From the book Shamati, Article 197: Book, Author, Story. A book is considered [the state] prior to creation [the plan]. An author is the owner of the book. The unification of the author and the book assumes the form of a “story,” that is, the Torah along with the Giver of the Torah.

We perceive ourselves inside some sort of reality, and we have to do research to find out: What is the meaning of it? Is this an illusion or the truth? Or perhaps the two are the same thing? Some program is unraveling within me along a chain of causes and effects. But who is its author? Will I be able to recognize the author of the story that I read within me?

The book (this whole reality) already existed before I started reading and revealing it. However, all the revelations take place inside me because I am reading this story as I go through the book from beginning to end and receive an impression from its flow.

Inside this story, to the degree I become familiar and included in it, I reveal the author of the book. As I go inside the book, its story starts to build me and to push me to become its author (or scribe) as well.

The story is the Torah, which leads us to the full revelation of the entire book, in which we are together with the One who Gives the Torah. Each of us reveals it for himself anew, but we need a teacher to help us read this book, similar to how an adult in our world reads to a child until the child grows up and learns to read on his own.

In the science of Kabbalah, an adult (spiritually speaking) has to help the child. It’s impossible to reveal the book on your own, but only when it’s passed from teacher to student. That is how each of us must learn to read the book and go through this story in order to reveal the author within the book.

As long as I don’t learn to read on my own and go through this whole path, I won’t reveal the book and its author because that is possible only when I am similar to Him. Gradually I myself become the author, since I write the Torah on the matter of my desire, which continuously assumes new forms of letters.

Even though this book has already been written by its Author, I too, become its author. As I go through the story from beginning to end, I equalize and unite with the book, the author, and the story.

Note: In Hebrew the word Sofer means both the writer (author) and the scribe. The only author is the Creator, who wrote only one book, the Torah, which incorporates everything. We are only rewriting it (revealing it), each one of us within himself.

From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/10, Shamati #197

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While reading The Zohar we imagine, like on a screen, a picture of this world detailing various subjects and images, material words and actions. This is because our desire remains solely material.

We demand that The Zohar bring us the Light which illuminates a deeper screen similar to a computer screen where different windows are hidden behind each other. We have to try to see the spiritual property behind each word to the best of our abilities.

When we obtain spiritual sight, we naturally start to see a totally different picture behind the words we read: forces, connections, relations, properties, and qualities. This new picture is absolutely disconnected from what we used to see before. The prior form disappears and transitions to a more “inner” screen which is holding our sensations, sensibilities, and our whole life. We have to strive to attain this state.

In other words, I wait for the Light, the force that I attract while reading The Zohar, to get me more deeply involved in the screen that hides behind the others. By shifting from one display to another, I start to live through a new screen. That’s where my sensations and reason “reside;” it becomes my life.

When that happens, everything obtains a new essence. I previously thought that I grasped the meaning behind the words in The Zohar, and attached them to various subjects and actions of this world. Yet when I transition to a deeper screen, I see that the prior display barred a totally different meaning of a much more internal nature, for example, my inner properties. That’s the change that we have to expect from The Zohar.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/13/10, The Zohar

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Baal HaSulam’s article “The Freedom” starts with the words “’Harut (Carved) on stones; do not pronounce it Harut (Carved), but rather Herut (Freedom), to show that they are liberated from the angel of death.” What does a person need in this world while he is still unable to feel the Upper spiritual worlds and simply worries about his life like any other animal? At this time, a person’s primary concern is the issue of life and death. There is a reason that it is written that freedom means liberation from the angel of death. The science of Kabbalah is the method of achieving eternity, and it is fundamentally important for everyone.

Humanity subconsciously hides the issue of death from itself; this issue has no solution, but it reduces all of us to a level of worthless beings. Everything we do in this world (culture, education, work) is done in order to conceal the certainty of death. We try to push it further away and not think about it, as though it does not exist. However, if this question arises within a person, one feels completely powerless since nothing can be done to stop a person from dying. We can deal with anything and achieve anything except for one thing – eternal life.

The inevitability of death cancels out the human being in me. Therefore, everything that humanity engages in subconsciously comes from this one thought. We don’t understand to what extent we would view life differently if we were immortal. Our whole attitude to our existence, to reality, to other people, and to ourselves would be completely different.

From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/10, Article “The Freedom”

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A question I received: Is it possible to explain to children the spiritual meanings of the words and stories in the Torah?

My Answer: Children are more ready for this than adults. They’re developing their sensations and senses. They don’t have a problem perceiving the language in other terms, because they’re hearing the words for the first time.

You can show a glass to a child and say, “This is a glass.” You can also explain that a “glass” is a sensation of some desire in oneself. A child will perceive these notions because he doesn’t have any definitions of our world yet. Or you can say that a glass is a vessel made of glass that we fill and that it is also one’s inner vessel which he or she wants to fill. A child perceives this naturally and he won’t become confused by it.

This is because children’s perception is not dual like that of adults. Children develop in our world in the same way as we’re supposed to develop now in the spiritual world. This is the same path and the same route.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/10, “Exile and Redemption”

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If a person ascends above himself and begins to feel that unification with others is more important to him than what is happening in him, then to this extent he comes closer and closer to the Upper Force. In this manner he reaches the quality of bestowal, Lishma. In this quality of bestowal he begins to feel the Upper reality. It is as though a light turns on before him and in this light, he begins to see what is ahead.

It is like he was roaming around a dark field, without seeing or understanding anything, and suddenly he acquires the quality of bestowal, which turns on the Light, and he begins to see in what reality and in what world he exists! All this is due to the fact that he had properly implemented all the exercises that the Creator had given him. In these exercises he preferred to come out of himself in order to connect internally and spiritually to his environment, instead of closing up inside himself.

In this manner, a person acquires the quality of bestowal instead of the quality of reception, and in this quality, in the Light of Love (Hassadim), he turns on the Light and sees the true reality. However, now we see only ourselves. It is written in The Zohar that our eyes are turned inward and we do not see what is happening on the outside. This is how all our senses work. Therefore, we do not see the true reality.

The whole Torah is meant to reveal this external, spiritual world to us and to lead us into it to live actively in it! This is called the Torah Lishma, which is studied in order to reach the quality of bestowal, faith above reason (knowledge). Faith is Bina, and “above knowledge” means above Malchut. When Bina reigns above Malchut (faith above reason), and Malchut adjoins it, then, in this form, we can reveal the Upper reality.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/9/10, Shamati 22

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I am trapped in my skin which cuts me off from the Creator who is situated “outside.” I am a slave and I cannot break out. At every given instant, a force influences me and automatically returns me to my own self, to the egoistic center.

How do I force myself to pay attention to what is happening on the outside in order to understand that it is also me? My true reality is “outside”; there, I am together with the Creator; there, I am outside of my animal; there, my soul is outside of the egoistic “I,” which I currently imagine myself to be.

These are two forces that act in nature. I need to arrange them in such a way that the second force (centrifugal) would influence me in the same natural manner, instinctively and inevitably, as the first force (centripetal). Let it occupy my mind and heart and drag me out by force. Let it force me to think about others and worry about them. I need this since this is the only way for me to find my soul.

In this regard, the force of a Kabbalistic group helps me; only the group can convince me to come out of my circle and turn my attention to what is “outside of it.” When I change my attitude from the “intra” (within) to the “extra” (outside). I stop worrying about the body and begin to be concerned with the soul.

I understand that the external reality, which seemed foreign to me and which I was completely indifferent to, contains the real me. This external circle is actually much more valuable to me than the inner one since it contains my soul which is eternal. Meanwhile, the inner circle is merely an animal, which is allotted some 70 years.

However, the concealment does not allow me to see all this. When I begin to realize this, I am amazed to what extent the Creator plays a joke on me.

From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, 4/1/10

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Shamati, Article 86: There is a great rule we must know. Our work, which was given to us so as to be a basis for faith above reason, is not because we are unworthy of a high degree. Hence, this was given to us so as to take it all in a vessel of faith.

We exist in the world that we perceive through our senses and evaluate in our brain (“heart and brain”). This type of perception is called “reason.” “Reason” means that we recognize and feel something that “enters” our senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch) and constitutes “our world.” We perceive the whole through our five sensors.

Anything we feel is called “within our reason” (Be Toch Da’at) and corresponds to our sensations and observations. The spiritual world is something “above reason” since we are unable to sense it and thus cannot perceive it (neither in the heart and brain nor in our organs of perception). In order to start perceiving spirituality, we have to obtain new properties (desires) that correspond to its level: a “spiritual heart” and “spiritual brain.”

According to the type of perception, reality is split into two parts: the inner sphere (“I”) and the outer sphere (the world outside of me). Driven by the desire to receive pleasure, we perceive inner and outer influences selectively. This selective perception builds a picture that is called “my world.”

The division of reality into two parts stems from the separation of the soul into two parts: Keter, Hochma (GE) and Bina, Zeir Anpin, Malchut (AHP). Before the separation occurred, all of them constituted five desires of the soul, five Sefirot. As a result of the separation, our perception of the world was divided into two parts: GE (Galgalta Eynaim – skull, eyes) formed our inner desires through which we sense our world and ourselves, whereas we feel AHP (Awzen, Hotem, Peh – ears, nose, mouth) as something “outside of us.”

Things are arranged this way on purpose. It is in order to give us a chance to work in GE “within reason.” However if we choose to work with AHP, treating it as our own desires, we reach the state called “above reason.” Our “reason” is something that exists within us, whereas “above reason” means something outside of us.

If we want to attain spirituality, we have to connect the AHP desires to us; when we do so, it is called “work above reason.”  In fact, these terms are simply the words that we use to describe our attitude towards our desires, inner or outer.
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From the lesson on 4/1/10, Shamati 86

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We need to understand that someone from Above is playing with us. Now I perceive myself as something that is most precious. However, I am simply programmed to perceive in this way. There is nothing special or unique about me. I was just created to care most about myself. A program was instilled in my internal apparatus that makes me fixated on myself; thus all the time, just like a robot, I care only about myself.

Yet really this program is really more alien to me than something I perceive to be outside of myself. It is important to discern that this internal program is operating me and to understand that it’s completely opposite to the truth. We have to try to move to the outer program. We have to build the outer program ourselves. Building this means that we return to the act of creation.

We, instead of the Creator, begin to act. We use His power of Light to program ourselves in relation to our outer desires (Kelim), in the same way the Creator programmed us regarding our current desires. We perform the same work. In so doing, we study what the Creator has done; we obtain power over reality, and become as wise as the Creator. We acquire the same perception.

Although this work is called “above reason,” it doesn’t mean that we perform it without any mind. On the contrary, I constantly check what the Creator has done in me, and now I have to transfer it outside of myself. However, I have to learn about my ego gradually because, on the inside, I work “above reason.” The Creator programmed me to constantly take care of myself, but through this work, I check and see that it is so artificial, unjustified. I see that on top of being useless, it harms me. Hence, I use this to learn how to switch the program to the opposite direction – from inside to outside.

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The Zohar, Chapter “VaYaera (And the Lord Appeared),” Item 126: …In the beginning, Rabbi Aha thought that there was Dever in the city, for which a prayer is required to bring the Nukva back to the quality of Rachamim. This is why he told them to pray. But when he heard that there were multiple deaths, when he was told that so and so have died and so and so were about to die, he saw that it was a plague, and a prayer does not help with a plague. This is because this does not require the mitigation in the quality of Rachamim. Rather, the incense is required, to reveal the middle line in it and to incorporate the lines in one another.

The inner sensations of a person who recognizes his numerous properties and acknowledges how far away he is from the state of correction are called “infection,” “epidemic,” “occurrences of multiple deaths” or “near-death conditions.”

The “plague” (Dever) is counteracted by a “sage” that lives within each of us; this unique quality is called “Rabbi Aha.” The authors of The Zohar are, in fact, the source of superior qualities, all of which are present in every soul – you have them too!

This is because we dwell in a holographic system where each of us is included in all of its other parts. Hence, Rabbi Aha is also present inside of my soul; he fights the “plague” and cures multiple “sick people” who sometimes die and at other times manage to survive.

My task is to imagine and sense exactly where they are positioned within me. Where are all those qualities? I strive to sense them. If I am “a small world” then I have to locate those qualities within myself. I am eager to reveal them.

As soon as I reveal the reality that is described in The Zohar, I begin to live in it. I want to identify myself with the righteous men and even with the sinners. I want to unite with everyone. Anything and everything in this world is mine and manifests itself within my soul, which is hidden from me. Unless I manage to reveal at least a little part of it, I won’t sense what is described in The Book of Zohar.

Even a partial revelation makes it possible for me to “read” and sense myself better; my self-awareness emerges and I become able to explain who I am. But so far, The Zohar is completely concealed from us. We are waiting for the Light to impact us and begin the process of revelation of a new reality within each of us.

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Who is He, the Creator? The Creator is my internal sensation of my next exalted state to the extent that I am able to imagine it. Every time I change, I picture the Creator in the new way. This is why He is called    Bo-reh (come and see).

We have to understand that there is nothing absolute and unchangeable here. Everything depends on a person’s understanding, perception, and attainment. In reality there is no eternal or unchangeable truth. We need to be ready for these changing perceptions. Something that was black will become white and vice versa. The entire attitude, evaluation, and view of things will change.

It seems to us that this is a somewhat precarious system that doesn’t have a firm base. On the other hand, it does give us a new, completely unique foundation, which is called faith above reason. In other words, in the egoistic desires, it is impossible to receive any concrete knowledge that could be set in stone and would never change.

This fluctuating truth actually pushes a person forward to search for solid ground. And the search leads one to find that the only unwavering truth is revealed in the spiritual world. The solid ground is found to be in faith, in the force of bestowal, rather than in the force of receiving. It is revealed in facts that are above my mind and sensation – at the level of bestowal, Bina.

Suddenly it becomes clear there that there are no things which negate each other, no things which are in opposition to each other. Rather, it is revealed that by connecting and complementing one another, all become parts of the single, perfect wholeness. One sees that Pharaoh, the Creator, the person himself, and the serpent are all part of a singular whole. This perfection becomes revealed to a person as a rigid and unchanging basis for all his actions.

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