Excerpts from my upcoming book, A Guide to The Book of Zohar

The connection between us can be likened to a picture that has not only been torn or broken into little pieces, but then incorrectly reassembled. If there were no connection between us at all, that wouldn’t be so bad, but the breaking has created a negative, egoistic connection. What is the reason for this? This negative connection between all parts of nature is “help against us” as it enables us to discover the Creator’s nature from outside of Him.

Without this negative connection between us, we would not be able to discover that the type of connection between us determines everything, and that it is the cause of all good and evil in the world. If this connection were good, we would not be able to attain the Creator for we would be inside of Him. And if there were no connection between us at all, we would not be able to reveal the reason for the evil in our lives.

By revealing that the connection between us is evil and is the cause of our suffering, we can transform it into good. So much so that, with the help of suffering that pushes us forward, we reach the Creator. Then we realize that otherwise we could not have reached Him.

Similar things sometimes take place in our life: There arises a situation which brings us closer with others. Before, there was no close bond between us; we were distant to one another although considerate and respectful. However, for some reason, we suddenly ended up together, bound by a common cause or problem.

We were brought close together, and now we begin to discover how different we are and how we clash with one another. That is when the evil becomes revealed between us. The evil has always existed, but wasn’t revealed until now.

When we discover that the connection between us is evil, we typically try to distance from one another. However, if external conditions don’t allow for this, then we have no choice but to correct the relationships between us.

Is this not reminiscent of the state of humanity in our days? In the past, the connections between the nations were weak, and every nation was connected to only a small number of other nations. There was no real connection between us, and that is why the evil was not revealed.

However, with time, human society has become global, and everybody has been bound to and is affecting everybody else. We have nowhere to run from each other, so the hatred between us is being revealed. Yet, the same hatred will force us to correct the relationships between us.

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Excerpts from my upcoming book, A Guide to The Book of Zohar

The most complex and, at the same time, the most fascinating subject related to The Book of Zohar and life in general is the perception of reality. There are many waves around us that we presently do not perceive, such as radio waves. There is also an all-inclusive field of information. The field of higher information is called the higher nature or the Creator.

This field fills the entire space around us. We are capable of establishing contact with this field and receiving everything from it: feelings, understanding, knowledge, love, and also the sensation of eternal life and wholeness that’s inherent to it.

The whole purpose of the wisdom of Kabbalah is to teach us how to develop within ourselves the instruments to perceive this field of higher information. This is possible only via an inner transformation, and as we attain it, we become similar to this field: the Creator.

We exist in this field even now, but we are incapable of perceiving it.

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Excerpts from my upcoming book, A Guide to The Book of Zohar

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 58: And I have named that commentary The Sulam (Ladder) to show that the purpose of my commentary is as the role of any ladder: If you have an attic filled abundantly, then all you need is a ladder to reach it. And then, all the bounty in the world will be in your hands.

There is no use to open The Book of Zohar without The Sulam commentary. There are quite a few commentaries written on The Book of Zohar, but The Sulam is the only one that raises us to the level of the Creator’s perfection. It is so because Baal HaSulam ascended all 125 degrees that the authors of The Zohar “stood on” at the time when they wrote it, and disclosed The Zohar for us from their height.

The Sulam commentary adapts The Zohar to modern-day souls that emerge nowadays in this world. The Light of The Book of Zohar corrects our souls and enables them “to face” The Zohar (the Upper Radiance or the Upper Light) in a way that it can return us back to the unity through which the Creator will reveal Himself to us.

The Sulam helps us to position ourselves in the middle line so that we correspond to the form through which the Upper Light descends onto us (a combination of measures of mercy and judgment) and thus can receive it. The middle line is a formula by which we have to correctly combine two forces that exist in nature: the force of the Creator (bestowal, abundance, and Light) and the force of the creature (the desire to receive pleasure). Our entire work consists of building the middle line and is the only freedom of choice that we have.

The Sulam commentary allows us to build the middle line, and hence, ever after it was written, there exists no other way to realize The Book of Zohar but in accordance with it. Truly, Baal HaSulam directs our vision, approach, and sensations in a way that all that is written in The Book of Zohar penetrates in us through the “middle line” (middle ground).

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Excerpts from my upcoming book, A Guide to The Book of Zohar

The correction of attitudes in a Kabbalistic group from love of self to love of others is possible only with the help of the very Upper Force that created “the evil inclination,” our egoism. Only this Force can turn the evil inclination to good, as it is written, “I created the evil inclination, and handed down the Torah for its correction since the Light in it Reforms”; that is, it unites us in love.

In fact, even now we exist in perfect reality. We are tightly connected with each other as parts of one body in mutual love and adhesion with the Upper Force that created us and filled with love and abundance. We just need to awaken to the feeling and awareness of this reality in the same way as a person who is unconscious has to wake up in order to feel alive.

This awakening, the resurrecting force of the Light that Reforms, can be felt only when we come together. In the group, we try to be connected in the love between us and rise above our instinctive egoistical emotions. Together, we read The Book of Zohar.

This book talks about unity among us and our corrected state of existence. So, our collective reading of The Book of Zohar with the intention to attain oneness arouses the Light that brings us back from oblivion. Gradually, we begin to feel the connection and within it, the Creator. In doing so, we achieve practical realization of the essence of the science of Kabbalah: the revelation of the Creator to the created beings.

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Excerpts from my future book, A Guide To The Book Of Zohar

In order to prepare us for spiritual development, the Creator rouses two sensations in us. The first is the emptiness of this world, and the second is the aspiration to attain the source of life, the awakening of the “point in the heart.” The point in the heart, like a charge in an electrical field, brings us to a place where we can give it nourishment and fulfillment. This place is the group.

Truly, we can see how people in whom a point in the heart awakens are drawn to each other naturally. It is always the case in human society that people with similar desires draw closer to each other and gather into groups. A group is a place where people realize the connection with their neighbor on a practical level based on new principles of love and unification instead of hatred and isolation.

Therefore, the work in the group is necessary and mandatory in order to reach a revelation of the Creator. It allows a person to truly evaluate his attitude to his neighbor and not to fall into illusions in regard to spirituality or his personal connection with the Creator. After all, the Creator is the quality of love and bestowal that dwells in the corrected connection among us.

Such groups have always been created over the course of human history. By changing their relationships in the group to mutual bestowal and love of people created the necessary conditions for perceiving the Upper, true reality. Reading books in which they wrote about the world they revealed allows us to acquire the enormous experience accumulated by them and to understand how to achieve a new life by the shortest and most effective path.

Such a group is called a group of Kabbalists. Their goal is to unite with each other in the spirit of what is written in the Torah: “As one man with one heart,” “Don’t do unto another what is hated by you,” and “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Thus, they correct themselves and achieve equivalence to the Creator.

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Excerpts from my upcoming book, A Guide to The Book of Zohar

A corrected desire acts in accordance with the formula, “Israel, the Creator, and the Torah are one.” Israel is me. More precisely, it is my internal desire to attain the Creator and become similar to Him (“Isra-El” in Hebrew means “straight to the Creator”). The Creator is the goal I am trying to attain. The Torah is a corrected mechanism of connection among the souls, of love among them.

In order to illustrate this, let’s have a look at a human organism. All of its parts interact correctly and help each other by being related, mutually responsible, and united. This is how the souls have to function. The system of their reciprocal bonding and love (complete interaction) is called the “Torah.”

It includes 613 (Taryag, six hundred and thirteen) correct connections between each soul and all other souls as well as among all souls in general (the latter type of connection, commandment, links all of them into one whole through love). If there is no connection between the souls through love and, on the contrary, if they are linked together through hatred, it means that the Torah is corrupt and hidden.

Souls that do not sense connection between them are defined as being in “exile” from the Torah and the Creator. They lack this property because they are disconnected from the correct type of link among them (the Torah) and from the Creator who fills the correct connection among them. It is similar to the difference between a healthy body and a sick organism that is deteriorating because its systems do not function properly.

Internal corrections that we make within our desire in order to transform it from corruptness into correctness are called “commandments.” This is why it is said that “love thy neighbor as thyself” is the main rule of the Torah since it includes the whole system of correct connections between the souls.

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My book Basic Concepts in Kabbalah is being published in The Czech Republic.

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Excerpts from my upcoming book, A Guide to The Book of Zohar

Some of the souls within the general system are already corrected. If we, too, desire to attain the revelation of the Creator, but feel that He is concealed, then from the spiritual standpoint, we exist in “darkness” or “night.” It is precisely in this time of “night” when we have to exert efforts and raise our prayers whereupon those exalted souls in which the Creator reigns will influence us through The Book of Zohar.

The Book of Zohar was written specifically so that we could create the link between us and these souls. When we read The Zohar, we establish contact with them, and in return they send us a force called the Light that Reforms through this Book.

For the time being, there is no compatibility (equivalence of form) between our souls and the Light, so this Light is not yet penetrating our souls so as to fill them. Nonetheless, it acts upon us as a mother’s womb, enveloping, embracing, and caressing us. The Light gradually corrects us until we begin to perceive it, the corrected souls with whom we’ve established contact by reading The Zohar, and the Creator who reigns in the entire system of souls.

This Light is called the Surrounding Light. As we continue to correct ourselves, it enters us, fulfills us, and becomes the soul’s “Inner Light” which is our spiritual life.

Inside the mother’s womb, which this Surrounding Light forms for us, grows the middle line. The middle line is a precise calculation on my part which combines the two forces of nature, the force of desire and that of the Light, in the most optimal way for the Light to correct the desire.

The part of the desire that becomes corrected in this process and thereby similar to the Creator is called the middle line. In other words, the middle line is the measure of my ability to become similar to the Creator. It is the Creator’s image that I have constructed within myself and out of myself by this process. It began with that very request: the prayer that I had raised in the time of the “night.”

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Excerpts from my upcoming book, A Guide to The Book of Zohar

Darkness sensed within the desire to receive pleasure can be transformed into the Light provided that the direction of the desire is altered from “for my own sake” to “bestowal to my neighbor.” It means that one has to use his desire to enjoy in order to start bestowing to his neighbor and thus feel pleasure from giving. Only at this point does a person become unlimited in his actions since only bestowal knows no boundaries.

If I get pleased in the same way as the Creator does (from giving), I thereby become similar to Him and sense eternal and perfect life filled with love and bestowal. What do I lack in order to acquire this new type of fulfillment? I need to love my neighbor and find the fulfillment he needs. I can obtain “love of neighbor” from the Creator with the help of the Light that Reforms. I receive the Light of abundance from Him in order to fulfill my neighbor.

Thus, I become the Creator’s partner in everything that exists; I become similar to Him. This is how correction of the intention used by the desire to enjoy works.

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