Question: Where is our freedom of choice when reading The Zohar?

Answer: We read The Zohar to realize our freedom of choice. Otherwise, there is no need either in The Zohar or in the entire wisdom of Kabbalah. Why do I need it? Is it to know the number of angels in the sky? What difference would it make if I counted them by name? I still wouldn’t know what “skies” or “angels” are, or I would draw them with wings.

For this reason, I approach the reading of The Zohar, the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah, work in the group, and the entire spiritual work in order to realize my free will, in order to receive the miraculous remedy, Segula, through all these means.

The book before me is a certain artificial device that connects me with the spiritual world of which I am neither aware nor have any idea about its properties. However, Kabbalists say that I have a certain “adapter” that can connect me with an unknown world.

Let’s say that there is a notion of a “micro world” in quantum physics, a world of elementary particles. Even though I live among them, I do not feel them, but physicists say that it is possible to create an instrument which will help you attain this world and begin to perceive it. This is why they are building different devices, such as (elementary) particle accelerators.

This way, there are tools that help us perceive the inner world of particles that are concealed from the world we presently feel. We can attain a world where we are not able to perceive anything because our senses do not operate in its range.

The wisdom of Kabbalah also gives me a tool, the reading of The Zohar, which can help me attain the concealed spiritual world, and it works! Just use it.

However, by using the tool in Kabbalah, you are the one who changes, and this tool transforms into your inner instrument. In contrast, the scientists who study earthly sciences do not change. They only perfect their tools and make them more powerful. For this reason, whatever they are doing is called the external world, outside of man.

In Kabbalah, we work with the inner world because thereby we change our nature. And at the same time, we suddenly begin to perceive phenomena that previously were completely outside of our sensations.

We do not improve the sensitivity we already have, as do musicians who perceive sounds much better than we do, or artists who perceive colors much better. Kabbalah helps us attain a state where properties that we previously did not have develop within us.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/29/10, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “You Are Partners With Me”

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Question: What is Light if every person reveals it differently? Isn’t it some subjective sensation, rather than a universal one?

Answer: The Light is energy; it’s not a subjective sensation. It’s like electricity that, depending on the device it’s connected to, can generate both cold and heat, it can pull and push. Everything depends on the vessel which receives and senses this energy.

Your desires determine everything. You do not know what the Light is and will never know. All you can do is to prepare your vessels (desires) in order to receive pleasure from it in all possible forms. However, the Light per se does not have any form; energy is formless. When electricity is passed through the wire by moving electrons, it is already a form clothed in matter; it’s not the force itself.

Everything we feel is only sensations in our organs of perception.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/30/10, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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Question: If we have to view the group only as its inner, corrected state, how then does it differ from the rest of the world that also seems only to be uncorrected?

Answer: There is no difference in the inner meaning. But when you look at the group, you can’t help but notice that their aspiration to spirituality manifests externally, that they come to the lesson every day. This means they strive to reach spirituality but haven’t yet.

You have an external screen where you see how they yearn for bestowal while currently remaining in the egoistic system that intends to consume everything for self gratification. However, they already know, somewhat understand, and even feel that there is a chance to come to a different attitude to the world: to replace consumption with bestowal.

They know that there are two forms of experiencing life in the universe:

1. A life where I instinctively try to gobble up everything because I was born this way, which is regarded as “the evil inclination” we are born with.
2. And there is another attitude to life: bestowal, stepping outside oneself, when my “self” per se doesn’t exist unless it is included into all others. And this second approach is the one we wish to achieve.

It turns out that we already have two approaches. Everybody is living according to the 1st principle so far by consuming everything into oneself. This is what we are presently perceiving, “this world.” But we dream to reach another outlook on life and see the spiritual reality which exists in bestowal.

What will happen with the corporeal reality then? Will it disappear? No, it won’t. It will remain for as long as you need it, to the extent it needs to be employed as a necessary component.

So, now you should be able to understand what your material body is: It is a necessary measure that you have to preserve in order to keep consuming for your own benefit and not to bestow. But in reality, there is no body. Yet, to the extent that you need to be present in the egoistic consumption, you continue to exist in this material reality. And to the extent that you step outside of yourself, you enter the spiritual world.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/28/10, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar, Article “You Are Partners with Me”

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All of the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks solely about the acts of bestowal that are realized in our mutual connection. The entire reality except this world exists in bestowal. This world appears before us in the opposite property, where everyone receives for himself as much as possible. In this tendency to “consume into oneself” we experience our corporeal reality.

Imagine tiny little desires scattered on a flat surface. If each of them intends to make maximal profit by taking advantage of all the others, they create a mutual connection that is regarded as “this world,” in all forms of its matter. In this case, people get tied by hierarchy, marry, bare children, unite, and all of it happens according to their intention to derive pleasure from the others. And this is the way they settle among themselves.

This is what we call “our world,” “this reality,” at all of its levels: the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking (human). We see the others as close or distant, depend on them to a greater or lesser degree, but all of it is according to our intention to feel pleasure.

We build this reality ourselves, with our intentions to enjoy whatever there is. But if someone says: “No! I wish to relate to the others with the intention to bestow, not to receive,” he will experience his new attitude to the same reality as spiritual world. It is described as: “I saw a reverse world.”

Everything is determined by intention. To switch from the intention “for myself” to the intention to bestow means to cross the Machsom (the barrier separating us from spirituality). In this intention of bestowal, there are 125 degrees, until we reach a perfect intention, absolute bestowal.

The reality we perceive right now in the intention for self gratification is imaginary. It is given to us solely so that we may use it as a stepping stone to the true perception of reality.

We received this egoistic attitude to others on purpose so that we could work on ourselves starting with it and further on, transition to the property of bestowal, and by ascending the 125 spiritual degrees, explore the connection between us ever more, that is, climb the rungs of the spiritual worlds. Only our intention determines what we experience, this or the upper world.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/28/10, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar, Article “You Are Partners with Me”

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Insofar as a person hasn’t completed his view of the world with spiritual perception, he keeps running into several problems. First of all, he has difficulty differentiating between corporeality and spirituality.

We reside on the corporeal plane and have to meet certain external conditions. We have to arrange the work in the group, family, and work relationships, as well as interaction between the friends, which we do following the rules of the corporeal world that we accept as part of the upper governance.

We are expected to demonstrate a dual response from the external and internal points of view. However, if we view everything from the “internal” perspective, why do we need to circulate the wisdom of Kabbalah in the first place? To whom I am trying to bring it? Is it to its already corrected parts?

Our image of the world isn’t perfect yet; it will develop in time. It is done so on purpose so that, in the face of the broken reality, a person would have free will amidst two principles: “If I am not for myself, then who is for me?” and “There is none else beside Him.”

Secondly, there are contradictions in the work with the friends. They are either completely corrected, or I have to work with them as with my equals, which implies another type of relationship and expectations.

This duality always accompanies a beginner, and he has to learn to work with it. Thanks to it in particular, by combining the opposites before and after the act, we arrive at the correct analysis and its realization.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/2/10, “Which Degree Should One Achieve so He Will Not Have to Reincarnate?”

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Writings of Rabash, “What is the Flood Water in the Work”: We have to take it upon ourselves to believe in the sages….

Suppose I am ready to believe the words of wisdom, but what does that mean? Do I understand the words of the sages? What is their message?

First of all, we do not work on bodies in the science of Kabbalah. There are no bodies, but only souls. The bodies that appear before us are images of an illusory world.

I am in a desire that manifests as different forms: still, vegetative, animate, and human. “The sages” are the corrected souls that are in the broken system of Adam HaRishon. They can help me and give me support; they can be my mentors and instructors for my broken soul.

Accordingly, that is how we should accept their advice. For example, The Book of Zohar tells us about ten sages of Rabbi Shimon’s group, as well as the prophet Eliyahu, Moses, Aaron, King David, King Solomon, and so on. We shouldn’t perceive them as people living in our world, but as corrected desires or souls. They are in a broken system, which is gradually starting to be restored back to life. These souls are already corrected, partially or in full, and they participate in the correction of the entire system.

In The Book of Zohar I read things like, “Rabbi Shimon said…Rabbi Abba said….” For me they aren’t people who attain the upper world and tell me about it, but rather, these are names of levels of attainment. Through these words I study the ladder of the spiritual degrees: on one degree reality appears this way and another degree that way. It seems as if Kabbalists are telling me about this, but for me they are actually forces or vessels of perception.

For me every sage represents a spiritual notion, might, force, or quality. I don’t look at the names of historical protagonists, but names of spiritual phenomena and levels. That is the “faith in the sages”: I want to attain the same bestowal as the one that’s present on the degrees that I read about. “Faith” is bestowal.

At the lesson a person has to tune into this and aspire to understand how this will influence him. No matter what the book narrates about, I want to penetrate inside the spiritual essence of every word. This means that I believe the words of the sages.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/29/10, Writings of Rabash

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Question: You say that we have to develop our sensitivity. Can you explain why this is necessary and how to do it?

Answer: The path of spiritual attainment lies in raising our sensitivity. Habit becomes second nature. We develop such qualities and abilities in us that we did not use previously and did not even understand the possibilities were present in us to feel phenomena that we did not perceive until now. They are present in nature around us because the upper world is here. But where is it? It exists at a different frequency, in a different quality that does not exist inside me, which is why I do not recognize it.

Therefore, everything depends on how much we will increase our sensitivity to the quality of bestowal. According to that, instead of perceiving the net of absorbing inside me that operates between the creatures on the still, vegetative, and animate levels, I will perceive the net of bestowal operating between the souls on the human or “speaking” level. This is what we have to attain. Therefore, everything depends on our sensitivity.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/29/10, The Zohar

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Just reading The Zohar brings many results; it evokes various phenomena and changes in a person. A person does not understand what he reads, but he tries to understand it, driven by his nature, even though from the point of view of Kabbalah this is not necessary at all. He may read it with the right intention or one that is not so correct.

In any case, the book works on him, influencing him so he advances. He cannot avoid feeling the changes inside. He should only keep returning to this book as often as possible, read it every chance he gets, and stay connected to it in some way.

Then he will see that this book is built in such a way that it creates for him a picture of reality parallel to his current reality, and he starts to slightly shift between them. Instead of the superficial story he imagines something beyond this reality. That is how The Zohar works inside a person, creating new qualities of perception inside him.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/29/10, The Zohar

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Question: If our world is the lowest of the worlds and if we can start climbing the ladder of spiritual steps with the help of the wisdom of Kabbalah, why then are millions of people walking about this lowest degree never reaching even the starting point of spiritual ascent?

Answer: There are five spiritual worlds: Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, Assiya, and Adam Kadmon. We are at the lowest degree, in the corporeal world. All of the 125 degrees that are above us are levels of transformation of reality.

Do you wish to change reality? If yes, you need a screen. A screen is defined as the measure of connection between me and the Light, the Creator. I must connect myself with the Light, the Creator, with the help of the screen.

Then, by means of various actions I perform with the screen, I will be able to create various forms of reality. Besides, these forms are alive, just like people whom I see right now. Yet, at the moment, I am not the one who is creating this reality; such perception is given to me by nature.

However, when I start ascending in spirituality, I act as the Creator does. I create each degree, all its still, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels. I create this reality; I form and support it instead of the Creator. However, who is this “I?” The “I” is the one who possesses a screen.
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From Kabbalah for Beginners, “Perception of Reality” 10/20/10

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The Zohar, Introduction, Article “The Vision of Rabbi Hiya,” Item 57: At that time, the Messiah comes to Rabbi Shimon’s seminary crowned with high crowns from the heads of the seminaries.

…Now, however, after all those members of the seminaries have been rewarded with the degree of heads of seminaries, the Messiah was crowned with the Torah of the heads of seminaries. It follows that he is crowned with the highest crowns from the heads of the seminaries.

This passage talks about spiritual degrees within a person who discovers his inner structure. His entire inner construction is his collective desire (will to receive pleasure), divided and arranged by spiritual degrees (levels), capacities to bestow.

He has the structure of the world of Atzilut. Within this outer design, there are more internal structures according to the levels, from inside out, of Shoresh (root), Neshama (soul), Guf (body), Levush (garment), and Heichal (chamber). As in the corporeal world, there are still, vegetative, animate, and speaking (human) levels.

There is no difference between the material and spiritual design. Our material form is a mere projection of our inner properties that are painting a certain picture within us, just as we see this world before our eyes right now when, in fact, it is our inner reflection.

Getting to know my inner spiritual structure, I witness how, by way of transformations performed on me by the Light, all my properties become elevated from being “members of the seminaries” to the “heads of seminaries,” from the Messiah who has come from a certain level to the Messiah at a more exalted spiritual degree. Suddenly, I see Rabbi Shimon, the rung that hasn’t revealed within me before.

All of these are the degrees in a person’s soul, all the forefathers and their sons: Hesed, Gevurah, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut. This explains how a person learns the design of his soul in more thorough details, wherein he discovers a great measure of bestowal in various forms. This is what we call getting to know the Creator.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/26/10, “Introduction from The Book of Zohar,” Article “The Vision of Rabbi Hiya”

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