The Zohar: The illumination of the head of the Partzuf Atik of the World of Atzilut, called “the unattainable head,” is Infinity. It is the source of the small and great states of three heads (systems of governance) of Arich Anpin, called Keter, Mocha de-Ovira (the brain membrane) and Mocha Stima (a concealed mind), which is the Yud Hey Vav of Zeir Anpin itself.

The Book of Zohar consists of different parts. Some of them use the dry language of Kabbalah, while others are more lively, narrating in the language of the Bible or legends. However, we should not pay attention to the words themselves. I don’t care which words I am hearing. After all, the Kabbalists took words from this world, but what is important for us is to receive an inner response, a certain sensation instead of the words. The word itself is not really connected to that sensation.

Baal HaSulam writes in Item 155 of the “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot” that we attract the Surrounding Light by having a great desire and aspiration to understand what we study, where “understanding” means being inspired, receiving an impression, and connecting to something. It is written, “And Adam knew Hava,” which means that they acquired an inner connection. Knowledge does not play any role here; only desire does.

Instead of hearing the words, we should desire to feel what is happening inside us. Then we will be focusing on the most important thing. The spiritual world cannot be attained through the mind. You need new vessels of perception, new senses (Kelim) that develop only by virtue of your aspiration. Your aspiration is what attracts the Light that Reforms, the Surrounding Light.

The dry words written in The Zohar using the language of Kabbalah may not inspire us and may leave us feeling dry; but if in spite of these dry words we still try to find the sensation and picture that must appear before us, then the things written in the language of Kabbalah end up being more beneficial for us than the texts that are written in the language of the Bible or legends. Therefore, even though the language of Kabbalah is dry, it is the one that awakens the greatest desire in a person who wants to advance.

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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.

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It is impossible to receive spirituality (meaning, to acquire the quality of bestowal that’s similar to the Creator) just by studying the books by yourself. You need a live teacher because only he can connect your present level with the spiritual level. The teacher has to serve as the intermediate level between you and the Creator. On your own, however, you will never be able to “jump” up to the Creator’s level. Your teacher is the intermediate degree between you and the spiritual world. He is able to do this because he exists in both worlds simultaneously.

The Ari and Baal HaSulam both write that intermediate states are the means to shift upwards. For example, see Part 3 of Talmud Eser Sefirot, “Inner Reflection.”

Even if a student could ascend to the first spiritual level on his own, it would still take him a very long time to learn about the Upper World without a teacher’s help, and then he would not have enough time to correct himself. Just like in this world, first you have to grow up for about 20 years, and only then can you begin to live on your own. But if you did not spend the first “20 years” of your “life” next to a teacher, then you are like a child who never received an upbringing or education, and who grew up without any support from adults.

That is why a person must listen to what the teacher tells him and make every possible effort to carry out the teacher’s advice. The student should accept this advice above his own egoistic surmises. Don’t be like a child who refuses to open his mouth and accept food, since what will the teacher be able to give you otherwise?

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A question I received: How can someone without spiritual attainment find a true Kabbalist in order to study with him?

My Answer: How can you find a true Kabbalist? Well, what is a true Kabbalist? Baal HaSulam writes that a true Kabbalist is someone who strives only toward the Creator and toward nothing else, such as anything related to this world or himself.

The only means that makes it possible to reveal the Creator, the Upper World, and the quality of bestowal is a Kabbalistic group. The group is a connection among people’s aspirations to reveal the quality of bestowal among them. This quality is called “the Creator.”

You aren’t trying to learn a Kabbalist’s earthly habits from him. What you learn from him is how to cancel yourself, where “cancelling yourself” means to cancel your egoism in relation to the goal – the attainment of the quality of bestowal. You have to accept this goal without any resistance to it, with full trust and no criticism, as if you were a baby.

Criticism and verification have to take place before you accept the teacher as your instructor. However, if you have a point in the heart, then you have nowhere to run from an instructor who is showing you the truth.

But what is “the truth”? It is the force of bestowal, deemed the Creator, and it becomes revealed inside your love for friends and then for the whole world. If you see that the other students and the teacher are trying to accomplish this, without considering anything besides the Creator important, this means you have found the right place to study.

Yet, this still doesn’t give you any guarantee that you will attain the goal. From here on, everything depends on you; this is where your freedom of will starts. But at the very least you have found a teacher and a group, which is the place where the Creator can be revealed.

A teacher is not the flesh and blood person you see in front of you, but attainment of the Creator and experience along this path. What you should be absorbing from him is not the earthly things, but his connection with the Creator.

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It’s important to understand what a tremendous job Baal HaSulam did when he revealed the wisdom of Kabbalah. If he hadn’t done it, it would be impossible for the masses to attain spirituality.

Common people who do not possess extraordinary souls, as chosen Kabbalists do, would not be able to advance were it not for the methodology discovered by Baal HaSulam. This methodology connects the lower branches of our world with the roots of the spiritual world, the last step of the ladder with the first step of a higher level. Moreover, he actually teaches us how to grab hold of the next step.

When a person enters spirituality and starts climbing the ladder, his soul begins to guide him. But what should a person without a soul do? What if a person still doesn’t have the desire to bestow which connects him to the higher level? How can he proceed?

For that, Baal HaSulam wrote his commentary, which serves as a tool to connect branches with roots, the material with the spiritual. He explains how our current state (the lowest step) is interlaced with the higher root of the spiritual world.

He provides explanations from the point of view of philosophy as well as psychology and other sciences, and speaks to us through the languages of Tanach (the Bible), Talmud, and Hagaddah (tales); but mainly he gives clarifications by using the language of Kabbalah. Essentially he combines all the possible ways of explaining the spiritual world which we are capable of understanding. He uses all four levels of our desires in the material world to build a portrait of ourselves and our world. Thus, he connects everything into a single methodology.

This is where the strength of a great Kabbalist lies. He “organizes” all the different levels of information presented by his predecessors about the structure of our universe, and thus eliminates confusion. Our studies are based on this systematic material about the degrees of the parallel spiritual worlds.

This is particularly evident in the “Sulam” Commentary to The Book of “Sulam” CommentaryZohar, which carries our attention away from clear concepts and brings it toward those that are unclear. But at the same time, it gives us the opportunity to connect both of them, thus allowing us to progress.

The commentary is a guide that leads us from reasonable, obvious examples towards understanding more complex concepts. That’s why Baal HaSulam named his commentary “The Ladder,” since it allows a person to adapt to higher steps of the ladder and make his way up.

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A question I received: Baal HaSulam wrote that he received permission from Above to disclose the wisdom of Kabbalah. What does “permission from Above” mean?

My Answer: When a Kabbalist achieves a high level of attainment, he divulges that he has received “permission from Above.” He accepts his new mission, feels obligated to carry it out and starts acting. This is part of the mission placed upon the shoulders of all great Kabbalists, starting from the time of Abraham and onward. The brightest example is Moses, a spiritual leader of the people.

“Permission from Above” includes knowledge of the structure of the universe, a methodology for revealing the Creator and for educating people about self correction, both in our time and to a certain extent in the future. One who receives “permission from Above” becomes a conduit through which higher knowledge flows downward, in accordance with the ability of those below the Kabbalist to absorb and learn.

Permission from Above includes within itself a vast system for bringing all humankind into harmony with the Creator. Being given “permission from Above” signifies that a human being has become a representative of the Creator, a liaison between the Creator and His creation. In fact, if a person did not receive “permission from Above,” he would only confuse others. He would not be able to adequately present the goal, its importance, the methods of achieving the goal, nor the significance of those methods.

The goal is to become one with the Creator. The method for achieving it lies in the correction of our human desires with help of the Light which returns us to the Source. This is initiated by studying Kabbalah and aspiring to become corrected, a desire that emanates from the “point in the heart.” This in turn drives our desire to connect (“love thy neighbor”) with the “points in the heart” of our fellow group members.

If a person uncovers this system, understands it, and absorbs it into his being, it means he received “permission from Above.”

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It is impossible to rise to a higher degree without the help of the Upper One. This is similar to how a child can only develop with the upbringing he receives from adults who understand what he needs to receive year after year. How much he absorbs from them depends on how much he nullifies himself before them. In our world, Nature takes care of this process.

Meanwhile, using one’s brain, a person will always judge others on his level and will never leave the boundaries of his comprehension. Therefore, the group gives us an opportunity to attain  similarity to “faith above reason,” which is only revealed in spirituality. The group gives us its opinion, and this opinion begins to govern in us. So, for the time being, this is called “faith above reason.”

Besides this, there is the concept of “a piece of bread in store for the future” (Pat be Salo – bread in the knapsack). If a person knows that he has bread in his knapsack, he does not suffer from hunger as much as a person who has no bread at all. It would seem that this is purely a physiological process. What difference does it make whether we save ourselves a sandwich or not? But there is a difference! We do not feel the hunger if we have this sandwich stored away for the future.

A wealthy person that has all types of food does not feel the desire to eat it, while a person who doesn’t have anything has a huge appetite. This is called a “piece of bread in store for the future,” even though we do not feel a desire for it.

We need to use all the possible tricks to awaken an inner sense of alarm and fear in order to expose the places where the breaking occurred. It should become clear to us that we are not in a state where we can be satisfied. We study and perform dissemination work, but this is not enough to calm us down. We need to make sure that we feel more and more alarmed in regard to our correction with every passing moment.

We need to ensure that we acquire a new desire, building an image of the Upper One for ourselves and adhering to it, so this aspiration to a new, hypothetical degree will pull us higher.

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A question I received: We keep saying in Kabbalah that we have to learn to bestow. But what can I bestow, when and to whom?

My Answer: What should you bestow? Whatever your friend desires! When? Immediately. (After all, when you love someone, you want to fulfill them right away.) To whom? To everybody!

If you come out of yourself, then the distinctions between whom to bestow to disappear. Whether it’s a friend, the Creator or all humankind, outside of your egoism they are all one.

Baal HaSulam writes the following in Item 15 of the article, “The Revelation of Godliness”:

“It is because indeed, with respect to a person who is still within the nature of creation, there is no difference between the love of God and the love of his fellow person. This is because anything that is not him is unreal to him…

Hence, he defined it for him as love of his friend because its aim is nearer and is revealed faster, since it is fool-proof and is demanding.”

It follows that testing how much you love your friend is a sure way to avoid mistakes on the path to revealing the Creator.

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A question I received: Baal HaSulam wrote that the spiritual worlds differ only with respect to their material. What does that mean? Is it because the same exact forms are imprinted into different material?

My Answer: Yes! We think that desires differ in size, that they can be big or small, but in reality, the desire only changes with respect to its essence or quality. Looking at the four phases of creation (the four phases of Direct Light), we see that desire develops not in size, but in quality.

We do not assess the size of desire according to its volume. We’re always looking at its quality, the extent to which it is similar to the Creator; this is why differentiates the level of Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Chaya, and Yechida. The size and quality of a desire are actually inversely proportional. The higher a desire’s quality, the smaller its size, much like the shape of a pyramid.

There is a great quantity of ordinary materials, qualities and people in nature, while their premium counterparts are rare. In spirituality we focus on the quality of the object rather than its size, and on acceleration rather than speed. The size of a desire is determined by its quality, not its quantity. This raises the question: If a desire does not change quantitatively, then what makes it change qualitatively? The answer is that it’s because of the Upper Light that influences it from within!

What is the difference between a great desire and a small one? The only difference is the extent to which the desire is similar to the quality of bestowal. If I’ve grown over the course of a month, it means that I’ve become more bestowing, not larger in size. But we can also say the opposite: The more a person grows in spirituality, the less he “puffs up,” as it is written: “Wisdom is for the humble.”

Spiritual changes are exclusively qualitative, both with respect to objects and time categories. Qualities are determined exclusively by intention – “reception” or “bestowal.”

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A question I received: Why is it written that Baal HaSulam merited to receive the Ari’s soul? Didn’t he have his own soul?

My Answer: The soul is a “part of the Creator from Above.” No person born in our world has it from birth. The only people who have a soul are those who have attained at least the minimal quality of bestowal, the quality of the Creator.

With the case you are asking about, a person corrected himself, attained the quality of bestowal, built his soul (vessel of perception – Kli), and suddenly this vessel acquired a specific form and was filled with the Light called “the soul of the Ari.” The soul is the corrected desire (this is “the body” of the soul), and the Light that fills it (the Light of the soul) is the revelation, the Creator, which clothes into you. That is why the soul is called a “part of the Creator from Above.”

Receiving the soul of the Ari means thinking like him, feeling like him, being instead of him, seeing through his eyes, and feeling with his senses just like him. Baal HaSulam received the soul of Ari, which is the same soul that was passed from Adam to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to Rashbi, from Rashbi to the Ari, and from the Ari to Baal HaSulam. This is a special soul through which the Creator reveals the method of merging with Him during the generations when a special spiritual change has to occur. If the Creator sent us a teacher like Baal HaSulam, who had the soul of the Ari, this indicates that we are living in the generation of the last, general correction.

The soul constantly changes and reincarnates. Throughout the course of a Kabbalist’s lifetime, he always has a different Partzuf and a different degree. A person’s corrected qualities that have the intention of bestowal, in which the Light can be clothed, is called a soul. The Kli is called the body of the soul, and the Light is called the soul. This is the Light of NaRaNHY, but in general it is called “Neshama” (soul) because until we reach the complete correction, we can only correct this degree completely.
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