The Zohar, Chapter “VaYechi (And Jacob Lived),” Item 26: “And he called his son Joseph.” Jacob questioned his sons and told them, “I see many and great troubles coming over your children. It is necessary to find higher Rachamim [mercy].

Everything described in the Torah, The Zohar, and all the “holy books” (books written by Kabbalists, those who attain the Upper World based on their sensation of that world) takes place exclusively inside of us. Nothing exists outside of us!

Our entire current reality, everything we feel now is intended only to help us awaken to the perception of a new reality, or more precisely, to form it inside of us. We have to change our qualities and then we will form the world to come, a new reality inside us. There is no time or external changes. We are only being awakened with the help of unpleasant states in order to change and see the only true reality, the World of Infinity.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/16/10, The Zohar

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From Baal HaSulam’s Pri Hacham, Igrot (Letters), Letter No. 26, pg. 85: “The golden bell and the pomegranate are at the hem of the mantle, and a sound is heard when the High Priest enters the sanctuary.”The word “Ephod” (garment of the High Priest) originates from the words “Where is the door?” since where there is a door, there is an entrance, even if it is locked. In the material world, we can see a closed door, a closed entrance, but in spirituality, only an open entrance is visible. One can see it only through complete faith; only under this condition does the door become visible, and at the same moment it turns into an entrance.

The moment that a person attains perfect faith, complete measure of bestowal, the entrance and the door are revealed to him as one. A second before this, he didn’t see anything, neither the door nor the entrance. And all of a sudden the door opens up. Did the door previously exist or not? No, it did not; the property that a person acquired turned into an entrance and a door, thus allowing him to enter.

In our world doors exist before we are ready to walk through them, but in spirituality, we first have to build our Kelim (spiritual vessels) in order to sense a new reality through them. Before we do so, spirituality does not exist. We have to give it its form. This is why both the door and the entrance are built by a person who attains perfect faith: bestowal.

During his upbringing, a person sways from side to side, like those looking for a door. At the final moments of his advancement, he is next to the entrance, but it is then in particular that he suddenly gets tired and takes a step back. He has no strength left to open the door, and spends his life wandering from place to place, searching for an exit but never reaching it.

Our path consists of multiple steps forward and back, and that continues until a real need to enter spirituality is formed within us. We have to prepare our desires because spirituality has no form of its own until we give it one. A person lacks the right perception, reaction, and clarification until he goes through all four levels of each desire. Gradually, he accumulates all the discernments and combines them into one structure which he reveals in the Light. One can only hasten the time of his development; he still must go through all the states.

From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/10, Pri Hacham, Igrot (Letters), Letter 26, pg. 85

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We feel reality if two forces come from Above and act upon something common between them. If they can activate a Reshimo (informational record) to reveal it within us, then they enter it. The Reshimo forms a picture of the world, my state, and then I feel it.

On the other hand, if these two forces are unable to reach the Reshimo in order to activate it and they do not bring it into play, I do not feel the reality. It simply does not exist for me. My whole existence, the whole picture of the world, every state in which I feel myself and the world that surrounds me, is a Reshimo that is activated due to these two forces: the right and the left, reception and bestowal. Like a robot, I feel the realization of the Reshimo within me.

If these forces activate a Reshimo on their own, it means that I have no freedom of will and I exist in this world while being controlled like an animal. All of our reincarnations, our whole history, and our entire development in this world occur in this manner. These two forces constantly affect the Reshimot (plural of Reshimo), showing us this movie of life, scene after scene.

However, life gradually becomes more difficult for me. I’m expected to activate the Reshimo on my own with the help of the two forces; I’m expected to become the middle line, adding my attitude to the influence of the two forces on the Reshimo.

Then, how I see my state and the whole world depends on me. And the only change I wish to see in the world is the presence of the Creator, the force of bestowal and love. In this manner, I realize the Reshimo. This time, it is through my own participation and with the revelation of the Creator, which occurs to the extent that I desire to draw Him into my world.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/10, The Zohar

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Our entire reality is divided into two parts: the unveiled one that we are aware of and the concealed one that we know nothing about. Through advancing conventional science, we can certainly broaden our knowledge of the evident part of reality, but only through refining the same five sensory organs we have always had and nothing more. However, this will not allow us to make a quantum leap and discover a new dimension.

Kabbalah says that we can develop an additional sense that will allow us to perceive the reality beyond. Yet, we should be aware that we will find it opposite to the one we see today. Currently our perception of reality depends on our ability to absorb it by means of our five corporeal sensory organs: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. The sensations supplied by these organs are called our world.

But we have an ability to develop additional perceptions. It doesn’t mean to receive additional arms, legs, tastes, or such, but to step outside our self through developing another five organs of perception: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut. In these extra organs of perception, which are completely opposite to the corporeal ones, we begin perceiving all that takes place outside of us.

This means that our perception becomes limitless and we exit into an endless open space. We see all the worlds. Our ability to perceive them depends solely on how developed our spiritual organs of perception are. We are not limited to our body which is bound by how much we are able to consume till satiated. Now everything depends upon how far we can expand.

We then begin to grasp all forces, thoughts, desires, tasks, and the purpose of creation: the whole world around us. We begin to understand what is happening within us. In contrast, without this knowledge, we will never understand what is happening around us and how it impacts us, neither in the world nor within our self.

The science that teaches how to step out of self and unveil life in the Upper dimension is called the wisdom of Kabbalah. When we finally exit our ego and begin exploring the universe, we discover the purpose of creation, why everything exists.

When we step out of our self, we break free from the restrictions of our tiny body and rise above time, motion, and space; that is, we rise above the corporeal perception of reality in its three axes of coordinates: up-down, left-right, back-forth. We stop experiencing time for there is no time in that reality. We see other causes and effects, meaning that we receive absolutely new properties and abilities, outside of the connection to our animate body.

In the same manner as we are able to see, sense, and understand a person directly in front of us, we have to know and comprehend the whole of reality called the Creator or the Upper Force. Hence, we will feel worse and more restricted in our limited reality until we find a way to step out of it into the open world!

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/10, Article, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Its Essence”

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A question I received: How do we imagine the processes that take place in spirituality and that are described in the wisdom of Kabbalah? Where and when do they occur or have they already happened?

My Answer: All these processes have already happened in our spiritual roots. All we do is reveal them by ascending from below upwards and in this way approach them. Yet everything has already “happened.” Time in spirituality is a sequence of causes and effects.

The Creator created the desire to enjoy. Then, this desire received the Light. Afterward, it started to experience shame, restricted itself, made a decision to start receiving anti-egoistically (using a screen/intention), and began to receive in order to bestow according to the degree of its ability, and so on. In other words, we study a sequence of actions that happened before we began sensing them ourselves.

Here I am being born, and from this moment, I begin to sense myself. I know that before I was born there were other people alive, but I don’t know what “before me” really means. I begin to perceive reality only from the moment I am born. “According to my perception of reality,” it appears that there are other people around who were born before me and even some who were alive and died before I was even born. But all this exists only in my reality into which I was born and currently live. “They” are something I conceive as images in my head. We all work only with our inner desire which needs clarification.

That is why my reality begins at birth. Everything that supposedly happened before I was born is a preparation to my current sensation. It relates to the Creator and His actions within me. He performed  them to prepare me to perceive the world and the reality around me the way I do starting from the moment of my birth. Who are my father and mother and all the people surrounding me? Why do they act this way? It is the Creator who prepared this system of caring for me. The whole world that I see is made by the Creator for the sake of my work.

Therefore, our life is connected with the spiritual processes that are meant to bring us to spiritual awakening and revelation of new sensations. Did you really think that there is even one useless moment in your life?

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/8/10, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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The spiritual world is a world of qualities, forces, desires, and intentions. There are just two forces or two desires: reception and bestowal. Everything else comes from their interaction and inclusion inside each other. When the desire to bestow joins the desire to receive pleasure, it evokes the force of opposition in it, a screen, Aviut (thickness, coarseness of desire), Zakut (purity, fineness of desire), and so on.

Yet, there are only two forces operating in the entire universe and they are mutually incorporated inside one another. This is what we learn in the four phases of the expansion of the Direct Light. Nothing else exists. “Existence from existence” (Yesh Mi Yesh) is the force of bestowal, and “existence from absence” (Yesh Mi Ein) is the force of reception that was created inside it.

Everything else forms from the opposition between these two forces. It is forbidden for us to imagine anything besides them since we imagine everything else detached from the true sensation. If you desire to return to the true sensation, then you must make efforts to try to return to the authentic picture, as if you are gaining consciousness from an unconscious state.

Therefore, when reading Kabbalistic articles or The Book of Zohar, and even when going about our business in this world, we have to try to reveal the forces that govern us, the roots of what we perceive in this “seeming” world. When reading The Zohar, we must constantly make these efforts. If you are always trying to reveal, using this book’s text, the qualitative picture, the picture of qualities, forces, and desires, then by so doing you evoke upon yourself the force from that state, from two forces, reception and bestowal, and this influences you.

The Zohar speaks about how to find the connection between the two forces. This is all of reality. It doesn’t matter what exactly I am reading: Aba ve Ima, ZON, ascending, descending, the state of adulthood (Gadlut), the state of smallness (Katnut), and so on. In actuality, there are no words in the sensation of the spiritual world. There is just a combination of two forces in all sorts of forms, and that is the true reality, the only one that exists.

One quality belongs to creation and the second one to the Creator. It is impossible to speak about one without the other, but only about the connection between them, ranging from nearly total disconnection to total unity.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/11/10, The Zohar

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When we read The Zohar, we should imagine that we exist in two systems. One system, created by the Creator, is inalterable, and the only one that exists. It is called “the World of Infinity.”

As Baal HaSulam relates in “The Preface To The Book Of Zohar,” this state is constant. Since the Creator created and formed all of creation instantly in its final state with one thought, we exist there in His plan of creation which is “to please the creatures.” Baal HaSulam also explains in The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, Chapter “Inner Reflection,” the Plan of creation is enough for the Creator to create it.

The Creator realizes everything through one action. This reality is perfect and invariable, and there are no steps to achieving the desired state. We exist in this perfect state in all our perfection, the way the Creator initially intended us to be.

However, besides this perfect state, we, with respect to ourselves, also exist in another reality. We, as though, lost consciousness, no longer realizing that perfect reality in which the Creator created us.

These two states exist parallel to each other. Through our own efforts, we need to enter the sensation of the true reality. We do this by using the environment: the books, the teacher, and the group.

We need to wake up, to enter consciousness, to return to that true state in which we exist but do not feel with our corrupted senses. The science of Kabbalah is given to us so that while we exist in an unconscious state called “this world,” we can learn about that perfect reality. By trying to become similar to it through our mutual efforts, we can rouse a force from it, which is able to return us there.

This force is the Light that Reforms. This force will heal us and correct our egoism. Gradually, as though from non-existence, we will begin to feel true life. We will discover that we were “like in a dream.”

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

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There are two forces in nature: reception and bestowal. These two forces depict pictures on our desire to enjoy like on a computer screen. They project the picture of the world that consists of me and everything around me. As Baal HaSulam writes, in the posterior part of our brain there is a screen through which we perceive a picture of the world.

This picture is created with the help of two forces: a receiving (left) force and a bestowing (right) force. The combination of these two forces on my egoistic material depicts the whole picture of reality for me. I feel it, I see a picture, as it were, and it seems to me that this picture, this reality, exists outside of me. I, myself, project my inner picture in front of me. This is how I “see the world.” It’s as though I retrieve it from within myself and project it outside.

Why am I built this way? Why do I see my inner world in an external form? It is in order for us to treat it egoistically with neglect and hostility. Thereby, we receive an opportunity to study our inner world and to correct ourselves.

If I sensed it as being inside of me, I would never be able to correct myself because I would relate to everything in a positive manner with goodness, but solely in an egoistic manner. But now, since my ego comes out to the outside and I feel that it is foreign, I relate to my “external self” like to a foreigner, egoistically in a negative way, rather than positively and like it is my inner part. Therefore, I have an opportunity to understand what “external” and “internal” mean for me.

The world was split into two parts: me and the others. I cannot convince myself that something which exists outside of me is my own. I am given an opportunity to see my inner essence in the outside picture: “Come and see who you are and how you treat those around you. This is how you are inside.” You say, “Look how ugly this one is, how lazy that one is, how dumb another one is! I hate them so much!” Meanwhile, all these qualities are yours and not those of others.

These revelations help me. Otherwise I would never be able to relate to them, to completely reveal the “evil inclination” (egoistic desire, hate for everyone) and later to understand that these are my inner qualities that are projected on the outside.

Then I begin to understand how the Creator helps me by giving me such a perception of reality: to see my insides on the outside. I begin to understand how much this helps me, and that without this, I would be completely locked within myself and I would never be able to understand what the “I” is. Meanwhile, there is something here, “something in me that I do not consider to be me.”

Therefore, our entire work boils down to the unification of our inner self with our outer self, with the outside world, and particularly with the group. We can practice with the group. After all, when I begin to work with the group and try to treat the friends like myself, I see that I am incapable of uniting no matter how much I try to convince myself that all this outside of me is also me. I can’t even treat a small part of humanity, the group, whose goal is close to my own, like myself. I can’t relate to it above my egoistic mind.

In this regard, I begin to see this egoism like something that was artificially created by the Creator, particularly for its annulment. However, I am unable to do this on my own; I can only desire it and then ask the Creator for the disappearance of it (egoism). Why should I ask? In order to receive a connection with the Creator!

“How can this be?” Understand that they are you! Treat them with love, since they are parts of your soul!

“But I can’t!” They are your friends, your neighbors. They are advancing to the same goal as you! What separates you after all?

“The force of the breaking separates us. The Creator placed it as an obstacle, and I cannot overcome it.” And then you ask to correct this in particular. You ask for correction and incorporate the whole world into yourself.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/10, The Zohar

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The Zohar, Chapter “VaYetze (And Jacob Went Out),” Item 59: “And behold, the Lord stood above it.” Here in the ladder, Jacob saw the connection of faith, the Nukva, tying all the Sefirot as one. “Stood above it” is as it is written, “A pillar of salt,” a mound, since all the degrees as one are on that same ladder, the Nukva, connecting everything in one knot because that ladder was given between the two sides.

It is written, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac.” Those are the two sides, right and left—Abraham is right and Isaac is left.

Malchut is an image, a picture of the Creator. We are within Malchut. Actually, we are Malchut and we sense everything within as a picture of this world. In fact, we always sense the Creator and nothing but Him. The problem is that we sense Him in accordance with our properties and to the level of our similarity with Him.

Sensations always come from the Light, but the desire (the vessel of its perception) senses itself as a certain object depending on its opposition or similarity to the Light. That’s why the Higher Sefirot constitute properties that are present in Malchut and include the Creator’s attitude toward Malchut’s attempts to become similar with them. They are called Sefirot since they illuminate inside Malchut which “lights” them because of its corrected desire to receive pleasure in order to bestow. That’s why it is luminescent.

The Upper Light doesn’t illuminate itself; it is hidden. Only to the degree that the lower one advances and attempts to become similar to the Upper One do the properties of the lower one light up and then are called Sefirot.

Everything we feel begins and ends within Malchut. Anything we can imagine existing prior to Malchut is an illusion of our perception. Similarly, we envision a certain reality around us, but in fact there is nothing at all; everything is within us. We simply divide all of reality into “me” and “something outside of me.”

The same happens in spirituality: We divide all of reality into a soul that as of yet has no sensation of itself and something that is outside of it. But when our correction is complete, everything comes together and there is no difference between “external” and “internal”; everything merges into one point.

As a person advances, he begins to see that even though the whole picture around him becomes wider, more intense, and complicated, at the same time, it concentrates and organizes itself into ten Sefirot. This allows us to arrive at the conclusion that everything depends on our perception, that is, on the measure of our similarity with the Light.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/14/10, The Zohar

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A question I received: What is unity? Is it an internal sensation or the revelation of some force?

My Answer: Unity is a new reality that we have no idea about. It is a new matter that we haven’t sensed before and that has the properties of the spiritual world: the properties of bestowal. When we become included in this matter and live in it, we start revealing a different, new dimension as if finding ourselves on a different planet. We reveal this dimension within the properties of this matter: in bestowal.

Thus, unity doesn’t simply mean mutual connection, good relations, or confidence. It is revelation of the new property which doesn’t exist in our world. When we obtain this property and become similar to the Creator, we reveal everything in our mind and feelings, in unity with Him.

There is nothing else for us to do except to reach unity. It is within our power to do so. With regard to this it is written, “We shall do and we shall hear.” This means that we can perform various actions, put forth our effort, and do everything in our power. We can study together and unite as the Kabbalists recommend and as RABASH writes in his articles.

However, we won’t succeed in this. We have to reach the state described as “And they screamed from this work.” It’s an internal scream that we have to unite but are incapable of doing so. Only with this state of this internal scream will it happen. It must be a true prayer, a true cry.

We have already built the entire foundation. Now we only have to reach the property of unity. The new matter which will become revealed as the connection with others is the spiritual matter. It is already to some extent a spiritual vessel which existed before the breaking. At the instant that we reveal it, that we reveal the spiritual existence, the Creator will be revealed.

Therefore, throughout the day, each of us and all of us together have to try, as much as possible, to care only about this.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/13/10, The Zohar

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