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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