In order to receive the Light that reforms, the force that will make us similar to the upper force, the Creator, and that will return us to the source of goodness and abundance so we would become just as good, bestowing, and loving, we have to place ourselves in the right conditions.

How can I prove to myself and prepare myself to make the right request from the upper Light so it would influence me? Only through the environment. I don’t have any opportunity in our world to prove that I want to become bestowing and good unless I organize the right connection with the environment to the best of my ability.

That is why before and during the lesson, especially while reading The Book of Zohar, every one of us must constantly feel that he has an unceasing connection with others, that he is in a net of connection where he loses himself and only feels everyone together. He must try to feel with all his might that he does not have his own “I,” but there is only “WE.” This is called the assembly of the souls of Israel (Knesset Israel)—the unification of all those who aspire to reveal the Creator.

If they unite together in order to reveal Him, that means the broken souls desire to unite together and ascend through their request for unification to Malchut of the world of Atzilut. Malchut of the world of Atzilut takes these desires, which aspire to unite and make mutual efforts to unite, and raises this request to Zeir Anpin. He, in turn, works on this request, corrects them, and then all who participate in it acquire the force of mutual bestowal and begin to feel closer, more connected together. Thus, gradually, step by step, very slowly they reveal the net of connection between them. When this net attains its first realization, we begin to feel that we are on the first degree of the spiritual ladder.

Therefore, while reading The Book of Zohar we must constantly aspire only toward unity among us so inside of it we would reveal the form of our connection called “the Creator.” After all, the Creator is the form of connection among us.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/11, The Zohar

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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: 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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The Book of Zohar, Chapter “Mishpatim [Ordinances],” Item 511: The Creator said, “And you shall be holy men unto Me.” This is why Israel were rewarded with being named “brothers of the Creator,” as it is written, “For the sake of My brothers and friends.”

Reading The Zohar, we try to interpret everything as happening inside a person who strives to connect with the environment and find the property of bestowal in his connection with it. Only on the condition that through the environment he wishes to reveal the property of bestowal, directed from him toward others, will this take place and be called the image of the Creator, which a person reveals.

Then, that person is called “Israel,” and the revealed property of bestowal emanating from him to others is called the “Creator,” the image built between him and a fellow human being (the “Creator,” Bo-Reh, means “come and see”).
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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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Writings of Baal HaSulam, Letter 56
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The Book of Zohar – Selected, Chapter, “Mishpatim,” “The Room of the Tabernacle,” Lesson 19
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Talmud Eser Sefirot Vol. 1, Part 1 “Histaklut Pnimit,” Lesson 17
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