Question: Until we started studying the world of Atzilut in Part 9, Talmud Eser Sefirot (TES), it seemed to me that I understood the flow of the material. But in this part, I understand absolutely nothing. Can you tell in general terms what is happening there?

Answer: I can tell what is happening with you, why you don’t understand anything. It’s because you have no relation to it.

There are several levels of perceiving the study material: “I don’t know,” “I’m not familiar with,” “I don’t understand,” and “I’m unable to understand.” The latter is because your mind does not correspond to the mind of the book.

If this were written in Chinese and you didn’t understand the language, it would be one thing. If it depended on your education level and you didn’t comprehend certain formulas or basic definitions needed to master the material, you would still have something to study.

However, here you can study as much as you want, year after year, and you nevertheless won’t understand anything until your Kelim (vessels, desires)  become at least somewhat similar to the desires described in the book. When each word will echo with an inner change within you, you will start comprehending what is being described here.

You may ask: “But didn’t I understand something in the first three parts of TES?” No, you didn’t. The three parts in question describe the acts of absolute bestowal that are so distant from and opposite to you that this opposition gives you the illusion of understanding. In reality, you interpret them completely incorrectly.

It’s easy to draw a Kli (vessel), the Light, and the screen in the middle, the arrows pointing in different directions, the percentage of the Light received or given away. But it’s impossible to imagine this action for real. However, it is so inaccessible and opposite to us that it makes us think that we understand.

Meanwhile, the actions described in Part 9 of TES are very close to us. The moment you have at least one ounce of the desire to bestow, you will enter a similar act.

Hence you see that you don’t understand. Your mind has to become similar to the spiritual one—then the connection will appear and you will be able to comprehend. This is the only way!
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Behind every word or phrase of The Zohar, we have to try to recognize forms of connection between man and his environment. In essence, this is exactly what The Zohar describes. There is nothing more in reality besides the forms of connection between a person and those around him.

Even now, when I see people and the walls of this room in front of me or hear the noises coming from outside, all of these are forms of connection between us. There is nothing besides these forces connecting us, which are forces of desire which appear this way to me in my earthly perception of reality.

In the same way, if we try, then we will begin to imagine other kinds of our connection, other forces which don’t operate inside reception, but inside bestowal among us. Then we will see that in reality, there have never been egoistic connections between us. We felt them like in a dream so that based on this illusory connection, which is opposite to the true one, we would recognize the true connection, the only one that exists in contrast from the illusory life—the desire to enjoy with all of its power.

After all, this desire existed only in order for us to transform it into the desire to bestow. The Creator supports it in this artificial form, but it does not have any real essence of its own. Only the force of bestowal exists in the world.

That is why The Zohar describes all the varieties of the force of bestowal to us, which we reveal in all the various forms, as well as the forces of reception standing opposite them, being the basis upon which the forces of bestowal are revealed in the process of man’s inner war.

This is the only thing we have to think about while reading The Book of Zohar, making efforts so the revelation of these spiritual levels will help us and will become revealed in us so we will include them inside of us.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/11, The Zohar

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We have just been reading The Zohar for over half an hour. I ask you, during all of this time, how many moments did each of you yearn for the arrival of the Light that reforms, expecting something to happen? It is written that the angels asks a person after he dies, “Did you study the Torah and did you await salvation?”

How many moments did you spend in exertion, trying not to miss out and to "catch" something very important, like a goalee guarding the gate, or a hunter chasing prey? Were you passionately anticipating it, the way you might feel before a long-awaited date with your beloved? How long did you remain in this state? How many times did you return to this aspiration again?

Only these moments count in life. They are summarized and they determine the speed of life. The other moments don’t really exist….
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/11, The Zohar

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Question: During the lesson on The Book of Zohar, millions of viewers look at strange letters, hear strange words, and expect something they can’t define. Is this what you call a scientific method?

Answer: First, a regular person lives according his instincts and understands everything naturally. This is how he was taught in his parents’ home.

Second, a person who studied the sciences of this world knows how to relate to nature based on scientific knowledge he obtained. This is an engineering approach. For instance, a mechanic, an electrician, or a specialist in any other area received appropriate education, can do manual or intellectual work, has a set of tools for the job, and thereby forms his attitude toward nature.

He isn’t allowed to work with something unfamiliar, but only after his knowledge and experience have been checked is he accepted to a job in a specific field. Suppose a person studied mechanics and now can repair engines or more complex devices. He uses the acquired knowledge in his work, but he is more or less aware of what he is dealing with.

Third, a scientist is a person who discovers something which was previously unknown, phenomena that couldn’t be predicted in advance. Sometimes, he may feel, guess, and be prompted about something, but he has no clear internal definitions for it. This is what we call discovering new phenomena in nature.

At this point, a question arises: How can I find new phenomena? I need to tune myself to them, but what does “to them” mean if they are new? Should I anticipate certain results, discoveries, and events that may take place, or should I not?

Hence, science has two parts. There is theory where hypotheses are made and are later explored through research. Thereby, new phenomena are revealed. This is the major part of science which is built on the examination of the ideas scientists have regarding expected discoveries. Without this, it is impossible to advance.

However, there are also scientists who search in complete darkness. They have no preliminary theories, hypotheses, and ideas about possible findings. Kabbalah is a science, and we utilize it in all the above-mentioned forms: as regular people, the specialists who study it, and as scientists who in some way can visualize phenomena that may be.

Herein lies a problem: In all our studies, beginning with regular people as in our world and up to great scientists who don’t know where they are going and what they will find in nature, and at all of these levels in the science of Kabbalah, there is an unpredictable part you know nothing about.

What is unknown? You don’t know which property, what phenomenon you actually will find within because you don’t have this property. You can’t even imagine it.

After all, you will discover it in the Kli (vessel) of perception that you build, while the phenomenon is the vessel itself. You can’t pre-experience what exactly will unfold within you since you have never felt it before, don’t possess any intuition, and can’t even guess at it. It is a new Kli. The impression, the sensation, is totally new.

This is how we advance in the wisdom of Kabbalah. Even in something small and simple, there is nothing that we might know in advance. Therefore, our approach when we read The Book of Zohar is correct. I expect the Light that Reforms to come and reform my Kelim, my desires. For example, I can’t see anything without my glasses. There is something before me, but I need a device to see it. I put my glasses on and see something new.

Hence, while reading The Book of Zohar and looking at the “dead” letters and text that doesn’t make any sense to us, we must approach it as scientists of the highest degree who are about to discover something unprecedented to them.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/15/2011, The Book of Zohar

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Question: If we read The Zohar with the right intention and demand for twice as long—for an hour and a half a day instead of 45 minutes, will we attain the full correction twice as fast? Or is there a different formula at work here?

Answer: The formula is very simple. The custom at my teacher Rabash’s was that we read The Zohar for half an hour a day. Rabash did not explain anything and did not add a single word. We simply read the text, everything in a row without asking him any questions for half an hour before sleep. That is why I follow the same order.

Do you want to study for twice as long? That is why I added another quarter of an hour to the lesson.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/17/11, The Zohar

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Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”: The collective and the individual are one and the same. And the individual is not harmed because of his enslavement to the collective, since the freedom of the collective and the freedom of the individual are one and the same, too. And as they share the good, they also share the freedom.

This becomes revealed gradually, from negation, from a negative. It becomes revealed in darkness, without forcing people to become corrected, or in other words, only in the form of suffering in order to enable us to understand, realize, and agree out of our own free choice with what we have to do and how we should accept the laws of nature.

We shouldn’t accept them instinctively or due to having no other way to act, the way it is done on the still, vegetative, and animate levels, but rather by agreement and desire. We have to desire it to such a degree that even if we weren’t pressed by suffering, we would still aspire to it.

That is why the suffering becomes revealed to us. It brings us to an empty place where we begin the search and this way, from within this darkness we build the divine system ourselves. Finding myself in a vacuum, I find threads and interconnections, building blocks of the future construction, and begin to arrange them on their right places.

I build a building and in the process of this construction I feel Nature by my side which already exists. But it’s as if I form its system myself, expressing it in bestowal, in darkness.

That is how I create and acquire the entire system of the universe. And then I understand the entire reality to the last detail, I understand and feel the force that created it, and I join the Creator until reaching total perfection.

However, I perceive the process of construction as suffering. I am pressured in order to make me start thinking: How can I fill the emptiness, what should the structure of the system be like? I have to search for the form of every linkage joint in it. Kabbalists write to us about the intention for the sake of bestowal and we say smart things at the lesson about the right approach to life, but we do not know how to actualize all of this. Even if you memorize all the texts by heart, this won’t help you.

Only by attracting the Light that reforms do I become a bit wiser in my corrected qualities and understand how to build the system. I am its material and therefore I begin to treat others correctly. This is my construction. This way, I correct myself and build the system.

Therefore, now and in the future we will only receive negative impulses, meaning suffering. Nothing can be given to us besides suffering because otherwise we would be deprived of the opportunity to gather the system on our own.

And that means that by disseminating the science of Kabbalah and explaining these things to the world, we will be able to reduce the extent of the suffering and the time required to “digest” its influence on us. No matter what, regardless of how much a person listens and how much knowledge he obtains, this will never deprive him of the opportunity to personally participate in building the system.

We have to gather all the parts of the world of infinity into one, and we have to do so ourselves. You cannot just simply shout, “Give me perfection!” You have to know what exactly is necessary for that, and what exactly do you want according to your level. On various phases of the path you scream differently—but you scream to be given the forces.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/15/11

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Question: While reading The Zohar, I feel fulfillment that later on is gone. I try to find the force that is working on me, and the sensation returns, only to leave again. Is this how it should work?

Answer: Yes, exactly so! Every time when a person continues, forgets, escapes in his thoughts, and returns, it all begins anew. It’s very good! Nothing disappears, but “penny to penny, it turns into a great sum” and then revelation occurs.

Question: What indicates that my intentions are working correctly?

Answer: It is the extent in which I start feeling more that I depend on the group and together with the friends achieve correction.

Question: What should I do if I don’t understand what’s written in The Zohar and am constantly bombarded by numberless irrelevant thoughts?

Answer: First of all, a lack of understanding is not an issue. You shouldn’t worry about it. A person must feel rather than understand.

When the time comes and one’s desires are reformed to the level of what is described in The Zohar, he will understand, but from sensation. First, he will feel, and later understand more and more. Thus a baby experiences the world without a clue about what is going on, while gradually obtaining a mind.

Hence, a person should be concerned with how to develop desire to the degree described in The Zohar. And what we read about are the forms of bestowal between spiritual Partzufim: Malchut, Bina, Zeir Anpin, Aba ve Ima, and Yeshsut. Let a person make sure that his desire is being worked on by the forces that we receive while reading about the unknown to us spiritual processes.

Therefore, during the studies, I should think about how I must change and where the force that reforms me is. It is as though I am receiving an intravenous infusion and waiting for when the medicine will finally start to work, as it is said: “When my actions reach the acts of the Creator.”

Question: How can I anticipate correction by The Zohar if I don’t feel “ill”?

Answer: This is also necessary on the path. But what do you mean that you “don’t feel ill”? Do you really find yourself in the movie of the spiritual world that The Zohar talks about?

You should feel that these actions wash through you, that you live in that world, know the difference between the spiritual objects (Partzufim) and their descents and ascents. Do you find yourself in these ascents and descents, in all types of transformations? Do you experience them or not? If not, you have something to think about.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/2011, The Book of Zohar

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Question: Do Kabbalists reduce the world’s disasters by virtue of their spiritual progress?

Answer: Of course. Moreover, no one is bigger or smaller in this regard. People think that a great Kabbalist can just pray and make a plague go away. But in reality, it’s the other way around: Precisely the newcomers who have a point in the heart that has just awakened, who are confused and don’t understand anything yet, can do more than the old-timers with their distant, small desire.

Much like a little child who becomes the head of the family, people who have just set out on the spiritual path and who still seem far away from the “real business,” can do more than the “veterans” with their simple desire and their pleas.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/11

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The task of the created being is to move toward new, unexpected, and unknown states by arranging for itself all the necessary conditions to attract the upper force which can transform it. Hence, these actions are regarded as the “miraculous remedy” (Segula).

The acts that the created being must carry out are clearly defined: It has to rouse its own desire, cultivate it, enter the group, and “purchase the friends for himself” by starting to bestow to and lower himself before the group. One needs to get inspired by their exalting the spiritual goal, “make a teacher for himself” to learn from him with the friends, and unify into one integral desire, one vessel (“Kli”), in order to correct the breaking.

The breaking is the place within which we reveal our correction: our reformed state and the upper Light that fills our restored collective vessel. That is, we are dealing with the actions that can be accurately described and practically applied while still remaining in one’s egoistic nature, in a still uncorrected state. This stage exists at each step of the ascent, even at the spiritual degrees.

As to the acts of the upper one, it’s the upper Light (the Light of AB-SAG or the Surrounding Light) which expands to us in the manner we can’t comprehend and affects us without our feeling or being aware of it. We only feel the effects of its work.

This is why there is a gap between the creature’s actions and the Creator’s work in response to the former if they are arranged correctly. That is, there is no cause-and-effect chain on the part of the created being, and we neither understand how the breakthrough occurs nor can foretell it. Hence, this entire work is regarded as the “miraculous remedy.”

But it is all due to the fact that the created being is preparing to receive a new nature that it presently lacks. And hence, we cannot see or feel the forthcoming transformations. That is why this is described as a miracle. However, when a person receives these inner transformations from Above, the entire chain of events he went through becomes clear to him, and now he says about the past: “I labored and I found!”

A find is exactly what Segula, a miraculous force, implicates. We must constantly strive to do whatever we can, as it is written: “Do all that you are able to do” and you will find! This is precisely what determines the gap between my present and future states. I am completely in charge of my current state: I am aware of it, understand it, and organize everything in it: “I do everything I can.” But then I “find” a completely new state that comes as a miracle. After all, I receive a totally new nature that I didn’t expect or predict in advance.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/8/2011 on The Importance of the Study

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