A question I received: What is the inner work of a person who watches The Zohar lessons on the Internet or the TV? Many people are waiting for these lessons with their breath held and waking up at odd hours of the night for the first time in order to watch the live broadcast.

My Answer: The Book of Zohar is an opportunity for all of us to reveal the true reality, which becomes revealed inside a person. Through the study, a person discovers that he perceives all of reality inside him and gains the ability to put his inner world in the right order, to arrange it and reveal it in a way that lets him feel the spiritual world in addition to this world.

He doesn’t experience any contradictions, illusions or doubts regarding whether his spiritual sensations are true. Everything becomes revealed inside his desires. Simply by correcting our desires, we reveal our inner ability to see and feel the spiritual world inside them.

Even people who have not gone through the preparation to perceive The Book of Zohar, who have not seriously studied the basics of Kabbalah for several years, are able to join us and merit the same revelation, similar to a baby in our world who lives among adults and they provide him with everything. It doesn’t matter that a baby born in the 21^st century does not know about the preceding generations that prepared everything for him and all the things that now surround him. He receives according to the level our world is on today. Our duty is to take everything from the previous generation, prepare it, and bring it in a ready-made form to the baby, the next generation.

Therefore, the “babies” in Kabbalah, those who are now joining us, our new friends, are able to merit the same revelation as we expect to attain. In this regard there is no difference between us, provided that they try to listen to the degree that they are able to join us and if they feel fear, expectation and reverence for this great book. This is very important in order to connect to it.

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A question I received: Where exactly should I invest my effort when I remain insensitive to The Zohar?

My Answer: At first we have to artificially evoke feelings inside us, because our job is made easier by anything that can influence our ego. This is why preparation, group work, and the mutual guarantee are essential. The entire Book of Zohar is written in this group-like manner.

Impressions don’t come on their own; you have to fight for them, because that is how you will be able to take part in this fascinating journey. It rejects you, but you keep entering it over and over again many times; you enter and exit it at every single moment. This is what our work is all about: you push through while you are being pushed away!

Just imagine that all of your friends sitting next to you are experiencing these inner vibrations of The Book of Zohar, while you are not! This is because you are neglecting your friends. You have to want to unite with them! The Creator acts within them regardless of whether they realize it. Everything depends on you, on how much you enter them and find the revelation of the Creator in the unity with your friends. Meanwhile, they may not even suspect that this is happening.

You have to fight for the realization of the need to reach this. You have to artificially awaken yourself from point zero, until you become “wound up,” just like you try to start up a car until the engine finally ignites. This is how you should examine yourself, or to be more precise, you examine the way the Creator has made you. Try to approach yourself in different ways, carefully and with understanding, as if you are studying an unfamiliar animal that keeps showing its different sides to you and every time you need to approach it in a new way.

However, in this case nothing works except for your desire and the understanding that you need this. All the theory, explanations, and graphs are behind you. Now, by studying The Zohar, we are entering the world of spiritual sensations. Later, once we start feeling it, we will turn to our mind once again and begin analyzing our sensations. But for now we do not yet have the sensations, like an infant who cannot speak because he does not understand what he is feeling.

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When I read The Book of Zohar, I want to connect to the Creator as much as possible and to “There is none else besides Him.” All of the characters I read about are living inside me, such as Bilam, Balak, and Noah; my thoughts are the waters of the flood, and the Creator is one of my inner qualities which tells me, “Go hide in the ark, the quality of bestowal! In order to increase the force of bestowal in you, Noah, I will drown the whole world, all your other egoistic desires. But I will let you, your only righteous desire, live, in order to increase and strengthen it – and to make you the progenitor of the descendants on earth (the desire).” I want to feel all of these qualities, desires, and impressions, and to sense that they are incredibly important and lofty, burning inside me.

Even though The Book of Zohar does not awaken powerful sensations inside me yet, nevertheless while reading this book, I want all of us together to feel that we are touching something great, similar to how people used to hold their breath while thinking of infinite cosmic spaces, far away stars and galaxies. Try to feel how you are being immersed in a raging sea of sensations inside you. An entire drama is being played out there.

But if you remain numb, then the friends have to awaken you! In our world it is very easy to make yourself feel and worry about something. All you have to do is read the details of a cruel crime or look at pictures. But here you have to make efforts in order to awaken feelings inside. This is exactly what we have to do. I have to organize myself and my environment so that I will go from being indifferent to being lovesick! This is my only desire: to connect and to love!

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A question I received: It seems like correction has to be an active action, but we are just reading The Zohar and that’s all. What do we have to overcome here?

My Answer: All the corrections are done by the Light, not by you. You only overcome the alien thoughts that impede you from demanding the Creator’s revelation, which is necessary for you to become like Him.

If you were not bothered by alien thoughts while we were reading the chapter about the flood in The Zohar, then you are still not ready to overcome these thoughts. When you become a righteous man, you will feel how “the waters of the flood” are rising up against your righteousness, trying to throw you off the path and engulf you in egoism.

It’s worth your while to stop and think about why these distracting thoughts are not emerging in you. This doesn’t mean that you have to seek them out on purpose now, but if you try to be righteous, you will understand how much of a sinner you still are.

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It is written, “Reveal the Creator in fear.” But what is fear? Fear refers to inner changes, similar to the vibrations of a musical instrument such as a violin, a harp or a guitar. These inner vibrations enable the instrument to make sounds or to reveal the sound from within.

In order to reveal the Creator, we have to understand that “Every day His call comes from Mount Horev.” We have to be ready to perceive the call like a musical instrument that vibrates together with His sound in unison. This is the meaning of revealing the Creator in fear. Then we will hear Him.

We have to approach The Book of Zohar with the right preparation: with the sensation of an insistent need to reveal Him, and at the same time, the sensation of complete helplessness and inability to do this. These two impressions will force us to vibrate in unison with the Creator’s call, which is concealed in The Book of Zohar, and we will then reveal its sound.

A person will gradually feel that he is becoming the Creator’s instrument and the entire universe passes through him as enormous streams of energy, waves and revelation. However, he is not simply a numb piece of wood, the material the instrument is made of. Rather, being in unison with the Creator and producing the same vibrations, he becomes equal to Him. He is ready to nullify himself completely in order to participate in the same motions and changes as the Creator, who gives the person His knowledge and qualities.

Therefore, when we read The Book of Zohar, we have to nullify ourselves like an embryo and try to absorb the sounds of this book.

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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Noah,” Item 248
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From your studies, you need to expect changes that are brought to you by the Correcting Force – “the Light returning to the Source.” Kabbalists who wrote books were present in our world and the Upper Worlds simultaneously.

Therefore, if you desire to acquire the Kabbalists’ properties and vision, then by using your aspiration, you can draw the force of correction upon yourself and soon feel the result of its influence. This will be expressed as a gradually increasing feeling of the properties of bestowal within.

Under the influence of the hidden Light in the studies, you will gradually recognize that you don’t have even a bit of the quality of bestowal within you. All the good that you attribute to yourself is just egoism, which attempts to fulfill itself in this manner. This will be a clear recognition that whatever you do is only for self fulfillment.

At the same time you will feel that this is not good. It is seemingly okay, yet you will feel that it is actually bad because it limits you. Through bestowal, you will open up the infinite spiritual world, and by receiving, you will stagnate in this world. This realization is a step forward.

Then you will feel that there is actually someone, the Giver, filling all space around you. You are not familiar with Him as yet, but you want to feel Him, be equivalent to Him, become as Him, and unite with Him through the quality of bestowal.

In this way, you can gradually change under the influence of the Correcting Force that you draw upon yourself during the studies. This Force influences you, especially while studying The Book of Zohar. If you are ready and want to unite with other souls, then together with them, you will attract the most powerful Correcting Light from this book.

Only this Light will help all of us. All other efforts will be useless, other than uniting together to draw the correcting force upon us.

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A question I received: Is there such a thing as the Creator being perceived collectively by a group?

My Answer: There is the personal, individual attainment, and there is the group attainment. Presently we are at the phase of personal attainment, trying to advance to the level of group attainment. Therein lies the world’s future, beginning with our generation and on. The science of Kabbalah is being revealed today, specifically for this group attainment by the entire world.

This is why we are beginning to study The Book of Zohar, which was written by a group and can only be revealed in a group. You need that connection between people, which is the same connection that existed in Rabbi Shimon’s group that wrote this book.

The world stands at the threshold of a new age, an age when revelation must become collective. After all, the whole world is essentially one group. The same thing happened after the exodus from Egypt at Mount Sinai. There was great hatred (Sina in Hebrew) between people, but they were told: “If you don’t demand the Creator right now, then this hatred between you shall be the place of your burial.” In spite of this hatred, they were given a condition – to unite as one man with one heart. But that’s impossible! Everyone hates all the others so much that no one can bear to look at them, even under the threat of death!

It is in this circumstance that the Upper Force (the Creator) is revealed, bringing these two opposites in accord – the depth of the egoistic desire from below, the screen from Above,and the Upper Light that resides in them. That is the spiritual vessel, the Kli.

We need to come to a state when, on the one hand, we hate one another, on the other hand, we love one another, and in addition, we demand that the force of bestowal be revealed between us. This is what is in store for our generation. From here on, the process moves toward global unification, which is why we began the study of The Book of Zohar.

Undoubtedly, we are ready for it. As for the rest of the world – we hope that they will recognize the opportunity to achieve it through a peaceful path.

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The Zohar: At the hour when the world was overfilled with the sins of humans and was brought to trial, woe to the righteous who live in that world, for they are the first to answer for the sins of the wicked.

So how was Noah able to escape the flood and not be punished for the sins of his generation? The Creator wanted him to beget the posterity of the world, and that is why He saved him.

There are many wicked people (egoistic desires) in the world (inside man), but they weren’t able to take advantage of Noah’s good desire (the one spiritual desire, the point in the heart). That is why the wicked (bad desires) were cut off from Noah (the correct desire) by the flood and drowned. (These desires died within a person, so he stopped feeling them. For the time being this constitutes his correction, but later on, when he corrects these desires, they will reappear).

Man’s one tiny, correct desire for bestowal, called Noah, was saved by the Creator (by Ohr Makif – the Surrounding Light), taking shelter in the “ark.” (One is granted an additional force, a protective shell made of the quality of bestowal, called ark, a mother’s womb or Bina).

And the court had no power over him, for he had taken shelter in the ark, hidden from all eyes. The court held trial over the egoistic desires, but it had no power over the desire to bestow. This is talking about a person who has acquired a connection of bestowal with the group, took shelter in it, and thus hid from the evil eye, from his egoistic desires that wanted to draw him away from the goal.

It is written: ask for absolution, ask for mercy, and perhaps you shall escape the Creator’s wrath. One cannot escape the Light’s influence. The Light shines and divides one’s desires into those that have the Light in their qualities and those that are against it.

Noah asked for absolution (correction from Above), entered the ark and hid there (in the Creator’s quality of bestowal; he dissolved in it like a drop of semen in a mother’s womb), on the day of the Creator’s wrath (the revelation of the Light of Hochma, which separates desires according to their intention – to receive or bestow). That is why the court had no power to accuse him.

He hid inside the quality of bestowal of the Upper One, the Creator. Malchut ascends to Bina and hides there; that’s what it means to be righteous, Hassadim – to ascend above one’s egoism.

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When our egoistic desire feels bad, it drives us from behind like a whip, driving us in search of happiness. However, that is not enough to proceed in the right direction, because it is not the goal of creation to flee from egoism. This is merely a way of assisting us since it acts as a force to drive us forward.

To aim us in the right direction, we are granted a desire from Above – a spark or point in the heart which draws us to spiritual development. This spark brings us to a Kabbalistic group and a teacher, so we can grow and develop it.

Using these components, we must build an “ark” for ourselves, wherein we can escape all the evil, all that confuses us and stumps our spiritual growth. At the same time, we have to understand that nothing can be done about the disturbances, whether external or internal. They are revealed in us and around us purposefully, so we could fortify our resolve and gather strength against them, similar to how the turbulent waters of the flood destroy everything harmful and leave behind only what is necessary.

Indeed, we have gathered here to build an ark inside us, representing the Creator’s quality of bestowal. This ark will be our shelter.

The Zohar: Go and enter the ark with your entire household, for all that does not take shelter in the ark shall be erased from the face of the earth.

We have to attach everything we can to Bina, the quality of bestowal, the Creator. We can do it by giving ourselves to Him fully and attaching to Him like a seed in a mother’s womb. Everything that we are able to attach to this quality will be saved and developed in spirituality.

As for the desires that one cannot attach to Bina, they shall be destroyed by the waters of the flood. Noah is the only desire within us that can lead us to spirituality, provided we cut it off from the rest of our desires which cannot develop spiritually. That is why we want to connect to spirituality by means of this desire. It is the only desire we should want to cultivate.

We must cut off the rest of the desires and drown them in the waters of the flood, because we can only advance with the one desire symbolized by Noah. With this desire, we can build a new world – the world after the flood.

We don’t know what this new world will be like. We develop inside of Bina like inside a mother’s womb – and be what be. When we reemerge, there will be a new world!

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