The Zohar is a revelation of our true state. This revelation occurs to the extent that we are similar to what is concealed, to the degree that we acquire the quality that is similar to the concealed, spiritual world. The Book of Zohar becomes revealed to us to the extent that we acquire the intention to bestow, and if we don’t acquire it, the book will forever remain a mystery.

Kabbalah advises us to check: do we desire to bestow? We should check whether we have the aspiration to unite all the desires for bestowal of all of our friends. Their unified desire will be the revelation of the Upper Degree – the Creator.

Each of us, regardless of where he is, should rule out everything else and desire only to rise above our world, to unite and feel that we are all “one man with one heart.” This is the only way we can achieve unification and a mutual guarantee, and thus reveal the Upper World inside this quality.

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The Zohar: Raise your arms up in prayer, since we are about to reveal the order of the World of Atzilut: GAR de-Arich Anpin, called Keter, Mocha de-Avira (the membrane in the brain) and Mocha Stima (the hidden mind), as well as how they rise to the unknown head of Infinity, which is the most elevated and concealed.

Therefore, let us pray for the Creator to welcome our revelation of these secrets.

We exist inside Infinity. Regardless of our degree of attainment, the lower degree cannot perceive the Upper Degree; it cannot feel and grasp it with its mind. At any point of our spiritual ascent, the next state is always infinite and boundless in regard to the lower one.

I am limited by my range of perception. The Upper One is greater than me and does not fit into my Kli (vessel of perception). So how can I perceive Him? I can do it only by requesting for my soul to be expanded, so that I may acquire qualities similar to His. Then I will be able to reveal Him and acquire a connection with Him. The whole connection between us and the Upper Degrees is realized only through our request.

This is exactly how we advance in our regular lives: A child is always asking a grown-up for something, and the grown-up must in turn provide the child with what he considers beneficial to the child’s development. However, the little one doesn’t even know what is beneficial to his development. If he only acts using his own wit, using the mind of his degree, then he will advance by the path of suffering, by making mistakes. And only after many failed attempts will he reach an understanding that he only has to ask the Upper One, and He will know what to give him.

Therefore, everything is achieved through the power of prayer. However, prayer is not what we imagine it to be in our world! Prayer means that I desire to become more giving, to come out of my egoism. In addition, this has to be my sole desire; this is the only thing I have to ask the Upper One for.

However, this goes against my egoistic nature, and therefore, if the Upper One does not prepare me for achieving His degree, I will never be able to reach it on my own! Through my prayer and exercises, I become more and more similar to the Upper One. This continues through all 125 degrees of my spiritual ascent, until I attain my complete correction: equivalence to the Creator.

Now we can understand what is written in The Book of Zohar: If the soul does not receive knowledge about the world to come, then a person cannot enter it and exist in it. After all, without having this knowledge about the quality of bestowal and how to realize it, he will not be able to live there.

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A question I received: How can I imagine myself in bestowal?

My Answer: Only with the help of the environment. There is no other way. We’ve been given a truly miraculous instrument from Above. In this world, on every spiritual degree, and in each state, we have “us versus the environment.” That’s why even before the appearance of this world and the inclusion of humans, there was a breaking, a division of the souls and the emergence of individual bodies.

We are unable to picture an image of the Upper One ourselves, since we don’t have anything within us that is similar to Him. In the same dimension where we exist right now, in our world, there’s “us” and the “environment.”  On the basis of the relationships between each of us and the environment, we can then build the relationship between ourselves and the Upper One. The principle of assembling among us the model of connecting with the Creator, is called “from love for the created beings” to “love for the Creator.”

By overcoming the egoism within us, by putting the importance of attaining the quality of bestowal above our quality of reception, and by working on these relationships within the group (the connection between the points in the heart of our friends), we create the quality of bestowal within us. To the measure of the desire that the Upper One grants us, we sense the Creator by experiencing the attribute of bestowal within ourselves.

Here we can understand the need for the breaking of the universal soul. If it were not for this breaking into individual souls, none of us would be able to create the desire to attain the quality of bestowal on our level, nor to bring upon us the effect of the Light of Correction.

By verifying everything relative to the environment (points in the heart), it becomes clear to us how we relate to the Creator, to the Upper Degree. We cannot sense it, but we can prepare ourselves for its attainment.

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A question I received: Why isn’t the Surrounding Light necessary to study regular sciences, but absolutely necessary to study the science of Kabbalah? What is the difference between Kabbalah and other sciences?

My Answer: Regular sciences are studied using one’s egoistic desire, and the researcher is not expected to do anything beyond this world. Regular sciences do not go beyond examining the egoistic material, our desire to receive pleasure. It is this desire that makes us believe that there is an enormous world around us that we are examining. But in truth, what we are examining is our inner desire on the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels, which exist within us.

All the animals, vegetation, and inanimate objects, and generally speaking, all the things we attain through the earthly sciences, are actually depicted to us in our desire to receive pleasure. This is why at the end of the day, we only discover our own desire. This is what all the sciences do, such as physics, biology, chemistry, astronomy, and others. All of this is inside us.

And what about the wisdom of Kabbalah? It is also within us. The only difference is that regular sciences examine our egoistic desires in their original form, which was initially given to us, whereas the wisdom of Kabbalah examines our desires after an “upgrade” – once they have the intention to bestow. However, we first need to acquire this intention in order to perform the research.

This is why the examiner of our corporal desire to receive pleasure does not have to change. The phenomena that he studies are those that appear inside his own egoistic desire. The only thing he needs to study them is reason and logic.

But a person who wants to examine what happens in the desire to receive pleasure with the intention to bestow – a Kabbalist, must acquire the intention of bestowal, because that is his research tool.

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The only thing created in the whole of creation was the desire to enjoy and nothing exists but this. The Light, the quality of bestowal, created this desire for pleasure as opposite to Itself. The Creator, the quality of bestowal, wants the creation, the desire to enjoy, to feel Him, to understand Him and to reach the state of perfection.

The perfect state is to be in equivalence to the Creator, to the Light, to the quality of bestowal. Therefore, after creating a desire to enjoy, the Creator left it neither empty, nor filled it in an unchangeable state, but rather embedded in it His quality, a desire to bestow. The Creator did not just give the feeling of pleasure or lack of it (suffering), but embedded in it His quality, so that there would also be the understanding of what receiving and giving mean.

The ability to discern bitter from sweet is called “feeling,” and the ability to differentiate between receiving and giving is called “mind.” Mind is also a feeling, a sensation that is inside the desire, but this already exists as “reason.”

It turns out that the desire was created to perceive:

• fulfillment or lack of fulfillment as sweet/bitter
• receiving or giving as false/true

Since the creation consists of two parts, the creation and the Creator, or the quality of creation and quality of the Creator, therefore the desire (the creation) permanently exists in the identity of this relationship to itself.

These two components build inside the desire four possible combinations (states) that the science of Kabbalah calls the “Four-letter Unpronounced Name of the Creator” (Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey). This matrix includes all revelations of the Creator within the creation, from the simplest to the most complex forms.

Each of the four increasingly advanced stages includes all preceding stages, growing out of each previous stage to the next one. It is in this manner that the desire to enjoy comes to its full development.

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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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A question I received: Why did the Creator give us egoism if we have to unite and get rid of it sooner or later?

My Answer: People learn about the world by comparing opposites, such as hot and cold, black and white, and so on. We feel one thing on the background of the other. If everything were only white or only black, then we wouldn’t feel a thing. We always need contrast, such as the difference between colors, sensations and places. What we actually feel is the gap between things and not each thing on its own.

The Creator is the pure quality of bestowal. However, I cannot feel this quality of bestowal unless I am opposite to it. Then I will have two “inhabitants” living inside me: a monster named the Evil Inclination, and opposite to it – the beautiful Creator, the Good Inclination. The inner opposition between them will enable me to differentiate one from the other.

Before I discover the evil inclination within myself, I can only have a tiny sensation of this world, the smallest possible feeling. But by revealing that inclination, I can also discover the Creator, who stands opposite my egoism.

This is why we need egoism, in order to be our “helper” from the opposite side. Because it is opposite to the Creator, it helps us attain and perceive Him.

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A question I received: What is the goal of creation, and where are we on the spiritual ladder leading to this goal?

My Answer: The goal of creation is to reach adhesion with the Creator. Kabbalah uses various techniques in order to express the essence of categories and qualities of a concealed world that the reader does not perceive.

In order to discern the difference between the Creator and the creation, we say that the Creator is “above” and creation is “below” with regard to the importance of their qualities. We then measure the distance or height between them, although it is not a physical distance, but a difference of qualities, the degree of man’s separation from the absolute Creator.

If a person does not have even one desire that is similar to the Creator (the quality of bestowal), then he hasn’t reached even the first degree of the ladder between him and the Creator. If he has made at least a minimal portion of his desires similar to the Creator, then he ascends to the first degree. If he is able to use a greater portion of his desires for the sake of bestowal, then he ascends to the second level.

These “portions” are set for us from the beginning. They are precise and always differ from one another by ten Sefirot. Each time, I receive a strictly defined addition of desire, and by correcting my intention from reception to bestowal, I ascend.

Eventually I will have to make the entire desire that was created in me similar to the Creator. However, this desire is presently concealed from me and becomes revealed to the degree that I am able to use it for the sake of bestowal. This is why the entire universe is divided into three worlds:

• This world, which I perceive just like everyone else, even within the desire “for my own sake”;
• The world that is concealed from me, which is a desire that I am still unable to use for the sake of bestowal, and that is why that world does not become revealed to me;
• The Upper World that is revealed to me, which is a desire that I am able to use for the sake of bestowal, and that is why I perceive the Creator within my equivalence of form with Him.

Everything takes place inside the one, common desire that was created by the Creator. There is nothing in existence besides this desire. Everything that is concealed and revealed constitutes one created desire. Therefore, that which is concealed from me today will become revealed to me tomorrow. And thus, one more part of reality will shift from being concealed to revealed.

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A question I received: How can the desire to receive take on the form of bestowal?

My Answer: In my desire to receive, I can only receive and am not able to give anything to anyone. I am not the source of delight or the Light, as it is only the Creator who bestows since He does have the Light.  However, by receiving from the One who loves me in order to please Him, I become a giver! The action of receiving doesn’t change, since I, as a created being, can only receive. I am only adding a correct intention to my pleasure and it therefore allows me to fill another with delight.

However, the bonds of mutual love help me to convert the pleasure of reception into the means to bestow to someone else.  This is just as a guest helps himself to a meal in order to please the host. The desire of another becomes primary for me, as I am then receiving pleasure in order to please him.

This is what Kabbalah teaches us; how to receive in order to become a giver.

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