Eternal Pleasure
Even if one lived a thousand years, on the day he departs from the world, it will seem to him as though he lived only one day.
Zohar for All, VaYechi [Jacob Lived], Item 293
After the demise of the body, if we did not rise from the animate level to the human level during our lives, if we did not achieve equivalence of form—acquired the quality of love and giving and became similar to the Creator, and thus revealed the Creator—nothing remains of us. The spiritual point that was in us, and which we did not develop, reincarnates into our world, acquires a new clothing (additional egoistic desire), and a new cycle of life begins. Only by studying the wisdom of Kabbalah can we rise to the degree of man.
It is known from books and from authors that the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah is an absolute must for any person from Israel. And if one studies the whole Torah and knows the Mishnah and the Gemarah by heart, and if one is also filled with virtues and good deeds more than all his contemporaries, but has not learned the wisdom of Kabbalah, he must reincarnate into this world to study the secrets of Torah and wisdom of truth. This is brought in several places in the writing of our sages.
Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Mouth of a Sage”
In the spiritual sense, only our efforts to evolve beyond the animate degree are written for all eternity. When our animate degree ceases to exist, meaning when our bodies die, we remain only with what we have acquired from the degree above it. Thus, it is clear that engagement in The Zohar is the greatest thing we can do in our lives, far above and beyond anything that can be attained in this world.
And considering profits, it is important to understand that the source of all pleasures is in the world of Ein Sof. The pleasures come as upper light and travel through a system of five worlds in which the light diminishes from 100 to zero percent. Then, through the boundary that separates the spiritual world from ours, a tiny spark breaks in.
Incidentally, science has also discovered that our universe began with a spark of special energy. That spark, explains The Zohar, is all the pleasure that exists in our world, and there is nothing else.
In our world, the pleasure that exists in that spark divides into two primary kinds: physical pleasures—food, sex, family, and so on, and human pleasures—wealth, respect, domination, and knowledge.
What is the difference between those pleasures and the pleasures in the spiritual world? First, all the pleasures in our world, of all the people and at all times, add up to a tiny spark of light. The gap between that spark and the pleasure that is sensed in the spiritual world is unfathomable. The Zohar compares that gap to the gap between a tiny candle and a huge light, or between a tiny grain of sand and the entire world.
Second, in our world, pleasures come and pleasures go. They are inconstant, as eventually we disappear, we die. But in the spiritual world, pleasure is eternal; we experience our existence above time, motion, and place.
To summarize, we are standing at the threshold of a wondrous development to the highest level of reality. The Book of Zohar has been revealed today to bring us the light that will help us get there.
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A wisdom that one must know: to know and to observe the meaning of his Master, to know himself, know who he is, how he was created, where he comes from, and where he is going ... and one should see all that from the secrets of the Torah.
New Zohar, Song of Songs, Items 482-483
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