A question I received: What is the use of studying The Book of Zohar in our times? Do you have to study it to attain spirituality?

My Answer: Yes, the time has now arrived to study The Book of Zohar. I waited for this a long time, because we had to go through a preparation period. Now we have reached a state where a great mass of people all over the world is able to ascend up the spiritual ladder. This is why the commentary to The Book of Zohar is called Sulam – The Ladder.

That is why we are starting to study The Book of Zohar together now. Every person who joins us for this study, and who is able to nullify himself like a baby in order to study together with us, will be able to break through into the sensation of what The Zohar describes.

The Zohar cannot be studied with the mind because it speaks to a person’s heart and develops his sensations. The aim of this is to let him feel two qualities: bestowal and reception. That is why Baal HaSulam named his commentary to The Zohar “Sulam” – The Ladder.

In addition, The Zohar cannot be studied on your own, but only in a group. In fact, that is how it was written, by a group of ten Kabbalists whose souls were completely united. The ten Kabbalists who wrote The Zohar made up a spiritual vessel comprised of the ten main Sefirot. Each of them represented one Sefira, or one special force of the wholesome vessel (Kli) that was created by the Creator. Therefore, if we aspire to become such a wholesome vessel, then we will be able to receive this message from them, and it will influence us.

If we try to study The Zohar in a group now, we will quickly feel how the force concealed in this book connects us. And to the degree we unite, we will be able to accept and understand its message. Actually, we will be able to feel it, because understanding happens through the heart. There are specific desires that are organized particularly in order to understand the spiritual message.

It is impossible to attain The Zohar with dry reason. There has to be a group that has gone through a great path of preparation, whose members have already tried to attain spirituality through other means and have been freed of their delusions. They have discerned many things and are ready to cancel themselves because they understand that alone, with their individual forces, they cannot achieve anything. Then, they are ready to start studying The Zohar and to tune into it.

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As we read The Book of Zohar, we should understand that it speaks only about the connection between our souls and the one general system in existence of which we are all part. The Zohar speaks about the various degrees of connection and the actions that bind us. It is expressly for this purpose that it uses names of people and objects from this world, as well as names of angels, Sephirot, Partzufim and other spiritual objects. The only focus in all of this is the correlation of desires, and the reader should imagine himself inside of this net of connections. Then The Book of Zohar will begin to influence him.

Try to feel that you are inside a world of forces and desires, in a field that connects us all together. There is not one mention of our world, but everything speaks only about the inner connection between people. Just imagine how everything it describes is about you – it is you who ascends and descends along the spiritual degrees, relating to different parts of Zeir Anpin, which are called Jacob, Noah, David, Abraham, Isaac, and so on. All of this is you! As a result, you will see this entire picture before you.

The effort we exert to enter this picture is what will create it within us, because this is what draws the Upper Light onto us. For example, take the following except:

There are two waters in your hole, and they are seeping from your well. The hole is an empty space that does not let out water, and the well is the water swiftly pouring to the outside. But they are both together in one place, representing Nukva (creation, Malchut, the heart, or the desire). Until she unites with her husband, the Creator, she stands there like an empty hole, like a pauper who is dependent on everybody. But when she unites with Him, she becomes a well full of water. The well becomes filled with water from above – from Zeir Anpin, the Creator, and its water pours downward, toward the souls of the righteous.

Every person must imagine that this is written about him and his state. Either he is an empty hole or a well full of water; this depends on the extent of his ability to connect to the other souls or points in the heart. However, the whole system exists within one’s desire.

If one feels like a pauper who doesn’t have anything (this is how a person feels when he comes to Kabbalah), then this desire makes him feel like a Nukva (a desire to be fulfilled) opposite the Creator. A person must then realize that he can only receive the fulfillment to the extent that he corrects his desire. That is when the empty hole will become a well full of water, longing to fulfill others and the Creator. That is how a person becomes an eternal spring from which living water flows.

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The Book of Zohar Virtual Lesson, Lesson 2
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Selections from The Book of Zohar
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A question I received: You explained that while reading The Book of Zohar, I must find forces described in it within myself. However, how can I do this if I do not know what “maid,” “lady of the house,” “wife,” “man,” and other words mean in the spiritual sense.

My Answer: We start with simple meanings of words known to us from our corporeal world. While The Book of Zohar is concealed from us, it can still become a spiritual teacher for each of us. Everyone is able to envision basic material images and actions by using our preexisting understanding of those concepts. Meanwhile, The Book of Zohar elevates us above corporeality and pulls us into the spiritual realm.

We are unable to understand the connections made between the Upper World and our material plane that were created by the authors of The Zohar – Rabbi Shimon and his disciples. They were able to create a connection between the two worlds, and our role is to see the Upper World through concepts that we already understand. However, we must make a great effort for that to happen – to start seeing the spiritual forces behind the common words that belong to this world.

This is what we call a “miracle” (Segula). We don’t know how the system works to connect us to the Upper World and we don’t understand the connection between what we imagine and the actual spiritual meanings of what we read.

Question cont’d: Should I be looking for that connection myself?

My Answer: You should be looking for your true state of being and trying hard to sense the Upper World, like a child trying to become an adult. Play this game according to the rules that are given to you by the Kabbalists – and you’ll succeed!

Although we visualize images in The Book of Zohar as material things and are unable to free ourselves from those associations, we are also unable to understand what those images mean in the spiritual world. However, our effort to understand will eventually lead us to be able to sense spirituality.

The authors of The Book of Zohar created a system for connecting with us on a material plane that transforms our “child like” efforts into a true state of being. This is what makes The Book of Zohar so great and unique.

(From the TV program, “Opening the Zohar,” November 6, 2009)

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The Book of Zohar explains your relationship with the Creator, which is the only thing you have to learn about. The only things existing in our entire reality are the Creator and the creature, and they are the only things that The Book of Zohar speaks of.

Even in our regular lives, where the picture of this world prevents us from seeing the truth (that the Creator and you are the only things in existence), everything around you is actually your relationship with the Creator, although this is not yet apparent to you. There is nothing else besides the Creator and the creature.

Although there are no images in spirituality, The Zohar first takes us into what seems like “corporeal” situations, telling us about actions and images well known to us in this world. But then, The Zohar begins to explain what happens behind the scenes of this picture – what happens to forces, desires and qualities on a higher, parallel level. In this way, we are gradually trained to discern the higher “images” or qualities, and to see everything as our relationship with the Creator.

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We have to rise from the world we exist in up to the Upper World. This is the only purpose of our world. People who have revealed the path to the Upper World are called Kabbalists, starting from Adam HaRishon and on. They discovered that only the Upper Light can draw us into the spiritual world and help us achieve correction. Only the Upper Light is capable of correcting us and raising us along the spiritual degrees.

We can draw this Light by belonging to its system. Currently we do not belong to it because our nature is opposite to the Light. Our nature is reception, while the system is giving.

In order to draw the Light of correction, an “adapter” was created, or a buffer between the two systems. This buffer is Kabbalah books that connect us with the souls of the Kabbalists who wrote them. When we read these books with our “material” eyes, we unconsciously connect our souls (or the embryo of the soul that exists in us) to the soul of the author, and through his soul, we receive an illumination.

Some Kabbalists wrote books for each other, describing the Upper System in order to perfect their attainment and give joy to the Creator, or in order to prepare the Upper World to accept the souls that will later ascend to it. Other Kabbalists wrote for us, those who exist in this world, but they used four different languages.

Three of the languages – the Mikra, Halacha, and Hagaddah, do not allow us to adhere to the Upper Level. They can only be effectively used by people with a particularly refined soul. In addition, because we are living in a special time, we now need a different kind of language; the only language intended for our generation is that of Kabbalah. Only it can help us draw the Surrounding Light and ascend.

Moreover, out of all the Kabbalists who wrote in the language of Kabbalah, we single out the Ari and Baal HaSulam. Their language is most appropriate in order for us to find the connection with the Upper Level. The effect of their texts on us is the strongest, since the Surrounding Light that comes from their books is the most appropriate for our souls. So, of all the sacred books, the only ones that suit us are the books of Baal HaSulam, who adapted Kabbalah for our souls.

Besides this, there is The Book of Zohar, which is absolutely unique. It isn’t even a book, but a tool we can use together with the commentary of Baal HaSulam, who wrote it specifically for us. Besides these books, we cannot establish any contact with any of the other sacred books. Although they are sacred (meaning, they talk about the Upper World), they cannot help us correct our souls and realize the purpose of our existence.

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Everything that The Book of Zohar speaks of takes place inside of you. All of its characters are various nuances of your relationship with the Upper Force, the Creator, other people and yourself. Later, however, you will begin to unify all of this into a single whole, the only existing reality.

When reading The Book of Zohar, you should always imagine yourself, meaning your qualities, since that is the only thing The Zohar is talking about. When it mentions an animal, for example, then it’s talking about you; a tree – also about you, a teenager – about you, a hill – about you, a maidservant – about you, a mistress – also about you. You are all of these things, which are qualities, not objects.

The qualities of your desire (Malchut) are divided into a maidservant (those that help you) and a mistress (those that control you). The mistress is your corrected state, whereas the part of you that isn’t yet corrected, but that can take part in correction, is called the maidservant.

You are split in two parts – the mistress and the maidservant – with respect to the master or husband, the Creator. That is how the soul feels its relationship with the Creator. Because we receive from Him, we are all His wives, or parts of Malchut.

If you aspire to correct your qualities, then they are defined as a “maidservant who is loyal to her mistress.” This means that even though your qualities are still egoistic, you are nonetheless willing to attain bestowal. This is the soul’s loyalty to its husband, the Creator. If, on the other hand, your qualities desire to work for themselves, they are called an “impure maidservant who is disloyal to her mistress.”

Our goal is to turn all of the maidservant’s uncorrected qualities into the mistress’s corrected qualities. We will then attain the state of “Mistress” – loved by and equal to its lover.

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We have to open ourselves so the text of The Book of Zohar can flow through us easily, completely unobstructed. Then we will begin to feel new sensations of what is happening in that other world.

We have to expect to feel a picture that is made up of feelings, but without any fantasies or visual images. We should desire to feel the words of this book immediately and directly, as when reading something that we understand and are close to, and that we experience as we are immersed in reading the text.

The text of The Book of Zohar is a river flowing out of the Garden of Eden and through a person’s heart. Anyone who opens his heart will be washed by its waters, will be cleansed and will begin to see.

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The science of Kabbalah tells us that there are five worlds separating us from the Upper Force. They are positioned one beneath another, where everything existing in a higher world descends and is completely copied in all the worlds, all the way until the lowest world – our world.

The difference between the worlds is not their details, but the material of each world. The higher a world, the more spiritual (bestowing) is its material. The lower a world, the more corporeal (receiving, egoistic) is its material.

Because the details of all the worlds are identical, by comparing them we can try to imagine the difference between their material or desire, and we can desire for this change to happen to us. The Book of Zohar is special because it creates a projection of the spiritual world onto our world. It tells us a story about this world, and parallel to it, about this world’s source in the Upper World. Moreover, it describes all of this in great detail, enabling us to enter the picture of one world’s superposition over the other.

We thus find ourselves between two worlds: between that which we can understand in the story about our world, and the higher picture that we try to imagine. The difference between the two pictures is that the images in our world are visual; we see them, perceive them and understand them. But in the spiritual world, the images are qualitative; they are qualities, forces, desires and intentions.

If a person is always positioned between these two worlds, then even if he doesn’t yet recognize the Upper World nor have the spiritual senses to perceive it, nonetheless by always trying to imagine the Upper World instead of this world, he begins to feel a revelation. In this way, he comes closer to being born into the spiritual world.

This is what makes The Book of Zohar special. At times it attracts a person and at times it repels him; through these varying movements, it brings him closer to the Upper World, or the next spiritual world above him.

If a person is already on a spiritual level and desires to ascend higher, then this special book performs the same action to him. It works on all 125 levels of the spiritual ladder.

Therefore, when reading or listening to The Book of Zohar, behind every word and action being described by this book, we have try to envision the most correct concept of “what might this really be on a higher level?”

These efforts will enable us to feel the Upper World. The understanding will come after the sensation. For now, the higher senses are starting to form in us, parallel to each bodily sense. That is how we will enter one world from the other.

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The Book of Zohar always talks about the unity of friends. It was written by the group of Rabbi Shimon, where he and his nine students make up the wholesome desire for bestowal (the Kli or vessel) which is similar to the Creator. Each of them represents one particular quality out of the ten Sefirot, and each one describes the situation differently depending on his nature. Each one describes the particular way that he connects with the Creator.

That is why The Zohar talks about ten friends, each of whom reveals the spiritual world from his point of view. Yet, all of them work together, because attainment and Light can only be revealed inside unity.

The Torah speaks to a person who stands opposite the Creator, and The Zohar talks only about a person’s inner forces. Therefore, when reading it, you have to imagine that everything is being said about you alone, and it all happens inside you.

You have to understand that your destiny depends on how you connect with your friends right now. This is the condition set for us from Above. There’s no other way to go; you have to study The Book of Zohar together with your friends. When all of you together follow the path by which The Zohar leads you, you begin to perceive the same things as the people who wrote The Zohar – the group of Rabbi Shimon.

You don’t need a lot of intelligence to perceive the spiritual world. All you need is heartfelt devotion and work on your egoism within a group, with friends who are next to you, as well as those who wrote The Book of Zohar for us. When we delve into this book time after time, trying to unite, then the book reveals itself to us and illuminates us with its Light – the Zohar (which means “Radiance”).

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