Entries in the 'Zohar' Category

The World Depends On Me

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How many people must hold the intention simultaneously in order for the spiritual connection to get revealed?

Answer: Only I. If I uncover my desire to unify with the others, I discover that they are already united. It seems to me that they are not unified in order for me to work on them and them on me. Yet, all of this is in relation to me.

As long as I am not corrected, I see my corruption in them and work on them so that they influence and strengthen me. Thanks to their support, I correct myself and then see that they are becoming more corrected as well. After all, “every person judges according to their own flaws.”

It turns out that I must worry only about my own correction. What about the others then? If I see that the world is broken, I have to correct it. This means that I correct myself. In this case, if I treat the others with the intention to bestow, I don’t see them in the broken state. Rather, I see the Shechina (divinity) in them, the revelation of the Creator Who fills the entire world.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/10, The Zohar

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Working Inside The Spiritual Network

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What can be done if, during the reading of The Zohar, the intention weakens because the mind keeps trying to understand the content of the text?

Answer: We shouldn’t pay attention to it. Intention must become increasingly stronger during the lesson since the friends should think about it together. And if each of them holds the intention, it cannot be so that someone drops out of it.

Here we truly get connected in the spiritual communication network between us, not in the material one. If I hold the intention to bind myself to “Israel” (those who aim directly to the Creator), the Torah (the Light), and the Creator are one” so that I, the Creator, and the group became as one whole and reveal the Light that fills the entire reality; if all of us strive to experience this condition and, due to reading of The Book of Zohar, the Light has to reveal it to us, then this intention will “burn” in us more intensely. But if I feel that my intention has become weaker, in this, I depend on the all the others 100%.

In this respect, we are truly working inside the spiritual network. Thereby, we enter the spiritual world and act in it to the best of our ability to hold the intention and bind “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator” together.

We already act this way in the spiritual world and only have to uncover it for ourselves. Therefore, we demand the Light to reveal it to us.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/10, The Zohar

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A Human Is Defined By His Intention

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is my intention and why is it so important if my mind and feelings are not taken into account in spiritual advancement?

Answer: Intention is the human within me; it defines what I want out of everything I have within. Everything I am filled with – perceptions, mind, hopes, fantasies, dreams, the past, present, and future – all of this gets mixed and discerned by me: What do I want out of all of this?

I don’t comprehend this mixture. Everything is tangled: Today it’s one thing, tomorrow another. But what I want is regarded as my intention.

In other words, now I look above my life and everything I have and decide what is the most important to me. It is the point where I can make a decision: I can either submerge myself in the “cocktail” I have mixed and forget about everything, returning to my daily life. Or, I can rise above it and wish to excavate from all this mix only what I can use for my advancement, the future life. This is what I must decide, and this is why intention defines the human being in me.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/10, The Zohar

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Everything Is For The Best If You Rise Higher

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The Creator is concealed, but instead of Him I have the group. How can I see pure bestowal in it?

Answer: There are always disturbances in the group, and it is precisely with their help that we can do wonderful exercises, practicing to become similar to the Creator. Any negative must be used precisely as it was intended in order to turn it into a positive.

Everything is for the best; we only have to act correctly, without backing down from what is happening and by building the right attitude to it. “Everything is for the best” does not mean that we accept the inevitable ahead of time, as people commonly do. Rather, above the disturbance or example we received, we must first of all discern the final point, the corrected state. Then I will find the way to turn the incorrect into the correct, to unite myself in the present, the disturbance (which may be related to the friends, the Creator, or even my personal circumstances), and the goal of creation.

I will find out how to correct any aspect, be it a desire, intention, thought, or event. Not only will I be able to justify it and attribute it to the Creator, but I will also attach it to a connection with Him. I will understand to what extent I have to reconstruct my desire and way of thinking in relation to the given event, and how much I have to change my perception of the event in order to see that the Creator has brought me goodness.

The sign of this will be joy: I am happy because the Creator has given me the opportunity to come that much closer to Him. That is how our efforts gradually accumulate into a great possession.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/28/10, The Zohar

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No Idols

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When we read The Zohar, we try to imagine something that we are not able to perceive as of now: the general soul of Adam HaRishon and unity. Doesn’t this mean that we are transgressing the law of the Torah by “creating an idol”?

Answer: This isn’t so. I don’t picture any material images of this world. I simply wish to sense a connection with others. For the time being, I picture this connection in my limited imagination and therefore see it as conventional relations. But being described is a feeling, a desire, and not material images. Though it may be egoistic, we are nevertheless trying to draw closer to a spiritual form. A person builds himself out of what he has.

We have to strive to reveal your connection with others. It already exists, only it is concealed from me. I try to find this connection through darkness and fog and wait for The Zohar to lift the veil that’s covering my senses and reveal the true picture.

I will see this picture with my heart rather than my eyes. Then I will truly feel everything that The Book of Zohar describes. Right now, I don’t know how it will be exactly, but it certainly will be in a form of interconnections.

After all, nothing exists but the types of interconnections among the parts of a spiritual desire, which are called “the soul.” The Light of NRNHY runs between these desires. Ultimately, this Light is the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/10, “Hakdama, BeLaila De Kala (The Night of the Bride)”

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What Should You Spend Your Time On?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What should I do if at The Zohar lesson I feel like I am just wasting my time? Should I try to overcome this by faith above reason and suppress this sensation?

Answer: There are studies on human life showing that out of 70 years that we have to live, we spend 30 years sleeping, another 10 years eating, 5 years washing and doing an enormous amount of other things until at the end, after accounting for all these years, we have about one free day left – so what will you do during that day? You’ll probably sleep through it….

That’s why I ask you: What fills up your life so much that you feel sorry wasting your time on The Zohar lesson? Just think about how you live in this world for 70 years and then die, whereas here you have the opportunity to reveal eternal life. So perhaps it’s worthwhile to work for it a little.

You can persuade yourself and lie to yourself as much as you want; anything to stay in touch with this source. When a person comes to Kabbalah he first imagines something imaginary and unreal. However, we understand that the world to come is the quality of bestowal in which the Creator becomes revealed.

That’s when we acquire attainment and understanding of the Upper World. If you have attained this in your Kelim, that means it is yours and it doesn’t matter whether you are alive or your biological body has died.

The animate body was given for you to start with and to accompany you so that by starting with it you will be able to attain spirituality. Once you attain it, it means you have won, and if you haven’t attained it, you will receive another chance to do it later on.

Therefore, if the Creator has given you this opportunity and you are already sitting in the group reading Kabbalistic books, that means from now on the problem is only inside you. So don’t miss this opportunity!

Alternatively, you can decide that you do not agree with the Creator and go back to your regular life: “The shop is open and anyone can come in and borrow, but the Hand writes….”
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From the lesson on 11/25/10, The Zohar

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The Book of Zohar — Selections, Chapter “Tzav (Command),” Item 136
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Baal HaSulam, “Beit Shaar HaKavanot,” Lesson 58
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A Guide To Desires

Dr. Michael Laitman with StudentsUsing the example of the article “The Night of the Bride,” we can somewhat understand how The Book of Zohar was written. Its authors were attaining Malchut as a whole while uncovering fragments of various parts in it, such as the desire to enjoy in order to receive (angel Dumah), the part working under the Second Restriction (Tzimtzum Bet).

The male part of Malchut is regarded as “King David” and the female part as “Bat Sheba.” Kabbalists were uncovering the Light that Reforms Malchut which can feel divided into two parts and work only in one of them. These two parts of Malchut are “MI” (מי) and “ELEH” (אלה). We are constantly working on their correct combination, and by doing so, become similar to Bina and the name of Elokim (אלה-ים) that consists of them both.

Seeing our roots in the World of Atzilut and their correct performance, the authors of The Zohar discover the appellations or the numeric symbols (Gematria) of these parts. Afterward, they colorfully describe them to us and explain that once in history, when the spiritual root descends and clothes in the corporeal world, we undergo the same states.

However, only the effects manifest in this world, while Kabbalists tell us specifically about the roots to which we have to become equivalent. Therefore, while reading The Book of Zohar, we must visualize the properties, forces, and actions that they discovered at the Upper degrees and not characters and events of this world.

How do we get to see spiritual acts after all? To do this, only one condition has to be met: We must develop qualities similar to theirs. We wish to unite and uncover between us the attributes of this mutual bonding and fill with the Light of Yod-Kei (י”ה) the part of the desire that will unfold in every person.

Then, we will understand and feel how to sort our desires and separate David’s part which we can work with from the part that we cannot work with. However, we will attach the corrected female part, Bat Sheba, to David.

Everyone will find these parts within himself in order to unite with the others and correct the collective Malchut where, in accordance with correction, the Creator gets revealed. All worlds manifest between the souls in the place where the restriction and lessening of the Light occurred.

When we yearn for oneness, the concealment disappears, and we find the forms of communication that The Book of Zohar describes until we reach unlimited interconnection, the World of Infinity.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/10, “Hakdama, BeLaila De Kala (The Night of the Bride)”

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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Tzav (Command),” Item 128
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How Do You Become A Spiritual Superman?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Instead of gaining superpowers, I feel weaker from one day to the next. How can I become a spiritual superman that ascends above his ego?

Answer: First of all you should base everything on the facts. There’s no reason to get scared of the facts because everything comes to us from the Creator, who presents a process to us as a way to learn something.

The Upper Light influences our inner Reshimot, creating inside them the pictures that appear before us. He takes informational data (Reshimot) from us, projects them on our inner screen, and thus we perceive ourselves as being in a specific state.

All of these states have to happen to us on the path. So what’s the problem? Is it the fact that sometimes I feel bad and sometimes I feel good, having completely no power over myself? After all, I am governed by the Light.

Now I am receiving an explanation of how the Light influences me. But who am I? I only observe this work. That is why it is called the Creator’s work. We are looking at it from aside and should use it to learn about what is happening.

Is it unpleasant to know He is operating me? What if I looked at my friend who suddenly cries or feels happy, sometimes he sleeps and sometimes he is rushing off to some place; that would be normal because I would see the Light’s actions operating someone else. But I am not glad to observe how all of this is happening to myself.

On one hand, this is correct. On the other hand, if you start to identify with these actions, with the Creator, and if you desire to justify Him, then you won’t care what passes over you. You identify with the One who operates you and perceive yourself as the material for Him to work on.

Can you detach from this material? Can you say, “This is not me at all. If I am moving, doing something, thinking or desiring something, none of it is me. I identify with the Creator who is doing anything He wishes to this material.” That’s when you can already see yourself from aside.

Now a question arises: Can I ask the Creator to carry out other goal-oriented actions? It’s possible that this will happen, so let’s try. What actions will they be? And for what? What will He hear? What will He want to carry out? I don’t want to ask Him for something vain. If I have already reached a state where I act together with Him against my body, as Moses did with the Creator against Pharaoh, then let me ask for something real. That’s when a person begins this entire process.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/10, The Zohar

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