The Zohar, Introduction, Article “Two Points,” Item 121: This is why the forces of separation are called “locks,” since they block the gates of approaching and drive us away from the Creator. But if we overcome them so they do not affect us, cooling His love from our hearts, the locks become doors, the darkness becomes light, and the bitter becomes sweet.

Question: What does it mean, “cooling His love from our hearts?”

Answer: If a person initially prepares himself for the fact that he plans to acquire love for the Creator, meaning for the quality of bestowal to become loved, accepted, and desirable to him so that he will feel the quality of bestowal that comes to him as a great value and reward for all the efforts he made, that means he prepares himself for the right actions.

Then by virtue of the right preparation, he looks differently at all the disturbances that seem to come in order to cool him down, to push him away from love for the Creator, from coming closer to the quality of bestowal. He views them as help because precisely by overcoming them he becomes stronger, more understanding, braver, and more learned, and through the greater understanding, sensations, and strength he ascends to the quality of bestowal.

For example, if I want to be physically strong, then all of my work with weights, jumping, and running is training for me that will enable me to become stronger. Everything depends on the preparation. If I don’t desire to be strong, if this does not worry me, then any obstacle that arises on my path will deprive me of the desire to advance. I will circumvent it and not be happy that it has come.

Do I see the obstacles as help sent to me from Above in order to make me grow and raise me to the Creator’s level, or not? This depends on my aspiration, preparation, and the support from the environment. This is the only way that we can advance.

Everything depends on the preparation. Before I open up a book, come to the group, start studying or thinking about anything, I have to ask the question, “Why am I doing this? And what should I be thinking about?” The only thing I should think about is how to make a calculation according to the analysis “true versus false,” rather than the sensations, “sweet versus bitter.” Then I immediately try to build my discernments based on the analysis, “true versus false.” And if that is so, then I at least know that I am not there, I don’t want it, and so on. Yet I nevertheless discern the truth: Who am I right now, and what is happening inside of me and outside of me?

This is necessary! In this regard everything depends on the environment, or the preparation from the surrounding environment. A grain cannot grow unless the environment provides it with everything it needs to grow. By itself it will simply dry up. There has to be an environment that awakens a person and works on him.

Imagine that you are in an environment where everyone aspires to be physically strong. Then you learn from them and together with them participate in all of the training. They jump and lift weights from morning until night! Why? Because that is their goal. And you start doing the same thing whether you want it or not because you receive the importance of the goal from them. You see every obstacle, every weight that you have to lift, every exercise you have to make as an opportunity given to you for growth. That’s all. There is no other opportunity.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/25/11, The Zohar

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Question: Why did the authors of The Zohar write using very earthly language in some places, which only confuses us, as if it is talking about our world, and in other places they wrote using the language of Partzufim and Sefirot?

Answer: The language that was created as far back as Adam HaRishon contains several Segulot (miraculous qualities). Why are they Segulot? It’s because we do not understand what the spiritual world is. We do not attain it and cannot imagine it correctly. We cannot formulate any of it before ourselves in any form.

It is initially clear that all of our notions, even ones of this world, are totally false. Like blind people, we are all trying to advance by feeling our way around, not knowing what we come up against and what is happening. All of our reminiscences and imaginary pictures are incorrect and false.

We are in such a dark state that we have never tasted the taste of truth. Not even a weak ray of Light has ever penetrated into this pitch darkness in order to even slightly illuminate any details of the world in which we exist, as well as the connections between us.

That’s why a question arises: Is it possible to speak to these creatures at all? It’s even worse than digging up worms in the ground and trying to tell them the Torah. That is not a joke! The difference between us and the spiritual world is much bigger than between us, living creatures, and a worm in the ground, which is also a living creature.

You differ from the worm by the size of your awareness and cognizance in the same darkness where you both exist. However, you and a person who is in spirituality are separated by opposite perception—an abyss that is impossible to even imagine.

Adam HaRishon was the first person who revealed the fact that besides our state, there is a source, the spiritual world, the true reality, whereas we are in total darkness, like worms in the ground who have never crawled to the outside and do not know that a different world even exists. Therefore, we have to be given at least the end of a rope that we could grab onto.

Thus, those who attain spirituality starting from Adam HaRishon invented what seems like all sorts of stories. However, they are not stories, but a system connecting us to the world and the souls that attain spirituality, to the connection between them and the Light that is in them.

Right now we have no idea what is the meaning of any of these words—not about that world, nor about the souls, nor the connection, nor the Light—nothing! Yet they traced a certain connection from the state which is unknown to us, and we have no idea what that connection is either. But they did it in order to somehow connect that state to us. And if we use that connection by following their advice, it gradually influences us.

Therefore, it’s absolutely irrelevant to ask why they wrote using one kind of language or another: one that’s more sensitive or rational, one that’s clearer or less clear. We can only get confused by the descriptions that seem more earthly and closer to us.

There is only one opportunity to come closer to The Zohar: to connect with one another as much as possible. To the degree we unite through efforts to be above our ego, we give these spiritual states the opportunity to be revealed. But as long as they aren’t revealed, we will not find out what they are. It is written, “I saw a reverse world.” You will see that the spiritual world is completely not what you were able to imagine.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/11, The Zohar

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Writings of Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “What Does It Mean that the Blessing Does Not Dwell Upon Something Which Is Accounted in the Work”
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The Book of Zohar — Introduction: “Two Points,” 74-124, Item 120Lesson 1
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Talmud Eser Sefirot 3, Part 8, Item 62, Lesson 37
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Question: Does the Creator hear the plea of a person who is asking to raise him to the next degree because he wants to avoid pain?

Answer: Certainly! The Creator hears any prayer. Just ask! But don’t bother Him on trifles as the regular "folks on the street" do. We see that those prayers remained unanswered: People have been begging in vain for millennia.

However, if you wish to rise to the next degree from your present egoistic state, from your egoistic will to enjoy, from all the conditions set for you by the Creator, which are not up to you, and you beg to ascend, the Creator immediately hears and gradually transforms you.

Obviously, you beg from your egoistic desire in an attempt to escape suffering, have power, be recognized, and so on. Yet it doesn’t matter what goals you place before yourself. If you always ask for a higher spiritual degree and visualize it in your mind, in your egoistic desire, in a certain albeit false way for now, then it is called “Lo Lishma (not for Her name),” and thereby you advance.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “The Donkey Driver”

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Question: When The Zohar speaks about man, does it refer to the desires?

Answer: According to The Zohar, “man” is a property similar to the Creator. Clearly, this only refers to the desires. This is because the image of man standing before us does not exist in reality. This is a trick of the imagination.

Let’s say that you see an image on the computer screen. Does it exist in reality? Something exists in the computer’s memory, and all the actions happen there. But in order for you to see what happens in the memory (which is there only for your knowledge and for the connection with you), there is a screen where you see a certain demonstration of something that exists in the memory. But the actual original image is there, inside, in the form of electric signals, forces that exist in different combinations with each other.

You see the external symbols of these combinations which are very limited and strictly specific because you are unable to perceive them otherwise. After all, you cannot live in a computer’s memory, understand, and see whatever exists there.

It is the same with The Zohar. Its authors convey to us a certain spiritual impression, which at this point we are able to hear only externally, imagining it somehow in our uncorrected, limited perception. But this vision has nothing to do with the actual spiritual image, concealed on the inside, behind the external forms of the letters, words, and images, which arise in your imagination. The authors of The Zohar have something completely different in mind.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “The Donkey Driver”

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Writings of Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “What Does It Mean that the Blessing Does Not Dwell Upon Something Which Is Accounted in the Work”
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The Book of Zohar — Introduction: “The Donkey Driver,” Item 117, Lesson 8
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Talmud Eser Sefirot 3, Part 8, Item 62, Lesson 36
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Question: Who or what gives me an example of the next level?

Answer: The example of the next level is given to you by darkness. That’s because the next level first becomes revealed as darkness. However, I have to try to discern the Light in it, which is something great and special. It only seems like darkness to my ego, but if I had a desire to bestow, then I would see the Light and the entire system of souls that are filled by infinite Light.

Therefore, darkness is the example of the future degree, until I turn this darkness to Light.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/11, The Zohar

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Question: The request to correct my repulsion from the friends seems very mechanical to me. Don’t I have to attain a need for correction?

Answer: If you wait for a need for correction, you will never attain it. It’s not the necessity that precedes our work, but the work that precedes the necessity. Then the necessity emerges.

If I work according to necessity, then I am an animal. If I work above the desire, then I am human.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/11, The Zohar

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Question: If our entire reality and world are imaginary, then isn’t the fact that we are now reading The Book of Zohar also an illusion?

Answer: Of course! The Zohar is not a book, but a higher illumination. It is Light that comes to us from the system of souls, the Light filling our souls.

Similarly, who is Rabbi Hamnuna Saba about whom we read in The Zohar? This is a special, great Light and a very high degree. How do I attain him? If I attain a specific degree of connection between the souls, then the degree of their connection, the mutual bestowal among them becomes revealed as Light which is called Rav Hamnuna Saba, and if it happens on a small degree, it is his son. The Light is the degree of bestowal between the souls.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/11, The Zohar

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Question: What does it mean to enter the environment?

Answer: To enter the environment means that I feel or imagine myself as being inside the system where all souls are connected together. I advance together with them and depend on them. They are higher than me and through them I can receive the Light that corrects and fulfills me.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/11, The Zohar

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