The Torah is referred to as both “the elixir of life” and “a deadly poison.” A person who corrects himself, wishing to be equivalent to the Creator and to perceive the concealed part of reality, uses the method called the “Torah.” It is a special program found in nature.

When we use it correctly, we reveal nature in its fullness along with our true existence. We sense not just a useless existence in a temporary body, but the other part of reality, the spiritual world.

Ultimately, we correct our instruments of perception. We only perceive a minor part of reality in our five senses, but we can grasp another part of reality in a new sense which is built on bestowal outward, instead of consumption. The method of correction does not break anything, it only completes. It allows us to acquire the power of bestowal and experience the World of Infinity, that is, the unlimited reality.

However, there is danger here: an incorrect use of the method. We reveal a special force in nature that we did not previously know existed. This force is called the “Light.” Its influence can either be positive or negative.

When I aspire towards love of others (unity) from the beginning, this force’s influence is directed the same way. However, if I did not direct myself towards unity from the very beginning, then this force increases hatred in me. In this way, the Light helps me when used as intended, and if I do not use it as intended, then my egoism increases in order to display my hatred of others. Everything depends on the way I intend to use the force of the Torah.

This is why there is no coercion in spiritual development. After all, if a person  is not ready to aspire towards his correction, he can inflict harm upon himself. Regrettably, we see many examples of incorrect study of the Torah around us.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/8/10, Shamati #161

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Question: If the entire Torah (Kabbalah) talks only about love for others, then why should we correct ourselves? Isn’t it enough to simply have a good attitude toward each other? Why do we have to worry about anything else?

Answer: We exist at the lowest, animate level; we simply live and die (“animal” means a “living, animate” creature). Our task, however, is to ascend to the level of man, to become “similar” to the Creator.

But how do I ascend 125 spiritual degrees to reach this state? To this end, there is a special hidden force: the Torah, the Light. If it affects us, we evolve and ascend from the animate level that we currently perceive as hate for others to the human degree of love for others, which is equivalent to love for the Creator.

The initial (1st) and the final (125th) spiritual states have already been established; I am clear about what I am at this moment and what I must become. Hence, there is no point in thinking about the conditions that are given to me at this moment or about my nature. Nothing is up to me, and all of it has already been recorded within the root of my soul. I must simply concentrate on how to advance and correct myself.

I need to focus less on the states themselves, whether it’s scolding myself or feeling good, since an instant is more than enough for this after which I have to immediately aspire upward. We cannot correct ourselves with “polite behavior” or “good manners.” Even at the smallest degree, we correct ourselves only with “love” since otherwise, it’s not a correction regarded as “commandment.”

Hence, it is said that the main rule of the Torah and all its commandments is love, and each correction to any part of the will to receive is a small attainment of this love. There is nothing but love and hate: the broken desire to receive selfishly and the corrected one to bestow.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/27/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion “Bereshit,” Selected Excerpts
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Mutual guarantee is a special space between us, our common desire. All spiritual revelations take place there. And if there is no such space, there is no common desire, but only our individual egoistic desires. We construct this common space to the degree that I annul myself and enter this collective desire, you annul and put yourself there as well, and so does everybody else. Otherwise, it does not exist!

The vessel into which we can receive the Light is not ready-made; we have to build it, we have to aspire to oneness. By cultivating our unity, from 0 to 125 degrees, we perceive, at each degree, a new picture, a greater revelation of the Creator. All “sacred” books (the Torah, The Zohar, etc.) tell us exactly about this: the degrees of the connection we create by turning our evil and rejection of each other into love and unity. Thus, the entire Torah is comprised of stories that describe how we unfold and correct the evil.

We feel our world in the “place of unification” as its absence; we feel our separation and not the Creator, the One. Yet, even this world resides in that very “place” between us with one difference: Here, we reveal the degree of our broken oneness and absence of the Creator.

Meanwhile, unity acts similar to a resistor which connects plus and minus. Inside it, my ego, my rejection of all others, is concealed. But above it, I make an effort to unite. By doing so, I create resistance between rejection and exertion. And the greater the difference, the resistance between them (“faith above reason”), the greater Light is revealed.

The same law applies to electronics and the spiritual world. Ultimately, all Nature consists of “plus” and “minus” or the forces of bestowal and reception. The only way to connect them together is through a resistor, which could be any receiver. This receiver is Adam that we are constructing: our soul.

Therefore, on one hand, we have the breaking force, and on the other, the force of our effort in creating unity. But it doesn’t annul the breaking; we unite exactly above it! As a result, we create a space where the Light that expands from the two lines, plus and minus, is able to work and start affecting us. Through this work, we build ourselves: “human reality.”
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/20/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Sometimes the language of The Zohar appears to be very odd, but in fact the story behind it is extremely simple. There is my “neighbor” and “myself.” There is a distance between us that is divided into five parts. The most remote part is felt as “this world.” If I connect with my neighbor completely and attain total unity with him, I will sense the “World of Infinity.”

My drawing closer to my neighbor occurs in five steps: I ascend into the worlds of Assiya, then Yetzira, Beria, Atzilut, and Adam Kadmon. Five worlds with 25 steps in each make up 125 steps of us drawing closer together. Before starting this process, while I am still in this world, I have to fully realize that I am separated from my neighbor (the realization of evil).

I perceive myself and the world around me in the connection between me and my "neighbor." The Zohar speaks exclusively about what is happening between us: The still, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels of nature described in The Zohar, in fact, represent my desires of the still vegetative, animate, and speaking levels in relation to my neighbor (other souls).

The entire Torah speaks only about the ways of building the connection between me and my “neighbor.” It is what is called the “method of correction.”

The Torah is the Light concealed in the text, and I can derive it to the measure that I desire to unite with the other. The moment I connect with the other, I reveal the Upper World within this connection and exist in spirituality to the extent of this connection.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/17/10, The Zohar

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Question: What is the “Torah”?

Answer: The force that corrects and unites us descends upon us in its various manifestations. The force that can bring us awareness of evil and its correction, unity with the good, and the models of connection is called the Torah. In other words, the Torah is the entire system of our correction.

Zeir Anpin of the World of Atzilut is regarded as the “Torah” because it is an image or a system after which I aspire to model myself. I do so by collecting all souls in Malchut of the World of Atzilut so that the connection between them would be equivalent to Zeir Anpin of the World of Atzilut. In this case, all souls plugged into Malchut of the World of Atzilut unite and enter adhesion (Zivug) with Zeir Anpin of the World of Atzilut, the Creator. In this way, we reveal the connection and adhesion between us.

All of this occurs, starts, and ends in ZON (Zeir Anpin and Nukva) of the World of Atzilut. Malchut of the World of Atzilut undergoes seven states until she reaches the level of Zeir Anpin, equivalence with Him, in her full capacity. At the End of Correction (Gmar Tikkun), they become as two great Lights. Hence, Zeir Anpin of the World of Atzilut, which is regarded as the “Torah” or “the Creator,” serves us as a model with its structure, force, and influence.

As for us, before anything else, we must aspire to connect together in the dark and realize that we need His assistance. When, in our consistent effort to unite, we discover that we are unable to do so, then, like little children, we will start crying and demand correction and its example from Him. As a result, the Upper One will hand a model to us and the strength to unite.

However, our request and demand have to derive solely from our efforts to connect with each other. Otherwise, we won’t be rewarded with the Light since we do not exist in the adhesion of Malchut and Zeir Anpin of the World of Atzilut, and we are not in Malchut.

Malchut senses only unity. Meanwhile, all of us are below in the worlds of BYA (Beria, Yetzira, Assiya). Only our desires to connect with each other ascend to Malchut in order to reveal the Creator and attain the property of bestowal.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/14/10, The Zohar

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When we read The Book of Zohar, we should visualize being in a system or a mechanism to which my point in the heart, my spiritual gene (Reshimo) that desires to reach its practical realization, adheres. My further development, the impact of the system on me, depends on this adhesion.

I stand opposite to this enormous system. If I don’t tune into it correctly, I will not be able to get it to work on me. It will still affect me, but solely through suffering and pain which doesn’t count as it is the natural way of development. However, I have a chance to plug into this system through my personal, inner effort.

First of all, I have to try to understand what “oneness” or “connection” is. I should also realize that the connection with the system occurs inasmuch as I am connected with the friends. There is a basic law: If I am connected with the friends to 10%, I am connected with the spiritual system to 10% as well. If I am connected with them to 80%, I am also connected with the system to 80%.

There is no other way to plug into the spiritual system for me. The greater our inner effort is to become one, to annul our individual material baggage, and to unite in our points in the heart (the only part of us that belongs in the spiritual system), the sooner we will unite to the degree of our oneness in our points in the heart.

This is the very first preparatory stage. We must demand the strength to unite from the spiritual system since obstacles constantly urge us to escape. The system has to hand us the “glue,” the Light that Reforms that will connect us. It has to clothe us as one whole body and hold us together.

Later, indeed, it will start “gluing” us at my request as if we were thousands of droplets of water merging into one enormous drop. Like in a hologram, there aren’t big and small elements in it, but everyone contains the entire picture. In this one collective wholeness, everyone loses his independence. In this way, the Light makes us one.

Now, as we become a single point, the intention to merge with The Book of Zohar itself is emerging within me. What I am reading right now, all these properties, I wish to find between us. All of the characters The Zohar is talking about are types of connections between us, and they exist at each spiritual level. This is why the story always repeats itself at each spiritual degree. The entire Torah is present in any spiritual state. And it doesn’t matter what is read or in what sequence; you can read the Torah from any page.

So now I wish to see all the relationships described in The Zohar in the connection between the thousands of points in the heart. I wish to start perceiving the connection between us in unison with the flow of the text of The Zohar. In this way, I start to reveal the story in its true form and eventually reach the state when I read and immediately realize the content within myself.

However, where is that point of realization? It is in the connection between us. Through this connection, I discover a totally new world with new sensations and desires. I submerge myself deeper and deeper in another dimension in order to uncover this system together with the others and the Creator. I taste each word with my own senses, and this is what is called the Torah of Life.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/12/10, The Zohar

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The wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about my ascent to an Upper dimension. What does “ascent” mean? The Kabbalists say: “You exist in an Upper dimension but do not feel it. You have to reveal yourself existing in it.”

I exist in two dimensions. One is at the level of “this world,” where I reside in my physical body. The other is in an Upper dimension, where I exist in my spiritual body. This spiritual body, a desire to bestow, is concealed from me, and I know nothing about it. Opposite to it, there is the Upper Force called “the Creator.”

Opposite to my corporeal body, there is Nature. In the reality of “this world” I feel bad, which pushes me to uncover the Upper reality, my existence as “the Soul and the Creator” instead of “the Body and Nature.”

Kabbalists say that I have to discover the Upper dimension because that is where the governing forces reach me, and I along with my entire future depend on them. If I ascend, then I find out why I exist, who I am, and what happens to me. I reveal the meaning of my life and how to change everything for the better. These questions push me toward the Upper dimension.

When I start reading The Zohar, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, and the articles of Baal HaSulam and Rabash, I discover that they are talking about this Upper dimension. Conversely, if a person thinks that they are speaking of our world, then this view of the Kabbalistic texts is incorrect. This means that the reader makes an idol of the entire Torah by engaging in idolatry, and then it is forbidden for him to open these books. The reason being, instead of learning about the qualities of the Creator (loving  the other as you love yourself), such a person becomes an even greater egoist by thinking that the Torah teaches him how to perform rituals.

All “holy” books speak about the quality of sanctity (bestowal) and the Upper World (the acts of bestowal), whereas all ordinary books speak about the quality of reception and this world. Therefore, when I open a holy book, I yearn to enter the state of the author. He explains to me how to reach bestowal, never speaking of this world. After all, looking from above, this world is an illusion, “Olam HaMedume” (the imaginary world).

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/7/10, The Zohar

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Question: Does every person need to experience all of the states described in The Zohar?

Answer: It is written, “Every man has to write the Torah.” This means that a person gradually needs to reveal all of his or her qualities or desires in their initial egoistic form and, to the extent of their revelation, correct them by changing the intention from “for myself” to “for the sake of others or the Creator.” Thereby a person builds a new vessel that has a screen and Ohr Hochma that fills it.

The revelation of the broken Kli means that a person clothes into a certain type of a sinner as described in the Torah. With the consequent correction of this state, he clothes into a righteous man from the Torah. A person has to assume these images and forms time after time, alternating between clothing into a sinner and a righteous man, both of which are presented to him by the Torah.

It is like an imprint of models that already exist in you. It is as if you were walking in darkness with a projector and alternate between shedding light onto a sinner that has clothed in you and a righteous man on the opposite end. In this way, you go from image to image every time. You must go through all of them! This is because the entire Torah consists of states that you experience, beginning with Adam: the first revelation of evil in you and the first contact with the Creator.

Man begins with experiencing the sensation of his egoism in contradiction to the Creator. The entire Torah only speaks about these consecutive clothings into different roles that you play like in theater and according to a script given to you. You clothe into different figures, but you are the only one playing this multitude of roles.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/5/10, The Zohar

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The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion “Nitzavim Vayelech,” Selected Excerpts
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