Question: What is the Matronita that The Zohar talks about?

Answer: Matronita is Malchut. Our common desire to become similar to the Creator is called Matronita. The Creator (Kadosh Baruch Hu) is the general name of the Light of NaRaNHY that fills us.

However, we cannot feel the Light by itself. What is the Light of Nefesh? How can I say anything about it? Right now I tried something and felt a sweet taste, calling it the Light of Nefesh. Then I tried something else and felt a taste that’s sweeter, deeper, and with different inner shades, and I called it the Light of Ruach.

How can I measure them? I do it by the growth of my desires which have to reveal additional tastes in the new Light of Ruach compared to the Light of Nefesh. How many desires participate in feeling the Light of Ruach? Suppose there were five desires in order to reveal the Light of Nefesh. Now twenty more are necessary in order to reveal all the additional shades of sensation, which is called the Light of Ruach.

But how do I measure this Light? I do it according to how many more sensations I still have to enact in order to reveal it. That’s why one person can be listening to an opera, enjoying it, and experiencing an entire spectrum of feelings, while another person sitting right next to him will keep looking at his watch and impatiently waiting for it to be over.

From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/31/10, The Zohar

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Lately I am receiving many letters saying that people are experiencing such great inspiration, worry, and pressure as they have never felt before in anticipation of any Convention we have had. In the past people came for the sake of pleasure and with happy anticipation, but now in addition they also feel worry.

This is the result of our connection. Never before have we worked on the connection between us so conclusively and irreversibly. We did not go through all of Baal HaSulam’s articles so intensively, including “Matan Torah,” “Mutual Guarantee,” and others. We have never raised the importance so high.

Now, because of our mutual inclusion in one another, everyone is “holding” on to each other with inner vibrations. We are passing desires, inspiration, and impressions to one another. It is precisely the mutual inclusion that makes every person feel such a great sensation of pressure.

Now, without suppressing this sensation of inner unrest, we have to fill it with joy and confidence that we are attaining something very great. The desire we have created through this mutual inclusion, which for now we experience just as inner worry and unrest, will be filled with confidence, mutual guarantee, joy, and fulfillment.

Every person has to be happy that this inner unrest comes to him from the fact that he is starting to feel others more and the common excitement is being transferred to him. This is very perceptible now.

From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/31/10, The Zohar

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Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “The Need for Love of Friends”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “BeShalach (When Pharaoh Sent),” Item 218
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Baal HaSulam, “Beit Shaar HaKavanot,” Lesson 11
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Ve Zot Le Yehuda,” Lesson 1
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The Zohar, Chapter “BeShalach (When Pharaoh Sent),” Item 212: At the time when he came out to descend to the land, to clothe in a body from the seed of Levi, 425 candles were established for the king, Zeir Anpin, and 425 appointed engravings accompanied that spirit of Moses to his place. When he came out to the world, the Hey, Divinity, illuminated before him and the house was filled by her effulgence.

I am reading The Zohar and don’t understand a word. Maybe I don’t know Hebrew; and even if I know the words, I don’t know what they are describing. Even if I know the quotations of the Kabbalists, how do I know what they are talking about? They describe an absolutely different reality of about which we have no idea.

Reading The Zohar, we know nothing. We just wish for everything that we read in this Book to manifest within us. The authors of The Book of Zohar Kabbalists Rabbi Shimon and his pupils unfolded such a strong, correct connection between themselves that they attained experience of the World of Infinity. They described in this Book what they came to know, like a traveler who describes everything he feels and sees around him.

This is the way Kabbalists write about the Upper World; and they don’t experience any difficulty in doing so because they reside in it. There aren’t any tricks to it. The wisdom (Hochma) of Kabbalah is the Light of Hochma, clothed in the Light of Hassadim. It is vision, observation. So, too, must we aspire to this, and then we will comprehend what The Book of Zohar is narrating. Therefore, it isn’t necessary to be smart and educated; but it is necessary to yearn to change in order to feel what Rabbi Shimon transmitted to us.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/29/10, The Zohar

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The Zohar, Chapter “BeShalach (And Pharaoh Sent)” Item 37:  Because of the mixed multitude, they were not called “the children of Israel,” or “Israel,” or “My people,” but simply, “the people.” When they rose from Egypt and the mixed multitude had not bonded with them, He called them “the children of Israel.” When the mixed multitude bonded with them, He called them “the people.”

Speaking of what occurs in a person, the “mixed multitude” (Erev Rav) are the desires that seem to be walking a spiritual path and choose it, thinking that it is the way to advance. However, every time they decide to advance, they intend to use the Creator, the Upper Light, for themselves, for reception.

This is the most treacherous, impure force (Klipa, shell). They wish to use the Torah to satisfy various demands of egoism in their corporeal life. All the problems of the nation occur because of this Klipa regarded as the “mixed multitude.”

It is easy to discern them on the spiritual path if you recognize that it is an egoistic form that has no relation to spirituality. If I desire any pleasures of this world (food, sex, family, money, fame, power, or knowledge), such desires are regarded as the “nations of the world” in me. They want only this kind of fulfillment.

But when I start studying the Torah and want to receive earthly, egoistic fulfillment (the very same money, fame, power, and so forth) with its help, this is called the “mixed multitude.” I engage the Torah, the force of advancement and Light, in order to use it for my egoism.

All this must take place in every person on the spiritual path. After all, everybody consists of everybody else as it is written, “There is no righteous man on earth who has done good and did not sin first.” Everyone will have periods (if they haven’t occurred yet) when, amidst his spiritual advancement, there will arise a desire to make money, have power, and so on. The only question is how quickly and how correctly he will exit this state.

Similar divisions exists in the corporeal world as well. There are “nations of the world,” those who desire to receive all that there is in this world. Their desires are simple, without any yearning for spirituality, for the wisdom of Kabbalah.

There are also people who strive for spirituality and yearn to attain it to the best of their capacity. And there are those who engage in spirituality as well, but not to uncover their “evil inclination,” correct it, and thereby get closer to the Creator, meaning to use the Torah as it was intended. Rather, they study the Torah in order to get all possible wealth, fame, and power from it. Hence, it is written that all problems after the exodus from Egypt took place because they brought with them the “mixed multitude.”

So it is in our generation: There are those in the nation who study the Torah in order to gain from it the Light that Reforms and correct themselves, and there are those who engage in the Torah in order to obtain power and wealth for their earthly life.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/20/10, The Zohar

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The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion “Chayei Sarah,” Selected Excerpts
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Writings of Rabash, Dargot HaSulam “Klalut Adam”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “BeShalach (When Pharaoh Sent),” Item 212
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Explanation of the Article, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Lesson 3
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “The Freedom,” Lesson 4
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The Zohar, Chapter “BeShalach (When Pharaoh Sent),” Item 36: When that deed [the sin of the golden calf] was done, it caused death; it caused the enslavement of the Malchuts; it caused the shattering of the first tablets, and caused several thousand [people] of Israel to die. All of it was because of the bonding with the mixed multitude that bonded with them.

Question: Who are these “thousands” that died in me?

Answer: These thousands are spiritual degrees. The ones are Malchut (Kingdom); the tens are Zeir Anpin (Small Face); the hundreds are Bina (Intelligence); the thousands (are Hochma (Wisdom); and the ten thousands are Arich Anpin (Long Face). Hence, when Zeir Anpin (6 x 10 individual Sefirot = 60) ascends to Arich Anpin, it multiplies in its power by 10,000 (Ribo). Therefore, it is written: “60 Ribo” (60 x 10,000) or “600,000 souls.” If it is written “100,000,” it means that the complete spiritual rung 100 ascended to the level of Hochma (1000 is Hochma). If it is written “500,” it is also a complete rung 5 which ascended to Bina (100 is Bina).

In other words, ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, and ten thousands are the spiritual steps, their might. Every time you ascend, your rung is multiplied by 10.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/20/10, The Zohar

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Question: If The Zohar talks only about the types of connection between the souls, then what is the Light that we reveal?

Answer: The Light is the sensation of connection between us. Nothing else becomes revealed.

If there are no changes in the connection between us, who are the parts of the common soul, then there is no Light, no sensation of life. Everything is dead. On the other hand, if the parts of the Kli feel unceasing changes in the connections between them, this means that there is life flowing through the Kli, there is Light in the soul. Since different interinclusions and unifications take place between the parts, these changes provide the sensation of life or Light inside the Kli.

If they stop for a moment, everything will be silent and dead, but if everything changes, it creates a sensation of Light, the sensation of life inside the body of the soul. Therefore, it’s wrong to think that the Light is external and foreign, or that it comes to the Kli from outside. Nevertheless, we do depict it this way on charts in order to schematically explain the phenomena happening inside the Kli, reception and bestowal, the inner and the outer. We are talking about the Light in relation to the Kli.

Therefore, to feel life means to continuously reveal new facets of our unity and constant changes in the connections between different parts of our common Kli (desire, vessel, or soul).
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/10, The Zohar

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The Zohar, Chapter “BeShalach (When Pharaoh Sent),” Item 180: For the crossing of Yam Suf [the Red Sea] and the drowning of the Egyptians, their high root in holiness, in AA, had to be cancelled first. This was not possible except by the great light of Atik, which is the root of everything.

The Upper Governance comes to us from Partzuf Arich Anpin (AA) where everything is ordered according to Tzimtzum Bet, the three lines and Bina which has come out of the bounds of Rosh of AA. That is why we are governed in such a way that we have to go by faith above reason, along three lines, acquiring the screens of Bina under the Second Restriction (Tzimtzum Bet).

Partzuf Atik is already the First Restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph) and therefore it is called Atik, which comes from the word “Neetak” – separated and detached from the World of Atzilut and all the lower worlds. Atik really is infinity. Therefore the action it performs is above the system we are in. The Light of Atik does not submit to our laws; it is above them and above our nature.

We are under Tzimtzum Bet and are a result of the World of Nekudim, the breaking and the corrections in the Worlds of Atzilut and BYA (Beria, Yetzira, Assiya). We submit to many restrictions, but they are all organized so we must first of all be on the level of Bina and only then slightly attach the receiving desires (Kelim), thereby evoking the glow of Hochma inside of the bestowing Kelim.

That is why we don’t understand how it is possible for such a tremendous correction to happen that will enable us to separate from the “Egyptians,” to come out of the will to enjoy and rise above it. We perceive only very weak Lights that come from Above gradually, step by step, as “drops of luck” (Mazalot).

That’s why our entire passage across the Machsom seems impossible until the great Light GAR de Hochma comes, which is above all of our qualities and the laws of Tzimtzum Bet. This is called the crossing of the Red Sea (Kriyat Yam Suf), the action of the Light GAR de Hochma.

Therefore, the state we will have to go through is called Egyptian darkness. When GAR de Hochma shines inside desires that aren’t yet ready, it brings them darkness so great, we cannot even fathom it. The Light standing across an uncorrected desire evokes these phenomena in it.

However, the glow of the Light GAR de Hochma that comes to us from Atik opens up this difference or this “iron wall” called “the Red Sea.” There is no Red Sea, there is no end. Rather, it is canceled by the Light that comes and then we can go through it.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/27/10, The Zohar

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