Weekly Torah Portion – 12.02.10
Posted on December 2nd, 2010
The Book of Zohar — Selections, Chapter “The Buds,” Item 5, Lesson 2
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The Book of Zohar — Selections, Chapter “Mi Barah Eleh (Who Created These),” Item 7, Lesson 1
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Talmud Eser Sefirot 3, Part 8, Item 2, Lesson 3
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Baal HaSulam, “Beit Shaar HaKavanot,” Lesson 62
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Writings of Rabash, “Mighty Rock of My Salvation”
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The stronger we unite, the more sparks of bestowal we can include into the quality of reception. Essentially, by working on unity, we work on combining these qualities.
We are unable to work with the desire for pleasure in its pure form. When coming near it, we see that it is not intended to work for bestowal at all. So what can we do with it considering that it has the opposite nature?
It turns out that we don’t have the possibility to receive for the sake of bestowal, and that means we cannot give any pleasure to the Giver. There is a barrier standing between the Creator and the creation, blocking all of creation’s efforts to attain mutual bestowal.
Our only way to go is to combine qualities. How can we do this? We have to elevate Malchut and include it inside the quality of Bina.
Our work is built upon the same principle: A person in relation to the group is like Malchut in relation to Bina. By becoming part of the group, one nullifies himself similar to how Malchut nullifies herself before Bina.
It doesn’t matter what kind of people make up the group and whether they have already attained the spiritual quality or not. By rejecting himself, a person receives the Upper Light through them. He does not receive it from their external qualities, but from their inner essence which is already corrected in some regard.
Thus, the group is an inexhaustible means, pure Bina. By nullifying myself, I can receive anything through it. If I am small then I receive a small influence of Surrounding Light from the group. If I am great, then I receive a great Light from the group, which corrects me. With my attitude to the group I determine what the group is for me.
This does not depend on the friends. They may be total beginners who just encountered Kabbalah, yet by bowing down to their spiritual desire, I penetrate and tune into their corrected state even if they haven’t started correcting themselves.
We are all in the final correction already and therefore with my attitude to the friends I can awaken and revive any of the intermediate forms leading there. Everything depends on me, not on them. I myself determine the level on which I will activate this structure called “the group.”
Then love for friends becomes love for the Creator. The right attitude to them is the right attitude to Him. I cannot step away from my friends and give the Creator anything more than what I give to them.
The group is the means which helps to “form” itself, to give itself the form of bestowal. By funneling my desires through the group, it’s as if I modulate them and then I address the Creator the right way,
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/1/10, The Zohar
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No matter what we are reading, The Book of Zohar, the Babylonian Talmud, or the Bible (the Torah), all “sacred” texts speak of the work I am unable to perceive and understand. I have no comprehension of any of its tiniest details.
How does the mind, “understand,” work? When my mind possesses an example of what I see, hear, or read about, I am able to collect and arrange an image within myself, which corresponds with what is taking place outside of me. However, this method doesn’t work when we study Kabbalah. I don’t have any matching example. How, then, can I put an image together?
Suppose I say that ZA (Zeir Anpin) is “10,” and Malchut is “5.” How much smaller is Malchut than ZA? 10 – 5 = 5. Excellent! It means you do know. But what is it you know? Do you understand what ZA is? No. What about Malchut? No. What is “5,” the difference between them? You don’t know that either. Then, what do you really know?
However, we study these definitions since they are the Upper roots, and they affect our points in the heart, expanding them. It is the only possible act from the entire science of Kabbalah upon us, who are situated below the border dividing us from the Upper World. Therefore, as Baal HaSulam informs us in the “Introduction to the Study of Ten Sefirot,” Item 155, Kabbalists obligated every person to study the wisdom of Kabbalah since this action draws the Light that Reforms and returns us to the Creator.
The entire Torah was written without the use of commas, periods, and spaces between the words; from the very beginning to the end, it is one unbroken sequence of letters. Letters are desires, Kelim (vessels). The attributes of bestowal and reception, Hassadim and Hochma, which share a special connection build for us the shapes of the letters.
However, I have to create the same properties, Kelim, within me from my will to receive. When my desire exists in the properties of Hassadim and Hochma, then it will acquire the same forms of the letters. These attributes will live in me as 22 sets of spiritual stencils. I will be able to create words or actions from them. From words, I will build phrases, complete programs.
You have to equalize your desire with these symbols. Kabbalists passed this information to us in the form of symbols so that you could make the same forms from your will to receive as described in the Torah, starting with the first letter, Bet (the first letter of the word Beresheet, “In the beginning”), and to the last letter of the Torah, Lamed.
Take your desire, use it as dough, and sculpt these forms from it. The result will be a completely corrected you.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/10, The Zohar
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Question: I feel that we do not extract everything we can from The Book of Zohar. How should we use a Kabbalistic text?
Answer: To start with, imagine that between you and the others there lie all the worlds, from the point where you are right now to the World of Infinity (Ein Sof). If you reach the other person and become completely one with him, it means you have reached the World of Infinity.
On this path, you travel the worlds, Partzufim, and Sefirot and obtain all sorts of details of perception. The Zohar colorfully describes them and tells you about various actions that make this connection possible.
Having begun approaching what the text is describing, you will start experiencing the spiritual world. The stream of bestowal from you to the others and from the others to you is, in fact, the Upper Light that you wish to uncover. It is the renewed connection with the others that you wish to correct.
While establishing this connection in the egoistic desire, you will probably receive a good life for a short while. However, following the example of the Russian Revolution, we see what such a path leads to. But if you are aimed at bestowal and wish that your connection be corrected by the Light, The Book of Zohar, and if you keep trying to find within yourself that what you are reading about, to know, unite with, and uncover it, then the text brings you corrected connections, and you extract from the book all that it offers.
Maintaining constant attunement, you truly sense how The Zohar expands your perception and fills it with new colors and inspiration. You see the renewed connection with your own eyes, and the states The Zohar is describing start emerging in it.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/10, The Zohar, Introduction, Article “The Night of the Bride”
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Question: How do I detach from everything I know and receive the Light from the lesson as if I am a white screen and learn as a child does?
Answer: Sages say that teaching a child is similar to writing on a clean sheet of paper. That is how we begin our journey. A person must always imagine that his desire faces some “field” of other desires that seem alien to him. He has to assemble all these desires into one.
It doesn’t mean that they all will melt into unified oneness. No, each of them will exist independently, but the relationships between them will create wholeness and harmony similar to that between the parts of a healthy body.
In the initial state, in Infinity before the breaking, all of us were as one body. Then, it fell apart because the ego emerged in it. We must preserve our individual ego, but correct it. What does that mean?
Each part feels separated from the others and is distanced from the rest. Now, on one hand, we have to preserve our individuality and character, but on the other, above it, we need to discover such a connection as if the ego doesn’t exist. Yet, I don’t nullify it; rather, I work with it in order to overcome the gap.
As a result, the abyss remains below. Above it, I erect a bridge to all the other parts. Thereby, we receive the complete Light of NRNHY (Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, Yechida) instead of the minimal Light of Nefesh de Nefesh that we had in the initial state.
The Creator created us as a drop of semen. Later, getting corrected and returning to Him, we use all the “matter” of our ego to grow in order to become similar to the Creator. After all, egoism totally matches Him in power. This is the “help equal to Him,” the reverse side of the Creator. We, however, turn it into the face side by correcting the egoism that separates us.
Everyone feels as one, singular, and unique, and everybody uses his individuality to serve the others, directs it toward our mutual connection, bestowal. Thanks to that, I receive a bond 620 times stronger than my egoism and experience the Light of NRNHY.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/10, The Zohar, Introduction, Article “The Night of the Bride”
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The Book of Zohar — Selections, Chapter “The Buds,” Item 5, Lesson 1
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Talmud Eser Sefirot 3, Part 8, Item 1, Lesson 2
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Baal HaSulam, “Beit Shaar HaKavanot,” Lesson 60
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Writings of Rabash, “Chanukah”
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Question: If, while reading The Zohar, I can’t keep the intention and don’t understand why it is needed, does it mean that I am “drilling a hole in the boat?”
Answer: First of all, I have to discern if I need the “boat” at all, and do I intend to achieve something or not? The “boat” is the sum of our intentions, whereas desires without intention are nothing but a big hole. Intentions that we can create above desires build the “boat” for us, the beginning (Rosh) of a degree, the screen and the Reflected Light, the spiritual vessel (Kli). The Kli is not a desire, but the intention above it.
Question: What is my responsibility before the group?
Answer: If I am trying to think about the goal, thereby, I take responsibility for my friends that they will also be thinking about it. If I am protecting our “boat” with my intentions and want us to build it up as a complete Kli which has the screen and Reflected Light, and if I am taking care of it with all my heart so that my friends also constantly think about it, thereby, I keep them in the intention.
This is what is called the guarantee. What do I guarantee? I ensure that they won’t abandon the goal.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/24/10, The Zohar
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Question: During the study, if I feel a strong pain from an injury, how do I focus on the intention and not on the pain?
Answer: We understand that we are undergoing a certain process. As we continue along this process, to the best of our ability, we draw the Light that Reforms. The Light’s influence determines everything for us.
This action is dependent on the general system which contains the souls that have already merited the revelation, the souls that still remain in deep slumber, and the souls that are on the path to awakening. We are found in between the sleeping and those who are actively working in the general system, doing all they can to help others. With the help of the advice of the Kabbalists, we are trying to understand how to wake up, to transition from slumber to revelation, to true action as fast as possible.
We were given an opportunity in the group, the teacher, and the original sources. We are supported by souls in the spiritual world who yearn to help us the way adults help children. All that is needed is our efforts.
Now, we need to really clarify what specifically depends on us so that we don’t scatter our meager strength and only confuse ourselves. Indeed, if a person doesn’t know what to do, it is best he sit still and do nothing. If he does act, he must do precisely what’s required. After all, the world is full of foolishness and excess, and if we add our own part to it, we will simply bury ourselves under useless actions and turn too far off the path.
The most powerful means of advancement is the Light. Its influence, drawn as a result of every bit of our effort, completes every step taken toward correction. Therefore, in every state, we must first and foremost see the Light’s doing.
Having realized and accepted the fact that the Light is behind everything, we must be grateful for this and recognize our state as optimal for our advancement. As a rule, every state is correct if I realize that it comes from Above. This is enough for now I have a link to the cause, thanks to which I can awaken to independent action.
This action lies in being grateful for what is happening, positive and negative alike, and trying to achieve unity and revelation of the Creator, the quality of bestowal, out of the current state. If a person is no longer in deep slumber and can consciously connect his state with the Light, the Creator, and the group, regardless of what he may be feeling, that is certainly a good thing.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/24/10, The Zohar, Introduction, Article “”Among All the Sages of the Nations of the World, There Are None Like You”
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The Book of Zohar, Introduction, Article “Among All the Sages of the Nations of the World, There Are None Like You,” Item 161: Rabbi Shimon said… “Once, a philosopher from the nations of the world came to me. He told me, ‘You say that your God rules over the whole of the heaven, and all the armies and the camps do not attain or know His whereabouts.’ This verse does not give Him much respect, for it is written, ‘For among all the sages of the nations and in all their kingdoms, there is none like You.’ Why this comparison to people, who have no persistence?”
On the spiritual path, questions arise in a person; it is as if a philosopher starts talking in him. In this case, this happened to Rabbi Shimon. A philosophical thought crossed his mind, a quite logical and rational question of this world about the Creator.
Surely, this “philosopher” is intelligent, and his postulates and arguments are true. It is said, “Believe the wisdom of the nations.” In other words, nothing in this world can withstand logic and common sense.
The wisdom of Kabbalah does not reject this. It’s just that it uses a different program, a different mind, a different approach. That’s why it’s unintelligent to apply the logic of our world to the spiritual reality. These are two incomparable things, different Kelim (vessels).
Needless to say, questions cross your mind, and there’s no doubt that you can prove your case to everyone since others use the same type of logic as you. According to the information inside the egoistic desire, your complaints are reasonable. The starting point, the approach, the analysis, and the result, everything is correct. Everything to do with our world obeys its laws.
However, we are talking about the study of the spiritual world where our laws don’t work, where our logic and perception are helpless. This is what the authors of The Book of Zohar are trying to explain.
In this case, what can I do at all? Without mind and perception, what have I got? A drop of seed? Exactly. I’ve been given the point in the heart, and from the very first moment my work on it is above the level of this world. I unite with the other points which I was brought to, I attract the force of unity with the help of the books that also do not belong to this world, and all this is to reveal the force of bestowal.
The field of my action from beginning to end is separated from our world. The earthly approach is forbidden here. This is an altogether different “territory,” a state of a higher order where the questions of “philosophers” lose their ground.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/24/10, The Zohar, Introduction, Article “”Among All the Sages of the Nations of the World, There Are None Like You”
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