The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Vayechi”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Noah,” Item 261
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Article: “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 60, Lesson 26
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Article: “The Character Of Kabbalah,” Lesson 4
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The Zohar: The Creator said to Noah: “Enter the ark with your entire household.” One of man’s qualities, which he defines as the Creator, turns to another quality in him called Noah. Noah is the quality of bestowal and love, and the aspiration to rise above one’s ego. One’s quality called the Creator speaks to this quality, called Noah, in order to elevate it even higher. This is why the Creator says: “Enter the ark!” which means – fortify yourself in the quality of bestowal.
It is written of the entrance into the ark: “The Creator (HaVaYaH), Zeir Anpin, said,” and it is written about the exit: “Elokim said,” referring to Nukvah of Zeir Anpin. It is written that the master of the house, Zeir Anpin, allows Noah to enter the ark. The ark is the quality of bestowal, Bina. If a person (the quality of Noah that aspires toward bestowal) enters the ark, Bina, then he feels that nothing can harm him – he is safe from all of his other qualities, which disagree with Noah. All the rest of man’s qualities are egoistic and can harm his spiritual progress; this is why he wants to separate the quality of Noah from them and advance only with this quality. He leaves the other qualities alone for now and makes a restriction on them, hiding them away.
Then the mistress, Nukvah of Zeir Anpin, tells him to exit. He entered with the permission of the master, Zeir Anpin, but exited with the permission of the mistress, Nukvah of Zeir Anpin. This is talking about two forces that influence a person: the force of Zeir Anpin and the force of Nukvah, judgment and mercy. By influencing us with these two reins, we advance closer to the goal.
Thus we have found out that the master brought the guest into the house, and the mistress led him out of it, as it is written. “Elokim said to Noah: Come out of the ark!” Elokim is the masculine force, the force that overcomes. She is permitted to bring the guest out, but she does not have the right to let him in.
Even though these two forces are opposite to one another, they act together in order to advance us. We cannot advance with just the help of the one force that pulls us forward. We also need the force that pushes us from behind. We are always being controlled by them as if by two reins. If we understand that these two forces are influencing us for our own good and balance the left force with the right one, then we will connect them together and build the middle line.
The Book of Zohar was written by a group of great Kabbalists the likes of which has never existed in all of history. They created a bridge of language, information, forces, sensations, and Light, connecting our sensations and our understanding of the revealed world, with the sensation and understanding of the concealed world.
When we study The Book of Zohar that they wrote and try to enter the state they want to convey to us, then we are like a baby that greedily opens his eyes and mouth in order to absorb what his mother is telling him. He doesn’t understand anything, but simply looks at her and expresses his joy through movement.
We have to make similar efforts to understand our teachers. To do this, we have to connect with each other the way the ten authors of The Book of Zohar are connected. Even if we read it without any explanations, we will gradually begin to feel new inner reactions and movements. From within us, from an unconscious and subconscious level, a new realm or world will begin to come though and become more habitual.
We call our lessons “a study of The Book of Zohar,” but in reality this book is not studied but revealed, and the revelation happens through our aspiration and readiness to feel the concealed world. The readiness must be expressed through the unity among us, similar to the unity among the authors of this book. It is a unity of all the point in the hearts – the aspirations toward similarity with the Creator. This is how Kabbalists describe the necessary condition for using The Book of Zohar correctly.
In the process of reading the text of this book, I provide small clarifications in order to help you “grab onto” the text, similar to the explanations of an adult while playing a game with a child.
Whenever Kabbalists write about The Book of Zohar, they do not refer to it as The Book of Zohar, but simply as The Book. This expresses their desire to show that there is no other book in the whole world!
The science of Kabbalah reveals an enormous new world to us, the spiritual world, which includes our entire world of today like a tiny grain of sand in the entire universe. But how can we attain a sensation of the spiritual world? It’s like a baby who has no knowledge or sensations that he can relate to the world around him. But gradually, he accumulates impressions of this world, hears and recognizes sounds, sees images, discerns colors, and feels the difference between cold and hot. He has to learn all of this from the impressions he receives.
At first, for example, he simply develops his senses and learns to discern the presence or absence of sound. Later he begins to discern various sensations in each sense. What makes a developed person different from others is that his senses are able to perceive finer things. To a musician, sounds awaken an entire world of sensations. An artist lives in the world of colors. A writer feels the shade of every word.
But all of this comes to a person gradually. We exist in some kind of reality, which gradually becomes revealed to us. It influences us, makes us progress and forms in us a capability of perceiving it. This is how the material reality, this world, is arranged; and we develop and reveal the spiritual world along the same exact stages and by the same laws.
There is a special book that consistently develops our sensation of the spiritual world in addition to this world. In essence, we are living in one, common world, but relative to us it divides into a part we can perceive and a part that is concealed from us. In order to reveal the concealed part of the world, we must start to feel it in a direct fashion, like babies. This is what the unique book, The Book of Zohar, does for us.
It is common knowledge that The Book of Zohar is unique. The reason for this is that it is the only book with the power to bring human beings into the spiritual world. This unparalleled mission is what brought this book to fame and has made humankind have a special relationship to it.
Nature prepares a very peculiar entry into this world for us; we are born without any knowledge and nothing is explained to us ahead of time. A child does not inherit an intellect, senses or memories from his parents or preceding generations. A person is born as an empty shell and then starts sensing this world as warmth, coldness, light, darkness, sound and silence.
In the beginning a baby doesn’t feel anything at all. But gradually it begins reacting to sound and light, and later on it recognizes its mother and notices actions that are being done to it. In response the baby laughs or cries, and gradually starts to explore the world and to want to find out what is going on around it. It begins to identify with its body and that is how it grows up.
Compared to this, it’s surprising that baby animals get to know everything and learn to survive independently in just a few days, whereas a human baby remains totally helpless without an adult’s care for a long time. If we leave a human baby in the woods, it would grow up just like the animals that surround him.
A human baby’s development is based solely on impressions, examples and behavioral models of this world, which he receives from adults. People have created music for children, toys, playgrounds and games designed to teach children to take things apart, reassemble them, and distinguish between colors and sounds. The purpose of these games is to prepare a child to live in our world.
A child’s parents and the people around him are ready to give everything that is needed for the child to grow up in accordance with the standards of his generation and the world he lives in. Our instincts direct us to transfer our knowledge to a child, since otherwise he won’t be ready for life in our world.
This type of upbringing is natural and cannot be changed. We are unable to feed a human being with information by connecting him directly to a computer that will transfer encyclopedic knowledge to him. We cannot simply “install” a proper upbringing in order to develop a child’s feelings and reactions. We can only do so gradually as he shapes his personality by acquiring and accumulating impressions.
This process takes at least 20 years of a human being’s life. And when we become adults, we still continue to learn and develop, and often we end up regretting that we didn’t acquire more knowledge earlier in our lives.
Our birth and development in the spiritual world involves similar processes, but the difference is that we also continue to exist in the material world, a sort of inconvenience. Just like in the physical world, growth in the spiritual realm requires parents, surroundings, toys, education, a proper upbringing and explanations. If we don’t get the right examples, then we won’t be ready for living in the spiritual world, and therefore it won’t reveal itself to us. Even if it did, we wouldn’t be able to recognize it.
Baal HaSulam writes the following in the article “Body and Soul:” “A human being cannot exist in our world without having knowledge of it, and similarly his soul is unable to exist in the Upper World without having knowledge of it. Moreover, knowledge about the Upper World actually serves as a way of sensing life in it.”
If an infant were left alone in his cradle without any attention and only his immediate physical needs were satisfied, it would become nothing more than a living, breathing body. We are incapable of developing unless we receive new and diverse impressions on a regular basis. It doesn’t matter that we don’t understand the meaning behind many of these impressions, just like a child doesn’t understand much of what happens to him. Regardless, we are still filled by these impressions and use them to grow. The same thing happens in the spiritual world: We must fill ourselves with diverse impressions that originate from the spiritual world, and that don’t exist in our world.
And that is exactly how The Book of Zohar influences us and why this book is so special. When a person reads or listens to this book, it starts transferring impressions of the higher, unknown world to him. It doesn’t matter whether we understand the meaning of its contents or not; we’re still filled by those impressions. There is no other book that makes such an impact.
Gradually, as we advance through studying The Book of Zohar, we start receiving and accumulating impressions from the spiritual world. When those impressions enter our being, they advance our development in the spiritual world even without our awareness that this growth is taking place.
When we read The Book of Zohar at our lessons, I will provide explanations of the text in order to help connect a person with its contents. However, a person can read The Book of Zohar without any explanations whatsoever. All we need is a desire to understand and connect with the text, the same way that a wide-eyed child explores the world around him and can’t sit still for a minute because of his natural tendency to learn and absorb everything around him. If we open our feelings, heart and intellect to absorb what flows out of this book, just like a child who soaks up everything in this world, we’ll advance in the spiritual world.
It is of little importance whether a person possesses a brilliant mind or whether he has trouble learning, whether he is lazy or hard-working, rational or emotional; everyone will develop in their own way, which is best for them.
A question I received: You have explained that all worlds from the World of Infinity to our world are similar to each other in all their details as branches and roots. When I read about these worlds in The Book of Zohar with the desire to attain spirituality, and if I connect to the text, then I will enter the Upper World and see the spiritual picture through earthly images and through the book. Is this correct? Does this contact happen only when studying at a lesson?
My Answer: When we proceed through the text in The Book of Zohar, we start seeing an internal spiritual picture by receiving impressions and qualities from the text that the book talks about. We start identifying names of characters, objects, and places of our world as qualities of reception and bestowal that are big or small or good or evil.
A panel of qualities emerges in us in parallel to the picture of this world. This spiritual picture remains in us as a model that corresponds to the allegorical story line. The Zohar uses words of our world to explain the world of the qualities of reception and bestowal, which make up all that exists. These two qualities draw a picture of our world for us, and they also form the picture of the Upper World.
As we accumulate examples of correspondence of the two languages and the two worlds while reading The Book of Zohar, as we learn and organize them within us, we are able to perceive more spiritual impressions.
Question cont’d: For now, does my whole study consist of sitting in front of a book and trying to feel what is written in it, so that it will create spiritual models within me?
My Answer: The result of all our actions in the group and in dissemination, and the conclusion of all our efforts to attain the spiritual world, is revealed within us as images of reception and bestowal, and of qualities of the creature and the Creator as well as their various combinations. Revelation of the soul, which is the sensation and understanding of the Creator, happens as a result of these actions.
A question I received: What is the use of studying The Book of Zohar in our times? Do you have to study it to attain spirituality?
My Answer: Yes, the time has now arrived to study The Book of Zohar. I waited for this a long time, because we had to go through a preparation period. Now we have reached a state where a great mass of people all over the world is able to ascend up the spiritual ladder. This is why the commentary to The Book of Zohar is called Sulam – The Ladder.
That is why we are starting to study The Book of Zohar together now. Every person who joins us for this study, and who is able to nullify himself like a baby in order to study together with us, will be able to break through into the sensation of what The Zohar describes.
The Zohar cannot be studied with the mind because it speaks to a person’s heart and develops his sensations. The aim of this is to let him feel two qualities: bestowal and reception. That is why Baal HaSulam named his commentary to The Zohar “Sulam” – The Ladder.
In addition, The Zohar cannot be studied on your own, but only in a group. In fact, that is how it was written, by a group of ten Kabbalists whose souls were completely united. The ten Kabbalists who wrote The Zohar made up a spiritual vessel comprised of the ten main Sefirot. Each of them represented one Sefira, or one special force of the wholesome vessel (Kli) that was created by the Creator. Therefore, if we aspire to become such a wholesome vessel, then we will be able to receive this message from them, and it will influence us.
If we try to study The Zohar in a group now, we will quickly feel how the force concealed in this book connects us. And to the degree we unite, we will be able to accept and understand its message. Actually, we will be able to feel it, because understanding happens through the heart. There are specific desires that are organized particularly in order to understand the spiritual message.
It is impossible to attain The Zohar with dry reason. There has to be a group that has gone through a great path of preparation, whose members have already tried to attain spirituality through other means and have been freed of their delusions. They have discerned many things and are ready to cancel themselves because they understand that alone, with their individual forces, they cannot achieve anything. Then, they are ready to start studying The Zohar and to tune into it.
As we read The Book of Zohar, we should understand that it speaks only about the connection between our souls and the one general system in existence of which we are all part. The Zohar speaks about the various degrees of connection and the actions that bind us. It is expressly for this purpose that it uses names of people and objects from this world, as well as names of angels, Sephirot, Partzufim and other spiritual objects. The only focus in all of this is the correlation of desires, and the reader should imagine himself inside of this net of connections. Then The Book of Zohar will begin to influence him.
Try to feel that you are inside a world of forces and desires, in a field that connects us all together. There is not one mention of our world, but everything speaks only about the inner connection between people. Just imagine how everything it describes is about you – it is you who ascends and descends along the spiritual degrees, relating to different parts of Zeir Anpin, which are called Jacob, Noah, David, Abraham, Isaac, and so on. All of this is you! As a result, you will see this entire picture before you.
The effort we exert to enter this picture is what will create it within us, because this is what draws the Upper Light onto us. For example, take the following except:
There are two waters in your hole, and they are seeping from your well. The hole is an empty space that does not let out water, and the well is the water swiftly pouring to the outside. But they are both together in one place, representing Nukva (creation, Malchut, the heart, or the desire). Until she unites with her husband, the Creator, she stands there like an empty hole, like a pauper who is dependent on everybody. But when she unites with Him, she becomes a well full of water. The well becomes filled with water from above – from Zeir Anpin, the Creator, and its water pours downward, toward the souls of the righteous.
Every person must imagine that this is written about him and his state. Either he is an empty hole or a well full of water; this depends on the extent of his ability to connect to the other souls or points in the heart. However, the whole system exists within one’s desire.
If one feels like a pauper who doesn’t have anything (this is how a person feels when he comes to Kabbalah), then this desire makes him feel like a Nukva (a desire to be fulfilled) opposite the Creator. A person must then realize that he can only receive the fulfillment to the extent that he corrects his desire. That is when the empty hole will become a well full of water, longing to fulfill others and the Creator. That is how a person becomes an eternal spring from which living water flows.
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