A question I received: How do I combine inner work with studying The Zohar?

My answer: Don’t think that The Zohar was written to serve as an ordinary book to tell or explain something to us. This isn’t the case. Baal HaSulam wrote his commentary for a different reason as well. We don’t study using our earthly mind to comprehend what is written and to learn in detail how to work in the three lines by memorizing all the terms. We must understand the necessity for correction and not the structure of it all.

The additional commentaries on the authentic sources provided by the Kabbalists (on the Kabbalistic works of the Torah, the Prophets, and other sacred texts) are impossible to comprehend through the ordinary, external mind. They can only be comprehended through correction of the soul. Therefore, all Kabbalistic commentaries are primarily designed to draw the Upper Light onto the student. Then, the reader can use the sources correctly, enjoy the light contained in them, and, along the way, discover what is written in the books. This is what is called commentary.

Every commentary is an additional instrument that helps us to connect to the authentic source, not to just understand it. When we are reading Baal HaSulam’s so-called “technical” explanations about the three lines, Sefirot and Partzufim, ascent and descent, and Reshimot and screens, we think that he is trying to teach us some regular science for us to learn with our brain and to be able to draft all this schematically. But, this is not the case.

Baal HaSulam’s addition, “The Sulam Commentary to The Book of Zohar,” helps us to draw the Light that Reforms. Its purpose is not to give us abstract knowledge of the structure of some higher world. It is impossible to know the Upper World until we are able to perceive it within our souls. Essentially, we are studying our own construction.

A person begins to sense that the entire reality, all of creation, is enclosed within him, not outside of him even though it appears to be external. Therefore, we must tune ourselves into studying correctly with an understanding that we will gain nothing but the Light that Reforms. After this, attainment will follow, and “the soul of a person will begin to teach him.” First, we must receive this soul, the spiritual substance, in which we will discover all the phenomena about which The Zohar speaks.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/23/10, The Zohar

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Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, Article “The Matter of Bestowal,” 1984
The veil of concealment will fall when I will truly wish to bestow.
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYetze (And Jacob Went Out),” Item 118
“The holy land” is the desire that’s totally aimed at bestowal. “Other lands” are the desire aimed at receiving.
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Preface to the Sulam Commentary,” Item 73
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 1, Lesson 1
The Hebrew language is based on Lights and Kelim. The purpose of this language is to explain the spiritual development in all its depth.
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYetze (And Jacob Went Out),” Item 88
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Preface to the Sulam Commentary,” Item 22
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot, Item 76
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Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, Article “Make Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend – 1,” Lesson 2
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From the articles of Rabash: Malchut’s guidance is called “Chukat” (corpus juris/code of laws). But it is only the law of the Torah, not the Torah itself. This means that in order to attain the Torah, we have to accept the laws it bestows on us. Otherwise, it is impossible to receive the Torah. When a person accepts Malchut’s governance over him, he is called Israel.

We all are the desire to receive pleasure. This desire is similar to a mountain, hill, or a pile of sand that has no form. From this “sand,” with the help of water (Hassadim), we must build a shape in the likeness of the Creator much like we are able to shape the sand on the seashore.

This is our work, the process in which we build the correct form from shapeless “sand” as we study the qualities of the Creator, copy them, and mold ourselves from it – called “chukat” (the code of laws). The forms that we acquire ourselves are called “chukat.”

Ultimately, the cause, effect, and the forms of bestowal that we are building, one by one on the foundation of the will to receive, will all join together. Nothing disappears in spirituality; the foundation remains, and ultimately this construction will transform into an image of the Creator that we create by ourselves.

It follows that the creatures create the Creator. This is written in The Zohar. Therefore, all the great laws that we receive from the Light, along with the revelation of the Creator, exist for us to realize them on our own.

From the Evening Zohar Lesson 6/14/10

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A brief summary of the weekly Torah portion of “Chukat,” Part 7: Then again, the nation starts to complain about being taken from Egypt. In return, the Creator sends snakes that kill many, and then the nation asks Moses to pray for the affliction to be removed. Moses prays for them and receives instructions on how to remedy the situation with the help from a “serpent of brass.”

Throughout the entire spiritual path, a person becomes confused with multiple questions and doesn’t know what to do. He bends under this load, eliciting the appearance of “poisonous snakes,” desires for pleasure instilled into the very foundation of creation. However, by seemingly creating a “serpent of brass” a person can help himself. He begins to understand and feel that everything he perceives is not really alive, but is in fact a “statue.”

If the snakes come from the outside, they appear to be a manifestation of the Upper Force. When a person tries to create them on his own, it becomes clear to him that they have nothing to do with the Upper Force, but rather they are a product of his own imagination, and that they come to him as a silly obstacle on this path. That is why as soon as Moses crafted a serpent of brass, the problem was resolved and the people of Israel no longer had this trouble.

This is one of the ways that the Torah uses to explain to us how to defend and correct ourselves. The “brass serpent” is an extremely interesting method for taking over our “evil desires” (our egoism). We build our own opposition to enable us to acknowledge that it is only an illusion. You can tell the difference since you are the one who builds the “idol.” Call it “occupational therapy” if you want. This is how a person rids himself of the problem by evoking a “serpent” from within. It goes without saying that all these actions are internal.

A comment I received: On the one hand, it says, “Don’t make an idol,” but in this situation, it is the Creator who orders Moses to make an idol.

My Answer: This is correct. Sometimes we need to behave like we do with our children. To stop their fears, we deliberately force them to do what they are afraid of: “Let’s get closer to this dog and you’ll see that it won’t hurt you.”

You look at images and think that they are sent to you by the Creator and that a “snake” is a manifestation of the Upper Force which controls you. But the Creator says: “No, do the same thing and you’ll see that it is you who imagines it; you draw the picture of this snake. In fact, there is nothing there; it only seems like there is to you.

If you make an “idol,” you will see that it is empty, that these "poisonous snakes" that come and frighten you contain nothing except for what you put into them yourself. You created them, not the Upper Force. Build them and you’ll see that it is true. A “serpent of brass” is a cure that allows us to treat our egoistic desires correctly.

From the Evening Zohar Lesson 6/14/10

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A brief summary of the weekly Torah portion of “Chukat,” Part 1: The nation of Israel continues to wander around the desert and comes to Kadesh, which is situated in the desert of Tzin, where the nation begins to complain about the lack of water. Moses and Aaron turn to the Creator for advice and He tells them to ask the rock to give them water in front of the whole community. However, instead of asking the rock, they hit it. This angers the Creator, and He sentences them to die in the desert, and not to be among those who will bring the nation to the land of Israel.

A question I received: If the Creator gives us the point in the heart and takes us through all the states Himself, then why does He get angry?

My Answer: Obviously the Creator creates all the problems for us right from the start. He gives us obstacles every step of the way, no one else does. In the cruelest manner, He first performs evil, and then yells, punishes us, and later makes a suggestion: “OK, do it differently that will be better for you.” However, while we are in that “better” state, He once again makes it even worse for us and punishes us once again.

Why does He get angry? This wrath is correction. A person feels the Creator’s behavior inside himself; this is the way we are arranged. We cannot correlate this feeling to the Upper Force and to what happens inside It. After all, nothing happens in the Creator; He exists in absolute rest.

However, since we still don’t exist in a completely corrected state, our reality is separated into “me” and “outside of me,” “me” and “the world that surrounds me,” “me” and “the spiritual world,” and “me” and “the Creator.” However, everything that is seemingly external to me is in essence me; for the time being, it just seems to exist outside of me.

Therefore, the Creator’s behavior, which is presented to me in various forms, is really only the way I imagine Him through my own qualities. If I correct myself, I will see that love, nothing except love, comes from the Creator. But, while my external desires are not corrected, these desires bring me either a sensation of an evil world or a sensation of an evil Creator.

From the Evening Zohar Lesson 6/14/10

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The Zohar, Chapter "VaYetze (And Jacob Went Out)," Item 60: … Indeed, so it is in the Merkava—Abraham and Isaac are right and left, and Jacob is in the middle. It is written, “The land,” Nukva, “On which you lie.” Thus, together, they are all one holy Merkava, the three lines with the Nukva. And here Jacob saw that he would be the senior among the patriarchs.

The Zohar tells us so much about the lines and especially about the ones that are opposite one another (about Abraham and Isaac) since we simply don’t sense yet how hard it is for a person to work with intention and action that are opposite one another. After all, in our world, everything works in one direction. If I give to someone with the intention to do something good for myself, it doesn’t mean that I give and that I work in two directions. It is work in a single direction which is for myself.

When we begin to work outside of the desire to receive pleasure, then every element includes two opposites which are in intention or in action. Hence, it’s not a coincidence that The Zohar always encounters such calculations. It seemingly says over and over where Abraham is, where Isaac is, and where Jacob is, or in other words, where the right line and the left line are.

This is because the work in three lines is very difficult on each level. It is the connection of the desire to receive pleasure that doesn’t have anything to do with spirituality, or with the intention to bestow so that this exact desire would become active, determining, building the foundation, and performing a spiritual act.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/14/10, The Zohar

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The Zohar, Chapter “VaYetze (And Jacob Went Out),” Item 59: “And behold, the Lord stood above it.” Here in the ladder, Jacob saw the connection of faith, the Nukva, tying all the Sefirot as one. “Stood above it” is as it is written, “A pillar of salt,” a mound, since all the degrees as one are on that same ladder, the Nukva, connecting everything in one knot because that ladder was given between the two sides.

It is written, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac.” Those are the two sides, right and left—Abraham is right and Isaac is left.

Malchut is an image, a picture of the Creator. We are within Malchut. Actually, we are Malchut and we sense everything within as a picture of this world. In fact, we always sense the Creator and nothing but Him. The problem is that we sense Him in accordance with our properties and to the level of our similarity with Him.

Sensations always come from the Light, but the desire (the vessel of its perception) senses itself as a certain object depending on its opposition or similarity to the Light. That’s why the Higher Sefirot constitute properties that are present in Malchut and include the Creator’s attitude toward Malchut’s attempts to become similar with them. They are called Sefirot since they illuminate inside Malchut which “lights” them because of its corrected desire to receive pleasure in order to bestow. That’s why it is luminescent.

The Upper Light doesn’t illuminate itself; it is hidden. Only to the degree that the lower one advances and attempts to become similar to the Upper One do the properties of the lower one light up and then are called Sefirot.

Everything we feel begins and ends within Malchut. Anything we can imagine existing prior to Malchut is an illusion of our perception. Similarly, we envision a certain reality around us, but in fact there is nothing at all; everything is within us. We simply divide all of reality into “me” and “something outside of me.”

The same happens in spirituality: We divide all of reality into a soul that as of yet has no sensation of itself and something that is outside of it. But when our correction is complete, everything comes together and there is no difference between “external” and “internal”; everything merges into one point.

As a person advances, he begins to see that even though the whole picture around him becomes wider, more intense, and complicated, at the same time, it concentrates and organizes itself into ten Sefirot. This allows us to arrive at the conclusion that everything depends on our perception, that is, on the measure of our similarity with the Light.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/14/10, The Zohar

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At some point, we will start feeling how much text is missing in many places of The Zohar. Being the commentary on the Pentateuch (The Torah, The Prophets, and the Scriptures), The Zohar describes the whole of reality: HBD-HGT-NHY of the common soul, Malchut of the World of Infinity. But the original text was hidden from us and only a small part of it remained. Apparently, we don’t need more for our correction. The parts of The Zohar that are not relevant to our current correction most likely refer to the already corrected parts of the system.

For this reason, one can sense certain omissions and incompleteness in the text. Even though we may not be noticing it just yet, we will increasingly sense it more. We will also feel how beneficial these omissions are. The soul that strives for correction seeks perfection. Hence, the missing parts that the soul senses as if invite it to cling to the corrected souls which have corrected these parts. This is why we are missing them today.

This should make us understand that we exist within the living system of souls, where some parts complete the others. The missing parts of The Zohar invite us to join the souls that carry these missing revelations. If we unite with them, we will thus complete all souls.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/14/10, The Zohar

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The Zohar, Chapter “VaYetze (And Jacob Went Out),” Item 51: …It turns out that she is like a polished mirror, which is concerned not with showing her own form, but only with the form of others, those who look at her or those who stand in front of her.
She resembles a mirror also because the whole quality of the glass mirror is the murky color in its other side. It reflects the rays of light, for if it were transparent, no shape would be seen in it. So is the Nukva—all her strength is in the Masach in her, which detains the light from shining from her down. Without this Masach, there would have been no light in her at all.

We read The Zohar but we don’t understand it; we read it but don’t feel anything. Ultimately we have to reach a state when the question “What is it all for?” will plunge us into despair, disillusionment, to an inner explosion and realization that we have no other choice but to unite, and in this inner unity, reveal what The Zohar speaks of.

There is no other method, no other path. We must overcome this barrier. There are many obstacles on our way: laziness, lack of understanding, and the mind’s protests due to its inability to comprehend. However, none of that matters. We only need persistence that brings us to a state of despair and the realization that there is no other choice. We must reveal what The Zohar speaks of precisely here in our unity. That which The Zohar describes is revealed only in the unity among us.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/13/10, The Zohar

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