Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. I promise to answer them. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

The Creator’s Guidance Is Purposeful

To understand these questions and inquiries [to comprehend the Thought of Creation and what happens with us] the only tactic is to examine the end of the act, that is, the purpose of Creation. For nothing can be understood in the middle of the process, but only at its end.
– Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 4

“God is the [the property of] Absolute Good, and … He [this property, force] watches us in complete benevolence without a hint of evil, and in purposeful [and absolute] guidance. That means that His guidance compels us to undergo [consciously, that is, with the same love and appreciation] a series of phases, by way of cause and effect, preceding and resulting, until we are qualified to receive [on our own] the desired goodness. And then we shall arrive at our [shared] purpose as a ripe and fine-looking fruit.
– Baal HaSulam, Article “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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The Zohar, Chapter “Lech Lecha (Go Forth),” Item 7: The two are crowned and illuminate, meaning they became three—HGT—through the middle line that decided between them. Hence, three enter into one because the middle line, Tifferet, receives and spreads into three other lines by itself—NHY. This is so because the lower one is rewarded with the full measure that it causes in the illumination of the upper one, since it is its cause.

If you cannot awaken the Upper One, to cause the Upper one to bestow upon you, it means that you yourself haven’t accumulated the necessary desire to receive spiritual fulfillment. To the extent that the lower one is able to awaken the Upper One, he is corrected, ready to receive from the Upper One, and therefore receives. In fact, there is no action on the part of the Upper One; it is the lower one who opens the door and receives.

Nonetheless, in the entire process of bringing all of creation to perfection, there is a program called “Beito” (in its time), and accordingly, we must reach the purpose of creation in a certain period of time by uniting in one desire filled with Light as it was in the World of Infinity before the Tzimtzum (restriction). Therefore, there is a sequence of actions we must perform, either willingly or unwillingly.

Moment by moment, there arise our uncorrected Reshimot (informational data) and the force that corrects them. This process of correction leads us from the beginning of creation to the final correction, meaning to total equivalence with the Creator’s properties. For that reason, everything starts when the creature and the Creator are detached and set apart as two opposing poles. The impact of the force on the uncorrected desire (Reshimo) causes them to draw closer through similar properties.

The lower one doesn’t wish for and is unaware of drawing closer to the Creator, and by moving toward something undesirable, the lower one senses it as suffering. Thus, our whole life feels like suffering. We are advancing closer to the Creator, yet we feel that we are approaching evil. In this way, the path Beito (in its time) is a process that leads all of creation to correction automatically, without asking what the lower one wants.

On the other hand, today by studying the wisdom of Kabbalah, we learn the program of our automatic correction called Beito, plug into it, and then correct ourselves willingly. In this way we engage in a process called “Achishena” (hastening our correction time), first out of desperation and then willingly.

The law of equivalence of form between us and the Creator, which is the state of the World of Infinity that we must attain, affects us and draws us into this state with or without our participation. Therefore, it is desirable to learn how to carry out this law. Otherwise, all of the phases we are entering with the lack of our similarity with the Creator, will cause us great suffering.

Now you can understand how much suffering is caused in the world by those who oppose Kabbalah.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/13/10, The Zohar

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The Zohar, Chapter “Lech Lecha (Go Forth),” Item 6: This is the herald that comes at midnight, at the start of the illumination of the left line from the point of Shuruk for the righteous to raise MAN for extension of the middle line. The herald comes out and calls aloud because it is in the blocking of the Dinim of the point of Shuruk. This is why it is discerned that he comes out with great force and calls upon the righteous to correct him.

Before us is the clarification of the order of extension of the three lines from Bina to ZA, from ZA to Nukva, and from Nukva to the souls of the righteous.

To the extent that the lower one can awaken the Upper One in the middle line by raising MAN (a prayer), the Upper One can fill his desire. We only have to bring our desire to the Upper One, a desire that is similar to His. This means we need to wish to be filled with His fulfillment. Then we will receive it.

There are no special conditions on the part of the Upper One. He is just waiting for our desire to be suitable for His fulfillment according to the law of equivalence of form. This is why all of our prayers and pleas should not be about receiving fulfillment from the Upper One. Rather, they should ask for help to create the correct desire, necessity, and intention, which fit the fulfillment existing in the Upper One.

I am not asking the Upper One to fulfill me since as it said, “more than the calf wants to suckle the cow wants to feed it.” My whole request should be: “I want to become ready to receive from the Upper One, to become fitting for Him.” There must be similar and corresponding properties between us. As soon as it appears, the abundance automatically flows from Him into me.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/13/10, The Zohar

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The Zohar, Chapter “Lech Lecha (Go Forth),” Item 4: The two lines that were moist and mingled with one another have not been frozen by the middle line, which is Tifferet, and will no longer mingle with one another.

Only two lines descend to us from Above. Our job is to realize the Reshimot (informational records) that manifest in us and construct the middle line for them. The two lines – the left and the right, the property of mercy (Rachamim) and that of judgment (Din), bestowal and receiving – influence the Reshimot.

Both of them impact me and my Reshimo. My task is to realize both forces in an optimal way by using the Reshimo. This is what is called the middle or third line. My job is to use both forces that I receive from the Creator in the proper way within myself.

How do I recognize these forces? How do I find ways to connect them together? In any state, along the entire ascent until achieving complete correction, I have Reshimot that must be realized. My next state is already given to me; I don’t have to search for it. All I have to do is learn how to connect both forces together and how to organize my next state in the most optimal way in order to become similar with the Upper One at every given moment.

The Creator shaped both forces that come to me from Above. My job is to build a form from myself that is similar to Him with the help of these two forces and Reshimot. I have all the instruments handy: the engine (Reshimot) and “plus” and “minus” (the two lines). I only have to know for which purpose I “ignite” the system.

All the tools are already available to me. I only have to add my own effort. Yet my work has to be applied not towards the construction of my new state, but rather to the realization of what I do and why I do it. By acting this way, I become similar to the Creator.

Often times we think that we have to correct or build the whole world. But in fact, all we are required to do is to concentrate on a very easy task. Even though our work is extremely simple, it actually changes the entire reality.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/10, The Zohar

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The Zohar, Chapter “Lech Lecha (Go Forth),” Item 4: When the Creator created the world, He made the heaven from fire and water, and they were mingled together and did not freeze. Afterward, it froze and stood in the upper Ruach. This is so because in the order of elicitation of the Mochin, first the two lines—right and left—come out. These are the two points—Holam and Shuruk, which are called “water” and “fire.”

The two lines come to us from Above. Indeed, there are only two forces in creation: the Light and the desire to enjoy that it created. It is only when they unite that all of reality is constructed. Hence, the two forces or properties – the Light’s desire to bestow and the vessel’s desire to enjoy – descend to us from Above, from the Creator. Our task is to react to them appropriately through uniting them within us by creating the middle line.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/10, The Zohar

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The spiritual world is a world of qualities, forces, desires, and intentions. There are just two forces or two desires: reception and bestowal. Everything else comes from their interaction and inclusion inside each other. When the desire to bestow joins the desire to receive pleasure, it evokes the force of opposition in it, a screen, Aviut (thickness, coarseness of desire), Zakut (purity, fineness of desire), and so on.

Yet, there are only two forces operating in the entire universe and they are mutually incorporated inside one another. This is what we learn in the four phases of the expansion of the Direct Light. Nothing else exists. “Existence from existence” (Yesh Mi Yesh) is the force of bestowal, and “existence from absence” (Yesh Mi Ein) is the force of reception that was created inside it.

Everything else forms from the opposition between these two forces. It is forbidden for us to imagine anything besides them since we imagine everything else detached from the true sensation. If you desire to return to the true sensation, then you must make efforts to try to return to the authentic picture, as if you are gaining consciousness from an unconscious state.

Therefore, when reading Kabbalistic articles or The Book of Zohar, and even when going about our business in this world, we have to try to reveal the forces that govern us, the roots of what we perceive in this “seeming” world. When reading The Zohar, we must constantly make these efforts. If you are always trying to reveal, using this book’s text, the qualitative picture, the picture of qualities, forces, and desires, then by so doing you evoke upon yourself the force from that state, from two forces, reception and bestowal, and this influences you.

The Zohar speaks about how to find the connection between the two forces. This is all of reality. It doesn’t matter what exactly I am reading: Aba ve Ima, ZON, ascending, descending, the state of adulthood (Gadlut), the state of smallness (Katnut), and so on. In actuality, there are no words in the sensation of the spiritual world. There is just a combination of two forces in all sorts of forms, and that is the true reality, the only one that exists.

One quality belongs to creation and the second one to the Creator. It is impossible to speak about one without the other, but only about the connection between them, ranging from nearly total disconnection to total unity.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/11/10, The Zohar

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The Zohar, Chapter “VaYetze (And Jacob Went Out) – Part 2,” Item 381: All the admonition that Jacob had with Laban made Laban repent and thank the Creator, as it is written, “See, God is witness between you and me,” that he mentioned the name “God.” It is written, “The God of Abraham and the god of Nahor … judge between us,” meaning that that wicked returned to his bad ways. When he said “The God of Abraham,” who is holy, he mentioned the god of Nahor again, who is idolatry.

We think that this excerpt speaks of events in the corporeal world. But later, we reveal that it actually speaks only about the connection between the souls and the types of those connections. The Torah speaks exclusively about these connections and the way to strengthen the connections between the souls. Other than this, there’s nothing to reveal to man, nothing to show, and nothing else that he needs to be taught.

After all, the breaking between the souls was in order to separate them from one another. By connecting them and putting them together like Lego bricks, we learn how this system of souls is constructed; we learn the Creator’s action, and reveal the thought and purpose of creation.

This is why The Zohar speaks only about the types of connection between the souls and the ways to keep strengthening them. In other words, all the events described in the Torah only address the way to reach absolute connection.

And for this reason, our intention to connect with one another, as well as reading about an even greater connectivity of souls in the spiritual world, are both directed in the same way. We are trying to realize this connection between us here in this world, the world of our understanding, while The Zohar reveals the higher degrees. We want to attach ourselves to these higher degrees in order to receive strength from them, so they will influence us and connect us with one another.

As soon as we attain the very first, smallest connection with one another, the first spiritual degree, we begin to perceive the spiritual world. We had the same condition at Mount Sinai: "Unite as one man with one heart – and you will receive the Torah, the Light, and reveal spirituality, the Creator."

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

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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “The First Commandment“
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When we read The Zohar, we should imagine that we exist in two systems. One system, created by the Creator, is inalterable, and the only one that exists. It is called “the World of Infinity.”

As Baal HaSulam relates in “The Preface To The Book Of Zohar,” this state is constant. Since the Creator created and formed all of creation instantly in its final state with one thought, we exist there in His plan of creation which is “to please the creatures.” Baal HaSulam also explains in The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, Chapter “Inner Reflection,” the Plan of creation is enough for the Creator to create it.

The Creator realizes everything through one action. This reality is perfect and invariable, and there are no steps to achieving the desired state. We exist in this perfect state in all our perfection, the way the Creator initially intended us to be.

However, besides this perfect state, we, with respect to ourselves, also exist in another reality. We, as though, lost consciousness, no longer realizing that perfect reality in which the Creator created us.

These two states exist parallel to each other. Through our own efforts, we need to enter the sensation of the true reality. We do this by using the environment: the books, the teacher, and the group.

We need to wake up, to enter consciousness, to return to that true state in which we exist but do not feel with our corrupted senses. The science of Kabbalah is given to us so that while we exist in an unconscious state called “this world,” we can learn about that perfect reality. By trying to become similar to it through our mutual efforts, we can rouse a force from it, which is able to return us there.

This force is the Light that Reforms. This force will heal us and correct our egoism. Gradually, as though from non-existence, we will begin to feel true life. We will discover that we were “like in a dream.”

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

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When we read The Book of Zohar, we need to remember that we exist in two states simultaneously:

1. the true state which we do not feel, and

2. our imaginary world, where we exist in imaginary pictures without any awareness of the true world.

As we read The Book of Zohar, we exert effort in order to rouse the influence of forces from the perfect state. These forces influence us to the extent that we exert the effort to become similar to this state in the relationships between us.

Therefore, the relationship that we need to create in the group should be of “one man with one heart,” like in the perfect state. This is possible only by drawing the same forces.

As we return from the “foggy” state to the corrected one, we do not lose our present state; the contrast between them reveals to us the perfection of the state created by the Creator 620 times greater than when we were situated there prior to descending to our world.

We return to this state of a human being who is equal to the Creator. Therefore, we need to feel the World of Infinity from our world in particular, as it is written: “We will eat what has long been laid in store for us” and “Darkness will shine like Light.”

We need to reach complete correction in this world to attain the same kind of relationship between us here as in the World of Infinity, which is filled with love. Therefore, we must perform exercises of “love your neighbor as yourself,” “as one man with one heart,” in the connection between us. Then, the Light of Infinity, the Creator, will be revealed in us here, as it is written: “His desire is to be revealed in the lower ones."

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

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