The Zohar: It is known that everything is comprised of “world, year, and soul.”

One perceives oneself and the world through limitations called “world, year, and soul.” “World” is everything one perceives as the space surrounding him, in which he and everything else exist. “Year” is the sequence of actions, times, and states that one goes though, perceiving them as an order of cause and consequence. This gives one the perception of life and the flow of time. The soul is the person who feels that he exists and lives within space and time.

Thus, there is the person, the world that surrounds him, and the perception of a changing reality – world, year, and soul. This is how we all perceive our existence. However, in actuality, the limitations of “world, year, and soul” do not exist. They are all the Upper Force, which depicts these feelings, coordinates, and boundaries inside us.

In the science of Kabbalah we learn that there is Malchut and Bina. When we perceive our existence in Malchut, we feel that we are standing on earth; when we perceive our existence in Bina, we feel that we are in the clouds; and when we perceive that we are situated between Malchut and Bina, we feel that we are between the sky and the ground.

The Upper Forces depict for us the whole world that surrounds us and our existence in it. They are like vectors on a computer screen, giving us a sensation of time and space, which consist of many objects. However, all of these are just forces that illustrate a colorful, three-dimensional picture for us and within us.

All of this is, in fact, one force, but its influences are presented to us in a way that separates them into time, space, and motion, or, as The Book of Zohar says, into world, year, and soul. As a result, we feel that we exist in a world where everything moves and exists in a continuous fashion.

However, all of this is the influence of one force upon us. It is this force that creates all these various impressions, giving us a sensation of ourselves, a three-dimensional space, and time.

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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYishlach (And Jacob Sent),” Item 198

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It seems illogical to us, but if we wish to rise to the next degree and receive more Light, we have to “come out of the house,” from the state where we had fulfillment – the Light of Hochma, and rise to a degree where there is only the Light of Hassadim. That way we guarantee that we will not fall from our spiritual degree and nothing will be able to harm us.

After all, the only thing that can harm us is us! A human being is a small world. Everything we see around us exists inside of us, in our sensations. This whole world, which seems external, actually exists inside us. We just imagine it to be outside.

When we begin to obtain spiritual sensations, we will feel that all of these qualities and phenomena occur within us. Right now, however, it seems obvious to us that everything exists outside, including the inanimate and vegetative levels of nature, animals, people, all the stars, the whole universe. Besides, how could all of this fit inside a person? However, later we will feel all of this inside of us.

It is a great delusion to think that the world is external. Regular science is also beginning to reach this conclusion, although The Zohar wrote about this more than a thousand years ago. All the characters and objects described in The Zohar exist only in our perception, including the Creator and the created being, Leah, Rachel, Yaakov, Israel, angels, evil spirits, various forces, ourselves, and all the worlds. All of this is inside us. Therefore, when we read The Zohar, we have to try to feel how it is happening inside us.

There is nothing outside of us. There are no friends with whom we study, and there is no television displaying the lesson for us. All of this is just our perception.

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The perception of reality that Kabbalah explains to us seems very strange and extraordinary to us. However, a newborn baby also finds the world he sees around him very extraordinary. He is not used to anything taking place and begins to study this world from the very beginning. We are exactly the same in regard to the spiritual world.

In addition, we have Reshimot (informational genes), inner definitions of the spiritual world, and therefore, it is as though we are returning to a place we were in previously, the place from which we came.

When we are born, we enter a different world each time because the world develops; it undergoes technological progress and life around us changes. However, when we enter the spiritual world, we find ourselves in a world that we were in previously, and therefore, we have memories, information, feelings, and impressions about it. We simply have to awaken them.

Through its stories and explanations, The Zohar draws us upward, leading us into the feelings of the spiritual world. Although we aren’t there yet, by reading The Zohar we begin to awaken our inner memories about the path that we went through from above downward, when we went through all these stages before.

Now we are returning there from our world. We are beginning to ascend back where we came from.

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Kabbalists explain that the desire is the only creature that the Creator created. It consists of 613 (Taryag) different desires with all their different manifestations. We live precisely within these desires. They are all us.

The Light of the Creator shines on these desires. In reality, it is He who separates one common desire into a multitude of particular desires, because the desire becomes divided and made more complex under the influence of the Light. This is why it divides into different pieces, even pieces that are opposite to one another.

Among these desires, some desires are contrary and opposite to the Light, and others support and are similar to the Light. The evil desires in us pull us away from the Light and alienate us from it; they are called “the evil inclination” (Yetzer Ra), “evil forces” (Kohot HaTumaa), or the opposite side (Sitra Achra). The good desires in us, called Yetzer Tov, pull us closer toward the goal and help us attain it. They are called “forces of sanctity” (Kohot HaKedusha).

There are also desires in us on different levels of development: still, vegetative, animate, and human. In addition, there are desires called “angels,” “demons,” “spirits,” and so on. There is an enormous multitude of different kinds of desires, but they are all inside us; we consist of them.

However, we relate to our desires and qualities in different ways. We treat some of them as if they are closer to us and useful, whereas others seem farther away from us, opposite to us, and harmful. We treat them one way or another depending on our goal, on our way of working with them, and other considerations.

Nevertheless, regardless of what we say, think, or name, we are always referring to our desires. The people we see around us are also expressions of our desire, a desire that has taken “our” form under the Light’s influence.

Some desires are big and relatively constant; if they change, they do so slowly. These desires are on the still level of development. Other desires are more flexible, and they are on the vegetative and animate levels. They change faster or slower according to their type and strength. All of these desires depend on a higher level of desires – the human level, also called “the soul.” The “animate” desires that are smaller than this level are called “spirits” and “angels.”

In addition, “chambers” are different kinds of spaces or cavities; these are desires of the still level that have their own characteristics. Some desires operating inside these chambers are more active and flexible, and they are referred to as “spirits,” which are on the vegetative level. Desires that are even more active operate inside the spirits; these are “angels,” the animate level. Finally, on an even deeper level there are souls that help one another.

In this manner, The Zohar reveals the entire word to us. But this entire world is within me and my desires. It is as if I am traveling among them, like a tiny person in a cartoon wandering inside his own body, penetrating different organs and spaces between them and seeing how his entire organism operates.

The Zohar describes something very similar. It tells us what we are like in the spiritual world and that the entire spiritual world is our desire, which appears to us as being on the inside or on the outside, in all kinds of different states. And all of this is intended for us to work with.

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The Zohar: And though the essence of the heart of stone (Lev HaEven) cannot be corrected, its color nonetheless becomes corrected, for its black color is included in the three colors of holiness (bestowal) of the first nine Sefirot and receives luminescence and correction from them, This enables it to exist and be fit for being discerned in the future (at the End of Correction).

As I increase my desire to become similar to the Creator through my actions, by using my desire (Malchut) to be like bestowal, I sense the actions and qualities of the Creator in the first nine Sefirot of my soul. Meanwhile, I neutralize and cease using the desires belonging to Malchut (the heart of stone). As a result of this analysis and my effort to avoid working in the desires of Malchut (the heart of stone), Malchut becomes permeated by a tiny luminescence.

Later, once I become completely similar to the first nine Sefirot in my desire to bestow, by correcting my desires as much as possible and making them “for the sake of bestowal,” I discover that even the heart of stone can be used for the sake of bestowal. I find that it is precisely because I’ve always rejected and distanced it from myself and was unwilling to use it that it received an impression of bestowal. Thus it came to include within itself all the shades of the colors that I’d used in the first nine Sefirot.

There are only several colors – white, red, green and black, and I can use all of them except for black. Because I do not use the color black, the other colors allow it to include them within itself to a certain degree, and as a result it becomes fit for use. This is the meaning of the verse, “In the future the angel of death, egoism, shall become a holy angel, the quality of love and bestowal.” In other words, at the End of Correction the notion of “forbidden” will be revoked, as we’ll have the strength to use all of our desires for the sake of others.

Then all the restrictions and prohibitions will vanish in all axes of time, motion and space. This state is called the World of Infinity – a world without limits, where my existence is unbounded and I have unlimited opportunities.

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The Zohar: “Hence they shall not eat… the femoral vein (Gid HaNasheh). It is forbidden even for pleasure, and it is forbidden even to a dog.

Why is it called “Gid HaNasheh”? Because it causes movement (“Menashe”); it moves people farther away from serving the Creator. And therein the evil inclination is instilled.

Here The Zohar explains which desires out of the sum total of our desires we can use, and which we cannot, as well as how to correct them and connect to them with one another. All these desires are egoistic, for the sake of self-enjoyment, and therefore, we have to place certain restrictions in effect when using them.

We can correct desires with Aviut (coarseness) below a certain level by using them for the sake of bestowal – that is, to receive for the sake of bestowal. As for desires with Aviut above that level, we can use them only by bestowing for the sake of bestowal.

Besides this, there are other desires that we mustn’t use at all, but only restrict them. The words “mustn’t” and “impossible” mean “unable to.” This is the only kind of prohibition that exists in the spiritual world.

However, because our desires are corrupted to begin with, as it is written: “I have created the evil inclination,” the first step on our path is exposing the evil. After that we advance by correcting our desires – by changing our intention of using them from “reception” to “bestowal,” from the easy to the difficult, from the simple to the complex.

The Zohar explains that we are given the change to reveal the full picture in every state; however, we can only reveal it to a small degree, as if it were compressed, as if we are zooming in on it. Therefore, in every state we have all the desires, the complete soul. In other words, the same World of Infinity is continually being shown to us at a different measure or resolution.

But whatever the case, we must discern every desire in every state. Therefore, although we haven’t yet attained the state of being able to correct great, lofty, and special desires, nevertheless by reading about these desires, which haven’t yet been revealed to us in our individual spiritual work, we awaken the Lights at those levels, and these Lights in turn correct us.

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Baal HaSulam writes that “There is nothing higher than the truth and nothing lower than falseness.” But how can we know what is the truth and where to find it? Things only seem true in our imagination and fantasies, but we know that whatever seems true today will turn out to be a lie tomorrow. This is because our desire changes, and when it does, all the facts that we perceive, also change. Because the matter changes, the form that was present in matter yesterday is no longer visible to us today.

It turns out that today we are operating according to a form clothed in matter, and we consider this to be the truth. But tomorrow we will discard it and say that it was a lie, depending on what we see tomorrow. We always have to act based on the desire and the form in which it is clothed during the moment we are in that form. We don’t care that we used to think differently a hundred years ago, and that we will think differently two hundred years from now. Everything will be new; we will have a new life, a new sky and a new earth. Nevertheless, today we have to make all decisions based on today’s facts.

It follows that we have no right to judge others, those who are above or below us. How can we judge someone on a level beneath us if he is not yet corrected? After all, he is right in relation to his position.

All the mistakes, problems and punishments are given to us in order to “stuff” us into a form clothed in matter, so we won’t separate from matter and engage in abstract reasoning. It is extremely important to keep this in mind while studying The Zohar. After all, The Zohar is intended to lead us into the spiritual world, and in this area we are very tempted to give in to fantasies and mysticism. Our body really desires this since it will feel less suffering that way.

We have to make efforts to keep ourselves grounded within the framework of matter. By doing so, we will be performing a correction. We have to insert the form of bestowal into our egoistic form of reception, but they don’t fit one inside the other; they are absolutely opposite, and therefore our task is extremely difficult!

This is why The Zohar takes so much effort to be watchful of what is happening to us and what forms are clothing into us. After all, by separating from matter, we might imagine that we are already in the world of bestowal and Infinity.

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While studying The Zohar, we are not trying to explain every phenomenon that we study; instead, we want to feel it. How is it even possible to explain something that a person doesn’t feel or see? That’s why we are talking only about the effort that a person makes when he wants to reach something he doesn’t know, see or grasp, but would do anything to move closer to it.

I am teaching you how to focus on the spiritual world. When you acquire spiritual vision, you will feel, and later on you will also understand. This is the meaning of the verse, “A judge has nothing but what his eyes see.” What’s the point of trying to memorize names if you don’t know what they refer to? We are now learning how to attain them, because attainment is when you feel something with utter clarity in all of your senses and heart. You exist in it, are completely immersed in the spiritual world, and actually become one with it.

We are talking about how to enter the sensation of a new world, like a baby that’s starting to perceive this world simply and naturally. We don’t explain anything to the baby from the beginning. He must first be filled with various impressions about our world, and then, by being able to differentiate between different qualities (cold vs. hot, light vs. darkness, hard vs. soft), he begins to form a mind that understands what he should aspire to and what he should move away from. He starts to discern what is pleasant and unpleasant, what is good for him and what is bad, what is true and what is false, what he likes and what he doesn’t.

However, with regard to spirituality, all of this comes only after we have revealed a fragment of the Upper World in our sensations. Right now we desire to attain this revelation, and therefore we don’t want to explain what is inside it; we only want to facilitate these new sensations in us.

We have to “unfocus” our vision from this world and stop seeing it in order to start seeing through a new focus, by concentrating our attention on something else. It’s like those 3-D pictures that first appear like a chaotic collection of disorderly shapes. But if you change the focus of your vision and stop concentrating on the surface of the image, if you try to peer inside, not focusing on the picture itself, but deliberately penetrating inside – then you begin to see it. We have to make the same effort – but through feelings rather than vision – when reading The Book of Zohar, and then through the sensations of this world, we will feel the Upper World.

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