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
Having realized that the Creator’s desire, the purpose of creation, is
in bestowing pleasure upon created beings, we now clearly see that
this purpose refers neither to the inanimate bodies nor to huge planets,
since they have no sensation of others. Neither does it concern
the plants and animals in our world, because they also lack such a
sensation. How will they be able to feel the Creator’s goodness if they
cannot even feel their own kind?
When we develop and reach the spiritual level called “man”, i.e.,
when our egoism is so developed that we want much more than others,
we begin to envy them and desire whatever they have, although initially
we never had such desires. We envy their pleasures, honor, fame, and wish
to conquer the whole world. This is called the real man. He is still uncorrected,
yet he is ready for it because he already has what to correct.
Man alone, after having been prepared with the sensation of others
who are like him, after delving into Torah and the commandments,
will turn his will to receive (egoistic, enormous desire acquired
from outside) into the will to bestow, and come to equivalence
of form with his Maker. Then he reaches the levels that had been
prepared for him in the Upper Worlds. This is the way we ascend
the Upper Worlds.
As we receive additional portions of egoism (from the left line), we
begin to correct it with the help of the Upper Light by raising a request
(commandment) and receiving the Torah (the light of correction) from
Above. The correction occurs with the help of the right line, the descending
light. Thus, we create ourselves in the middle line. Our egoism of the
left line becomes similar to the Creator’s properties of the right line.
We build ourselves between the two lines, while receiving the NaRa-
NHaY on all the 120 levels of our ascent to the world of Infinity. The
NaRaNHaY
in the world of Infinity is referred to as the light of the To-
rah; its parts on the preliminary stages between our level and the world
of Infinity are called Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, and Yechida. While
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