When we connect to the Zohar, it’s not simply to gain understanding, but the words also awaken the connection to the Tree of Life. There is no other day of the year when it’s as important as today on Rosh Hashanah. We want on this day to plant the seed so that all of our present year is connected to Etz Chaim.

I want to read a section in Emor. Regardless of the understanding we get, we also make the connection, which is the purpose of us reading about it.

The Zohar says the day of Rosh Hashanah is a day of judgment, when the Creator, the king, sits on the throne of judgment. And the negative side comes and blocks the door to the king and asks for judgment.

When the negative side came to bring judgment, the Creator gave us the secret of blowing the Shofar, to awaken mercy from below to above through the blowing of the Shofar.

The voice that emanates from the Shofar brings together all three columns, Right column, Left Column, and Central Column (fire, water, and air) in a singular voice. The supernal voice, meaning Binah, the ultimate level of perfection of life, is awakened.

When that voice is awakened from the supernal world by the Shofar from the lower world, then all the negativity that the negative angel tried to awaken becomes confused and is sent away.

That is why we read the reading today. The Zohar and the Rav, in his lecture for Cheshvan, make very clear that you cannot possibly look at the reading of the Torah in its regular form. Today’s reading is speaking about Abraham and Isaac, the binding of Isaac. We know we are not reading it to remind ourselves of historical facts. The Zohar makes clear here the process Abraham and Isaac were going through in the binding was a preparation for us, for the world. Through their consciousness, their work, their ability to give up the Desire to Receive for the Self-Alone completely, they made it possible for us to do our work.

Every time in our life we have the ability to hurt, and we do not, to be reactive and are not, we are partaking of the Light of the binding of Isaac. What they did in world upon world, beyond what we can understand, they created the ability for humanity to act with restriction, with removal of the Desire to Receive for the Self-Alone.

It wasn’t that in just doing their share they stopped going after the Desire to Receive for the Self-Alone. They created such a channel that every action of restriction, of sharing that followed afterards, partakes of that Light. Before Abraham, Right Column, and Isaac, Left Column, completed their restriction, it was impossible for us to complete our correction.

Combining the Right and Left Column isn’t simply reading about a father and son who did their spiritual work. They prepared the work and the world for all of us. It would have been impossible for us to do restriction, and certainly in the ultimate level to complete the tikkun for ourselves and for the world, without the actions of Abraham and Isaac.

It’s important to have this consciousness. When we read about the binding of Isaac, we need to have the consciousness to draw to ourselves Abraham and Isaac and the power and the love and the restriction. Their love, their energy, is revealed though this reading. They come here. Every one of us, depending on the vessel we prepare to connect, will have the ability to connect to them.

If we are not thinking to draw those two souls into our lives for this year, we will not be able to accomplish what we need to accomplish this year.

The Rav says people need bells and whistles. The truth is always simple. The simplicity today is that, as we are going to read about the binding of Isaac, which was the greatest action of restriction, we are opening the channel to allow all of us restriction. The reason why we get angry, why we don’t have the power to do the restriction we need to do, is that we have not made a great enough connection to these two great souls and the channel they opened up.

Restriction also has the removal of judgment. When we read about the binding of Isaac today, they are coming into this world and waiting for one thing, for our consciousness to open up. All we have to do is something so simple, and so difficult. We say one thing: we know you are here, Abraham and Isaac, and you are opening for us and the world the channel for restriction and removal of judgment; I want you to come into me. If we have that consciousness, they will come.

Every single one of us can make this connection and the restriction that they did, to the degree our consciousness is strong and simple.

It’s important to understand this tremendous gift and not to miss it. The Zohar talks about the ram that was sacrificed after the binding of Isaac. The kabbalists explain the reason we use the horn of the ram for the Shofar. At that point, Abraham and Isaac injected the ram’s horn with the ability to awaken our true essence.

There are three things the horn does. The first is awaken that part within us that is perfect. We spoke yesterday that every one of us has a part of our soul that remains perfect no matter what we have done or think we have done. The voice of the Shofar enters our heart, our soul, and not only awakens that spark of perfection, but also makes it flow through the rest of our soul and body. It goes into our soul and awakens that perfection in every single one of us and makes it permeate our entire being.

This is the first consciousness we need to have. When we hear the blowing of the Shofar, that’s one simple level of consciousness we need to have: we have the spark of perfection within us. The voice of the Shofar will awaken that perfection and make it permeate our entire being.

The second level — the blowing of the Shofar awakens the level of Binah, of the Tree of Life, and envelops us, like the mikveh where the protective power of water envelops us. Rabbi Elimelech of Minsk speaks about the ability to pray for other people. If judgment is meant to come, how through my prayer do I influence their movie? We know the system is perfect. How do we understand that I, by thinking of someone, can change the negativity coming to their movie? We know I can influence my own movie, but how about someone else’s? The answer is an important one. He says when we truly pray for another person, when it’s done in a complete sense, and envelop them with our soul, our essence, our being, then they are not there anymore; they are covered by us. When we envelop them with our mind, heart, and soul, the judgment cannot come because they are not there anymore — they are enveloped by our Light. That’s how prayer for others needs to be done.

On Rosh Hashanah we get the envelopment through the blowing of the Shofar. We need to understand that we are enveloped by the Light of Binah and the Tree of Life.

The third level — that we awaken by the reading and the Shofar — is the ultimate level of redemption. We know that certainly we think about ourselves and our loved ones, but as importantly we should think about the world. The power awakened through the blowing of the Shofar can bring an end to pain and suffering in our world. The Light in Binah will ultimately remove pain and suffering from our world.

There is the small Shofar and the great ram’s horn. The great ram’s horn, the culmination of the Light revealed by Binah, will bring the end of pain and suffering in our world. The third level of the consciousness is that we are asking, meditating, that this voice permeate the entire world and bring about the blowing of the great Shofar, the level of Tree of Life, to the entire world.

It says in the Zohar that the negative side becomes frightened because he is afraid this might be the year the completion is revealed. On one level, it is a crying out from the heart. All the pain of humanity, the pain we have had in our life, all that pain is awakened through the blowing of the Shofar. The awakening of the pain is the step toward the revelation of the great Light.