What Should We Expect From Studying The Book Of Zohar?

Question: What is the right intention we should have when we openThe Book of Zohar?

Answer: The Book of Zohar was written as a result of the connection between souls and so it operates and influences us in the right way if we connect. Even if I read it by myself, it will affect me by pushing me to connect. But it is impossible to understand this book unless you are connected with other people.

It isn’t just an intellectual understanding, but a revelation.  I feel how I overcome my ego and begin to feel the others in my connection with others. I feel new powers and new attributes in the connection with others, and so I discover the upper world.

The Book of Zohar gives me the feeling of the others by revealing a force field of love and bestowal between us which is the spiritual world. This is the right outcome that we should expect from studying The Book of Zohar.
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From the World Zohar Week “World Zohar Convention,” Day One 2/5/14, Lesson 1

A Path Of A Woman

Question: What if I advance faster than my wife?

Answer: That’s the wrong attitude. Advancements of men and women are different in nature and style, and the comparison is inappropriate here. What a woman makes in the creation is not the same as a man.

Sometimes men and women can find a common language, but as a rule, they are unable to do so. Start reading any article or listening to a lesson and you will see that she thinks differently from you, as if addressing the subject matter from a different perspective. Eventually, women come to the same details of perception, but the path and the analysis of men and women are very different.

Men and women can discuss common questions, but when it comes to details, you need to take their current level into consideration.

Question: I see that our impressions complement each other from different sides. But at the same time, my wife has to spend a lot of time and effort with our child.

Answer: This is the women’s correction. Women care for their children and sometimes it looks like it is done at the expense of their self-correction. However, this is exactly how women advance, and a woman’s duty is to be a mother.

Some wonder, maybe I shouldn’t have children and should completely devote myself to studying, dissemination, and correction? No. Women should correct their souls by taking care of their children, by being together with them, and in the measure of time and desire remaining after this.

If a woman has the opportunity to marry and have children, she must do so. Women should take care of children even though it would seem that without children they could have done much more and advance much farther on their spiritual path. She could, but this is not a woman’s path of correction.

Question: Should women with children compare themselves with those women without children who have more time to study and disseminate?

Answer: No. If a woman with children participates in the study or any other activities to the extent she can, it produces correction many times greater than that of a woman who “refrains” from having children because she wants to be involved in Kabbalah. This kind of “abstinence” doesn’t help.

We just don’t realize that this world is built according to spirituality. If we bring sparks of spirituality into this life, we come closer to correction. One cannot rise to the next spiritual level if one has not laid a basis for it in this world. That’s why we have to marry, have children, and move on from there.

It would seem great if all of my students were disconnected from the cares of this world and were devoted to the spiritual. Imagine: everybody studies and disseminates. But instead they marry and women are almost immediately cut off from the process and men are obliged to support their families and resolve endless problems together with their spouses.

This is exactly what correction is. We cannot hide from this fact. Later, you will understand that this is the optimal way to do our job in the best possible way.

Conversely, those who avoid marriage reject the chance for correction. This applies to both men and women. So, if there is a possibility, you should start a family and carry the burden.

Anyway, a family is preferred over anything else because it is a basic part of the world’s correction. It is no coincidence that today the world is faced with the collapse of the family structure; this situation precedes the basic correction.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

What Is A “Question” in Spirituality?

A question in spirituality is a desire (Hisaron, need) that triggers the Upper Light. The Light descends and fills that desire. This is called a real question or prayer.

However, until such a real question is formed, one goes through an array of preliminary questions that are called “a prayer before a prayer.” In other words, before one really reaches the prayer, request, one undergoes numerous small, private, inaccurate questions until a correct question finally emerges.

In general, all questions boil down to one thing: “What is the meaning of life? Is it worth living? If yes, for what?” This is the only question that really exists. A man asks billions of different variations, and accordingly only gets a partial response. But at the end of correction, all will transform into one huge question that will be answered by one gigantic response—complete adhesion (Zivug a Shalem).

Question: What kinds of questions should we bring to you and which ones have to be clarified in the group?

Answer: It’s better if you come to me with a collective question. If you have a question that involves the entire group, please refer it to me.

Comment: So far, when I find answers to my questions in the group, I feel that they are correct.

Answer: Indeed “so far.” It is this way for every level, for me and for all. Answers that were right at this degree become incorrect when we reach a new level because the Keterof the lower Partzuf appeals to Malchut of the Upper.
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From a Lesson in Russian 2/10/14

Touching Bestowal

Question: What does a person feel when the attribute of bestowal is clothed in him instead of the attribute of reception? Does he go out to the streets filled with love for those who pass by, as if he enjoys the view of mountains and lakes while driving? Is it a permanent feeling, or does it pass immediately just like the pleasure I feel from the beautiful view?

Answer: The filling you get from bestowal passes and then comes back again as the states constantly change. Why do you think that this state, this feeling should remain? The pleasure you feel from the beauty of nature is much longer than the spiritual feeling. Every spiritual state ends the moment you feel it. This means that you have already touched it. You don’t need to feel it more than a moment in order to respond, and that’s it.

If I receive a chance to relate to others with greater concern than for myself, it doesn’t mean that I have to hug and kiss them. I can even shout at a person if he doesn’t work correctly; it makes no difference. The inner attitude belongs only to the connection of our souls. It is like your attitude towards your own child, who you love inside, while on the outside you do whatever it takes in order to educate him, until the internality and the externality become one.

Love always lifts a person above others since it prepares him for bestowal, and bestowal is only possible from the big to the small. It is a feeling of belonging, but not an egoistic feeling like with regard to your own child. It is impossible to describe. It is said: “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” There is nothing we can compare this feeling to in the corporeal world.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/14, Questions and Answers with Dr. Laitman

Mission Possible

Question: How can I help the group to become a raspberry ball?

Answer: You need to be concerned about this as a person upon whom everything depends. And this is indeed the case. Our problem is that we think: “I am one among many thousands!” This is not true, each one is unique! These are not just words but the property of the integral system.

Therefore we cannot force a person to remain in the group and also cannot expel him from it. Each one chooses this through his actions, through his relationship to the group, for he becomes a foundation for human advancement.

Everyone must have a feeling of responsibility, a feeling of personal destiny; not only does the fate of the world depend on me, but that of the whole creation, of all advancement towards the Creator. And this is truly so. When we attain spirituality, we begin to understand that everyone except for me is in a completely corrected state, and I am the only one who wasn’t corrected, and everything acts in such a manner as to show me this in their reflection.

What we see in the world is our reflection: Someone kills someone, someone steals, abuses someone, this is all our ego that is demonstrating itself to us. How can I be relaxed and remove myself from this state?

To feel responsibility for the whole world, this is our obligation. Each one of us, this is the universe! Today the physicists already speak about multiple universes, and this is truly so: Many universes are included one within the other.

Therefore feeling our task is something very important for we are the main participants in creation. On the other hand, we must not panic. Our work is realized correctly only through the group, and nobody is exempt from this. It’s interesting that even those that we attract among the masses will feel this activity as their great mission.
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From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day Three 2/4/14, Workshop 5

We Need Everyone

Question: I feel that everyone is already united and connected; whereas, I have not succeeded in attaining this in any way. How is it possible from that emptiness that I can ask for the friends and what exactly do I need to request?

Answer: Without your active participation we don’t attain anything. You need to ask in all kinds of words, to be included together with us in the collective system. And we need to show that without you we don’t attain that harmony that is imperative for us to discover the Creator. If the Creator chooses a particular amount of people to participate in the collective vessel within which He wants to be discovered, then we need to do this.

The spiritual system is built according to the principle of mutual acceptance and balance flowing to the end of correction. There are all kinds of components in it that complete the system. But in spite of it all, if the person is linked to us in some form, then we must show him that without active participation on his part we cannot attain anything, we need him.
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From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day Three 2/4/14, Workshop 5

How Can We Awaken The Creator?

Question: How can the lower hasten his own development and compel the upper to constantly operate on him?

Answer: On one hand, everything that happens to the lower comes from the upper, as it says “I am the first and I am the last.” If He is the first and He is the last, then what do I have to do? How can I bestow upon Him?

The only way to bestow upon the upper is through the group and not by oneself. I cannot do it by myself. The group is my upper and if I awaken the friends, I also awaken the Creator this way. This is our only work. If I want to hasten my advancement, my development, and improve my state, I can only do it through the group.

As long as I am by myself, there is no way I can bestow upon the Creator. When I am by myself I remain passive in my relationship with the Creator, just like the still, vegetative, and animate parts of nature. If I try to connect to the Creator by myself and study the wisdom of Kabbalah in order to do so, I still remain on the level of the still, vegetative, and animate.

If I want to awaken the Creator and force Him to take care of me, I have to do it through the group because the vessel of bestowal upon the Creator is in the connection between people. The same thing happens in the transition from one level to another. On the next level, I will have to attain a connection with everyone “squared” compared to the previous level. On additional levels the connection grows in the third degree, fourth degree, etc.

This means that each time I have to awaken the Creator by my own power, which is more tightly connected to the group. If I don’t increase it each time, I remain by myself, and then I am completely operated by the Creator, by different illuminations, which is the level of the still, vegetative, and animate, just as He operates all of nature and the people in this world.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/14, Talmud Eser Sefirot

Internal Disagreement With The Teacher Leads To External Distance

Question: Through service to his Rav (teacher), a student is linked to his Rav, to the Elyon (upper), and receives from him. What happens if there is a situation where the student does something against the desire of his Rav for whatever reason? How does this influence the link between them and the advancement of the student?

Answer: This indicates total detachment. If it is clear to a student that he is acting against the desire of his Rav, then how can he behave like this? The main spiritual law is the law of equivalence of form. Therefore, for the needs of Dvekut (adhesion), it is at least necessary not to oppose, but to be in some kind of agreement. Even if you are not ready to carry something out, you cannot act in opposition.

If the student acts in opposition to the desire of his Rav, then he has no chance of receiving something from him. We also need to understand that spiritual equivalence or lack of equivalence is much more intense than physical equivalence, and therefore it influences the physical world. In other words, it will lead to a great distance of the student from the Rav. He has no chance of remaining near him.

Certainly, for a student, there is the possibility of approach and correction, for the Rav sees him as a little child who is capable of doing something foolish. The Rav can be angry at the student as at a child, but in spite of all this, he thinks of him as his son, and so he forgives him. However, he cannot agree and allow the child to act against his spiritual development.

In the physical world, sometimes we have no choice but to look with forgiveness at the mischief of children. However, in spirituality, it is impossible to tolerate this. This is because behavior like this leads to a lack of equivalence of form that is the main law of reality.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson: “Teacher”