Weekly Torah Portion – 11.16.11
Posted on November 16th, 2011
The Book of Zohar, Chapter “Pekudei (Accounts),” Item 839: As there are degrees and palaces on the side of Kedusha, there are also on the side of Tuma’a, and they are all present and ruling in the world on the side of Tuma’a. This is why there are seven palaces opposite the seven names of Hell, which are called by those names of the seven departments of Hell, and all are standing to judge and defile, for those wicked of the world to whom they have adhered, and who did not guard their ways while in this world.
Hell is my desire to receive. It may be small and weak and may not seem so bad to me at the moment. It is against connection, or not so much for connection when I think about myself: How will I profit, what will happen to me, and so on?
According to my level, this desire seems quite reasonable at the moment, and it can be called Heaven because thanks to it, I profit, attain, and feel good. But the more I understand the upper system, the more I begin to see this desire as Hell. It’s because in it, I think about myself, “burn down,” draw away from, and am opposite to the Light, the Creator.
It all depends on how a person sees his desires. This is the whole difference between Heaven and Hell.
[60660]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/2011, The Zohar
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Question: If there are no separate parts, what does The Book of Zohar describe, the way one soul corrects itself?
Answer: The Book of Zohar tells us how we connect into one soul. After all, there is nothing else to talk about. There is a perfect state, one soul, and there is an imperfect state when the soul is shattered. We have to return ourselves to the perfect state.
Essentially, the shattering exists only in our consciousness. When we discover what is corrupt, we will see that everything is corrected. I only need to correct my perception, my vision. This is why this wisdom is called the “wisdom of Kabbalah” (“Kabbalah” means “reception” in Hebrew)—it is the wisdom about how to receive, to perceive reality. That’s all! Reality is perfect, and there was no shattering—it is all with regards to those who receive, a person who attains it.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/2011, The Zohar
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Our entire work consists of attaining similarity with the qualities of the Light. In relation to us, the Light divides into 613 Lights (Taryag) and builds 613 desires in us. However, in the end, it is one desire and the Light.
Our work consists of lending the will to enjoy the same form as the Light’s desire to bestow. Naturally, we cannot turn the desire to receive pleasure into the desire to bestow. First of all, the desire to receive pleasure stays, but we reveal its form: We distinguish the desire to receive pleasure from water, bread, and so forth. All these things are forms where it wishes to receive fulfillment.
For example, the fulfillment experienced in a certain form of desire is called “bread.” The fulfillment experienced in another form of desire is called “water.” The fulfillment experienced in other forms of desire are called “meat,” “fish,” “sweets,” “sour,” “bitter,” and so on. Everything depends on the forms of the desire to receive pleasure. It is the same with everything, even technology, frequencies, and light spectrums. All these things are forms of the desire to receive pleasure. Material is desire, and everything is determined by the form it assumes.
We must give proper forms to our desire to receive pleasure. This does not mean that it would be more proper to desire “meat” when I desire “bread.” The proper form is the way I wish to receive the fulfillment called “bread,” “meat,” and so on. It is the way I distinguish that it’s still forbidden for me to use these desires due to a variety of reasons since I will not be able to bestow in this form and be similar to the Light.
There are two components here. The first is the desire to receive pleasure, which assumes a certain form because otherwise, it is no more than shapeless material, as it is written: “Everything comes from the dust.” This dust must assume a certain form because it has no taste on its own. And I must taste the flavor in the desire to receive pleasure. My pleasure depends on the greatness of the desire and the variety of forms in which it can receive pleasure, such as food, sex, family, money, respect, power, and knowledge, according to the scale of values accepted in our world.
Moreover, there is an additional, special form that robes into this matter: the intention either “in order to receive” or “in order to bestow.” This is referred to as the Creator’s work. In this form, there is a difference between the creature and the Creator.
Not every person can detect this inner difference. As a rule, people only distinguish the regular form that their desire to receive pleasure assumes: what and how much they want in comparison to others. Their entire analysis ends there. In other words, they do not speak of the quality of the desire in relation to the Creator.
In order to have a spiritual, vivid perception with respect to the Creator, man must have another special element in his desire, where he will distinguish whether it is close or far from bestowal, closer to truth or falsehood. This element awakens in him in the form of the so called point in the heart and does not allow him to simply agree with the forms that are only convenient for the desire to receive pleasure.
He must develop his own attitude toward the Light that shines at him from afar in such a way that he neither knows it nor understands it. However, this Light awakens the need in man to attain similarity in qualities with it.
Then, a person gradually rises above his desire to receive pleasure in all its different forms and begins to care about the intention in which he exists, whether it is for the sake of reception or bestowal, and he tests himself in relation to this form. The Light keeps awakening him and brings him to the group, through which it influences him. In other words, the Light affects him through the desires (Kelim).
In the end, a person finds himself in such an uncomfortable, bad state that he either tries and escapes the influence of the Light that Reforms, the Surrounding Light, refusing to accept new forms since it always happens under pressure, as if he were being molded like clay; or he understands and agrees that he must accept the new form out of hopelessness, as a result of studies and the influence of the group.
Then, he works in the group, demanding new forms for his desire from the Light. At first, he expects the Light to bring him good things, wishing to derive from the new forms of Light some benefit for his substance, the desire to receive pleasure. This is called “bestowal for the sake of reception.”
Gradually, through a desperate desire to achieve what he wants and the influence of the Surrounding Light that affects him through the group, he reaches a state where he no longer cares about any conditions. This is called working without conditions when the only thing that matters to him is to accept the form of Light, the forms of bestowal.
He is not able to understand precisely what is happening to him and why he is experiencing these states, but the nature of forms that go through him makes him agree and begin to wish for this to happen. He begins to receive power above his reason, as if he were drunk with the Light. He truly wishes to accept new forms and most importantly, to know that advancement toward the Light is guaranteed for him. He guarantees it himself by participating in the group.
When he prepares correctly, being in a group, trying to cancel himself before it, and accepting the Light that Reforms through this common vessel without any conditions, but only wishing to cancel himself so that the Light would influence him, then the two kinds of efforts that he makes during the study and work in the group bring him success.
Otherwise, he finds himself in a state about which it is written: “A fool sits with folded hands and eats his own flesh.” He can “devour” himself for a decade without advancing.
[60525]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/13/2011, The Zohar
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If we wish to attain The Book of Zohar, we must think about how we attain it. We connect our desires directed towards the goal into one big desire and strive to turn it from a receiving desire into a bestowing one.
Even though this desire is for a higher degree, for the attainment of the meaning and purpose of life, it’s still an egoistic, uncorrected desire that strives to receive for itself much more than regular people. And that’s why this desire is the evil inclination, and not the good one.
While the entire world exists in corporeal desires on the animate level, we exist at the origin of the desire that pertains to the human level, meaning the desire to attain spirituality, the Creator, something above this world. But I want it for myself. I don’t care about the entire world, nothing concerns me, I disregard everyone else even more. And other people also notice that I don’t pay attention to anyone or anything; I only care about attaining something exalted. It turns out that in this way I became an even bigger egoist.
On one hand, it’s true that “every person, bigger than his friend, has greater egoism.” But in the end, I am not yet on the next degree together with my extreme desire that already pertains to the next degree; rather, according to the nature of the desire, its essence, I exist in a state opposite to it. It’s because my desire is directed towards “one’s own sake” and does not correspond at all to the next degree.
All my previous degrees (on the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels, where I advanced throughout my life over the course of all my reincarnations) were built on the basis of the constant development of the desire to receive pleasure, and it’s due to it that I kept attaining things, advancing linearly and forward. But now I must change the actual nature of the desire.
I can no longer directly use the desire that arises in me and attain what I want. On the contrary, when a desire comes to me, I must reverse its intention, what I am using it for, and then I attain the desired.
This correction of the use of desire really confuses me. I don’t really know how to use it because correction is not in my hands. It introduces a certain foreign factor into my life, my perception of desire, its realization, and a certain compensation. This factor is the Light that Reforms since I am not capable of changing the desire on my own to make it work for the benefit of someone else.
After all, in my ego I feel that this goodness is not inside me, so what do I need all this for and why? This does not give me strength. I suddenly feel weak, disappointed, and desperate; I’m not able to do anything unless it’s for me. So where can I get the moving force, the “fuel”?
I need to find “fuel” that will also be someone else’s. In other words, a “machine” that works for the sake of bestowal needs a different kind of “fuel” than a “machine” that works for itself. A desire, that works “for its own sake” constantly advances me towards the goal, it sees the future goal and it rushes forward. And here it’s the other way around: If I move another millimeter closer to the goal, I’ll feel even emptier in my desire to receive pleasure. So how can I advance?
This is why there are special actions here called “the Light that Reforms,” which I need in order to feel the importance of bestowal so that bestowal will fulfill me and give me the same fulfillment as reception used to give. How is this possible? It’s opposite to everything I have in this life….
I don’t see that this can be realized as all of nature exists because it wants to attain something, get itself fulfilled. But here I am required to transfer fulfillment towards others, without receiving anything in return, instead of fulfilling myself. But if I acquire love for them, it will be as if I was fulfilling myself, my desire is to express my love for them. In other words, there should be something out of this world here. And this is really the way things are—the quality of bestowal is really out of this world.
[60410]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/10/2011, The Zohar
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To see the spiritual system we are now entering (and the entire world will have to enter in the end), we have to reveal a certain “crazy” desire in the connection between us—we must suddenly wish to bestow to one another, as if having lost our minds: “I feel good when I work and the other receives.” In our world, this would be a sign of madness, of the inability to think, feel, perceive, and act correctly.
This is why the upper Light must influence us and bring us this state. This state is different, very strange, and completely separated from us. It is not in our power to attain it, and we do not feel any reasonable need for it that would awaken this desire in us.
Initially we receive a tiny spark, a small aspiration towards this state of bestowal and not more than that. We must attain everything else by starting to convince each other of the greatness of bestowal. From an external point of view, this work is truly unreal, irrational, and impossible to agree with.
So imagine how disappointed we must become in our egoism, how desperate we must be to wish to free ourselves of it, to exit it. It causes us so much suffering that it is better for us to run away from it, even to a state like this. Imagine the suffering humanity must go through in order to wish to bestow, to rise above everything, and to stop thinking about themselves!
In other words, we first must feel that our life is eternal. You cannot free yourself of it and end this entire “detrimental business,” this enormous despair. You have to feel that your state is eternal, that you really have nowhere to run. This is called to “experience eternity.”
And if so, you find yourself in a state when you feel that life is many times worse than death. Then, to counterbalance all these horrible states and suffering within the ego, you will agree to experience the goodness, the freedom in exiting the evil that causes it.
If we weigh the suffering we have to experience in our desires because of the ego that gives us the sensation of this life, we will understand that this really is a horrible suffering that does not exist in our world. We suffer because the Light comes closer and closer and displays itself as unified, while we see ourselves as distanced from one another and spread around the world.
It is the distance between the two things—the lack of correspondence, inequality, and imbalance between us and the Light, which shines to us as whole while we are opposite to it, broken, and imperfect—it is this gap, this abyss, between us and the Light that awakens all the disasters and suffering in us.
Kabbalists write a lot about the horrible times that may await us in the future, like the “merciful women boiled and ate their own children,” and so on. It is necessary to understand that only Kabbalah can turn this torment of suffering from hatred into a yearning for love. And then we will be able to begin to add reason to our sensations—to stop advancing only under the influence of suffering, which would gradually make us smarter since suffering softens the body, the desire, just like “blows soften the flesh.”
On the contrary, we can precede the blow with a medicine, that is, begin to awaken the Light that Reforms on our own. Then it will shine for us and correct our mind and feelings, and we will begin to understand more and prevent blows. So let us try to think about this when we read The Zohar.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/10/2011, The Zohar
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In the News (from expert.ru): “In Spain, the unemployment rate is the highest among developed countries, more than double the European average of 9.3%. Even in Greece, it is 17.6%. Unemployment among young Spaniards is 45.8% and is not expected to decline; many people are ending a three year period of unemployment benefits.
“The fund for long-term unemployed is melting; a family with two children receives 1400 euro per month. As unemployment increases, social tension is growing: It gave birth to Spain’s protest movement ‘los indignados’ (the indignant).”
My Comment: There is no other choice but to organize education and upbringing to prepare the masses for interacting in the new world, with cooperation and balance in society and with nature. This will produce positive forces, which will gradually bring the whole society into balance. Otherwise, the growing social tension will lead to a civil war again….
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