The Zohar, Chapter “VaYetze (And Jacob Went Out),” Item 133: …And since those NHY join with the lower one during the Katnut, afterwards, during the Gadlut, when the upper one brings its NHY back to its degree, from the place of the lower one, it rises along with them to the place of the upper one, and the lower one is attached to them, as well. Thus, the lower one receives the lights that are in the upper one….

Suppose, we read a passage from The Zohar. What did it talk about? The Zohar spoke of the relation between the souls, between the parts of reality and nothing else. It doesn’t matter what words are used to describe it, be it HGT, the Upper One, Leah, and so on. Regardless, we have no clue what is going on here. Kabbalists use the words of the corporeal world to express the relation of forces in spirituality, which is a completely different reality.

While reading every word, I have to tell myself: “This is the connection between the souls. That is the property of bestowal dwelling among us, and the Upper Light that fills the souls (our desires), connecting them in one common vessel. This is the Creator revealed in the creature, and that is the creature perceiving the Creator.” Behind all these words, I must always see one reality. Then it makes no difference what words I’m reading. After each word I read I remind myself that the Book is talking about unity, the property of bestowal that fills the entire desire to enjoy.

The most correct, inner approach is to constantly sense and feel that it all speaks about unity, connection, love, adhesion, a single reality, and mutual guarantee. Thus, all the words just explain in more detail those sensations experienced in my mind and thoughts. This approach will make it easier to perceive all that we read in The Zohar more correctly.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/25/10, The Zohar

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A question I received: Why is it so difficult to carry out the condition of “buy yourself a friend”? Shouldn’t our egoism derive pleasure from this?

My Answer: You “buy” friends by lowering yourself before them and doing what they want. This is called “paying.” Rather than proudly walking into a store with a pile of money and choosing who to buy, you buy a friend by doing what is necessary for him; you serve him. You don’t buy him “from above”; you buy him “from below.” You are willing to do everything for him as though he does not need you.

In other words, you bend down before him and ask, “What can I do for you so that you will become my friend? I am ready for anything, just give my spiritual desire, my soul back to me!”

You cannot forcefully demand that he return your soul to you since it is in his possession. If now you want to receive your soul, you need to approach him from different sides, trying to find the approach which will make him free your soul. Your success depends only on his positive attitude towards you. If he does not wish to treat you well, then you are lost.

Did you ever take care of someone, trying to gain their positive disposition to you?  Imagine that you are standing before a judge who needs to announce your sentence now. He is disposed strictly against you and is just seething with anger. How would you try to change his anger to mercy?

“A person and a group” is a whole Kabbalistic drama.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/14/10, Article, “Make Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend – 2”

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At some point, we will start feeling how much text is missing in many places of The Zohar. Being the commentary on the Pentateuch (The Torah, The Prophets, and the Scriptures), The Zohar describes the whole of reality: HBD-HGT-NHY of the common soul, Malchut of the World of Infinity. But the original text was hidden from us and only a small part of it remained. Apparently, we don’t need more for our correction. The parts of The Zohar that are not relevant to our current correction most likely refer to the already corrected parts of the system.

For this reason, one can sense certain omissions and incompleteness in the text. Even though we may not be noticing it just yet, we will increasingly sense it more. We will also feel how beneficial these omissions are. The soul that strives for correction seeks perfection. Hence, the missing parts that the soul senses as if invite it to cling to the corrected souls which have corrected these parts. This is why we are missing them today.

This should make us understand that we exist within the living system of souls, where some parts complete the others. The missing parts of The Zohar invite us to join the souls that carry these missing revelations. If we unite with them, we will thus complete all souls.

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

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If I rise above my egoism and come out into the desires of other people, I receive an endless spiritual vessel where I can sense the entire Light of Infinity. This works very simply. It’s like a big pipe and the Light flows in it. There is a valve on top of this pipe with which I can significantly change the flow of the Light by opening it fully. This is how it works in our world where even a little child can turn the faucet and change the flow of the water. In relation to spirituality, I can do the same.

I have only a small desire for spirituality. It’s a single point in the heart. However, if I turn to the desires of other people and include myself into the common body of the soul as one of its cells, then I bestow to this common body, and in response, it begins to take care of me. Then I receive all of its endless capabilities.

Hence, this is not a coincidence that Kabbalah instructs us to come out of our desires and enter the desires of others. By doing so, we receive “613” times greater capabilities, spiritual vessels, and desires, compared to what we had before. Previously we only had a point in the heart, but now each of us receives the entire body for our use.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/10/10, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot

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A question I received: If I sense everything that happens in my regular life from “within,” is it a sign of my advancement as a result of reading of The Zohar?

My Answer: No. There is no such thing as “regular life” when you read The Book of Zohar. I have an embryo of the soul, the point in the heart, through which I stay within the Upper system that The Zohar describes.

How can I sensibly and rationally connect all these properties (the three lines, ascents and descents, and spiritual actions) with this tiny point in which there is nothing? This is exactly what I am striving for. How can I stay with them, sense them, and experience them at the level of ZON in the World of Atzilut?

I don’t expect anything from this world (from myself or my group friends) in the way that I perceive them or the entire world within my five senses. Why do I need it? This world doesn’t exist; I only imagine it within my ego (the desire to receive). If I climb to a higher degree of bestowal and “faith above reason,” I’ll perceive everything in a totally different way.

I have no desire to deal with this world. All I want is to rise and merge with the Upper One! However, I exercise a realistic approach and I don’t abandon this world. But I study The Book of Zohar as well as the rest of the wisdom of Kabbalah in order to reveal the Upper reality rather than to pull it down into this world. It will never happen. Never will the spiritual world clothe into the material one.

On the contrary, our material world will rise to its roots: the spiritual world. Through this material world I’ll eventually see the Upper World, but first I have to perceive spirituality. That’s why I have to detach myself from all my worldly possessions since at this point I am learning about perfection, spirituality, and the Creator.

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

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A question I received: Is the purpose of reading The Zohar to develop our sensitivity to what we feel in our five organs of perception? Does it develop our consciousness of the vision of this world?

My Answer: Absolutely not! While reading The Zohar, I forget about this world; I don’t see or feel it. I am entering the system of Upper Governance and Supervision, reading about, studying, and trying to perceive it, meaning to connect to it in my sensations and mind.

I am trying, to the best of my ability, to use all the names and appellations written in The Zohar. Essentially, the entire Zohar talks about Yeshsut, Zeir Anpin, Malchut, and the souls. Everything takes place between Zeir Anpin and Malchut, but The Zohar expresses it in thousands of names and situations.

Therefore, while reading The Zohar, I am trying to enter these spiritual states, but not draw them into our material world. Why do I need it? I must find myself in the spiritual one, sense how I clothe in ZON of the World Atzilut, identify myself, and merge with it in all my desires and thoughts.

I need to try to always see all that is happening in a singular body of the common soul, because it is all my qualities: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joseph, Aaron, David, and all actions that the Zohar is talking about, Klipa and holiness, the steps of ZON of the World Atzilut.

But this world doesn’t exist for me, as it were. I don’t understand or feel it; I don’t need this imaginary world. It is written that we must rise to the level of the Upper World, and from it, after getting some understanding of the spiritual roots, we are able to study their lower branches in our world.

There is no need to be in the branches “just because.” In fact, it is prohibited to attach the Upper roots to the lower ones. It is called idolatry when you take the names and actions from the Upper World and try to see their effects in this world in the precise congruence of one to the other. It is banned because it is wrong. What does it mean “prohibited”? It doesn’t exist. It means to “make an idol for oneself.”

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

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The Zohar, Chapter “VaYigash (Then Judah Approached),” Item 102: …“A voice is heard in Ramah [also means ‘height’ in Hebrew]” Voice is the Nukva which ascended and is heard in Bina, which is called Ramah (the height), the Upper world. “In Ramah” means that the Nukva dresses Bina’s left line, as it is written: “And in that day did the Lord, the God of hosts, call to weeping, and to lamentation…” This is caused by the awakening of the large vessels that are located there. They block all its lights, and this is the second correction. Then, “The river shall be drained dry,” meaning the two Temples are ruined.

The breaking of the common soul was necessary for its later correction, so that through the process, the design of the Creator could be understood. In the science of Kabbalah, we study everything that happened in the Upper Worlds, all the preparation for the creation of our world. Only beginning with our world, do we start the corrections, which occur from below upward.

We should view our history exactly like that. The ruining of the First and the Second Temples and all that we have gone through during history was only the preparation performed from Above downward. And only now we are beginning the correction, the ascension from below upward.

It is written in the Talmud Eser Sefirot and the “Preface to the Science of Kabbalah,” all that takes place in the Upper Worlds including the breaking of the common soul was implemented from Above downward by the will of the Upper Force without any interference by the lower one.

The lower begins to act only now, after the mixing of all the desires and after the last exile, now when the possibility of (space for) free will arises, now when The Zohar is revealed, and now that all the conditions for ascension have been arranged.

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A question I received: Will my soul remember everything I learned in this life? Will I continue to learn Kabbalah and come to the group again in my next life?

My Answer: The only thing that a person takes with him from this life is the spiritual path that he went through; this does not vanish. After all, in regard to spirituality, we are, and continue to be in the same reality, but it is slightly hidden from us.

I am constantly situated in my soul, in spite of the fact that I don’t feel it, I continue to work with it and go through different states. All this occurs in my eternal soul. The fact that I now see physical bodies and this world around me is a “mirage” of my spiritual state.

If I work internally now, then I will begin my next reincarnation from a higher spiritual state, and I will come to a Kabbalah group faster and will be more successful in my studies. The entire previous path will remain within me in the form of spiritual genes (Reshimot); it doesn’t vanish. In the spiritual world nothing vanishes at all; things disappear only in our world because this whole world will eventually vanish. In the meantime, nothing that I have acquired through my egoistic desire remains, since the desire itself vanishes, only the external clothing remains.

Every time the soul goes through a new reincarnation, it builds an environment for itself according to its ability and the necessity to correct itself. Why do I exist in this environment and not a different one? It is because my soul requires this. No calculation is performed in regard to the bodies; they exist in connection with each other, in this world, in all of the situations that are necessary for the soul’s correction.

Meanwhile, the body is not taken into account. Actually, it doesn’t exist at all; it is a virtual illusion that presents itself to us in this form. In actuality, only the soul exists, but we are unable to feel it. And its development clearly determines what happens to the bodies.

Therefore, in the end of “Preface to The Book of Zohar” Baal HaSulam writes that only the correction of the souls will help us correct our world and perceive this corporeal life as more kind. All the offenses that occur in this world are a consequence of the necessity for the soul to be corrected. At the same time, there are no actions or corrections in this world: changes are only possible through the soul.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/2/10, Article “Which Degree Should One Acheive?”

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A question I received: What does “triggering the soul of a righteous“ (Ibur Neshmat Tzadik) mean?

My Answer: This means that a person who wishes to reach a goal and seeks how to accomplish this suddenly feels that he is being helped and supported. He feels a higher soul  clothing in him like NHY de Ima clothes in Zeir Anpin. It is like in our world when a baby is born, there are always grown up relatives around him, those who love and sustain him.They take responsibility for him. And the child reciprocates with his love and loyalty.

Thereby, the law “I Was Borrowed On, and I Repay” is fulfilled. This means the person accepts their assistance and caring and then compensates or pays – not directly to them, but to the other souls. This is how the cycle is completed. Similarly in our world, a baby is born and his parents take care of him, and when the parents get old, the child, now grown up himself, looks after them and his own young children too, thus linking all generations with the previous and the following levels.

Only this arrangement of linking all the levels gives us an opportunity to ascend. Actually, it is impossible to ascend from step to step without the external help. Every time I ascend to a new spiritual step, I am reborn. To ascend, I need assistance from the group (through mutual guarantee), from the Creator (who works on us through the group), and from the special souls (our teachers and helpers).

It doesn’t matter whether they are in our world or are helping us from the system of souls. We receive help from all the Kabbalists who corrected themselves. Their corrected souls have already reached the common system of Adam HaRishon in the World of Infinity, and they are helping us. Thus we ascend. This system of help is called the shepherd of the mules; it is the common soul (the collective help) helping to correct our “donkey” (our matter).

From the Evening Zohar Lesson 6/2/10, Article, “Which Degree Should One Achieve”

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Although we were all born with our special root of the soul on different degrees, and with a different desire, each person can adopt the desires of others due to the fact there is a mutual inclusion of souls.

In addition, it is written that everyone can ascend to the degree of Moses. However, how is this possible if I was born with a minor root of the soul? Everything depends on the person! Even if a person is born with not a very high root of the soul, one can still unite with higher desires, correct them, and ascend to the highest level.

This is called that the Creator sends him a drover of donkeys (donkey – Hamor, from the word material – Homer) which is a soul that helps him unite with higher desires, as well as to correct them. Then every person can ascend to the degree of the Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the greatest souls, as well as to the degree of Moses, the greatest of all the prophets.

Therefore, when a person is born (gives birth to himself!) in the spiritual world, he can receive the desires from all the others, and by using such a desire, he can become just as important as the most elevated soul. And in this regard, the souls do not interfere with one another. They all ascend to the same, maximum level of correction – the complete Light of NRNHY.

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