Preface to the Book of Zohar - Lessons 04.01.05 - 20.01.05

"The profoundness of the wisdom in the holy Book of Zohar is enclosed and caged behind a thousand locks, and our human tongue is too poor to provide us with sufficient, reliable expressions to interpret one thing in this book to its end. Also, the interpretation that I have made is but a ladder to help the examiner rise to the height of the matters, examine, and scrutinize the words of the book itself. Hence, I have found it necessary to prepare the reader, to give him a way and an inlet in reliable definitions, concerning how one should contemplate and study the book"...

We’ve talked about the limitations that a researcher in the book of Zohar must undertake in order to narrow his field of vision to match what the Zohar introduces to us. Otherwise, if the Kelim (lit. vessels or tools of perception) of the receiver do not match what comes from the Book of Zohar, he or she will be so confused, that he will not be able to advance any further in the wisdom...

Throughout this preface, Baal HaSulam depicts the boundaries that if we do not comply with, we will not see or understand what is written in the book of Zohar. This is because through these boundaries we design our Kelim in such a way that they can receive impressions of the Upper Light. This problem arises because we are under concealment. We don't know how to "calibrate" our tools of perception, how to correct them, and precisely what it is we have to aim them to...

We are continuing with the Preface to the Book of Zohar, item 17. We have learned in the first boundary that when we examine reality, we examine only what we perceive in our Kelim with certainty. Those are Matter and Form clothed in Matter. The book of Zohar does not speak of the two forms, the Abstract Form, which we do not perceive with certainty, and of the Essence, which we do not perceive at all. There is not a single word about them in the Zohar...

We have discussed the boundaries that the creature must assume in order to aim itself and to calibrate its tools of perception to perceive the spiritual reality. In corporeality, we are born with ready - made Kelim and by Reshimot, tutoring, and learning, we come to a state where we develop these Kelim and thus perceive reality as others do. In spirituality, however, we do not have the measurement, the scale, or the standards by which we can aim ourselves to build the inner Kelim...

We have said that we follow certain boundaries, and past the boundaries we reach “He is One and His Name One.” But we obtain that by slowly and gradually climbing on the degrees of the worlds, by which our attainment become elucidated in the form of colors, or other discernments. 23. “To understand that you must remember what is explained in item seventeen. It explains that a necessary object is an essence (the innermost thing) that we have no perception of, even in the corporeal essences; even in our own essence.”

“Now you can see that all these changes, described in the world Atzilut, do not pertain to The Godliness in and of itself, but only to the souls, to the extent that they receive from Atzilut through the three worlds BYA.” We have the line of Ein Sof that enters the world Atzilut. The three worlds Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya, clothe the world Atzilut, the Neshamot (lit. souls) clothe these three worlds...

The Zohar describes the Kelim HB (Hochma, Bina) TM (Tifferet, Malchut) in Atzilut as growing or lessening by people’s actions. Also, we find (Zohar, Ba, p.3), “Will give anger and strength to the Creator,” meaning in Godliness itself. This is not to be taken literally, as there cannot be any changes in Godliness whatsoever, as it is written, “I the Lord change not.” Yet, the Thought of Creation was to delight His creatures, from which we learn that He (the Creator) has a desire to bestow.