Introduction to the Book of Zohar (PDF) - Kabbalah Media Archive

I N T RO D U C T I O N T O T H E B O O K O F Z O H A R
Man achieves complete merging with the Creator, because the spiritual
merging is nothing but equivalence of properties. Our sages
asked, “How can one merge with the Creator?” – and answered their
own question: “By merging with His properties”.
In other words, it can be expressed this way: “I will know You from
my similarity to You”. That is, if I gradually reveal the Creator in accordance
with my growing similarity to Him, then I will finally become exactly
like Him. It turns out that the Creator’s revelation, similarity to Him, correction
of the Kli, and reception of His light are the same action.
Because of this, man discovers that there is no division between
him, the action he performs and the Creator. All of this is a single, undivided
whole (as if a vessel is one thing, the light filling it is another,
the reaction of the vessel to the light, and that of the light to the vessel is
the third). Nothing like that exists. One suddenly realizes that all of this
is a single whole, indistinguishable in any way. This condition is called
merging with the Creator.
12. Thus, we have clearly explained the correction of the will to receive
that is imprinted in the souls by the thought of creation (imprinted
in the egoistic desire to receive, which is initially inherent in
us). The Creator has prepared for them two systems of worlds, one
against the other, through which the souls pass and divide into two
aspects, body and soul, and dress one in the other. With the help
of the Kabbalistic method (that includes a gradual correction
of one’s desires), defined as “observing commandments”, they
convert the property of “reception for himself” into the property of
“bestowal”.
They become blessed with all the pleasures in the thought of creation.
And along with it (with the sensation of this blessing) they
completely merge with Him.
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