Preparation to the Lesson, Shamati #100 “The Written Torah and The Oral Torah”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Shemot (Exodus),” Item 60
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Beit Shaar HaKavanot, Item 70, Lesson 24
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Article, “Exile and Redemption,” Lesson 5
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Exile and redemption are relative things, depending on where one fell from and where to. I can feel that I am in exile, detached from spirituality, only if I feel the spiritual world and feel the fact that I am disconnected from it. However, if I don’t feel what it is I am disconnected from, then this cannot be called exile, for what am I exiled from?
With respect to spirituality, the Babylonian exile was higher than the state of the exodus from Egypt. Yet it is called an exile, for it caused tremendous suffering.
When is it that I regret having fallen from the spiritual degree? Precisely when I exist in spirituality, for how else can I appraise it? When do I regret having descended from the state where there was love, bestowal, the correct connection, and similarity to the Creator in my love of others? When can I say that I have fallen into exile? It is when I already possess all those qualities and see that they are not enough, not satisfactory.
The sensation of exile is a very exalted state since it is when I suffer from lacking the qualities of bestowal and love of others.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/11/10, The Zohar
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By going through such spiritual states like the “New Year,” each time, a person reaches some part of the final corrected state. We cannot reach the Final Correction at once; rather, we attain it in portions, time after time. Thus each year the state of the beginning – the beginning of the year – returns. This continues until the corrections accumulate and the common and final End of Correction occurs.
Like a spinning wheel, we return to seemingly the same corrections again and again until they accumulate and we reach the final corrected state. It happens precisely as in a bicycle when its wheel seems to be spinning around its axis in the same place. Yet in reality, due to this spinning, the bicycle is moving forward because the outside conditions change.
From the Evening Zohar Lesson 4/7/10
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Kabbalah For Beginners: Chapter 4: Mending Adam to Achieve Perfection. Building the Vessel
A question I received: Perfection always emanates from the Upper One; the role of the lower one is to figure out his attitude towards perfection. The Zohar says: “Everything that occurs Above is perfect. Everything, whether it is a miracle or a judgment, is one whole and occurs in one place. It’s not split into two, where one half is a miracle, and the other, a judgment.” Why is that so?
My Answer: When we play with a child, we use various images so that he can discern within himself various states and relationships, react correspondingly, and thus grow.
We undergo changes all the time. Our advancement is built upon our perception of Upper properties that are not always enjoyable. Particularly by triggering within us unpleasant feelings, the Upper One compels us to grow. As Baal HaSulam writes in his story about a servant, the Creator assumes the form of a rebel, robber, or murderer.
What is the purpose of the system of the worlds? It serves as our permanent educator. It is a system of filters that hides the infinite, benevolent, and perfect Light from us. By passing through the worlds (filters), the Light educates us.
We constantly face (oppose) this system, yet each time it has an impact on us in the best possible way. It gives us exactly what we need at each given moment. Our job is to find within ourselves the correct reaction to it. If our reaction is right, the system encourages us: “Good for you! Now, you’ll be getting the next impact!” If our next reaction is adequate, the system encourages us once again: “Wonderful! Now you’ll get the next one!” This is how we advance.
To us it seems that the Creator constantly changes His attitude as if he wants us to see Him from different angles: sometimes He turns to us with his benevolent side and sometimes we see His “evil” side. It is similar to the theatrical masks that consists of a laughing and crying face.
This is how the Upper One constantly relates to the lower one in order to raise him; this is how the system of worlds treats us.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/7/10, The Zohar
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Preparation to the Lesson, Shamati #164 “There Is A Difference Between Corporeality and Spirituality”
A person builds the perception of the Creator to the extent of his corrected qualities.
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Shemot (Exodus),” Item 36
In the spiritual nothing disappears; simply we find the correct correlation of the original parameters and create a qualitatively new perception.
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Beit Shaar HaKavanot, Item 70, Lesson 23
The purpose of Kabbalistic books is not to tell us about the spiritual world, but to guide us into it.
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Article, “Exile and Redemption,” Lesson 4
According to Kabbalah there’s only one religion: The religion of love and bestowal toward your fellow man. After all, only by means of love and bestowal can a person attain similarity to the Creator.
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The more the Creator awakens us, the bigger His expectations. The Creator woke several million people who at this time study The Zohar and He waits for their correct, conscious, and voluntary reaction that would manifest their readiness to “wake up.” “Awakening from below” (Itaruta de-Letata) has to become equal with the “awakening from Above” (Itaruta de-Leila). When these two processes coincide, the Light of the Creator fills us.
First, the Creator sends us an impulse from Above to inspire us; we open the book and begin to read and to study. Later on it becomes too difficult for us. But why, what is the reason? It’s because this sensation also originates from the Creator. He stops inspiring us and gives us a chance to “awaken from below.”
The Creator imposes a burden that is equal to our initial inspiration. He seemingly says: “Wait! I don’t need you. I didn’t call for you. Forget it, it’s not for you. Calm down!” He plays this game on purpose after He already “woke us up.” It is as if He made a mistake and then changed His mind: “No! Stay asleep, don’t wake up.”
By slowing us down, He wants us to replace His awakening by our own voluntary effort to wake up. Otherwise everything happens “at His expense” rather than through our own effort. What good does that do? This way, our spiritual vessel doesn’t get ready for the Light.
That’s why we feel like we reject spirituality. However, was our previous desire really ours or were we just granted the chance to go through such circumstances from Above? Now that you’re convinced that you don’t want spirituality – that is the real you, your desire to receive pleasure to which you can add the same sense of awakening that you first experienced.
The Creator woke us up, we turned His awakening into “our own”; we acknowledged and made it available to other people. Then together with others we make attempts to attract the Upper Light. We use this situation as an amplifier: Our request grows in direct proportion to the number of people to whom we managed to transfer this knowledge by working against our own egoism. We receive “620 times” more in return; this is how many times stronger our own advancement toward the next degree becomes.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/8/10, The Zohar
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A question I received: During The Zohar lessons I always find myself at war with myself. What can I do to maintain the right intention?
My Answer: That is a natural state for beginners. Try to use the time at the lesson to realize the purpose of your suffering. Who is it in you that suffers? It is your body, your egoistic desire that resists. You have a body, the ego, and the point in the heart which aspires to the Creator. Are you examining your state from within the ego or the point in the heart? If you are one with the point in the heart, then The Zohar shines to you, but this Light is opposite to your ego. It feels adverse to you, like a person that speaks out against you.
Imagine sitting in front of your wife as she criticizes you, saying that something is wrong with you, and you listen and agree with her criticism, realizing that you do need to correct yourself. Your uncorrected ego resists and doesn’t want to listen, but you tell yourself: "It’s not me who doesn’t want to listen, but the ego that the Creator deliberately created within me. I, however, want to listen and to love her, because she is pointing out my real shortcomings that need correcting."
Picture this scene to yourself in the smallest detail until you realize that you really do need to sit and try to cling to every word of The Zohar. You don’t like what you hear? That’s wonderful! You’re not interested in revealing this? Absolutely! The Zohar is opening your eyes to the whole truth, thereby infuriating you and that’s great. That is precisely what it’s supposed to do. That is how the Light influences you, by showing you how uncorrected you are. Precisely then should you rejoice and desire to cling to it.
Now you have two points: the uncorrected Malchut and the spark which you have to connect to the Light. Go with the Light against your uncorrected Malchut, and then The Zohar will cease to irritate you. You will begin to work on yourself with what it awakens within you.
Practice this at home with your wife for a bit, and then the work with The Zohar won’t seem so hard.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/9/10, The Zohar
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Preparation to the Lesson, Shamati #89“To Understand the Words of the Holy Zohar”
The revelation of the Creator is the revelation of the qualities of love and bestowal in a person.
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Shemot (Exodus),” Item 6
With the help of the Light or the Force that created me, I can rise to a new degree of development.
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Beit Shaar HaKavanot, Item 70, Lesson 22
The desire to bestow is such a “pure” desire, that it can be clothed with the intention to bestow. It does not attract Light; it annuls itself before the Upper.
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Article, “Exile and Redemption,” Lesson 3
The connection to the Creator is measured not by my closeness to Him but by the extent of my demand for an ascent, which comes from the depth of my egoism.
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Our entire difficulty lies in the fact that we exist in a world of matter, and from this we need to reveal the spiritual world. In order to reveal it, we need to come prepared with a desire, a vessel which already consists of the two lines together so that they can be united into a middle line, for it is precisely the middle line that expresses our extent of similarity to the Light.
Without the two lines, the left and the right, it is impossible to unite them together in harmony and to build a quality of the Light between them. Neither the right nor the left line has the quality of the Light – it should come from me, so that “darkness would shine like the Light” – the will to receive should become similar to the Light!
Therefore, even “self-rejection,” when I enter the state of a spiritual embryo, the smallest spiritual degree, already occurs in connection of these two lines, which affect me in harmony and connection between them.
Never on our spiritual path will we be able to feel the Creator anywhere else but in the middle line. I am thrown into other states, but in that case I tear away from the Creator. I can feel Him only if I am situated in the middle line, by forming it in me. This is like balancing the vertical needle of a scale. A “scale” (Moznaim) comes from the word “ear” (Awzen), hearing, Bina.
I must be on this vertical, middle line – only there do I feel Him. This is the line of Zeir Anpin, the Creator. And if I shift even slightly to the side, He vanishes!
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/9/10, The Zohar
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