In this month of Taurus, we have the anniversary of Rav Shimon Bar Yochai’s passing from this world (known as the holiday of Lag B’Omer). As you probably know, he is the author of the greatest kabbalistic text in existence, the Zohar.

During his lifetime, Rav Shimon was an immense channel for the Light force of the Creator, which he embedded into the pages of the Zohar.

This is the perfect time of year to clarify the purpose of Zohar study. Even those who think they know what the Zohar encompasses are often missing some part of the understanding and, therefore, do not draw the full amount of Light available to them.

To begin with, I would like to briefly address one very important point with regard to how to study the Zohar. It is true that if one does not know how to pronounce the Aramaic letters at all, one can still draw a great amount of Light from simply scanning the Zohar. However, we must never forget the importance of doing our maximum. If you can read, you should also try to say the words aloud, without worrying about mispronouncing.

The Zohar, written 2,000 years ago, contains a great amount of knowledge both about Kabbalah and other areas. Nevertheless, the Zohar itself is much more than an intellectual masterpiece. In our spiritual path, even for those of us who truthfully want to climb great spiritual heights, we often feel that the “other side” is stronger than we are and that we are too spiritually weak to overcome desires - even though we understand them to be negative and bad for us. Furthermore, we are often blind in a spiritual sense, and we don’t know what the right thing is to do.

Both of these problems - the lack of strength to fight the “other side” (also known in Aramaic as sitra achra - evil inclination) and our spiritual blindness - have one singular source: klippot. Klippot are spiritual shells that we have brought upon ourselves through our negative actions, both in this incarnation and previous ones. As long as these shells cover us, we cannot attain the spiritual level that we came to this world to achieve.

And as long as we do not achieve our maximum spiritual level, we can not achieve fulfillment.

When revealing the Zohar, Rav Shimon not only transmitted tremendous secrets, but he also instilled within the very words a supernatural cleansing agent. With this understanding, the purpose of the Zohar becomes clear: to cleanse our spiritual klippot.

There is no better tool in this world to do the job.

That is why, before we read the Zohar, the Sages recommend we meditate that the reading will enable us to cleanse ourselves of the layers of negativity that have blocked us for so long.

And, finally, there is a reason we recommend reading the Zohar every single day. Without the Zohar, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to achieve true spiritual transformation in today’s environment. As Rav Ashlag, founder of The Kabbalah Centre said, “The gift is in front of all of us.” Please, I beseech you, use it.

Have a Light-filled month!