The Process of Changing Our Properties to Be Like Those of the Spiritual Reality

The Book of Zohar is the most important writing in the Wisdom of Kabbalah. With its help one can gradually achieve self-correction, leading to equivalence of form with the Creator.

Let us now approach an excerpt from The Book of Zohar. The excerpt is taken from the portion Lech Lecha [go Forth], and talks about the middle line, the MAN of the righteous. MAN is one’s intention to develop into being similar to the Creator, and righteous are those who wish to be right. They wish to say that the Creator was right to create them, to justify Him, and justification is possible only by truly seeing and sensing what is happening in reality, out of the highest degree to which a person rises. This is what we wish to achieve through The Zohar.

He even plays with the souls in this world, since at midnight, all those true righteous awaken to read in the Torah and to sound the praises of the Torah. And the Creator and all those righteous in the Garden of Eden listen to their voices. And a thread of grace stretches over them during the day, meaning that by the MAN that they raise through the Torah and the praises, the middle line—the light of Hassadim [mercy]—extends to the Nukva [Aramaic: female]. And since they caused that light, they are rewarded with the same amount they have induced in the Nukva. This is the meaning of, “By day the Lord will command His mercy, and in the night His song shall be with me,” for because of the singing at night, one is rewarded with His mercy during the day.

– Zohar for All, Lech Lecha [Go Forth], Item 132

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Today Humanity Is Entering a New Phase of Development

 When we equalize in every conduct with our root, we sense delight.

– Baal HaSulam, “The Giving of the Torah”

We are standing at a crucial point in history. Tens of thousands of years of human development, and billions of years of evolution have all occurred only to bring us to these moments of transformation, to the birth of the new humanity.

Where Is Evolution Leading Us?

If we examine Nature, we will see that it is constantly evolving. First, the inanimate evolved, then the vegetative, and finally the animate. Each such evolution is based on the evolution of the desire in the creature.

The desire that wishes only to sustain itself without change takes the form of inanimate. When the desire wishes to evolve, to move toward what is good for it and away from what harms it, the vegetative form appears. An even greater desire, which approaches the benefiting and turns away from the harmful by its own movement, takes on the animate form. All the forms we see before us in reality are only external envelopes that express the evolution of the only force that was created, “the will to receive delight and pleasure” or in short, “the will to receive.”

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When humankind achieves its goal … bringing them to the degree of complete love of others, all the bodies in the world will unite into a single body and a single heart. Only then will all the happiness intended for humanity become revealed in all its glory.

 

– Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”

The Kabbalist Rabash Wrote Manuals for How to Form and Operate In a Group Seeking Spirituality

In our generation, the whole of humanity must become a single, large group, and correct itself. For this reason, Rav Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag (the Rabash), the firstborn son and successor of Baal HaSulam, wrote dozens of articles on the work in the group. He bequeathed to the world a detailed method for bonding, with instructions related to each of the states that arise in the relationship within the group. By his writings, we study and evolve in the spiritual.

Since man is created with a Kli [vessel] called “self-love” … and without annulling self-love, it is impossible to achieve … equivalence of form. And since it is against our nature, we need a society that will form a great force so we can work together on annulling the will to receive.

– Rabash, Rabash—the Social Writings, “Purpose of Society” 

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To Reveal Spirituality a Person Needs to Be in a Group Devoted to Spirituality

One of the necessary means for spiritual development is the group. To be prepared for spiritual development, the Creator evokes two sensations within us. The first is one of emptiness with regard to this world, and the second is a longing to attain the source of life. This is the awakening of the “point in the heart.”

The point in the heart connects us to the place where we can feed and nourish it—the group. Indeed, you can see that those whose point in the heart has awakened are naturally drawn toward one another. This always happens in human society: birds of a feather flock together.

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Why the World Outside Us Is Actually a Part of Us

As we said above, at present we are perceiving a divided reality, sensing a part that belongs to me, and seemingly a part that belongs to others, or that is outside of my personal sphere.

Kabbalah teaches that the force that divides our picture of reality into two parts—internal and external—is the force of the shattering. After the shattering, part of our desires (our outer Kelim, “clothing” and “palace”) were no longer sensed as our own. It is like a person who received an anesthetic to the leg, and while his leg was being amputated, he laughed and talked, behaving as though nothing was happening to him because he felt nothing.

In these parts of the will, “clothing” and “hall,” we actually feel all that is not us, meaning the outside world. Around us are people, processes unfolding, and the entire world when in fact, they are all parts of our own desire.

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