A question I received: What kind of spiritual advancement did we gain at The Zohar Convention 2010 that was held last week?

My Answer: We went through enormous changes. I felt that the nation of Israel did not simply receive The Book of Zohar, but returned to it. It wasn’t the reception of something new, but the joy of people who found what they once lost.

Maybe they can’t even give themselves an explanation of what happened to them, but I saw that this is exactly what their souls experienced. They felt that they found what they lost two thousand years ago. They aren’t studying The Book of Zohar now, but are remembering it.

Indeed, this is the case: They aren’t finding out something new, but are rejoicing about the return of something that was once lost. Therefore, I think that the nation of Israel went through a great, wonderful spiritual ascent. Moreover, this doesn’t apply just to the people who were with us at the Convention. It was a step forward for the entire dissemination of the science of Kabbalah among the nation of Israel, which will later be joined by all humanity. Thus, all of Babylon (all of humanity) is returning to its spiritual source.

There is reason to hope that all the souls will unite into one soul of Adam in our lifetime and we will attain the state of the Final Correction, the World of Infinity, the corrected common soul. I believed in this and waited for it, but our success exceeded all my expectations. I think that we are being given great opportunities from Above to correct our nature.

There is still a lot of work ahead of us, which is special and yet difficult. At the same time, it is extremely important and exalted, and we have to be grateful that the Creator has chosen to fulfill His great plan through us.

Now all we have to do is continue to disseminate Kabbalah among the nation of Israel with the help of all the people who took part in the Convention together with us. By virtue of the wisdom of Kabbalah and the force of the Light of The Book of Zohar, Israel will unite into a single nation, as Baal HaSulam writes in the newspaper “The Nation” and Item 70 of “Introduction to The Book of Zohar.” This is possible only by uniting the hearts, and that can only happen by the force of the Light that Reforms, which raises us above our egoism.

I would like to thank all the people who came to the Convention from many different countries all around the world. Together we will be able to carry out this great correction, and judging by the speed of its current dissemination, it is bound to happen very fast.

The time has not yet arrived to reveal the true depth and greatness of what is unfolding, but I can say that we carried out exalted and mighty inner corrections. And this will soon be expressed inside us and in the world.

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When Baal HaSulam explains The Book of Zohar using the terminology of Kabbalah, he aims to provide an explanation that will develop our soul and sensations rather than our mind. This is, indeed, a challenge because the language of Kabbalah is very precise, logical, scientific, and dry and therefore, a person faces the pitfall of becoming too engrossed in it mentally. This is especially so in our time when egoism is so highly developed that its development occurs through the mind. The modern person is inclined to look for a scientific explanation using the earthly mind instead of feeling the Upper World inside his corrected desires.

As a result, when a person hears an explanation, he is lured into Klipa. If he accepts everything on a purely rational basis and starts to provide explanations to what is happening without relating it to the correction of his sensations, then he won’t aspire for spiritual attainment. He will be satisfied with the explanations on the level of his earthly reason, and that will halt his spiritual progress. Moreover, he will go on to confuse others who don’t understand that his beautiful words hold no spiritual attainment, but just abstract knowledge.

This is why my teacher Rabash conducted his lessons in a way that caused his students to leave the lessons confused, not understanding anything. They did not aspire to acquire pure knowledge, but waited to acquire the ability to feel what they read. There is also a different approach to teaching Kabbalah where a student rejoices after the lesson about receiving certain knowledge and being able to connect everything beautifully into a single picture of the world. These are two completely different approaches.

Either way, life will put everything in its rightful place. The global crisis, suffering, problems, and the development of egoism will bring an end to our superficial interest in science. People will become smarter and realize that abstract knowledge is of no use because it does not provide any solutions to their problems. We have to reveal and feel spirituality, instead of building theories based on things written in books.

When the mind works based on feeling and attainment, we truly reveal nature, the Creator. However, when the mind keeps growing instead of achieving real attainment, it is described by the verse, “One’s knowledge exceeds one’s actions” (Hochmato Merubeh Mi Maasav) and this halts a person’s spiritual development. He starts to be a know it all even though he is actually in total darkness and does not feel what he speaks of.

Therefore, it is my wish to prevent every person from being carried away by speculative commentaries, and to help everyone aspire only to self-correction and the attainment of real revelation.

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The Zohar, Chapter “Tazria (When A Woman Delivers),” Item 162: “A single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin…on the evidence of two witnesses.”

We have to take into consideration that the language of The Zohar is not always smooth. This book came to us after being collected from detached pages. Sometimes it lacks certain chapters and there are many unfinished sentences. Often Baal HaSulam replenishes it with comments saying that some content is omitted or that there is no connection between its parts.

Nevertheless, by no means can we change anything in it, even though it is obvious that the text was compiled of the pieces that were available. What we consider to be The Book of Zohar is actually a very small part of what was originally written.

On the other hand, we should understand that this fact doesn’t reduce the book’s strength or ability to deliver the Light to us. The fact that we have this book in its current form means that it is exactly what we need for the correction of our souls. The language of the book is not always clear and we come across vague portions of phrases in many places. This is proof of the authenticity of its text.

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A question I received: What are the signs of our advancement in reading The Book of Zohar and generally in our spiritual work?

My Answer: The clearest and strongest sign of advancement in reading The Book of Zohar is the feeling of a greater need for connection with others.

Another sign is that I feel that The Zohar attracts me for some reason. Sometimes it draws me more and sometimes less, but no matter what, I feel good being near this book, whether reading or listening to it. I feel that there is power in this book that connects me with life. It has this effect.

Even if a person does not understand or attain what The Book of Zohar describes, he still feels that this book is like a rope or a life-line that the Creator has thrown to his creatures here in this world, as Baal HaSulam writes in his article “A Speech in Celebration of the Conclusion ofThe Zohar.”

By gripping the end of this rope, we can ascend to Him.

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The Zohar, Chapter “BeHaalotcha (When You Mount the Candles),” Item 13: How pleasant are the words of Torah, for in each and every word are sublime secrets, and the whole Torah is called “superior.” We learned that the thirteen qualities in the Torah, meaning everything that was a part and then stopped being a part, did not stop so as to point to itself. Rather, it parted so as to teach about the whole….

In our world, we can utilize analysis and synthesis to divide the whole into separate parts and study each part separately. However, the spiritual world is like a holographic picture where each part contains the entire universe, acting as a single part only with respect to the individual. Therefore, we must always strive for the general.

Even when we attain a small part, we must understand that it contains everything. Spiritual attainment always alludes to the general, to the place of the quality studied in the general system. Without studying the general, it is impossible to study the particular.

In his article, “The Future Generation,” Baal HaSulam writes that we must create first a virtual state of Kabbalah and then a material one, which would contain all the parts of the future structure of the world – a miniature whole. Accordingly, even our internet site must be structured like a complete, whole state of Kabbalah, including everything necessary for the generation of the era of correction to communicate with one another.

This will be a small part of a new reality, but it will be absolutely whole, without a single detail forgotten. Indeed, it will only be a part of reality with respect to us while we remain uncorrected. But as we correct ourselves, this part will swallow up the entire world and all of reality, and the whole universe will come inside of it. We will have nothing left to add to it. After all, in the spiritual world every part includes the general, and only our incorrect view regards it as a part, for we are incapable of grasping the whole. But we must always understand that before us lies infinity.

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The Zohar is the name of the Light that comes from the head of Arich Anpin, which is the state of the end of correction. The Zohar was composed by ten great Kabbalists who represent the ten main Sefirot, the complete HaVaYah. This is the original Upper System which descended to a particular level, and later, Baal HaSulam brought it even closer to us. As a result, we have a connection with the highest state. All of this was done for us.

Talmud Eser Sefirot is a special book. However, it is written in a form that distracts our mind so much that we cannot bring our feelings into it. Perhaps after reading The Zohar, we will be able to begin to read Talmud Eser Sefirot properly. The Zohar addresses our feelings and the Sulam Commentary addresses our minds. Together, they stir us in both of these directions and we are unable to resist it.

The Zohar is a revelation of the Upper System where you are allowed to press the buttons controlling everything. Even though you don’t know what buttons you are pressing, the system translates them into the proper influences. The Upper Degree (or a Kabbalist) understands what you want. He doesn’t give you what you are asking for, but what you really need. He acts in accordance with your inner need. For this reason, The Book of Zohar is the most special book of all the books of Kabbalah.

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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: Sometimes in life there are situations of incredible opportunity. In a month and a half there will be an international Kabbalah Congress in Israel dedicated to The Zohar, which will be attended by thousands of people. How should we prepare for this Congress if we want real changes to take place?

My Answer: This is, indeed, a very special situation. For the first time in history, we are given the opportunity to solve all our problems, both in Israel and the whole world. This is what the revelation of The Book of Zohar can do.

This Congress will give every person the key to the solution; the solution can be partial or complete, it can be personal or national or even global, it can even pertain to the existence of all reality, because everything originates from one root.

At the Congress, we still study what Baal HaSulam explains – how we can truly change our destiny. Right now we have all the tools and opportunities for this at our disposal; we only have to use them correctly. We will study all of this and we will implement it in practice when we meet.

I think that every person whose wish is not to simply hear about everything Kabbalah says from a distance, but who wishes to actually implement this wisdom and to change his life and fate for the better, will participate in this Congress, whether virtually or physically. I expect that there will be people in attendance who have only heard of Kabbalah a month or two ago, and who revealed it at the last moment. There will be room for everyone there.

If a person is searching for a way to change his life and wants to find out a little more about himself, his future, and the opportunity to change things, then the wisdom of Kabbalah enables him to do this. And there is no other opportunity.

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A question I received: What is the science of Kabbalah’s approach to the perception of reality?

My Answer: The approach is very simple. A human being is a desire. This desire imagines itself from within – who am I, what am I, what do I consist of, how do I exist, as well as what and how do I feel? In addition, it imagines that it supposedly exists outside of this desire, as though there is another form of desire somehow depicted as outside of itself.

There is a great gap between the desire which seems to belong to me (in which I imagine myself), and the desire in which I perceive everything that surrounds me. The desire in which I imagine my external environment is disconnected from my internal “I.”

This external desire feels foreign in regard to my inner desire; however, I analyze it only to the extent that the inner desire can benefit from it, meaning, receive pleasure from it in my inner desire. Therefore, I can kill this external desire; I can rid it of all life and Light because I don’t care what happens to it. The most important thing for me is to gain in my inner desire. I use the external desire only to benefit my inner desire.

Why do we perceive the world and ourselves this way? Baal HaSulam explains that there is only one desire, but it has two inner, inherent differences – the separation into the internal and the external. Through this breaking, the Creator enabled us to feel the difference between Him and ourselves – to feel how opposite we are to each other and how distant He is from us. However, instead of feeling Him, we are imagining the world that surrounds us now.

So how else can He instill Himself, the quality of bestowal, into us, the quality of reception? He does so by giving us an example of what these two forms of nature represent, what it means to receive and to bestow.

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A question I received: When I look in the mirror, I see my own image and it’s clear that I can’t communicate or work with it. But when we look at our reality, we essentially see ourselves, or images of our desire.

My Answer: This is why Baal HaSulam says that a person’s desire is divided into two parts – the part that is perceived within, and the other part that seems to be outside. In one part, a person perceives himself, and in the other he perceives the world. This false, opposite form of perception was created on purpose, so we would transfer the part that is outside into our “inner” perception.

The fact is that everything on the outside, as well as myself, is actually perceived inside of me. There is nothing besides one, single desire, one world.

We are not supposed to correct our corporeal reality or the sensation of this division into “myself” and “this world,” which is reality on its lowest level. Rather, we have to unite both parts of the desire by ascending up the steps of the spiritual ladder. The reality we are in now is the last, lowest level of reality, and it does not change when we ascend spiritually. It will change and disappear only at the End of Correction, when this world will enter the general correction, the unified sensation inside a unified desire – the World of Infinity.

Until then, the picture of our world does not change. The Light does influence it; however, it influences Malchut, the desire, in order to unite both of its parts – the inner and the outer, into one. The Light influences all the other desires as well – our spiritual desires, where we have freedom of will. These are the desires we work with and have to correct. But in our world there is nothing to correct. We only have to correct the connection between the souls. That is where our desire unites into one, and in it, we reveal the Creator.

The layer of desire, where I perceive myself and the world around me, remains until the End of Correction. Even the greatest Kabbalist who ascends to the last, 125^th level and attains the general Final Correction will still perceive this world the same way as you. He will have to go to a doctor to heal his body, and he will have to use this entire world and to see reality as divided into inner and outer. Even though he knows that in reality this is not so, nevertheless, he will still see reality this way through his corporeal senses because this level of reality does not change until the very End of Correction.

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