The Zohar, Chapter “VaYigash (Then Judah Approached),” Item 102: …“A voice is heard in Ramah [also means ‘height’ in Hebrew]” Voice is the Nukva which ascended and is heard in Bina, which is called Ramah (the height), the Upper world. “In Ramah” means that the Nukva dresses Bina’s left line, as it is written: “And in that day did the Lord, the God of hosts, call to weeping, and to lamentation…” This is caused by the awakening of the large vessels that are located there. They block all its lights, and this is the second correction. Then, “The river shall be drained dry,” meaning the two Temples are ruined.

The breaking of the common soul was necessary for its later correction, so that through the process, the design of the Creator could be understood. In the science of Kabbalah, we study everything that happened in the Upper Worlds, all the preparation for the creation of our world. Only beginning with our world, do we start the corrections, which occur from below upward.

We should view our history exactly like that. The ruining of the First and the Second Temples and all that we have gone through during history was only the preparation performed from Above downward. And only now we are beginning the correction, the ascension from below upward.

It is written in the Talmud Eser Sefirot and the “Preface to the Science of Kabbalah,” all that takes place in the Upper Worlds including the breaking of the common soul was implemented from Above downward by the will of the Upper Force without any interference by the lower one.

The lower begins to act only now, after the mixing of all the desires and after the last exile, now when the possibility of (space for) free will arises, now when The Zohar is revealed, and now that all the conditions for ascension have been arranged.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Building The Third Temple
Laitman.com Post: Inheritance Of The Land Of Israel
5 Minutes of Light: "The Spiritual Method For Our Generation"

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - No Comments →

A Discussion About The Nature of the Female Part of the Soul
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Filed under: Women, Zohar - No Comments →

The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYigash (Then Judah Approached),” Item 64
While studying The Zohar we should transform into the “characters” in The Zohar, so we can sense what they sense. After all, these are our spiritual qualities.
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Preface to the Sulam Commentary,” Item 52
The greater our plea to the Creator, the more strength we receive from Him to obtain His form, which is bestowal.
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Rav Yehuda Ashlag, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot, Item 39
The Creator concealed Himself from us so we wouldn’t be like puppets; so we would reveal Him independently and obtain His qualities.
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Writings of Rabash, Article “Forever Will a Person Sell All that He Has and Will Marry the Daughter of a Sage,” Vol. 1, 1984 
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - No Comments →

The Zohar, Chapter “Tetzaveh (Command),” Items 132-133: “And boughs of thick trees” are three, three lines, HGT…“And willows of the brook” are two, NH, which have neither smell nor taste, like people’s thighs.
The Lulav [palm branch], Yesod, takes them all and includes them, like the spinal cord in the body….
With these kinds, which correspond to HGT NHYM, man should be seen before the Creator. The leaves in the palm tree imply to all the other armies, which unite in these appellations by which the Creator is called.

The Zohar is intended to help us achieve attainment rather than understanding. Attainment means the realization of corrected desire and the beginning of sensing and seeing the spiritual reality. Understanding comes only afterward. That is because we don’t have the Kli for understanding, we don’t possess the properties which The Zohar describes.

It’s not about a palm branch or other plants that we know in this life. The Zohar tells us about forces that acquire the shape of particular branches in our world. It explains the spiritual roots that we can’t understand since we are unaware of where they are and what they look like.

That is why we listen to The Zohar without the slightest understanding. We only realize that it describes the reality that we don’t yet perceive. In error, we visualize pictures of this world which is the wrong approach.

Our only resort is to think about our unity and how to reveal what’s written in The Zohar within the connection among us. It is a story about connections within the Upper system and the revelation of the Creator through it.

That is why Baal HaSulam writes in Item 155 of his “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot” that Kabbalists wrote their books not only for themselves in order to share knowledge, but also for all of us as a “miraculous remedy” (Segula). Even if we don’t understand what we read, but keep the intention of attaining the Upper reality that the Kabbalistic books talk about, we attract the Surrounding Light which returns us back to the Source, to the Creator.

The Light directs us and provides us with the intention to bestow instead of the intention to receive for our own sake. Then we start sensing the Upper reality that exists within the property of bestowal. That is, we attain the spiritual world.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/4/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: When The Heart Understands
Laitman.com Post: The Work In Clarifying Our Desire
5 Minutes Of Light: : "Inner Work And The Zohar"

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - 1 Comment →

The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYigash (Then Judah Approached),” Item 53
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Filed under: Zohar - No Comments →

If I stay alone for one moment, without the support of the group, I will immediately fall. By myself I have no grip on spirituality, the Creator, or bestowal. I can either be within my spiritual vessel while I am connected with the others and receive support from them, or outside of it. As soon as I lose their support, I fall.

One cannot advance and achieve something on his own. He won’t be able to keep himself in spirituality even for an instant. If a person thinks that he can advance on his own through reading Kabbalah books, performing some actions, and keep on the spiritual path, then it is self-deception. One will be lying to himself and only hoping in vain for advancement. Without participation and connection with the group, called the mutual guarantee, we have no chance to stay in spirituality even for a moment.

Besides, to be present in the spiritual environment doesn’t mean to be in it physically. What matters is how strongly a person desires this environment to impact him since that testifies to his desire to put himself under the influence of the Upper Force or the Creator. But if a person simply reads Kabbalistic texts in solitude, he will not be under the Creator’s influence because everything one reads passes through his egoistical filter. A person will perceive the book as he understands, feels, and desires to see it!

Thus, I’m under the influence of the Creator only if what I read comes to me through the group. The Creator or the Light “dwells amongst his people,” meaning within the group, the assembly of the souls.

Individually we have no chance for spiritual advancement. We have to understand very clearly that our only instrument to unveiling the Creator is our unity.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/6/10, Article, “Concerning the Importance of Society”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Reaching The Right Request
Laitman.com Post: Why Was The City Of Sodom Destroyed?
Kabbalah Moments: “Group and Light”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Zohar - 3 Comments →

The Zohar, Chapter “VaYigash (Then Judah Approached),” Item 2: However, everything was created in the Torah, and everything was perfected in the Torah. And as the Torah begins with Bet, the world was created in Bet. This is so because before the Creator created the world, the Nukva, all the letters came before Him and entered one at a time in reverse order, in the order of Tav-Shin-Reish-Kof and not in the order of Aleph-Bet-Gimel-Dalet.

Item 3: The letter Tav came before Him and said, “You wish to create the world with me.” The Creator replied, “I do not, since many righteous are destined to die in you. …This is why the world will not be created in you.”

Item 4: The three letters, Shin-Kof-Reish, approached each on his own. The Creator told them, “You are unfit for the world to be created in you for you are the letters used for reading Sheker [deceit/falsehood], and a lie is unworthy of rising before Me.”

This can be compared to how we ask the Creator to help us unite the desire (Kli). The letters are the formation of Malchut. Essentially, it is her that we are trying to construct from our points in the heart.

Hence, if we come to the Creator with our desire (although we don’t presently realize it), crying like infants not knowing exactly what to ask, it works as though we are appealing to the Creator in all kinds of forms and letters. Yet we get nothing in return until we discover the correct desire or the correct letter.

Item 5: The letters Peh and Tzadik approached, and so did all of them until they reached the letter Chaf. When the Chaf descended from the Keter [Keter written with Chaf in Hebrew], the upper ones and the lower ones were shaken, until everything came to exist in the letter Bet, which is the sign for Beracha [blessing], and in it, the world was perfected and created.

We have to attain a desire, a state where only the blessing from Above can give birth to our spiritual vessel. Only if we join the force of blessing and become one with the Creator (and not by any other efforts of ours) can we acquire the spiritual Kli.
[#15242]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/6/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: How To Ask The Light For Correction
Laitman.com Post: Wanting To Be Like The Creator Above Everything Else
Laitman.com Post: Letters Are Qualities

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Prayer and Intention, Zohar - No Comments →

There is no Light without a vessel, and no fulfillment without a desire. The Upper Light is in a state of complete rest; it fills and surrounds creation entirely. Everything depends solely on our desire, our vessels of perception. If we yearn for this particular fulfillment, we will perceive it. However, if our desire does not correspond precisely to the frequency or quality of the fulfillment (meaning there is no equivalence of properties between the desire and what fills it), then we don’t feel fulfillment. Multiple examples of the corporeal world attest to this.

We have to bring our desire to the Upper Light to be filled. To do this correctly, the desire has to correspond to the Light, that is, to be in bestowal. How are we going to acquire this force of bestowal? Kabbalists say that the power of bestowal exists in every person, but is very small and remains this way in the person alone.

It can grow only if a person unites with the others. If he wishes to attain bestowal and is willing to do whatever it takes in order to receive from the group and the friends their desires to bestow, then he acquires from them many such desires. He does so in the degree in which he annuls himself and exalts the friends in his own eyes. In this way he is able to receive from them a greater desire to bestow, in both quality and quantity. And if a person possesses the desire to bestow, then the Light during the reading of The Zohar will work on him; it will begin to organize his desire and fill it.

Therefore, preparation to reading The Zohar should take place in the group, in the mutual “incorporation” into each other, in order to form a strong desire. In this case, we will succeed. We can accelerate time and shorten it, without the need to submerge ourselves in prolonged corporeal suffering. We can transform earthly suffering into the torments of love, which means suffering from not having the qualities of bestowal, from not having the desire to give that we must attain. We can work with the group and friends, and in doing so acquire such a will.

As we see, everything is in our hands. We can actually condense time to zero. The Creator created only the point “existence from absence.” The rest He handed to us, so that we increase our desire from the size of the point in the heart to the expanse of Malchut of Infinity. This is only possible if we unite. Therefore we only have a single opportunity to attain the desire for the Light: to strive to be together within our small desires to bestow.

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

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Discontent Is A Catalyst For Development
Kabbalah Moments: “No Chance Alone”
Unlocking The Zohar: “How To Evolve”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Zohar - No Comments →

A question I received: What is “mutual guarantee”?

My Answer: Yesterday during the Lesson for Children I gave the following example: Every person possesses a very small egoistic force. We can’t reach the spiritual world with it because spirituality entails total bestowal. The spiritual world exists one degree above our world, which means that we have to be stronger by one degree than we currently are.

How can we transform a small, egoistic force into a big, bestowing one? By uniting! We have to unite in the form of a mutual guarantee, that is, to unite overriding all the borders. How?

Suppose there are 50 people, of varying stature. If everybody incorporates himself or herself into the smallest one, he becomes a giant, his height reaching 60 feet and weight 2000 pounds. And what will happen if everyone joins the biggest one, who is taller than everybody else? The result will be the same: There will a 60 foot, 2000 pound giant. In other words, there are no small or big ones in mutual interconnection; rather, everyone becomes equal.

In that case, when will they enter the spiritual world? If they are incorporated into each other, they will do it together. This is what is called “mutual guarantee.”

This is how we should relate to our common spiritual vessel (the soul, Kli). There is no difference between the souls that comprise it, neither in their “height” nor in their “weight.” If new students connect to us, they become worthy of receiving everything that we achieve. Such is a special, miraculous force that mutual guarantee contains.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/7/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Principle Of Upper Equality
Laitman.com Post: Spirituality Is Discovered Unexpectedly, Like An Amazing Find
Baal HaSulam Article: “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” – Lesson

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Mutual Guarantee, Zohar - 1 Comment →

The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYigash (Then Judah Approached),” Item 10 
During the studies we keep our intention on the unity in order for the light to connect us to one another. In this unity we will reveal the Creator.
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Preface to the Sulam Commentary,” Item 50
Out of all the confusion, we must clarify what’s good for our advancement and see the greater desire which is good for us.
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Rav Yehuda Ashlag, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot, Item 37
Baal HaSulam gave us Kabbalah in such a form that prevents the possibility of materializing the spiritual concepts during the study.
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, Article “Sometimes We Call Spirituality A Soul,” Vol. 1, Page 31  
The system that we’re building throughout the Internet will ultimately become the new method for educating and enlightening all of humanity.
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - No Comments →