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
When we examine the 620 desires that are opposite to the Creator,
correct them, and make them similar to Him, we become equal with the
Creator. That is because He created those 620 desires by His will to bestow.
When we correct them, we become similar to His bestowal, we acquire
the necessary properties, intention, power, and knowledge. We learn what
happens inside the Creator Himself and become equal with Him.
Therefore, it is impossible to receive those 620 desires corrected
in advance. If that were the case, we would not be able to adopt them
in us without turning them from negative to positive, until they become
similar to the Creator.
Thus we are already in a perfect state, in correspondence with the perfect
Creator who has made us in the second state (it does not matter that
the second state is low, because it is not our own). Since our body
is going to die, and since it is here only for the time necessary for the
reception of its eternal form, it can cause us no harm.
The Creator gave us a loathsome, base, and egoistical body by dropping
us into infinitesimal negativity. He did this so that we might have a
way to ascend. For that reason, these properties were created artificially.
They are, in fact, a backward reflection of His attributes, allowing us to
make them similar to the Creator.
If we invert them from reception to bestowal, the past intentions
die, rot, and disappear, making room for the intentions to bestow to
emerge in their place. Hence, this body is only here for the time necessary for
its cancellation and reception of our eternal form.
18. That resolves our fifth inquiry, which was – how could it be
that from the Eternal (like the Creator) transitory, wasteful actions
would be extended (concrete, discrete and of limited size)?
How can something transitory, limited, low, and flawed, stem from
something eternal? We do not fully understand these questions because
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