Question: At the beginning of the lesson on The Book of Zohar, I understand and get inspired by your words about intention. But the moment we start reading The Zohar, I’m beset by a multitude of foreign thoughts, and I fail to re-establish the right intention. What should I do?

Answer: Regret it! A person gradually develops a need to sense the material. Indeed, we are talking about an opportunity to perceive spirituality. Our desires (vessels) are our sensations, yearnings.

If a person doesn’t yet have a desire to discover the upper one, the force of bestowal, on the basis of the lower one, the force of reception, by way of the lower one becoming similar to the upper one in its properties, he or she doesn’t yet get inspired by a constant spiritual quest.

You can’t help it, just regret it as much as you can. And the group has to stimulate the unwavering, right intention during the study.

Only those moments during which a person remembers about the intention are regarded as the study of the Torah (Kabbalah), the Light of which reforms. If one sums up all these moments, he can count how many minutes during his life he studied the Torah…. But whatever reason doesn’t do, time will. Gradually, it will come.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/2011, The Zohar

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Question: Is there any connection between the network of our relationships with one another and the network of connection between the great Kabbalists whose works we study?

Answer: We have to become similar to the network of connection that ties together these great Kabbalists. A small one grows by wanting to become like a big one.

A “big one” is the network of connection that Kabbalists created between themselves. A “small one” is us, those who desire to connect with, be in, and become similar to it.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/2011, The Zohar

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Question: How do you prepare yourself for giving explanations during the lessons or delivering lectures at conventions?

Answer: To tell you the truth, I would rather come to the stage and stay silent for an hour and a half, and that’s it. Meanwhile, you could work on building the intention to unite into a single aspiration, to reveal between yourselves the property of bestowal and love, the Creator. The moment you will unite, you will merit revelation, the Light that Reforms, and the general disclosure.

Why do I have to “babble” for an hour and a half? Perhaps I thereby distract you from building the correct intention toward the Light? Speech is needed only to bind you together more and more, to add a few more words of awakening.

The key is unification, in which you receive everything else. If it is revealed, you don’t need the lessons. The souls then work in a different kind of connection.…
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Question: What should I demand from the Light that Reforms?

Answer: Everything! Correction—until the final corrected state (Gmar Tikkun). This Light does not just bring us back to spirituality from our degree. Always, in every degree, wherever we are, we have the Inner Light and the Surrounding Light. The latter shines from the next degree that for now surrounds me but cannot clothe inward because of the absence of the screen. Thus, I always yearn for the Light so it corrects and then clothes into me.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/2011, The Zohar

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Question: How do I connect everything written in The Book of Zohar with myself and the environment? How can I relate to this text through the environment?

Answer: Everything I read in The Zohar has to be revealed in the connection between us. There is nothing in the entire reality except the state called “one soul.” This soul is filled with the property of bestowal, the upper Light, the Light of love.

We exist in a confused, foggy, unclear condition, behind all the concealments (worlds) and must reveal a single, perfect state. All the other states appear only in our unconscious state, where we are unaware of spirituality. It’s as though I was stunned by a blow on the head, lost consciousness, and now gradually come back to my senses by my own effort.

Kabbalists teach me what efforts can help me return to spiritual awareness. The entire wisdom of Kabbalah is the revelation of the only state there is. The Zohar tells us about the states on our spiritual path, which are corrected more than those we exist in. It tells me about the degree where perfection will be revealed. The authors of The Zohar went through all 125 degrees, from our world to the world of Infinity, and from the height of these degrees they wrote this composition, in which they revealed the unity between us.

We are reading, and the Light shines upon us to the extent of our aspiration for this exalted state. This is how we become corrected, by approaching the Light. Therefore, while reading The Book of Zohar, one needs only to yearn for this higher state and value it.

Thus, if together we aspire to reveal the spiritual state The Zohar is telling us about, although we don’t understand it because we have no connection with spirituality, but since we desire to reveal it, we awaken the Surrounding Lights which correct and move us closer to revelation.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/2011, The Zohar

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Question: During the reading of The Zohar, is it enough to aspire only toward unity?

Answer: No, it isn’t. Baal HaSulam writes in “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 155, that a person who wants to reveal is eager to attain what he is studying and draws the Light that surrounds his soul onto himself. The Light comes to the degree of his aspiration.

“To strive to attain” means that I try to perform the actions described in the Torah within myself. The Torah is a manual, an instruction (“Torah” derives from Horaa, instruction, and Ohr, Light) for how I should correct myself by drawing the Light that affects me while I study this manual.

While reading this instruction, I try to discern within myself the states that it describes. This text is written in an unusual way, corporeal language talking about the spiritual world, so that under all these concealments, I would find and see what it is trying to tell me, what all my inner properties and desires are about.

I must uncover and learn what they are. I want to apply them in practice. I want the Light, the upper force, to elevate me above my will to receive pleasure so that I may start working with this matter instead of being chained in it, without even feeling and identifying myself with it.

I want to separate myself from it and study it from aside. Then, I can attempt to build one or another form from it, like a child who is making a tower from building blocks. I will be able to watch and examine what is going on with me. At that point, I will have a force that will allow me to work with my still matter. Then, I will acquire forces to work on my vegetative form of the will to receive, followed by the animate, and so on, until I recreate myself as human. To accomplish this task, I have to ascend to the degree of the upper Light.

Yet, this is the way we advance, yearning and desiring to know how to work. This aspiration to know how to find within myself these inner properties and how to work with them is vital. Where it is up to me, I want to be the master of my actions. It is as if I collate my desires and then tell the Creator: “Now, connect, correct them!”

However, I have to bring them to correction, to seemingly connect them, and when the Light comes and corrects them, it does occur. This means that I ask, and the Creator fulfills; I demand, and the Creator carries it out. He and I are partners.

Therefore, it is our duty to try to understand the Torah, The Zohar. However, after the Light has affected me, I also come to a state where I am able to see, feel, and understand all that is being described.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/2011, The Zohar

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Question: During the past few weeks of reading The Book of Zohar, I’ve been very focused on the internal, spiritual work. Suddenly, I can’t stay with it even for ten seconds. What can I do when something like this occurs?

Answer: Try to stay with it for fifteen seconds. I don’t have any other advice. There are times, especially when someone is just beginning to study the wisdom of Kabbalah, when a person is unable to work on himself yet. He hasn’t accumulated sufficient experience and doesn’t know how to deceive his ego.

Try to draw something next to a passage from The Zohar, highlight and underline, meaning work with the text, albeit mechanically at times, if you can’t do anything else. Sometimes, a person may be completely disconnected from spirituality. During such states, he can connect to it only by working with the text, processing it purely mechanically, by moving the commas around, breaking it into sub-headings, messing the text up, or organizing it.

No matter what a person is going to do with it, even if it’s just reading the letters, the key is to keep reading it. He should know that he is confusing himself thereby in order to keep reading, and that’s work.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/2011, The Zohar

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Question: How can one affect his friends in practice so that they keep the correct intention during the lesson, especially when we are reading The Book of Zohar?

Answer: First of all, we have to support each other in our internal quest, our inner sensation, since this is what we call “mutual guarantee.” Without our mutual support, we won’t come to a state where we will feel the collective desire as our own.

It isn’t because the friends need me, but because I need them. These actions are much deeper than mere external support. Thereby, I awaken myself to an awareness that all this desire is my soul’s vessel.

Sometimes, I think about unity within the desires, but whether I understand it or not, I awaken the Light thereby; I perform the actions aimed toward unification of our spiritual vessels, desires. The Light is oneness, and if I don’t turn to it through a single desire or vessel, I don’t evoke the Light.

Therefore, I must think about the integral desire where we live in mutual bestowal and guarantee. Essentially, the guarantee is that very tiny opening through which we allow the Light to come in. In fact, the guarantee means that you are already bonded with the others in oneness similar to the oneness of the Light.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/2011, The Zohar

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Question: Even if my intention is egoistic, if I start thinking about the benefit of others and the well-being of the world, can this already be considered an action?

Answer: Of course. Do you really think that giving out bread to the poor is a real action? This will only cause more poor people to exist in the world.

Your action is to attract Light. It, and nothing else, returns you to the Source. So what else is there to think about? Especially at a time when the whole world is in trouble and in danger. We only need the Light. The lack of Light is the reason for all the wars, crises, catastrophes, and other problems.

Precisely the lack of good actions by the Light evokes troubles at the four phases of development—still, vegetative, animate, and human. The evil we encounter is a projection of the lack of Light.

Punishment does not come from above. If I have to reach a specific reward, the revelation of the Creator, similarity and adhesion with Him, and I don’t do that, then I experience the gap that this creates as punishment or lack of goodness. And vice versa, by attaining this, I will feel a reward.

Thus, I feel reward and punishment in the same desires. If I have corrected and filled my desire, this is the reward, but if I cannot correct and fulfill it, this is punishment. There are no penalties from above. I do not receive a speck beyond what I inflict upon myself. I create my own punishment.

Therefore, we have just one task—to attract the Light. Especially today, considering everything that is happening and accumulating in the world. There are no other means.

I am constantly in touch with people who are “in the know,” and I read all kinds of articles, visit websites, and follow the newspapers, but I don’t see a solution offered anywhere. They cannot offer anything and they don’t even want to think about this because they don’t have the slightest connection with correction.

Just yesterday I was talking about this with a famous writer and he did not say anything—he avoided answering. This indicates a lack of sensitivity, a lack of understanding the corrections.

“The world is round and we have to unite,” I say to people. “That’s right, we’re also acting in that direction,” they respond. People don’t even realize that in reality they are going in the opposite direction. After all, in the end every person is just strengthening his own party or movement. There is no one to talk to.

Therefore, we have to create conditions in our midst for a positive force to emerge. Only then will its waves ripple through the whole world. Nothing else will help. We do not depend on others, but we have to help them so that later on people will quickly catch these waves, understand their message, and feel that they are coming from us.

The materials have to be disseminated ahead of time, but in essence the source of these waves is us. And therefore, the most important thing is to unite, to merge with one another more and more.

I place great hopes on the upcoming conventions. They are the means by which we have to bring to life unity, consolidation, and mutual care for the world and for our correction, which will help the world.

The time has come for the Creator to become revealed in the creatures. The means is simple and it is in our hands. All we have to do is use it. We ask the world to wake up, but are we awakening ourselves?
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/11, “Peace in the World”

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Question: How should one perform his clarifications in relation to the group: talk to them, act together, or be in one place physically?

Answer: “Everything is clarified in the thought,” and nothing can be seen from the outside. A person can appear indifferent, even rude, impatient, not expressing his good attitude towards others. Perhaps, he has such a character, or he pretends on purpose, so not to weaken his great internal efforts.

One has to look for the inner image of the group, the place where all our desires, thoughts, goals, common hopes exist, and to cling to it. Judging by its external manifestation, it may be difficult for you to accept the group. It will come later, when you stop paying attention to externality because “love covers all sins.”

You came to this place because the people who gathered there have the points in the heart, so get closer to these inner points.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/2011, Writings of Rabash

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