The World Zohar Convention marks the beginning of a new phase. The convention has transformed us significantly. We also feel how the world is changing in the light of the latest events. Its problems will only intensify.

We have to reach the ultimate goal. Imagine that humanity is a runner who is beaten along his way and these blows give him strength to continue to the finish line. He must run and reach the goal. The time is set for him; he has no choice but to come to the finish line. He can only choose to run with the desire for the goal or to wait for the blows and run trying to escape them.

There is also the third path. By uniting we can trigger the force within us which will make it easy to rise to the goal. It will take us on its wings like an eagle takes its nestlings, and it will lift us up.

However, we cannot abandon the world and rise on the wings of the eagle, Bina, by ourselves. We have to stay connected with the entire world. We will ascend only if we think of all people and give ourselves to them. This seems to be a contradiction. Yet the world is standing on the brink of an abyss, and we have to help it rise on the eagle’s wings.
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Post Zohar Convention Lesson 5/11/10

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The difference between the Light and the desire compels us to move forward. When the Light fills the desire, we (the desire) calm down. We are pacified so much so that we are unable to move because we don’t feel the need to; we don’t feel any lack whatsoever. We begin to worry and strive for inner balance only to the extent that the Light differs from the desire.

We strive for balance both in terms of its quantity and quality. When the Light created the desire to enjoy and filled it (Phase One, Behina Aleph), the creature did not feel any problems since the Light came first. Only afterward does the difference emerge between Behina Aleph filled by the Creator and the Creator Himself.

A certain addition occurs. The Light begins to introduce new properties into the original desire, and the creature starts sensing the source of pleasure. “There is someone who fills me! It’s higher than me, it comes before me. It’s someone who gives; it is my Maker, the Creator.” Thereby an additional sensation is introduced into the desire of Phase One. This sensation forces the creature to compensate for it; it compels us to develop.

The kind of “friction” determines everything. In Phase One, Hochma, the friction was the sensation of the Upper One. In Phase Two, Bina, this will be the sensation of insufficiently realizing the desire to bestow.

Bina wanted to give, became filled with the Light of Hassadim (Hafetz Hesed), and therefore didn’t want to move anywhere or do anything. But then felt: “The Creator is truly giving, and what do I give?”, which produced the feeling of discontent. Hence, movement starts, which leads to a new state. In this way, the incompatibility between the Creator’s and creature’s properties, the Kli and the Light, the desire and fulfillment, brings about constant movement or development.

From the Evening Zohar Lesson 4/29/10

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The Zohar, Chapter “Shemot (Exodus),” Item 40: We open our eyes and see the wheels of the holy Merkava traveling in their journeys, and the sound of singing, sweet to the ears, to Bina, and beautiful for the heart, Malchut, rising and falling and walking, and not traveling.
…and Hochma is obtained only by journeying from line to line in the three points – Holam, Shuruk, Hirik – the sound of singing is heard. This is illumination of Hochma for the ears, which are Bina, primarily through the middle line, Tifferet, called “voice.” And it is imparted from him, from the heart, to Malchut.

A question I received: Singing is an exalted spiritual action that begets “illumination of Hochma for the ears, which are Bina,” the Light of Hassadim. How is this connected to the music put out by Bnei Baruch?

My Answer: I really like the songs written by my students Moti Mor and Arkadi Duchin. They are born from an impression of a person who is already on the spiritual path and aspires to spirituality. The fact that he hasn’t yet attained exalted levels does not matter.

Baal HaSulam writes that even a simple person may intuitively assign correct names and connect corporeal branches to their spiritual roots. For instance, some time ago some person saw the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem and thought that it was good for growing olive trees. Thus he named it Mount of Olives. Today we accept this appellation as sacred.

Baal HaSulam explains that thereby the spiritual clothes the corporeal, and the connection between the root and the branch manifests. The spiritual root affects its branch, and the branch as though “speaks” out of the root, naturally, without even knowing why.

Therefore, those who study Kabbalah create the right art even if they have not yet reached the heights of absolute spiritual sensation or attained the true nature of sounds and the deep meaning of words. The depth and richness of the impression they possess is much greater than they themselves realize. Everything that a person creates out of his connection with the Source already carries within it a spiritual spark.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/10, The Zohar

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A question I received: Is it possible to raise MAN before despair sets in?

My Answer: Then it wouldn’t be called MAN. MAN is Mayin Nukvin (waters of Nukva). It is the cry of our desire, which is incapable of achieving anything by itself. Thus it has to ascend to Bina, the quality of bestowal, the Creator.

MAN is a double interpenetration between Malchut and Bina. The Hebrew word “Maim” (water – singular form of Mayin) consists of two Hebrew letters “Mem” (“Mem – Mem”) and the word “Nukvin” is composed of the two Hebrew letters “Nun” (“Nun – Nun”). There is a connection between Malchut and Bina because during the breaking of the Kelim Bina included Malchut in herself and part of Malchut was included in Bina. Due to this connection between Malchut and Bina, we can raise our requests to the Creator.

This can be illustrated with the analogy of a child crying and demanding from his mother. His mother responds to his demands. Why is it that another woman would not be as receptive to his requests?  The child has a strong connection with his mother that does not exist between him and any other woman. The child was inside the mother, he has a “place” in her; she is his root. She has a part of the child in her. The child, too, has a part of the mother since he was connected to her through an umbilical cord. This connection between them cannot be severed. The child, when he has a demand, cries to his mother, his root.

The demand you make to the Creator called MAN flows through the connection between Malchut and Bina. Your demand stems from the realization that you are utterly powerless; it brings you to the kind of cry that we could really call MAN. MAN is your correct desire, which is necessarily answered by the Upper One. The Upper One waits for you to desire the state that He has prepared for you.

These degrees, your future states, are already prepared because you’ve descended from them into this world. Now you need to ascend back up through the same degrees. Your next degree is already waiting for you. You only need to desire that which is found there waiting for you. This desire is what is called MAN. If you don’t desire the same thing that awaits you, then you won’t receive it. There must be similarity and equivalence between the degree and the desire. If you desire something else other than the awaiting spiritual degree, then wait until the right desire forms within you. This is how we advance.

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Who is He, the Creator? The Creator is my internal sensation of my next exalted state to the extent that I am able to imagine it. Every time I change, I picture the Creator in the new way. This is why He is called    Bo-reh (come and see).

We have to understand that there is nothing absolute and unchangeable here. Everything depends on a person’s understanding, perception, and attainment. In reality there is no eternal or unchangeable truth. We need to be ready for these changing perceptions. Something that was black will become white and vice versa. The entire attitude, evaluation, and view of things will change.

It seems to us that this is a somewhat precarious system that doesn’t have a firm base. On the other hand, it does give us a new, completely unique foundation, which is called faith above reason. In other words, in the egoistic desires, it is impossible to receive any concrete knowledge that could be set in stone and would never change.

This fluctuating truth actually pushes a person forward to search for solid ground. And the search leads one to find that the only unwavering truth is revealed in the spiritual world. The solid ground is found to be in faith, in the force of bestowal, rather than in the force of receiving. It is revealed in facts that are above my mind and sensation – at the level of bestowal, Bina.

Suddenly it becomes clear there that there are no things which negate each other, no things which are in opposition to each other. Rather, it is revealed that by connecting and complementing one another, all become parts of the single, perfect wholeness. One sees that Pharaoh, the Creator, the person himself, and the serpent are all part of a singular whole. This perfection becomes revealed to a person as a rigid and unchanging basis for all his actions.

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The process of correction happens in ups and downs. First, Malchut rises to Bina and gets included into it, in this way Bina gets to know what Malchut wants. After it attains Bina, Malchut takes Bina’s strength and then descends. At this point, Bina already carries part of Malchut.

Altogether, there are four parts: pure Bina, pure Malchut, Malchut’s insertion into Bina, and Bina’s insertion into Malchut. Their inclusion into each other creates something that is called “love.” Now, since Malchut and Bina acquire each other’s qualities and start to understand one another, the process of correction becomes possible. Not only does Malchut join Bina and learn from it, thereby correcting Galgalta ve Eynaim’s bestowing desires, but also it is enabled to use the power that it acquired from Bina to descend back to its original place and correct its AHP (Awzen, Hotem, and Peh). These repetitive swings up and down complete the correction process step by step, each time proceeding to a new level.

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The Zohar, Chapter “Chayei Sarah (The Life of Sarah),” Item 201: “And the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to the God who gave it.” When the Creator created Adam, He took his dust from the place of the Temple and built his body from the four directions of the world. And each of them gave him strength. Afterwards, He poured over him the spirit of life, as it is written, “And breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” Then he rose and knew that he consisted of above and below, and then he adhered to the Creator and knew the upper wisdom [Hochma].

The four spirits of the world are Hochma, Bina, Tifferet, and Malchut. They are called the four corners of the world, and they are also divided into the right and the left lines: Hochma and Bina; Tifferet is the middle line with Yesod at the end of it, followed by the place of adhesion with Malchut. This is how everything is divided into the right side, left side, and the middle, and the top and the bottom. Such is the structure of our soul, within which we reveal reality.

Even now we reveal our reality within our soul, but we call it our body only because this soul is small, uncorrected, and acts egoistically for the sake of receiving pleasure for itself. But in reality it is the same structure, the same desire, since the Creator only created one desire and not several. However, it is merely revealed to us to a very small extent, in a very uncorrected, tiny form. What we perceive within it is called “this world.” We must reveal this desire, make it bigger, change it slightly, and make it similar to the Light. Then, in it, we will perceive the soul or life in the future world.

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By simply reading The Zohar, we gradually begin to understand it. This book is not built upon explanations, but rather upon the reading itself, meaning the process where we begin to feel a clearer sensation of the Upper World.

“Ima Ilaa” (the Upper Mother for all of us) is called Bina. She radiates the Surrounding Light to us. Similar to infants with wide open eyes and mouths, we should try to appeal to Her with the right intention: to become as one man with the wish to reach the quality of bestowal by revealing it within us.

This is enough. Everything else written in the book will be gradually revealed to us. What does it mean “gradually?” It means in the same way that infants learn. They don’t know any words, don’t understand what’s going on, and due to their desire to know, it happens that “this” or “that” is revealed to them and thus, they begin to understand something. This is the way that they discover the world.

This is a normal, natural approach. The Upper World is revealed to us in the same way. If we remember how we grew up and discovered this world, we will understand how to advance in spirituality.Then we will have no complaints. We will be developing in exactly the same way; nothing has changed.

Subsequently, it is easier to understand that we are not required to be “smart.” All we have to do is reveal a desire to attain the Upper World, and conform to it just a little bit.

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The Zohar, Chapter “Ki Tissa (When You Take),” Item 81: …for a thing that requires disclosure, to be revealed later, needs a place for hiding and covering, first. First, it must be concealed from the eye, and then the craftsman lets his craft be shown. Thus, what needs covering later needs to be revealed first. This is so because “God has made them one opposite the other.” All that exists in the degrees of holiness has its opposite in the Sitra Achra (impurity).

Everything will be disclosed through its opposite; the advantage of the Light is revealed from within darkness. The Creator cannot disclose Himself to the creature until the creature reveals His opposite form and learns through that opposite form about what the direct form is.

We can perceive only darkness. We read black letters on a white background, meaning that we feel what is missing. What we reveal is not the Creator, but His absence. We are unable to reveal His properties. Our entire work amounts to revealing Him from His opposite side, as it was said to Moses: “You shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen.”

That is why a person who truly wants to attain the revelation has to go by faith above reason and acquire the power of bestowal, Bina. However, he is unable to reveal this force of bestowal, since he does not feel it. He can reveal it only under the condition that he feels a lack within him, within his darkness, his egoistic desire. This lack is a need for bestowal. We have to reveal it from the opposition, because we always come from the side of the darkness, from the side of egoism and see the opposite of everything. Upon revealing the spiritual world, we will say: “I saw a reverse world.” We don’t even realize how opposite to us spirituality is.

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As we open The Book of Zohar again and again, our initial inspiration eventually subsides. This inspiration was given to us from Above, like the point in the heart that brought us to the science of Kabbalah. It is called an “awakening from Above” (Itaruta de-Leila), which means it is given to us by the Upper Force.

The desire for the Upper Level acts as fuel, naturally giving us aspirations to push us ahead as if we’re on fire. More and more we want to feel what is hidden within the book and what exactly it speaks of. We are awakened from Above to seek contact with the book.

But then this inspiration passes as we are overtaken by new desires that lack the Creator’s awakening from Above. That is when we must add our own awakening from below in order to continue to advance. We must independently search for answers to questions like: “Why do I need this work and what is it for?”

The Creator desires for us to continually reveal the importance of the Upper Level, to develop a persistent demand to connect with Him, and to realize the importance of all the means of attaining the connection, with The Book of Zohar being the main means. He wants us to keep searching for these inner discernments, over and over again.

Next, we come to a state where we must realize that we’re engaged in “Bezalel’s work” – the construction of a spiritual vessel inside ourselves, a Temple with all its contents. This great work takes time and requires a great deal of preparation.

In truth, we never actually do anything; all that’s required of us is the willingness, desire, and intention. However, beyond that, everything is realized by the Upper Force, Bina, although its influence is prompted by an awakening from below. Therein lies our work.

Therefore, on one hand, our work lies in exerting efforts and making discernments at every step. But on the other hand, it is called “the Creator’s work,” because it is done by the Creator, not by us.

Indeed, we only have to achieve the desire, the appeal, or the prayer; everything else is done by the Creator. This is the meaning of the verse, “Give half a Shekel and the Creator shall complete the rest.”

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