The Zohar, Chapter “Miketz (At the End),” Item 61: Nukva is called, “night,” and she is a mirror, which means illumination of Hochma. And since there is no illumination of Hochma in any Partzuf besides her, Nukva is called, “mirror” or “vision.” Accordingly, the name “night” is vision.

Nukva is the desire to be filled that is capable of becoming similar to the Creator, the desire to bestow, because it sees Him before it. All our desires rise to Nukva, to Malchut of the World of Atzilut.

If these desires are directed at bestowal and willing to unite with the other souls, they enter Malchut of the World of Atzilut and unite with each other. In this manner, they become similar to Zeir Anpin of the World of Atzilut and a connection emerges whereby Zeir Anpin and Malchut are in adhesion.

Nukva becomes similar to Zeir Anpin, or stated differently, the creature becomes similar to the Creator. When the creature prepares itself properly, the Creator is imprinted in it, and thus, creation becomes His “mirror.” For this reason, it is called a “photograph of the Creator.”

When our desire to receive pleasure takes on the same exact form as that of the Creator (in other words, when it becomes bestowing), it is called a “photograph of the Creator.”

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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: We have just completed a Congress with tens of thousands of participants all over the world who wanted to unite. What were we missing to make the jump to the next spiritual level?

My Answer: We revealed that there are many people all over the world studying together with us, who we didn’t even know about. However, quantity is not the only thing that’s important. We also have to reach a correct, powerful connection. In the meantime every person still has his own idea of unity, but we already have a good, powerful base for creating it.

Now everything depends on how much every person will be able to understand and feel that:

1. The Creator created just one common desire,

2. It was deliberately arranged that we, the parts of the common desire, do not feel our connection as one inseparable whole in Malchut of the World of Infinity. On the contrary, being in this world we feel the broken Malchut, where we don’t even feel our souls but live in an imaginary reality which is nothing like the real one.

In actuality, all of reality is spiritual and we are now in an unconscious state. We perceive the lack of spiritual consciousness as our world and as us in it. Therefore, we must all understand that everything we see now is a fog, our shared fantasy, and we have to make efforts to return to the true reality. The true reality is founded only on our desire to feel our unity, our mutual inclusion into one another and of all of us together.

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I have this false perception that there is somebody existing outside of me, that there are people close and far whom I can push away, cheat, or exploit. But all of this is nothing but an illusion. It is an intricate game, an exercise that lets me scrutinize and invert my desire until I begin to love others more than myself. Then I will give others my last chair and my last pillow, because I will come to view their desire, which has been so abhorrent to me before, as more important than the one I used to regard as my own.

There are desires that exist in me from the beginning and which I perceive as my “self.” These are actually the weakest desires, pertaining to Aviut zero. The first level of Aviut appears as being separate from my “self,” such as my family and relatives. The second level is even further away, such as the people who provide me with all kinds of benefits and on whom my wellbeing depends on in some way – for example, doctors, scientists, and so on.

The third level is further still – these are people I want to exploit, but I’m willing to let them live. The farthest level is the fourth; these are my mortal enemies.

It follows that the further away the desire I perceive, the greater its power compared to my own desire. Therefore, when I attach these “external” desires to myself, I experience them as much stronger than those which previously appeared as my own. This is why I am so willing later on to give my “last pillow” to these desires.

I prefer them to my initial desire of Aviut zero because it is so weak. Indeed, what is really the extent of my current desires for food, water, family, money, and knowledge? They are truly insignificant when compared to my other desires, the desires of my “friends.” These are the desires that enable me to acquire the spiritual worlds and higher states.

If I manage to attach the desires of my friends to myself on the first degree by making them my own, this is called reaching the World of Assiya. What follows is the Worlds of Yetzira, Beria, and Atzilut. These worlds represent the distance between me and my friends.

Therefore, “love your friend as yourself” is not a slogan for this world, appealing for world peace. It’s talking about the correction of the soul, where I attach the entire universe to myself, correct my vision and perception of all reality, and attain eternity.

All the worlds are me; I am Malchut of the World of Infinity – the whole of reality created by the Creator.
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The Book of Zohar was concealed from people for a long time. Only a few chosen souls (Kabbalists) used it and passed it from one to another, forming a lineage.

The book was revealed to outsiders when the widow of the Kabbalist Moshe De Leon sold it along with other books belonging to her husband. That is when Kabbalists began to forbid its study and created rigid restrictions to repel people from it. In the meantime, they continued studying this book in order to correct their souls, and they also taught other disciples who had a point in their hearts. If, however, a person lacked a point in the heart and didn’t strive to reveal spirituality, then he was banned from opening this book.

Today humanity as a whole has reached a stage of development where The Book of Zohar can be opened by anyone; there is no danger in doing so. First of all, this is due to Baal HaSulam’s “Sulam” Commentary on The Zohar, and secondly, because of the current level of the souls’ development. Human egoism has become so boorish, aggressive and corporeal that if a person doesn’t have a point in the heart, he won’t be interested in The Book of Zohar.

Without a doubt, this book is the only resource capable of correcting the soul. We still don’t fully understand what a wonderful tool it is. We don’t feel even a single word of it and don’t use the Light that is supposed to reach us when we read this book. We are not yet connected to this functional system; we simply read the words without understanding their meaning.

When we understand what kind of system it is, connect to it and start using it, then The Book of Zohar will turn out to become the Malchut of the World of Infinity for us. Just like an embryo, we will enter the spiritual uterus that will become our world, and we will continue to grow by ascending from one world to another until reaching Malchut of the World of Infinity. That’s what The Book of Zohar means – it is a gradual revelation that works in this manner.

We don’t understand what a sacred book it is. It is truly a device for revealing the Upper Light!

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A question I received: The Zohar evokes very powerful inner experiences, revealing the whole picture to me. But the moment I try to think about the unification of all souls, everything suddenly disappears and I am no longer able to keep my attention on the text. What should I do?

My Answer: Imagine that on your way to the Creator you’re passing through a filter or mechanism called the assembly of all souls, Malchut of the World of Atzilut. Otherwise you will not be able to unite with the Creator, with Zeir Anpin. You can only do it by passing through this system of souls, and that means absolutely all the souls that were created and then broken, and that now exist in Malchut of the World of Infinity in their uncorrected form.

If you want to reach Zeir Anpin, the Creator, you have to pass through this filter, this entire mechanism called the assembly of the souls of Israel, which is a union of all those who “aspire directly to the Creator.” In addition, you have to desire to unite them; you have to want to be that very Malchut of the World of Atzilut that unites with Zeir Anpin.

You do not exist unless you can connect all the souls within you, unless you can envision how the whole world is inside of you and how you take all of it to the Creator in order to bring all the souls into adhesion with Him. This is the picture you must see within yourself.

You do not exist in Malchut unless you want to unite with the other souls. Malchut is not your desire for fulfillment, but the desire to unite with the other souls, which you currently feel as distant from you and separated. However, the more you feel these souls in spite of everything and the more you want to unite with them, the more real becomes your existence in Malchut.

Malchut of the world of Atzilut is the result of your efforts to unite with the other souls; it is your joint desire together with everyone. When receiving the Torah, all the people had to unite as “one man with one heart” in order to unite with the Creator. That shared, central point for us all, the point wherein we unite with the Creator, is called Malchut of the World of Atzilut. Otherwise you are nowhere to be found in this picture.

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A question I received: What is the Light that Reforms, which is supposed to lift us up?

My Answer: It is a force that comes to you as a result of your study and your desire. There is a very thin ray of Light that begins to influence you if you “walk” into it. You and your desires take up the whole sphere, but you must find this narrow ray by moving toward the spiritual goal. Then this Light will begin to influence you, returning you to its Source.

The Light comes out of that very goal, and if you attune yourself precisely to this Light, you will come under its influence. It will begin to shine on you and draw you toward the goal along its ray.

What does this have to do with reading The Zohar and thinking of the unity of souls? This ray takes root precisely in the source of unity – in the collective soul before its breaking, where all the souls are united into one, in Malchut of the World of Infinity. That is why it is so important for you to desire to come under the influence of this Light that Reforms and to feel that you depend on it completely.

In addition, you have to find this ray on your own. It is aimed sharply down from Above, from the World of Infinity, the root of your soul. It spans across all the worlds and reaches all the way into this world, “touching” you. However, it shines from Above only at a specific point in this world, and you have to come to that point by having the right intentions. Only when you find this point will you see that narrow ray of Light shining from Above, and then your soul will ascend along the ray up to its root.

You have to change in order detect this point. In the meantime, the Light is all around you, but you cannot see it. You will only see it if you find a way inside it; therein lies the challenge.

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The Zohar: It is known that everything is comprised of “world, year, and soul.”

One perceives oneself and the world through limitations called “world, year, and soul.” “World” is everything one perceives as the space surrounding him, in which he and everything else exist. “Year” is the sequence of actions, times, and states that one goes though, perceiving them as an order of cause and consequence. This gives one the perception of life and the flow of time. The soul is the person who feels that he exists and lives within space and time.

Thus, there is the person, the world that surrounds him, and the perception of a changing reality – world, year, and soul. This is how we all perceive our existence. However, in actuality, the limitations of “world, year, and soul” do not exist. They are all the Upper Force, which depicts these feelings, coordinates, and boundaries inside us.

In the science of Kabbalah we learn that there is Malchut and Bina. When we perceive our existence in Malchut, we feel that we are standing on earth; when we perceive our existence in Bina, we feel that we are in the clouds; and when we perceive that we are situated between Malchut and Bina, we feel that we are between the sky and the ground.

The Upper Forces depict for us the whole world that surrounds us and our existence in it. They are like vectors on a computer screen, giving us a sensation of time and space, which consist of many objects. However, all of these are just forces that illustrate a colorful, three-dimensional picture for us and within us.

All of this is, in fact, one force, but its influences are presented to us in a way that separates them into time, space, and motion, or, as The Book of Zohar says, into world, year, and soul. As a result, we feel that we exist in a world where everything moves and exists in a continuous fashion.

However, all of this is the influence of one force upon us. It is this force that creates all these various impressions, giving us a sensation of ourselves, a three-dimensional space, and time.

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Our broken desires enumerate to a total of 320 (8x4x10). They are separated into 320:10=32, which is Malchut, as well as the other 320-32=288, which are the nine Sefirot up to Malchut. Stated differently, there are “288 spiritual organs” that we can work with, and the “stone heart” (Lev HaEven) – the 32 parts of Malchut. The correction of the stone heart amounts to not working with it. We don’t need to conquer these desires or implement them for the sake off bestowal. We just need to discern them and reject them.

However, we don’t perform this discernment on our own. It is done by the Light that comes to us. It colors the desires that pertain to the first nine Sefirot, 288 spiritual organs, into all the colors of the rainbow, and makes the 32 desires of the stone heart black, showing us that we cannot touch them. We can’t use them, since we have no power for this. As soon as you touch such a desire, you immediately fall under its power – into the hands of the evil angel Hatata, who “stands waiting for you at the entrance” into the spiritual world and leads you astray.

The first nine Sefirot are also not corrected by us, but by the Light. However, we can ask for this correction, whereas we are unable even to request for the stone heart to be corrected to bestowal. That’s because it holds such great pleasures that when we find ourselves before them, we are incapable of asking to be rid of them and to give the pleasure to someone who seems like a stranger to us. Therefore, we cannot touch these desires.

This is instilled in our nature; these desires are our primordial material. When we undergo correction, we adopt the Creator’s qualities. But our own material is incapable of correction. For example, imagine that I am situated in a place (a desire), where I can “hold the Creator’s hand.” The Creator says, “Let’s go to Pharaoh!” Then, even though I am small and weak, I hold His hand like a child holds an adult’s hand, and I’m not afraid of anything! I feel strong like a child who knows that the adult will give him anything he wishes.

However, the desires of the stone heart are for the sake of “Me and Me alone!” They lack the first nine Sefirot and the Creator’s “hand.” He is not present with me in these desires, and on my own, I am unable to do anything. The minute I am separate from the adult, I am incapable of anything, and by trying I will immediately cause damage to myself. This is the meaning of the desires of the stone heart.

Therefore, our work is to check all of our desires, qualities, situations and actions to the maximum and to clarify where we exist together with Him, in adhesion. We also need to discern the desires where we cannot be together with Him in order to avoid touching them or using them. By doing so, we will correct them.

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