A question I received: How can we find the quality of bestowal inside us?

My Answer: I cannot find anything on my own; I only have to try to do it. The attempts I make will attract Light upon me that will change me. But it will only happen if I try to find these qualities inside me.

I have to search for the qualities described in The Zohar, such as oil, wine, Cohen (priest), Levi, Israel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and many others so that the picture will come through as if emerging from a fog. It’s enough to desire to reveal the spiritual world, similar to how a child does in this world. Even if we don’t act for the sake of bestowal yet and are not connected to others, we will still begin to feel change happening inside us.

I receive reactions like this from dozens of people all over the world. Some of them are in direct, live contact with us, some are connected through the Internet, while others have no technical connection to us at all. They include beginners as well as students who have been with us for years. Some of them attend all our Congresses, while others have never even met us. Either way, The Zohar causes changes in everyone. We only have to continue studying and keep trying to imagine ourselves, all the others, and the whole book inside of us. If we see all of our changes and all of reality inside of our inner world, then we will succeed. Our breakthrough will be called a miracle.

After that we will perceive all the other articles by Baal HaSulam in the same way, since he does not write any differently. And then we will understand that all people act no different than Kabbalists since they, too, carry out Nature’s orders. You will suddenly see the hand of the Creator in any event happening in the world, and will then understand that “there is none else besides Him” – there is not a place in all of existence that is not filled by Him. Your whole world will turn into an open Book of Zohar.

You won’t just imagine everything happening inside you during the lesson, but will also perceive your entire life and every situation in the same way at all times. And this won’t interfere with your mundane, day to day attitude to life; you will not get confused between the two approaches. In fact, other people won’t even understand that you perceive reality any differently because all of your inner perception will still remain inside of you; it won’t be revealed to the outside world.

Therefore, the only way to check your progress is by whether it is easier for you to imagine the whole world as being inside you. However, in your regular life, you will still remain a completely ordinary person.

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Why is it written that The Book of Zohar exudes Light and contains a special force? We know that the book itself does not contain any special power – it’s just paper. However, when a person attains the Creator through his desire, he paves the trail from this world through all the worlds, and his soul ascends up that trail to the World of Infinity.

As a person ascends up this trail, he establishes a connection with all the souls, similar to how in our world every organ is connected to all the others. A great Kabbalist is a great soul that wrote manuscripts and left them to us, and we now use them to receive the force of life and the Upper Light.

But why do we receive the Upper Light precisely through these books? It’s because a Kabbalist’s manuscript is his spiritual expression in relation to us, which helps us connect to him. It is a means of connecting with his soul.

Having paved the trail to the spiritual world and established a connection with all the other souls, a Kabbalist then left all of this for the whole world to use. Therefore, when we receive a book from a Kabbalist, we connect to his soul and to the connecting net that he created in the general system of souls. This, in turn, helps us connect with that great Kabbalist and take our own small steps with him by our side.

The Book of Zohar was written by ten great Kabbalists who correspond to the ten fundamental Sefirot, the primordial HaVaYaH. Therefore, they did not just pave a thin trail, but a wide, wonderful, and short path that allows anyone to receive the same forces as they had (to “fuel up” for the path) and ascend.

This is why The Book of Zohar is so special: It is not a book, but a spiritual system that enables us to establish a connection with the goal and provides us with everything we need to attain it. While reading The Zohar, we connect to this system, work with it, and it works with us. We must only desire to connect to it, to understand it, and to belong to it. If we have this desire, then the great souls of the Kabbalists have already prepared everything else that we need. They are able to lift us up, help us, and keep raising us higher and higher.

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When reading The Book of Zohar we should be concerned with only one thing: our desire to reach the next state, which is unity and integration. Throughout all of creation unity currently appears to be split into separate parts. Creation appears enormous and we have no idea where to look for it inside ourselves, as The Zohar tells us to.

Nevertheless, we should desire to see all of this within one general system where everything is connected, where all desires, thoughts, qualities, and actions work in harmony within one common soul. In addition, all of this is within me; the function of this corrected soul is the act of bestowal that I reveal inside myself.

The question arises: What does “bestowal” mean? Is it when the heart gives to the brain, the brain gives to the liver, and the liver gives to the lungs? Can we really call that “bestowal”? After all, how is bestowal possible within one body? If the organs don’t give to each other, they simply die. So how can we call these qualities “bestowal” if we see them as a part of one general soul? As soon as you start seeing them as a single unit and sense them as “your own organs,” it stops being considered bestowal because you cannot really give to yourself.

The answer to this dilemma is that all “sinners” and all “sins” that we reveal as a result of this process stay intact. The “evil inclination” always remains, even while we build connections with other souls above it. Therefore, even though the system of souls is revealed within me, at the same time all of my previous hatred for others continues to be present. However, above it I reveal love and connection between us all.

This is why there is no contradiction between the understanding that all that exists is one general system, and at the same time, that all parts of the system act in mutual bestowal.

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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Shmini (On The Eighth Day),” Item 76
By studying The Book of Zohar we develop a correct attitude toward life because our attitude to the study extends to all parts of our reality.
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“Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 121, Lesson 50
When the words of Kabbalists evoke an inner response in us, then everything will become easier and the “study material” will turn into a part of our lives.
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“Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” Item 5
Hatred towards the Creator is also a form of connection to Him, since absolute goodness is revealed only at the end of correction.
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Shmini (On The Eighth Day),” Item 93
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A question I received: I understand that The Zohar doesn’t talk about our world. But how can we use the desires it describes in our daily life?

My Answer: The Zohar talks about our world also. It’s just that you imagine our world in the form of earthy images, like images on a computer screen, whereas The Zohar talks about the forces that create this picture inside you. Gradually, by reading The Zohar, you will begin to understand yourself and the world as a projection of the Upper Forces (or Qualities).

Seeing the connection between the picture and the forces that depict it allows you to understand the Creator of this movie, His plan, and Him. You come to understand Him from within yourself as you reach unification with Him.

Furthermore, even in your daily life you should try to think about the same thing, and that way you will gradually attain an uninterrupted, clear connection between this world or this reality and its Maker, the Creator.

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In one of his articles, Baal HaSulam explains that “habit becomes second nature.” So what should we get used to while reading The Book of Zohar? We are becoming accustomed to using The Zohar as a tool through which to constantly imagine ourselves in spiritual space, which is operated by Lights and desires, instead of seeing the false picture of this “external” reality.

We force ourselves to go deep inside qualities, the realm of forces and vectors that create a picture on the “computer screen.” We don’t close ourselves off in this superficial picture, but penetrate deeper, into the desires and qualities that create it.

Therefore, our work lies in making the efforts to developing the habit of feeling that we are in the realm of forces, desires and qualities, and of seeing reality only through them. Then we will really be reading The Book of Zohar.

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A question I received: Why did Rabbi Shimon write The Book of Zohar allegorically, concealing the fact that it’s talking only about the connection between the Light and the desire?

My Answer: Did he really conceal anything? Think about how the book Tree of Life by the ARI begins: “Know, that before the worlds were emanated and the creatures created, an Upper Simple Light had filled the entire reality.” And then a point of desire appeared and proceeded to develop until the worlds and everything inhabiting them emerged from that point.

There is nothing other than the will to receive Light, and the Light. Everything else is a development of the connection between them, where the Light remains invariable and the desire changes in likeness to the Light. This connection is the subject described in the science of Kabbalah and particularly, The Book of Zohar.

If a person is on a spiritual level, then he sees the connections between our picture of the world and his spiritual level. He sees how forces and qualities descend from the Upper Level to the lower one, which we all see. All the names of qualities and forces on all 125 levels above our world remain the same as the names in our world, but when he reads each name, he sees its roots instead of the material objects.

When one acquires a screen and enters the spiritual world, passing the Machsom, one begins to reveal the source of everything that happens in our world. One sees the picture of this world and how it is projected inside him from a higher level, as well as how it divides into levels: still, vegetative, animate, and human.

This vision enables him to automatically name all the forces and qualities of the Upper World using the names of material objects, since they are the materialization of the Upper Forces that descend into this world.

When one finds all the connections between this world and his spiritual level, he ascends to the following, higher level. Meantime, this world remains unchanging and keeps the same form. On the new level one continues to search for the connections between the roots (qualities on the spiritual level) and their projection in this world. The search comes down to correcting one’s qualities; to the degree one corrects them, one sees a clearer picture of the Upper Level. Once he discerns all the forces, qualities, and connections, he completes that spiritual level and ascends to the next one.

Even though this process may sound monotone, it is actually enthralling, like an extraordinary discovery. The picture of this world remains the same until one reaches the complete correction (Gmar Tikkun), where he ascends to a state in which everything unites into one. All the forces, Lights, and desires unite into a single whole and one is fully united with the Creator.

When a person sees the connection between this world and the last, highest level, he connects two opposite axes: himself below and the Creator above. Thus, he attains the state of adhesion with the Creator and total equivalence to Him. Stated differently, one reaches the World of Infinity.

All the desires – whether the uncorrected desires of our world, or the most corrected ones, as well as all the pictures and images will turn into one unified reality called “The Creator and His Name are One.” There will be just one single desire, HaVaYaH.

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A question I received: You said that while we are reading The Book of Zohar we need to search for definitions of each word inside us. But what should I do when I have times when nothing comes together?

My Answer: A person should accept everything as given to him from Above – both the worst and the best. It is written, “Man should be thankful for the bad as well as for the good.” Suppose I now feel that my feelings and my mind are blocked. I am confused in my feelings and thoughts, I can’t orient myself, and the words just don’t connect. When this happens, I should be like a little child who always observes adults, not understanding what they are doing. He just looks at the adults and learns by example. In fact, every adult is an example for him, showing him what to do to become similar to adults.

Every state I go through contains ten small Sefirot, along with all the information about all my future states. In order to develop, all I need is to add more matter or desire, similar to how a drop of semen develops.

Therefore, I am able to yearn for what’s written in any place in The Book of Zohar while being in any state. Each state includes everything, and my smallest ten Sefirot contain all the internal definitions, even though I don’t even know what and where they are.

Everything I read in The Zohar and in all Kabbalistic sources, and everything in general exists only inside me and not in any other place. Everyone around me and the entire world are inside me.

However, what The Zohar talks about is of utmost importance, because it talks about one of my spiritual degrees – a state in the Upper Dimension. And this is what I most want to feel inside me.

This state becomes revealed by itself to the extent of my yearning for that state and my desire to reveal it. In addition, it doesn’t matter how well I am able to recognize it; what’s important is my desire to reveal it.

This is how infants grow, moved by their desire. They don’t think about any inner definitions and they don’t try to find them. They have nothing but Nature’s force of development instilled in them, their huge desire to grow. However, in our spiritual development this does not happen by itself as with infants; it depends on our freedom of choice. Moreover, our only freedom of choice is to develop this desire to grow in spirituality.

If I don’t have a burning desire to reveal and discover within everything I read in The Zohar, and if I don’t have a tireless yearning to recognize things as an infant, it is a sign that I didn’t receive it from my friends. Nature gave me just the point in the heart and that’s it. I won’t have any more awakening except that initial drop that I received.

Besides this initial tiny desire, I have to get all the other desires from other people. The fact is that these desires are not foreign – they are mine. I just need to recognize that they are mine; I have to connect to them and attract them to me.

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The Zohar, Chapter “Shmini (On The Eighth Day)”, Item 46: “And he said unto Aaron: ‘Take thee a bull-calf,’” to atone for the calf he had sinned in, as it is written, “…and he made it into a molten calf.”

One of the qualities inside a person called Moses climbs a hill, while another, very exalted quality called Aaron commits the greatest sin: worshipping a golden calf. That is how these two extreme points work within a person.

A bull-calf and not a bull-cow. Cattle implies an ox, Gevura de Zeir Anpin, and a cow implies Malchut. Malchut contains three faces: the face of a lion, the face of an ox, and the face of an eagle. A bull-calf implies the ox included in Malchut.

We don’t have to try to remember the words of this text – it doesn’t matter if everything escapes our memory in the next few seconds. We shouldn’t worry about that. Our only concern should be trying to feel the words we read as we read them, and that’s all.

We shouldn’t try to remember anything. When we listen to a regular story about this world, we don’t have to remember what “a cow” or “a calf” or a “man” mean. We simply feel these notions. The same applies to spiritual notions – we only need all of them to be revealed in us, rather than memorizing them mechanically.

On the contrary, if we remember something, we fall into the danger of assuming that we have already attained something, but this is a lie. We will feel satisfied with the wrong things.

Therefore, it is better not to remember anything at all and to let “every day begin anew.” We should leave the lesson without remembering anything, as if we hadn’t read anything at all. The important thing is that we applied ourselves and waited for a revelation.

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