(from a lecture I gave recently)

Those who have been around the Centre for a while know about Rav Ashlag and the Gift of the Bible. The essence of what the Centre is about is from this book and from the teaching of Rav Ashlag. Every time you read it, you connect to it at a deeper level.

I was reading this for about the 50th time. I would like to read this and share it with you.

Rav Ashlag was the first person to translate the Zohar from Aramaic into any language, and it happened to be Hebrew. When it was done, he went to Meron, where Rabbi Shimon is buried, to make the connection.

He told his students to sing a melody without words. He was feeling the joy of the merit to reveal this Zohar to the world. This was a few years before he passed away. At that gathering he gave a speech.

I would like to share one part of this speech.

One of the great Kabbalists, Rabbi Moses Chaim Luzzato, said I’m not going to tell you anything you don’t know. But because we know them so well and hear them so often, we forget what they mean.

In all Rav Ashlag’s books, it all boils down to one point, an idea to keep developing and connect to. The word he uses is dvchut, which doesn’t translate very well to English. It’s bonding, becoming one with the Creator. Rav Ashlag makes it clear that everything else we do is for the one singular purpose of bringing us to a complete connection with the Creator.

He writes there are different levels of wisdom. The Zohar speaks of the different places of study in the supernal worlds. There is wisdom of Mashiach, the wisdom of the world that is perfect.

This hit me for the first time. This concept of dvchut is the wisdom of the Messiah. To the degree we connect to this and make it the focus of our life, we are connected to the wisdom of the perfection.

Within the Centre, people come at all different levels and go on to all different levels. What is most exciting to me is when people get this concept. Everyone comes from their own place, but it has to lead to this singular concept.

We are always trying to make the Centre better, make our work right. I shared with the Chevre that all the books, all the classes, have to bring us to this one singular point — to understand that everything we do is for the singular purpose of bonding with the Light of the Creator.

The purpose for which we came to this world, and the purpose for which the world was created, can only be achieved is this is the singular point we are working toward.

Rav Ashlag writes it is very difficult because it is about transforming ourselves from the Desire to Receive for the Self-Alone to the Desire to Share.

He says, What does it look like when we have completely transformed our essence to the desire to share, to a complete union with the Creator?

He says when we have completely transformed our Desire to Receive for the Self-Alone to the Desire to Share, we completely comprehend and connect to the mind and the thoughts of the Creator.

As we were in the beginning, we completely bond; our actions and our thoughts are all of the Creator.

One of the things that excites me in all the work and all the teachings, is that everyone is getting this singular point. This is the most exciting thing about Kabbalah. It offers the wisdom to go back to the Creator where everything is perfect.

We think about the Zohar, and in Noach it says if one congregation is in unity, it can bring the final correction. That is when this is the focus of that unity.

Everyone comes with different desires. One of the things I would like to ask, and we talk with the teachers about this, is you wonder how soon you can talk to people about the essence.

It says that when Moses and the Israelites were in the desert, they came to him and complained as they often did and said give us water. God told Moses go to this stone, exactly which stone, and talk to it to bring water.

Moses thinks to himself, God told me to talk to this stone and water will come out. Then some of the Israelites said to Moses we know you very well. We know sometimes you try to trick us. We know you chose this rock. How about you choose a different rock? Then we will believe you are really telling us the word of God. Moses had a difficult decision to make right then. He could have done what God told him, but he didn’t. He went to a different rock and hit it, and water came out. Because of that one action Moses did not merit to go to the Land of Israel.

He was trying to give the people what they wanted. He thought they would all doubt him, so he made the miracle in the second rock because that’s what the people wanted.

What’s the point? As we teach and as we talk, yes it’s important to talk to people where they are at, but it’s also important to show them beyond, beyond what’s comfortable to what people may not want to hear.

One of the unique properties of the Rav, to the point it made some of us uncomfortable, was that he never cared what people thought, if they would be comfortable hearing it.

We have to keep this in mind. This is what Rav Ashlag speaks about. This is the wisdom of Mashiach that connects us to the world of perfection. It’s not just about doing the work to purify us and connect us, but to think about the world of dvchut to draw the Light of perfection into this world.

In the next part where Rav Ashlag speaks about the power of the Zohar, and we have to keep awakening this within us, this is what Rav Ashlag was saying in Meron.

He says the perfect connection to the Creator, the perfect union, has 125 different levels. And therefore, before the time of perfection, the time we all work to achieve, it is impossible to completely bond with the Creator. Now, in our generation, the ability is there. In all the other generations, the people who merited to truly bond with the Creator were very few. As it says, one out of 1000. But in our generation, the generation that will achieve perfection, every single person can merit that union and that understanding, that comprehension.

As it says about our generation, the whole world can achieve this knowledge, this wisdom, this understanding.

And he says about the power of the Zohar, that the only group prior to our generation that merited a connection completely to the 125 levels — the complete union of mind, body and soul to the Creator — was the generation of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.

That why it says in the Zohar, in many places, that after that generation of Rabbi Shimon there will not be another generation like that where everyone can achieve complete union as this generation we are living in now.

That’s why the Zohar created such a stir in the supernal worlds. This is what the Zohar is about, the Zohar is that perfection. The focus of our work needs to be dvchut, that is the essence of the Zohar.

This is why consciousness is so important. When we connect to the Zohar, we are connecting to that perfection, to the perfection Rabbi Shimon and his generation left there for us.

That’s why this wisdom and the Zohar are so intertwined. We cannot achieve it ourselves. We were given this amazing gift, this gift where all of those levels of perfection and union have been set forth for us. You can open the Zohar and connect but not really connect. This needs to be our consciousness now. As we connect to this wisdom, we want to open ourselves up to that perfection we can achieve that is already there within the Zohar.

What I hope we can awaken for all of us now is that we do not forget. It’s easy to get involved and forget the singular goal of perfection, that everything we say, think, and do is of the Light.

Every person in this generation can achieve it. We can utilize the power of the Zohar. It connects us to the essence of the perfection of completion.

The 7 weeks between Pesach and Shavuot are the weeks of the work.

Rav Ashlag says there will be no more wars and complete peace. It is talking about when the whole world becomes aware of this concept that we can achieve this perfection.

I hope for myself, and for all of us, that we remain focused on this singular idea and the power of the Zohar, and that we share this idea, that the whole world becomes knowledgeable, understanding this wisdom. That is the time when perfection, when the removal of all pain, suffering, and even death can be achieved.

Shabbat Shalom.