Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “What is, the Shepherd of the People is the Entire People, at Work”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYechi (And Jacob Lived in the Land of Egypt),” Item 81
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 15, Item 45, Lesson 18
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 18, Lesson 16
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Question: How does our desire to unite together more become expressed: in thought or in sensation?

Answer: The desire for greater unity is expressed by my desire to be in the common sensation where there is no distinction between “me” and “others,” and instead there is something that’s shared. However, I don’t know what it is. I don’t want to feel my “self”; I want to feel “us” where there is no division into “self” and “other.” This is a new reality that we produce.

On that higher level which we produce through our efforts, the desire is not divided (compared to our current level). It’s as if many drops of water come together into one great drop. Then there is no way to tell apart our previous state where each of us was separate.

It is impossible to express this accurately with our language, but it’s as if I lose myself. My “I” disappears. On the next level it turns into “we.” However, in relation to a higher level yet, our division gradually becomes revealed again.

After we attain the higher level where we merge together into one drop, new desires or new layers of egoism start being revealed in us. Where do they become revealed from? From the AHP of the Upper Level, which illuminates them. Then I begin to reveal that I am actually not connected with others, that I am alone and they are as well. This happens in our regular lives when you want to unite with someone with your entire heart and soul, but a moment later you already start to experience different calculations that divide you.

The same thing happens in spirituality, but there it happens because the Upper One starts to illuminate your flaws in this state. You thought that you had attained unity, but now you are being shown that it’s not true. You are once again divided from others by egoistic calculations and hatred, even though you thought that only love reigns among you.

The same thing happens in our world: We think that we always replace love with hatred and hatred with love, but that’s not true. The fact is that these are different levels. A greater ego is constantly revealed to us and therefore on every level evil always turns to good, and then good turns into evil, and that is how we advance.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/18/10, The Zohar

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The only opportunity to be in connection with the Upper Force that corrects us is by reading The Zohar. Certainly, the other books also help in this regard, but The Zohar has the greatest force to connect us.

If we could keep the right intention for a longer period of time, we would read The Zohar more often. As a matter of fact, we are still unable to maintain the right intention for more than 45 minutes. For the duration of these 45 minutes, however, we must concentrate on exactly what we desire from it and how we imagine our future state described by The Zohar. It is very important.

In our world a child takes examples from adults, wanting to become similar to them in everything he sees. Nothing else is important to him. He has no understanding, attainment, or anything else and just repeats the examples that the adults demonstrate to him.

In a similar way, we should desire to feel the reality that The Zohar tells us about and imagine that everything is the connection among us. The Zohar constantly describes the connection between us: Zeir Anpin, Malchut, the three lines, limitations, and so on. We reveal all of this among us since our shared desires is the only “place” where revelation can happen. Therefore, we don’t need anything except for a shared, strong desire for the Light to come and reveal the connection among us. All these phenomena that we read about in The Zohar are to be found there.

The action itself is quite simple, but it is not easy to accomplish. It takes time to achieve a state in which I sit in front of a book, imagine that it is talking about the connection among us, and in it, I reveal all these words and actions. Everything is in the connection among us; this is where the Creator is revealed.

It is quite difficult to combine all this, but when you achieve it, the desire to reveal the connection among everyone becomes the only link with the Upper Force. And you have no other means except for the holy Book of Zohar which describes the states that you will reveal.

Then, like a baby that strives to be like an adult, you desire revelation and aspire to it with all your might.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/12/10, The Zohar

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Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “True Prayer is in our True Deficiency”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYechi (And Jacob Lived in the Land of Egypt),” Item 63
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 15, Item 42, Lesson 17
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 17, Lesson 15
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Excerpts from my upcoming book, A Guide to The Book of Zohar

Some of the souls within the general system are already corrected. If we, too, desire to attain the revelation of the Creator, but feel that He is concealed, then from the spiritual standpoint, we exist in “darkness” or “night.” It is precisely in this time of “night” when we have to exert efforts and raise our prayers whereupon those exalted souls in which the Creator reigns will influence us through The Book of Zohar.

The Book of Zohar was written specifically so that we could create the link between us and these souls. When we read The Zohar, we establish contact with them, and in return they send us a force called the Light that Reforms through this Book.

For the time being, there is no compatibility (equivalence of form) between our souls and the Light, so this Light is not yet penetrating our souls so as to fill them. Nonetheless, it acts upon us as a mother’s womb, enveloping, embracing, and caressing us. The Light gradually corrects us until we begin to perceive it, the corrected souls with whom we’ve established contact by reading The Zohar, and the Creator who reigns in the entire system of souls.

This Light is called the Surrounding Light. As we continue to correct ourselves, it enters us, fulfills us, and becomes the soul’s “Inner Light” which is our spiritual life.

Inside the mother’s womb, which this Surrounding Light forms for us, grows the middle line. The middle line is a precise calculation on my part which combines the two forces of nature, the force of desire and that of the Light, in the most optimal way for the Light to correct the desire.

The part of the desire that becomes corrected in this process and thereby similar to the Creator is called the middle line. In other words, the middle line is the measure of my ability to become similar to the Creator. It is the Creator’s image that I have constructed within myself and out of myself by this process. It began with that very request: the prayer that I had raised in the time of the “night.”

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Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “The Matter of Fear and Happiness”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYechi (And Jacob Lived in the Land of Egypt),” Item 42
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 15, Item 38, Lesson 16
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 14, Lesson 14
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The Zohar, Chapter “VaYechi (And Jacob Lived),” Item 26: “And he called his son Joseph.” Jacob questioned his sons and told them, “I see many and great troubles coming over your children. It is necessary to find higher Rachamim [mercy].

Everything described in the Torah, The Zohar, and all the “holy books” (books written by Kabbalists, those who attain the Upper World based on their sensation of that world) takes place exclusively inside of us. Nothing exists outside of us!

Our entire current reality, everything we feel now is intended only to help us awaken to the perception of a new reality, or more precisely, to form it inside of us. We have to change our qualities and then we will form the world to come, a new reality inside us. There is no time or external changes. We are only being awakened with the help of unpleasant states in order to change and see the only true reality, the World of Infinity.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/16/10, The Zohar

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Baal HaSulam, Rabash, and other great Kabbalists tell us that if we desire to advance, the easiest way to do so is never to stop thinking and imagining that we are all together. They are describing the spiritual reality while already being there. But how can we get there? To do this we have been given an auxiliary means: to imagine that we are connected through love and mutual guarantee with our friends who also desire to attain the same reality.

In this way, by doing my inner work I enter a state that is concealed from me. I don’t see it yet and I can’t imagine or understand it. Therefore, let’s imagine that we are together. This will definitely bring us closer to revealing the reality described by The Zohar.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/16/2010, The Zohar

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Question: Besides the desire to understand The Zohar, I also really want to remember the definitions of words in order to connect them to each other. What should I do if I constantly forget?

Answer: You need to demand to feel! It is very good that you forget. Kabbalists prayed to forget everything they learned every minute. There is always a break between the degrees when everything you attained on the previous degree is forgotten and erased from your sensations and memory.

We attain in sensations in the corrected desire. All the names and titles about which we read in The Zohar (HaVaYaH and Elokim in all the various combinations and manifestations) are revealed in the corrected desire. When they are revealed one after another in my desire, I begin to work with my feelings just like in our world.

It seems to a person that feelings are less important than the mind. However, feelings come and unite with the mind in order to help or serve it. If we learn all the parts of Study Of The Ten Sefirot, this is just to rouse us to use all this knowledge as a basis to demand feelings. After all, “learning” means “uniting,” and “knowledge” is unification or adhesion (Zivug).

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/11/10, The Zohar

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Question: You said that in order to comprehend The Zohar we have to make an “an opening in the heart.” Who makes this “opening?”

Answer: The Light! I myself am unable to do this. Only the Light can. As if through a magnifying glass, the beams of Light concentrate and become so powerful that they “burn through” your desire to feel pleasure thereby creating an “opening.”

Question cont.: Why can’t we make this “opening?”

Answer: It is not our job to make this happen. When two hearts unite through their desires, it is called the “openings” in the walls of their hearts. A wall in the heart means a whole heart, but we need the broken hearts. If our hearts, yours and mine, are “breached” and we connect these “breaches,” the job is done. I want what you want, and you wish what I wish. We are bonded already. If two have united and are connected in the quality of bestowal, that’s where the revelation takes place.

How powerful this revelation will be is based on everything you and I have in our hearts, besides the breaking and these “breaches” connected together. There are thousands of obstacles in your heart, all sorts of thoughts and worries; I have them too.

To the extent we are able to overcome these obstacles and stay connected, grounded in them all and constantly holding ourselves above them in order to remain in the common sensation of the quality of bestowal (since only through partnership can we stay in it), to that degree are we able to attain the property of the Creator in the connection between us. Thereby, we try and discern the taste of bestowal.

Question cont.: How do we connect the “breaches” in our hearts?

Answer: It is done by the Light. Our job is only to wish for it to happen. No other action is necessary! While reading The Book of Zohar, you wish for its words to “drill” and open a “porthole” in you.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/11/10, The Zohar

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