READING: BETWEEN AFTER MIDNIGHT AND DAWN MONDAY

Perception of Reality – Selected Excerpts from Zohar for All

Perception of Reality – Selected Excerpts from Zohar for All

1. Zohar for All, VaYetze [And Jacob Went Out], “Upper Righteous and Lower Righteous”, Item 139

The Zohar speaks nothing of corporeal incidents, but of the upper worlds, where there is no sequence of times as it is in corporeality. Spiritual time is elucidated by change of forms and degrees that are above time and place.

2. Zohar for All, Nasso, “The Holy Idra Rabah,” Item 299

Everything is Godliness, above time, place, and change. All those degrees and corrections we discern in Godliness are only various concealments and covers toward the lower ones, since the ten Sefirot are ten kinds of covers of His Atzmut [self]. Likewise, all the imaginary images of time and place and actions are but various covers of His Godliness that seem that way to the lower ones.

As man is not affected or changes at all because of the covers that he covers in, and only his friends are affected by his disappearance or appearance, so His Godliness does not change and is not affected whatsoever by those degrees and corrections and names in time, place, and changes of actions that the lower ones discern in His covers. Rather, we must know that those covers also serve as disclosures.

Moreover, to the extent of the cover that there is in each name and correction, so is the extent of disclosure of the Creator that is in it. One who is rewarded with receiving the measure of the covers properly is then rewarded with the covers becoming for him measures of disclosure. One who learns must remember these things during the learning so he will not fail in his thought.

3. Zohar for All, Lech Lecha [Go Forth], “For Who Is God, Save the Lord? And Who Is a Rock, Save Our God?”, Item 330

How great are the deeds of the Creator? The art and painting of a man are like the artisanship and the depiction of the world. In other words, man comprises the entire deed of the world, and he is called “a small world.”

4. Zohar for All, Beresheet [Genesis], “The Two Great Lights”, Item 121

Man is called “a small world” because all the details of the world are included in him. It follows that the relation of all the particular specimens of a species in relation to man’s soul are as the relation of individuals toward their whole.

5. Zohar for All, Pekudei [Accounts], “These Are the Accounts of the Tabernacle”, Item 17

“Which is being shown to you.” “You” is the mirror that does not shine, Malchut, which showed him within her all those forms. And Moses saw each of them in its corrected form, as one who sees within a crystal lamp, within a mirror that shows all the forms. And when Moses looked into them, he found them perplexing, since there, in Malchut, everything stood in its spiritual form, but each form equalized its form to the imaginary form in this world, in the Tabernacle.

It follows that two forms were apparent in everything: the spiritual one and the imaginary one. This is why Moses was bewildered; he did not know which of them to grasp. The Creator told him, “You with your signs, and I with Mine,” that Moses would perceive the imaginary signs in everything, and the Creator perceives the spiritual signs of everything, and then the spiritual form is placed over the imaginary form. Then Moses was reconciled in all the work of the Tabernacle.

6. Zohar for All, Toldot [Generations], “These Are the Generations of Isaac”, Item 3

Anyone who engages in Torah sustains the world and sustains each and every operation in the world in its proper way. Also, there is not an organ in a man’s body that does not have a corresponding creation in the world.

This is so because as man’s body divides into organs and they all stand degree over degree, established one atop the other and are all one body, similarly, the world, meaning all creations in the world are many organs standing one atop the other, and they are all one body. And when they are all corrected they will actually be one body. And everything, man and the world will be like the Torah because the whole of Torah is organs and joints standing one atop the other. And when the world is corrected they will become one body.