Question: How does it help us to read the Sulam Commentary to the Book of Zohar if its explanations carry us away in the wrong direction? Isn’t it better to read The Zohar in the original Aramaic, a language we don’t understand, and remain in the right intention for the goal?

Answer: In that case maybe you could also read The Zohar in Chinese or another language that you don’t understand at all? Or just look at the symbols without knowing the letters like at a picture, without realizing that these letters connect into groups called words, and the words combine into sentences, and sentences into paragraphs? In the meantime, I do not know anything, looking at the page of text as if it were a certain code.

The matter is that I have to connect to the text through my desire to reveal the states of my soul that it describes. The text is talking about what happens inside of me, inside my connection with the Creator. That is why I want to reveal it.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/22/11, The Zohar

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When reading The Zohar we must always think about the connection between us, and based on this constant, powerful thought we should just slightly hear the text, as much as it is possible as an addition, a spice. The thought about unity has to be powerful and unceasing. Only to the extent we are able to do so should we add the text to it, meaning the thought about it and the sensation of it. It has to be done only on the condition that this foundation, the constant thought about unity, does not disappear or grow weaker.

We can easily be in the right intention if only we know that The Zohar, just as all of the Torah, speaks only about the types of connection between us. Therefore, everything we study and everything we now want to see as a result of our work – unification among us, types of our connection, its special characteristics, everything happening between us – this is what The Book of Zohar tells us about.

Therefore, we are talking about the same point – the point of unity between myself and others. This point contains all the possible kinds of connections between me and everyone. This is what the Torah talks about.

Therefore, if I direct myself correctly, then I understand that it is talking only about this: What kinds of connections exist among us? How can I connect? How can I attain this?

In that case we want to attain what we study, even though we do not know it. Out of the aspiration to attain it, to unite into an integral desire or Kli , and to discern all the kinds of connection that the Torah tells us about, the Light that Reforms comes and creates that connection, bringing it to light. Then we reveal it in actuality.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/11, The Zohar

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It is necessary to constantly remember that we are reading The Zohar only in order for our desires for unity to connect under the influence of the Light. All I can do is aspire toward unity, expecting that by reading The Zohar and Talmud Eser Sefirot, the Light will connect us together. I have to imagine that besides me, everyone is one. And I am the only one who has to become included in everyone.

I am unable to do this alone. This “click,” connecting me with everyone, can only happen as a result of the study. That is how when soldering two wires we place them together and influence the place of contact with high temperature, smelting them with a welding alloy that connects them.

That is why I bring myself to contact with the group and imagine that I connect with them. I expect that the study will solder us in the point of our connection.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/11, The Zohar

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Question: Can a Kabbalist abide by two ideologies simultaneously and be religious at the same time as being a Kabbalist?

Answer: No, he can’t. Kabbalah takes the upper hand over religious ideology. A Kabbalist can carry out all sorts or religious customs as a result of his upbringing, culture, and the traditions of his nation. And I think it’s good to do so. I do not look down on religion.

However, this should not replace Kabbalah because the most important thing for a person is to attain revelation of and adhesion with the Creator. Anything that interferes with this should be removed from this path. What interferes isn’t religion itself, but the false conception of it, thinking that it can replace the attainment of the Creator, that instead of spiritual revelation it’s enough to carry out some kind of material actions, to pray according to written words, and to think that this is sufficient.

This is completely not so. It is written that “Everyone must know the Creator from the smallest of them to the greatest of them.” We have to attain adhesion with Him. Everyone says they agree with this because that’s what is written and it is impossible to argue with it. It’s clear to everyone that we have to attain “the Creator’s work” and to bond to Him. It is also written that the main rule of the Torah is to love your neighbor as yourself. However, people everywhere only talk about this, but do not actually make it happen.

No one even knows what adhesion with the Creator means, how to come closer to Him, and how to become similar to Him. The problem is that religion has replaced the science of Kabbalah after the breaking of the Temple, when the nation of Israel fell from the spiritual level to the material level and all that remained for the people to do was to carry out just physical actions as a tradition in order to commemorate the previous spiritual actions.

Now we have to learn to ascend back to the spiritual level and add the attainment of the Creator to these national traditions. Religion seems to stop a person, telling him that it’s sufficient to make just the mechanical actions that are carried out by religious people.

However, many source texts say that it’s not enough to make just the material actions, that the Creator does not care how you slaughter an animal—in a kosher manner or not, and that the commandments were given in order to correct the creatures by them. This means that the action has to be supplemented with the right intention.

The intention is the most important thing, in fact, it is the person himself. What is important are his thoughts and desires, rather than the actions. A religious person usually does actions by habit, having been raised from childhood to make them without thinking. There is no correction in doing so.

That is why we want to supplement tradition, the customary way of life, or what is called religion, which we perceive as a nation’s culture or tradition, with “the Creator’s work,” meaning the inner work of a person whereby he corrects his desires in order to become similar to the Creator. Adam, man, means similar.

Every person, secular as well as religious, has to understand that Kabbalah can add something to his life. It adds the revelation of the Creator, the upper force that controls everything. And when you see it, understand it, and feel it, then you understand how to go forward without making mistakes, both in this world and in the “world to come,” the spiritual world that becomes revealed to you.

We do not attain the revelation of the Creator by religious actions, but by uniting with others. However, these actions do not become canceled. They are simply like a branch symbolizing the spiritual root, and a person can remain in that culture. This is a custom that does not interfere with one’s advancement, but neither does it help him. It simply reminds you that spiritual actions exist, and that is why it was preserved throughout the years of the exile.

The Creator does not care about your physical actions. He only cares about the intention you put into them.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/11, “Introduction to the book Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Question: Why is it impossible to attain spirituality naturally, just by doing my work? Why is it that we definitely have to reach despair first, crying and asking the Creator?

Answer: You don’t have to cry artificially. You just reach this state naturally. You reveal it and then your inner affliction is called prayer. You don’t have to say any words out-loud or make any artificial actions. With your work you will simply achieve a state that you will no longer be able to tolerate. And that means that you will burst with prayer.

You shouldn’t try to reach it artificially or simply scream. You should concentrate on your work, and then the request will come naturally, the way thirst does. You don’t think about the fact that at sometime in the future you will want to drink. But the time will come when you definitely will want it. Thus, if you study and advance together with the group, then at some point you will reach the state of spiritual thirst. You will definitely want it!

This is talking about strictly determined qualities and set laws that develop by a clear chain of cause and effect. You advance according to the root of your soul from your initial state to the final correction along a clear line that has already extended to you from the world of Infinity. Now you are going back along the same line. The only thing up for discussion is the acceleration of time and development.

In order to speed up this movement we have to participate in it ourselves, get organized into a group, and start attracting the Light with our study. If you have been given this desire, then realize it! You want to shift to the next level faster, so imagine it and start building it artificially as if you already are on that level. Attract it to you in order to ascend to it faster.

In essence we are building a certain image of the upper level, our next state, which is defined by the fact that 1) I am more connected with others, and 2) that our connection is filled by Light which unites us. To do this I have to connect with others the way I am able to today, and by studying to attract the Light that will connect us. What I study are the kinds of connections between us on a higher level, in a more corrected form.

I read about the world to come, about the corrected, wonderful state, and from there I attract Light to myself, and I also aspire to it. This is the simplest physics. There is nothing artificial or imaginary about it.

However, in it, what operates is desires, and desires are force. If I aspire to some state with my own forces, then I thereby evoke its illumination upon myself, receiving an influence to the degree that I aspire.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/15/11, Writings of Rabash

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We always experience extreme difficulty when studying anything relative to Partzuf Adam HaRishon (“the First Man”), which consists of two parts, the male and female ones, Adam and Eve (Zachar and Nukva). It could be the simplest of things, but since our structures are different (it has the spiritual structure while we have the material one), in our case 1+1=2, and in its, 1+1=3 (as it is written, “Husband and wife, the Creator, Shechina (Divinity), between them”). And we are incapable of understanding this.

We don’t need all these infinite details that are described in Talmud Eser Sefirot; we study them only in order to draw the Light that Reforms. And inside the entire content that we discuss, there is our intention, the expectation that the Light will come. That’s all we are talking about.

But we have to keep in mind that it talks about me, the structure of my soul, the various spiritual states it undergoes. I don’t feel them just yet, but all of them are given to me for one reason: to live through each state, from start to end. I can’t escape any single state described in the book.

Each of us passes through the same states on this path. Therefore, a student’s job is to cleave to the upper one, to the teacher. After all, the upper one has already gone through these states, and by clinging to him, you will pass through them as well. We draw the Light namely by studying what is written about your soul.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: Does my intention depend on the intention of the entire environment and the intention of the environment on my intention?

Answer: Definitely! It says in Shamati #225: One cannot raise oneself above one’s circle. Hence, [if one wishes to advance] one must suck from one’s environment. And one has no other counsel, except through much work and Torah. Therefore, if one chooses for oneself a good environment, one saves time and efforts, since one is drawn according to one’s environment.

This is clear. If I receive energy from the environment—and the fact is that I receive everything in order to ascend from it—then I will ascend only inasmuch as I receive from them. I cannot be above this level.

Question: How can I see my environment as great if I do not see my friends as great?

Answer: Therein lies the entire problem. Who do you consider great? There is no one great in your world. Meaning, the world was not created for you. Then what means will you use to advance? The Creator is concealed. The environment is small. You have no one to advance toward and you are alone in the whole world. That is how you feel.

In principle, everyone feels this way and this is what we have to change.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/11, The Zohar

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The Zohar, Introduction, “The Third Commandment,” Item 204: The six words of “Hear O Israel” are six sides of ZON, and the six sides of ZON must be unified so they unite as one with the six upper sides, which are AVI and YESHSUT. And with them, the desire should be aimed upward, meaning aim the desire and the NRN to be included in them in MAN.

Everything depends on the intention during the study when we expect for the Light that Reforms to come to us from studying The Zohar and to perform these corrections in us.

We do not know how to perform them and we won’t learn it from the text. But under the Light’s influence, we will feel what we have to do, and then we will do it. We won’t find anything out from the study, but only from the Light that influences us by means of the correct study. This has to be clear.

Therefore, the intention has to be aimed at the Light rather than the knowledge because it won’t help me in the slightest to know what result will come from the merging of the Partzufim Aba and Ima in one way or another. This won’t give me anything, and besides there is no truth to these words. When the revelation comes, then we reveal things that we could not know anything about beforehand. Everything happens only by virtue of the Light.

Therefore, a person must constantly expect actions that the Light will perform inside of him so the new sensations, thoughts, and inner definitions will become revealed in him from the inside. This will be the result of the influence of the Light that Reforms. Then a person will attain.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/11, The Zohar

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When we are faced with something opposite, we perceive such events in the coarsest sensation: The Light is affecting the greatest desire. But when we start pondering what happened and why, we work in the most illuminated desire. Hence, there is a difference between the situation when the Light affects desire (the more opposite they are, the greater the impact is) and how it is perceived, which is based on the law of similarity, the ability to understand each other.

Let’s say somebody yelled at you. You felt insulted to the core; your ego is scorned, and in your lowest desire, you felt how opposite you and your offender are. Then, you engage your mind and start analyzing the situation while somewhat associating, understanding, agreeing, and even assimilating with him.

The place where I can understand something opposite to me is considered to be more enlightened, exalted. A reverse order of the Lights and Kelim (vessels) will confuse us until we start sensing how the Light enters and exits us, how it works pertaining to the changes in Aviut (coarseness of desire). But until then, we must treat this phenomenon as a unique property (Segula) for drawing the Light, which is more important than knowledge.

It doesn’t imply that there is no need to exert in understanding what we study and consider intention to be the key. No, intention has to be tied to the mental effort and manifest in its particular way during the studies.

In fact, everything we discuss (such as Aviut, Partzuf, and Light) takes place solely in the intention. Nothing changes except the intention, while everything that takes place below derives from its influence. The structure of the soul, the Kli that we create, and the Light we receive into it, all of this is merely an intention; hence, it has to be connected with all parts of the wisdom as the wisdom of intention.

It doesn’t matter how much you will learn; it is the effort that counts. Therefore, it is not important what topic we are studying. Effort consists of connecting with the content and finding our inner states in it.

Do you contain the Malchut of Infinity? Are you in the final correction? Are you receiving NRNHY (Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, Yechida)? Yes you are! Where is it? It is hidden within your inner Partzuf. And that’s what is being discussed.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/10/2010, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: What can we do to avoid being satisfied with our external effort?

Answer: If a person knows that only the intention to reach the goal, which he constantly discerns, brings him closer to spirituality, then he doesn’t view action as the key. Intention is the Kli (vessel) where he receives the reward, and therefore, all discernments take place in it. Actions without intention are not taken into account at all.

Perhaps a person pleases the Creator, but with an intention to gratify himself. It is the greatest impure force, a Klipa (shell). The most exalted degree of bestowal is balanced with the biggest Klipa: The action is the same while the intention differs.

On the outside, it doesn’t show, and a person seems to be yearning to bestow. Pharaoh, the desire to feel pleased, obeys the Creator’s orders precisely. A person acts according to his desire and mobilizes all his strength, if only to feel good for one’s own sake. He constantly thinks about the Creator (since it is the source of pleasure) and strives to do his best for this source, but for his own good. This is regarded as Pharaoh, the angel of death.

To avoid this, as in any other case, only a clear vision of the goal and mutual support can help. Without interaction, there is no chance to remain on the path without falling. The current generation is the generation of correction, and its success depends on mutual support: Correction occurs based on mutual guarantee and caring. There is no other source to draw the right energy and direction from.

And it is good because there is always work to do in demanding a closer connection. And if we feel it isn’t authentic but superficial, that is fine too. This course is easier than an individual one despite the fact that everyone depends on all the others. Only the collective yearning toward unity and annulment by each of us in regard to the upper degree (the teacher, the group, and the books) will help guard against complacency.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/31/2011, Writings of Rabash

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