Question: Why did the authors of The Zohar write using very earthly language in some places, which only confuses us, as if it is talking about our world, and in other places they wrote using the language of Partzufim and Sefirot?

Answer: The language that was created as far back as Adam HaRishon contains several Segulot (miraculous qualities). Why are they Segulot? It’s because we do not understand what the spiritual world is. We do not attain it and cannot imagine it correctly. We cannot formulate any of it before ourselves in any form.

It is initially clear that all of our notions, even ones of this world, are totally false. Like blind people, we are all trying to advance by feeling our way around, not knowing what we come up against and what is happening. All of our reminiscences and imaginary pictures are incorrect and false.

We are in such a dark state that we have never tasted the taste of truth. Not even a weak ray of Light has ever penetrated into this pitch darkness in order to even slightly illuminate any details of the world in which we exist, as well as the connections between us.

That’s why a question arises: Is it possible to speak to these creatures at all? It’s even worse than digging up worms in the ground and trying to tell them the Torah. That is not a joke! The difference between us and the spiritual world is much bigger than between us, living creatures, and a worm in the ground, which is also a living creature.

You differ from the worm by the size of your awareness and cognizance in the same darkness where you both exist. However, you and a person who is in spirituality are separated by opposite perception—an abyss that is impossible to even imagine.

Adam HaRishon was the first person who revealed the fact that besides our state, there is a source, the spiritual world, the true reality, whereas we are in total darkness, like worms in the ground who have never crawled to the outside and do not know that a different world even exists. Therefore, we have to be given at least the end of a rope that we could grab onto.

Thus, those who attain spirituality starting from Adam HaRishon invented what seems like all sorts of stories. However, they are not stories, but a system connecting us to the world and the souls that attain spirituality, to the connection between them and the Light that is in them.

Right now we have no idea what is the meaning of any of these words—not about that world, nor about the souls, nor the connection, nor the Light—nothing! Yet they traced a certain connection from the state which is unknown to us, and we have no idea what that connection is either. But they did it in order to somehow connect that state to us. And if we use that connection by following their advice, it gradually influences us.

Therefore, it’s absolutely irrelevant to ask why they wrote using one kind of language or another: one that’s more sensitive or rational, one that’s clearer or less clear. We can only get confused by the descriptions that seem more earthly and closer to us.

There is only one opportunity to come closer to The Zohar: to connect with one another as much as possible. To the degree we unite through efforts to be above our ego, we give these spiritual states the opportunity to be revealed. But as long as they aren’t revealed, we will not find out what they are. It is written, “I saw a reverse world.” You will see that the spiritual world is completely not what you were able to imagine.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/11, The Zohar

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Question: When The Zohar speaks about man, does it refer to the desires?

Answer: According to The Zohar, “man” is a property similar to the Creator. Clearly, this only refers to the desires. This is because the image of man standing before us does not exist in reality. This is a trick of the imagination.

Let’s say that you see an image on the computer screen. Does it exist in reality? Something exists in the computer’s memory, and all the actions happen there. But in order for you to see what happens in the memory (which is there only for your knowledge and for the connection with you), there is a screen where you see a certain demonstration of something that exists in the memory. But the actual original image is there, inside, in the form of electric signals, forces that exist in different combinations with each other.

You see the external symbols of these combinations which are very limited and strictly specific because you are unable to perceive them otherwise. After all, you cannot live in a computer’s memory, understand, and see whatever exists there.

It is the same with The Zohar. Its authors convey to us a certain spiritual impression, which at this point we are able to hear only externally, imagining it somehow in our uncorrected, limited perception. But this vision has nothing to do with the actual spiritual image, concealed on the inside, behind the external forms of the letters, words, and images, which arise in your imagination. The authors of The Zohar have something completely different in mind.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “The Donkey Driver”

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Kabbalah is everything. There is nothing beyond its boundaries. It includes man and his entire world, no matter where he is. All of this exists none other than in man’s perception, whereas our study of plants and animals through zoology, biology, and botany is only a study of how man perceives them. In fact, these are all certain forces which are expressed this way in relation to me.

Even the Creator, I study only the way He becomes revealed in relation to me. Through all reality I reveal Him as the root. The attainment of this root is the goal of the entire research. The entire universe developed precisely in order for man to reveal the Root. All of reality is the means to establish a connection between man and the Root, the Creator.

The Creator is not some religious symbol, but the root of everything, the One who controls everything, the primary cause and source of everything that exists, as well as the goal. It is written, “I am the first and I am the last.”

The root means that everything begins from Him and He determines how every event will occur. And everything will eventually conclude with Him as well. It is written about Him, “The One, Single, and Singular” and “There is none else besides Him,” who is good and does good.

But it is impossible to research reality with the help of the science of Kabbalah without first changing oneself. Only a Kabbalist can be a researcher in this science because he reveals it upon himself. It is impossible to research it as an external observer, the way other sciences do.

For example, I once studied metallurgy where we used to take metal samples. We would heat a sample, cool it, test it under pressure, and check the influence of different additions and alloys. Yet I remained the same person who researches the metal. And I would throw out the sample and take a different one the next day.

However, in Kabbalah you have to be inside of the test sample yourself! You have to take on its qualities. You don’t just learn to understand them a little and feel them from outside, the way we usually experience the things we research. In Kabbalah you have to be inside matter itself, take on the same form, and according to this correspondence you will be able to understand it.

When you build its full model inside yourself, only then will you be able to check and research it. You research yourself! The Creator (Boreh) means “Come and See” (Bo – Reh). I do not see anything on the outside. The Creator is inside of me. To the degree of our equivalence, which I have attained, I say, “This is the Creator! This is my God.”

Every person has to come to know Him, “From the smallest of them to the greatest.” But to do that, one must be willing to change his nature and replace it with the Creator’s nature.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/11, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Question: What is an unfolding Reshimo (a informational gene or record)? What exactly gets revealed to us?

Answer: It is impossible to explain because a Reshimo is a complete picture of the future which unfolds within me. At the end of this entire chain of Reshimot, there is my one last Reshimo that represents the world of Infinity.

Now, one of these states leading me on this path to the world of Infinity is becoming revealed. It is programmed with all the data except my mandatory effort and the screen. When I supply them, this Reshimo becomes realized and transforms into the true picture of reality.

Since this Reshimo includes in itself the entire picture of reality except for my own effort and my
anti-egoistic screen, it turns out that the Creator, who exposes a desire for my participation in this Reshimo, conceals Himself in it. It’s as if He is showing me a picture of reality with unfilled, left out intervals, in which I have to complete Him with my participation.

I cannot actualize a Reshimo in one go; it requires a number of actions, quite a lot at times. In the end, I must completely reveal the degree of similarity and lack of correspondence between us. Therefore, a Reshimo is structured and unfolds in such way as to not just bring me to the completion of this picture; it also must supply me with what I lack.

While I fill in the picture, I add all of the Creator to the point that has initially unfolded in me. After all, our goal at each rung is to become equal to the Creator.

I realize my Reshimo as though I am working and filling in something within me. Thereby, I elevate (fulfill) myself to the level of the Creator at my present degree. It is a multifaceted process that eventually leads me to perfection.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/2011,  “The Quality of the Hidden Wisdom – in General”

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Thanks to quantum physics, the deeper we penetrate into matter which, in and of itself, is inanimate and can be researched using a purely deterministic approach and mechanical discovery, the more we suddenly discover reason and feeling there. Although it’s we who endow matter with these properties, we find thought, a plan, there. We understand that we encounter someone’s thought.

Astronomers also claim that they feel as if behind the stars and the entire cosmos there stands a certain thought. If a person is developed enough, he comes to feel that way.

At my recent lecture in Moscow, I mentioned that if we were to magnify an atom, we would find a void between its nucleus and electrons. I’ve already received objections from my friend, a physicist, who denies that emptiness can exist inside an atom because all the entire space there is full.

Today, we understand that the electron is not a particle which is local, but a certain blurred cloud that fills the entire space of its orbit. That seemingly contradicts the way I presented it, but who knows what will happen and what physics will tell us in another twenty years? It’s clear that the entire theory will become even more abstract because as we advance, we find that our universe is not an assembly of solid particles and can’t be explained by ordinary mechanics; rather, the universe is approaching the spiritual form.

When I said that there are empty spaces in an atom, I meant the qualitative voids that are inside it. No matter how loudly our research claims that the entire space of the atom is full and that one electron fills the entire volume, together with that, we discover a void which hints at something with this emptiness. That’s the thought that’s hidden there.

It’s the same with states between the spiritual degrees. When we are passing from one degree to another, we get into the same kind of empty gaps. We fall there and become renewed. Therefore, each next degree is an entirely new structure.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/2011,  “The Quality of the Hidden Wisdom – in General”

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Question: If our entire reality and world are imaginary, then isn’t the fact that we are now reading The Book of Zohar also an illusion?

Answer: Of course! The Zohar is not a book, but a higher illumination. It is Light that comes to us from the system of souls, the Light filling our souls.

Similarly, who is Rabbi Hamnuna Saba about whom we read in The Zohar? This is a special, great Light and a very high degree. How do I attain him? If I attain a specific degree of connection between the souls, then the degree of their connection, the mutual bestowal among them becomes revealed as Light which is called Rav Hamnuna Saba, and if it happens on a small degree, it is his son. The Light is the degree of bestowal between the souls.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/11, The Zohar

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In the beginning of our path, over the course of thousands of years according to the time of our corporeal world, we have been evolving by the influence of the Reshimot (spiritual genes), which awaken in us and force us to realize them.

Relative to nature, we reside in a state regarded as “this world” and must pass through this degree. With each new incarnation, another, greater desire to enjoy awakens in us, which is a more exalted Reshimo that we are supposed to actualize while attempting to fulfill it to the fullest.

When all informational genes (Reshimot) which belong to the part of the path called “this world” expire, we start experiencing another type of Reshimot. The first such Reshimo is called “a point in the heart.”

At this point, we are supposed to realize this Reshimo based on the new conditions, a new model: not according to the desire to enjoy this world, but according to the desire to bestow, which is now awakening in humanity. In this way, we advance, always against our will, under the pressure of the genes (Reshimot) awakening in us.

A person can do nothing else except what his soul demands of him since his Reshimot are pre-programmed with all that will occur. As to us, we are a mere desire that is completely governed by these genes (Reshimot), similar to a computer that is programmed with software and data.

But the nature of the spiritual steps in us remains constant. Our will to enjoy is divided into 125 portions or degrees we ascend by. And until we have finished correcting each preceding portion of the desire to enjoy, by having made all the necessary transformations at a given degree, it is impossible to advance to the next rung.

The nature of the spiritual rungs is a strict law, and there are no tricks that will help us to escape and hide from it or cut it some slack. Everything depends solely on how eager we are to meet its conditions.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/2011, “The Quality of the Hidden Wisdom – in General”

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We exist in the one and only reality created by the Creator, but we uncover it only to the degree that we correspond to it and are similar to it in our properties. Reality itself is constant and unchanging, and it is called the world of Infinity.

Meanwhile, we exist in the desire to enjoy, the property opposite to the world of Infinity: the intention to receive instead of to bestow. We can correct ourselves by performing consecutive corrections time after time, 125 times. Our every correction translates within us into a new attainment, and this is how we advance.

This is a step-by-step advancement that abides by the law of the equivalence of form, and there is no place for a compromise here: We are situated in a system that operates like a living organism. If you correspond to it, you receive accordingly, and if you don’t, you will receive according to this lack of correspondence. You constantly interact with nature to the measure of the similarity and strength of the forces with which you approach it.

If nothing changed in us, we would always stay in the same state. But since the Reshimot (informational genes, data) are constantly growing and changing in us, we are becoming increasingly opposite to nature and differ from it more and more. This is exactly what we feel as the accumulation and manifestation of various unfulfilled desires and problems.

This is how we feel the forces which are pressuring us increasingly stronger from the side of the evil. These forces will inevitably compel us to move toward good, meaning to search how to reach similarity to nature.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/2011, “The Quality of the Hidden Wisdom – in General”

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As we examine the universe, we see that nature together with our world are concealed from us. We are revealing the world over the course of thousands of years, from generation to generation, and we are becoming more familiar with it.

The Creator is the common force of nature, and this is why we will need some more time to attain Him. However, why is reality concealed from us? Why is the Creator hiding from us?

After all, He is not like the laws of nature that conform to Him: the still, vegetative, and animate levels of development or the human level. He is the common law which contains the thought, as well as the beginning and the end of the universe. Everything is included in Him. Then, why did He create everything so He would be concealed from us?

What is so special about attaining His revelation on our own and asking His help with it? What is this game? He conceals from us, and we need to suffer over the course of thousands of years of our development until we come to the question of, “Why is the Creator concealed?” Only then does the wisdom of Kabbalah, the method of revealing Him, become revealed. What do we get from it? So, we will reveal Him, and what will happen then?

People say that we will be happy then because the Creator is Good and does good, and we will exist in love above all the suffering once we attain His revelation. However, if the Creator is the force of infinite love and bestowal, then why did He create us to be so miserable and sordid? Why do we need to work so hard to come to the one who loves us?

We see that everything is also the same in this world. People who have been through different obstacles on their way to attaining love, unity, and revelation value it; they feel how they have benefited and discovered something great, dear, and important.

We also see that every person in our world essentially wishes to be loved for who he is. However, this kind of relationship between us cannot exist. Only a mother experiences these feelings toward her child, and this love is corporeal and animalistic. It has come to the mother from nature, and it obligates her to love her child, give him life, sustain him, and facilitate his further development.

This is the only exception. Since we do not love other people for who they are, we want to have proof of how this will benefit us. All of this helps us to understand, at least slightly, why the Creator needed this game (the concealment).

He wants us to come to this love without expecting it to benefit us. Just like we want to be loved for who we are, He also wants to be loved for who He is without our expecting any personal benefit. This is why we will not be able to understand how to begin to establish a connection with Him before we free ourselves of our ego.

The first thing we need to do in order to develop the sensation of the Creator within us is to rise above our nature. In other words, we need to rise above personal interest, above “How will this benefit me?”

This will be possible when I manage to become absolutely free from it, as if I did not exist, as if I were absolutely independent and objective, and able to see and judge things this way. Then I could begin to perceive the Creator, the force of bestowal, the force of goodness, from that moment on.

Otherwise, if He were to reveal Himself, I would come to Him because this would benefit me. This is because if I were to feel that He only evokes love, security, health, and happiness, I would be forced to love Him because He is the source of everything good. This love would be compulsory and dependent.

This is why I need to arm myself with a screen, a restriction and my anti-nature, and to become free from my own ego. Then, both of us would become carriers of infinite and pure love without personal benefit, and we would begin to understand that it is not the Creator who conceals Himself from man, but man who conceals Him with his ego.
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From the Introductory Lecture “Why the Creator is Hidden” 12/14/2010

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