Kabbalists gave us The Book of Zohar so that through it we would see the spiritual world and reveal the Creator. The science of Kabbalah is the revelation of the Creator to the created beings (see the definition in Baal HaSulam’s article, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”).

The Book of Zohar talks about me. Although its narration is rather strange, it describes what happens to me inside – and only inside! Much like my animate body consists of many parts and systems, so my spiritual body, the soul, consists of analogous parts and systems.

The matter of my animate body is the desire to receive and be fulfilled. The matter of my spiritual body is the desire to bestow and to fulfill. Only the spiritual body or the soul is the human being in me because the animate body cares only for itself, the animal, and exists only as long as this animal is alive.

So who is the human being in me? It is someone I have to discover, expose, and examine; this is the only thing that the science of Kabbalah and The Book of Zohar talk about.

I have to try to recognize my inner desires and their forms (qualities), which are described in The Book of Zohar through various names taken from our world. For example, the human being in me contains qualities called “Yaakov” and “Eisav,” a “bull” and a “mule,” “birds” and “trees,” “Adam HaRishon,” “Noah” and the “ark.” These are all qualities that exist inside me.

What do I get from engaging in this inner search? Do I actually discover all of these qualities? In truth, I do not! I will not find anything by searching. However, by exerting effort, I awaken the Upper Light – the revelation of the Creator. My attempts to recognize the Upper Qualities in me elicit the revelation of the Light and its Source, according to the principle, “Higati ve Matzati” – "I labored and found.”

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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYishlach (And Jacob Sent),” Item 1
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One’s success at studying The Book of Zohar does not at all depend on one’s ability to mentally arrange everything it describes. For example, one day you might leave the lesson very excited about everything you were able to feel and understand, and happy about being able to understand what stands behind the names and words in this book. But the next day you leave the lesson disappointed, thinking, “I did not understand anything! The material was so dull and I just couldn’t concentrate. I made efforts for a few minutes at best, out of the whole hour and a half of the lesson.”

The truth is that you aren’t able to assess the situation correctly; your greatest gain came precisely from those several minutes when you were able to make an effort. We don’t know anything about the Upper World or ourselves, or the conditions for revealing it. All of this is concealed. However, if a person gives all of himself and makes efforts, then precisely when he is in a state of not feeling fulfilled or interested in the study, when nothing “shines” for him, yet he desires to prove that he wants to attain bestowal – that is the best time and the best state.

I can tell you from my experience that it often takes me several hours of working on the text of The Zohar until I begin to break through the barrier separating me from it. But it is the greatest joy in the world to feel how that impenetrable wall between us begins to dissolve…

The corrections you perform during those hours of “numbness” are the most important effort you can make on your path to the Creator! It is precisely in response to this effort that the Upper Light comes to you, instead of everything else that comes easily. Therefore, this hard work is the best possible state.

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A question I received: How can another person’s desire become my own vital need?

My Answer: This can only happen if you really see that this is so. You shouldn’t force yourself to give out candy and flowers to people, or to smile at them all day long. And you shouldn’t hypocritically try to be a “nice person.” Rather, Kabbalah is talking about an inner correction that takes place consciously, as a result of you seeing the goal; you see how reality is arranged and you see yourself in comparison to it.

You then begin to move away from evaluating things by your sensations of good or bad, since they revoke your freedom of will and turn you into a helpless animal. Instead you begin to realize the greatness of the goal; it becomes the highest thing to you. However, you don’t value it out of the egoistic benefit it promises, but based on a completely different principle.

But how is this possible, if our whole life revolves around sensations of good and bad, fulfillment and emptiness? It’s because you actually acquire a new criterion of true and false which is not based on self-satisfaction, but on spiritual importance. It is brought to you by the Light, although you do not even realize this.

That is how the force of bestowal comes to you. It is something you have never felt before, and little by little, it begins to influence you, giving you the quality of Bina which is above all your current calculations. You acquire a different nature, one with which you are currently unfamiliar, and it becomes your yardstick for measuring all the actions and changes taking place.

However, in the meantime, everything you do is necessary only in order to awaken the influence of this force. The entire method of Kabbalah lies in learning how to attract the Light that will cause a change in you. Without its help, you will never change on your own. You will remain forever trapped in the labyrinth of philosophical intricacies. On the other hand, if the Light influences you, you will begin to see and will learn everything.

This is why we have begun studying The Book of Zohar: in order to give every person (even total beginners) an opportunity to be in contact with the Light, on which we depend completely.

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We are starting to talk about the development of soul. In order to sense the spiritual world, we use a sense called “the soul.” However, we presently don’t have this sense. In order to obtain it, we must have the desire to develop this ability from a point and by using it, begin to sense all the images that The Zohar tells us about, such as Noah, Leah, Elokim, Yud Hey Vav Hey, the ark, a house, the Light and many other things. We know nothing of their true spiritual meaning yet, just as a baby that’s newly born into this world starts out with a blank, white page. Nothing is yet written on that page!

The baby must become acquainted with this world; little by little, he begins feeling more through his senses. We often do not notice how he prepares himself for this or how he expresses a desire to learn something. He appears closed inside himself and we simply give him nourishment and take care of his basic needs. However, as he grows, he begins opening up and reacting to things more.

In the spiritual world, however, we develop differently than a newborn body does in this world, because there is a soul developing from a point of desire that is inside us. If we read The Zohar under the influence of this point, we absorb all sorts of impressions from the study and this point begins to develop and swell. When it grows into a sphere of a certain size, we will begin sensing the spiritual world within it.

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The Zohar: The Creator said: “Here are a united people,” since they were joined as one and will therefore succeed at anything they do.

This is why the degrees were dispersed, each in a separate direction, and therefore all of these nations below were also dispersed, since they were the branches of those degrees.

It is written: “The Creator dispersed them from that place,” the Creator carried out judgment in their upper roots, and the branches followed.

If people collectively choose the wrong path and unite their worst qualities, they can achieve temporary success, since any kind of unity leads to the nullification of one’s ego for the sake of others. This is one way to implement spiritual properties because it is a step towards unity, towards bestowal among each other for the sake of the collective egoism. Even though this unity is done in order to harm anyone who is “outside” – the Creator, nevertheless the act of unity itself brings them partial success.

We have witnessed the experiments of trying to build socialism in Russia and in Israeli kibbutzim. Why didn’t they succeed if the ideas behind them were so good? It was because they were doing “good things” as a means to build their “unified, egoistic tower, reaching to heaven, but against the Creator.” The goal was still “against” someone, instead of a complete destruction of egoism in order to attain the properties of bestowal and love. It was merely a partial unity among members of a group, or among all the people against the Creator.

This is why the full scale of the ego, which is in need of correction, was not discovered initially; only a part of it was known. That’s what led to the idea that we can cope with everything on our own, without the Creator. However, it soon became clear that their ego was bigger than they thought and so they continued to forcefully “correct” it until their civilization collapsed.

Our time is the time of individual egoism. Even two egoists are unable to form a natural unity, a family, not to mention any other types of union. Everything simply disintegrates. We see that no matter how much we want to unite various countries and diverse groups of people, or to have them act together in order to do good in the world, all our attempts fail. And they will continue to fail.

The Zohar gives us advance warning about this, telling us that when we start our spiritual journey we have to establish the right goal: to attain similar properties with the Creator in order to unite with Him.

If, from the very beginning, our goal is to build then it’s no surprise that our unity will only hurt us and we will not succeed. We have already seen examples of this in our world. Let’s hope that we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past, like the “wise men” who meet at international conferences such as the “G20 summits” and the climate summit, aiming to bring prosperity to the world. They won’t succeed. The only question is: how many towers will they have to build and see ruined before they understand the reason for their failures?

If we don’t pursue the right goal, then any attempt at unity in our world will fail and bring more harm.

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The Zohar: They came out of the Land of Israel and descended into Babylon, saying, “This is the place we will stay.”

We will rise to the heavens and will fight the Creator so that He doesn’t flood the world as he did in the beginning of time.

Parsa under the World of Atzilut is a special correction that was made deliberately to prevent the Light from descending lower. This is why they said: “Let us rise to the firmament and fight with the Creator so as to remove this border and allow the Light to descend from above downwards.”

A person gradually learns and begins to understand that he has to strive towards bestowal, but he doesn’t want to stay “in the Land of Israel” where everything is done for the sake of bestowal, since he can’t see the benefit in doing so. As new egoistic desires are revealed within him, he leaves the Land of Israel and moves towards Babylon, the land of reception.

He then starts to think that the wisdom of Kabbalah can be used for egoistic purposes, for personal fulfillment. He wants to conquer the Creator and make Him serve his own egoistic purposes rather than the other way around, just like in the Grimm fairy tale about the fisherman and his wife.

He starts to look for a lower, less noticeable place where he can hide from the Upper Force in order to avoid getting rid of his egoism. Thus, he builds a “city and tower” (ZON de Klipa) and lives in it. He thinks that the Creator has to fill his egoistic desires with Light, instead of fulfilling his clean desires, since the latter would require him to ascend and attain the property of bestowal, Bina. He wants his egoism to be fulfilled and argues with the Creator.

Each one of us can find these properties within ourselves. This is described in the Torah when addressing the builders of the Tower of Babel: “Rise to the heavens and fight the Creator!” “Fight” means to demand the Light from the Creator, to ask for revelation while remaining in one’s current egoistic state. One asks, “Why hasn’t the Upper World revealed itself to me? The Creator is unfair! I have waited for so long, so why hasn’t it happened yet?”

This is what is referred to as “building a city (Zeir Anpin of Klipa) and a Tower of Babel (Malchut of Klipa), which happens to us on every level. Each time, we have to make a choice of whether to follow the path of Abraham – the path of bestowal, or the path that the whole world chooses – the path of Nimrod.

There is a rule: “The whole is equal to any of its parts.” The whole Torah is present even in our smallest and lowest states, including the states called Noah, Babylon, Egyptian slavery, wandering in the desert, construction and destruction of the Temple, and the entire path until the end of correction. It repeats itself again and again on each level.

This is why when studying The Zohar I can find everything I read within myself, in every state I go through: an Egyptian slave, the people of Israel, the High Priest of the Temple, the Pharaoh, Bilam and his donkey, and so on. They are all inside me.

Our role is to try to imagine and sense these metaphors like a child that’s studying the world around him. The most important thing is to not stop making an effort. There is no other book in the world and no other way to lift ourselves into spirituality.

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At the lecture yesterday, someone asked me, “How should I act towards the people around me if everything exists inside me?” The problem is that there is the actuality and there is what we desire. The actuality is what we feel and sense, according to the principle, “A judge has no more than what his eyes can see.” This is what we should use to evaluate everything in our world and to act accordingly. In this world, the only ones that act are myself and the people around me

The desired is what we will discover in the future, in ourcorrected qualities. In that world we will be united with the environment and the Creator. We learn that there exists another reality where everything is perceived inside us and nothing is perceived outside of us. However, all of this is still unreal for us for now. It’s possible that everything we imagine as the picture of the future is actually nothing like it. We don’t realize just how much our life will change. It’s not that our world will not change in some way; rather, a completely new world will emerge.

Therefore, when we read The Book of Zohar, we have to tear away from everything that is familiar to us and try to immerse ourselves in this book, as if going inside it. When we read The Book of Zohar and we am in it, then we really live within it.

For now we cannot exist in two worlds simultaneously. For the time being, we are able to be only in one. Therefore, we tune out of this material reality and try to build another picture, like a child who wants to be grown-up. The child wants to be an adult in all aspects, such as in the clothing he wears, the way he acts, and the way others see him. He wants everyone to treat him like an adult.

In the same manner we need to imagine in all our senses and in all our fantasies that The Zohar is talking about our new world, in which we are situated. In other words, it is talking about our inner qualities in which we exist and in which we see a new reality. This “game” brings about the influence of the Light that Reforms, and then that new world is revealed.

It is not that a new world is revealed and the old one disappears, and we fly off into the sky. Rather, we reveal that we are living in desires; namely, two desires – ours and the Creator’s, which become revealed one against the other inside us. We feel them and exist between them as the middle line, which is our “I.” There is nothing except this; we exist between two forces.

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The Book of Zohar describes only our inner qualities; this is why Kabbalah is called the inner part of the Torah. It only seems to us that the world develops and expands outward, but this is not true. It is our egoism that causes us to feel a spatial dispersion.

This outward perception is opposite to the correct focus and to the spiritual root. After all, the root is a thin line (Kav Dak), which passes through all of reality at its deepest level. Therefore, we have to concentrate within, focusing on our desires and qualities. We will then reveal a more internal degree.

In the science of Kabbalah we learn that our whole ascent lies in continually shifting to a more internal Partzuf. First the conception (Ibur – embryo) in the Partzuf NeHY occurs; then the inner Partzuf HaGaT is built inside, which is the suckling stage (Yenika). Then an even more internal Partzuf of HaBaD is built – the stage of adulthood (Mochin).

Thus, we complete one Partzuf – one of 125 degrees to complete correction. What now? Now a new Partzuf begins, which is a new degree of correction, like the next, higher floor, and it also consists of the same three stages – conception (or embryo), suckling, and adulthood.

In this manner, we constantly delve deeper and deeper until we reach the line of Infinity and suckle from this line. This is why one’s search should always be directed inside.

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As we study The Zohar, we should concentrate only on the inner picture where everything connects together. We have to dive inside and not think about anything that remains outside. We should be completely immersed in this book, as if we have entered a wonderland and are travelling around it, wishing to see and learn everything that is there.

We hear voices, see different colors, and we don’t understand what is going on here, who affects us and how. We have entered a world of our desires and qualities, and we are wandering between them. For example, it’s like those movies where the camera penetrates inside a person’s body and travels around the blood vessels, showing everything that is taking place from within. Similarly, we penetrate within ourselves and become surrounded by our desires. We enter a world that consists of our own qualities and desires, as well as Lights, Kelim and screens, which we have to imagine.

We can imagine them as if we exist inside them and they surround us all around. Or we can imagine that they are inside us and we are always digging inside them trying to understand them better.

We can imagine it in different ways, but the most important thing is not to tie it to our ordinary reality of today. However, later we will discover that this reality is also felt inside us.

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