When studying The Zohar, we should feel that we are standing at the foot of Mount Sinai opposite our egoistic desire, our nature. We have already checked and been convinced that we are unable to be in control of our nature; we cannot succeed with it even in our material lives.

According to the Upper Plan, our nature is deliberately leading us to greater failures. This is why we have to ask for the Light that Reforms, called the Torah. It is written, “I created the evil inclination and I gave the Torah for its correction,” because the Light of the Torah reforms us.

This is the state of standing at the foot of Mount Sinai, where we feel hatred among everyone. But we hate that hatred for one another, and this results in a tremendous request because only the power of the Torah – The Book of Zohar that illuminates us with the Light that Reforms, is able to change our nature. This book will help us to open our eyes and heart and attain the spiritual dimension.

If we study The Book of Zohar with this intention every day, then we will be at the foot of Mount Sinai. As we approach the great event called “- The Zohar Convention 2010 ,” if we unite all our efforts and concentrate all our forces toward this common request, then there is a great opportunity for us to bring Light to the world.

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The Zohar tells us what happens in the spiritual world. It describes the creature’s actions of bestowal. However, because we are incapable of such actions yet, we are unable to understand them. We exist in our egoistic desire. We only know about receiving pleasure and fulfillment and the actions that get us there.

Therefore, the actions described by The Zohar appear to us like they are written in some foreign language, like a secret code. It seems to speak about something utterly unreal. It doesn’t matter whether it’s written in the language of Kabbalah with Sefirot, Partzufim, and worlds or in fairytale-like allegories with the sun, the moon, mountains, people, animals, and so on. We don’t understand or feel any of it because we don’t exist in the quality (meaning, nature) of bestowal, but in the quality of reception.

If our corporeal egoistic qualities were replaced from Above with spiritual qualities of love and bestowal, we would immediately understand what The Zohar is telling us. As we read it, we would reveal the Upper World. It would be revealed not just in our imagination like when reading an adventure novel, but in reality.

Although we don’t have these spiritual qualities yet and the text remains unreal for us, our reading of The Book of Zohar is called Segula, a special remedy. Even if we don’t understand it, we read it and try to draw onto us the forces from that other world described in the book. By wishing to change and to feel the text, it “shines” on us with the “Light that Reforms,” (Ohr Makif – the Surrounding Light).

This force influences us and reveals new qualities of bestowal inside us, which are described by The Zohar. It was written in the nature of bestowal, not reception, and thus it can only be understood in keeping with the nature of bestowal.

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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Miketz (At The End),” Item 79
This world means that Malchut remains with its qualities. The world to come means that Malchut obtains the quality of Bina.
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“Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 134, Lesson 58
During the correction process we must built the World of Atzilut within us.
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“Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” Item 20, Lesson 10
In the state of Infinity, the only thing I receive is the ability to love, which gives me boundless pleasure.
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It only seems like there are many other people around you who are studying together with you. You see external desires around you only because your vision is flawed. But now imagine that they are all your inner desires, which you aren’t able to control. It’s similar to how you cannot take control over your evil inclination. This is why these desires seem external to you and you have to connect them together.

If you connect these qualities and control them, you will see that everything on the outside actually belongs to you. It is an imprint of what you have inside. Inside of you there are many qualities, desires, and aspirations, but you have no power over them. This is why you see many people outside of you and a whole world made of stars, planets, still, vegetative, and animate objects, people who act in opposition to you, and people whom you want to use for your needs, or even people you want to kill or run away from.

All of this is because you are built this way inside; this is why you see the world this way. If you receive a force from Above that will give you power over all your desires, then you will immediately reveal that the whole world belongs to you, that other people are not separate from you and are not outside of you at all. You will feel your own self inside each of them.

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A question I received: You said that The Zohar can only be studied when you become a part of the vessel of the common soul. How do I become a part of it?

My Answer: A person cannot do anything on his own; it is the Creator’s work. You must only expect for Him to do this, meaning to desire, hope, and influence things in such a way that will make this happen, as much as you are able. You have to put all your energy into this and hope that the Creator’s salvation will come. That is all we can do.

We are standing around Mount Sinai and screaming, as it is written, “The sons of Israel cried out from the work.” The unity of the common desire attracts the Surrounding Light according to the principle of equivalence of form, because the Surrounding Light comes from one source. When we desire to become as one man in order to reveal the common vessel of the soul (the Kli), then it becomes revealed.

We have to prepare for the The Zohar Convention 2010 in February so we will be able to unite our desire and reveal one, common desire. It can only be revealed inside everyone together, inside the whole nation, which includes men and women. This is what we read in the story about the reception of the Torah at the foot of Mount Sinai, as well as the exodus from Egypt. It is written that this became possible thanks to the righteous women.

All of our desires have to unite, whether they are coming from the left side or the right, whether they are great or small – they have to become as one. We hope that when we undertake this mutual action, we will reveal a sufficient desire to be influenced by the Surrounding Light.

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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Miketz (At The End),” Item 27
All connections run through the middle line. It is like a connecting thread that provides all the changes and accents.
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“Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 132, Lesson 57
An analysis is always built by comparing two systems. Otherwise at some point I will become unhappy in my world, but without a reason or a solution.
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“Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” Item 19, Lesson 9
Human progress is an attempt to fence off from the influence of outer and inner forces. Instead of correcting the evil within us, we mask it.
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Miketz (At The End),” Item 58
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Before we read The Book of Zohar, we have to be aimed at the goal. All the previous life cycles we had gone through were developing us in the material plane, where we were closed off inside ourselves. We only aspired to increase our internal will to enjoy, trying to fulfill it as much as possible. We experienced a connection with others only in order to use them for self-gratification.

This developmental process eventually brought us to a point where we have exhausted all the possibilities of being fulfilled. This caused a feeling of disillusionment in our attempts to feel perfection or pleasure in this manner. We know we cannot attain a perfect, eternal life, even though our ever-developing desire hoped for this. We feel that there is nothing left for us to do with this aspiration for ceaseless self-gratification.

But suddenly, together with the disappointment from this life, we reveal the point in the heart – a desire to find the answer to the question of how it is possible to attain that sensation of a perfect, eternal life. This desire pulls us outward instead of inward, away from the place where we had always tried to find fulfillment and perfection in life.

“Outward” means changing your attitude to other people, although you will only realize this much later. You always aspired to use your neighbor in order to fulfill yourself, but now you have to understand that there are no other opportunities besides changing your attitude to your neighbor from reception to bestowal.

By bestowing to your neighbor, you acquire a new desire – the desire of others, who are actually inside of you. You will discover that their desires are actually yours; they are the desires of your soul. If you acquire the right connection with them, then all these desires will become yours. They will be your vessel of perception (your Kli).

But is this really possible? Indeed, it would never be possible if we tried to achieve this on our own. However, this is what we have to accomplish in order to acquire the sense to perceive the spiritual world.

The spiritual space lies beyond your body. It is your attitude to that which is “outside of you.” Right now it seems non-existent, unreal, and unattainable. You reject these desires, which are “outside of you.” You cannot imagine that they belong to you, and therefore you can’t imagine what the spiritual world is. You can’t even surmise that when you attain these desires, within them you will reveal a fulfillment called “the Creator.” In the meantime, however, they seem non-existent or empty to you.

This blindness keeps you from feeling that the spiritual world is comprised of those “foreign” desires which are outside of you. Right now you perceive your attitude of reception to them as “hell.” If your attitude to them changes to bestowal, then you will feel that you are in “heaven” because you will feel everything that fulfills them – and you will desire for all of it to fulfill them as well. In other words, you create hell or heaven yourself, “outside” of you.

Therefore, in the beginning of your spiritual development, the Creator brings you to a Kabbalistic group. However, you don’t see it as being great or spiritual. It is written, “Every person judges others to the extent of his own faults.” Baal HaSulam explains in the article “The Creator’s Concealment and Revelation” that your attitude to others determines what you will find in them: emptiness or fulfillment, this world or the spiritual world, and even the World of Infinity.

Therefore, you have to convince yourself that spirituality lies in your attitude to everything outside of you, which is beyond the limits of your corporeal desires. It is written, “The Shechina dwells outside of man” (beyond man’s skin or surface, which refers to one’s animate desire on the level of Aviut Dalet – the skin of an animal).

A person has to accomplish this inner change using help from outside – from the group, which will give him the right sensation, understanding, and confidence. The group will convince him of this because the environment is capable of convincing us of anything. This is our primary task. This is why we hold friends’ gatherings, meetings, congresses, and all sorts of events; it’s to enable every person to be influenced by the right environment, which will convince us that spirituality is attained precisely by changing our attitude to others.

The entire study of the science of Kabbalah is intended to help us understand this, to be convinced of it, and to reveal the right attitude of bestowal, even love, for our neighbor. Through this attitude we will also reveal our true selves – our soul, or more exactly, our common soul, Malchut of Infinity. We will reveal the Shechina and the Creator ruling over everything together, as it is written, “He and His Name are One.”

This is the intention we should have when reading The Book of Zohar.

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A question I received: What is the connection between us, the place where you told us to look for all the qualities we read about in The Zohar? What is it a connection between?

My Answer: It is a connection between all parts of the universe including the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels, corporeality and spirituality, and between everything. The connection has to be common, integral, and complete in every way. All the parts have to be connected to the full extent, 100%. This will be called Malchut of the World of Infinity – the vessel for the Light.

It is a corporeal and spiritual vessel where everything in existence connects together without any differences. All desires, all phenomena, and anything I can possibly think about, imagine, feel, and understand must all merge together in a single harmony, complementing each other.

Right now all of this seems imperfect, divided, distant, opposite, and opposed to each other in all kinds of ways because we are looking at it with the wrong outlook. This is why we are seeing a corrupted picture.

Even in the physical world, quantum physicists are discovering that when they observe a phenomenon, they influence the occurrence by their observation. This finding is really true; they’re not imagining it. They have revealed an objective law. But they have only revealed a part of the law – the fact that everything is attained through a connection. But the second half of the law states that we feel everything inside of us, rather than outside, as it seems to us.

I am the observer and everything happens inside of me. This is why I change what is happening with my outlook and attitude. It’s because it all happens inside me, in my changing qualities. When I look at the world, I judge it according to my own flaws because it is through them that I observe the world. I influence the results by changing myself.

The whole world is the Creator’s kingdom, but it depends entirely on how I look at it. If I look at things positively, then everything is good, and if I look at them negatively, then everything is bad. Thus, the only thing I have to correct is my outlook.

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A question I received: When we read The Book of Zohar, why is it so difficult to follow your advice, and why can’t we seem to find these qualities inside us?

My Answer: There is only one advice: Keep going. It is written, “I labored and found,” and, “One is rewarded according to one’s suffering.”

As a child grows, years pass. The years are made up of many months, months consist of weeks, weeks consist of days, days – of hours, hours – of minutes, minutes – of moments, and in this manner, moment after moment the child grows more and more.

Growth takes time. However, in spiritual development, time is the number of actions performed by a human being. In our world we labor for twenty years not to change our inner nature but simply to adjust to corporeal reality which compared to spiritual reality, has no real form. We consent to our slow maturation in the material world, accepting it as “reality.”

However, in the spiritual world it seems to us that we can enter without any effort: open it to me, and I will enter. Of course, we say this only because we don’t understand that the entry occurs to the extent that we are similar to the spiritual world.

There is a law of equivalence of qualities, meaning how similar we are to the quality of bestowal. As soon as we discover how to use the spiritual world correctly, we will be allowed to enter it. However, before this occurs, we need to go through all the necessary preparation work.

The Book of Zohar is meant to bring us to equivalence with the spiritual world in the most quick and comfortable manner.

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