Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 04.30.10
Posted on April 30th, 2010
A question I received: If the direction toward the Light is positive and the direction toward spiritual darkness is negative and we have to work from within this minus to get to the plus, then where is spiritual zero? What is this state?
My Answer: There is no zero in the spiritual world; we can’t imagine it. However, there’s a state called Klipat Noga (Shining) where I’m unable to decide whether to turn to one side or the other, which is to say, for my own sake or for the sake of bestowal. This intermediate non-equilibrium state is called zero.
I’m between two natural forces. There’s no third force, which is why this state is unstable. It requires me to immediately make a choice. The zero state exists only in my personal perception and only for the moment when I must decide what to do. I have to feel that this zero state is an abyss because I have neither state.
This is a very good state because, when I feel absolute zero, I have nothing to cling on to. At all other times, I’m either in bestowal (holiness) and have nothing to worry about, or in egoistic desires (Klipa or shell) feeling that I’m Pharaoh’s accomplice. In this state, I enjoy neither spiritual nor material life.
However, a person that’s reached Klipat Noga feels that he has no grounds to make a choice; he has neither plus nor minus. Suddenly, I’m at a crossroads and have nowhere to go. It’s a completely indeterminate state. I thought it was a narrow chink right in the middle in front of me when suddenly it sweeps open and I see an abyss before me.
Right here is the exit into the higher dimension. If I grasp onto the Creator and decide that I have no choice, then I have to ascend to the level of the higher energy. It’s as if we enter a spiritual vacuum and reveal the Creator in it. The moment you’re ready to step into it, He comes out to you.
In quantum physics, a similar phenomenon is called the Casimir effect: a force from nothing. If two uncharged conductors are placed a few micrometers apart in a vacuum, then the energy from the vacuum will start flowing into them and create a force of attraction. Try conducting this physics experiment and you’ll get visual proof that the Creator exists.
From the Evening Zohar Lesson 4/22/10
Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Playing King David’s Harp
Laitman.com Post: An Intermediary Between The Creator And The Created Being
Laitman.com Post: A Spiritual Microscope
A question I received: Why does it sometimes take many years before a person begins to hear about the need to unite?
My Answer: We exist in this process throughout all of history. From one generation to the next, in all our reincarnations, our entire development is meant to bring us to a state where we will be forced to unite. Our whole history began with the breaking of the common soul, our spiritual vessel. From that time on, all these fragments collide with each other, hate each other, and do not understand who they are, where they came from, and why they exist. The most important thing for these fragments is the constant battle between them.
Gradually, step by step, we must come to a thorough understanding that due to our hatred and egoism, we miss out on a lot, in fact, so much so that we must unite. Why? It is because gradually, in the process of our development, we discover that we are connected. We can either kill each other or live together in peace.
However, there is a problem for those who feel an aspiration toward spirituality. The whole world advances toward unity by the path of Beito (in due time). Out of hopelessness, by thinking logically, a person sees that the world must unite. Yet on the other hand, one reveals that we are incapable of it. This is what the whole world feels. Whereas those in whom a point in the heart has awakened begin to hear that we must unite, and that only by uniting can spirituality be reached. However, they do not feel a need for unity. It turns out that some reveal a need to unite, but don’t know how since they have no means for it, while others have the means with the help of which they can unite but lack the inner need for uniting, although the rest of the world has it.
It appears that these two groups, the outer and inner parts, will need to come together and augment each other. We present them with a method of unification, and they give us a need to unite in the same manner that a baby transmits its needs to the parents, and this helps the parents obtain what the baby needs.
Therefore, the external society is the carrier of an inner need for unification, and we are possessors of the method of unification. In this way, we complement each other.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/10, The Zohar
Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: There Is A Way To Resolve All The Contradictions
Laitman.com Post: An Entry Pass Into A New World
Laitman.com Post: “Six Thousand Souls” Is The Required Measure For Spiritual Revelation
The Zohar, Chapter “BaHar (On Mount Sinai),” Item 78: And even though he is called “a son,” a firstborn son to the Creator, as it is written, “My son, My firstborn, Israel,” He should not exclude himself from being a slave, serving his father in all the works that glorify his Father. Thus, every person should be a son to his father, to search in His secrets and to know the secrets of His home, to exert for them and to be as a slave to his father.
Everything depends on one’s properties and desires. In small desires, when a person doesn’t have anti-egoistic screens, he is a slave. Upon acquiring big desires and the screens, he is a son. Yet not a single spiritual degree, no matter how great it is, erases the previous ones. Nothing disappears in spirituality: the degrees co-exist without cancelling one another.
What’s the benefit of preserving small degrees (Katnut) on a big degree (Gadlut)? In the Final Correction, they all come together into one picture that contains all previous degrees and attainments.
The reason is that once we begin to understand our previous states and correct the “wicked” (sins and transgressions), they don’t disappear. We see how wrong or right we were on these degrees, how we blessed or cursed the Creator. The entire scale of properties – both extreme right and extreme left, from the past or the future – join together, offering us the full might and richness of revelation.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/10, The Zohar
Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Your Spiritual “Account” Is Always Growing
Laitman.com Post: “Six Thousand Souls” Is The Required Measure For Spiritual Revelation
Video: A Spiritual Degree Is New Each Time – 5 MInutes Of Light (4:59)
A question I received: Do we attain the properties that we read about in The Zohar during the preparation period or after crossing the Machsom?
My Answer: We begin to discern within ourselves various reactions to all these names and terms even before crossing the Machsom. To the extent that we want to rise above our desire to receive pleasure, we begin to differentiate between the giving and receiving desires. Ultimately, there is nothing more to scrutinize.
It is said, “In the future the angel of death will become an angel of sanctity.” This means that there are no bad or good desires, only the desires for the sake of bestowal or for the sake of receiving. Everything depends on the way we use them. “Haman,” “Terah,” “Abraham,” “Elazar,” “Rachel,” and “Laban” differ only in their intention and in strength.
Therefore, by trying to keep one’s intention for the sake of bestowal – to learn, understand, and discern it through the group – a person will also react differently to every name and definition, so much so that that he will reveal their “tastes” or sensations: pleasant and not so much, shining and irritating. He will start discerning various shades in them.
However, after the Machsom, a person attains them in a clear and precise manner. Then they are clothed in him and he discovers them in practice.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/10, The Zohar
Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: We Won’t Cross The Machsom Without Effort
Laitman.com Post: Efforts Yield Revelation
Laitman.com Post: Breaking The Wall Separating Me From Myself
Preparation to the Lesson, Shamati #146 “A Commentary on the Zohar”
At the basis of my spiritual “I” there are two polarities, Light and darkness. I build myself on the contrast of the two opposites.
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio
The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaEra (And I Appeared),” Item 26
The Zohar explains the connection between small details. By aspiring toward a single interconnection I keep my focus on the Source and attract the Upper Light.
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio
Beit Shaar HaKavanot, Item 114, Lesson 36
The worlds are corrected from above by the Light of SAG, whereas the souls are corrected from below by our plea for correction.
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio
Rav Yehuda Ashlag “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah),” Lesson 4
The entire universe becomes revealed in my attitude towards others. It’s like a “set” that was created on purpose so I could examine reality.
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio
The Zohar, Chapter “BaHar (On Mount Sinai),” Item 63: “You may use them as slaves forever.” It is a Mitzva [commandment] to enslave a Canaanite slave. They are from the side of Ham, who performed incest, as it is written, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brothers…”
To be a slave is also a correction. A desire that could be forced to obey the power of the corrected desires is called “a slave that is close to his master.” Slavery is the form of its correction, a proper way of its existence.
For the time being, I am unable to be free within a certain desire, nor can I work with it for the sake of bestowal on my own. I can only attribute it to my other desire. Such a desire can also be called “a child,” “a woman,” or “an adolescent;” it is not a “man” yet, not a “hero” who is able to “overcome” (a man, “Gever” is derived from “Itgabrut” – overcoming, surmounting).
A form of desire that is able to work only under the authority of another desire is called “a slave.”
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/25/10, The Zohar
Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Practical Joke
Laitman.com Post: The Final Condition
Video: Being Free – Kabbalah Moments (2:11)
We work on our desires during the night, in the darkness of the exile, having no strength. While still in the darkness, we prepare ourselves to greet the morning, meaning we find the desires we can sacrifice.
We are not talking about the physical sunrise or sunset, nor do we refer to pieces of flesh of sacrificial animals. We speak only about the use of the Light of correction in which a person can see himself as a sacred vessel.
In other words, a person will reach the Temple, come to the burnt-offering altar, and become ready to work with his desire by raising it to the level of bestowal. The elevation of the parts (“pieces”) of our desire to the level of bestowal is what is called “offering.”
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/25/10, The Zohar
Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Prayer Instead Of Sacrifice
Laitman.com Post: Playing King David’s Harp
Laitman.com Post: Night Is The Time Of Work
Daily Audio Version-MP3
Get the Weekly eNewsletter
Follow on Twitter
