Question: Why does the greatest advancement happen precisely while reading The Book of Zohar, without understanding anything, just by keeping intention?

Answer: The study of Kabbalah does not require any special mental abilities because it is not learned with the mind. On the contrary, people who consider themselves smart, who are good at studying, who grasp things quickly and have a keen mind, usually do not advance very well in Kabbalah. That’s because the mind and the sensation of their mental abilities stops them, carrying them away to the path of the rational study of this science instead of attaining it by being loyal to the group. This is a problem.

I would say that it’s precisely the regular, “average” people who are more successful in spiritual advancement. The brilliant smart-alecs who come to study the science of Kabbalah usually stumble right away. I see that its as if they jump head-first into the deep sea, and “resurface” from there many years later, once the water washes off all of their pride, feeling of superiority, and power.

Let us hope that we belong to those who are successful in attainment rather than those who have a brilliant mind.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/11/11, The Zohar

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A true prayer is “the prayer of eighteen blessings.” They are nine Sefirot of the Direct Light and nine Sefirot of the Reflected Light not in Malchut, the desire to receive pleasure, but in Yesod, which is above the egoistic desire. In other words, it implies the intention to employ Malchut to bestow. From here derive 18 types of our relationships with the Creator: nine from the Direct Light and nine from the Reflected one.

To use Yesod in the place of Malchut means to act on the side of “mercy” since we are seeking the property of bestowal, striving to become equivalent to the “first nine Sefirot” (Tet Rishonot), which descend from the Creator to the created being, Malchut, the 10^th Sefira. And our sole desire is to reveal these nine Sefirot, the properties of the Creator, meaning to take them in, absorb, and become similar to them in our nine Sefirot of the Reflected Light.

Thereby, a true prayer forms within us. After all, because of my desire to get equivalent to the first nine Sefirot, I engage my nine Sefirot of the Reflected Light and ask to utilize them in order for Malchut to become totally identical to the nine properties of the Creator who enters it. Thus, my nine Sefirot of the Reflected Light become the vessel (Kli) accepting the nine Sefirot of the Direct Light, and I receive the Light into my prayer right then and there.

If we know how to pray like this, then we engage the upper Light in the right way by seeking how to receive mercy and the force of bestowal from it, and afterwards, by dressing in our Reflected Light from below upwards. Thus, the prayer will be an act that contains absolutely everything within itself, revealing the first nine Sefirot in Malchut, perceiving them as the nine upper properties in it, and the ascension of the Reflected Light from Malchut downward upwards, which becomes “garments” for the Direct Light as it gets calculated and received in the Reflected Light. All of this is accomplished through the prayer of “eighteen blessings.” Hence, “the prayer of 18 Sefirot” is the key prayer in spiritual work.

If “ascension of the worlds” occurs during the spiritual work, such states as the “Sabbath” (Saturday), a special “holiday,” it results in the “prayer of 18 Sefirot” being altered because a more powerful Light descends from Above which makes the work below it, in the nine Sefirot of the Reflected Light, change in order to contain the entire Light coming to us during the holidays. This is the way we arrange our spiritual work.

This is why it is written that “Anything is done by the power of prayer” and “Contemplate Him day and night,” since prayer is an act that contains all stages of making the spiritual Partzuf: entering of the upper Light, followed by the calculation in the Partzuf’s head, its interaction-by-striking with the Light (Zivug de Hakaa Be Rosh), and the expansion of the Light downward. All of which implies the entire process undergone by the Partzuf in its development: conception, nurturing, maturity (Ibur, Yenika, Mochin). All of this is contained in the prayer of the 18: the nine Sefirot of the Direct Light, which dress in the nine Sefirot of the Reflected Light.

And this all occurs while I keep the intention to be transformed rather than trying to alter the upper Light, which is at absolute rest and always radiates at its fullest in the infinite measure in the head (Rosh) of each spiritual degree. A person who is only beginning his or her spiritual work must take time to examine their attitude to the upper force as unalterable, which fills the entire creation, meaning it isn’t subject to change.

After all, the upper one is totally open to us and radiates all its Light, while the changes occur solely in the one that receives. Therefore, my prayer is not a plea for the upper one to change, but rather a search for the right desires in me that will help me to connect with the upper force and gradually nurture myself in becoming identical to Him.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/9/11, Shamati #113

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When reading The Book of Zohar, we have to see the Light in it that corrects us and returns us to the source. But what has to be returned to the source? I have to place something “beneath” the Light. The Light shines, but do we have the desire that we want to correct? This is what we have to be concerned with.

The desire has to be suitable for being corrected by the Light. If the desire does not correspond to it, then the Light still influences it, but in that case we feel bad to the extent of our desire’s difference from the Light. This remains so until we make our desire suitable for correction.

That’s why there is a rule, “Make your desire like His” and then “He will make your desire like His,” like the desire to bestow and love.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/8/11, The Zohar

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Question: What is “intention”?

Answer: Let’s say desire is in one state now and wishes to move to another. To do so, it needs to induce an action that will transfer it from the first state to the second. The plan implies the following: precise knowledge of where I am, where I wish to be, and what action and forces are required to move me from state to state. This whole program is what we call “intention” or the plan.

It is as though “the plan of creation” is the complete program defining how to start and what to finish with, what steps to take on the way, how to use the materials, forces, and instruments to carry out its initial thought. It is said: “The end result is in its initial thought.”

In intention, all of this exists in potential and then is actualized in practice. This means that intention appears in me only when I’m well aware of the present state and know exactly what I want to achieve. What do they usually ask: “What are your intentions? What do you want to gain? What results do you expect?”

Intention is an expression of the need for change that we already plan, understand, experience, implement, and bring to completion. The action itself is carried out by way of the force of Light and, hence, it doesn’t pertain to the created being. Only intentions have something to do with the creature: how well it has known itself, the Creator and how and in what form it makes the Creator act. A person needs to know as much as possible.

As I keep growing, ascending the ladder of the spiritual degrees, I demand more from the Creator, specifying all of the details of His actions. I already know how He acts and how it will affect me. I know, in every detail and peculiarity, how it will take place within me, in my “body” (desires). From my experience of Him and myself, I already know how it will all occur.

In the end, I obtain such details that I can manage His program for Him: I understand this entire program, every element of it, all of its mechanisms to the tiniest twists. When I come to the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun), I get to know His entire plan from the beginning to the end, all of the steps, from His side and mine. It means that I have acquired complete intention.

The Light is always in action. But how it acts and how I should demand from Him to transform me, all of this is the work of a person who needs to know the Creator, the relationship between the Light and desire.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/3/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: What is a prayer from the bottom of the heart? Where is the innermost point located?

Answer: “The bottom of the heart” is such a deep desire in a person that he cannot reach it himself. There, in the deepest point of the heart, hides the upper force that maintains my entire heart, the entire desire it created. That is where the secret of life is concealed.

But if from the depth of the heart, from this innermost point inside of me where the Creator is found, who is the one that created me, supports me, and controls all of my thoughts and desires, I will be able to speak to Him, that means I have reached the right request.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/3/11, Shamati

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When a person already understands that he has to ask the Light to make the changes, the entire difficulty lies in imagining what changes to ask for. That is why he is led through various states in order to understand what “his own good” means according to his egoistic desire, for the sake of a pleasant mood and fulfillment.

But precisely above all of these calculations, he has to desire to act in the opposite way, preferring for egoism to suffer for the sake of rising above it, and there to build a relationship with the Light, the Creator, “for the sake of bestowal.” All the situations he had to go through were necessary in order to help him establish this relationship with the Light. Then he understands that even though everything comes from the Light and the desire does not awaken, does not change, and overall does not exist without its influence and support, still the desire has an ability to awaken the Light. This action is called “awakening from below.”

It is possible only on the condition that the desire precisely understands itself and its entire egoistic nature. It has to ask for its opposite transformation so the Light would give it a new force, enabling him to rise above himself, to step on his own desire, to squash it and freeze it, and to build the act of bestowal above it. If we will be able to ask for this, this will be called “an awakening from below.

When we receive an addition from the Light, called “awakening from below’ (Itaruta de Leila), then according to our request the Light will give us the ability to rise above our ego and act contrary to our egoistic desire. That is how a person begins building his spiritual vessel (Kli).

A new desire is continually awakened in him, burning within and not letting him rest, demanding to be fulfilled egoistically on account of the neighbor. Nevertheless, he begins to recognize the true attitude to his desire, that he has to lock it up and not let it break through in order to build a screen and the intention for the sake of bestowal above it, enabling him to use the same desire in the opposite form.

When he sees that he is completely incapable of this and only the Creator can help him, he reaches a request called “an awakening from below, “ a MAN. And if he asks correctly then he receives an answer from above—a MAD, and then he unites in a mutual action with the Light.

From then on a person already has experience in building a relationships between himself and the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/3/11, Shamati

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Our entire problem is that we do not hear the Creator’s hints. Quietly, the Creator constantly directs us, but we do not feel it. A person has to feel that the Creator is always whispering in his ear.

This is not a psychological problem and not external voices, nor a compulsive thought. This is our inner feeling that must constantly become more sensitive to perceiving the Creator’s voice.

I have to feel this inner voice inside of me, “Is this coming from Him or from me?” If I start perceiving these hints, they will help me very much. One must feel inside how He is constantly talking and hinting.

This won’t be pleasant. I will have to restrain myself and lead myself away from many weaknesses that I have, and sometimes will do the opposite. What can you do about it? A person has to find some way to relax. There are moments like that as well because a person is human.

However, in principle this sensitivity to the inner voice, as it is written, “I heard a voice,” is very important. This is not schizophrenia. It really is a very serious attunement similar to how a musical instrument is tuned in order for its sound to match the tuning fork, the pure note “A.” That is how one must feel: At what frequency can I “pick up” the Creator?

Question: How can we learn to discriminate the Creator’s voice among many others?

Answer: Only by your desire. There is no other way to do it. No one and nothing will help you. At the beginning of the previous century the Kabbalist Hazon Ish wrote the following in his book Faith and Confidence, “The quality of bestowal is a fine movement of a sensitive soul.” This is how he begins his book. We need precisely this fine attunement to the frequency at which the Creator broadcasts.

Question: What is this force that helps us to constantly keep this attunement and discriminate where and in what state I am in? Or does it not matter whether I feel good or bad?

Answer: What helps us to tune ourselves to this “fineness of the soul”? Only movement toward others, when I connect with others in spite of myself and in spite of all of the twists, turns and problems, and I try to tune myself.

All of these twists, turns, and problems are given to me deliberately. They indicate where I am still under-tuned. They show me my deviations from the necessary frequency. All the problems, troubles, and negative things are the expression of how much I am not tuned, that I still haven’t found the right resonance.

If a person perceives everything happening this way, in spite of anything that happens to him, if he does not lose the thought, “There is none else besides Him” and also tunes himself to, “If I don’t do it for myself, who will do it for me?” Then that’s all he needs.

Question: But where does he feel this voice inside?

Answer: In the movement toward the outside. The instrument in which the Creator is felt is a new resonating region inside of you that begins to resonate in relation to others.

This instrument is what we have to create. It is called “a soul.”
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From the lesson on 4/21/11

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Question: What is the correct prayer?

Answer: True, in order to be transformed, we only need to pray. The correct prayer is expressed in the words: “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.”

Together with the whole world, all the friends, all the others, I wish to come to a state where we are all unified and thereby bestow pleasure to the Creator. In relation to us, He is good and does good. There is none else besides Him. So are we good and do good in relation to Him. There is none else besides us.

It is said that He and His name will be one. In other words, the Light and the vessel, the Creator and we, come to oneness, adhesion.

Question: Is this the collective prayer?

Answer: Yes, since you pray for everybody. It is that very prayer, the intention, Abraham was so eager to kindle in Babylon. He yearned to cause immediate correction: “Let’s cry out, let’s do this!”

“To pray” is to judge myself: How corrupted is my state of existence and what am I lacking in order to correct it? That is, a prayer is rather an analysis of the situation than a plea to the Creator. There is no one to ask since the upper Light stays at absolute rest. It contains thought and emotion, but when you pray, it is as if you wish to impose your qualities and sensations on the Light.

That’s where the problem lies: We need to transfer the emphasis to self-analysis. A prayer means that I examine myself: What am I lacking, what do I wish the Light to illuminate in me? Where I find a flaw, that’s where it falls and works on. Hence, I need to find my flaws, my needs.

I stand before the immutable Absolute, and everything in it is for the good. If this is so, what can I possibly ask for? Even without my asking, He bestows abundance. So it follows that I have to find in myself the spots that need correction. And that’s what a prayer is about. It is totally directed at me, at the search of what I am missing in order to become similar to bestowal, to the Light.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/29/2011, “The Freedom”

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Our perception of the whole reality is very shaky since we don’t know how to relate to ourselves or the world in which we exist. Where do we exist and what do we feel now? Is it a dream or the truth? Is this world an objective reality or merely our temporary perception in distorted organs of perception? Possibly, when we correct our qualities from reception to bestowal, we will perceive a completely different world.

And this does not mean simply understanding it or feeling it better with the same senses that are more developed. Instead, I can completely change my sensations and perceptions that are attuned to reception and stop accepting reality egoistically; I can begin to perceive it in bestowal, an aspiration to my neighbor.

It turns out that instead of my own desire, I acquire the desires of others, and I begin to truly feel through them. And then I will sense a completely different world, another reality!

Who depicts this reality to us? Kabbalists say that it is the upper force, one, unique, and unified, besides which there is nothing else, which is good and does good to all, the wicked and the righteous alike. It is the upper Light that exists at absolute rest, and we can reveal it only by becoming equal to it in our qualities.

There are 125 degrees which correspond to the Light, and I will feel the upper Light in me to the extent that I receive the quality of bestowal, depending on the extent that I can correct myself and make myself similar to the upper Light which bestows kindness and all that is good. If I acquire the same qualities, I simply will exist in this quality of bestowal, thereby feeling it.

In other words, there is a force of bestowal called the “upper Light,” and a force of reception called “the creature.” If the creature acquires the force of bestowal over the force of reception, this force that begins to govern over it is perceived as fulfillment: a screen and the Reflected Light, the degree of bestowal that gives the creature a sensation of fulfillment.

How do we relate to this upper force? Will we ever be able to feel it, or do we just imagine it somehow according to the qualities in which we perceive it and the sensations, thoughts, and desires that are awakened in us? Kabbalists say that the upper force itself is Atzmuto, the essence of the Creator, which is not felt or attained by us. He has no form that we can perceive. However, to the extent that you try to draw closer to Him and become like Him, you will be able to understand various qualities that pertain to bestowal.

He is like a “giver” to you, but He himself has neither the quality of bestowal nor reception; He is above all this. Only His attitude towards the created beings is called “bestowal,” “love,” “giving.”

However, if it is written that He is “good and does good,” “there is none else besides Him,” “I did not change my name (HaVaYaH),” “the law is given and cannot be contravened,” which means that He is invariable, good, and perfect, then how can we ask Him for something? How can we ask Him to change and have pity on us?

This pertains only to the creature’s attitude which perceives the Creator in this manner and tells us about it, as it is written: “The Torah spoke in the language of the people.” Therefore, all our prayers and our attitude towards the Creator are essentially our attitude to ourselves, the way that I judge myself and desire to change in the direction of bestowal. However, all changes occur only in the created beings who, due to their own changes, feel that the picture of the Creator changes.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/27/2011, Shamati No.1

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The soul’s reaction to the states it passes through is reflected in the words written by Kabbalists. That reaction is collected in the prayer book entitled Siddur (the “order” of undergone states). We don’t understand what the prayers describe, nor the soul’s impressions that are recorded in the appellations, letters, their combinations, or the arrangement of the words in the sentences.

The entire prayer book is organized so that for any soul that experiences transformations in a specific state this process is expressed in the same words of the prayer. It is not necessary to articulate the words out loud. The soul will feel them within; the prayer will become its internal construction.

Every letter is a certain order, a sequence of the forces that receive and bestow. Additionally, within the letters, there are “vowel marks,” the fillings, a complete TANTA (Ta’amim, Nekudot, Tagin, Otiot or lights, points, crowns above letters, and letters), the states we are going through.

Our internal desires alter and assume all kinds of forms that instill various feelings in us. In turn, when transferred to paper these sensations receive a specific form of spiritual elements in letters, words, and sentences.

In other words, a prayer is an external expression of internal spiritual sensations. A person doesn’t really need a prayer book. If he is experiencing such internal states, they will become his prayer.

A prayer book is needed in order to look at the shape of the letters and visualize (if we are already able to do so) what states we need to undergo, to imagine what awaits us ahead. If I am already in the spiritual world, then based on what I am reading in the prayer book, I can somewhat perceive what is going to happen to me, what states I am going to enter.

In this world, I am familiar with various human emotions. Hence, while reading a novel for example, I can feel and experience the events being described internally. The same goes for the spiritual world.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/2011, Beit Shaar HaKavanot

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