The Zohar, Chapter “BeHaalotcha (When You Mount the Candles),” Item 4: “It is as a bridegroom coming out of his Huppah (wedding canopy).” The sun, Zeir Anpin, spreads to the west, Malchut. When the west approaches, the north side, Gevura, rises up against her first, approaches the west, and mates with her in her place. This is so because the beginning of Zivug Zeir Anpin is in the left, Gevura, which is reconciliation and obtaining permission, as it is written, “Let his left hand be under my head,” and then the south side, which is right, Hesed, as it is written, “And his right hand embraces me.” Then, “He rejoices as a strong man to run his course,” to illuminate the moon from the middle line, Yesod.

As we are reading this, we have to try to feel that we are together. We should understand that this is the only way that we can receive the revelation. We are trying to find these descriptions within ourselves regardless of whether we understand them or not. Understanding isn’t that important because the main thing is the intention.

Sometimes, The Zohar describes very vivid, impressive pictures, but one should be wary of being carried away by these descriptions. He shouldn’t perceive them as fictional literature while completely forgetting about the intention. On the contrary, when the text is completely confusing and unclear, he has no other choice but to think about the intention. Since he doesn’t understand anything, he recalls that the most important thing is the intention. He’s happy that this is what he has to work on because his mind can’t grasp what is written. He doesn’t even understand how to connect these words. Therefore, in any state, we first should try to discern our reality which is the one common desire.

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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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When we unite our desires to reveal The Zohar, every person contributes his own deficiencies, his unique work of the mind and heart, and his attempts to cling to the words in order to attain the goal through them. Every person has his own ideas about what spirituality is and how the qualities we read about, such as Aaron, the bull, the mixed multitude, Moses, and others are connected inside him.

Every person imagines these notions from the root of his soul, envisioning them in various, distorted forms. But it’s OK that they are distorted because “The advantage of the Light is revealed from the darkness.” Every person adds his own small misconception to the great, common, confused desire.

This results in a great, mixed-up ball, like a ball of yarn composed of something unclear and unknown. It consists of all the disappointments, deficiencies, and desires, but they all unite together inside this ball because through our searching we desire to attain unity and reveal the Creator inside us. As a result, we raise a prayer (MAN), which is the sum of all the doubts, confusion, and impressions we feel while studying The Zohar, while The Zohar is one for all of us.

We desire to unite all of our aspirations together, which means that we are standing around Mount Sinai (the Mountain of Hatred). However, we don’t understand what is happening. Therefore, while Moses ascends to the mountain, we construct a Golden Calf and commit all the other transgressions.

But then the Surrounding Light comes to us and illuminates our common desire (Kli), which consists of our confusions and doubts. It illuminates the darkness, the state of not being able to see where this picture is inside of us and where our connection with others lies. The Surrounding Light comes to us through the great cloud of doubts that we create together; it is through that cloud that the Light influences every person. Passing through this filter, the Light brings each of us the desires, deficiencies, and qualities of others, as well as its own qualities. And this brings about the revelation.

The Light itself does not have any form. When you desire to unite with others and with The Zohar, when you don’t understand anything and are confused, but you strive to be part of the great, common desire, then the Light brings you an imprint of these forms. It reveals the right connection between us and gives you the right structure, in which you are connected with everyone. You then start to understand the qualities that The Zohar describes.

These qualities don’t exist inside any one of us. I don’t have Aaron or the Golden Calf inside me; these qualities become expressed only inside my connection with others – whether I’m “for” them or “against” them. They cannot exist in a separate person. The impure force and the holiness that are being described mean “against unity” or “for it.” Therefore, the Surrounding Light that comes in response to your efforts brings you either unity or opposition to unity. But it happens in a clear, conscious manner. Everything is discerned only in relation to unity because the only thing we have to correct is the broken vessel of the common soul.

Therefore, a single individual cannot imagine anything that The Zohar describes. The prayer rises upward and the Light descends downward only through our common cloud of confusion and doubts.

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The Zohar, Chapter “Ki Tissa (When You Take),” Item 24: “As the pregnant woman approaches the time to give birth, she writhes and cries out in her birth pangs,” since it is the nature of a pregnant woman to wait nine whole months.

This is talking about the fact that it takes time for us to feel all of the evil contained within us. At first we simply start to feel it slightly, but this doesn’t mean anything yet. Every state has to go through all four stages until we attain it fully along with its root and decide that it isn’t something accidental or temporary, but it is evil from the beginning, at the very root, and come to the realization that we have to get rid of it. Only then do we have the power to eradicate the evil.

But there are quite a few in the world who go through only one or two days of the ninth month, while all the pains and pangs of the pregnant woman are on the ninth. Hence, even if she only went through one day of the ninth month, it is considered as though the whole of the ninth month had passed for her.

Here The Zohar speaks about the revelation of evil, exile, and redemption. It says that we don’t have to wait for the end of 6000 years if we already feel that we have started the ninth month of “pregnancy” and the birth pangs of the exile. This means that we are already capable of completing the entire correction process.

So are Israel: Since they tasted the taste of exile, if they repent, it is considered as though they had experienced all the troubles that are written in the Torah, especially that they had experienced several pangs since the beginning of the exile.

This is saying that the duration of the exile does not depend on time. That is to say, it depends on time only until the “nine months” mark. We have to go through “eight months” of being burdened – this is certain. But when we start feeling even the first day of the ninth month, from then on everything depends on this sensation and our full realization of our evil in relation to the root. Then we will be able to come out of exile because “it is considered as though we had already gone through all of the misfortunes.”

The period called “the initial eight months” is the preparation period, the period of exile that we have to go through. There is no way to avoid or reduce it. This was the period before the Ari. Starting with the Ari onward, a different time began, which can be reduced the more we advance. This will increase the “pangs of birth” of our development and enable us to complete our development long before the end of 6000 years.

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The Zohar: When the Temple was ruined and Divinity was exiled among strange lands… Everyone was weeping over it and connected weeping with lamenting. And all this was because Divinity had been exiled from her place.

And as she was changed in exile from the way she was, her husband, ZA, does not shine his light, as well, for then he has no one upon whom to shine. Thus, he has changed from how he was, as it is written, “The sun will be dark when it rises.”

“So His appearance was marred more than any man,” than that servant, Matatron, who changed his shape and colors during the exile, and unlike what they were, they are green, white, and red.

As we read The Zohar, we have to expect it to influence us. It’s not important what words we are reading, since we don’t understand what’s behind them anyway. We don’t understand the meaning of these words, such as what it means to be “green,” “red,” “slave,” “Matatron,” or “Malchut.” It’s all the same to us. We just want this revealed inside us, and that’s it.

If it seemed that we understood something, then we would leave the lesson satisfied, as if we acquired something. But this is false! We didn’t acquire anything unless we made efforts with every word that we didn’t understand.

We shouldn’t desire to understand the text with our earthy mind on our current level. What we want is revelation! This is the state we want, our next degree. We want to really feel what this book is talking about. We want it to come to life inside us.

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The Book of Zohar was concealed from people for a long time. Only a few chosen souls (Kabbalists) used it and passed it from one to another, forming a lineage.

The book was revealed to outsiders when the widow of the Kabbalist Moshe De Leon sold it along with other books belonging to her husband. That is when Kabbalists began to forbid its study and created rigid restrictions to repel people from it. In the meantime, they continued studying this book in order to correct their souls, and they also taught other disciples who had a point in their hearts. If, however, a person lacked a point in the heart and didn’t strive to reveal spirituality, then he was banned from opening this book.

Today humanity as a whole has reached a stage of development where The Book of Zohar can be opened by anyone; there is no danger in doing so. First of all, this is due to Baal HaSulam’s “Sulam” Commentary on The Zohar, and secondly, because of the current level of the souls’ development. Human egoism has become so boorish, aggressive and corporeal that if a person doesn’t have a point in the heart, he won’t be interested in The Book of Zohar.

Without a doubt, this book is the only resource capable of correcting the soul. We still don’t fully understand what a wonderful tool it is. We don’t feel even a single word of it and don’t use the Light that is supposed to reach us when we read this book. We are not yet connected to this functional system; we simply read the words without understanding their meaning.

When we understand what kind of system it is, connect to it and start using it, then The Book of Zohar will turn out to become the Malchut of the World of Infinity for us. Just like an embryo, we will enter the spiritual uterus that will become our world, and we will continue to grow by ascending from one world to another until reaching Malchut of the World of Infinity. That’s what The Book of Zohar means – it is a gradual revelation that works in this manner.

We don’t understand what a sacred book it is. It is truly a device for revealing the Upper Light!

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We have lived through thousands of lives, and now we are situated in a special reincarnation where we are beginning real spiritual work for the first time. For the first time we are no longer acting like the inanimate, vegetative, or animate levels of nature, but are performing personal, individual work that only a human being could, according to his own free choice. This is the first time that this is happening in all of creation, in all the generations, after all the states and past lives that we have gone through.

This period is not easy by any means. We still don’t understand what it means to begin living in a new world, to adjoin the whole world to ourselves, to enter a different dimension, and to develop a new desire (Kli). We think that something needs to happen right now, in our old egoistic state. However, a new reality has to come and clothe into us; it is a reality that we do not expect, know, or take it into account. And the only way this can happen is gradually, with our consent, and the consent must also be reached gradually.

At the same time, we have to expect the revelation to happen any minute now. But on the other hand, we should understand that even in our world, where we don’t experience such great changes, it takes many years and much effort to change anything, and here we are talking about something much bigger – changes that have to be performed in us by the Upper Light. We are, indeed, about to enter a new dimension!

The Light is always ready to perform the corrections to us. However, we have to provide this opportunity for it, and that is where we usually stumble.

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You cannot calculate how to advance to the next state. It is always incomprehensible to you and concealed in darkness and uncertainty, since all the desires there are new. In fact, everything there begins anew.

You have no way to grab onto it. It can only be revealed by the Upper Light; therefore, this revelation does not depend on you. You make efforts, but you don’t know what mechanism you are triggering to do the work. You are like a little child who plays and accidentally presses some button, turning on the whole system and eliciting great consequences.

And like a child, you should not be concerned with what the next state will be like, since this is exclusively the Creator’s prerogative. Everything moves according to His plan, and no one knows exactly how it works.

You are about to reveal a completely new level, where all the souls begin to be corrected together, according to the general structure of the common soul. It is like an embryo in which all the organs grow gradually, sometimes the liver, sometimes the lungs, and sometimes the legs. Every day one organ grows faster while another one grows slower. In much the same way, the common soul is growing now because it has begun the process of correction. No one knows how exactly it will grow and at what rate.

All we have to do is make every possible effort, focusing only on what we can do right now, instead of trying to guess what will happen tomorrow. And we shouldn’t forget that our objective today is to reveal The Book of Zohar to all of humanity.

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A question I received: What is revealed to me when I am reading The Zohar?

My Answer: You reveal what is happening on the Upper Degree. It is like a little child growing up – he sees, understands, and feels the world. By observing his behavior and reactions, you can see that every day he understands life a little bit more, gains a greater understanding of what is happening and reacts to things more consciously.

In spiritual attainment, we suddenly reveal images inside ourselves on a sensory level as a result of projecting the narration of The Zohar inside us. The narration “lands” on our desire and is imprinted in it, and we therefore begin to feel and then understand what is being said, similar to how we revealed this world when we were growing up.

Spiritual revelation is not rational but sensory; it happens in new senses. It is brought about by the Light that Reforms, which simply makes us able to understand the Creator and to become like Him.

This may not sound serious and one may wonder, “How is this a science? Where is the mind? Where is the person?” After all, we are just reading a book, and we desire very much to be in that picture, in that reality about which it is telling us. It appears similar to how a baby acts, “I want and that’s it!” But nothing else is required of us except this desire.

Baal HaSulam writes in Item 155 of the “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot,” “Although they do not understand what they are learning, through the yearning and the great desire to understand what they are learning, they awaken upon themselves the Lights that surround their souls.” It works the same way as how a baby wants to know the world he is in. When we desire to reveal the spiritual world in the same way, it suddenly becomes revealed to us.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post:Remembering What Has Long Been Forgotten
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Articles: “From the Preface to the Book of Zohar”
Shamati #78: “The Torah, the Creator, and Israel Are One”
Tuning Yourself To The Zohar – 5 Minutes Of Light (5:20)

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A question I received: Can we be reading too much Zohar in one day?

My Answer: Right now we are reading and rereading The Zohar again and again. There is no sense talking about the inner definitions since we don’t feel them yet. After many hours of study (say, 100 hours) we will begin to feel and sense what The Zohar is talking about. It will be hazy and unclear at first, like seeing through a fog. We will feel something that draws us to an unknown place. This is called a “wonderful means” (Segula), which influences us.

After many hours of study, we receive impressions from various words, and each word starts to awaken a unique sensation in me. For example, cold, warm, up, down, bestowal, reception, GAR, VAK, Esau, Jacob, Leah, Rachel, village, animals, and so on are all words through which we accumulate specific impressions. Once we do, we will be able to talk about them with others.

Then we will be able to participate in a shared discussion. This is not particularly necessary, but nonetheless, it will give us a common language with our friends, since they will also feel and realize a new reality.

This special sensation is not easy to achieve. It is a true revelation, and it occurs after many hours of study.

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