In the following interview, I offer advice on how anyone in the world can support and participate in the Zohar Congress 2010, which will be held in Tel Aviv, Israel from February 22-24.
The Zohar, Chapter “Metzorah (The Leper,)” Item 10: When the time comes for the soul to part with the body, the soul does not depart the body before Divinity appears before it. Then, the soul, out of joy and fondness of Divinity, departs the body toward it. If the person is righteous, he connects with Divinity and adheres to her.
This means that when a person ascends to a higher level, the previous state fades away.
And if not, Divinity leaves him and the soul remains and walks and mourns for the separation from the body.
Allegory: When the cat does not leave the fire, sharpen the knife and the cat will follow you because it will think that you are about to cut meat. Thus, it will part with the fire. Here too, when the soul does not wish to leave the body, Divinity appears before the soul and comes out toward it and parts from the body.
In order to rise to a new level, a person must be pushed by an indirect cause. It is written, “You rise in sanctity, but never descend.” There are many ways to advance. A new state emerges only after a new, uncorrected desire is revealed. This causes the Light to disappear, as it is forced to leave the desire.
If a person has reached the state of perfection, (the state of Hafetz Hesed, where one wants nothing for his own sake), or if a person has an intention for the sake of bestowal, then how can he leave this state and start bestowing less? He must do this in order to ascend to a new level, because a person has to separate completely from the previous state. He has to be reborn in a new state from zero. How is that possible? A person isn’t able to do that on his own. For him, it means having to fall. He simply is unable to part from perfection, saying, “I give to everybody, so what else do you want from me? I cannot stop giving.”
Therefore, an additional force must intervene. For example, let’s say that a mother is having a chronic problem feeding her child. A doctor examines the child and tells her, “Your child has a stomach disorder and must not eat for two days.” The doctor must use his authority to influence her to stop giving. In the same way, there must be an additional factor that draws a person away from perfection, which is the same as death.
A question I received: What is so special about The Book of Zohar that it awakens such powerful reactions in us?
My Answer: It’s not a book; it’s a mechanism whose buttons we press even without being aware of it. In addition, we study The Book of Zohar together in a large group of people all over the world. We are very different from each other but we all want the same thing. Because of this, we press these buttons very powerfully; we simply don’t realize this.
A crying baby doesn’t understand what a turmoil he is causing in the home. Adults cannot ignore a baby’s cry; it causes a great commotion inside us. We can tell an older child to go to his room and not to bother us. However, with a one-month-old baby, we cannot act this way. We fuss around him and drive ourselves crazy with worry. This is the kind of worry that we bring to the Upper Force and this is how The Book of Zohar affects us.
Actually, it’s not the book itself, but the whole system of the universe that is activated when a person studies this book. The desire to reveal spirituality is like a baby’s cry that wakes up the father (Aba), the mother (Ima), the neighbors, and the whole world. It forces factories to work for him in order to produce food, diapers, and everything else a child needs. Does the baby know what he is doing? No, he doesn’t, but just look at how many things the whole world produces for babies.
In the spiritual world, it works the same way. Everything is put into gear by love. We don’t understand that we activate a whole system which influences us in response. However, this doesn’t happen according to our infantile, egoistic demand. Instead, it teaches us gently, with great kindness, and helps us advance toward bestowal.
A person exists between two forces. His own egoistic force is below and the force of the Surrounding Light is above. These two forces pressure him from both directions and he feels like he’s stuck between heaven and earth. By opening The Zohar, he enters a completely different system – that of the Upper Force, and moves ahead by the path of Torah, which is the path of Light.
Up until this point, a person developed according to his need through the process of evolution, just like the rest of nature. His desire to enjoy was always searching for a better place and an escape from blows. However, he wasn’t advancing toward the Creator; he was simply looking for a more comfortable corner. This was our manner of development up to today, whereas now we are attracting a completely different force from Above onto ourselves.
The Zohar, Chapter “Metzorah (At The End),” Item 100: Therefore, we learned that when the Sabbath starts, all the wicked in hell rest, and they have freedom and rest. And when the Sabbath ends, we should evoke the upper joy upon ourselves, to be saved from the punishment of the wicked that are sentenced from that time forth. And we should awaken and say, “Let the pleasantness of the Lord our God be upon us.” This is the higher pleasantness, the joy of all, the Mochin de Yeshshut. And it is said about that, “Her ways are ways of pleasantness.”
“The wicked” refers to the desires that give us a feeling of being in “hell.” It is a sense of shame that is evoked because we recognize the property of bestowal, and in contrast to it, see our own uncorrected properties.
We have to learn to see each of our properties within such a state. The correction of our desires is impossible without sensing “hell” in each of our uncorrected properties, which are opposite to the Creator.
Therefore, when we’re able to recognize our uncorrected properties opposite to the Creator and arrive at correction, all roads turn into “roads of pleasantness.” We are the ones who decide that it’s so.
The Zohar, Chapter “Miketz (At the End),” Item 85: Wherever the judgment is placed on Israel, and it says, “burden,” it is seemingly a burden on the Creator to punish Israel. This is a burden from both sides, as though He is burdened whether He punishes them or does not punish them. If He does not punish them, they will remain in the filth of the sin. And if He does punish them, He is seemingly suffering for the affliction of Israel. This is why it is bad when it writes, “burden,” concerning them.
It is impossible to make spiritual progress without revealing the will to enjoy. Our desire to be filled with pleasure is infinite, but it is concealed within us. When this desire gradually reveals itself in its uncorrected form, we begin to experience problems. Our heart becomes burdened and our advancement becomes even more difficult. Yet the process we undergo is inevitable because our correction occurs over our desire to enjoy. Therefore, it must be revealed this way.
Revelation of our uncorrected desires is a sign that we are ready to be corrected. This is why new layers of the uncorrected desire to enjoy are revealed, allowing us to work on them. For this reason, we must appreciate both the good and the bad.
There is no such thing as “bad,” but only what is called the “Revelation of Evil.” When that which was previously concealed becomes disclosed to us in the form of “wicked” (egoistic) desires, the process of correction is made possible.
When we unite our desires to reveal The Zohar, every person contributes his own deficiencies, his unique work of the mind and heart, and his attempts to cling to the words in order to attain the goal through them. Every person has his own ideas about what spirituality is and how the qualities we read about, such as Aaron, the bull, the mixed multitude, Moses, and others are connected inside him.
Every person imagines these notions from the root of his soul, envisioning them in various, distorted forms. But it’s OK that they are distorted because “The advantage of the Light is revealed from the darkness.” Every person adds his own small misconception to the great, common, confused desire.
This results in a great, mixed-up ball, like a ball of yarn composed of something unclear and unknown. It consists of all the disappointments, deficiencies, and desires, but they all unite together inside this ball because through our searching we desire to attain unity and reveal the Creator inside us. As a result, we raise a prayer (MAN), which is the sum of all the doubts, confusion, and impressions we feel while studying The Zohar, while The Zohar is one for all of us.
We desire to unite all of our aspirations together, which means that we are standing around Mount Sinai (the Mountain of Hatred). However, we don’t understand what is happening. Therefore, while Moses ascends to the mountain, we construct a Golden Calf and commit all the other transgressions.
But then the Surrounding Light comes to us and illuminates our common desire (Kli), which consists of our confusions and doubts. It illuminates the darkness, the state of not being able to see where this picture is inside of us and where our connection with others lies. The Surrounding Light comes to us through the great cloud of doubts that we create together; it is through that cloud that the Light influences every person. Passing through this filter, the Light brings each of us the desires, deficiencies, and qualities of others, as well as its own qualities. And this brings about the revelation.
The Light itself does not have any form. When you desire to unite with others and with The Zohar, when you don’t understand anything and are confused, but you strive to be part of the great, common desire, then the Light brings you an imprint of these forms. It reveals the right connection between us and gives you the right structure, in which you are connected with everyone. You then start to understand the qualities that The Zohar describes.
These qualities don’t exist inside any one of us. I don’t have Aaron or the Golden Calf inside me; these qualities become expressed only inside my connection with others – whether I’m “for” them or “against” them. They cannot exist in a separate person. The impure force and the holiness that are being described mean “against unity” or “for it.” Therefore, the Surrounding Light that comes in response to your efforts brings you either unity or opposition to unity. But it happens in a clear, conscious manner. Everything is discerned only in relation to unity because the only thing we have to correct is the broken vessel of the common soul.
Therefore, a single individual cannot imagine anything that The Zohar describes. The prayer rises upward and the Light descends downward only through our common cloud of confusion and doubts.
The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Ki Tissa (When You Take),” Item 44
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A question I received: Why is The Zohar so difficult to understand? Is it due to our incomprehension of the text, or our lack of feeling and inability to detach from our familiar world?
My Answer: There is only one difficulty: It is the necessity to undergo surgery without anesthesia, with full awareness and desire. We have to go through a surgical transplant that will extract our egoistic heart and mind and implant love for all, along with thoughts only about this.
A question I received: During The Zohar lesson I feel that I’m thrown from side to side like a boat in a storm. Sometimes I feel good about it, and other times very afraid. Is this good for me, or to the contrary?
My Answer: We have to understand that there is no connection between what we read, what we feel, or in fact, what goes on inside us. During the lesson, The Zohar works on us as if we’re pressing buttons on a device whose functions we don’t understand. It is like a child, for example, who pulls a mobile phone out of his father’s pocket, plays with the buttons, and accidentally calls someone or sends a message. Similarly, when we read The Zohar we’re pressing “buttons” without understanding what forces we induce. Therefore, the reactions we feel in response are not at all connected with our initial actions.
We may think of our friends, the whole world, and the Creator with love, and suddenly become plagued with the opposite concern, wondering, “Why am I even trying to do this?” Or it may occur the other way around where we blame the Creator, the group, and ourselves, but suddenly something good appears that we didn’t feel we deserved.
The Zohar speaks to us like a parent would speak to an infant who doesn’t understand what is being said to him. The parent knows everything about the baby, but the infant doesn’t understand anything about the parent. In spirituality we are at the level of an infant. This is why we shouldn’t draw conclusions based on our sensations, since they are not properly connected.
It may be that we’re thinking everything is a mess and feel only problems and confusions, when in fact everything is perfectly arranged. We need to be mindful that regardless of what happens, we continue with our studies until deliverance comes. We are advised to avoid worrying about something which occurs along our path, and it is written, “Do whatever you want, but don’t leave!”
We need a certain measure of persistence, devotion, and patience on our spiritual path. Baal HaSulam writes in the “Preface to Study of the Ten Sefirot,” that “Only those heroes who possess real patience manage to climb the mountain and enter the King’s palace.” Thus, we need to allow The Zohar to influence us by means of the Surrounding Light.
Good, bad, or indifferent – it doesn’t matter how we feel while reading The Book of Zohar. The most important thing is to carry on our effort regardless of what we may or may not feel. If we let it pour into ourselves like an infusion, then it will do its job within us.
We rise above our egoistic impressions by not paying attention to what our egoistic desire feels. Whether we’re in a state of fear or joy, whether we feel irritated or confused, we are above it. In other words, one thing doesn’t depend on the other and we continue to work despite what we feel.
The Creator intentionally trains us through our egoism and desire for pleasure. However, we have to constantly rise above this sensation and continue to walk the path as if nothing happened.
We have to say to the Creator, “It’s not Your gifts that are important to me; it is You who I need! Don’t confuse me with all the other sensations!” Only this kind of persistence will yield results.
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