Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Igrot,” Letter 13

Workshop

The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts, Parashat, “BeShalach“

Writings of Ari, “Shaar HaKavanot,” Pesach

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Shamati #23 “You that Love the Lord, Hate Evil”

Questions and Answers with Dr. Laitman

Questions and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, Igrot, Letter 14

The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts, “Bo,” “Come Unto Pharaoh”

Writings of the Ari, “Shaar HaKavanot,” Pesach

Writings of Rabash, Article 15   

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Question: How can we protect ourselves from a fall into material desires when reading The Book of Zohar?

Answer: The study of Torah means that I am expecting the Light that Reforms, as it is written: “I created the evil inclination, I created the Torah as a spice.” To the degree that I feel that I have an evil inclination that I want to get rid of and I know that I have no chance of doing this in any way except through learning together with friends, then I reach a state in which I study and expect the Light that Reforms. This is called studying the Torah.

That is, studying the Torah needs preparation, a great desire to correct something in me that only the Torah and nothing else can do. No remedy from a doctor will help here, no exercise, or excellence in something. This is simply beyond human abilities. I am not ready for this.

I need to approach The Book of Zohar in such a state. Then certainly I will expect that this study will make me healthy, will correct in me what I determine is the evil inclination. It could be that this is still not the true evil inclination, but at the moment I think so.

What is this evil inclination? They are all kinds of desires that hinder me from reaching correction. The Torah says that it is instruction for developing spirituality: If you won’t correct these desires, then you will not reach the goal of creation.

And because these desires hinder me from reaching the goal of creation, I call them “evil.” I don’t delete them; rather, I expect that the Torah will correct them. How? I don’t know. For indeed it is written: “For the light that is in it will turn him to the good.” This means that these desires remain, but they take on a different character.

Question: What do I need to do to reach despair about my own abilities?

Answer: Try to do as much as possible. “Whatever your hand attains to do [as long as you are] with your strength, do…” (Ecclesiastes 9:10). You need to examine what is disturbing you from reaching spirituality, the goal of life. What is the purpose of life? You reach this state at the end of your life or before it and you can carry on.

You don’t see your life as unique and unrepeatable. You see this life as a short fragment of your existence, and in this fragment you want to reach a state with which you enter into the next stage. This is called attaining the goal of life, reaching the goal of creation. For this purpose we exist here for the duration of these decades.

It’s possible for everyone to reach this. What is stopping you? This is what you need to clarify and see for you can reach a state beyond this life solely and only on condition that you are equipped with a desire to bestow.

You must acquire this desire through studying Torah under certain conditions, by advancing with connection, working in a group, disseminating, doing everything in order to reach bestowal. After all, our entire world is immersed in the desire to receive and our entire temporal existence is in this, and the stages that are beyond this world exist in the desire to bestow.
[131006]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/25/14, The Zohar

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Shamati #190 “Every Act Leaves an Imprint”

The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 15

Writings of Rabash, Article 15   

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Question: It says that love was revealed in the exile in Egypt. What correction is performed in Egypt?

Answer: There are many corrections there: The detachment from Jacob, the detachment from Joseph, the connection to Moses, all this is on top of the desire to receive that constantly grows; the end of the seven years of famine and the plagues of Egypt are all many inner discernments because they are the preparation of the vessel. It says the whole difference between exile and redemption is the letter Aleph (Hebrew), in the revelation of the Light, the revelation of the Creator. In exile you have to discover to what extent you are missing the Creator because without Him you cannot connect with others.

Only when you accumulate and collect all these desires, passions, the sorrow of not being able to reveal the Creator, which means the attribute of bestowal among the friends; when you regret that you cannot connect with them and you still make an effort to discover love, the connection without any account of yourself, and you cannot do so; you reach the ten plagues of Egypt by which you already detach from Pharaoh. Before that you couldn’t detach from him.

Moses in you is ready to do so, but the people of Israel are not. To the last moment your desires only hear that they should come out of Egypt, that they should prepare themselves, that these corrupt desires will receive blows, and that the desires that are focused on the Creator will be able to differ. It’s very hard work, but this shouldn’t stop us since this is the work in Egypt. Otherwise, we will not reach redemption. We will not be awarded with the Creator’s help, whose “strong hand will lead the Israelites out of Egypt,” until we reach the end of our exertion, by trying to overcome all the problems, failures, and the heavy feeling.
[131066]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/26/14, The Zohar

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Shamati #179 “Three Lines”

The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts, Parashat, “Bo,” “Come Unto Pharaoh”

Writings of Baal HaSulam “This Is for Judah”

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The Book of Zohar, Chapter “Beresheet” (Genesis), Item 379: In the passage “and the Almighty created the firmament” refers to the highest firmament Atzilut. However, what is established in Atzilut is formed and spreads down in all the levels of BYA, down to the bottom of the lower sea.

Question: What is the firmament?

Answer: The firmament is a boundary to which the creation can rise and merge with the Upper, not above it. Above the firmament are vessels (Kelim) that the creation can receive, but we live in the space between the sky and the earth, in AHP.

Question: By reaching the complete justification of the Creator, one achieves a state called “complete righteous” and becomes the firmament that connects the upper world with the lower one. Is that so?

Answer: The righteous is the one who is at the level of the firmament. He reveals bestowal that flows through him.

Question: Is the Creator a property of bestowal?

Answer: Yes. That’s why it is called “Bo-Re” (Come and See). As soon as you reveal the property of bestowal, it means that you reveal the Creator.

Question: Does it mean that the Creator is a force that the righteous reveals by reaching the property of the firmament”?

Answer: Yes, it is true. The Creator can be revealed only when He dresses in a human being. A man who attains equivalence of properties with the Creator is called righteous.

The Creator is a property of bestowal that fills someone to the degree of the correction of one’s vessels, desires, Kelim. A screen and the reflected light are called a vessel, i.e., a measure of one’s aspiration towards reaching unity with one’s neighbor through which one can become similar to the Creator, to the Light, thus revealing the Light of bestowal in one. A place where one reveals the Light of bestowal is called a vessel.

When one wants to convey the property of bestowal to another, it means that the Light runs through me so it will act on them.

Question: Do we perceive all this inside ourselves? Are all the people, that is, all the vessels, desires, that look external to us in fact our internal desires?

Answer: Everything is inside a person. There is nothing external. At the same time, we observe the picture of this world and have to relate to it correctly: as to something that is going on outside us and at the same time is internal to us. We have to attain a state at which both realities exist simultaneously without erasing one another. If we think that everything we see is true, it means that we live only in this world. If we consider everything to be parts of our soul, if we think that everything is inside us and that all there is around us is our own parts, we as if cross out this world. We have to be present in both worlds at the same time.

Until one reaches the final correction (Gmar Tikkun), the structure of this world won’t disappear and it is prohibited to forcefully reject it.

Question: Is the final correction (Gmar Tikkun) a state that happens at the end of each step when a righteous achieves the level of the Creator?

Answer: You can ask your question in a different way: When does one sense something that looks like the final correction to him? It happens when one completes a current step. However, it is not the real final correction but some sensation of completion of one more level. In other words, it happens when one reaches complete correction within the vessels that one was working with. However, you should keep in mind that the final correction is always partial since one never involves all vessels in the process, and we never know which particular part is excluded. After all, some of the vessels belong to Malchut of the world of Infinity. From the whole Malchut of the world of Infinity, we have a tiny Kli, ten Sefirot that are open to us, and from them we cut off certain portions from them to the extent of our ability to work with them.

It turns out that there are three parts: a Kli in which we work; a Kli in which we cannot work (you can say that it is GE and AHP or Ramach and Shasa, i.e., imperative and prohibitive commandments. They all total to ten Sefirot; besides, the Kelim that represent the entire reality, the rest of Malchut of the world of Infinity is something that we are still unable to correct.

Question: If I correct ten Sefirot, does it mean that I connect them and make them as one?

Answer: No, that’s wrong. The spiritual system is analog in which each part is connected with others by myriad connections. You cannot say: “Now I am here in my ten Sefirot and later I will grow up to ten even bigger Sefirot, and so on and so forth…” No, it’s not true. It’s as if you are “spread” throughout the entire system.

Even though you are very tiny, you are still connected to everyone and “spread” over all. When you advance, you grow all of your properties little by little. You are not the one who defines which properties to expand, but rather it’s a system, the root of your soul that is responsible for this choice. That’s how we progress.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah lesson 11/20/13, The Zohar

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Workshop

The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 15, “Histaklut Pnimit,”  Item 38

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “This Is for Judah”   

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When we come to read The Zohar we must first understand why we are reading this Book. If it is for a miraculous solution (Segula), what miracle are we looking for? A “wonderful tool” is above my mind and helps me, but I don’t exactly know how. It helps me where I cannot help myself in any way. When a person despairs of his own powers and sees that nothing can help him attain what is important in life, he arrives at a true request, to an outcry. Then The Zohar can help him.

So we should clarify over and over again what the main goal is that we want to attain by reading The Zohar. Since The Zohar is only intended for reaching that one thing and not anything else. If we clarify what we want, meaning that The Book of Zohar will change us while reading it, then it will be the true study of the wisdom of Kabbalah.
[130824]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/25/14, The Zohar

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