A person who really aspires to spirituality will not calm down with a small attainment. He will always feel that he does not understand or know anything because he does not feel spirituality. The point in the heart is expressed precisely through this need to feel the Upper World.

You have to feel this spiritual picture inside of you. The Zohar is a book of adventures. But it’s not a book you simply read or a movie you watch on a screen. You have to enter inside The Zohar. And it’s not like entering our illusory world, but it can only be done once you get rid of all your illusions and fantasies. You don’t need special 3-D glasses to feel that you are inside this movie (like when watching a movie such as Avatar).

This demand comes from the point in the heart and it can only be increased with the help of the group. Only the group can give a person the strength needed to reach the goal in addition to his point in the heart. If he doesn’t cancel himself before the group in order to receive this force from it, then he won’t attain anything. This constitutes our mutual guarantee without which none of us would have a spiritual vessel (Kli).

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Through The Book of Zohar the Creator shows us all kinds of examples that are intended to give us different impressions. Meanwhile, we don’t know what this is, similar to how a baby doesn’t know anything but still tries to imitate the examples he sees.

If you don’t want to or cannot do it, then turn to the group and the books for help. Either way, you have to look for something that will push you forward and help you unite with the states and actions that The Zohar tells you about, despite not being able to understand any of it. What’s important is that you want to understand.

The Zohar is talking about higher states of spiritual bestowal, which you desire to feel and experience. How can you do this? These are the questions that should constantly worry you.

It doesn’t matter if you can’t remember any of what you read. If you want the text to influence you so you will enter its world, so you will feel what it is talking about, then you will feel a very powerful sensation of how the reading influences you even though you don’t understand a word of it. You will experience a change in mood, in various qualities, and in your outlook on yourself and the world. You will start to feel different changes happening every day until one day, you will make the leap.

All of this will happen as a result of the reading, even though you have no idea what you are reading about and what it wants to tell you. You have no connection with the book besides one desire: You want the book to be revealed to you!

This is how the Surrounding Light works; it is a wondrous, miraculous force. The influence that affects us from the Upper World is nothing short of a miracle because it works despite you having no connection with it. There is no connection between the will to receive and the will to bestow. The whole connection is realized through the Creator, who is the root of both qualities. This concealed connection is called a miracle (Segula).

This follows a strict law of the Light and the desire (Kli) according to a fixed formula of their interaction. However, this form of connection is concealed from you, and that’s why it is a miracle in relation to you. You push the button in one place and something pops up in a different place. The entire system is concealed from you and you don’t understand how this connection works.

You were simply told that you have to read and desire – and the rest happens by itself!

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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Bo (Come Unto Pharaoh),” Item 169
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Bo (Come Unto Pharaoh),” Item 148
The terminology used in The Zohar only seems familiar to me. In reality I will have to uncover the meaning of these words within me.
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“Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 27, Lesson 55
The Partzufim of the World of Atzulit switch to receiving for the sake of bestowal not for their own sake, but in order to give birth and raise the lower Partzufim.
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“Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” Item 14, Lesson 7
My entire reality, including my “self,” is an illusion. The only spark of actual reality I have is the point in the heart, a beginning of a spiritual impulse.
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Bo (Come Unto Pharaoh),” Item 136
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The Zohar, Chapter Bo (Come Unto Pharaoh), Item 63: There is a great and peaceful river. And because its Bina, Tifferet, and Malchut fell into Keter and Hochma of the small rivers during the small state (Katnut), when the big state (Gadlut) comes and the peaceful river once more elevates its Bina, Tifferet and Malchut to itself, Keter and Hochma of the small rivers ascend with them and receive GAR from it.

There is a great and peaceful river, which is connected to all the small rivers through their Galgalta ve Eynaim. This great river cancels its AHP (which is why it is called peaceful) in order to give the smaller ones the opportunity to connect to it. It waits for them to connect to it, and as soon as they do, it begins to elevate them together with itself. That is how they ascend from their degree onto the next. And at the higher degree there is another “peaceful river,” and they connect to it and ascend further still. That is how the “spiritual elevator” operates.

Everything that appears as darkness to us is in fact Light in the state of concealment. There is no darkness; the only reason we see darkness is because we relate to Light egoistically. This is why it hides from us, and shines upon us from the reverse side. That is why the word Ohr in Hebrew means “Light,” while in Aramaic a similar word, Ohrta, means “night.” These two languages are opposite to one another like two sides of a coin.

In fact, there is no darkness. It exists only with respect to our uncorrected desires, but darkness is entirely absent when one’s desires are corrected. Therefore, whenever we feel a lack of inspiration or a bad mood, it means we are being given the opportunity to awaken to a greater degree of connection with the Upper One. This connection can be attained precisely through the darkness that we presently feel.

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The Zohar, Chapter “Bo (Come Unto Pharaoh),” Item 57: And He planted that seed in one righteous man, which is Yesod de Zeir Anpin.

I have to imagine that I have this quality – Yesod of Zeir Anpin, which is called a righteous man, and this is where my seed is planted, being the point from which I grow.

He is the garden’s gardener. And the seed in the garden, which is Malchut, is the concealment and hiding of that Light. This means that the concealment is not absence, but on the contrary, it is a seed of blessing. The concealment itself will become Light once more, like a plant that buds from the seed.

In his article, “Freedom of Will,” Baal HaSulam gives this example: We have to try to plant ourselves in a Kabbalistic group like planting a seed in the soil, where we annul ourselves completely before the environment. Then we will become a seed that has to disintegrate completely and “rot” in the soil in order for a tree to grow out of it.

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What is The Zohar teaching us? We know from the science of Kabbalah that the Creator created one desire, inside of which all further development takes place. This one desire includes numerous particular desires, which are interconnected into one system called “Adam” – the common soul.

Then, according to His program, the Creator began corrupting the connection between the parts of that desire. They began losing the connection between each other, similar to the organs in an ailing body that stop correctly interacting with each other. This causes an imbalance and we feel symptoms of the ailment, such as rising pressure or temperature, the wrong chemical composition of the blood, and so on. These are all signs that the organism is not balancing itself, and we call it a disease.

Why does the Creator do this to the souls? He does it in order for us to feel corruption and then to correct it. The disease is a corruption of the connections between us, who are parts of a single system. As this corruption permeates us, we begin to feel less and less connected with each other.

There are 125 degrees in this loss of connection between us. It is a descent from infinity, where we are infinitely connected with each other, to the state where this connection completely disappears.

Moreover, there is a level called “Parsa” along these 125 degrees where a greater corruption emerges; instead of a positive connection or absence of it, we form a negative connection. Now everyone wants to use the others for self-benefit. The organism is not simply dying, but is consuming itself completely.

This descent into the desire to use others goes on until it reaches the state where we completely lose all connection between each other – both a positive connection for bestowal and a negative connection for receiving. In this state, we exist in total nonconformance to spirituality, lacking all attainment and knowledge. This is a result of our separation from each other where we perceive this world, an imaginary reality. Why is it imaginary? Because it was purposefully set up by the Creator to give us an illusion of His absence.

What we are to do? We must understand that we have to correct the connection between us. The ascent of the soul from our world to the World of Infinity occurs to the degree that we strengthen the connection is between us. Recovery of connection between us creates the ascent.

Therefore, the more we imagine our state in connection with other souls, the more we will enjoy The Book of Zohar. After all, it was written from the elevation of the World of Infinity. The authors of The Book of Zohar wrote this masterpiece from the elevation of the 125^th degree where they were connected together.

While studying The Zohar, we need to feel a desire to connect together. There is no need to be “smart.” It’s enough to simply remember that we attain everything inside the connection with each other.

Actually, The Zohar talks only about the connection between the souls. It explains our connection within the global system called “Adam” with all the other souls, and how we use them to connect together in a sound, healthy, and correctly functioning system.

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When we read The Book of Zohar, we not only try to imagine our inner desires and qualities behind all the words, we also try to see that one Upper Force whose presence permeates all these inner definitions. This Upper Force desires that we reveal it in this manner.

There are three dimensions here:

1.    Me – the one who feels, reads, and understands these words in a simple way;
2.    The words which I wish to imagine in the form of my inner forces and qualities;
3.    The Upper Force which conceals itself behind these forces, and which I attempt to penetrate trying to interpret them correctly.

As Baal HaSulam says in the article, “Thou Hast Hemmed Me In Behind and Before,” regardless of whether a person is in the state of revelation or concealment and throughout everything he feels and imagines, all of his efforts are aimed at revealing one single force – the Creator. This is the force that is constantly governing us.

However, He desires to be revealed by me through my efforts to become similar to Him, meaning according to the similarity of qualities. This is why He acts in this manner.

Therefore, The Book of Zohar is a collection of exercises which, starting from the very first word, we need to carry out continuously. We then begin to perceive all these words on the sensory level rather than with the mind, making it not as difficult to penetrate. The text begins to become clearer for us through the forms and combinations of letters, and we do not need to “think” about this.

This is the same way that a little child learns. He does not think about why things are called this or that in particular or why he imagines and recognizes them in such a manner. This is clear to him. We are the same in this regard. However, in addition to the fact that we try to recognize some inner quality of ours behind every word, we also need to see the goal behind it – that same force which supports us, thereby giving us an opportunity to reveal it.

This is much like an adult playing with a child. The Creator plays with us this way as well. He gives us certain exercises and how successfully we perform them depends upon us. The system exists. The law is established and cannot be violated.

Therefore, we need to try to see that single force – the Creator, through all the words that we read in The Book of Zohar. And although we are reading about different forces which are foreign, opposite to one another, good and evil, we need to recognize the only force that exists behind them: a force that is good and does good, which controls everything only to our benefit, in order to draw us closer to the goal.

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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Bo (Come Unto Pharaoh),” Item 90
The Zohar is a guide to unity. I am one, the Creator is one, and together we become as one whole.
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“Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 125, Lesson 54
A Partzuf cannot alter its states and ascend up the spiritual levels independently. For this to happen, it needs help, a force from Above, to make the ascent happen.
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“Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” Item 11, Lesson 6
The more spiritual desires I acquire, the greater my soul becomes and the more Light it receives.
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