Excerpts from my upcoming book, A Guide to The Book of Zohar

It is important to understand why we need all this. The fact is that the Creator desires to bestow to begin with, so there’s no point in asking Him to give us Light and pleasure as we usually do.

The Creator has what we need and He has the will to give it. However, He wants us to not merely be receiving from Him, but to become like Him, meaning to be great, independent, bestowing, and similar to Him in the quality of love and bestowal. Therefore, this is precisely what we have to ask for in order to acquire that which the Creator has: the will to bestow and the quality of love and bestowal.

We are used to asking for fulfillment but what we need to ask for is correction. As soon as we become corrected, the Creator’s Light will instantly fulfill us. In other words, our problem is that we don’t understand what it is we should ask of the Creator. We exist in an ocean of Light, goodness, and pleasure, but we lack the necessary vessel to feel all this abundance within. This vessel is the quality of love and bestowal, and that is what we need to ask of the Creator. As soon as we acquire this quality, the Light of abundance will fill us on its own.

There is only one restriction set by the Creator, only one condition for receiving the Light: We have to become like Him. After all, He desires for us to feel just as much pleasure as He does.

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Question: What does The Zohar mean by, “When a person lies asleep and the soul leaves him and testifies to that person” (Chapter “Lech Lecha [Go Forth],” Item 359)?

Answer: The soul is the Light in the desire (Kli). We can correct our desire to receive only in the Sefirot of Keter, Hochma, and Bina, while correction in the Sefirot of Zeir Anpin and Malchut can only be partial. For this reason, the largest Light that can manifest in us for now is the Light of Neshama, while the Lights of Haya and Yechida can serve only as small supplementary illumination from below upwards.

Therefore, our collective desire is called “the soul” (Neshama), by the name of the greatest Light that the soul can contain within it until the end of correction. If the desire exists in a state where it is able to attain the Light of Neshama, it is called the soul (Neshama). That’s because we name desires by the names of the lights which fill them. However, if the desires cannot contain these lights and be filled with them due to the lack of the screen, there is no soul. It is because the filling is the screen and the Reflected Light, the property of bestowal.

The soul is not my reception of Light from Above. The soul (Neshama), like all of the Inner Light in the desire, is formed by my giving this Light to someone else, by passing it through myself and thereby getting filled by it. This is called my Light, the Light that I receive. I receive the opportunity to bestow, and that’s what fills me.

This is why “at night,” when I am not yet able to correct my desires and gain control over them with the help of the screens (the property of bestowal), I receive a negative impression in my desire called darkness. But what is “darkness”? Darkness is when I cannot bestow and this state feels as “night,” meaning the lack of bestowal on my part. I feel regret and prepare to correct my desires.

I merit the “day”  through my work “at night.” I got up at dawn to attend the Kabbalah lesson and united with my friends; I made various corrections and obtained new desires and screens. In all of these screens and desires I create a new form of bestowal that fills me. This means my “day” has begun.

Hence, “night” is also a spiritual state for it is the preparation of desires. And if a person doesn’t have a desire to attain bestowal, even the “night” doesn’t exist for him for we define “day” and “night” according to our spiritual states.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/5/10, The Zohar

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Shamati #42 “What is the Acronym Elul in the Work”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Lech-Lecha (Go Forth),”  Item 463 and Chapter “Shoftim (Judges),” Item 1
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 15, Item 19, Lesson 11
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“Kabbalah Today,” A Lesson on Current Events
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Excerpts from my upcoming book, A Guide to The Book of Zohar

The Upper worlds do not exist in corporeal space; rather, they are like qualities without space, volume, weight, or size. When a person exists in his inherited egoistic desire, his qualities paint for him the picture of “this world.” But once the “point in the heart” awakens in him, he begins to want to attain the Upper dimension.

By working on himself in a group of friends who study the wisdom of Kabbalah, he begins to draw the Light from the degree of “Infinity” which descends onto him from Above through all the worlds. This Light creates within him the need to achieve the quality of bestowal (Malchut of the World of Atzilut) along with his group. Having achieved that level, he begins to feel the Creator and to bestow to Him just as the Creator bestows to the person.

The common desire of the souls united in the Malchut of the World of Atzilut ascends to Zeir Anpin, then higher to Aba ve Ima, and higher still to the World of Infinity. Then the Light descends from the World of Infinity through all the degrees back to the souls and fulfills them. With this fulfillment the souls grow and unite with Zeir Anpin who bestows to them. This is called the unification of ZA and Malchut, the Creator (Kadosh Baruch Hu) and Shechina, the merging of the souls with the Creator.

Many such actions are necessary before all the desires within the souls actualize themselves and bring about the adhesion with the Creator. When all the desires are corrected and bestowing to the Creator, just as the Creator bestows to them, it will be the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun).

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Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “Preparation for Repentance”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Lech-Lecha (Go Forth),” Item 423

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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 15, Item 15, Lesson 10
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot” Item 8, Lesson 10
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, “The Intention in the Prayer” and “Raising a Prayer”
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Excerpts from my upcoming book, A Guide to The Book of Zohar

In order to let us realize the entire process of spiritual development, the Creator created the system of connection between Him and us. He uses this system to control us from Above, and from beneath we can use it to ask for and receive help from Him.

This system divides into several parts:
1. The World of Infinity, where the Creator is found with His fully revealed strength.
2. The level below the World of Infinity referred to as the “World of Adam Kadmon,” where the Creator divides His influence into five types, according to the five levels of our ego above which we can ascend.
3. Beneath the World of Adam Kadmon, there is the governance and surveillance system which we refer to as the “World of Atzilut.” The World of Atzilut divides into five parts: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut that are called Atik, Arich Anpin, Aba ve Ima, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut (Nukva).

• The Zohar refers to Atik and Arich Anpin as to the “unattainable head” of the World of Atzilut;
• Aba ve Ima are Hochma and Bina from where all the Lights of Hochma and Hassadim come to us;
• As they pass through Zeir Anpin, these Lights come to Nukva, that is, Malchut of the World of Atzilut, which is called “Shechina” since all of the Light from Infinity, intended for the souls, comes to it. This Malchut is also called the “gathering of the souls of Israel” because it incorporates all the souls that wish to become “Isra-El” (“straight to the Creator”), that is, to ascend to the World of Infinity.

4. Beneath the World of Atzilut are the Worlds of Beria, Yetzira, Assiya (Worlds of BYA), where our souls exist.
5. This world is located beneath the Worlds of BYA.

In the language of The Zohar, Malchut is called “earth” and Bina (Ima) “heaven.” In The Zohar, Zeir Anpin and Malchut are also referred to respectively as Shochen and Shechina , the Creator (Kadosh Baruch Hu) and the gathering of the souls of Israel, the Groom and the Bride, the Masculine and the Feminine parts (Zachar and Nukva). Every one of these components of reality receives many names from The Zohar in the language of the legends (Midrash). And for this reason, in order to help us connect with their inner essence, Baal HaSulam meticulously adds Kabbalistic terminology next to the words of The Zohar.

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Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “The Importance of Faith that Always Takes Place”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Lech-Lecha (Go Forth),” Item 382
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 15, Item 137, Lesson 9
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 8, Lesson 9
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The Zohar, Chapter “Lech Lecha (Go Forth),” Item 356: “The law of the Lord is perfect” because it contains everything. Happy are those who engage in the Torah and do not part from it, for anyone who is separated from the Torah for even an hour, it is as though he has parted from life in the world. And it is written, “For it is your life and the length of your days,” and it is written, “For length of days, and years of life, and peace, will they add to you.”

In the wisdom of Kabbalah, we study the two components of creation: the Light and desire. The Light impacts the desire, whereas the desire merely results from the Light’s impact on it, as it is written, “Light moves desires.”

The universal Light called “the Creator” (Kadosh-Baruch-Hu), the Light of Infinity, leads the entire evolution of the desire through various states, step by step, in a cause and effect order to the equivalence with Self. It is done so that the desire, despite its being created as “existence from absence,” would attain the same condition as the Light, “existence from existence.”

Actions taken by the will to receive pleasure while progressing in stages toward this goal (equivalence with the Creator, the property of bestowal) are called “discernments,” “corrections,” “fillings,” the purpose of which is “adhesions” (Zivugim). “Adhesion” means partial or complete (at the end of all corrections) equivalence to the Light. During these adhesions, the bond between the “will to receive in order to bestow” and the Light, the property of bestowal, manifests.

All our actions are called spiritual work, during which our desire with the help of the intention to bestow attains at least some equivalence with the Light, partial adhesion with it, until such actions reach the highest adhesion called complete correction.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/5/10, The Zohar

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Question: Why is it said in The Zohar that “There is nothing new under the sun”? Is there something new above the sun?

Answer: There is something new above the sun since the Light does not bring new desires (Kelim) to the creature. The creature has to discern within itself, want, put forth efforts, and find new desires and deficiencies of fulfillment.

The Light of the sun is the Light of Infinity. Creation senses the sun’s Direct Light as minimal illumination (Nefesh de-Nefesh), and in this way it discerns new deficiencies within itself against the revelation of the Creator’s greatness. This occurs through multiple discernments of being opposite to the Light and of egoism being opposite to bestowal. By doing so, the creature discovers new possibilities of bestowal. Because of this, in the light of His greatness, the previous Light of Nefesh de-Nefesh, a sensation of the Creator, is then sensed as endless “Yechida” of the Light NRHY.

The revelation of this great Light, the greatness of the One Who bestows, is the reason for the Light “above the sun.” It is higher than knowledge, desires, and fulfillments coming directly from the Creator to the creature. Therefore, the Light of the sun is only a spark of life, and the rest of creation is built above the sun, adding the aspiration of love to the original desire.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/5/10, The Zohar

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