Shamati #35 “Concerning the Vitality of Kedusha,” (Start with: “Yet, we must always know”)
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “Illuminations of Light and Illuminations of Fire,” Item 129, Lesson 34
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“Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 34, Lesson 20
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Freedom,” “Freedom from the Angel of Death,” Lesson 23
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If we want to understand what is written in The Zohar, then we have to reach the similarity of desires, the similarity of properties, between us and the authors of the book. To understand means to grasp, to comprehend, as it said: “And Adam knew Eve, his wife”; that is, knowledge is fusion (Zivug), connection. That’s why, we should be in the same thoughts and desires as the authors of The Zohar; otherwise, we will not understand what is going on.

Even in our world, if I want to understand what a person is talking about, I should rise above myself as much as possible and identify with him. This is called to understand the other person. We have to dress into him.

We need to learn a little about the people who wrote this book: what their desires and intentions were, what they wrote about, what they wanted to convey to us, why they described in that particular style. After all, they live within the text.

Baal HaSulam writes in his article “The Acting Mind,” that looking at the table, I see the carpenter’s skills in it and grasp his mind. Indeed, he used his mind in his work, and studying the table, I connect with the mind of the craftsman who created it. Thus, through a material object, the table, we connect mind to mind. So, we are already connected with each other through the idea that emerged in his mind and mine.

The same thing occurs with The Book of Zohar. Only here, I don’t know about the images and properties they wrote about. But if I want to merge my mind with the authors of The Zohar, cancel myself before them, and understand why and for what they wrote like this, if I treat The Book of Zohar in this way, then I gradually awaken forces in it to the extent of my desire to grasp the mind of those who wrote it. And then, I become connected to them, get closer to them, begin to feel their intention, where they were, what they thought about, why they wrote in that way, and what they saw and felt.

Therefore, reading this book is work: how to connect with its author through his story. And thus, to the extent of my understanding, the story begins to open to me, it becomes clear and not otherwise. That is why when reading The Zohar, we must think about its authors, what their inner states and intentions were when they were writing the book, what they saw and felt, thereby conveying their attainment to us in this form, and how I can reach their mind in order to understand them.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/9/12, The Zohar

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Shamati #25 “Things that Come from the Heart”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “The Two Great Lights,” Item 127, Lesson 33
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“Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 31, Lesson 19
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Freedom,” “Two Creations: A) Man, B) A Living Soul,” Lesson 22
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Everything depends on intention. This is like the valve in the internal combustion engine, which opens if I have the right intention. And as soon as the intention is gone, the valve closes. That is how I work all the time: I open the valve and close it. Let us hope that we will be able to start up this engine.

The size of the intention is determined by which desires it can rule over. Maybe my intention is only enough for the still level of my desires, or for the vegetative or animate, or for the human level. And clearly, the strongest, most efficient and powerful intentions also influence the small, lower desires.

Therefore, the most important thing for us is to think about group unity, mutual guarantee, because by virtue of that we can undoubtedly rule over all the other, lower desires we have. That is why the condition of mutual guarantee is so necessary.

I think that the friends are also outside of me, and the whole world, all of humanity, and the Creator are also outside of me. But I have to try to attach all of that to me in mutual guarantee, in the right connection, mutual dependence so these desires would unite: me and the Creator inside of me, and all the external systems will also become mine. I should not see anything else besides this, but just the image of one person, who I assemble and take care of.

And if I come out of this inner perception and speak to other people, I live in this world, so naturally, there is a collision between this inner perception and the external world, which appears to me in my senses. But I will have to accept this duality for now, which is no more than a psychological problem. And gradually, I will begin to see a more internal picture.

It’s similar to how there is the perception of an adult and of a child. A child sees only the external side, whereas an adult understands things deeper and sees the inner reasons for what is happening. Even though this is aimed in one direction, but just penetrates deeper into matter since both our intentions and external behavior are egoistic.

However, by developing a habit and making efforts, we can attain a new, true perception of reality.

Therefore, all discernments of intentions, my entire work is to try to change my vision by means of this inner perception, the inner wisdom called the science of Kabbalah, the inner part of the Torah. Then I will see the whole world as one organism in which everything belongs to me and there is nothing besides me.

Let us try to reach this sensation, and especially while reading The Book of Zohar.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/10/12, The Zohar

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When we read The Book of Zohar, we must clarify to ourselves in every way we can and especially in our thought and intentions that we are now entering a room where we can ask and receive if the request is the right one. A person should feel that he is given a chance to enter and say one sentence only. If you can’t awaken whoever is in the room upon whom your destiny depends, you will miss that chance and will not get another chance again. If a person feels this way, even if he gets more chances, it can help him.

So we must know:

1. All the changes that we must first desire are changes for bestowal and love of others and from that to the love of the Creator.
2. These changes are fulfilled in us only by the upper force that can influence us and perform the changes only if we want them and only as much as we can want the level above us.

We don’t understand these changes yet, and we don’t fully want them because these changes are towards bestowal and love of others. However, I try as hard as I can. I must believe that if my request is the right one, these changes will immediately take place in me.

So we have to imagine a picture and hold on to it while reading The Zohar while being in the request, in a prayer, in submission and yearning. Even if we haven’t reached the real request, but thanks to our yearning, like a prayer before a prayer, we hope that our request will assume the correct form. If I don’t know how to ask from Him, I ask Him to help me know how to ask.

I can’t tell Him: “I am asking but I don’t know how, so you do it!” That won’t work. He can’t do that, because my request must be correct. Otherwise I have nowhere to receive the correction. This means that I can’t beg with half a request so that He will correct me according to this half request. I can ask Him to correct my half request and make it a full request and only then will the correction come. This is called “a prayer before a prayer.”

Suppose I come to my landlord and have to fill out a request form in which there are many items. Although I have good relations with this landlord and everything is open before me, he still tells me how to fill out the form. When I fill it out, I see the right attitude needed so that I can receive what I want, and he gives it to me.

First I thought that he was ready to give it to me from the bottom of his heart without any preconditions. But this isn’t the case. I have to clarify on this form why, what for, how much, when, how and from whom to receive, and so on. It must all be organized because this is how He correctly stabilizes the receiver in order to receive.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/4/12, The Zohar

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Lesson Preparation
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Shamati #67 “Depart from Evil”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “The Two Great Lights,” Item 123, Lesson 32
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“Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 26, Lesson 18
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Freedom,” “Ancestral Heritage,” Lesson 21
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The Book of Zohar, Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” Item 113, The Two Great Lights: The moon was not at peace with the sun for she was ashamed of her. … The Creator told her, “Go and diminish yourself.”

We are talking about the adaptation between the created being Malchut and the Creator, the first nine Sefirot by which the Creator is depicted to the created being. According to the degree that Malchut adapts to the first nine Sefirot, it reaches adhesion with them, pursuant to the principle of “By Your actions, we know You.”

The adhesion is realized by equivalence of form, balance, or homeostasis between two objects as we call it in our world.

Although one of the two great luminaries Malchut has no light of its own, it is still great and shiny, and can be as important as the sun, the Creator, because although by itself it dwells in darkness, it can go on to shine.

The desire to receive is called the Earth. Its level of bestowal is the moon. The force it gets in order to bestow, to correct itself, and shine at night, comes from the sun, from Zeir Anpin in which there is Light from upper Bina.

So, there are two lights, the small light and the great light. The purpose of the development of the small light is to reach the same size, the same light, as the great light so that there will be two great lights. In this way, the created being will reach the same level, perception, and consciousness, and everything that the Creator wants for him. This is the adhesion of the created being with the Creator.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/12, The Zohar

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The Book of Zohar, Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” Item 119: The lights of David’s Malchut depict the depiction to the degrees from Malchut’s Chazeh and below, where there is no face of a man. That is, the degrees from Chazeh and below rise and become included in David’s Malchut, which is the face of a man from Chazeh and above.

A depiction means a level of some degree. Depicting is like mating because in a Zivug, the degrees come out in the proper depiction according to the quality of that Zivug, to correct the depiction of all those who are included in the face of a man, in an inner depiction.

Within creation there are four types of desire: still, vegetative, animate, and human. They develop step by step because the Creator’s intention is to bring this creature through the still, vegetative, and animate levels to such a developmental degree that it desires to become human. After all, the creature doesn’t become human naturally, as Nature or the Creator would make it happen. No, the human depiction is revealed in this creature only as a result of preliminary understanding, comprehension, desire, efforts, and pleas—everything that stems from itself. That’s the only way it happens!

That is why this development is gradual. Little by little, over the course of tens of thousands of years’ worth of our development throughout history, on all our preceding and very distant degrees, we essentially “sow” within the inner qualities of perception, so that today in our generation, they would awaken and help us to realize our purpose. Indeed, at the human level we must resolve for ourselves the form and manner in which we must grow, why it must be this way and not that—to truly mold “from a piece of marble” something that didn’t exist before, something that has never been mentioned anywhere and lacks any kind of example.

I need to come to know the Creator, and then fashion out of myself, out of this “piece of marble,” the same form accordingly. And the Creator doesn’t reveal Himself in this process, for if He would reveal himself, I would only take from Him something superficial. Whereas I need to study Him, dig down to reveal the inner essence, from my very innermost desires and across the depths of all my degrees—still, vegetative, animate, and human. And then I am to decide whether or not to become similar to the Creator, for this is completely opposite to what I desire initially. Building a human is very hard and meticulous work that takes tremendous attention to every detail. This is precisely the work we study in the Book of Zohar, in the Chapter “Two Great Luminaries.”
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/12, The Zohar

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When we reach the wisdom of Kabbalah through different events in our lives, we think that the spiritual world has an external form, similar to this world’s where there are different objects that have a volume, and that there is motion and time there. This is how a person imagines the spiritual world, based on the impressions he has from this world that he is used to seeing, which is to say, that he is used to feeling. He thinks that he can feel the spiritual world this way.

In studying the wisdom of Kabbalah, we study about the “perception of reality” according to which the entire picture of reality is revealed inside our desire. All the images we see and the feeling of motion, space, time, and volume are all discernments of desire.

A certain desire gives us a feeling of time, another desire gives us a feeling of change, and a third desire gives us the feeling of volume, and so forth. Colors, sounds, height, and width all are different desires or vectors that together depict the world to us, both this world and the spiritual world.

The only difference is that in our world, we imagine that we are among figures that actually exist on the outside while in the spiritual world, we feel and understand that our internal forces are those that create reality inside us. We feel and understand this according to our control over these forces or desires.

If I don’t control the forces of my own desire, then these forces seem external as if they are not under my control. However, if I begin to control them with the help of restriction and Masachim (screens), then as a result of my attempt to control them, I reveal them as internal forces under my control.

Thus, we gradually begin to perceive the world in its true form until even this world that we are used to seeing as external is gradually felt more as an internal world that is inside us. Then, we understand how the writers of The Book of Zohar looked at reality, how they felt reality, and how they convey this to us when they describe it in this world’s words, in Kabbalistic terms, in the language of the Midrash, or morals.

Actually, all they talk about is a person’s internal forces and desires into which the Light brings all the forms and impressions. It is only about how the desires are impressed by the Light.
[65441]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/5/12, The Zohar

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Shamati #5 “Lishma Is An Awakening from Above, and Why Do We Need an Awakening from Below”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “The Two Great Lights,” Item 120, Lesson 31
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“Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 25, Lesson 17
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Freedom,” “Criticism Brings Success; Lack of Criticism Causes Degeneration,” Lesson 20
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