The Zohar: And the Creator said: “Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.” And they came from the East, from the ancient days of the world.

And they found how to use the secret wisdom of the first people, the generation of the flood, so they wouldn’t have to submit to the Creator. And they built a city and a tower.

“Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens.” They decided to act according to their ego and to rule all the way up to the heavens themselves. This is completely opposite to elevating oneself over one’s ego in order to reveal the Creator and life in the Upper World.

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. This was the situation in Babylon: Even though they were egoists, their ego was so small and undeveloped that they lived as one people, in complete understanding, as though they were speaking one language.

And since they all had one heart and one desire, and they spoke the holy language (the language of bestowal and love), they were able to accomplish anything they put their mind to. And there was no one who could stop them.

These people are opposite to the Creator and want nothing to do with Him, but because they are bound by bonds of love, they are invincible. They are like a band of criminals who are staunch friends and look out for one another to the bitter end. Their connection is loyal and true, but their goal is egoistic – to build a city with a tower.

They do not use their connection to become similar to the Creator, yet they created their connection upon the quality of bestowal, which makes it indestructible! That is what the Creator “complains” about.

This connection is equal and opposite to Him, and that is precisely why the people had to attain it. It is in order to then tear it asunder and recreate it once again, but this time in likeness to Him.

It is very similar to the world’s situation today. It’s the same as if we now decided to liquidate the crisis and reject all our egoistic interests by establishing a connection between all the nations, yet we would do so without thinking of the Creator or the goal of creation. We would then return to the state of Ancient Babylon. Today we are discovering that the world is global, that everyone is interconnected, and that we must treat each other well lest we will destroy one another. However, if we begin to establish good relationships with one another without thinking of how to connect to the Upper Force and without an objective of achieving the goal of creation (to reveal the Creator), this would lead us to self-destruction, just as it happened in Ancient Babylon.

The Creator would shatter our connection just as He had done in Babylon when He “mixed the languages” (meaning, when egoism emerged between the people) and people stopped understanding one another. This would happen in order for us to understand that our connection requires another component – the Creator. Only He can bind us with a true connection and allow us to feel life on the Upper Level – a life that is perfect and eternal.

(From a lesson on The Book of Zohar, Chapter “Noah”)

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It is common knowledge that The Book of Zohar is unique. The reason for this is that it is the only book with the power to bring human beings into the spiritual world. This unparalleled mission is what brought this book to fame and has made humankind have a special relationship to it.

Nature prepares a very peculiar entry into this world for us; we are born without any knowledge and nothing is explained to us ahead of time. A child does not inherit an intellect, senses or memories from his parents or preceding generations. A person is born as an empty shell and then starts sensing this world as warmth, coldness, light, darkness, sound and silence.

In the beginning a baby doesn’t feel anything at all. But gradually it begins reacting to sound and light, and later on it recognizes its mother and notices actions that are being done to it. In response the baby laughs or cries, and gradually starts to explore the world and to want to find out what is going on around it. It begins to identify with its body and that is how it grows up.

Compared to this, it’s surprising that baby animals get to know everything and learn to survive independently in just a few days, whereas a human baby remains totally helpless without an adult’s care for a long time. If we leave a human baby in the woods, it would grow up just like the animals that surround him.

A human baby’s development is based solely on impressions, examples and behavioral models of this world, which he receives from adults. People have created music for children, toys, playgrounds and games designed to teach children to take things apart, reassemble them, and distinguish between colors and sounds. The purpose of these games is to prepare a child to live in our world.

A child’s parents and the people around him are ready to give everything that is needed for the child to grow up in accordance with the standards of his generation and the world he lives in. Our instincts direct us to transfer our knowledge to a child, since otherwise he won’t be ready for life in our world.

This type of upbringing is natural and cannot be changed. We are unable to feed a human being with information by connecting him directly to a computer that will transfer encyclopedic knowledge to him. We cannot simply “install” a proper upbringing in order to develop a child’s feelings and reactions. We can only do so gradually as he shapes his personality by acquiring and accumulating impressions.

This process takes at least 20 years of a human being’s life. And when we become adults, we still continue to learn and develop, and often we end up regretting that we didn’t acquire more knowledge earlier in our lives.

Our birth and development in the spiritual world involves similar processes, but the difference is that we also continue to exist in the material world, a sort of inconvenience. Just like in the physical world, growth in the spiritual realm requires parents, surroundings, toys, education, a proper upbringing and explanations. If we don’t get the right examples, then we won’t be ready for living in the spiritual world, and therefore it won’t reveal itself to us. Even if it did, we wouldn’t be able to recognize it.

Baal HaSulam writes the following in the article “Body and Soul:” “A human being cannot exist in our world without having knowledge of it, and similarly his soul is unable to exist in the Upper World without having knowledge of it. Moreover, knowledge about the Upper World actually serves as a way of sensing life in it.”

If an infant were left alone in his cradle without any attention and only his immediate physical needs were satisfied, it would become nothing more than a living, breathing body. We are incapable of developing unless we receive new and diverse impressions on a regular basis. It doesn’t matter that we don’t understand the meaning behind many of these impressions, just like a child doesn’t understand much of what happens to him. Regardless, we are still filled by these impressions and use them to grow. The same thing happens in the spiritual world: We must fill ourselves with diverse impressions that originate from the spiritual world, and that don’t exist in our world.

And that is exactly how The Book of Zohar influences us and why this book is so special. When a person reads or listens to this book, it starts transferring impressions of the higher, unknown world to him. It doesn’t matter whether we understand the meaning of its contents or not; we’re still filled by those impressions. There is no other book that makes such an impact.

Gradually, as we advance through studying The Book of Zohar, we start receiving and accumulating impressions from the spiritual world. When those impressions enter our being, they advance our development in the spiritual world even without our awareness that this growth is taking place.

When we read The Book of Zohar at our lessons, I will provide explanations of the text in order to help connect a person with its contents. However, a person can read The Book of Zohar without any explanations whatsoever. All we need is a desire to understand and connect with the text, the same way that a wide-eyed child explores the world around him and can’t sit still for a minute because of his natural tendency to learn and absorb everything around him. If we open our feelings, heart and intellect to absorb what flows out of this book, just like a child who soaks up everything in this world, we’ll advance in the spiritual world.

It is of little importance whether a person possesses a brilliant mind or whether he has trouble learning, whether he is lazy or hard-working, rational or emotional; everyone will develop in their own way, which is best for them.

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Preparation To The Lesson
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Baal HaSulam, Letter 45, 1927, Lesson 3
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Article “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 37, Lesson 16
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Article, “Body and Soul,” Lesson 1
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, chapter “Noah,” Item 122
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Preparation To The Lesson
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Rabash Article #1 1984 “The Purpose of the Association”
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Article “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 35, Lesson 15
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Articles “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Its Essence”
“Body and Soul”
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A question I received: Does a Kabbalist become religious once he reveals the Creator?

My Answer: A Kabbalist is concerned with just one thing: how to attain a connection with the Creator. Everything else falls into place depending on this. Everything that is happening to you right now is happening in your uncorrected desire. Your attitude to the whole world, to yourself, and to the Creator is completely wrong. So how can you have the right attitude to Him?

If you correct yourself, then it doesn’t matter what your connection with the Creator will be like. The most important thing is that it will be real and true, and this is what the Creator is waiting for from us.

Therefore, we don’t ask what form our religions will take in the future, or how people will behave, what their lifestyle will be, and whether this world will exist at all. The most important thing is that it will be the truth.

If I am uncorrected right now, then everything I feel, see, think and understand now is incorrect, both in my mind and my heart. Therefore, none of it will remain in the future; all the broken things will be replaced by corrected ones.

So what will life be like? I don’t know, and I cannot imagine this within my corrupted qualities. I can only tell you that everything will turn into its opposite, as it is written: “I saw a reverse world!” You only have to be ready for the changes that the Upper Light will perform to us.

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All beliefs that go beyond the limits of the most primitive beliefs about the forces of nature, came to us from the science of Kabbalah. The science of Kabbalah itself originated from the revelation of the Upper Force by Abraham, who recognized the relationship between the Creator and all the levels of desire.

On the lowest level of desire, this is expressed as the “gifts” that Abraham gave to the children of his concubines and whom he then sent to the East. This is the origin of the Eastern religions, which are very close to nature and man’s body.

A different method operates on the highest, most egoistic, fourth level of desire. This is the method Abraham taught to his group of students, who later turned into the nation of Israel (where Isra-el means “straight to the Creator”). When his students (the nation of Israel) fell from their spiritual level of bestowal and love for the neighbor, into egoism and mutual hatred (known as the fall of the Second Temple), then in order to replace Kabbalah – “life with the Creator,” people came up with the religion of Judaism, which is life without the sensation of the Creator.

When people’s desire was corrected and used for bestowal and love, the people felt the Creator and the Upper Life within that desire. But when that same desire fell from bestowal into reception, into the egoistic intention of “for myself,” people began to feel just this world. That is when Kabbalah (sensation, attainment, and revelation) was replaced by religion (faith, mysticism, and tradition).

Thus, the religion of Judaism is an imprint of the science of Kabbalah and the desire to bestow, within the broken desire to receive (the fourth layer of desire). The sparks of this breaking fell into other layers of desire; that is how the third layer formed Christianity and the second one – Islam. These religions were created according to how people understood Kabbalah’s imprint within their egoistic desire. This also makes it clear that according to the Creator’s plan, humanity must go through these phases of egoistic development in order to realize its opposition to the Creator, following the principle, “The value of the Light comes from the darkness.”

All the religions, beliefs, and faiths (which add up to about 3800 in the whole world) come from different ways of imagining the Creator within the egoistic desire, in all of its different forms. This is why there are so many different religious approaches in the world and none of them understand one another. It’s because they all come from Kabbalah’s division into different religions – the shift from the sensation of unity to the sensation of disunity.

In the past, the breaking of the Upper Level (the fall of the Second Temple) brought about egoistic social relations, an egoistic attitude of the common desire toward the Creator, which caused all the religions and beliefs to emerge. However, if we, those who have a point in the heart, now correct the connection among us on that higher level, then we will be able to correct all the religions and faiths. Then, everything will become part of the unity with the Creator.

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The only thing that our world needs is the revelation of the Creator. Then, our world will become the spiritual world, and all the forces of the spiritual world point to only one thing – their Master.

Even in our world, light and darkness, as well as all their different shades and any other pictures we see – everything depends on and comes from the sun. Without the sun, there would be nothing but utter darkness.

The same is true for the spiritual world. Essentially a person reveals only one thing in addition to this world – the Upper Force, “There is none else beside Him.” But this force shows us all kinds of pictures and qualities of the Upper World.

What we reveal is not the actual Upper Force, but its manifestation and governance over the network that binds all the souls. That is why we never speak of the Creator’s essence, but only of His giving quality.

However, a giver must have someone to give to; He must be in a place where His giving can be revealed. He cannot reveal Himself, but only His actions with respect to someone else. Therefore, the Creator can only be revealed where He acts and governs – in matter, the desire that He created, which is the souls that are connected to one another. And the stronger their connection, the greater is the Creator’s revelation.

He created our matter and resides within it. On our part, we are brought to a Kabbalistic group where we must reveal unity. Once we reveal that unity, within it we will reveal the Creator, the force that unites us.

There is nothing else for us to reveal. We can never attain the force in and of itself, but only its manifestations – the matter and form of bestowal that it assumes. It’s similar to how in our world we only attain matter – the desire to enjoy and the form it assumes.

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A question I received: If a person starts studying the wisdom of Kabbalah, manages to attain spirituality, and then dies a few years later, does he have to come back into this world and suffer again in order to ask the same question: “What is the meaning of my life?” And then does he have to start doing the same work all over again in order to pass the Machsom and from there to advance onwards?

My Answer: Well, you tell me: every time a person has to go through a new learning experience in life, doesn’t he also have to “die” and “come back” in order to ask, “What is the meaning of my life?” Indeed, before taking any new step in life, a person has to ask himself: “What is the meaning of my life? What am I doing here, why, and how?”

If a person is making a truly spiritual action, then it always has to start from zero, as if the person dies. In this respect, it does not make a big difference whether his physical body is alive or not. The death of one’s physical body indicates that a person has to replace the lowest degree of his desire to enjoy, the degree that causes us to feel our earthly body and this material world.

On the lowest degree of the common created desire, a person perceives his Partzuf as the earthly body, and he perceives that degree as this world. This degree never changes and it has to accompany a person throughout the entire duration of his correction process, all the way until the full correction.

Aside from the material degree, a person also perceives the spiritual degrees as he climbs them. But once in a while he has to replace the lowest degree (the physical body), which means that he has to die and be reborn.

However, replacing the lowest degree does not mean that one has to start his spiritual path all over again. It just means that he will traverse this path with much greater ease this time around. After all, one’s spiritual attainment never disappears. In the following life cycle, a person will easily find a teacher and a group, will quickly attain everything he has gone through before, and will continue onwards. However, in order to attain a new level and a new realty, he will have to go through a certain adaptation process.

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