Today the Book of Zohar Can Be Interpreted Correctly

The Kabbalistic writings use the “language of branches”, describing spiritual matters using notions, objects from our world. Thus without the right interpretation the unprepared reader has no chance of entering the true meaning of the texts, to receive the necessary inner changes in order to attain the mind, the thoughts of the author.

And the books of Kabbalah and The Zohar are filled with corporeal parables. Therefore, people are afraid lest they will lose more than they will gain … And this is what prompted me to compose a sufficient interpretation to the writings of the Ari, and now to the Holy Zohar. And I have completely removed that concern, for I have evidently explained and proven the spiritual meaning of everything, that it is abstract and devoid of any corporeal image, above space and above time, as the readers will see, to allow the whole of Israel to study The Book of Zohar and be warmed by its sacred Light.

 

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 58

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The Story Behind the Writing of the Book of Zohar

The story of The Book of Zohar begins some 1,800 years ago in a tiny, dimly lit cave in Peki’in, in the Western Galilee, Israel, where Rashbi and his son, Rabbi Elazar, hid from the Roman emperor. For thirteen years they prepared themselves for the writing of the book that would change the face of history.

The years passed and Rabbi Shimon and his son completed the correction that they had to complete and came out of the cave. Eight other Kabbalists joined Rabbi Shimon and his son and together they studied and wrote The Book of Zohar.

Among Rashbi’s students was Rabbi Aba, a Kabbalist with a special gift. He was the only one who knew how to write the words of his teacher in such a way that they would be both revealed and concealed. The Book of Zohar refers to that gift as “Disclosing in secret.”

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Bringing a New Meaning to “Life-Changer”

There is no such thing in existence as a rigidly defined reality, because all of reality depends on us. This is the first lesson we have to learn. The picture you perceive, see and live in is simply a movie that is being played to you, but you cannot get up and leave.

You are used to it; you’ve lived in it since you were born and you sense it as your life, as if it’s real.

However, one day you find that you have become terribly bored with this movie because your desires have evolved or the suffering that is being shown to you has become unbearable and you crave to rise above it and see something else, some other movie. You long to change the movie.

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The Last Spiritual Exile

In all of Israel’s exiles, He set a time and an end to all of them. And in all of them, Israel return to the Creator, and the virgin of Israel, Malchut, returns to her place at the set time. But now, in the last exile, it is not so. She will not return as in the other exiles. This verse teaches, “She has fallen; she will not rise again—the virgin of Israel,” and it does not say, “She has fallen and I will not raise her again.”

It is like a king who was angry with the queen and expelled her from her palace for a certain period of time. When that time was through, the queen would immediately come and return before the king. This was so once, twice, and thrice. But on the last time, she became remote from the king’s palace and the king expelled her from his palace for a long time. The king said, “This time is not as like the other times, when she came before me. Instead, I and all my household will go and seek her.”

When he reached her, he saw that she was lying in the dust. Who saw the glory of the queen at that time, and the king’s requests of her? Finally, the king held her in his arms, raised her, and brought her to his palace. And he swore to her that he would never part from her again and will never be far from her.

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The Jewish Nation Is Unlike Any Other, United by the Idea of “Love Thy Friends as Thyself”

Now the days are near when all will know and recognize that the salvation of Israel and the salvation of the entire world depend only on the appearance of the wisdom of the hidden Light of the internality of the secrets of Torah in a clear language.

 

Rav Raiah Kook, Letters 1, Item 92

It is important to remember that the Jewish nation was not formed on a racial or a national basis. Jews today are incarnations of the same souls that gathered around Abraham in ancient Babylon to realize the spiritual idea of “Love thy friend as thyself,” which leads to the discovery of the Creator.

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