.

How can you unite? You can unite through the Torah. The Light in it reforms. Everyone should feel how much he is disconnected or connected with others. Each must try to check all the time whether he gives an impulse to connect.

Finally, our aspiration is necessary during studying. Where is the prayer during the lesson? Where is the prayer that motivates you to unite?

There is a common network; however, its threads are cut off, and we have to reconnect them. We come to the lesson to study the broken ties between us and to understand how to weave them back together. These are the results that we should expect from the lesson. Are we expecting them?
[48485]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/18/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

Related Material:
The Medicine For Eternal Life
The Long Path From Separation To Unity
Who Am I Working For?

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Kabbalah Study, Q&A - No Comments →