A question I received: What is the “dream” that The Zohar describes?

My Answer: The sense through which we perceive everything (our vessel or Kli) is called “the will to enjoy.” We perceive ourselves and our environment, as well as the whole world, inside this desire. We only feel what this sense is able to “catch,” meaning only the things it decides are necessary and that are similar to it.

Therefore, we don’t feel anything spiritual, since spirituality is all bestowal and love. We simply don’t feel this other world, which is arranged according to bestowal rather than reception. Our current state cannot even be called a dream compared to the spiritual state, because it is below even that level. Our state is called the Kista de Hayuta – a thin illumination which revives us.

This illumination is a Reshimo (informational gene) that gives us a sensation of existing in some reality. But this is only in order for us to then work on rising to the spiritual sensation. The reality that is now presented to us by our senses will then fade, since this feeling is given to us on purpose, in order for us to feel independent of the Creator when we undergo our spiritual development. It enables us to develop on our own.

The level of a “dream” is situated above the reality of this world. In addition, there are many types of dreams – good ones and bad ones. For example, The Zohar tells us about the dreams of Pharaoh’s ministers as well as the dreams of Joseph.

One type of dream is when a person enters it deliberately as he descends from a higher level to a lower level, which is the level of a dream. There is a dream when a state called “night” comes, or spiritual darkness. Then we sleep and dream about a part of the Upper World.

On one hand, a dream comes from unifying with a higher degree. And on the other hand, in order for this to happen one needs to lose the lower degree. In any case, we are talking about states of our desire. The desire may be situated on a level that is completely detached from spirituality – in this world, or on a higher level of being slightly connected to spirituality. The latter is called a “dream.”

A dream is not mysticism; it is the reality of a person who ascends up the spiritual degrees. Either he advances on his own and deliberately enters the state of sleep, or this state is given to him from Above.

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A question I received: How can I tell if I have the right sensations while reading The Zohar?

My Answer: It doesn’t matter. The most important thing is to hold on to the text and flow with it; eventually the stream will bring you to the right place. While reading The Zohar a person goes through very difficult states, sometimes he is completely confused, and sometimes he has no idea what is happening to him.

We have to be prepared for this ahead of time, because when we acquire the next level, we erase everything that we had on the previous level. It’s like pressing the “Delete” button on the computer – everything disappears. That is how we advance to the next level.

These sensations don’t exist in our world. We still haven’t experienced transitions that are this intense, real, and serious. We only feel a sudden confusion, where we stop understanding the words and find ourselves in a fog. This will happen to every person, both those studying live and those studying over the internet. That is how our growth takes place. We no longer have to die and be reborn again, and then again and again, because we are going through these reincarnations during this life. A new reincarnation is always a new Kli – a new earth and a new sky; a new everything.

Therefore, you cannot know anything ahead of time. You should only accept the conditions that The Zohar sets for you, and if you are flowing together with this book, the stream will lead you forward and take you out of all of these difficult states. Then new sources of confusion will come, along with new epiphanies, while the old ones will be forgotten and gone. You will change so much that you won’t even remember that you used to be different.

Therefore, for the time being we should look at ourselves critically and simply keep going. The advice Kabbalists give to a person who is confused is to delve even deeper into the studies, to keep breaking through even further. That is how you will advance and break through the foggy state. You just have to make more efforts, and this will make the state shift to a different one quicker.

If, on the other hand, a person gives up and tries to leave the studies and to take a break, then he is thrown backwards. Later on he will have to take the same steps forward all over again, but under much more difficult conditions. Therefore, as soon as you feel that you are confused and in a fog, you should realize that this is a wonderful state. It’s a sign of a new level, and now all you have to do is “step on the gas”!

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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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When a person begins to read The Book of Zohar, oftentimes he is in a state of “sleeping” and from there he has to start attuning himself to reading and penetrating into the material. Depending on how correct a person’s intention is, how he positions himself, turns himself around and pushes in a particular direction, he will move further in the right direction as he reads the book. Therefore, it is important to tear one’s feelings and thoughts away from all earthly matters and refocus them on the manner in which The Zohar is written.

There are many ways to “organize” yourself and prepare for reading the text of The Zohar. Here is one of them:

Only one thing was created: the desire to be filled by the Light (the Creator). This desire, inside a person, can be filled by making yourself greater, higher, stronger, and more powerful than other people. Alternatively, the same desire can also be filled outside of you, by fulfilling others. In that case, the more you fulfill others, the more you are filled with the sensation of others’ fulfillment. By measuring this fulfillment inside of you, you yourself are fulfilled.

In both cases you use the thickness of the desire, all five levels (or layers) of it, but you either do so for your own sake or for the sake of others. The Zohar tells us about the sensations that are felt in the desire to bestow. The Zohar says that the desire to fulfill yourself is unnatural, because what’s natural is the Creator. The Creator, the quality of bestowal is contrary to the way we have become used to feeling because we were born with this perception.

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We are starting to talk about the development of soul. In order to sense the spiritual world, we use a sense called “the soul.” However, we presently don’t have this sense. In order to obtain it, we must have the desire to develop this ability from a point and by using it, begin to sense all the images that The Zohar tells us about, such as Noah, Leah, Elokim, Yud Hey Vav Hey, the ark, a house, the Light and many other things. We know nothing of their true spiritual meaning yet, just as a baby that’s newly born into this world starts out with a blank, white page. Nothing is yet written on that page!

The baby must become acquainted with this world; little by little, he begins feeling more through his senses. We often do not notice how he prepares himself for this or how he expresses a desire to learn something. He appears closed inside himself and we simply give him nourishment and take care of his basic needs. However, as he grows, he begins opening up and reacting to things more.

In the spiritual world, however, we develop differently than a newborn body does in this world, because there is a soul developing from a point of desire that is inside us. If we read The Zohar under the influence of this point, we absorb all sorts of impressions from the study and this point begins to develop and swell. When it grows into a sphere of a certain size, we will begin sensing the spiritual world within it.

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In the News (from The University of British Columbia): “Tactile input affects what we hear: UBC study” Humans use their whole bodies, not just their ears, to understand speech, according to University of British Columbia linguistics research. It is well known that humans naturally process facial expression along with what is being heard to fully understand what is being communicated. The UBC study is the first to show we also naturally process tactile information to perceive sounds of speech.

In the News (from Scientific American): “Tasting the Light: Device Lets the Blind “See” with Their Tongues” A pair of sunglasses wired to an electric “lollipop” helps the visually impaired regain optical sensations via a different pathway. Now, a new device trades on that thinking and aims to partially restore the experience of vision for the blind and visually impaired by relying on the nerves on the tongue’s surface to send light signals to the brain.

My Comment: The above confirms what Kabbalah teaches about perception of reality – that the entire world exists inside us; our senses are no more than the display of five boundaries of our internal feelings.

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A question I received: Everything that the science of Kabbalah says about perception of reality and the Creator’s concealment and revelation seems very subjective. It says that everything depends on me and I just have to change my attitude in order to feel a different reality. So where is the reliability, objectivity, and independence of my research? All of this seems very subjective, and it changes along with me.

My Answer: It’s indeed unpleasant to feel that one’s existence is unstable and subjective, the way we perceive the world in our sensations and mind. However, this is, in fact, true and it obliges us to attain the true, eternal foundation.

Initially we are in a world where everything is subjective. We used to think that the world existed on its own, independent of whether there were people on our planet. We thought that even before the terrestrial globe was formed (let’s say five billion years ago), our universe had already existed and had been developing for 10 million years. But who told us this information? It was a human being. When he did tell us this? Today. But how can someone tell us about what happened in the past? It seems this way to him in his senses because they divide all sensations in a specific way and identify them according to time.

In my senses I evaluate a specific sensation as “time,” I call one sensation “a billion years” and another one “a second,” and place other perceived actions into this sensation. This is how multidimensional pictures of time, space, movement, and changes are formed inside me by various sensations. All of this happens in my senses. The concepts of time, space, and other changes (or movements) are within me; everything is within me.

But what is outside of me? This is something I don’t know; I don’t even know whether anything exists outside of me at all. This is because I can only feel what is inside of me. It is impossible for us to feel anything unless it enters our senses. All of the space that we feel as being outside of us also exists inside. Otherwise, how would we feel it?

Kabbalah separates my Sefirot of perception into inner and outer Sefirot. In the inner Sefirot I feel myself, and in the outer Sefirot I feel the outside world. However, all of the Sefirot are mine and they exist inside me. In the process of correction, they all unite and become inner Sefirot. I then become composite, unified and singular, standing opposite the Creator who is also singular.

When you look at your computer screen, you cannot see anything that hasn’t entered it yet. If you perceive any information on the computer – for example, if you read text, watch a video, or listen to music – all of this must already be inside the computer. This example helps us to see why it is forbidden for us to say that our world already existed 15 billion years ago, unless we take into account that this is only so relative to our perceptions.

All of science is true; we merely have to add a small note on the bottom: “relative to the human senses.” Everything is true, just in regard to me.

This is why in the science of Kabbalah, the Creator is called “Bo-Reh,” which means “Come and See.” If you reveal Him inside of you, attain Him and “see” Him (because vision is the most explicit perception out of our senses), then the Creator exists for you. However, if you have not attained Him, revealed Him, and felt Him, then He does not exist for you.

If you say that you simply heard about Him, then this is not even an abstract form; it is a fantasy that your “instructors” filled you with. After all, the abstract form is when you have felt a phenomenon, and you imagine it afterwards without it being clothed into matter.

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We don’t know what Atzmuto is, the Light itself, . We can only talk about the forms it creates within the desire. Besides this, we cannot understand or feel anything.

When I drink water, I don’t know what water actually is when it is outside of me. I only know how it is perceived inside my sensations and in my senses. This is the only thing I can talk about, and I can therefore describe the water as being wet, cool, sweet or sour. I can only describe it from the point of view of my own Kli. That is why we only talk about the Kelim and their impressions, the forms and sensations that are present within them.

It seems to me that I go into the shower, turn on the faucet and enjoy the water streaming down on to me. But the faucet and the water streaming down on me, and the water that’s inside me when I drink it, are all my own Kelim.

If we discern the concepts in the right way, then we will be able to read The Book of Zohar correctly.

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When I read The Book of Zohar, I want it to change me in some way: to take me through ascents, descents, impressions, and feelings. I don’t want to just hear the words, but I want to feel sensuous changes within me.

This does not happen right away. It is like a baby who does not hear or see anything during the first few days of his life, and then he begins to hear and see, but still doesn’t understand anything yet. After that he begins to actively learn about the world – and then there is no stopping him. He grabs hold of everything, climbs everywhere, he needs to touch everything and learn about everything. That is what we should do – learn from a baby’s example.

After all, this is how we are gradually born into the spiritual world. We need to learn from the example of a baby – to endlessly aspire to feel the spiritual world.

The spiritual world is the unification of all the individual aspirations to the Creator into one whole desire. It is within this desire that we will feel the Creator. When reading The Book of Zohar, we have to search for the sensations it describes inside us: “What is Atik, Arich Anpin, what does it mean to ascend, to descend, how do I join the AHP of the Upper Level, how does it raise me?” By doing so, you will be like a baby that grows and develops!

This is why it is written: “I labored and found.” It is up to us to make the effort and to desire the revelation. We have to aspire to attain the force of bestowal and unification, and then we will find it.

Some people find it difficult to feel, while others find it easy. However, when we are studying The Zohar in a group, everything averages out. If we all wish to achieve this, if each person strives for it according to his capabilities, then this will happen. It’ll simply happen to everyone sitting in the classroom or watching the lesson through the Internet or on TV.

We must only make a constant effort toward seeking out these sensations in us. Then we will gradually feel them inside us and will respond to every word in the book. What matters is not whether you understand what is written in the right or the wrong way, but the effort you make to awaken inner feelings and reactions to the words in The Book of Zohar.

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A question I received: What should we do in preparation for the next lesson on The Book of Zohar to make sure we won’t miss anything?

My Answer: Stay connected with what we discussed in today’s lesson; think of it all the time.

The Zohar is a window to the spiritual world; it is a world that is waiting for you and inviting you to reveal it. If you stray from the path leading to it, you will have to find that path all over again and will waste your time and energy.

That’s why you have to try to maintain the impressions from the lessons. Besides, The Book of Zohar pulls anyone studying it into itself.

Those who work on The Zohar at our center know that it draws you in and doesn’t allow you to pull away. It works like a drug: You feel bad if you move too far away from it. That’s how it works.

By simply reading The Book of Zohar and searching for what is written within yourself, by attempting to identify with its spiritual images and constructing the Upper World out of those images, you start to feel a pleasure that develops into a deeply felt need. It engages you. Reading The Book of Zohar creates a certain palette of impressions, a cloud of sensations that don’t look like clear images at first, but are felt as inspirations and impressions rather than knowledge. Later on, however, you start sensing and understanding the position of the right and left lines and how they both combine into the middle line. And you then begin to sense whether this makes you feel good or bad.

Gradually this sensation starts to interlace with the text you read; it begins to appeal to your intellect and the image of the world you construct. The same thing actually happens in our world: Even when I speak of something totally abstract, I check what I’m saying against my desires, since I don’t have anything besides them. Everything happens inside our desires.

Therefore, the impressions we get from reading The Book of Zohar must be sensory. I have to demand that the stream flowing from it will enter directly into my senses. Then my intellect will follow. When all the sensations I receive from The Zohar come to order and I begin to see connections between them, I will start to understand and analyze the correlations between them. We will all have to attain this in the near future.

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