The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion, Selected Excerpts
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The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion, Selected Excerpts
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The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion, Selected Excerpts, “Dvarim”
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The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion, Selected Excerpts
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The Torah, Exodus, 20:14: “Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s.”
A house, a wife, a servant, an ox, or an ass are all a person’s major desires that gradually connect in him, starting from the external vessels to the most inner desires.
“Thou shall not covet,” means that you have to work with your desires in order to bestow and not for yourself.
If until now it was about what you have and how you should work with it, now it is about what the other has and what you cannot use.
To use means to “want.” It isn’t just “thou shall not covet” in the sense of “don’t take” but actually not to covet, so that you will not feel the slightest envy towards the other. Then you begin to understand that if you relate to him you will not even see his image.
Usually you see some good and some bad in a person and envy him a little, etc. You cannot see him as he actually is; you see him in relation to you, whether better or worse one way or the other. If you don’t look at him through the prism of envy etc., you will not see his image.
He will never be depicted to you, since our sub-base is like a compact disc that is sensitive to light, that is behind the camera lens that catches the picture, changes it into electric signals and transmits it to the control so our sub-base perceives everything only in relation to us: to what extent it seems better or worse with regards to my ego.
If I get rid of it in relation to myself, then I don’t see you, you disappear from my sight. What happens? It turns out that the world doesn’t exist. I only see an absolute vacuum.
This means that the corrected state implies lack of envy in me and all the other states with regard to other people and humanity. In that case, I begin to understand that there is no one and that everything disappears. Then I have to find a totally new attribute that will allow me to see what does exist.
It turns out that if my ego is nullified, then the whole picture of the world is nullified and the world does not exist. So what does exist? There is nothing but the attribute of bestowal. But how can I perceive it? I begin to change myself according to this attribute of bestowal and to the same extent I am not compatible with it, I begin to see the differences and vice versa; to the extent that I am compatible with it, I begin to feel this attribute since a contrast has been created. It turns out that the part of the world in which I am not compatible with the attribute of bestowal is still me for the time being and the part of the world in which I am compatible with the attribute of bestowal is the Creator. Then, I and the Creator appear and there is no one but us.
When I gradually attain full correction, it is as if I disappear and only my feeling of the one unique Creator remains. Thus, I reach the recognition that “there is none else besides Him”
[109815]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/04/13
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The Torah, Exodus 20:13, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”
“Thy neighbor” is my friend, and together we work on mutual bestowal, and I have to be totally honest with him. To the same extent, thy neighbor is also the Creator and the teacher. This means that these three factors are essential for shaping my spiritual growth.
At the same time, they must always seem perfect to me and that I am the only one who is not perfect. This is how I always should see myself since this is the only way I will see what else needs to be corrected.
This is only psychological guidance. I reach a state where I see that everyone is corrected and that I am not, in an accurate, gradual manner through constant exercising. Everything that I see around me as negative is all inside me, and everything around me is the world of infinite wholeness. So, there is nothing to correct but myself.
Question: Should these exercises be from the easiest to the most difficult, from a close friend to a teacher and so on to the entire world? After all, it is impossible to deal with the entire world.
Answer: Yes, it is a complex system that is very different and very hard to work with. Only after a person goes through all the states with regard to the friend, the teacher, and the Creator can he work with the world. There, the relationships are more complicated but, in any case, they all add up to the same thing, except for one thing. If someone comes to “kill” you, which means that he totally cuts you off from being able to correct yourself, then you must kill him first. This is the law!
There is no time to think, “Is it good or bad; should I or shouldn’t I?” When someone comes to fight you, you must answer in the same way. These are very clear rules. In this case, “murder” is your collective correction, both for him and for you since it is very complicated to kill a person when you justify him.
It is a difficult action. It is the correction of a great psychological shattering, a tragic moment when, in order to kill him, you must kill yourself spiritually.
This means that it is a very serious problem! It is mutual correction since then you begin to accept every person as a replica of yourself, and it is as if you kill yourself. You must approach this gradually by experiencing everything while moving forward with the friends, the teacher, the Creator, and only then is it possible to approach this state.
[109818]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/4/13
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The Torah, Exodus 20:3 – 20:5: Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down unto them, nor serve them; for I the LORD thy God Am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and showing mercy unto the thousandth generation of them that love Me and keep My commandments.
Commandments are considered the basis of the entire human code of the whole human existence. They are acknowledged by all religions, by all societies, and serve as a basis for all social life. However, in Kabbalah, they have a totally different meaning.
In other words, “I am the Only! I am Incorporeal! I cannot be depicted, imagined, or understood! I don’t give you any hints of Who I am! I cannot be put in your pocket, placed in the corner, or hung on the wall. It is impossible to make an amulet out of Me, nor can I be shaped as some kind of a sign! Nothing like that is possible!”
Humans are quite different. A child grabs a toy and doesn’t toss it away for a month or two. It calms him down.
A person goes to a temple, prays, confesses, and cools down. Everything will be all right! For everyone, it’s a medication, a remedy, to settle their worries, a prevention of various social, family, and other problems.
We don’t have anything tangible here. If it is impossible to imagine Him, meaning that there is no one to appeal to, this is a big problem. Does it translate into the fact that there is no God for a regular person who lives in this world? We are unable to visualize Him or sense Him. He is some abstract property of bestowal, something shapeless that fills everything and, at the same time, nothing. What sensors will allow us to reveal Him? We must begin feeling Him one way or another. However, there is nothing around us.
We simply cannot imagine the Lord, the upper power as described in the Torah nor can we establish contact with this force. In order to stay in touch with Him we must grab onto something, appeal to somebody, and portray Him somehow.
Question: Why are these “threads” cut off of us? It’s as if we are floating in the air. Why is that so?
Answer: It’s because we must find Him at a completely different level. We should rise to His degree. Then, we will sense something that we haven’t sensed before and define things that we previously were unable to comprehend. It will become possible because we will acquire a new set of sensors that are called the five Sefirot.
Before we achieve this, there is no such thing as “God” for us. There isn’t anything at all! Of course, there is nature that twists us, pulls us ahead, and plays with us, forces us to continue living, to give birth to someone, controls our behavior in our surroundings and society, and then buries us in the ground. That’s it.
I am exaggerating everything by showing that people have no connection with the Creator or with the Torah whatsoever. That’s why it is said that the Torah is spotless since no one has ever touched it, not even once.
The Torah is a teaching; it’s a spiritual mechanism that is totally disconnected from humans. The fact that we picked it as the source of our beautiful rules and legal laws is very reassuring. Without it, we would just be barbarians.
Nevertheless, I want to emphasize that these rules and laws do not have anything in common with the authentic Torah. We must understand that the Torah’s power, its veracity and the very core of it are not about the rules or laws. It doesn’t matter what we are doing in this world. Rather, what matters is if we happen to rise to the next level where the Creator reveals to us. For that, we don’t need Him to be observable or appear as an image or a phenomenon. Our awareness rises to such a level that we don’t need any images any more since we manage to get out of ourselves.
This explains why the commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me,” comes first, why it is considered a major commandment, and why it precedes all the others. Each subsequent commandment (their order is not random; they are organized in a certain way) delineates the execution of this particular main commandment.
If one cannot observe this commandment, all other commandments are worth nothing. They don’t lead us to the goal. We should constantly keep in mind this primary commandment. For it, we should fulfill all other commandments.
[109450]
From KabTV’s, “Mysteries of the Eternal Book” 2/25/13
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Question: If the commandment, “Do not take G-d’s name in vain” symbolizes that it is forbidden to take advantage of the Creator for our egoistic goals, then it turns out that all the religious madness for the sake of the Creator that has taken place during our historical development only distances humanity from Him?
Answer: Yes, but that distance is necessary in order to bring humanity to a dead end and from the recognition of evil to come to the recognition of good. Otherwise, we don’t learn. The only thing we can do in advance is to cognitively see the “dead end” as if we are already stuck and understand that we need to change the direction.
I find strength within me, even without coming to a dead end, to change the movement, even though it is against my will, against my desires. Thus, the recognition of the state that is created is essential as if I am really in a dead end; otherwise, I won’t have the strength to change the direction.
For this, one needs to use the environment instead of the Creator. The Creator won’t be revealed because we are still egoistic. But when I am stuck in a dead end with all of my ego, then there I begin to feel it. If the suffering hasn’t yet brought me to a dead end but I already want from afar to see Him and correct myself, then I have the possibility to determine all of that and to change within the group.
That is called, “my sons have defeated me,” that is, we outsmarted Him. They used the properties of nature around them in order to create such a form of mutual cooperation that helped them to determine the true spirituality in the connection between them. This means that we build between us a model which shows us according to an analog form, the spiritual categories which we have no connection to. In this way we can, without yet being at the spiritual level, correctly change our direction, to measure it, and operate within our society.
This is what was given to us. Otherwise, we would never be allowed to enter the spiritual level until we reach equivalence of form, its attributes. We are not able to do this if we remain as we are. “To enter” means to change ourselves according to it. But how do we change ourselves if we don’t know what it is in itself? Thus, in our world we need to build such a model to match it and then we will be similar to that spiritual level.
[109713]
From KabTV’s “The Secret of the Eternal Book” 5/25/13
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The Torah, Exodus, Jethro, 19:20 – 19:24: And the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain; and the Lord called Moses to the top of the mount; and Moses went up.
And the Lord said unto Moses: “Go down and warn the people, lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them will perish. And let the priests also, that come near to the Lord, sanctify themselves, lest the Lord break forth upon them.” And Moses said unto the Lord: “The people cannot come up to mount Sinai; for thou didst charge us saying, ‘Set bounds about the mount, and sanctify it.’”And the Lord said unto him: “Go get thee down and thou shalt come up, thou and Aaron with thee, but let not the priests and the people break through to come up unto the Lord, lest He break forth upon them.”
The Creator’s words that prohibit people from coming closer to Him means that all actions and all egoistic desires should not come in contact with Him since we cannot yet work for the sake of bestowal. Moses says that people have already heard this command. In other words, we think that even though we have received enough notices, we still cannot use our egoistic desires, since in spite of the fact that they are not controlled by the evident power of the Pharaoh, they still have not yet been corrected. They are still regular, earthly, egoistic desires as opposed to a “point in the heart” that is detached from them.
Moses is a point in us that is connected with the Creator and that possesses His nature. However, it is greatly mixed up with other desires and that’s why it’s invisible. It doesn’t shine yet; rather, it concerns us by triggering blurred thoughts about the meaning of life.
Other thoughts and desires of ours continue to be interlaced with this world and this material realm. So, even though it seems to us that we don’t want this useless existence of ours, once we start implementing our material desires, we immediately “roll” back. The desires that are oriented towards this world wake up in us and we forget about the “lofty stuff.”
So, we have to strictly divide the point in the heart (the property of Moses and Aaron) from the rest of our egoistic desires. If not for the point named “Moses” (desires that descend from the next upper level, from the property of bestowal), we would simply be as animals.
This point comes to us from a totally different plane and personifies the Creator’s quality in us. Due to it, we make many mistakes. It seems to us that we have already become righteous and that we have climbed to the top. In fact, as soon as we start doing something earthly, our thoughts immediately “fly” to the opposite direction and we experience deep falls. This happens because of the point in the heart. And yet, we should not be embarrassed, indignant, or surprised since it’s just human nature. We have to regard it as a mechanism that acts unpredictably without any idea of what will happen the next moment.
This state of affairs lasts until we reach the final correction before which the utmost bottomless downfall happens. Things that we live through today are just very insignificant fluctuations, back and forth, plus and minus. Wonderful discoveries await us ahead.
[109454]
From KabTV’s “Mysteries of the Eternal Book,” 2/25/13
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The Torah, Exodus 20:7: Thou shall not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain: for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
“Thou shall not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain…” is an action performed by a person. “For the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain,” is the response of the upper force to a person’s action.
“Thou shall not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain…” means that you cannot draw the Creator’s force in order to perform certain egoistic actions since the Creator is the force of absolute bestowal, the attribute of bestowal. You cannot ask, demand, or use it for egoistic purposes in any way. It will lead to nothing since such actions draws you away from the Creator, and this is the punishment.
If the Creator is the perfect absolute, it’s impossible to influence Him in any way! You can use Him only in order to correct yourself or to draw away from correction. This is what all the commandments actually relate to. The first Ten Commandments are the main ones since a person is made of ten main attributes.
The first attribute, “there is none else besides Him,” belongs to the Sefira of Keter (head), which is seemingly ideological and detached from all the rest. You don’t see, hear, know, or feel Him. You cannot use Him in any way!
The second attribute is not to draw Him for egoistic purposes, and it belongs to the attribute of Hochma. There is a kind of delegation of authority here, a kind of revelation of the Creator that a person can use. But be careful, since if you use this Light without the right preparation, you can receive it inside you and it can lead to a shattering. This will draw you away from the Creator! The Light of Hochma will throw you backwards.
However, if you use the Light of Hochma correctly, which means for the correction of your desires and not in vain, it will clarify and analyze everything correctly: You will know who you are and be able to continue working correctly.
So, you should pay attention to which direction you are operating. The Creator doesn’t forgive our mistakes, and a wrong action leads to an undesirable outcome.
[109716]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/25/13
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The Torah, Exodus 20:8 – 20:11: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work; thou nor thy son, not thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, not thy cattle, not thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
A person who wants to advance towards spirituality must keep this condition since the Torah speaks not about corporeal but about spiritual days. The point is that we have to correct ourselves in order to more closely resemble the special spiritual form called Zeir Anpin. It’s made of six parts, and we call its replica the six days of the week.
It isn’t about working in a plant or in an office; it isn’t even considered work at all. Soon we will not work physically at all and our work will actually be in attaining the spiritual levels.
This means that on the first work day I will resemble the first Sefira, Hesed. On the second day I will resemble the second Sefira, and so on. These are not corporeal days, not the 24 hours of the day, and not the rotation of the earth around its axis.
By working on myself I correct my general desire: I rank it according to the seven parts and correct it accordingly so that it takes on the form of Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, and Yesod. I don’t correct the seventh part of my desire.
All my desires that are corrected during the six days are accumulated and fill me on the seventh level called Malchut. This level does not belong to the six days of my work of correction; it’s a kind of gift from Above, an addition to the six days.
We should say that the division into seven days does not exist in our world at all from the astrological point of view. There is a month, a year, the rotation of the moon, the rotation of the earth, the rotation of the sun, but there is no such thing as a week. A full rotation of the earth around its axis is a “day.” A “month” is the rotation of the moon around the earth, and a “year” is the rotation of the earth around the sun, etc.
Besides, there are holidays called “a new month,” a “new year,” and so on. A holiday of a new month, meaning the beginning of the month, is clear since there is a new moon, when the earth doesn’t hide it completely anymore, but gradually reveals it. The moon seems to grow gradually and it’s an astronomical sign. You look at the sky, you see it, and you can measure everything according to it. If you live in Jerusalem, you measure it in relation to Jerusalem, etc. depending on your longitude.
But a week is only a spiritual concept. No one used to keep it, no one ever celebrated it. It actually originated in the group of Abraham, whose members began to direct themselves towards the spiritual forces that way.
It doesn’t belong only to Jerusalem. It’s celebrated on any longitude where you are. If I celebrate Sabbath in Jerusalem now, my friend in Mexico doesn’t celebrate it, and for him it is still a workday. This sign doesn’t exist in our world.
What does it indicate? If a person performs spiritual work and corrects the six parts inside him, the six Sefirot of his soul—Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, and Yesod—he reaches a state when they all connect since Yesod is the connecting part. All this enters the seventh day of the week, Malchut.
This spiritual state has nothing to do with the weekdays of the calendar. It can last for a moment or ten minutes, it makes no difference as time doesn’t matter. On that day, which means in that spiritual state, a person mustn’t do anything since he has to receive the result of the so called work week, of the six stages of correction, inside him. As a result of this alternating work on the six parts of correction with the seventh part and their connection, a person reaches the end of correction, when all his soul is totally corrected.
[109708]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/25/13
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The Torah, Exodus 20:12:”Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee”
Question: The commandment of “honor thy father and thy mother”‘ is accepted literally by humanity, how can we explain it?
Answer: The point is that the “father” and “mother” that are mentioned in the Ten Commandments have nothing to do with our corporeal father and mother but rather belong to two special systems.
“Father” is the attribute of Hochma from which the Light of Hochma stems, the Light of life. “Mother” is the attribute of Bina from which all the worries stem. These Lights are opposite to each other and mutually complement one another. The Light of “Father” is white and it gives a person brains, courage, and power. The light of “Mother” gives him softness, connections, and a right attitude towards others. Revealed in this Light is love and the ability to feel others, etc.
“Honor” means to look at how “Father” and “Mother” integrate these forces correctly. The force of “Father” and the tenderness of “Mother” enter one another and you should do the exact same thing inside you, integrating these attributes.
“… so that thy days may be long upon the land,” means that such an integration has to be done with “the land”‘ which means with your ego, with your desire. You will not be able to easily exist with it.
On the whole it is all very simple. We must understand that it all refers to our nature and tells us about how we should correct it. What else can we speak about? About life in this world? It ends in any case. Here we speak about how we should rise to the next level and start to live in a totally different dimension while still here in this world.
[109768]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/25/13
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