The Zohar tells us about the “next world” and “this world,” but do not think that it is talking about our material world. The Zohar does not say even one word about the physical bodies and what we feel in this world. Everything that happens to us is not taken into account at all in the spiritual.

Everything that happens in the desire to receive for one’s own sake on the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature is not described in Kabbalah because it is not subject to correction. Only the relationships between people need to be corrected to unification with each other and with the Creator. When The Zohar refers to “this world” or seemingly physical actions and people, it is referring to different types of desires in a person.

Kabbalah engages only in correction of desires. The Creator created a desire, and He wishes to bring it into equivalence with Him. Meanwhile, our physical body is merely our perception of this desire’s existence.

The whole still, vegetative, and animate nature of this world is the most external form of the same desire, which is not subject to correction. In our world there is nothing to correct! The greatest Kabbalist and the most common citizen are made of the same flesh. We can perform organ transplants from one to the other. There is nothing sacred or faulty in these bodies; both of them will die.

Everything starts from the spiritual desire where there is impurity, an intention for one’s own sake against the Creator, and sanctity, a desire for bestowal for the Creator’s sake. However, we are only talking about the desire, not the material body.

It is like placing a special filter in front of me, which holds back the matter of this world and leaves only spiritual matter, the desire for bestowal, in the open. We study the science of Kabbalah, meaning study about those desires that must be brought to equivalence with the Creator, and the other desires will vanish.

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We are under the 125 degrees or worlds or concealments. This concealment is beneficial for us since it prevents us from seeing how insignificant we are compared to the perfect state of Infinity. Instead, we can only observe our inability to become similar to a higher spiritual degree.

Nonetheless, in order to advance in correcting ourselves we have to sense affliction. If we undergo correction while being in the group, then we disclose our suffering like a child playing a game. The child wants to accomplish something, he doesn’t succeed, but he nevertheless does his best and keeps trying to master a challenging toy.

Through your efforts, pain, and inability to act you discover your oppositeness to the Light one degree at a time. You must work against the Light since otherwise, you will not feel any difference between you and the Light; you won’t sense the Creator thanks to the sum total of these dissimilarities.

Suppose you are in a king’s palace, but you know nothing about it and therefore do not appreciate it. Then you start experiencing and researching it. You have to observe all the objects and states around and learn the entire range of connections and contradictions between them. By doing so, you achieve a state when you rule over the world, just as a king.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/3/10, Shamati #50

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The Zohar, Chapter “VaYechi (And Jacob Lived),” Item136: “One bird comes out to the south, right—the one that comes from a spark of Hochma. Also, one bird comes out to the north, left—the one that comes from the spark of Bina. One comes out when the day rises, from Hochma, and one when the day sets, at evening time, after midday, from Bina. Each calls and declares what it heard from that herald… from the illumination of the midnight Zivug, called ‘a herald’.”

This is speaking of a person’s inner states when he analyzes the self and undergoes various processes of discerning the three lines within himself. He examines to what extent is he positioned in equilibrium in the right, left, or middle line.

“Day” and “night” don’t come from outside. We always remain in the Light and our Kelim are divided into multiple types in which we perceive the right, left, and middle lines, as well as upward and downward, as well as all directions and times. The division into internal and external Kelim gives us the sensation of distance and space, close and far, and the classification of desires into “root, soul, body, coverings, and abode.”

All these peculiarities, as well as day, night, morning, evening, and various hours, are processes taking place in our desire. In fact, desire is the only thing we possess. Through dividing into numerous types and constantly unfolding them for us, the desire gives us the sensation of the occurring changes in time and space in the emerging states.

We classify them as four types of perception, “World, year, soul, and existence of reality.” All these modifications take place within us as a result of our correction since everything except us remains in absolute rest. Only the Reshimot keep unwinding and unfolding either “in its time” (Beito) or “Ahishena,” which is when we start accelerating this process and hastening the time.

Therefore, the “birds” that flew in “night,” “day,” “morning,” “evening,” all the planes such as “root, soul, body, coverings, abode,” and the existence of reality are perceived within a person in his desire. However, I think that I am surrounded by a world full of people, that everything is spinning and life goes on. Yet, only one thing is within my reach: What steps will I take toward the correct perception of reality?

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/31/10, The Zohar

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The Zohar is just like the Torah in that there is no need to read it in an orderly fashion. You can open up the book anywhere you want to! It’s similar to Psalms; you can open up any psalm and read it. You can even begin reading any psalm starting in the middle of it.

The most important thing when reading holy books (meaning books written by those who attain the Creator through the quality of holiness, bestowal, Bina) is not what you are reading or the things you read about, but the intention: What do you want to attain by reading?

One way or another you are reading about the Upper World, which you don’t feel or understand. The Zohar is the highest source of all the holy books. It is the most powerful source of Upper Light, the Light of Correction. It’s like an infusion to a sick person, or like a medicine that you take.

What do you want to attain by taking this medicine? What does "being healthy" mean to you? Depending on this, the force of The Book of Zohar can be the elixir of life for you, or a deadly poison!

Therefore, before opening up this book, you must think and feel, attune yourself, prepare and discern: What are you hoping to receive from it now? You are hoping to receive medicine, which is symbolized by a snake. A snake’s venom can be truly poisonous, or it can be the remedy for every illness.

Therefore, before opening up The Book of Zohar, we must have the right intention so instead of attracting deadly poison, we will attract the elixir of life that saves us. When people study the Torah without the right intention, it becomes dry and lifeless. This is even more dangerous when we are reading The Book of Zohar, the greatest source of power.

It wasn’t an accident that for so long The Zohar was concealed from regular people and revealed to Kabbalists. A Kabbalist, meaning a person who attained the right desire, was sure to find this book in some way. It was sent to him through someone or in some other way. He was brought to the place where he could find it.

However, it was not revealed to other people because in the past we were unable to arm ourselves with the right intention. That’s why The Zohar would only have brought harm upon us. Today, however, we open up The Book of Zohar with the intention that it will bring us goodness, that it will become the source of life for us instead of turning into deadly poison.

The Zohar contains such enormous force that we must be careful to open it only together and with the right intention. That is why it has become revealed in our time and offers us incredible opportunities. We want to offer it to everyone.

However, every person must know that only the right intention while studying The Zohar can turn it into the elixir of life.

From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/31/10, The Zohar

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In the article “When a Person Knows What the Fear of God Is,” Rabash writes that a sin takes place particularly during an ascent when a person, throwing away faith, merits the Creator’s love and decides to use it as a foundation for his work. A person thinks that he will never descend again since he will advance according to his common sense. However, he descends again into self-love, into punishment, for the fact that he has lost faith.

And this punishment is correction that helps him return to the direct path of ascending the spiritual ladder.

This is precisely how we should interpret our states. A state where it seems to us that we are in a descent and that we have received a punishment is actually given for our correction. Feeling one’s sin means not sinning anymore. A sin is what we have done prior to this! And the feeling of a committed sin is already correction.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/30/10, “When A Person Knows What the Fear of God Is”

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Baal HaSulam, The Study of Ten Sefirot, Part 7, Questions and Answers, Item 7: The Achoraim of Nukva are NHY de Nukva, where there is the principal grip of the Klipot as long as they lack He’arat Hochma. This is so because it is adjacent to the Klipot as it ends the Ohr Atzilut and from it downward begin the Klipot, by way of “Her feet go down to death.”

All anti-egoistic screens that accompanied the desires in their descent from the World of Infinity to the degree of Malchut de Atzilut end at Nukva. The screens end, and the egoistic desires “grip” on Nukva since through her there’s a chance to capture Light.

Nukva, with her nine lower Sefirot, descends to the worlds of BYA (Beria, Yetzira, Assiya) and has no strength to resist the unclean forces (Klipot). Nonetheless, she stays in a particular “balance” with them. When the Upper One resides within the Klipot, and the Klipot are able to “grab” something from it, by the same token, the Upper One is able to “grab” the Klipa, to analyze this desire and correct it. This is what happens constantly in Malchut de Atzilut with the broken souls. Inasmuch as they desire to “grip” on it and draw its Light, it can draw and correct them.

Without such mutual work, when each one strives to draw the opposite side to itself, there wouldn’t be any discernment and correction. Therefore, all our work (as the Torah describes) consists of transgressions and corrections that take place over and over again. All these fluctuations back and forth, from holiness to wickedness and vice versa, occur between Nukva and the broken souls that must discover their broken state.

These broken parts are revealed only when they are joined with Nukva; otherwise, they wouldn’t see that they are broken. As a result of such action, the Creator (Zeir Anpin) is aroused, and so tells the Torah when it describes how the Creator speaks with Moshe and apprehends his people for another sin.

In this way, Nukva reveals in the souls that their desire is egoistic. Nukva lifts a part of the souls that she is able to incorporate into herself up to Zeir Anpin. Zeir Anpin, the Creator, comes and cries, “What have you done?” This is the correct reaction to the desires which soon are going to be corrected.

We simply don’t understand the Torah. It doesn’t speak about any transgressions, but only about how the desires are revealed when they come to correction. At the instant when they are revealed, we “rejoice in the revelation of the wicked,” as Baal HaSulam writes. We rejoice because the “wicked” who aren’t revealed have no chance at correction. And who knows when it’s going to happen?

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: I know what “bitter versus sweet” feels like, but what is “true versus false”?

Answer: In our world truth doesn’t have any taste; we only feel bitter or sweet. It’s not the heart, but the mind that asserts what is true and what is a lie.

Lying is something that is disliked, but truth and falsehood are not really comprehended because we don’t have the instruments to discern them. We feel better telling the truth; however, it’s not really the truth, but merely a sweet sensation of telling it. Our “true versus false” discernment turns into a “sweet versus bitter” assessment by our ego.

This means we are using only one criteria of “sweet versus bitter” because even our mind works to accommodate our “belly.” In other words, a person’s mind is subordinate to his egoism. However, the falsehood and truth that Kabbalah speaks about can only be known through the quality of bestowal, which we don’t have yet. Only through this property can we realize that bestowal is the truth. It is not in any way connected to whatever is happening in our desire to receive pleasure, that is, whether it is filled or not.

Therefore, in order to rise above the animate body and break free from it, we need the Upper Force, the Light that Reforms. These forces don’t exist in our world, which operates solely on egoistic desire. If we want to be able to discern between evil and good, we have to rise to the degree of Adam HaRishon (the First Man), who was able to see good and evil when the serpent opened his eyes. On one hand it was “poison,” but on the other, we can use it as medicine.

Why did Adam HaRishon, the first spiritual degree revealed to the soul, immediately divide? There was one desire. Why did it split in two, man and woman, Adam and Hava, and why did it later break into more and more people until there are billions of them?

This is so because correction is impossible without breaking Adam into multiple souls. Each soul must have a small, precise, and special goal; it must carry out a certain mission like each cell of an organism that has a definite and specific function. For example, computers are operated through the binary system, which includes only “0” and “1.” This does not seem very complicated, but look at the extraordinary result that such a simple system produces!

This is why the souls were divided; otherwise we wouldn’t be able to carry out our correction. Even now, despite the fact that we’re broken into small particles and every person is carrying a special and specific mission, just look at how confused we are, unable to figure out what each of us is supposed to do.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/18/2010, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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The Creator created just one state: a desire full of Light called the World of Infinity. We are in Infinity, but do not feel our true state. This is because our desires were deliberately corrupted and now we feel this defect in us. In other words, we feel a corrupted World of Infinity whose entire huge desire has divided into an infinite number of parts and every part has divided into 613 more desires. The defect is that the intention to give has been replaced by an egoistic intention for one’s own sake, to fulfill and take care of oneself instead of uniting.

To correct these 613 particular desires means “to hear His instructions” and all “613 recommendations” on how to attain the corrected state. When we attain correction by replacing our current egoistic intention with the giving one, we will reveal the Light that fulfills our corrected desire in the World of Infinity. It’s as if we return to Infinity, come to consciousness again, and receive all the Light that fulfills our corrected desires where it has always been present as a hidden and secret deposit.

We come back to the good state in which we have always been, but did not notice the pleasure that had fulfilled us because it was the pleasure of giving. However, we were aimed at and tuned in to the wavelength of receiving. Because of this, we felt just a tiny, life-supporting force that was given to us to come back to the corrected state, instead of the entire huge pleasure.

Thus, we carry out the 613 recommendations to correct our 613 desires, receive the 613 Lights in them, and attain the End of Correction by this. However, this final state already exists and waits for us to feel it in our intentions of bestowal. This is why these 613 commandments are called “Pkudin” (from the word “Pikadon” which means deposit). It is the deposit that was deposited to our account by the Creator from the very beginning and awaits our correction.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/10

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If a person studies Kabbalah only in order to obtain knowledge, without the desire to correct himself, then it will be of no use because the purpose of studying is to draw the Light that Reforms. This is why Kabbalists hid their texts in previous centuries. At that time mankind did not feel the need for the Light of Correction so there was no reason to give people a Kabbalah book. They would see nothing but dead letters or empty cells in it. That is why Kabbalah was banned. If a person doesn’t have the correct desire, Kabbalah will do him no good. In fact, it will only harm him since he will be studying it mechanically and will remain in the same material dimension he has always known.

If so, why  then do we disseminate Kabbalah among the masses, including those who don’t yet have a spiritual desire, the “point in the heart”? The truth is, one’s desire includes all dimensions. The collective spiritual vessel includes all souls, all people, even those whose Reshimot for spiritual correction haven’t surfaced yet. The difference is that they can’t start the correction right away because they still don’t feel the need to attain a spiritual goal.

Nevertheless, everyone has a soul! All people are integral parts of Malchut of the World of Infinity. We are able to attach all of these souls to ourselves and thereby include them in our circle. Thus we will project upon them the Surrounding Light that we draw.

The Surrounding Light may not impact them as strongly as it does us. It influences our spiritual Reshimo directly, but their spiritual Reshimo hasn’t been revealed yet and therefore the Light influences it indirectly. Nevertheless, it draws them toward correction and integrates them in our collective spiritual organism.

Therefore, the work we are doing is not in vain. Baal HaSulam wrote that the dissemination of the science of Kabbalah among the masses is “the call of the Messiah’s horn.”

From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/11/10, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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The more we unite, take part in common actions such as Conventions and unity evenings, and communicate within the “Stimulator” system, general waves of Upper Light will begin to roll over us and gradually cast us up to the shore of the Upper World. We will then discover that there is a multitude of people swaying together in one wave to carry out a common spiritual action. The Upper Force acts synchronously in regard to a great number of people. Therefore, the intensity of this spiritual desire and the Upper Light surrounding it are revealed in this union. This begins to influence all of humanity, and is called the dissemination of the science of Kabbalah.

People will begin to subconsciously feel this phenomenon due to the fact that we are all connected as one soul. Even those who did not see or hear anything about this will inevitably begin to sway on the same wave, feeling the presence of the spiritual movement in the world. The world will become more sensitive to the influence of the Light.

In this manner, we are influencing the whole world with the waves that we create together. We are raising and lowering the whole world – raising sparks of bestowal and lowering egoism. More and more sparks of bestowal are making their way to the top and people are beginning to ask about the meaning of life. Thus we are hastening the process of correction.

From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/19/10, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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