The Zohar, Chapter “Chayei Sarah (The Life of Sarah),” Item 41: Such are the ways of the Creator. If He gives wealth to a person, it is to nourish the world and to do His commandments. If he does not do it, but takes pride in his wealth, he will be struck in it, as it is written, “Wealth kept for its owner is to his hurt.”

…Similarly, when the Creator gave them of the beauty of the superior good of Adam ha Rishon, He gave it to them to keep His commandments and to do His will. They did not do it, but were proud; they were struck in that same beauty with which they were blessed.

Therefore, a person that cries, “Why does the Creator treat me this way?” has to understand that a person himself is provoking the harm. We are the ones who cause our own blows by not correctly using the opportunities that the Creator gives us in order to rise. We stumble on these very opportunities, fall down, then we essentially beat ourselves. This is what The Zohar tells us, “They were struck in that same beauty with which they were blessed.”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - 1 Comment →

A question I received: Who is a person’s worst enemy in the spiritual work?

My Answer: The worst enemy is the person himself, his qualities, which are opposite to the Creator! They are revealed to us gradually, to the extent that we can oppose them. Otherwise, we would be paralyzed and unable to do even a single inner or external action. Therefore, the concealment is revealed to us incrementally, showing us that we really do not exist as some individual!

A small piece of truth is revealed to me only to the extent that I am able to hold onto the Creator. In regard to all other thoughts, desires, and qualities, I am not shown just how much I am controlled from above. It is instilled in me that I seemingly determine everything on my own. In other words, only gradually is it disclosed to me that I actually do not exist – I am just a puppet, whose strings are being pulled!

However, to the extent that I am able to annul myself before my environment and the Creator, and use my freedom of choice, I am granted independence. An opportunity is revealed to me to build more and more minor parts of my independent personality – until I ascend in all my magnitude. This means that I will exist in adhesion with the Creator – in the opposite desire, but in the same intention.

It turns out that we never come out from the authority of the Upper Force, but progressively the concealment diminishes according to our willingness to adhere to the Creator. It is as though a curtain draws apart in front of me. At first I am in pitch darkness, where I think that I exist and have independence. To the extent that I will be able to tolerate the fact that I am helpless, to endure this inner blow, this shame, and to adhere to the Creator, the curtain will be drawn apart more and more for me, and the concealment will fade.

Everything depends on my sensations. The state itself does not change – only my perception changes.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - 1 Comment →

The Zohar, Chapter “Song of Songs,” Item 482: The wisdom that one should know: to know and to observe the secret of his Master, to know himself, to know who he is, how he was created, where he comes from and where he is going, how the body is corrected, and how he will be judged by the King of All.

We think of these merely as pretty words: “where he comes from and where he is going,” and “how he will be judged by the King of All.” However, the most important part is, “to know and to observe the secret of his Master.” This is exactly what we must attain.

The Creator wants us to reveal His entire work, His entire creation, the entire reality He created, the reasons for its creation, the thought of creation, the ways to realize it, and the goal that the entire creation is to reach. The only way to learn all this is by attaining it, which means, basically, to clothe into the entire creation with all of its states and experience all of them. Only then, by including our actions in the entire creation, can we attain it in us or in our desires (Kelim). From this attainment, we will reach everything that we need to reach.

We can attain this by correcting our desires. These desires are given to us from Above and they are corrected by the Upper Light. However, the Light only appears according to our readiness, our efforts, and our desire for the Light to come and correct us. This is called the raising of MAN. Man must strive to reach a state when he desires the Light to correct him.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - No Comments →

When we gather, instead of thinking that we want to unite with the others, we need to think about wanting the Upper Light to unite us. Without connection with the Upper Light, any other unification will prove to be false and will lead to even greater hatred. This must be made clear to the people around us. Otherwise, it may seem that we’re talking about love and friendship in just the same way as many other people and organizations do in the world.

We’re not talking about the same thing that is understood in our world as “love.” Love that we are talking about is the result of the action of the Upper Light. Love will be born as a result of this action. At present, we don’t really know what it is; we just use the same word for it. In reality, love is entirely different from what we imagine it to be right now.

To feel love, we want to feel that the Light is between us. It’s the force that connects us into one whole. “You and me” are only a means for this force to be revealed. What is the real reason for me to be by your side? I need you for the precise purpose of revealing the Creator. I use you for this and vice versa. Only when the Light comes and creates the connection between us will I feel what it means to love you and not before. If it seems to me that I love you before this happens, it’s just a delusion.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

The Zohar, Chapter “BeHukotai (In My Statutes),” Item 24: …This is so because justice is neither corrected nor completed but in righteousness, as it is written, “In righteousness shall you be established.” This is said to the assembly of Israel, Malchut, which is completed only in righteousness, as it is written, “And do them,” which is done by the awakening of the lower one.

What do MAN, appeal, tears, charity, “gates of tears,” and prayer mean? It all means that I want to become like the Creator. It is only under the condition that being like the Creator is the only thing I ask for, that I will awaken Zeir Anpin, so that He influences Malchut.

Only when the lower wants to become like the Upper, can the Upper influence him and lift him to the next degree giving him strength and understanding of what it means to be the Upper. After all, what else can the Upper give? The Creator only has perfection, and He can only pass the degrees of this perfection to us, gradually and according to the state that we are in.

This is why we have nothing to ask of the Creator except for the opportunity to gradually become like Him, where every time our qualities become equal to a greater degree. He has nothing to give us besides our correction. We would really like to become like Him; this is our connection with the Creator.

Therefore, this is why all the other cries and tears that we shed in this world do not lead to anything. Looking back at history we can see that it does not help. The only thing that works immediately is when I attain the “switching point.” Beginning with this point, which is that I want to be like the Creator, when I determine precisely who He is, what He represents, what I lack, what I really need to strive to, and when I make my desire into a desire like the one He has – this is what is called the beggar’s prayer, tears, the gates of tears and charity.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - No Comments →

A question I received: What is “the Path of Sanctity?”

My Answer: “The Path of Sanctity” means that everything that happens to us is commanded from Above and comes from the Creator (Stage 0 —  Keter) with the help of the Light. The Light influences us in two ways:

1. The Light (Pleasure) acts directly on us and creates the desire to receive pleasure (Stage 1 — Aleph), which is the first level of desire.

2. The Light also brings a sensation of its Origin to us (the Creator, the force of bestowal.)

This is why in Stage 1 — the desire to receive, within the desire created by the Light emerges the desire to bestow. Stage 1 strives to transform itself into Stage 2, which is the desire to bestow.

The Creator triggers within me a desire to receive pleasure and I follow His commands directly (the commands of Nature). But when I realize that the Creator who created me as the desire to be pleased is Himself the one who bestows, I want to become similar to Him. This is a secondary impact from the Creator!

Eventually, I deliberately develop this secondary impact within myself, the intention to bestow, until I undergo all four stages of the Creator’s “influence” (HaVaYaH) and merge with Him.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

The Creator has created the desire to receive pleasure, and he renews it every moment. In other words, each time I feel the desire to acquire new pleasures, this is done by the Creator inside me. He pushes and draws me toward all these pleasures. He evokes all the impulses in me and controls me as if a hand inside a glove, instigating new desires in me at every turn.

When I realize these desires, which are given from the Creator without a thought of Who they come from and the reason for them, I am on the still, vegetative, or animate level. However, when the point in the heart awakens in me, I begin to distinguish that it is the Creator who plays with me as if I were a glove on His hand.

Now, I regard everything that happens from within the point in the heart. I discern that it is He who induces me each and every time to acquire new pleasures. Regarding everything from the point in the heart with this awareness is like regarding things from within Him. This is why the point in the heart, which is the embryo of the soul, is called “part of the Creator from Above.” With this point in the heart, I obtain the opportunity to turn the animal within into man.

How do I do this? I do it by working against the Creator, against my nature, and against His hand in me. I refuse to blindly execute everything that He evokes in me. I stop using the desire that He rouses in me and I check the reason and the purpose for continuing to act in the same direction. Even though He wants it, I discover whether I have any kind of independence here. I discover whether I should awaken mechanically and continue to fulfill that same desire that He evokes in me like a hand in a glove or whether I want to stop acting like this and, from this moment on, to act independently. As it is written, “My sons have defeated Me”.

I continue to do the Creator’s actions, but only under the condition that I participate in them in the same direction, the same thought, and the same intention as the Host. I want to reveal Him in this. I want to be partners with Him in absolutely everything and I attain adhesion with Him through this partnership.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - No Comments →

A question I received: How can I simultaneously fulfill my desire to receive pleasure, on one hand, and identify myself with the Creator, on the other? One contradicts the other.

My Answer: You should understand that the desire to receive pleasure originates from two qualities: bestowal and reception.

If one exists within only one of the properties, then he is a “slave,” and in this case, he doesn’t even understand his actions. Just like any person “off the street” who simply follows his desires like anyone else does, he believes that they are his own for his entire life until he dies.

The Creator’s desire is being fulfilled at all times until a person reaches the condition under which a new desire, the desire to bestow, emerges among his other common, regular desires. Only after this desire for bestowal appears does creation begin to sense the Creator.

The same thing happens to us; we start to feel that besides our actions there is also Someone who acts from within us. Those two sensations allow me to realize that my desires are, in fact, not mine, but rather, belong to Him, and that it is He who placed His hand on me and makes all sorts of changes within me that I am forced to obediently follow.

At this point, I begin to relate to my current state from two points of view:

1. Recognizing that He acts within me, which is what I call “my nature.”

2. Searching for: What is His intention? What does He want? Why does He do this to me?

In other words, at the end of the first state (Alef), we start sensing Someone who created; we start sensing the root or zero state (Shoresh). At this point, the phase Alef is willing to transform itself into the state Bet (the second state) which is a state of giving, bestowal.

Now, we all are at the transition stage from Alef to Bet. Completing the transition depends upon the degree to which we feel the Creator who acts within us. From this moment on, we have to realize that all our desires are not really ours. When I feel, “I am thirsty, ” I must immediately realize, “That’s false! It is not me who is thirsty!”

It means that at each level I rise above my desire, and thus connect with the Creator who is present within my desires. I rise above it and make an effort to figure out what He wants of me. Afterwards, we can do whatever we want with our desires, but only after we observe them, perceive them, arrive at this decision, and then proceed further.

I develop the feeling that it is the Creator who initiates my desires in me and I am simply the one who automatically follows them. This stems from my understanding that He is present within me and it is He who instigates my desires and then fulfills them.

“Where am I in this picture?” This is how a person gets to understand his life in all of its complicity and realizes that he cannot be judged or rewarded and that there is neither hell nor paradise for him, nothing at all.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

Malchut, creation, can never attain Keter, the Creator Himself. He is revealed to creation in all the other Sefirot, which separate the Creator and Malchut. In response, Malchut achieves similarity to Him in the Reflected Light in all the Sefirot. These forms of Malchut are called attainments or names of the Creator.

Everything that happens and everything that we sense are manifestations of the Creator who wishes to show Himself to us in this form. Around me, I see inanimate nature, vegetative nature, and animals: the material ones and the spiritual ones. All of these are forms of the Light, which are revealed this way in my desire, in Malchut; these are the forms of the Creator in me. These forms can be a direct reflection in me, which does not demand my similarity to Him. Yet, these reflected forms are not true, which is why our world is so limited and imaginary.

However, when I begin to take on forms that correspond to Him, they will be called by the names of the Creator in me, since they will be similar to His bestowal. However, this is not His bestowal, but mine. If I create a form in me that is similar to His bestowal, and His bestowal clothes into it, then our joint bestowal is called my spiritual degree, our adhesion, or attainment of the Creator.

On my path upward I go through many such names or images of the Creator. All my attainments are names of the Creator.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

The breaking creates an imaginary reality, space, and distances. Parts of Malchut drew away from each other during the breaking of the common soul. It is in this space between its parts that I differentiate myself and others, those who are close to me and those who are far away. Within this sphere, I imagine a distance between these separated parts, which are not connected as one whole.

Thus, it is as a result of the breaking that I feel this reality. If such a reality did not exist, I would not be able to work on drawing closer and connecting to others. I would not have had an opportunity to attain something. After all, my whole attainment comes from an aspiration to learn, “What is this?”  And then I draw closer to the object that interests me, much like a little child that brings everything to his mouth, his most developed sense, in order to taste it.

Since the breaking exists, I first begin to egoistically strive to adjoin individual parts to myself, and then I wish to unite with them in bestowal. If I wish to unite with them egoistically, then I wish to attain only my inner sensations. However, if I wish to unite with others in bestowal to them, I thereby attain the Light that vanished during the breaking. I wish to fill the gap between us with this Light.

I build an image of the Creator within the desires (Kelim), which are distant from one another. I fill this empty space between them with my Reflected Light. This means that I build an image of the Creator. Therefore, the Creator (Bore) is called “Come and See” (Bo-Re), since I create Him.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Perception - 1 Comment →