The process of the world’s correction is a lengthy path consisting of various stages, where every soul fulfills its own part. We have gone through the breaking of the common soul of Adam HaRishon, then the Babylonian Exile, a spiritual birth, and the subsequent fall from the spiritual level during the destruction of the First Temple. This was followed by a resurrection on a new spiritual level, and then another fall during the times of the Second Temple.

Now we are nearing a state where all the desires intended for correction are completely ready for it. After all the ascents, descents, breakings, and revolutions that we have experienced throughout our entire history, all of our desires have become intermixed. As a result, every person contains both bestowing and receiving desires in the right combination. The desires are now fit for correction, and this is what we now have to carry out.

Therefore, the objective now facing us is correction. This is the first time when we are not operating as matter without a will, which undergoes something without participating in it. Rather, now we must take part in our own correction with full awareness, with our own efforts, and according to our own request. We have to realize the correction by virtue of our own forces, to the extent we are allowed to do so by the Upper Governance.

This is why for the first time in history we are starting to study, “Who are we? And how does each of us have to change, as well as all of us together?” The science of Kabbalah teaches us how to live correctly in the reality where we exist.

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A question I received: You have me completely convinced, but what specifically should I do from this moment on?

My Answer: From this moment forward you must understand that the future depends on you, to the extent of your dissemination of the science of Kabbalah in the world. This is because it is the method of correction for the whole world: It is for us to connect with each other and with the Upper Force.

If we will come to widespread dissemination of this principle, as a cure for all our problems, then we’ll succeed. We only need to make attempts to achieve it and the Upper Light will do everything else for us. To the extent of our efforts it works through us, on ourselves and the whole world.

Thus, I strongly recommend everyone who has the opportunity to come to our convention on March 24th, 2010 in Israel, as well as to our World Zohar Convention 2010 that will take place in New York, May 7-9, 2010 (registration is already open). These events influence spiritual advancement very effectively.

Baal HaSulam attempted to disseminate Kabbalah to the people some time ago, but he had no success because the time had not come yet. At that time, all that he wanted to do didn’t work out. However, everything that we now do in this direction is successful. It is evident that we are receiving a blessing from Above, and everything depends on us.

Let us hope that together with all our groups and friends around the world, we will bring the world to correction.

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The Zohar, Chapter “Bamidbar (In the Wilderness),” Item 36: …south is Hesed, and grips to the east and depends on it as a branch with its root. This is so because the hidden Daat is the beginning of the sun, whose essence is Tifferet, called “sun” and east. But with its ascent to Yod-Hey it becomes Daat. In the beginning of the Daat in upper AVI, a root is made for the disclosure of Hesed, by which the upper AVI mate and elicit the Hesed (Love and Mercy).

We have to extract correction and remedy from every word in The Zohar. The Light will transform our properties according to its source. This should be our attitude to the reading. On the other hand, we have to try to understand what we read with more clarity.

Everything originates from the first HaVaYaH (Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey). The basic structure is the four stages of the Direct Light and everything clothes on these stages: the four letters, the three lines, and Malchut which receives from them. Everything comes from this connection.

First of all, we have to aspire to correct the breaking in ourselves so that every moment and every word from The Zohar will penetrate us like a balm or a healing remedy. After all, the Torah is created as a “seasoning” for a desire, as a remedy for its correction. When I want to connect with the text to reveal it, it opens up and connects with me as one whole.

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There are many people living in our world who have no idea how it operates. They are unaware of the structure of social and governmental systems, the laws of nature, the orbiting of planets, and the various connections that exist between people. People can live a very simple life, knowing only what is needed to get along day by day and never burning with desire to know more about how the world functions. In contrast, in our world, some people are more interested and curious to know more, and they research the systems that operate on the world.

The same is true about spiritual existence. Not all people who acquire spiritual perception endeavor to delve deeply into it. They are naturally limited by the root of their soul, which does not demand any more than its level. In other words, it performs its function at its intended place and nothing more is required.

The root of the soul demands more of others who are meant to research the spiritual world. These are Kabbalists. Similar to scientists who examine our world, Kabbalists investigate the entire system of the spiritual world in detail. Kabbalists are meant to come to complete spiritual attainment and perception. This is according to the root of their soul, which compels Kabbalists to include everyone within them and to scrutinize all the details in the spiritual world through synthesis and analysis in order to correct their souls. It is to the extent that one’s soul demands correction that the general reality is perceived by that person.

And it is the degree to which one corrects himself by which he is judged. If one’s correction is 100%, then he is equivalent to the great Kabbalists and is equal to them in all ways. In spirituality, there is no division of people by important and unimportant. It matters that one has done all that was required of him.

Spirituality is a world of bestowal. The approach is a bit different than what we’re used to; a person enters spirituality, looks back, and realizes that he hasn’t done anything! There is nothing left of what a person once fought for or the actions he had performed. Hence, one becomes surrounded only by pure bestowal.

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A question I received: After the Zohar 2010 Convention, I received a desire to help people. How do I check whether I am doing the most that I can in this regard?

My Answer: The ultimate help is when a person spends all the hours of his existence trying to think about correcting himself and the world.

After all, a breaking first occurred in the worlds and then in the common soul, and now the broken souls exist in a broken world. Correction is possible only by the method of Kabbalah, which helps us draw the Upper Light, which alters our intention from an egoistic one to a giving one. The same force, the same Light, which created the whole universe, needs to affect us and correct everything.

Therefore, we can help others only by disseminating the science of Kabbalah until we reach complete redemption. However, while the world still needs correction, we need to try to bring the correction to the world. During the Convention we received a great force from our mutual unification because, together, we attained greater understanding and sensation.

And now we need to perform immense actions for the sake of the general correction of ourselves and the world. We received advancement precisely for this purpose and no other. None of us would have received what we received (an opportunity to participate in this gathering, an understanding of something, or feelings) if we were unable to affect the world through our correction.

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A question I received: What kind of book is Beit Shaar Ha-Kavanot which we started studying today? What is the correct attitude I should have while studying it?

My Answer: Everything is already expressed in its title, “Beit Shaar Ha-Kavanot” (The Gatehouse of Intentions), which implies the foundation, the basis of intentions. While studying this book, you should have the same intention directed to the development of the soul as you do with other Kabbalistic books.

Everything a person reads affects the corporeal mind and heart in a certain way, and it depends on the style of the content at every level of PARDES (hint, parable, secret). In other words, one book has greater influence on feelings, another on the mind, while a third book is completely unclear.

Nevertheless, a person must aspire to extract just one thing from this book: the force of bestowal. It is the “Light that Returns to the Source.” At the same time, we should try to understand this book and connect with it as much as possible. However, this should be secondary to maintaining the proper intention of drawing the maximum power of Bestowal from it. Our primary aspiration should be directed to correction, rather than knowledge. Otherwise “one outsmarts his actions.”

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A question I received: What should I do if out of an entire hour of reading The Zohar I could only spend a few seconds thinking about the Surrounding Light that brings me correction?

My Answer: This is not good. There’s a legend about a person who dies and goes to the upper court of judgment. There he is asked, “Did you engage in Torah and await salvation?” You won’t be asked anything else there but this. The Torah refers to the Light that Reforms. So did you desire this or not? After all, this was the only reason you were sent to this world. This is the only thing that counts out of your entire life.

You may be studying Kabbalah and have a burning desire, but that is not your own accomplishment. It was given to you by the Creator. He brought you to the Kabbalistic group and gave you the means. But what happened afterward? What did you yourself do within the system that influenced you? Did you desire salvation, correction? This is what you will have to answer.

After we have just completed reading The Zohar today, are you able to say that you were inside what was being read? It’s too late to think about this during the study itself because everything depends on the preparation. You have to come to the lesson prepared, burning with desire and demand, as if you are coming to a doctor and asking him, “Doctor, give me some kind of medicine! Otherwise it’s all over for me — that’s how bad I feel!” When you come to the lesson with this mindset, you await salvation during the study. But if you initially came there without a demand to receive medicine because you don’t feel your evil, your egoism, and your inability to unite with the friends, and if you aren’t looking for love for your neighbor, then you won’t remember about it during the study either.

You have to reveal these deficiencies, your evil inclination even before you open The Zohar because when you open up The Zohar it will already be too late to change anything. Our entire work takes place during the preparation. Everything depends on it alone.
The pain must already be felt inside you in order for you to desire to soothe it with The Zohar, instead of trying to artificially remember that at this time you are “supposed to” ask for a connection with your neighbor. You can’t deceive the Creator. He reads what is in your heart and sees such a deep inner desire that you don’t even suspect it is there. Meanwhile, He considers: Should He give you an answer to this desire or not? If it assists your spiritual advancement and creates the middle line within you, then the Light helps you. But if not, then the Light pushes you forward from the opposite side through suffering until you finally connect everything together correctly and receive the true answer.

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A question I received: When we actualize our desires at the level of impressions, do we cause the material world to become more amicable toward us?

My Answer: We are all made of a material called the “desire for pleasure.” When the Light affects the desire to be pleased in a way that makes it reach the worst state, it considers only itself; it cares only for itself and feels nothing but itself. This “short circuit” creates the picture of our world inside us.

By correcting our desire, we begin sensing another reality that exists outside of this one. When something is sensed through other people’s desires instead of our own, it is called the Upper, Spiritual World, and it is a world of eternal life.

Correction is a process of learning how to sense that which is outside of us as opposed to within. This is a purely psychological challenge. At the end of the day we all want to be pleased and aspire towards goodness. And the fact of the matter is that we will eventually attain infinite goodness, but only under the condition that we “exit” ourselves.

After we exit our self, the material of creation (the desire for pleasure) starts being treated as “myself,” and in fact, is mine. That is when it becomes more amicable toward us.

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A question I received: What does it mean that we have to desire to study The Zohar together? How should we do this or feel it?

My Answer: Correction means that all desires are united together. When our desires are separated from one another, we feel this reality or this world within them. When we unite our desires together, then inside them we feel a reality called “the spiritual world.” Everything is very simple and it does not involve space or time. Everything depends on the unity of desires into one whole or their separation from one another.

Right now we feel this reality because our desires are disconnected and each one stands on his own. Inside your own small desire, which is aimed only at your own good, you feel what you are able to feel inside it. You feel Light, but when the Light appears inside this desire it seems to you as what you see now. Do you want to see something different? Well, you won’t be able to do anything with these earthly desires all the way until the End of Correction.

When this earthly desire is revealed and grows within us, we feel that we live. Afterward it dwindles and we feel that we die. Then it comes to life again and dies as if it is revived in order to be used and then goes back into concealment. However, besides it, there is another desire called “the point in the heart,” which comes from another, spiritual level. This is a desire we can connect to others. We cannot connect the desires of this world, which are desires of the still, vegetative, and animate levels. They exist in their regular form, where every person is connected with others to the degree that nature obliges him to, and not more than this.

However, we can unite our desires called “the points in the heart,” and then we will feel the spiritual world within them. This is why I have to imagine this common desire (Kli or vessel). It is very tangible and it really is in our hands. If we could unite our desires for spirituality, our points in the heart, together through mutual help and mutual connection, then we would feel the spiritual world. However, the sensation within them has to be mutual. It cannot take place in each separate individual because it is revealed through the unity of desires.

What is it that becomes revealed? It’s the connection among the desires. This connection is called fulfillment, the Creator, or the Light that fulfills the desire. We don’t reveal the Light by itself. We only reveal our impression of the Light, the quality of bestowal that clothes into us. It clothes precisely into our relationships of love and bestowal to one another.

There is a force that enables us to unite together and treat each other with mutual bestowal. My bestowal to another person is called “Light,” and the mutual bestowal that I reveal among everyone is called “the Creator.” This is the meaning of the verse, “From love for the created beings to love for the Creator.”

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A person who consciously seeks spirituality is influenced by different developmental laws than a person who walks the natural path. It’s similar to the difference between classical physics, which deals with large material objects, and quantum physics, which studies elementary particles. The difference between them is like the difference between light and dark. Regular physics speaks of matter, while quantum physics speaks of light, because a quantum particle is a particle of light. In other words, it is a different level of nature, even though it is still within the boundaries of this world, and it differs greatly from what we are accustomed to.

With regard to spirituality, if the sparks of correction aren’t awakened within a person, he is corrected in a similar fashion as all of nature – by being incorporated inside those who do have the spiritual spark, those who aspire toward spirituality and ask the question, “What is the meaning of my life?” Some carry out the spiritual work, while others help them either by supporting or by hindering. Thus, all advance together.

That is why the science of Kabbalah must be disseminated among all people, for as long as it hasn’t in some way reached even one person, he will not participate in correction. It’s similar to how at first glance it seems that humankind bears no relation to what happens in some galaxy millions of light years away from earth. But in fact, we simply don’t yet understand just how dependent we are at the end of correction on every gram of matter, even at some distant star, because it too must be part of us in order to result in perfection, Malchut of Infinity.

This principle applies all the more so to every person in this world, even one who leads the simplest existence and doesn’t have a care about spirituality. This person, nonetheless, pertains to the process of correction to whatever extent he is able, and therefore, we must bring the knowledge of Kabbalah to him as well.

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