Entries in the 'Zohar' Category

Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 09.01.10

Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “What is Day and Night in Work?”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYechi (And Jacob Lived in the Land of Egypt, Item 144
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 4, Item 67
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 20, Lesson 20
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How Can You Help A Friend?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can I help a friend acquire the right intention?

Answer: When a beginner first comes to Kabbalah, he does not see, hear, or feel what it is talking about. He is immersed in his own thoughts and desires. He sits down and studies together with everyone like a baby who was just born and does not perceive anything or understand what kind of world he is in. Or it can be compared to a sick person who has lost consciousness.

I remember myself after a car accident when I lay in bed unconscious. Sometimes I would slightly regain consciousness and hear voices on the outside. Sometimes I could even reply to them, but I did not see anything or react in any way. This is similar to a person who comes to study Kabbalah: He is present and not present. He needs time and care from others, the way people take care of someone who is seriously sick or a baby. This kind of care can help him to advance slightly.

If the assistance does not help, then the person has to be left alone and given time to gradually make order for himself. This may take him several months or years until he begins to hear Kabbalah rather than himself.

When does a person really start to hear for the first time? It’s when he feels that unity with others opens up spiritual sensations for him and that this is exactly where the entrance to the spiritual world lies.

Therefore, the bigger and stronger the environment, the more it accelerates a person’s development and influences him, forcing him to move faster on his own.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/31/10, The Zohar

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Two Birds Heard The Herald

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Zohar, Chapter “VaYechi (And Jacob Lived),” Item136: “One bird comes out to the south, right—the one that comes from a spark of Hochma. Also, one bird comes out to the north, left—the one that comes from the spark of Bina. One comes out when the day rises, from Hochma, and one when the day sets, at evening time, after midday, from Bina. Each calls and declares what it heard from that herald… from the illumination of the midnight Zivug, called ‘a herald’.”

This is speaking of a person’s inner states when he analyzes the self and undergoes various processes of discerning the three lines within himself. He examines to what extent is he positioned in equilibrium in the right, left, or middle line.

“Day” and “night” don’t come from outside. We always remain in the Light and our Kelim are divided into multiple types in which we perceive the right, left, and middle lines, as well as upward and downward, as well as all directions and times. The division into internal and external Kelim gives us the sensation of distance and space, close and far, and the classification of desires into “root, soul, body, coverings, and abode.”

All these peculiarities, as well as day, night, morning, evening, and various hours, are processes taking place in our desire. In fact, desire is the only thing we possess. Through dividing into numerous types and constantly unfolding them for us, the desire gives us the sensation of the occurring changes in time and space in the emerging states.

We classify them as four types of perception, “World, year, soul, and existence of reality.” All these modifications take place within us as a result of our correction since everything except us remains in absolute rest. Only the Reshimot keep unwinding and unfolding either “in its time” (Beito) or “Ahishena,” which is when we start accelerating this process and hastening the time.

Therefore, the “birds” that flew in “night,” “day,” “morning,” “evening,” all the planes such as “root, soul, body, coverings, abode,” and the existence of reality are perceived within a person in his desire. However, I think that I am surrounded by a world full of people, that everything is spinning and life goes on. Yet, only one thing is within my reach: What steps will I take toward the correct perception of reality?

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/31/10, The Zohar

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The Zohar Is The Remedy For Every Illness

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Zohar is just like the Torah in that there is no need to read it in an orderly fashion. You can open up the book anywhere you want to! It’s similar to Psalms; you can open up any psalm and read it. You can even begin reading any psalm starting in the middle of it.

The most important thing when reading holy books (meaning books written by those who attain the Creator through the quality of holiness, bestowal, Bina) is not what you are reading or the things you read about, but the intention: What do you want to attain by reading?

One way or another you are reading about the Upper World, which you don’t feel or understand. The Zohar is the highest source of all the holy books. It is the most powerful source of Upper Light, the Light of Correction. It’s like an infusion to a sick person, or like a medicine that you take.

What do you want to attain by taking this medicine? What does "being healthy" mean to you? Depending on this, the force of The Book of Zohar can be the elixir of life for you, or a deadly poison!

Therefore, before opening up this book, you must think and feel, attune yourself, prepare and discern: What are you hoping to receive from it now? You are hoping to receive medicine, which is symbolized by a snake. A snake’s venom can be truly poisonous, or it can be the remedy for every illness.

Therefore, before opening up The Book of Zohar, we must have the right intention so instead of attracting deadly poison, we will attract the elixir of life that saves us. When people study the Torah without the right intention, it becomes dry and lifeless. This is even more dangerous when we are reading The Book of Zohar, the greatest source of power.

It wasn’t an accident that for so long The Zohar was concealed from regular people and revealed to Kabbalists. A Kabbalist, meaning a person who attained the right desire, was sure to find this book in some way. It was sent to him through someone or in some other way. He was brought to the place where he could find it.

However, it was not revealed to other people because in the past we were unable to arm ourselves with the right intention. That’s why The Zohar would only have brought harm upon us. Today, however, we open up The Book of Zohar with the intention that it will bring us goodness, that it will become the source of life for us instead of turning into deadly poison.

The Zohar contains such enormous force that we must be careful to open it only together and with the right intention. That is why it has become revealed in our time and offers us incredible opportunities. We want to offer it to everyone.

However, every person must know that only the right intention while studying The Zohar can turn it into the elixir of life.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/31/10, The Zohar

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A Guide To The Book Of Zohar: "We Were Like In A Dream"

Dr. Michael LaitmanExcerpts from my upcoming book, A Guide to The Book of Zohar

The most complex and, at the same time, the most fascinating subject related to The Book of Zohar and life in general is the perception of reality. There are many waves around us that we presently do not perceive, such as radio waves. There is also an all-inclusive field of information. The field of higher information is called the higher nature or the Creator.

This field fills the entire space around us. We are capable of establishing contact with this field and receiving everything from it: feelings, understanding, knowledge, love, and also the sensation of eternal life and wholeness that’s inherent to it.

The whole purpose of the wisdom of Kabbalah is to teach us how to develop within ourselves the instruments to perceive this field of higher information. This is possible only via an inner transformation, and as we attain it, we become similar to this field: the Creator.

We exist in this field even now, but we are incapable of perceiving it.

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 08.31.10

Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “What Are the Two Actions During the Time of Descent?”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYechi (And Jacob Lived in the Land of Egypt, Item 123
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 4, Item 63
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 20, Lesson 19
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The Zohar Is A Source Of Strength

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The more I read The Zohar, the more I realize its power. Is The Zohar truly that deep?

Answer: I will say only this: It’s difficult without The Zohar. You will often feel the need to return to it throughout the day. Anyway you look at it, it’s simply a source of strength.

In the beginning, when a person just opens The Zohar for the first time, he doesn’t know why this book magnetizes and charms him so much and why it is so difficult to go without it. Some start feeling this sooner than others. For some people it can take a long time to feel the power hidden in this book.

Yet sooner or later, everyone begins to feel that they need The Zohar. It’s like water: We need it more than food.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/30/10, The Zohar

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The Middle Line Is The Soul

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Zohar, Chapter “VeYechi (Jacob Lived),” Item 119: “Only your fathers did the Lord desire.” “Your fathers,” actually three—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It writes, “Only,” really only, that there are no more than these three, and from them all the others branch out and grip, meaning all the degrees in BYA. They rise for MAN to ZON, to crown the Name, to extend new Mochin to the Nukva, who is called “Name.”

The Zohar always brings us to the middle line in all the states. That is its mission: to constantly show us how we can arrange the two lines we receive from Above, from the Creator – the force of bestowal and the force of reception. The Zohar shows us how to build our reality out of them so we are above the force of bestowal and the force of reception. We ascend above both of them and receive them to the degree we are able to include one inside the other. Their mutual combination builds the middle line in us.

The middle line is built out of the sum of two lines, by using the best from both of them. The middle line is formed when the left line becomes included in the right line, and the right line  in the left line, and then you take what is shared between them – their mutual combination from both sides (Malchut in Bina and Bina in Malchut). That is how you make the middle line.

This is the fundamental principle, and the same thing happens to the soul. The soul does not exist unless we build it. Even though it is called “a piece of the Creator from Above,” in fact this piece does not come from the Creator unless I build it through the connection between us. This spiritual vessel (Kli) does not exist. We build it in the form of a connecting net between us.

The same thing happens with the middle line because it is the soul. The right and left lines, bestowal and reception, come to us. They are both forces of nature. When I combine them in the right way, then the middle line or the soul is formed out of them.

In our relationships we deal with the forces of bestowal and reception. Based on our reception we build the form of bestowal, and that is how we attain the soul by creating a middle line between us. There is no reality besides the one we build between us. Everything becomes revealed there, in that reality.

The Zohar brings the middle line to us from Above. While reading it, we have to try to become included into that line. Then we are tuned to the same wave through which the Light comes to us and returns us to the Source, the Creator.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/30/10, The Zohar

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 08.30.10

Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “When A Person Knows What the Fear of God Is”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYechi (And Jacob Lived in the Land of Egypt, Item 110
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 4, Item 59
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 19, Lesson 18
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In The Light Of The Creator’s Face

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Zohar, Chapter “VaYechi (Jacob Lived),” Item 103: In the light of a king’s face is life, and his favor is like a cloud with the spring rain.” This is so because when they accept the face of the Divinity of the Creator and engage in those Merkavot [chariots/assemblies] from which the animals of the world come, the animals that carry the Merkava [singular of Merkavot], as written in Ezekiel, it will be said about them, “In the light of a king’s face is life.”

Everything depends on the illumination from Above. However, just like everything, “Above” is “inside a person.” It is inside our sensations although it belongs to the “higher,” more advanced states.

In the spiritual world (or sensation), there is no time, space, or motion. The only difference between everything is a greater or smaller importance relative to the quality of bestowal, the Creator. If I acquire a force or quality that brings me a greater quality of bestowal, then to me this state is more important or “higher” than the previous. It is called “illumination from Above.”

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/29/10, The Zohar

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