Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 03.08.11
Posted on March 8th, 2011
“Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “Yitro (Jethro),” Item 194: When this one speaks, he stretches the skin of his forehead and those lines are not very visible. He bends his head and walks. His right serves as left, and his left serves as right. He is always sad, gossips, considers himself smart in all his actions, and hateful toward those who engage in Torah.
The Zohar speaks about the forms of connection between us. A “human” within me is my attitude toward the others rather than I myself. By myself, I am not a “human,” but rather a beast, as it is said: “We are all like animals.”
However, if I begin to build relations with the environment, with my friends, in order to position myself under their influence and to reveal the Creator within the connection between us, then the place of our connection is called Shechina. This is where the Creator becomes revealed. A “human” within me is my attitude toward my friends, which I awaken within myself in order to build this place of revelation of the Creator.
Therefore, everyone by himself is not a “human” because to be a “human” means to be “similar to the Creator” in relation to other people, in bestowal and love. In Hebrew the word man (Adam) comes from the word similar (Domeh).
The Zohar speaks precisely about these forms of a “human,” the kinds of connection between us, meaning about the Partzuf (structure) of the soul. This Partzuf contains all forms (forces) described above: arms, legs, faces, and so on. These are the ten Sefirot with the 613 desires which we have to correct from egoistic into kind relations between us.
Therefore, when The Zohar is telling about people with certain face features, hair color, palm lines, and other characteristics, it speaks about the connection of each one of us with others, about the types of this connection based on the soul’s type, about the properties of a “human” within us.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/4/11 “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”
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Question: Why do you often refuse to answer questions on the actual text of The Zohar?
Answer: What’s the point of answering? A person who attains it receives the answer on his own. But a person who does not attain it has to work on attaining it.
An answer to a question that is perceived by our earthy mind leaves us on the level of this material world, calming us down with false understanding. But this is not a real answer and does not help us. After all, in that case a person does not try to acquire a connection with the Torah, with the Light that corrects him, but wishes to attain wisdom, and that is opposite to our path.
Of course, we have to know the material a little bit in order to be slightly connected to it at least externally, like small children who come in touch with something in our world without understanding it yet. However, we shouldn’t receive answers that extinguish our desire to attain. After all, we are reading the text for the sake of attainment. When we attain it, then we will receive the answer. And that will be the true answer.
Therefore, there’s practically nothing to ask about the actual text of The Zohar, about the names, titles, forces, and angels. What’s the point of it? Who understands it? Who will give you an answer as long as you haven’t revealed it inside you?
Therefore, our entire study is only for the sake of revealing Kelim, vessels, or desires in which everything we study will be revealed.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/7/11, The Zohar
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“Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “Explanation of the Division of the Fourteen Commandments into Ten Utterances”: Fourth utterance: “And God said, ‘Let the waters be gathered.’” The third commandment is to know that there is a great God who rules over the whole world, and to unify him daily with a proper unification, the unification of “Hear O Israel,” called “the upper unification.” This is extension of VAK of the three previous utterances into ZA, VAK de Gadlut, Vav de HaVaYaH.
Everything exists in an unchanging state, and all the changes occur only in man’s perception. By correcting his properties, a person attains degree after degree, and “utterances,” “commandments,” or “days of the beginning of creation” change for him. All of it was divided and now changes in his eyes since a person himself, his inner desire, gets reformed.
Desire within us undergoes transformations. They occur gradually, layer after layer, passing through all levels of their Aviut (thickness, coarseness): Shoresh (root), Aleph (1), Bet (2), Gimel (3), and Dalet (4) at each degree.
As we correct our desire, we begin to reveal the Lights, the sources: where this influence comes from, what correction it performs in my soul, what Light becomes revealed, where it originates from, with Whom I connect, Who the Upper One whom I reveal is.
This is a gradual correction of the soul performed by a person. Parallel to it, The Zohar describes what desires (Kelim) enter correction, what Lights become revealed out of a full set of ten utterances, 14 commandments, or seven days of the beginning of creation, meaning seven degrees of Zeir Anpin (ZA), until Nukva and ZA reach a state of the two great lights, the full correction (Gmar Tikkun). Ultimately, we are talking about the stages of our advancement.
The Torah describes the entire process of our correction. In the beginning of the chapter “Beresheet” (Genesis), all these utterances are presented as a summary of everything that subsequently occurs in the entire Torah. And then, from this chapter, as from the initial point of the letter “Yod,” all other parts toward a full HaVaYaH evolve, until the entire narrative of the Torah ends with the word “Israel.”
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/3/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”
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Question: Why is it much easier to rise above the repulsion from each other at the big Conventions?
Answer: 1. At the Convention a person is not in his group. He dissolves in an ocean of people with whom he did not have close contact and therefore did not reveal his evil toward them.
2. At the Conventions we do not work on revealing the evil in ourselves, but rather we awaken goodness. However, this goodness comes in spite of the evil that has already been revealed and in order for us to acquire forces for the future.
Therefore, people who do not work on themselves in the group do not feel a drive to come to the Convention. They do not see this as an opportunity to advance. “What will I do there? Jump? Sing? I can just watch it on TV or the Internet at a time that’s comfortable for me!”
In reality there is a big difference between virtual and physical participation at the Convention because in the latter case a person exerts energy, money, and great efforts to take part in it. In addition, prior to entering the sensation of the upper world, we cannot revoke the importance of material contact. Therefore, the Convention is intended for people who desire to come there with the realization of evil they have accumulated from before, as well as those who desire to receive the forces there to overcome the realization of evil in the future.
The Torah talks a lot about how in ancient times people would meet by a well to communicate and establish connections. That is how we should feel at the Convention: like people who have gathered by a life-giving well in a desert, and from that well we can receive the vital forces of Bina (water is the quality of bestowal, the quality of Bina).
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/7/11, The Zohar
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The Zohar, Chapter “Yitro (Jethro),” Item 180: …We should look at the forms of people in six discernments, and to know wisdom thoroughly. Those are the hair, eyes, nose, lips, face, and hands, meaning the lines in the hands.
The science of Kabbalah explains all the spiritual qualities using earthly words. That’s because there are no words or letters in the spiritual world, but only sensation, attainment, and understanding. Therefore, we don’t have any other way to express and convey spiritual information and impressions from one person to another. That is why we take words from our world because our world, this earthly reality, is an imprint of the upper reality and everything existing in our world has roots in the spiritual world.
Therefore, when The Zohar talks about the features of a person’s face, his internal organs, or parts of the body, all of this is describing the corresponding forces acting in spiritual space, meaning between souls, inside of their connection. In this way, using “the language of branches,” we convey information about the spiritual world to one another.
This can be compared to electrical forces by which we create an image on a computer screen. Inside the computer there are electrical forces, but for us we use them to depict images we understand.
We can talk about inner electric forces using their external results: graphical terms, colors, and geometric figures. We can name these electrical forces by their graphical images, even though they are not colors, lines, or images. It’s just that in the external manifestation they create these forms for us and we use the names of these forms to name these forces.
Therefore we have to understand that the authors of The Zohar did not engage in physio-mysticism, physiology, or other such things, but wished to describe the inner structure of the soul in detail. A person who is in the spiritual world envisions everything written in The Zohar in the spiritual sense, knowing that it is talking about spirituality. He sees this because the spiritual impression is much more powerful than the earthly one. Therefore, he observes the spiritual picture before anything else.
On the other hand, a person who is only in the material world and for now perceives only the earthy reality on his screen, sees earthly images behind The Zohar’s words.
So while reading The Zohar, let’s try to go from one screen to the other, from the external screen on which earthly images are depicted for us, to the soul’s inner structure. Let us try to imagine the qualities of the soul. And even though we do not understand what The Zohar is talking about, our efforts evoke the Light that corrects us.
Baal HaSulam writes the following in “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot”: Therefore we must ask, why then, did the Kabbalists obligate each person to study the wisdom of Kabbalah? Indeed, there is a great thing in it, worthy of being publicized: There is a wonderful, invaluable remedy to those who engage in the wisdom of Kabbalah. Although they do not understand what they are learning, through the yearning and the great desire to understand what they are learning, they awaken upon themselves the Lights that surround their souls.
Our desire should be not to understand, but to feel this inner spiritual picture. By that very desire we attract Light from there, which corrects us. And then we enter the sensation of this inner world.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/4/11, The Zohar
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