The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us how to correct the desire that represents the entire matter of creation to a degree that we start sensing the Force that permeates the universe: the Creator (the Light). There is nothing except this Force and desire.

Revelation happens in accordance with the law of equivalence of form: Desire feels the power of the Light to the extent of its correspondence to it. Full revelation of the Light is the program and the purpose of creation. It means that we have to correct ourselves to a degree of complete equivalence with the property of the Light: bestowal.

For that purpose the whole system of worlds was created; it helps us to change our desire and make it similar to the Light. This world is where the first steps are made; later, we rise into the Worlds of Assiya, Yetzira, and Beria. Nine lower Sefirot of Malchut of the World of Atzilut is where the broken souls “dwell.”

Keter, the upper Sefira of Malchut, is above the Parsa, in World of Atzilut, where bestowal is in effect. The property of reception acts below the Parsa.

Malchut receives the forces from Zeir Anpin. For us, Zeir Anpin is the Upper One, the giver; we receive everything from him. In its turn, Zeir Anpin is connected with the higher Partzuf of the World of Atzilut, Abba ve Ima (AVI), a part of which is Yeshsut. Below, there is the Partzuf of Arich Anpin (AA), which receives the Light from Infinity (Ein Sof) and passes it down the chain to Malchut.

The major issue for us is how we (the broken souls that live in the Worlds of BYA) rise to Malchut de Atzilut. By including ourselves in it, we begin to take part in the process of correction. The World of Atzilut corrects broken desires that bear egoistic intentions.

The desire to receive is unchangeable; it is matter which cannot be altered. But desire can be used in two different ways: It can either be filled from the inside by receiving, or it can be utilized for bestowal. In the second case, the desire will receive for the sake of bestowal. It is possible only as an outcome of love and union with others.

The Book of Zohar helps us mostly at the first stage of our rising to the World of Atzilut. The sequence of actions is as follows:

1.      We raise our request to get corrected (MAN).
2.      The answer (MAD) returns back to us in the form of the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif) that empowers us.
3.      We rise upward to Malchut de Atzilut.
4.      Malchut delivers our request to Zeir Anpin.
5.      Zeir Anpin gives Malchut powers and corrects the souls.

Thus, all we do is work with the Light. Our work is intended to attain union among us in order to correct our desire by applying intention to bestow to it. This becomes possible only as a result of the Light’s influence.

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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/15/10, “Hakdama, Laila de Kale (The Night of the Bride)”

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Question: How can we keep the intention at every moment and lead the attack together with the group?

Answer: Intention is the most important thing there is, and it is the only thing we should focus on. Let The Zohar sound on the background of intention.

The Torah, meaning the Kabbalistic method, is called a “spice.” My “food” is an enormous pot of desires that have to be used correctly.

Only a pinch of spice is necessary for it — a little bit of The Zohar‘s Light. It comes, and we draw the food out of the pot spoonful after spoonful, until we realize all our desires for the sake of bestowal.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/21/10, The Zohar

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Question: What exactly is the Light that Kabbalists talk about?

Answer: There is a special force in our reality called “Light.” This force is concealed, and you cannot feel it. But if you study the wisdom of Kabbalah, then you will be able to awaken this Light, and it will start working on you.

What does it mean “to study the wisdom of Kabbalah?” There are people who have already attained the Creator, equivalence of properties with Him, and described the various states of existence ,which they have uncovered in their relationship with the Upper Force in the Upper World.

Obviously, while reading their books, you are unable to understand anything written there because you are not in the same world and don’t know anything about it. You hear only what you can imagine in your own world even if the text speaks about the spiritual world, which is totally different from this world.

If, while you are reading the texts of the Kabbalists, you desire to be in the Upper World with everything you have within you, then through your aspiration you evoke a special force from the Upper World. This force is regarded as “the Light.”

You can awaken it because you have a spark from the Upper World, which was planted in you at birth. Then the Light that comes from the Upper World shines upon it.

Therefore, if you wish to awaken the Light and get it to act on the spark, read Kabbalah texts and concentrate on this. Nothing else is needed. You don’t need to understand what is written in the book, have a sharp mind, or be especially lucky. You just need to be an ordinary person with a desire for the world that the Kabbalists describe to you to constantly work on your spark. Then, the spark will gradually grow until you suddenly start feeling what they are talking about.

This is exactly what we need while studying The Book of Zohar. But the force of this Light only comes to a person if he strives to be in the Upper World, that is, aspires to be in bestowal.

But how do I know what it means to be in bestowal? Kabbalists say: If you read The Book of Zohar in a group and visualize that you are connected with the others as one organism, without any difference between you, and if you possess one desire, one intention, one aspiration toward the force that illuminates you, then this one singular, undivided force will act on your united desire, and you will indeed reveal this Upper Force that is working on you and promoting you. This is what is called the revelation of the Creator to the created beings.

Hence, we are reading The Zohar in the group, with an intention that we are coming together in our desires to reveal the Light so that it would act on us, correct us, and manifest within us.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/8/10, The Zohar

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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Hakdama, BeLaila De Kala (The Night of the Bride),” Item 138
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The Book of Zohar — Selections, Chapter “Tzav (Command),” Item 56
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Baal HaSulam, “Beit Shaar HaKavanot,” Lesson 46
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose,” Lesson 6
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Question: What do we need to do in order to aspire towards the high state of unity that exists in The Zohar?

Answer: This comes from disappointment. No matter what I tell you now, it will not help until you develop an urgent need, aspiration, a vital necessity. Only then will you turn to the group.

When you know that you have a big problem, your life is at risk, or you are ill, then you run for help. But when you do not feel ill, do not see that there is a problem, or do not believe that anything will help, you remain still. This is why we need a deficiency. Either the Creator gives us a deficiency as He pushes us from behind with suffering, or we make a connection with the environment without waiting for suffering and try to receive an opposite reaction from it.

I come to my environment without experiencing a need for it; I simply follow the advice of the Kabbalists. They are wise, and I listen to them. This means that the Creator places man’s hand on a good faith and says: “Take it! Take it! Why should you suffer?”

Then we receive additional desire from the group. This is how it works. Those who are lucky will hear, turn to the group, arrange for this booster of desire, and come to the Creator though the group.

Ultimately, the group needs to direct a person towards the Creator. The connection with the group and our entire work is the preparation of the desire, the Kli. And then we come to the Creator.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/17/10, The Zohar

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Question: During the Convention we really wanted to attain the goal, and then we discovered that our ego would not let us do it. Why won’t the Creator answer our prayers and let us rise above this mountain of egoism? Why are we unable to do this?

Answer: The Creator is the general force of bestowal. He created our force of reception. These two forces stand one opposite the other like stringers of a ladder with rungs in between.

As you correspond to a higher step, you ascend to it, advancing to a new degree one step at a time. Everything is in your hands. You have been given a key to nature in order to change your own nature and make it similar to that of the Upper One.

You ascend as soon as you become similar to it, but when you are different from it, then you remain in the same place. It does not depend on the Creator, His desire is constant; He is Good and does Good. The Creator does not change, this force is absolute and invariable.

But in order to let you ascend, the Creator divided the entire path into steps or states. Every time that you are like the Upper degree, you ascend to it, and as you become even more like it, you continue to ascend higher. Between each step, you have to prepare yourself for the following step, and this way you continue ascending each time.

You have no one to pray to, no one to ask. This is why you can’t object: “Why won’t the Creator help me? Where is He? Where did He go? What is going on? What else does He want me to do?” Essentially, when you pray and ask, you are judging yourself in relation to the Upper Light that shines for everyone in an equal, constant, and unchanging manner. Everyone can take as much as he wants from it.

It is written about the Creator: “I do not change my HaVaYaH,” “There is none else beside Him,” “The Good Who does Good.” He does not change. When you correlate your properties to His, as if He were thinking about or reacting to your cries, then you are making all of it up. Throughout history people have been attributing human characteristics to forces of nature: the wind, the rain, the moon, as well as the Creator. But this does not exist!

We are working against nature. Kabbalists explain to us that Nature where we exist has its own laws. In Hebrew, the numerical value (Gematria) of “nature” and “Creator” is the same. We can use these laws and continue to ascend its degrees time after time until we reach the universal Nature referred to as the level of Bina, the Creator (Elokim).

This is why it is clear to me that if I have not yet received it, then the problem is in me. I have no one to fear and no one to ask.

It is correct to say that the Creator rules over us. Doesn’t nature rule over us? Yes it does. Tsunamis, hurricanes, and other natural disasters occur, and it is surely nature’s rule over us!

In nature, there are two opposite forces which constantly collide and battle: the force of bestowal and that of reception. It all happens according to the program that leads us towards the purpose of creation. In the beginning these forces are completely opposite, but they gradually become closer until they unite. This is the process of development in nature.

This is why you have no one to work with but the group. You can change yourself through the group and make your properties similar to those of nature. The group is an adapter between your desire, which you do not control, and the Creator, whom you cannot control either. The group, the society, the environment, is your only power; it is the only thing you can change.

Hence, if instead of advancing unconsciously according to nature’s program that leads the entire creation towards unity with the Creator, I want to change something; if I want to advance towards Him on my own, and not by nature’s cruel forces, then I only have one choice: to work with my environment.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/17/10, The Zohar

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The Zohar, “Introduction to The Zohar,” “BeLaila De Kala (The Night of the Bride),” Item 128: …Zeir Anpin unites with Malchut, and she sees her husband…For she will not be able to see her husband until they all gather. And they depend on one another.

Malchut incorporates all the souls. Without them she is merely a point in the World of Atzilut, a point of Keter that has nothing of her own.

The broken souls, in other words, I and the group are found beneath in the Worlds of BYA. I want to unite with my friends, and my desire rises towards Malchut. From there it rises towards Zeir Anpin, and from there even higher toward Infinity (Ein Sof). Then as a response from her, I receive the strength to ascend. This way, the only thing that goes to Malchut is my desire to become part of the group, when I force myself into it.

I want it even stronger, and only this kind of pressure rises above to become incorporated in Malchut de Atzilut. Only it constitutes MAN, the actual appeal for correction.

[26560]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/15/10, “Hakdama, Laila de Kale (The Night of the Bride)”

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The Zohar, Chapter “BeShalach (When Pharaoh Sent),” Item 470: …as it is written, “For I will surely blot out the memory of Amalek. “Blot out is above,” “I will blot out,” below. “Memory” means the memory above and below.

“Above” and “below” do not speak of our world since it is not subject to correction; there is nothing to correct in it. This whole world that we live in while staying in our bodies (just like other people) before the point in the heart awakens in us and we find a group through which we connect with spirituality has nothing to do with correction and/or with spirituality.

We are talking about desire that originates from the point in the heart and later on is incorporated in the group (meaning into the assembly of other points in the heart that we have to reconnect together). The Zohar speaks only about this process. The rest of reality that we observe around us bears no relation to correction or spirituality.

We see a huge material world around us, but it doesn’t exist in spirituality. It is given to us only to serve as a basis from which we start our spiritual lives. Relative to the spiritual world, our world doesn’t exist. It is an imaginary reality from which we can enter spirituality independently, by ourselves.

The Creator gives us a point in the heart that allows us to advance. If we put our inner state through a filter that really separates the spiritual (authentic) world from the “unreal” one, only points in the heart would pass through this filter. The rest of this realm would be stopped by the filter and vanish since it simply doesn’t exist.

In other words, our imaginary reality has only one purpose: to allow the points in our hearts to enter spirituality. We have to continue living in this reality until we manage to connect all the points in the hearts into one spiritual realm and thus reach complete correction (Gmar Tikkun). Afterwards, this imaginary picture will disappear.

Until then, our world won’t vanish. In each action of correction (from the first to the last) we have to stay within the “unreal” image of our material world because that’s where we start a new round of correction each time.

It is written about Rabbi Shimon (the author of The Book of Zohar) that before his last correction he identified himself as “Shimon from the market,” meaning that he fell into this world and sensed only this dimension of life. From this world he managed to attain the highest level of correction.

This is the reason why the imaginary reality that we call “our world” is so important: It provides us with a sense of separation from spirituality. Because we sense separation, we independently manage to correct each portion of our uncorrected desires. We do it while staying in this world, which is totally absent from the spiritual realm, “from absence.”

This is why this world is so important. Everyone has to lead a normal life: have a good job and family, study, and comply with whatever this world requires of us. Without this world we will not become similar to the spiritual world; we will not correct ourselves or enter spirituality.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/15/10, The Zohar

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Writings of Rabash, Dargot HaSulam “Inclusion of the Attributes of Mercy and Judgment”
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Writings of Rabash, Dargot HaSulam “Be Happy with the Whole Building”
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Writings of Rabash, Dargot HaSulam “Be Happy with a Complete Building, Part One”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Tzav (Command),” Item 48
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Explanation of the Article, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Lesson 4
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The Book of Zohar, Introduction, Chapter “BeLaila DeKala (On the Night of the Bride)“: …the Sitra Achra has only a thin light of the illumination of Malchut. This is regarded as Shoresh [root], and it is sufficient for the persistence of the Klipot… This Shoresh is also called “a fine thread,” meaning a thin root for the sins. It is written about it, “At first, it is akin to spider-web, and later it becomes as cart-ropes.”

Klipa is Kelim that we are unable to correct yet by the intention of bestowal. We are talking about very powerful and important desires in which the greatest Lights will be revealed later on at the final correction. In principle we do not have the possibility of doing anything with the desire for pleasure. We can only sort out its parts and decide which of them we are now able to work with on various conditions.

As for the rest of the desires, we have to “can” them and constantly keep guarding them so they won’t break out and attack us. All the enemies of Israel, meaning those who hate the aspiration “straight to the Creator,” are exactly the great egoistic desires which we cannot correct yet. The Torah calls them the nations that never let Israel be.

Of course, we understand that their wars are the awakening of egoism, which is for a person’s benefit. They enable him to discern his uncorrected desires and “to kill” them, meaning to always find new parts in them that can be corrected and attached to him in order to be used for the sake of bestowal.

Thus, we need to worry about the egoistic parts of the desire which are not yet subject to correction. We have to support their existence and perform special spiritual work for their sake.

After all, I feel them inside me. It’s not enough to simply cut them off and not use them. On the current phase I correct them by giving them a small illumination, designated by the letter Kuf (ק), whose lower part descends beneath the line, bringing a thin glow to the worlds of BYA and to the Klipot that are there.

It’s the same as how a sick person is connected to a life support machine in the emergency room. It’s not that I pretend that these desires don’t exist in me, but on the contrary, I admit that they exist and I rule over them. It turns out that they depend on me because I support a small spark of life in them.

We need the Klipa because, like a peel, it protects the fruit during the period of its ripening. Without these actions we are unable to start correcting Malchut.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/18/10, The Zohar

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