Why The Book of Zohar Is So Important for Your Spirituality

Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai (Rashbi) was the author of The Book of Zohar, which was written in the second century CE. It is the most important work of Kabbalah and considered to be its primary and most fundamental textbook. Rashbi lived between the Talmudic period and that of The Zohar and is regarded as a great researcher of both human nature and the upper world. He is also among the most important sages of the Talmud (his name is mentioned there some four thousand times). He was proficient in the languages of both the Talmud and Kabbalah, and he used both of them to describe the upper system of management, how the events of the present and the future are made to happen there—all the innovations and transformations—and how they come down from there to our world and manifest themselves in the clothing of this world.

The Zohar explains which actions influence the rest of the world from here below. Rashbi was the first Kabbalist to describe the reactions that we get from above for our thoughts. He described how they operate in the upper world and thus affect the unfolding of future events that are to descend to us. The Zohar is crucial to us because it encircles all the possible circumstances throughout human history.

The Unique Circumstances Behind the Writing of The Zohar

Before Rashbi began to write The Zohar, he established around him a group of disciples, where the soul of each disciple corresponded to a certain spiritual degree in the upper world. There were nine students, and he was the tenth. Together they formed one collective soul, corresponding to the complete structure in the spiritual world called the Eser (ten) Sefirot.

Thus, although Rashbi is the author of the book, each and every one of the students represents one of the attributes of the spiritual world he describes. He built a sort of prism, through which the simple upper light descends to our world and divides into ten parts, which are then divided into ten inner Sefirot. Their story is in fact a description of how those ten spiritual properties or forces come upon our world and lead it and how each person can use these forces for his or her own benefit and for others.

Why The Zohar Is Often Misunderstood

Rashbi said he could not have written the book by himself. He was supposed to write the book for the last generations and, in the meantime, conceal it so that it would only be revealed in the 16th century. To write this book in such a way that the intermediary generations would pass it by, he used his disciple Rabbi Abba. Rabbi Abba began writing the book while hearing and studying it from his teacher, but he wrote it in such a way that those who read it perceive only the outermost layer of the book.

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What Secrets Lie in the Torah?

People search for all kinds of codes in the Torah and find all the possible interconnections among its parts. Indeed, the parts of the Torah are interconnected in an infinite number of ways— the number of the letters, the words, the verses, and the phrases have been calculated. Recently, a fantastic work of calculation analyzed the inner structure of the letters and parts of letters. But those calculations give us nothing. They don’t teach us what stands behind each symbol or dot, or the shape of the letters and their combinations.

What the Dots and Lines in the Torah Mean

The Torah was first written as a single word with no spaces. Only later was that single word divided into individual words and the words into letters, and those letters were further broken down to their parts. In the end, these parts become a point and a line that extends from it. A black point on a white background symbolizes the source of the light: the light emanates from the single point. If the light descends from the upper force, from the Creator to the creature, it is a vertical line; if the force is ascribed to the entire creation, it is a horizontal line.

This is all the information that we get from the Creator. All the possible combinations between dots and lines depend on those two signs sent to us from the Creator:

• The vertical line—a personal sign sent to humankind by the Creator
• The horizontal line—a general sign sent to humankind by the Creator
• All the situations in between

All the signs combined created the code for the relationship between God and humankind, and at any moment things can appear different because at any moment the soul is in a dif- ferent state.

Why The Book of Zohar Is the Key that Unlocks the Torah

A person who looks at the letters of the Torah, provided he or she has learned to read it correctly, can see his or her own past, present, and future through the combinations of dots and lines. But to see these things, one needs a key. With it, one can read the Torah like a tour guide to the spiritual world as opposed to simply a historic episode. This key is found in The Zohar, which interprets the Pentateuch and explains exactly what Moses meant by writing the Torah.

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Adam Wasn’t the First Man, but He Was the First Man to Discover Spirituality

The history of Kabbalah corresponds to the history of humankind. It begins at the same time Adam appeared on earth, who (as tradition has it) was the first man. With Adam begins the spiritual evolution of humankind. Adam was the recipient of the first Kabbalah book: The Angel Raziel (Hamalaach Raziel).

A person who lives in this world feels the nature of the world within him or her, as well as the nature of the world around. People who feel both worlds simultaneously are called Kabbalists. The first man sensed those two worlds and described them in his book. That book is now available to us, containing interesting drawings with explanations and diagrams that the first man wrote by himself.

When one opens the book, it is evident that the author is not an uncivilized, uneducated mammoth hunter. He was a Kabbalist of a very high degree. He discovered the fundamental secrets of creation. He studied the upper world, the world where our souls roam before we are born and descend to this world and where they return after our physical death.

Did You Know that Adam Wrote a Book about the Spiritual Journey We all Must Take?

The first man, who was also the first soul that came down to our world, tells us about the evolution and descent of the rest of the souls. He does not tell us about the bodies that would be born in our world, but about those souls that come out of his own, the souls of his children, grandchildren, and great-grand- children. He tells us about the entire humanity that would stem from him, what will happen to it, and when it will rise once more to the root from which it came.

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What Moses Really Did

Moses was known for being different than other Kabbalists in that alongside the revelation that he obtained, he was ordered to make it known to the whole of humankind. That did not happen with previous Kabbalists. Since then, all Kabbalists form study groups.

Moses had seventy disciples, and Yehoshua Ben Nun (Joshua, the son of Nun) was the one who ultimately inherited both his wisdom and leadership. Moses did more than research the upper world. He dealt with the practical realization of his spiritual attainment in our world, such as the exodus from Egypt. With the wisdom he acquired and the upper forces he received from above, he was able to bring the people of Israel out of exile.

Moses’s task was to deliver the people of Israel out of Egypt and write a book with which any man could “conquer” the upper world and leave Egypt in the spirit—stop worshiping idols, objects, the sun, and other false gods. He wanted to enable people to obtain entry into the spiritual land of Israel, called the world of Atzilut—a world of eternity and wholeness. It is a situation that one attains inwardly, beyond the boundaries of time and space.

Why the Torah Isn’t What You Thought It Was

The method Moses introduced in his book is called Torah, from the word ohr (light). It contains instructions on how to use the light to enter the spiritual world, how to live for an eternal goal instead of the transient life we live in this world. With this book, a person can uncover the entire picture of creation, though he or she may experience just a tiny fraction of it. He or she can calculate correctly and attain the desired outcome, build his or her life toward the final goal, the one Moses wanted to attain. That is what a person who studies the method that Moses developed gradually achieves.

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Can Kabbalah Give Me Spirituality?

Because of our ability to absorb various pictures and impressions of the world around us, we can describe what we feel in this lifetime and create books from our experiences. But Kabbalah books describe what a person who experiences both the physical world and the upper, spiritual world at the same time feels, something that others do not perceive.

Such is the uniqueness of the books of Kabbalah. They describe things an ordinary person cannot feel, though they are attainable. A Kabbalist is not just a person who feels the upper world, but someone who can describe emotions in a clear language so that anyone can understand them. Thus, by studying these books, we will be able to nurture the missing senses inside us, the ones with which we will be able to feel the upper world to the point where we can see our past and future lives. After all, “there is no time in spirituality.” Through Kabbalah, we can all attain the sensation of the eternal upper world and live willingly in both worlds at once.

Why are the Books of Kabbalah Special?

There is a special force in books of Kabbalah: any person who studies them under the right guidance can attain the spiritual degree of the author. That is why it is crucial that we know which books to study. There are many books of Kabbalah, written in various styles and forms and written by Kabbalists at various degrees of attainment. We now know which of the books are the ones that help us enter the spiritual world and which of them direct us like a guidebook intended for a person lost in a foreign country.

Get Rid of Your Past Conception of What Spirituality Is

There are several ways to describe the spiritual worlds. The spiritual world and our own world are parallel. Everything in the spiritual world comes down to ours. All the events originate in the upper world. They descend from it to ours and clothe the suitable objects of this world very accurately.

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