The Zohar, Chapter “VaYigash (And Judah Approached),” Item 126: “There is a firmament above the firmament, and this firmament controls them, meaning three firmaments where the right and left are one above the other,” meaning three firmaments, where the left and the right are above one another and the middle one “governs them, subdues them, and mingles them in one another”…"Under the firmament their wings were straight" since they all governed what they were appointed over, since the middle line establishes the illumination of both of them together, where the right shines from above downwards and the left from below upwards. This is why the right wing is equal to the left wing….

How is possible to measure whether the right and the left lines are equal? Can they be measured by quality, weight, and power? They have completely different qualities, and we don’t have any means to evaluate them according to an external system of measurement, like that of our world. “Equal” means they complement each other in such way that each of them provides all that is needed for the other. Hassadim from the right line fully supplements Hochma in the left line. By the same token, Hochma shines in Hassadim as much as it is able.

This means that they are equal. Thereby, they are partners, and each bestows all it has so that a mutual connection, called the middle line, exists in an optimal form. This is why they are considered equal. Perhaps, Hassadim supplies 90% and Hochma only 10%, and on the next level the ratio may be 70% and 30%, or 99% and 1%. It is called equal because one fills the other to the best of its ability. They are equal because they hold the same intention, thought, and calculation. The ratio between them doesn’t necessarily need to be 50/50. In spirituality, equality is when I fill you up with all that you desire from me, then we are equal.

From the Evening Zohar Lesson 6/9/10

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Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, Article “The Importance of the Association,” Page 48
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYetze (And Jacob Went Out),” Item 23
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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 Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYigash (Then Judah Approached),” Item 123
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYetze (And Jacob Went Out),” Item 1
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The Zohar, Chapter “VaYigash (Then Judah Approached),” Item 55: Man’s nourishments before the Creator are as hard as the tearing of the Red Sea. This is so because the nourishments of the world are from above, from ZA, from the Masach de Hirik in the middle line. It is so because sons, life, and nourishments do not depend on merit, but depend on luck. And for this reason, man’s nourishments before Him are hard, since it depends on luck, from which the sons, life, and nourishments arrive. This is why the nourishments of the world are hard before Him, for they are not in his possession before he is blessed by luck.

Luck (Mazal) means "flowing" (Nozel) and indicates Upper abundance which comes in drops. It does not pour down as an endless current due to our limitation, our inability to receive more. The Upper One wishes to give us the whole World of Infinity, but He is forced to release the Light for us in drops, to the extent that we are able to perceive it.

This is why it is written that "Man’s nourishments before the Creator are as hard as the tearing of the Red Sea." According to His nature He is “good and does good,” and it is hard for Him to hold back and not give man all the goodness at once. For this reason, it is difficult for the Creator to give only drop by drop.

From the Evening Zohar Lesson 6/7/10

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According to the Kabbalists, The Zohar is the most effective part of the entire Torah and of all Kabbalah books. Why? These books are called holy (the property of Bina) because they are written from the heights of spiritual attainment. Therefore, by reading them, we can attract upon ourselves the Light that brings us back to the Creator (to similarity to Him).

However, we can correct the desire to receive only by the desire to correct ourselves for there is no Light, no fulfillment without a desire. Hence, we have to demand for the Light to act upon and transform us. This Light is called the “Surrounding Light” because it shines on us from afar. Under the influence of the Light, our “evil intention” turns into a good one. Then, to the measure to which the desire resembles the Light, the Light fills it.

Hence to prepare for the study of the Torah means to acquire the desire for correction. This desire is preceded by realizing that our nature is evil (for us). The evil in our nature is our inability to unite with each other! Our unification is precisely the vessel where our Upper, spiritual life can be revealed.

For this reason, we have to try to establish a connection with each other and to unite together. This is described in the writings when Israel stood at the foot of  Mount Sinai: “as one man with one heart,” “all of Israel are friends,” and  “love thy neighbor as you love thyself.” After we discover our inability to unite and start feeling what prevents us from achieving our good state, then MAN, a true prayer, the wish to become corrected, will emerge within us.

That is, preparation for studying the Torah amounts to our efforts to unite, feeling how incapable we are of doing it, and realizing this state as evil, as an obstacle on the path toward good. That is, the Torah study comes after the correct preparation; MAN emerges itself.

We can think and clarify all of it already while we read The Book of the Zohar. Meanwhile, the Light will help us in our work.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/9/10, The Zohar

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A question I received: If, over the course of the day, I listen to The Zohar alone, do I thereby also draw the Surrounding Light?

My Answer: There is no time, motion, or space in spirituality. Aren’t the righteous, the authors of The Zohar, who physically left our world two thousand years ago, still with us today?

The ARI said to his students prior to his death, "If you merit, I will come and teach you." Not having understood him, one of his students asked, "How will you come if you are leaving this world now?" "The mystery is not under your conduct," the ARI replied.

Such inner connection is revealed within a person much more clearly than physical contact. Therefore, we are together with all the souls that have already merited the revelation and with all our friends that aspire to it. In this manner we will, all together, merit revelation as well.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/8/10, 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 Discussion About The Nature of the Female Part of the Soul
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The Zohar, Chapter “Tetzaveh (Command),” Items 132-133: “And boughs of thick trees” are three, three lines, HGT…“And willows of the brook” are two, NH, which have neither smell nor taste, like people’s thighs.
The Lulav [palm branch], Yesod, takes them all and includes them, like the spinal cord in the body….
With these kinds, which correspond to HGT NHYM, man should be seen before the Creator. The leaves in the palm tree imply to all the other armies, which unite in these appellations by which the Creator is called.

The Zohar is intended to help us achieve attainment rather than understanding. Attainment means the realization of corrected desire and the beginning of sensing and seeing the spiritual reality. Understanding comes only afterward. That is because we don’t have the Kli for understanding, we don’t possess the properties which The Zohar describes.

It’s not about a palm branch or other plants that we know in this life. The Zohar tells us about forces that acquire the shape of particular branches in our world. It explains the spiritual roots that we can’t understand since we are unaware of where they are and what they look like.

That is why we listen to The Zohar without the slightest understanding. We only realize that it describes the reality that we don’t yet perceive. In error, we visualize pictures of this world which is the wrong approach.

Our only resort is to think about our unity and how to reveal what’s written in The Zohar within the connection among us. It is a story about connections within the Upper system and the revelation of the Creator through it.

That is why Baal HaSulam writes in Item 155 of his “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot” that Kabbalists wrote their books not only for themselves in order to share knowledge, but also for all of us as a “miraculous remedy” (Segula). Even if we don’t understand what we read, but keep the intention of attaining the Upper reality that the Kabbalistic books talk about, we attract the Surrounding Light which returns us back to the Source, to the Creator.

The Light directs us and provides us with the intention to bestow instead of the intention to receive for our own sake. Then we start sensing the Upper reality that exists within the property of bestowal. That is, we attain the spiritual world.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/4/10, The Zohar

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