At the time of the Messiah (the correction of humanity), evil increases and impudence and vice will be led by the heads of the mixed multitude (Erev Rav). Then the Hidden Light will appear from the Heaven – The Book of Zohar, followed by the writings of the Holy Ari. And this learning will root out the evil in our souls. We will be rewarded with cleaving to the Upper Light, and we will be rewarded all the virtues in the world. It is for this reason that this Light appeared.

And the essence of your study will be to attain illumination and Godly liveliness in your soul. The Ari said that at that time the hidden will become revealed.
The Hall of Blessing, Deuteronomy 208

Let not the eunuch say, “For I am a dry tree, and who am I to approach the holiness within, in the books of Kabbalah?” This is because all the righteous have already agreed that today this is the counsel of the evil inclination and a lie. And although a person does not understand what he reads, still, the words of the Holy Zohar have healing power for the soul, and are approachable for every soul. Rabbi Tzvi Hirsh Horovitz of Backshwitz, Upright Guidance, Item 5.

Study of The Book of Zohar brings a miraculous force. Even if a person does not understand what he studies, it is important to the Creator and loved by Him, similar to how an infant does not understand what he speaks, but the parents rejoice at hearing his voice. Hence, one cannot complain that he does not know or understand.
Pele Yoetz, Chapter, “Zohar”.

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A question I received: If a person doesn’t study Kabbalah but only reads The Book of Zohar, what will he get out of doing that?

My Answer: The Zohar is the central book in the wisdom of Kabbalah. For us The Book of Zohar with the “Sulam Commentary” is the most effective and powerful source for the correction of the soul.
The broken soul exists in each of us and it’s completely concealed inside. We don’t know what it is. It is, in fact, an enormous, endless desire (Kli) and it exists in every person. We have to find, reveal, and correct it. Precisely in this soul we will sense the eternal reality called “Creator.”
I identify myself with this soul when I reveal and sense it. In the end it turns out that the Creator and I become one.

However, all of this can be carried out only by the Upper Light. It is the force which acts upon us and develops within us the sensation that we exist in the spiritual system in addition to the sensation of this world.

If a person only reads The Book of Zohar with us, it’s not enough. Baal HaSulam preceded The Book of Zohar with four prefaces. It’s not an accident that he wrote them as prefaces to The Book of Zohar and not as separate works.

“Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” introduces a person to the wisdom of Kabbalah. “Preface to the Book of Zohar” provides the correct approach to The Book of Zohar that will help a person to open this book. “Preface to the Sulam Commentary” describes the entire structure of the spiritual system by way of the three lines. And finally, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” talks about the general system of creation, including the three states of creation, about the research and the fundamental questions, and about the rungs of the spiritual ladder by which a soul ascends.

A person doesn’t need anything else after these prefaces and The Book of Zohar because these texts contain everything. However, there is one more very special preface, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot.” However, when a person studies The Zohar he will see what is written in the “Study of the Ten Sefirot” and in the introduction to it. He will sense internally the same explanations which Baal HaSulam provides in other articles.

A person will feel all these conclusions and facts from The Book of Zohar, provided that his study is combined with its four introductions. Therefore, there should be a special course preceding the study of The Zohar. A person can study The Zohar together with us, but at the same time he should be taking this course. That should be enough for him.

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The Zohar, Chapter “BeHaalotcha (When You Mount the Candles),” Item 43: There are seven ties to the seventy-two names, by which they are tied in each and every connection: the tree patriarchs, HGT, and four others, NHYM. The Rosh [head] of the AB [Gematria: 72] names is the three Sefirot HBD, which are called Rosh. They are in one connection with their middle, the Malchut, since these Hochma and Bina are the ones who dug the well of water, Malchut, as it is written, “The well, which the princes dug,” meaning Hochma and Bina. Hence, the Hochma, Bina, Daat, are in one connection with the Malchut. The second tie is to each other, meaning the two lines Hesed and Gevura, of whom it was said, “The one did not come near the other.” These are in one connection, which begins with three Yods.

When a person begins building his soul’s connection with other souls it means that he starts forming his own image. It’s because our structure is not present in any of us. The structure of each person, his soul is built around his “point in the heart” by connecting to it the desires of others as his own. That is to say, by connecting with other points in the hearts that aspire toward the same goal.

Every person remains a point; that’s his personality, like a drop of semen. Everything else that he acquired appears out of connection with other souls. As a result, a system of connections between the souls is formed in which every soul is comprised of itself and others. This system that a person reveals is called “Merkava” (Creation).

This is the very same “Act of Creation” (Maase Merkava) that is considered to be a great secret. But it is a secret only for those who haven’t attained, haven’t revealed it yet. Namely, it is a very high spiritual level; when one reaches it, one becomes the Creator. Then one knows how to create a connection with other souls, for one attains the structure of the common soul of Adam HaRishon (The First Man) and acts within it constructively, in three lines and the 72 names of the Creator.

The letters are the properties in which we reveal the connection among us and different parts of the system of Adam, the groups of souls or individual souls. As in our body, the cells connect into organs and organs – into a common system, with many parallel systems being connected with each other.

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It is only by virtue of The Book of Zohar that we will be able to come out of exile to redemption, and there is no doubt that we are now in a special state. We have to thank the Creator for choosing us for this mission; and on the other hand, it is a great responsibility. Let us have faith that the Creator will lead us through all the obstacles and they will only make us stronger.

I am fearful and inspired, and at the same time worried and anxious. We have to be aware of our great responsibility. All the generations of Kabbalists, the people who attained the goal of creation and the Creator’s desire, are inside the same system that we want to belong to. They have already corrected themselves in this broken system of the common soul (Adam HaRishon) and have prepared it for us, enabling us to accept it as a global system where it is no longer separate, corrected souls that are revealed, as was the case during the times preceding Rabash. He was the last in the lineage of Kabbalists who transmitted Kabbalah, the method of correction, to us. These special souls were instilled in all the generations like drops in an ocean.

Now, for the first time in history since the times of the last exile, we want to attain the last, final redemption. This is the real exodus from Egypt. Moreover, it’s happening at a special time – right before the holiday of Purim, which symbolizes the End of Correction. These conditions are completely extraordinary.

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The Zohar, Chapter “Tazria (When A Woman Delivers),” Item 20: When the soul descends to the entrance to this world, she first descends to the Garden of Eden of the earth, and sees the glory of the spirits of righteous standing column by column. Afterwards, she goes to hell and sees the wicked crying “Alas! Alas!” and no one pities them. She is given testimony of everything: the wicked testify how they are punished for each sin, and the righteous testify to the good reward that they receive for each Mitzva [good deed, commandment]. And that holy image stands over her until she leaves toward this world.

The Zohar always speaks about one soul, one man. Whether it speaks of the Garden of Eden and hell, or the righteous and the wicked – all of them are included in one man.

When we enter the system of our soul, we become submerged in our inner reality and in examining all of the possibilities there. This is what is meant by travel between the Garden of Eden and hell, and to observe what is happening there. In other words we create a map containing the route of our spiritual advancement.

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We have to keep in mind that we are all in one “boat” and part of one common soul. Everyone has to understand that the gathering that will take place at the forthcoming The Zohar Convention 2010 , like all gatherings of a large number of people who aspire to spirituality, is a gift from the heavens.

The Creator has given me an opportunity to take part in this special event where parts of my own soul come closer to me. If I relate to them in this way, with the understanding that I have been placed in an assembly of souls closest to me that are willing to unite with me, and if every individual as well as all of us together think this way, then it won’t be difficult at all.

Everything depends on preparation. During the ten days that are left before the Congress, I have to constantly prepare and attune myself to think, act, and feel precisely this way when I am there. It doesn’t matter when it will happen, today over here, or tomorrow over there. Time and place don’t mean anything. It’s an exercise for me to deliberately think today about what will happen tomorrow; this will help me later on, during the Congress, when all the conditions come together for attaining the required common effort.

This is very important and it determines everything. Later on it will get easier. It’s like preparing for war. If everything is ready and you are willing to do anything for spirituality, then you will see how everything will come together and happen exactly as you had hoped. If you made great efforts from the bottom of your heart, then everything will happen as you wish. There won’t be any unpleasant surprises. Everything will be good.

Imagine how a gang of thieves prepares in the darkness to go on a dangerous operation to rob a bank. Each of them feels that he depends on the rest, and thus he takes care of the rest. There’s a lot for us to learn from this example. The only difference is the goal. If the goal is egoistic and obvious, then it’s very easy and simple to unite. But if the goal is to attain bestowal, which lies above the individual egoistic desires of every person, then it is not easy at all.

Even the examples of our world demonstrate how useful unity can be. The only problem is that nothing can sustain unity besides the Upper Light. Unity can be sustained only by love.

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We don’t know the qualities of the Creator Himself. We see Him the way He is perceived by our souls, meaning the way He is revealed to us when Malchut (the soul) unites with Him through Yesod – just through one point. Due to its unification with Yesod, it reveals the “picture of the Creator,” something that exists in front of it, inside itself.

This works much like an optical lens through which the Light comes to us. The rays focus in one point, from which we reveal Light in Malchut. This focus is Yesod, the only point of contact, and its revelation occurs in Malchut.

After passing through Yesod, the rays disperse and create a picture in us, in Malchut. The picture shows us what exists before this point, yet we don’t know the Upper System as we have no connection to it.

However, by adjoining it from this one point, which is the lowest point in the system, we reveal the whole picture of what exists above us. Thus, we only need to find contact with this one point; this is our point of contact with the Upper Level, Yesod, and in order for this to happen we all need to unite from the side of Malchut, thereby becoming similar to Yesod. We have to become one man with one heart, with one goal, intention, and desire in the mind and in the heart.

Through this point of contact with Yesod, through one drop of unification that we reach, the whole Upper World that is situated outside of us, becomes revealed to us. It is written, “Make Me an opening the size of a needle-eye, and I will open the Upper Gates of Light for you.” Through these gates we will reveal the whole Upper System, but the contact occurs in the smallest point of focus. Except for this, nothing else is felt in Yesod.

Everything else is revealed in Malchut, which is therefore called a picture (reflection) of the Creator.

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The Zohar talks only about one person, inside of whom the whole world is situated. This person is each of us. When we study the perception of reality in Kabbalah, we learn that everything that seems to exist outside of us is actually inside us.

This whole enormous world, including the inanimate level of nature, plants, animals, and the people around us, are actually all inside man. All of these things are the qualities and forces of one’s soul which seem to exist outside, but actually they are inside.

To the extent a person develops, the whole picture of the world, which he sees outside himself, starts to seem more and more illusory to him. Therefore, our world is called an unreal or imaginary world, and our whole reality is called a dream.

For example, right now we are reading a story about Joseph who is located in Egypt along with Pharaoh, and about how Joseph’s brothers come and he greets them. As we read this, we have to understand that we are talking about the forces of our soul, which exist within every person in the world regardless of gender, age, or nationality.

The same forces exist in each of us because the Creator created an enormous desire to enjoy that consists of ten Sefirot, each of which, in turn, includes ten more Sefirot, and so on until infinity. This desire breaks and separates into a tremendous multitude of parts which are all remote from each other. They are separate souls, where each of us holds his own personal soul inside.

Therefore, each person includes everyone else since there are ten Sefirot inside him, and all the parts are connected to the ten Sefirot of the common soul and the ten Sefirot of the soul of each separate person. It turns out that everything that’s written in Kabbalah books talks about each of us – the soul of every person.

Therefore, when reading The Zohar‘s description of something that seemingly occurs outside of us, such as historical events, descriptions of nature, people, and animals, we have to try to interpret all of it on the inner level. All these stories are talking about what happens inside of me – the forces of my soul, my desires and qualities, which are in opposition to one another or connected to each other through certain relationships and calculations.

I need to enter and study this inner system of my soul because by learning and realizing it, I will begin to see the Creator’s qualities and forces, through which He influences me. I will see Him inside me, activating all my forces.

Therefore, when we read The Zohar, we need to concentrate inside ourselves, trying to see the forces of our soul behind every word.

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The Zohar, Chapter “Miketz (At the End),” Item 161: “And he put them all together in prison for three days.” These three days correspond to the three days of Shechem, as it is written, “And it came to pass on the third day, when they were in pain.”

The third day is always connected with pain. It is the hardest day in the process of correction because it is the day when the mutual inclusion of the right and left lines occurs. It is not like the first day, which is all about the right line and when we arm ourselves with the power of bestowal, nor is it like the second day, which is all about the left line, when we check which of its parts we can connect with the desire to bestow. The third day is about the reciprocal inclusion of one property into another, which results in the creation of a new, intermediate property.

Reciprocal inclusion exists only in spirituality; it never happens in our world. In this world there exists only one type of connection – when two objects unite. For example, the first object contributes its intellect whereas the other one donates emotions. They connect and replenish each other. This happens because in our world everything possesses only one property – the will to receive. Therefore, all inclusion in our world occurs only within this one property, which takes on various aspects and forms.

Mutual inclusion in spirituality, however, means that something brand new emerges – a third entity comprised of the first two. This is, in fact, a completely new phenomenon that didn’t exist previously. This “something” is called the Soul, the Human, or Adam.

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The Zohar, Chapter “Miketz (At the End),” Item 178: The Creator made it for man to strengthen himself in the Torah and to walk on the path of truth and toward the right side, and not to the left side. And because people need to walk to the right side, they should increase the love between each other. This is because love is considered “right,” and there will not be hatred between each other, which is considered left, so as to not weaken the right—the place to which Israel cling.

This paragraph seems to be speaking about life in a corrected society or group, but we still have to decipher what it means through our inner discernments. There is no difference when The Zohar speaks about an apparently external assembly of people or about a gathering of inner properties of our soul. It is the same thing since everything consists of the same ten Sefirot. We all contain the vessel of our common soul (Adam Rishon) and the same internal states of ten Sefirot exist in each of us.

This is why sometimes The Zohar uses inner definitions when it describes our properties or when it tells us about what the group should be like; sometimes it depicts only one person, or animals. We must try to see multiple levels at the same time: the inner level of our soul, the level of our group and our connection with friends, and the level of all humankind. In the future, all these levels will unite.

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