Everything that we read about in The Zohar becomes revealed in the connection among us. The Zohar talks about the connection among the souls rather than about a soul per se. A soul by itself is a desire; there is nothing else to it.

The uniqueness of a soul is in its ability to obtain a screen and attract the Reflected Light, and with the help of both of them connect with other souls. The Light (the Creator) emerges within their mutual desire to unite above egoism. That’s why we try to imagine that we have a screen (against our egoism) and the Reflected Light (our aspiration to connect into one whole.) We join our aspirations (Moses in each of us) above Mount Sinai (hatred.)

Each of us is a small spiritual vessel (Kli), an egoistic desire that with the help of the screen and Reflected Light works like a bestowing entity. This allows all separate souls to unite together into one soul.

Egoistic desire is our nature. When we create a screen above it and attract the Reflected Light, it becomes a soul, a desire that is similar to the Creator.

The Creator is then revealed within our mutual Reflected Light. The Reflected Light of each Kli is the Light of Hassadim. Within the shared field of the Light of Hassadim the Light of Hochma reveals itself.

If our mutual Reflected Light reaches a certain degree of power called “six hundred thousand,” the Creator (the Torah, the Upper Light or the Light of Wisdom – Hochma) reveals Himself in it.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/20/10, The Zohar

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The Zohar, Chapter “Shemot (Exodus),” Item 340: “And it came to pass in the course of those many days.” This was the end of their exile, when Israel were enslaved in any labor. “In those many days,” meaning many days of Israel’s stay in Egypt, when the end has come. And since their exile has come to its conclusion, it is written, “The king of Egypt died,” meaning that the minister of Egypt has been brought down and fell from his pride. This is why it is written about him, “The king of Egypt died,” since descent was as death to him. And since the king of Egypt – their minister – has fallen, the Creator remembered Israel and heard their prayer.

We have to reach a state when the entire Malchut of Egypt, meaning this world, all of its goals, our whole life and achievements, will lose their significance in our eyes. We will feel worthless, unhappy, and transient. We will ask ourselves, “What do I get from all this?” This world will become devoid of any importance to us.

This is called “The king of Egypt died.” We begin to ask ourselves, “Why do I need everything that I have in this world?! What for? What do I get from it?” This state marks the beginning of the exit from Egypt.

Today humanity is starting to understand that it doesn’t have any clear plan of development or goal, and most importantly, there is no purpose in life. We are yet to see the emptiness even in those who are still fanatically devoted to some meaningless goals and don’t realize the worthlessness.

When this becomes revealed, the real wars will be forged, and it will happen out of emptiness, despair, and helplessness. The most dangerous state is when a person sees that this life is empty. While he expects to accomplish something in life, he acts and even battles wars, and thus problems, revolutions, and wars that occur in the world, are purposeful.

On the contrary, when everyone sees that life is worthless and they begin to clash with each other, it becomes a big problem. Then everyone will turn their attention to Israel.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/10, The Zohar

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The science of Kabbalah defines life and death only with respect to merging with the Creator. A state similar to the Creator is called life, while one that is opposite to Him is death. Therefore, egoistic desires (Klipot) are considered dead, whereas the “poison of death” refers to the force that separates the creature from the Creator.

Death is not a loss of existence, as we observe the disappearance of one’s form in this world (at our degree). All that is created (desire) changes only with respect to drawing closer to or further away from the Creator in its intention to bestow; in everything else (in its desire), the creature remains the same. Hence distancing from the Creator, losing the state of adhesion with Him, is called “death,” whereas adhesion with Him, acquiring the quality of bestowal, is called “life.”

In his article, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Baal HaSulam writes that the science of Kabbalah is a means for the creature to reveal the Creator in this world. To reveal the Creator means to assume His qualities.

Although we exist in a world of the still, vegetative, and animate matter, by acquiring the human level of similarity to the Creator, we come to feel ourselves and our existence as perfect and eternal, like the Creator. The science of Kabbalah changes us to facilitate our ascent to the next level (degree) where we begin to see that we do not disappear, but simply change the level of our existence.

From the Evening Zohar Lesson 4/21/10

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A question I received: What is a song? Is it a prayer (MAN), an awakening from below?

My Answer: The entire process of the spiritual work is included in a song. Similar to our spiritual work, a melody always contains the collision of different sounds with altering pitches and pauses without which we wouldn’t hear a melody but only noise.

Why does a melody give us a feeling of harmony and awaken our emotions? Why is it that a particular sequence of sounds is capable of suddenly making us laugh or cry? A sound is but an aerial wave of a particular frequency that affects the eardrum. What is this inner mechanism whereby mechanical actions and electrochemical reactions inside the brain turn into emotions? Moreover, emotion isn’t contained in the sounds themselves, but the sounds awaken the emotions in us.

How can somebody else convey to us a feeling via this essentially inanimate mechanism, via this inanimate process, which penetrates inside our living, animate organism and awakens in it feelings on the human level?

This is a complicated process. All this is possible only because a melody contains separate sounds of varying pitches and breaks or pauses between them. That is, it contains the same qualities present in our work with the three lines: right, left, and middle.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/10, The Zohar

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The Zohar, Chapter “Shemot (Exodus),” Item 333: The ministers below are called “Levites” because they accompany and join above as one [Livui means accompanying], and because one who hears the singing becomes accompanying and his soul clings upwards, in the Creator.

A song is the revelation of the Light of Hochma in the Light of Hassadim, the greatest revelation there is. "The Song of Songs" is the peak of adhesion, connection, and unity between the creature and the Creator. Psalms are songs, which King David (Malchut) revealed in the darkness, they are revelation of the Light of Hochma in the Light of Hassadim.

Sometimes it seems to us that King David cries, not knowing what to do, and hides from enemies; yet in this darkness, he reveals Hassadim, the Creator’s mercy. Thus it is a song.

First we need to reveal the right line, faith or Hassadim, while suppressing the left line and holding onto the right one alone. When Hassadim are revealed completely, we rise into Bina and see that we can stay in mercy in all the desires, on this whole degree (in the desires of GE). Then we begin to work with the desires of reception (AHP) and rouse the left line. In other words, we begin to awaken the forces of Malchut and to accept the Light of Hochma in these receiving desires.

By elucidating our desires of reception and adjoining them to the right line, we thereby build the middle line. The state when the Light of Hochma is revealed in the Light of Hassadim, when the left line connects into the right line and gives raise to the middle line, it is called a song. This is called a "crusade" since we switch from state to state as a result of these relocations, thereby advancing by the three lines: Ibur, Yenika, and Mochin. We first prepare the desires, and then we fill them with Light.

Therefore, Psalms (the songs) of King David describe all the different states during the correction of Malchut in the three lines. They contain the immense Light that overspills the Kli, meaning that the correction is so high that the Kli becomes completely like the Light.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/10, The Zohar

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The Zohar, Chapter “BaHar (On Mount Sinai),” Item 3: At midnight, a northern wind awakens and a flame of fire comes out of the lower altar, Malchut. Then the gates open and low Dinim, Dinim de Nukva, gather in their holes and that flame walks and wanders, and the gates of the Garden of Eden open. Finally, that flame reaches and divides into several sides of the world and enters under the wings of that rooster, and it calls.

The most special corrections are performed in the state called “night” when a person feels darkness, lack of strength or interest, when spirituality does not attract him much, he is tired, he wants to forget everything and fall asleep, and he is fed up with everything – in short, when he does not feel the importance of the spiritual goal.

The work at “night” is crucial. It is written that King David “got up” at “midnight” and took upon himself the “northern wind,” the great restricting powers of overcoming and correcting egoism (“Gevurot” and “Dinim“). Precisely using these unpleasant “northern” powers he “played the harp” and in this way he welcomed “dawn,” which is the manifestation of the Light in the soul.

During all the work at “night” he was bringing himself to the state where he was turning the very desires (Kelim) in which he sensed darkness, lack of power, and separation from the Creator; he “cried and screamed” into desires or “vessels” for the Light. That brought about “morning.”

In spirituality, there is no morning, evening, or afternoon. We perceive the entire reality within our desire. This is why we reveal the “Light” in our corrected desire which formerly was dark and empty. Then the Light of Hassadim shines in it, and this is called “day.” When the Light of Hassadim cannot shine, meaning we don’t have the intention to bestow, it is called “night.”

From the Evening Zohar Lesson 4/22/10

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Preparation to the Lesson, Shamati #69 “First Will Be the Correction of the World”
The process of correction goes from easy to difficult, and that is why the real great desires are in the external Kelim, or the “nations of the world”.
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “BaHar (On Mount Sinai),” Item 34
The correct approach to The Book of Zohar:  We’re united with each other like its authors and we study what goes on in a person’s soul, and not outside of it.
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Beit Shaar HaKavanot, Item 92, Lesson 32
A real Kli is a desire that I’m able to completely correct into bestowal, not leaving anything unresolved.
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag “Peace in the World,” Lesson 3
Today the global interdependence is becoming revealed and that’s why we must create a system of worldwide mutual guarantee.
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The Zohar, Chapter “Shemot (Exodus),” Item 368: When Rabbi Elazar was sitting while fasting, he was praying and said, “It is revealed and known to You, the Lord my God and the God of my fathers, that I have sacrificed my fat and my blood to You, and I boiled them with the warmth of the weakness of my body.”

There is a tremendous difference in whether I read these words from a prayer book, or something happens inside of me that causes an explosion from within, an outburst toward the Creator.

The feelings form inside of me, and they build into the words and phrases. I may not even know this language. I don’t know how it happens, but it is the consequence of my effort to equalize my desires with the Light and unite with It. The reaction of the Light and the desires occurs in the soul. These words are realized in my brain, the brain transmits the orders to the organs of speech, and I utter the words without knowing where they came from.

This is what true prayer should be like, when everything comes from within. From the union of the Lights and the Kelim inside the depth of creation, gradually with the fulfillment of the desire by the Light, the whole TANTA (a full Kli – Taamim, Nekudot, Tagin, Otiot) is built, until it reaches an expression through the organs of speech.

It is clear that Rabbi Elazar did not read this prayer from a prayer book, but he uttered it while existing in this state about which he spoke to the Creator. Before the destruction of the Second Temple, the nation of Israel was connected with the Creator, in the qualities of bestowal and love, thus the feeling in Rabbi Elazar’s heart, in his desire, constituted a prayer. It is written: “What is a prayer? It is work in the heart.”

However, the sages of the Great Assembly (Anshei Kneset Agdola) were aware of the imminent descent into egoism and concealment of the Creator. Thus they gathered a collection of prayers – states that a person needs to reach. They called it “Siddur,” the order of spiritual states that we need to go through inside, in our hearts, in our desires.

But since we are incapable of doing this during the exile, without a connection to the Light or the Creator, while the Upper Force is concealed, we read the words from a prayer book mechanically. Some people try to imagine what it could mean spiritually. Yet only while studying Kabbalah will the Light provoke the feelings, thoughts, sensations, words, and phrases of our prayer inside us, as work in the heart, rather than work in the organs of speech.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/10, The Zohar

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Shamati #1 “There Is None Else Beside Him”
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Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, Item 44
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “BaHar (On Mount Sinai),” Item 14
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “BaHar (On Mount Sinai),” Item 1
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