Question: Since after the Convention, while reading The Book of Zohar, I feel as if I have fallen into a black hole. What should I do?

Answer: You should try to climb out of it! Be like a frog that dabbles in the milk it fell into and whips it with its legs until the milk becomes cheese. Then the frog is able to jump out.

There is no other choice. It is written: “Whatever is in your power, do it!”
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/16/10, The Zohar

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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Hakdama, BeLaila De Kala (The Night of the Bride),” Item 129
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The Book of Zohar — Selections, Chapter “Tzav (Command),” Item 18
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Baal HaSulam, “Beit Shaar HaKavanot,” Lesson 19
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose,” Lesson 4
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Question: Where and how Arvut (mutual responsibility or guarantee) is described in The Zohar?

Answer: The Book of Zohar describes it as follows:
שהשפעת ו״ק דחכמה, הנוהגת בקו האמצעי, מכונה עדות, which translates as: Expansion of small illumination of the Light of Hochma that occurs in the middle line is called testament. In other words, when a person develops a capacity to arrange the three lines, the Light within him holds him in spirituality, bestowal, and this is what guarantees that a person will not fall into egoism ever again.
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Everything depends on the support of the environment; without it, it is impossible to advance spiritually. When you acquire a spiritual environment, then all the great Kabbalists who attained the spiritual world during their lives in this world, all of their souls will become your group.

You will enter the “Upper Assembly” of Rabbi Shimon (the spiritual level called by that name). You can connect to higher sources, but only to the degree it is necessary! Now you simply do not need this power.

If you needed the group that includes Baal HaSulam, Rabash, the Ari, Rashbi, and other great Kabbalists of the past from Abraham until today, then you would receive it. However, right now you do not need it. As soon as you need it, you will reveal the spiritual group in addition to the material one. Perhaps you won’t even need a material group because just the spiritual one will be sufficient.

If the souls start to help you directly, it is called “a donkey driver.” The Creator sends a high soul called “a donkey driver” so it will always help a person. But this help comes in response to your plea that you need spiritual ascension.

It’s similar to how Rabbi Abba and Rabbi Yossi, whom The Book of Zohar talks about, are on the path where they open the Torah and discover that they cannot reach correction on their own. They need the revelation of a special force that will help them to ascend.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/16/10, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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The Zohar, "Introduction of The Zohar," Chapter "BeLaila DeKala (On the Night of the Bride)": …at the great Zivug of the end of correction, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, as it is written, “When in the evening time there will be light.” Thus, her degrees are doubled, since during the 6,000 years in the state of the moon she was “and there was evening and there was morning.”

Eventually all of our descents, all of the dark nights join the Light of day, the revelation of the Light. Day and night become one whole. In reality this isn’t talking about "doubling" or even multiplying by 620 times, the way it is written.

At first the Creator gave me a small spark, and did not give me anything else. Then, by working on my desire, I turn to the Creator, the Light, and demand corrections. Thanks to these corrections I become similar to the Light with my qualities and the Light clothes into me.

Inside my desire the Light is perceived as infinite and boundless. Why? The matter is that when the desire for pleasure begins to grow inside us, it discerns and forms itself independently. The previous sensation was left to it from the Reshimot that descended from Above downwards, and they are completely different from the ones it now realizes.

As a person ascends, on every level he realizes himself according to previous Reshimot, but he adds his aspiration, efforts, and descents to them. He reveals the gap between himself and the Light, the gap which was never revealed before.

A person is separated from the Light and aspires after it. The Light comes, but then a descent comes; this happens again and again, and thanks to all of these experiences, which throw him from end to end, a person finds new details in his desire.

He discovers unprecedented depth, a completely new Kli, an independent yearning, an unheard of aspiration to the Light. Previously not one desire or Reshimo were recorded in his account, but now, when he makes efforts, even if it is done in a childish manner, it forms new Kelim inside him.

That is why the Light that now becomes revealed incomparably exceeds the Light that filled the desire before the breaking, before our work on the path upwards. The descent of the worlds and all the efforts until now were just a general preparation to the real correction. In it the smallest Light, the Light of Nefesh, is revealed.

Baal HaSulam writes that very small Lights were revealed before, but now, when our generation begins to correct itself, it attracts the greatest Light in all the worlds – the Light of NaRaNHY.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/16/10, The Zohar

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The Zohar, "Introduction of The Zohar," Chapter "BeLaila de Kala (On the Night of the Bride)”: …through the deficiency of the light, which is the night—which includes all the Dinim and torments, which are opposite to the quality of day, Hesed—there is fear of Him. Were it not for the fear, the measure of day and morning would not appear.

Our first correction is fear. I am afraid of receiving the Light directly into my desire. I am cautious; I tremble and fear that I won’t be able to hold back and will "open the door" to the pleasures that come through in the Light.

Like a guest who refuses a feast, I lock all the locks, fearing the possibility of receiving these pleasures not for the sake of bestowal.

The first phase of correcting my desire is to keep it back from directly receiving the Light. This is called "return from fear."

This is the first quality that I have to acquire, the fear that all of my actions would be only for the sake of bestowal.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/16/10, The Zohar

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Question: Why do the descents make a much bigger impression in our sensations than the ascents?

Answer: It’s because we are egoists. We were created out of the will to enjoy, which experiences pleasure or suffering. There is no middle between them, and therefore even when I am in a neutral state where both pleasure and suffering are absent, I feel bad. I lack pleasure. I always demand a positive; zero is not enough for me.

That is why a person is dissatisfied. He has a home, a job, and plenty of food, but something is still missing. Either the grass is greener on his neighbor’s side, or life is devoid of meaning.

Our egoistic desire is not satisfied with what it has. As a result we suffer from the lack of an addition, and this addition must definitely grow as our egoism grows.

Besides, our source is the Creator, who created us. He is the only, single, and irreplaceable one, and every one of us feels the same way. So where can we find fulfillment for someone who is so unique?

That’s why it turns out that we never find satisfaction, not through pleasure, nor through the right self-realization. That is the nature of egoism. The smallest descent is enough for all of our heroism to vanish into thin air. We would agree to anything just to avoid feeling empty inside!

The desire for pleasure depends entirely on the Light. As long as it receives Light, it is full of energy, even though it doesn’t understand where that energy comes from. But as soon as the Light grows slightly distant, you feel helpless and would agree to anything in order to correct the situation in some way.

Look at the world: there’s terrorism, murder, theft, and lies. It would seem that if you gave every person what he wanted, no one would do anything bad. So who’s to blame? It’s the Creator, who does not reveal Himself and thereby evokes bad things. All that remains is to make the right conclusions from the above.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/16/10, Introduction to the Book of Zohar

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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Hakdama, BeLaila De Kala (The Night of the Bride),” Item 128
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The Book of Zohar — Selections, Chapter “Tzav (Command),” Item 1
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Baal HaSulam, “Beit Shaar HaKavanot,” Lesson 18
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose,” Lesson 3
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The Zohar, “Introduction to The Zohar,” “The Night of the Bride“: There is a book of remembrance before the Creator about the sins and transgressions taking place in the world. For He needs them for the day when He will perform a miracle (Segula).

Question: What is Segula?

Answer: The Upper Force, or the Creator, or the Light, is inside the group. I can receive corrections only if we study the primary sources together with the group.

This is Segula – the special means, the works of Kabbalists, which make it possible to unite a person, the group, and the Creator into one whole. Their unity is possible only on the condition that the system they are in is used correctly.

Even now we are part of it. The worlds and Partzufim are all here, but in order for them to come through we have to evoke the influence of spiritual forces upon us. Desire alone is not enough. We need a means that will set the system in motion so it will start working on me through the group.

The system is set in motion with the help of the primary sources. That is why we study the works of Baal HaSulam, Rabash, Ari, and Rashbi. Without this I cannot establish a connection with the spiritual system and set it in motion.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/15/10, The Zohar
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The Zohar, “Introduction of The Zohar,” Chapter “BeLaila De Kala (Night of the Bride)”: … the members of the bridal chamber must be with her on that night and rejoice with her in the corrections that she is corrected….

Question: What is the criterion of our advancement? Is it hatred that becomes revealed to us in the beginning or the opposite, joy?

Answer: First of all, I advance if I do not cease to mentally gaze at the place which I want to reveal. It is called the “bride,” and it is precisely there that the “groom” (the Light that will fill the “bride,” our unification) will descend to. (In Hebrew, a groom is “Hatan” which comes from the word “Nochet,” a descending one.)

If a persistent demand to reveal that place lives in me, then I’m glad for the effort that I can exert constantly. And it’s not important how often I stray, forget, or get distracted by a rational analysis.

It is said about this, “From Zion shall go forth the Torah.” In other words, advancement is comprised of these exits (Yetziot) from the attempts to re-define the place of our unification.

Each time I have to lose my concentration. After all, any state consists of 10 complete Sefirot. In spirituality, an action is performed only if all the 10 Sefirot are present (Ein Mi Ksat Be Ruchaniut). If I correct something, I have to correct a full measure. Each part of the desire demands separation from the previous state and a new approach to unity, to a new 10 Sefirot.

This is why we disconnect from the goal again and again, even if it just for a split second. Time after time we lose the target and catch it again at the crossroads.

Due to these efforts at night we “adorn the bride” (clothe her in the Light of Hassadim [Mercy]). That is, we build the Kli (vessel) until it becomes fully disclosed and ready to accept the groom, the Light of Hochma (Wisdom), the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/10, “Hakdama, Laila de Kale (The Night of the Bride)”

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