Everything that The Zohar and the wisdom of Kabbalah talk about are forms or types of the connection between us. The Creator or the Upper Light has no form; we cannot feel Him. The types and forms of connection of bestowal and love between us by being equivalent to the Light, give the Light form, color, and gradations of qualities. I can distinguish and “pick up” the Light in my own qualities to the extent that they are similar to Him.

Therefore, whatever we read about in The Zohar always refers to types of connection between souls. We reveal the Light according to the forms of connection that manifest between us. Otherwise the Light is impossible to “pick up” (reveal). “There is no Light” if I don’t paint it with different colors. The Light that comes to me should necessarily be colored as the seven colors of the rainbow. Without this, I, as a created being, will not see it; I will be unable to sense or perceive it.

Suppose that there is a prism to which simple white light is directed. As it is refracted through it, it separates into the seven colors of the rainbow, from red to violet.

This is what is done by Zeir Anpin of the World of Atzilut: It brings the Light of Bina from above, breaking it down into seven colors. And I, Malchut, act the opposite way (through the screen): I gather all these lights/colors together, bring them back (Ohr Hozer, the Reflected Light) into the “prism,” which results in one Light.

I don’t feel the simple, white Light which comes to me since it has no color. However, I gather all seven colors that come from Zeir Anpin into Malchut in me and feel the initial simple Light. Malchut is called the “gathering” since it gathers together and incorporates all seven Sefirot of Zeir Anpin.

By making itself similar to this “prism” that splits white Light into seven colors, Malchut once again achieves white Light. This is how it feels or imagines this Light. It does not receive white Light, but by making itself similar to it, it can achieve it and merge with it, according to the rule of “I will know You from Your actions” (MiMaaseicha Ikarnucha).

From 613 actions, our corrections, we build an “image” of the Creator. After all, the Creator does not have an image; we create it from our qualities.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/8/10, The Zohar

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Question: How do we prepare ourselves for a descent during an ascent?

Answer: By no means should you anticipate a fall during an ascent! I should regard every ascent as the final correction of my soul. How can I possibly bestow if I am waiting for an imminent descent?

I have to be positive about the future. This is called “preparation for a downfall.” I do the maximum and expect complete correction as the outcome, believing that from now on nothing bad can happen to me in life. I completely cling to the One who is good and does good: the Creator. Each spiritual state requires absolute commitment and devotion of the soul; you should think only about bestowal and nothing else except that.

I am now going to rise, and no matter what follows afterwards as a descent, it comes as an ascent for me. This is what a person thinks about while he is in the state of ascent: “I am not afraid of anything at all, let the angel of death appear! I will tear him apart! It doesn’t matter which state I’m in, I will use it as a springboard to ascend further!”

This means that after the November Congress we all transition to a continuous ascent! There are no more falls! Every spiritual descent that we experience should be transformed into an ascent through our intentions.

Even when I sense a fall, it allows me to realize that I haven’t yet reached the top of the ladder, but through my intention I am already in the World of Infinity. Let the emptiness manifest itself within my receiving desires, I am ready to rise above it. On one hand, I descend revealing my evil, and on the other, I immediately rise above it through the intention to bestow.

We want to experience such continuous progress after the Congress, so that whatever potholes and bumps are on our path, we will all perceive them as an ascent.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/6/10, Shamati #42

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The greater an obstacle on my path, the greater “help from the opposite” I see in it, meaning that I become similar to the Light according to the character and properties of my egoism. If I rise above my egoism, in all of its properties, I can become similar to the Light. Otherwise, I wouldn’t know how to equalize myself to it.

I have to feel all these obstacles to the smallest detail. I become included in them and I rise above them through the force of the Light. However, they are precisely what shape me in the form of the Light since neither the Light nor the desire to enjoy has their own form. How else can we achieve this similarity? How can we connect two absolute opposites: the desire and the Light?

For this reason they are divided by partitions, rungs of the ladder, or degrees as a way of connection between them. The desire to enjoy, by absorbing all these obstacles, eventually becomes similar to the Light. Inside it remains the same desire to receive pleasure. However, these filters help it become similar to the Light. It only needs to rise above these filters! It should not take them as obstacles which weaken the Light, but rather include them into itself in the opposite form. This is called to advance by “faith above reason.”

We need to rise from the state where Bina is included into Malchut and Malchut rules over Bina to the opposite state: where Bina rules over Malchut and the properties of Bina become the defining ones. All these forms between Infinity (Keter) and the final, fourth stage (Malchut) are called the names (properties) of the Creator. They serve as examples for the Light to create Malchut and influence her.

At the same time, Malchut can use the opposite HaVaYaH (from herself toward Keter) and be clothed in the Light (to converse with the Light) in order to become similar to it. These eight Sefirot between Keter and Malchut are like a common language possible between the Light and the desire, between the Creator and the creature.

For this reason they are called the holy names since a name is a revelation, meaning the attainment of the Creator’s specific property in relation to us, Malchut. However, whatever I do not attain I cannot define by a name.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/7/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: What does it mean to “appreciate the state of spiritual ascent?”

Answer: Ascent is a state where I can justify anything that is happening to me, to justify the friends and the group by seeing them as angels helping me to realize my free will and to reach the goal. From the elements of this condition, I can assemble myself and my relationship with the Creator who is revealed within such a state.

The group, home, work, studies, health, and so forth comprise the components of my state. I have to determine that all of them are secondary in relation to the group. I have to “collect” everything but the group and enter the group with it even though the group is just one element among the many others. In the group, I also have to discern the multiple components until I select only the one: the desire to attain the Creator.

I go deeper and deeper in this work and these discernments, into the center. I am as if coming to the King’s palace from afar until I finally reach it. I narrow down and contract my focus verifying the route until I come to the goal.

At first, I feel there is a whole world around me. Soon, I see that there is only the group and the various situations within it. It remains so until I come to the realization of a very simple scheme: Everything around me is merely angels, forces aiming me at the Creator and helping me to reach Him.

What is this group? Is it a local group closest to me or the world group? The group is all souls. We begin with the entire world and gradually contract the circle.

The group for me starts with the physical bodies, the people I know around the world to whom I feel are connected to me through the common goal. These are the people who understand and sense me despite the fact that I don’t know them in person. However, in the spiritual world, we reside in one collective system. In this world, we may not have ever met, but in the spiritual one, we are together.

It is, undoubtedly, an opportunity for salvation because we are connected, support, and depend on one another. It’s not only the people of my generation who exist today in a similar state in relation to the Creator, but all the Kabbalists of the past beginning with Adam who was the first to discover the Creator 5770 years ago and to realize free will.

From that moment, the created being, a point of desire, began its journey of attaining similarity with the Creator. Since then and until today, all Kabbalists connected by this goal belong in one system regardless of their rung on the spiritual ladder. In regard to those who are not yet working in this system, they also belong in it, but we have to awaken them.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/6/10, “And Jacob Went Out”

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The wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about my ascent to an Upper dimension. What does “ascent” mean? The Kabbalists say: “You exist in an Upper dimension but do not feel it. You have to reveal yourself existing in it.”

I exist in two dimensions. One is at the level of “this world,” where I reside in my physical body. The other is in an Upper dimension, where I exist in my spiritual body. This spiritual body, a desire to bestow, is concealed from me, and I know nothing about it. Opposite to it, there is the Upper Force called “the Creator.”

Opposite to my corporeal body, there is Nature. In the reality of “this world” I feel bad, which pushes me to uncover the Upper reality, my existence as “the Soul and the Creator” instead of “the Body and Nature.”

Kabbalists say that I have to discover the Upper dimension because that is where the governing forces reach me, and I along with my entire future depend on them. If I ascend, then I find out why I exist, who I am, and what happens to me. I reveal the meaning of my life and how to change everything for the better. These questions push me toward the Upper dimension.

When I start reading The Zohar, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, and the articles of Baal HaSulam and Rabash, I discover that they are talking about this Upper dimension. Conversely, if a person thinks that they are speaking of our world, then this view of the Kabbalistic texts is incorrect. This means that the reader makes an idol of the entire Torah by engaging in idolatry, and then it is forbidden for him to open these books. The reason being, instead of learning about the qualities of the Creator (loving  the other as you love yourself), such a person becomes an even greater egoist by thinking that the Torah teaches him how to perform rituals.

All “holy” books speak about the quality of sanctity (bestowal) and the Upper World (the acts of bestowal), whereas all ordinary books speak about the quality of reception and this world. Therefore, when I open a holy book, I yearn to enter the state of the author. He explains to me how to reach bestowal, never speaking of this world. After all, looking from above, this world is an illusion, “Olam HaMedume” (the imaginary world).

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/7/10, The Zohar

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The Zohar, Chapter “VaYechi (And Jacob Lived),” Item 210: Come and see how important are the works of the Holy King. In the deeds that are done below, they tie them with the high things above, in their root, since anything below in this world has its root above in the upper worlds. And when they are taken down and worked with, the act above awakens corresponding to them, in the roots in the upper worlds.

“Above” and “below” refer to Bina and Malchut. If we think that “Above” refers to some abstract place in spirituality while “below” alludes to a place in our world, that is incorrect. After all, the science of Kabbalah does not speak of our world whatsoever. It does not concern itself with man in our world or actions which we perform here. The science of Kabbalah alludes only to actions in the desire which we can perform in similarity to the Upper Force, in bestowal.

Therefore, “the work of the Creator” means to learn from Him how He performs actions and to perform the same actions in our desire. Herein lies our work. We study this and ask the Creator for the ability, the strength, and a model of how to do it (from NHY [Netzah, Hod, Yesod], AHP [Awzen, Hotem, Peh] of the Upper One in the lower one).

Our entire work is the connection between Malchut and Bina where Malchut wants to learn the qualities of bestowal from Bina and, in response, receive the strength and realize it so as to become similar to Bina. That is why Malchut is called the lower world and Bina is the Upper World. All the actions to correct Malchut (the creature or the souls) are made only in the World of Atzilut. The souls which wish to unite rise precisely into Malchut of the World of Atzilut.

Therefore, wherever The Zohar speaks of the lower and Upper worlds pertains to what takes place between Malchut and Bina of the World of Atzilut,

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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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It is essential to understand that everything we read in The Zohar takes place within our connection. Our connection produces (gives birth to) “space,” a new dimension where the Creator will be revealed. In fact, this space in itself doesn’t exist. But if every one of us, with his point in the heart, yearns for connection with the others, our collective efforts construct this space, the network between us, for the revelation of the property of bestowal: the Creator.

This space can be regarded as the group. People constantly ask: “Where is spirituality: upward, downward, or somewhere on the side?” It is said in a prayer: “Where is the place of His Greatness?” It is no-where; it doesn’t have a place. You have to build this place from your relationship with the others. Together, you are constructing spiritual space and in it, you find the Creator.

Moreover, the Creator Himself is regarded as “the place” because we feel Him in the “place” that we create for Him. The Creator exists beyond any space. You yourselves have to build it: one collective and corrected desire similar to the Creator in the property of bestowal where the Creator will be revealed.

He can be revealed only in this way, in the equivalence of form, meaning in the place suitable for Him which is the very same property of bestowal. None else is possible. This place is the Temple, the House of the Creator, the desire of Malchut that has acquired the properties of Bina. This is why it is named Beit HaMikdash, the Sanctified House. Malchut is the house and sanctity is Bina’s property of bestowal.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/8/10, The Zohar

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While circulating the knowledge of Kabbalah, we unite our souls together into one vessel and create “a place where the Creator can be revealed” to all created beings. By doing so, we fulfill His wish and bring Him the utmost pleasure.

If we add all our suffering and multiply it by 620 (Pi Tarach) times, it will be equal to the suffering of the Creator from being forced to be concealed in order to give us a chance to mature. With each act of ours aimed at oneness, we add one more force of it (Masach and Ohr Hozer), one more soul to the collective number necessary for the revelation of the Creator. Through our action, we cause such changes in the souls which result in their suddenly starting to feel the existence of the Upper Force within, the force that enables and moves the entire world, defining every state it goes through.

There is a reason behind the earthquake in New Zealand, fires in Russia, and a tornado in America: They are parts of the collective state caused by the Creator so that we may start ascending to Him. And when we begin our ascent to the spiritual space and acknowledge this corporeal life as a necessary element, we will be rewarded with a wonderful life in this world. To achieve this, we have to be able to perceive the Creator at least in part.

Nothing will help our world but to feel that there is a force in this Universe, in Nature, and between us, the force that governs everything. And we are coming closer to such awareness thanks to the circulation of Kabbalah.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/9/10, “Rosh Hashanah”

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Question: How do we constantly remain on the “spiritual trajectory,” meaning at the point of making a decision that the spiritual space and unity come before material achievements?

Answer: As soon as we succeed in creating this kind of connection between us, “a place for revealing the Creator,” it immediately fades. This is done so that we are able to make this decision again and again. Every moment should be the “Beginning.” And what helps a person to make this constant choice is only a strong environment which allows him to maintain a connection (see Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”).

It is impossible to maintain this decision on your own for longer than a moment. We need to bring ourselves to a correct society, like putting a seed into soil, and receive the realization of the importance of the goal from it. Then you will be able to unite the points of decisions, forming them into a straight line to the goal.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/9/10, “Rosh Hashanah”

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