Preparation to the Lesson
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Shamati #26 “One’s Future Depends and Is Tied to Gratitude for the Past”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, Parashat “Shlah Leha,” Item 68, Lesson 6
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 3, Part 9, Question 114, Lesson 19
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Question: What is special about The Book of Zohar?
Answer: First, it is special since Kabbalists wrote it.
Humanity climbed down from the trees and began to evolve until the first eruption of the ego during the time of ancient Babylon. Then the method of correction was revealed in this first egoistic wave. Because people couldn’t overcome the great ego by themselves, they began to look for means to do so and found the wisdom of Kabbalah that enables a person to overcome the evil inclination through connection.
Those who began to use this method in order to correct themselves are called “Israel” which means Yashar—El, “straight to the upper” (ISRA-EL).
In the meantime, the ego continued to grow even more and all the other nations went on as usual.
Then the ego grew in the Israeli nation and as a result they went down to Egypt. Some went a bit further down, and others received the Torah in order to overcome the separation. It is about the same Kabbalistic method, and the difference is that now it is adapted to the great ego that was revealed in Egypt, which is already specified and divided into different strange desires that have to be corrected under different conditions, in different events, connections, etc. In order to go through this process we need a method called “Torah.”
Abraham’s work in Babylon was easier if we may say: to rise above the ego to the Creator (Boreh) in love and connection and to do what is good for others, for strangers, since the ego wasn’t specified then.
Abraham gave the rest of the world religions (Dat).
By that he paved two paths, but the difference between them wasn’t so big yet. Yes, these are two opposite attributes, in order to receive and in order to bestow, but in a rather minor “thickness” of the desire.
On one hand, a great ego called “Pharaoh” was indeed revealed in Egypt, and on top of it everything that is in a person, everything he is made of internally: attributes, discernments, thoughts, and desires. This means that in the time of Moses (Moshe) the crisis of the shattered soul was revealed (Neshama), which was unknown before. This is already a totally different level and so accordingly the Torah was revealed.
Later as the ego grew, the children of Israel built the first Temple with the help of the Torah and by that attained their end of correction. After the destruction of the Temple they built the second Temple and then the long descent began.
Here, before the end of the descent, The Book of Zohar was written. On one hand, great discernments of the previous level were still kept here, but on the other hand, the last level of the ego began to appear. Therefore the authors of The Zohar relied on all the 125 degrees with regard to the destruction and with regard to the attainment.
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Question: How can the right intention be achieved?
Answer: For the right intention, first of all you have to tie yourself to the whole world, which is an outcome of the Creator’s actions. Through this world, the Creator shows you His actions, so that through the right relation to the world you will be able to draw near Him.
Suppose, I am the owner of a big farm where I own land and horses. And I take you to work on this farm because I see that you treat me well and will be a loyal worker or even a loyal slave. It turns out that I check you not according to your attitude towards me, but towards my property, according to how you treat my house, fields, and gardens, meaning “my world.”
In the same way we also come, and thanks to the desire given to us from Above, we want to become the Creator’s workers. As long as this desire hasn’t awakened in us, we live like the horses on this farm. And those whom the Creator gives this desire become workers on the farm. And there are different workers: There are loyal workers who are totally devoted to the Creator like slaves, and there are workers that are not so loyal.
The Creator finds the person in whom the point in the heart was awakened that wants to adhere to the Creator, but he cannot be raised instantly to a minister’s position. Therefore, He gives the person all sorts of opportunities, smaller jobs, through which he very slowly ascends. Precisely such an opportunity is given to us now: By the actions that we perform on ourselves, we can show the Creator how much we want to draw near Him, to adhere to, and live with Him in one thought and intention, in one action.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/1/13, The Zohar
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When we move toward correcting ourselves, all our intentions must be oriented to unity, and none of them can be of a personal nature. Our points in the heart are the only personal thing we have. What can this point in the heart worry about except reaching unity with the rest of our collective body from which it will eventually receive spirituality?
That’s why our attempts to join our collective body reveal to us its various forms and characteristics that we read about in the Torah: Pharaoh, an angel, Moshe, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and many others. Who are they? They are the images that all of humankind, the group, and the world acquire to the degree of their attainment.
The picture described in the Torah is a form of the general soul that constantly changes and reveals itself in a new shape. However, it discloses only on condition that we continually aspire to unity. The Book of Zohar speaks about it. Each word and every line of The Book of Zohar represent an in-depth, gradual revelation that goes on until it fully discloses itself to “the eyes of all of Israel.” It’s not an accident that these words are the final phrase of the Torah.
We only reveal spiritual forms when we are connected.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/1/13, The Zohar
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Question: What do we correct: actions or intentions?
Answer: By correcting the intention, we alter the action. It is similar to a situation when it is enough to apply a good intention to a car that is broken and all of a sudden it starts to work fine.
In this world, we are “given the freedom” to do whatever we want until we completely destroy it. In spirituality, one’s actions are allowed solely to the extent of the correctness of one’s intention.
All depends on the screen: If you happen to correct it, you can use it.
In this world, we are given a chance to play as children and do whatever we want in order to educate ourselves. We won’t be allowed to enter spirituality until we learn how to use this world correctly. That’s why it is said, “This world is similar to an entrance-hall to spirituality.”
There is no action without intention. Only in this realm can one act without a good intention. By acting so, we lower ourselves more and more until we finally realize that we really need to bring up correct intentions. In spirituality, no actions are possible without good intentions. Besides intentions, there is nothing there at all.
For example, before I go to see a doctor, I need a correct intention. Only in this case will I cure myself completely: I will correct my soul and body. However, if I don’t have a good intention, I only treat my corporeal body.
So, it means that we haven’t taken advantage of the possibility that was granted to us. The reason we fell sick was to rise due to the illness we got, rather than just cure our physical bodies. If we continue acting this way, we won’t achieve correction, and the Creator will have to “shoot” us in some other places and cause new disturbances for us.
If our actions are accompanied by incorrect intentions, we harm everybody around us. It is all about the mutual guarantee. If we fail to have a correct point of view and develop a positive attitude, we will continue making mistakes.
Anything that happens to us has to be regarded through the prism of the group, through the unity. I see the world as either corrected or corrupt to the extent of my connectedness with others. Any deficiency that I come across depends solely on the level of my detachment or my unity with friends. It is the only thing that I observe and that is revealed to me in this world.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/1/13, The Zohar
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Question: How do the gradual changes happen that eventually lead us to a state where my neighbor becomes more important to me than I am to myself? What do I feel at each stage?
Answer: This kind of change happens in a person only with the help of the Reforming Light. Roughly, it can be divided into four stages:
1. We don’t sense anybody outside us; they seem so “lifeless” to us. They live some place near us, but we have nothing in common with them. We communicate with them, hug them, sing songs with them, but we still regard them as “puppets” that exist next to us.
2. Later, to the extent of the level of the affliction we go through, which is triggered by our concern that we are not advancing well enough, we start worrying: “What will happen to me?” At this time, we continue suffering and applying efforts, but we still don’t understand the ways to connect with others. This doesn’t “penetrate” our ears; they are only beautiful words, I have heard a lot of times…
The reality, the learning process, and everything we do become more and more important to us; although, our concerns about the relationships with our friends are still not quite clear to us. We don’t yet feel that our connection leads us anywhere. It seems to us to be just a sort of “morality” and even reminds us of the religious commandments.
3. Then, we begin neglecting everything that our friends do in the group: connections, dancing, singing. We are not capable of behaving this way. In our eyes, it seems very frivolous; we agree to act this way only because it creates a good and pleasant atmosphere and we know that we have to inspire our friends and stay together. So, we meet at joint meals in order to connect a little and maybe even attract new people to us. This is what we think.
4. At this point, we acknowledge that no matter what we do, it doesn’t work for us. We start noticing that at this time other people look much smarter in our eyes. We start thinking: “How do they do that?” We begin to re-evaluate our attitude and come to a conclusion that the unity is important.
No doubt, it is the result of the Light’s impact rather than a consequence of the mutual activities among friends. Although, since we still continue to participate in joint activities, the Surrounding Light descends to us. We start considering our activities oriented towards unity as useful, but still think that they are purely theoretical. We keep talking about them and continue reading and listening about group work more intently than before; previously we didn’t even pay any attention to the articles that describe these things. We thought that “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” “The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” etc. were worth reading, but the article “The Last Generation” reminded us of communist ideas.
Gradually, under the influence of the Surrounding Light, we start realizing that we have to work against our egos and overcome them. Then, we notice that overcoming our egoism and connecting with our friends are actually the same things; it’s impossible to achieve it differently. It’s feasible only while being in the group and exclusively through connecting with the friends.
Before, we never valued external actions and neglected them to the extent that we wished they would never exist. “Why do we have to unite with others? “Love thy friend sounds repulsive…Have you ever seen it happening? What are you talking about? I am embarrassed that Kabbalah books talk about things like that…”
All of a sudden, we notice that the internal content of our actions is totally oriented towards unity, the merger of our internal particles, rather than corporeal bodies. We keep neglecting our physical connections. If it doesn’t lead us to joining the points in the heart, we continue to despise the “tricks” and “slogans” like: “Let’s unite! Let’s sit together at meals and talk!”
We start changing our attitude to unity. All of a sudden we realize that it’s about connecting “the points in the hearts” with the help of the Reforming Light. That’s why we have to stay in the group. It’s different from spending time in the bar where people hug each other, sing, and feel good. Here, we also sit together, we can have a drink and hug although our intention is not to unite our bodies or some earthly egoistic ideals, but rather to try to bring our points in the heart closer and to ask the Light to impact us and connect them together. The Light influences us sufficiently to the degree of our mutual efforts and to the extent of our desire to unite.
This is the way we advance. Going through these stages is essential. As a result, we become confident that our presence in the group and the group activities are necessary to connect the points in the heart with the help of the Light. From this point on, we stop neglecting unity. We already know that spiritual realization is all about unity and our further advancement becomes more obvious to us. At the same time, we discover a new difficulty on our way: We have to figure out the way to detach our “self” from the point that we contribute to unity; we have to be concerned about giving “externality” more weight than to our own “self.” For that, we also need the Light. However, it’s the next stage and it also consists of four sub-phases.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/13, The Zohar
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, Parashat “Shlah Leha,” Item 63, Lesson 5
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The Zohar, “Naso,” Item 180: The blessing of the priests. May the Lord bless you, may the Lord illuminate, may the Lord carry… the blessing it Ha-Va-Ya-H, and they are also the three names of Ha-Va-Ya-H in the blessing of the priests that are parallel to the three lines, the three letters in Ha-Va-Ya-H in the filling of S”G (63) Yod, Hay Vav, Hay. That the three letters Yod of S”G, are the initials of these three Ha-Va-Ya-H.
Kabbalists have a problem. Every science in our world like physics, chemistry, biology, zoology, and botany have a language of their own, but there is no language for emotions since in our world we cannot rate them, measure them, weigh them, or divide them into different types, etc.
When we begin to discover the desire to receive and in it different types of feelings, according to the size of the desire and its type, in three lines, in all the levels of its thickness, we need a language in order to describe how to do it.
Let’s take the writing of musical notes for example; it isn’t a language. I only draw some symbols that someone else has to play and feel, and then he may understand the feelings that I wanted to convey, although for him it may be something else. This is a very big problem.
For the same reason both psychology and psychiatry are not considered exact sciences, since they are based on the little experience, which we can build up during our lifetime and not more than that. It is because we cannot measure feelings in our senses, put them in tables, charts, and graphs so that it would be an iron rule.
Therefore, Kabbalists have invented the recording of spiritual attainment by using Gematria (numerical values of letters and words) and this has really become a very laconic language that can bring together many accurate details, which can be conveyed from one person to another. This is in contrast to musical compositions where everyone can imagine what the composer thought about, while here, you cannot be wrong. In order to develop Gematria, you have to attain and to reach the same place, the same phenomenon, to be incorporated in the same soul that wrote this and then you feel the exact same state since you are united with the soul in adhesion and so you can be sure that you have really received its message.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/13, The Zohar
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