Question: How is our intention while reading The Zohar different from the intention to win a lottery? Isn’t it egoistic in both cases?

Answer: A little child playing with his toys doesn’t know what he is really doing. He breaks the toys apart, puts them back together, spoils them, and in the meantime learns, grows, and gains wisdom. Had he not been given the games that develop him, had he lived in the forest, he would have grown up as an animal.

It’s amazing how much wisdom we put into toys, constantly improving them and adapting them to each age group, to enable a newborn person to become, within a few short years, a part of the modern world!

Games are a very serious engagement, and all of our development happens through them. Playing a game means that I am trying to reach a higher state than my present one. That degree is unknown to me, but I am aspiring to it. Game means development, it’s just that the word “game” misleads us.

We are in the same situation. If we are occupied with something serious but don’t understand that future state, it’s called a game. The only question is whether our game has the developmental power or not? If I play with animals in the forest, it doesn’t bring the Light that Reforms; there is no developmental impact. That means that I will stay on the level of a beast because such is my environment.

But if, with the help of the Surrounding Light that shines to me while reading The Zohar, I make the environment of Rabbi Shimon part of my own, I associate myself with a higher degree. Then I progress to the degree of Human.
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From Lesson 4, WE! Convention 4/2/2011

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The Zohar, Chapter “Passover, Shemot (Exodus),” Item 246: Why did the Creator wish to bring Israel down to exile in Egypt? Why the exile, and why specifically in Egypt?

If you don’t belong to “Israel” (in Hebrew “Isra-El” means “straight to the Creator”), meaning if you don’t aspire to attain the Creator, to become equal to Him by the quality of bestowal and love, then you don’t have to descend to Egypt, meaning to suffer due to the lack of a connection with the Creator. Instead, you continue living without these problems.

But if you do aspire to attain the Creator, then you have to want this very much and prepare this desire. And the way to prepare it correctly is in the state called “exile,” the sensation of exile from the perfect state.

In exile we acquire the aspiration, need, and desire in all the tiniest details, forms, and qualities which later participate in revealing the Creator, the redemption from exile. Therefore, the exile is an important preparation and it does not end until a true desire for revelation is ready.

That’s because there is no Light without a desire. The Light is simple, but only when the desire attains the qualities that have to be present in it with their depth, force, and form, only then does the fulfillment become revealed inside of it.

Therefore, there’s no use crying about why we haven’t attained revelation yet. That means we still haven’t completed preparing the desire in its entire fullness so it would become revealed as the correct, suitable vessel for revealing the Light. We have to work on the desires, while the Light is at absolute rest and is ready to be revealed.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/11/11, The Zohar

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati “Pei-Vav,” Article: “And They Built Store Cities,” To: “Now We Can Understand What Our Sages Wrote…”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Passover, Shemot (Exodus),” “Why Exile and Why to Egypt,” Item 246
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Talmud Eser Sefirot 6, Part 15, Item 34
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Topic: Preparation to Going Out From Egypt, Lesson 2
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Question: How can we know what desires we need to correct?

Answer: Everything becomes revealed along the path. We don’t know what it is all about, but there is an order to the actions a person must carry out, as Baal HaSulam and Rabash explain to us.

They were the two last Kabbalists who created a method suitable to the souls descending into this world in our generation and detailed all our work regarding the soul’s correction. By correcting it we reach revelation of the Creator; the reality and the world unfold before us—it is happening here and now.

All the worlds, souls, and upper forces, everything is right here, but we don’t feel it. We must cultivate a sensory organ within, discover our desires as deeply and widely as possible, give them definitions, feel changes in them, and arrange them so as to discern all their peculiarities and components.

We must feel the entire depth of the existing reality so that our impressions and sensations would merge into one image regarded as the Creator, the upper force. Similarly, we attain the authentic reality as we rise along the steps of the five spiritual worlds, where in the world of Infinity everything unifies as one whole.

All that we attain on the path, we attain in small doses, as individual parts, after which everything merges into an integral form. This is the perfection we are to achieve.
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From the Lesson on Weekly Torah Portion 2/10/2011

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The Creator created the infinite desire to receive with the help of the Light of Infinity. In relation to the Light, this desire begins to feel itself divided into many parts or segments, like our body which consists of different systems and subsystems, such as the lymphatic, circulatory, nervous systems, and many others.

There are more important and less important systems. All the systems are equally important in the perfect state, and when one small part is absent, the entire system ceases to be perfect. This is clear.

But when we speak about the way the system operates in the process of correction, when we rise from this world into the world of Infinity, a certain order of correction exists. The correction happens from below upward.

The first ones to be corrected were the souls of “forefathers”: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who represent the three lines, three big systems, KBD. Then there came HGT, “sons,” followed by us, the last generation, NHY. We belong to the last generation of Mashiach (Messiah), we perform the final correction, and this is why we are the biggest egoists, while our “forefathers” are pure, fine souls.

All different types of souls exist in the collective soul: men and women, souls that pertain to the Rosh, Toch, and Sof and the limbs, arms and legs, the right,  left, and middle lines, such important organs of the system as the brain, heart, liver, kidneys, lungs, and so on. The wisdom of Kabbalah explains all of this in great detail.

We are gathered in groups around the world according to this and are interconnected in a certain way. Each one of us is awakened because the root of his or her soul becomes awakened, each one of us comes from another place in the common desire, and this entire system needs to connect into one whole. For this reason all of us have been gathered into the group where we try to unite between us.

The group is a complete system, and if we connect into the group, it is the upper force connecting us. And when we will attain unity, we will build the exact system that will merit ascending.

We do not need to change anything; we only have to move forward. We are not the ones creating the structure of the group, and we never find out why we are in a group with these specific people. This is what we have received and that is it! We do not know or understand whether these people are worthy of spiritual ascent. The Creator knows it! This is revealed from Above through the Light that affects all the desires.

The Light selects the desires that need to be corrected now, in our time. Every year and every minute new desires become revealed and new people discover the wisdom of Kabbalah.
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From the Lesson on Weekly Torah Portion 2/10/2011

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There are many stories in The Book of Zohar that are written in allegorical language (Midrash). They are seemingly describing people and angels (the forces of nature), animals, and plants, which is because the Book’s authors wished to explain all levels of creation to us: the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking.

Baal HaSulam prepared four introductions to The Book of Zohar:

1. “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah (Pticha)”: It is a scientific preface where he explains the structure of the worlds, Partzufim, Sefirot, and the interaction of the Lights and desires (vessels, Kelim).

2. “The Preamble to the Sulam Commentary”: It is connected to the above mentioned preface. Here, he also explains how to work in the three lines, with Lights and desires, if only in a more particular form, closer to each soul.

3. “Preface to The Book of Zohar”: In this introduction, Baal HaSulam explains the perception of reality. He describes how we transition from our ordinary, corporeal perception of reality to the spiritual one, when we start perceiving reality through this world, which becomes transparent, and see the forces working in it instead of the external picture of the world.

Similarly, when we look at the computer screen, we see a certain image. But it exists only pertaining to us since we created this screen and this method of projection on purpose. In reality though, it is merely an external manifestation of information stored inside the computer, on its hard drive. If we could read information directly from the disk, we wouldn’t need to retrieve it onto the screen and read it from it.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is the instrument that allows us to enter the internal, concealed part of reality and see not the external form presented to us at the moment, but rather the internal activity: the forces working behind the scenes of the familiar image of the world.

In this introduction, Baal HaSulam also explains that our perception of reality is divided into four components: the essence, the abstract form, the form clothed in matter, and the matter itself. Until the final correction (Gmar Tikkun), we attain only our matter (desire) and form that this desire assumes: either an egoistic or altruistic one. We cannot know the abstract form and less so the essence. Thus we advance to the final correction.

Hence, the wisdom of Kabbalah gives us a very serious warning not to indulge in fantasies, but rather to be realistic and use a scientific approach while striving to discover the spiritual world in a sound, tangible form.

4. “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”: Here, Baal HaSulam explains various problems a person faces in his or her questions about who we are, what our essence and role in this world is, why the Creator created us so flawed, low, and despicable, why we must walk this entire long path and become equivalent to Him, and so on. In the beginning of this introduction, Baal HaSulam asks these questions and answers them further on.

And in the end of the introduction, there is a very special, well-known, and widespread part where he writes about our correction in our days. There he explains that the world is divided into inner and outer parts. People who feel they belong in spiritual attainment are regarded as the inner part of the world. It is they who must unify among themselves and use The Book of Zohar to draw the Light that Reforms to themselves.

By doing so, they will become the spiritual source and the spiritual center of the world. Having the spiritual force, they will be spreading the wisdom of Kabbalah, and the whole world will get to feel that they have something exalted: knowledge, wisdom, the correct, common sense approach to what is happening in the world, and the answers to questions about it.

The world will begin to understand that these people reside at a much higher degree than all scientists and the so-called great leaders of this world since they possess the knowledge of the forces that act and transform our world in such an unpredictable way.

Then, after resistance and confrontations, the world will still begin to feel drawn to these people and recognize in them the upper force, the upper wisdom. And thus, in the end, the whole world will arrive at correction. After all, correction is basically performed between the individuals who are regarded as the inner part of the world, the ones with the point in the heart, while the rest of the world will only join in and cling to them, just like today in the world the masses live their daily lives while the world is ruled by a handful of others.

And thus, as Baal HaSulam explains in the end of the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” the entire humanity will keep developing until the world unifies together, all become as one whole, thanks to the same Book of Zohar, and reaches the same very ten primordial Sefirot that Rabbi Shimon and his nine disciples wrote about.
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From Lesson 4, WE! Convention 4/2/2011

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Why do they say “manna from heaven” if it is found in the morning in the place of dew? It doesn’t fall from the sky; it appears on the ground. Thanks to MAN, which is Bina and Malchut connected, we exalt our desires and demand correction by the property of bestowal.

Evoking our desires to ascend, pleading with the Creator to be equal to Him in love and bestowal, is regarded as MAN. This is exactly how a person fulfills himself after he tears away from his egoism. I revive my soul by the fact that I enjoy bestowal and desire to be filled with Bina, the Creator.

Therefore, I examine: Do I want it or not? Am I able to fulfill myself? Does egoistic fulfillment fill me as it did in the past, which is described as “pots filled with the meat I ate in Egypt?”

Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn’t. All states that a person undergoes in the process of spiritual evolution are mandatory. Kabbalah tells us about the smallest detail that every one of us must experience. Hence, the sages said: “Write the Torah on the tablets of your heart.” The heart is our desire, and each desire must undergo all these transformations that Kabbalah describes.

When we realize that we don’t want “manna from heaven” and would rather return to the meat we ate in Egypt, these are the states we disclose within during spiritual work. It is at the time when you exert enormous effort toward advancement that you discover desires that haven’t yet been corrected or clarified. Thanks to the fact that a desire unfolds, you examine it, grab it like a snake that sticks its head out, pull it out from within, transform it, and get rid of it.
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From the Lesson on Weekly Torah Portion 1/13/2011

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It’s hard to even imagine to what extent the initial volume of The Book of Zohar superseded that which is left available to us today. It is about 20 times smaller. The majority of the Book is gone. But Kabbalists write that we don’t need more. The remainder of the Book is designated specifically for us, in order to provide us with the necessary assistance.

It is very difficult to discuss The Book of Zohar since it is supremely exalted. Besides, it is written in a very unique manner. Baal HaSulam explains that there are two types of souls: some root in the Inner Light and the others in the Surrounding one.

We reside in the integral system of souls, and the connection between us runs both in the internal stream between the souls and also in the surrounding field. Any electrical system is designed this way, having resistors (resistance circuits), capacitors, and inductor coils. All of this works together, both electromagnetic fields and the resistors between them. Some parts of this system accumulate energy within them, while the others turn the electrical current into a magnetic field and vice versa, the field into electrical current that runs inside it.

The system of souls works in a similar manner. The authors of The Book of Zohar also had to have these two types of souls. This is why they studied in a very specific fashion. They sat in a circle. Rabbi Shimon would talk about what he was attaining, while all his disciples were listening, discussing what he would reveal, asking him questions, and receiving answers. Rabbi Aba would hear what they were saying and write it down.

All of this was occurring during the conversation. Naturally, the conversation essentially lay in the transmission of the forces and Lights between these souls that originated in both Inner and Surrounding Lights. Rabbi Shimon had a soul coming from the Inner Light, and Rabbi Aba from the Surrounding one. Hence, Rabbi Aba was able to record everything Rabbi Shimon said in a concealed form so that today any person can buy The Book of Zohar, read it, and understand nothing.

To attain this Book, a person must undergo a certain preparation in connection with the friends. They have to form the same exact model of relationships between them as the authors of The Zohar did. Organizing such a group (it is not mandatory to have only ten people in it; there could even be 10,000) and striving to unify and wishing to discover what the Book is talking about in their mutual connection, they become similar to Rabbi Shimon’s group. And then they receive the influence of Light from it.

Since some of us belong in the Inner Light and some in the Surrounding one, we begin receiving the impact like a radio receiving waves. Then we start hearing what the Book is saying, at the rung of Bina (hearing is the level of Bina) and even seeing (at the level of Hochma), depending upon our spiritual degree. And if we haven’t reached mutual connection at the level of Bina, then we are still preparing for it.

Therefore, a sign of spiritual advancement is when we, as a group, while reading The Zohar, start sensing this text as the same forces and properties The Zohar is describing. This is the essence of the Book itself. This book is an instructor, a working manual. When penetrating it, a person feels how he rises with this book and discovers spiritual degrees, as if he is ascending a ladder indeed.

I very much hope that during our lessons when we start reading The Book of Zohar, you all together will keep the right intention in order to gain as much as possible from this source.
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From Lesson 4, WE! Convention 4/2/2011

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The Intention Cannot Be Expressed In Words
The Key To Understanding

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Writings of Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “He Who Has Strengthened His Heart”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Yitro (Jethro),” Item 544, Lesson 13
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Talmud Eser Sefirot 6, Part 15, Item 30
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Topic: Preparation to Going Out From Egypt, Lesson 1
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There are books written by regular people about sensations in this world. And there are books written by Kabbalists, people who attain the upper world and write about their sensations in spirituality.

These books are called special, sacred books. Sacred (Kadosh) literally translates “separate.” The spiritual world is completely separated from our egoism; therefore, a person who is describing it from his sensations is writing a sacred book: special or separated.

There is one special book out of all the books written throughout history by people with spiritual attainment. In Kabalistic sources it is simply referred to as The Book, with no mention of its name “The Zohar.” This book is so unique that in relation to it other books aren’t even considered a book. This is because it was written by a special group of people who attained all ten of the highest Sefirot in Malchut of the world of Infinity.

The special meeting of these ten individuals occurred approximately 2000 years ago. Nine students along with their teacher Rabbi Shimon retired to a cave in the North of Israel. They stayed there and studied.

This cave is a very special place. When my teacher Rabash and I would go to Tiberias, we often visited this cave. Rabash really loved to be there. He would stand for a few minutes, and it looked like he was somewhere else, as if he left his body. That’s the extent to which he connected to the spiritual force of the ten Sefirot, the ten souls that sat in this cave while revealing the world of Infinity.

By connecting together they attained all 125 spiritual levels, from our world to the world of Infinity. Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” that such a high level of attainment by a group of people occurred only once in the entire history because they united and studied together.

Only in the final correction (Gmar Tikkun) will we be able to attain the same level that was attained by this group, and we’ll be able to do so thanks to their unification. They wrote in The Book of Zohar how they were able to unite, what happened as a result, and what was revealed in the connection between them. Therein lies the whole power of The Book of Zohar.

And clearly this Book can give us the greatest force of correction for our souls. That’s why this Book is so important.
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From Lesson 2, WE! Convention 4/2/2011

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