Sheila’s Unedited Study Notes

Transcribed 4/6/02

         I’m taking some comments out of Isaac Luria’s mystical psychology of building the feminine menorah. This is a spiritual understanding of the spiritual reality behind the symbology of lighting the physical menorah. This is very interesting because Isaac Luria is saying that the significance of this is that the menorah represents the female which is Malkhut, which is the human race and more specifically the church.

Tuesday morning, March 5^th, 2002. 

          Reading in the Zohar, the first ever unabridged English translation with commentary. Page 261 says that the name El, the Name of God, El, always alludes to the name Yesod, which is the right side.

          Paragraph 62 of the Zohar. The spiritual principle behind the concept of the Hebrew children passing through the Red Sea, dry shod, and passing through the Jordan, dry shod, and the waters heaping up on the sides so that the Hebrew children could walk through, is that the Hebrew children within their own minds managed to weave together the left and the right side within themselves, and therefore they became manifestations of the middle column and prevailed over all their spiritual enemies within.

          When you walk through the middle column, you weave together the wickedness of the left column and the righteousness of the right column and you have the victory over the enemies of your mind. This suggests that when you have the victory over the enemies of your mind, when you walk in the middle column, you are untouchable in this physical world.

          I don’t know exactly what happened concerning a physical sea, but I now know that this principle of the waters heaping up on the side signifies that the left column was under the authority of the righteousness within the Hebrew children.

          By the way, the waters of the sea suggest Binah. We know that Binah is on the left side and Binah is a high form of righteous judgment. So we can say then that the heaping up of the waters indicates the restriction of judgment, the stopping of the flowing forth of judgment.

          Paragraph 63. Yesod of Ze’ir Anpin is the life of the worlds. Ze’ir Anpin is the mediator. He is the middle column and Ze’ir Anpin is Christ Jesus. So when we live out of Christ Jesus, every decision, every thought, that we make and follow through out of Christ Jesus is the middle column, and that means we are undefeatable in that instance, or in that event.

          The central column or the work of the central column is to cause the left to be included in the right and the right to be included in the left. Therefore, both sides become harmonized and move to the center column.

          We are told in paragraph 63 that the word, firmament, is mentioned 5 times on the second day. Therefore the Kabbalists say that there are five firmaments and that these five firmaments are the equivalent of the 500 years to which the Tree of Life, which is Ze’ir Anpin, is attached. Of course these are 500 spiritual years. It’s during these 500 years that Ze’ir Anpin produces offspring and the fruits of the world.

March 20^th, 2002.

          The Ten Sefirot of Ze’ir Anpin. Ze’ir Anpin is in the World of Emanation. Each of his Ten Sefirot is counted in tens. In other words, if we’re reading in the Scripture something about 50 years, you can relate that to the fifth sefirah of Ze’ir Anpin.

          But each of the Ten Sefirot under Binah is counted in 100's. So if we read something in the Scripture about 500 years we can relate it to the fifth sefirah of Binah.

          I read in the Zohar, the first unabridged ever edition of the Zohar, paragraph 172, that life ensues from the right side and death ensues from the left side. If both of these two sides do not agree by mediation, which mediation produces the central column, unless all three settle together (that means the left, the right and the central column) judgment cannot be carried out. This means that the only legitimate judgment, as far as the Lord is concerned, is from the middle column. This mediation or this condition of agreement of all the sides can only come to be after discussion and understanding, which is what we do when we hold court.

          Paragraph 173 says that the hand signifies the Shekinah. Now remember that it was a hand that appeared to declare the judgment that was about to fall on Belteshazzar, the son of Nebuchadnezzar. So we’re told here that the hand is the Shekinah. The hand from the left side is the hand of judgment and from the right side is the hand of mercy, but the hand is always the Shekinah.

          The letter vav signifies Ze’ir Anpin. When you spell that letter out V A V or vav hey vav, the first vav is called the large vav and the second vav is called the small vav, which refers to Ze’ir Anpin’s Yesod.

          Black signifies form and white signifies the spiritual foundation that upholds all things.

          Paragraph 184. Here’s an explanation of how to deal with numbers in the Zohar and in the Scripture. There are seven ministers who have seventy more attached to them. Those seventy bring allegations in each and every firmament through which the prayer passes, and seven hundred million angels of destruction are attached to them. That would be Yesod through Malkhut, the seven ministers, Yesod through Malkhut. Then it says, who have seventy more attached to them. What that means is that each of the seven ministers, Yesod thru Malkhut, each of them have their own Ten Sefirot. Yesod has its own Ten Sefirot. Gevurah has its own Ten Sefirot. So ten times the seven ministers, ten sefirot for each of the seven ministers, is seventy more ministers attached to them.

          The next sentence is those seventy, that means each of the original seven with the ten sefirot that they have under them, those seventy bring allegations, complaints, that’s charges, they bring charges in each and every firmament through which the prayer passes. This paragraph is talking about prayer and it’s talking about a prayer what happens to an incomplete prayer. What it’s really talking about is an ungodly prayer. What happens to an ungodly prayer? All of these ministers are chasing after it and they’re making charges in each and every firmament through which the prayer passes. Now the firmament really refers to a human being. Our flesh is the firmament that separates the waters inside of us from the water outside of us.

          But this little exhortation is talking about numbers. Seven ministers, seventy ministers, and now the next phrase says, and 700 million angels of destruction are attached to them. So if Ze’ir Anpin is ten, Binah is 100, Yesod is 1000 and Keter is a million. So what does 700 million angels refer to? 700 refers to the seven ministers that are under Binah, who is 100. 700 is the seven ministers that are under Binah, which is 100, and the million would be referring to Keter. So this 700 million angels of destruction are talking about these angels or these ministers that are proceeding forth from this high spiritual place.

          In other words, to make it simple, this expression of 7 ministers that have 70 more attached and 700 million angels of destruction, this is the Zohar’s way of saying that judgment, whether it’s destructive judgment or the judgment of God, has proceeded forth from a very high place of Ze’ir Anpin and Binah of Keter. That’s a very high level judgment.

          This is the difference between completion and perfection. Completion refers to the fact that an individual is both male and female. The human race is all female. For us to be completed, the male, Ze’ir Anpin, who is appearing to us in this spiritual generation as Christ Jesus, must be added to us. When we, a human being, have both the female and the male, we are completed. That’s why the Scripture says we are complete in Him. When Christ Jesus is added to us, we are completed, but we are not perfected. Perfection means to have our sin nature so completely overshadowed that we are incapable of sin. So to be perfected, we must be incapable of sin. Yet we can be completed and still be capable of sin.

          Talking about the Shekinah, which is the feminine principle. She is supposed to ascend through that middle column all the way up to Keter, and she is frequently at different levels of ascension. She is supposed to become equal to Ze’ir Anpin, who to us is Christ Jesus, and we’re told that she, Shekinah, is the crown on the head of the alef. When she is the crown on the head of the alef, she has ascended as high as Keter. So when the feminine principle rises, she is called a crown, we’re told, according to the secret of the intonations [that must be the cantillation marks]. I’m not sure what that means, but when she rises, she is called a crown and when she descends, she is called a point.

          When she mates with Ze’ir Anpin, that mating is in the form of the vowel shuruk. When Shekinah is a crown on the head of Ze’ir Anpin, she is named after the letter zayin, which is the 7^th letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

          The stone that is slung from the slingshot is Malkhut, the feminine principle. 

March 23^rd, 2002. 

          Paragraph 236. The numerical value of the Tetragrammaton YHVH, plus the name Adonay, which is the name associated with Malkhut, has a numerical value of 72. That’s the same thing as saying that the Tetragrammaton, when it is manifesting through Adonay (that’s Malkhut in an individual) is an expression of AB(72) in the earth.

          Paragraph 247. Eden is Binah. Ze’ir Anpin is the river and Shekinah is the garden that is watered.

Wednesday, March 27^th 2002. 

          This is what the Lord showed me concerning the Kabbalistic principle that when the inner light is as strong as, or stronger than the light of the vessel, the vessel is destroyed when the inner light enters the vessel. The inner light, is masculine compared to the vessel, which is feminine.

          When the inner light enters into the vessel of equal strength, the vessel will lose its integrity and dissolve. Therefore the solution, according to the Kabbalists, is for the inner light to weaken itself. For this purpose, we’re told that Adam Kadmon inhaled the breath of the mouth, kept the AB within himself, and returned the other nine sefirot of the inner light to the mouth, where they would be misaligned with the sefirot of the vessel.

          In other words, Adam Kadmon misaligned the sefirot of the male inner light with the sefirot of the female vessel, so that the inner light, which is male, would be weaker than the light of the vessel containing it, which is female. The vessel therefore would maintain its integrity and not dissolve because the male inner light was too weak to dissolve the female vessel.

          I asked the Lord what His solution to this problem of the dissolving vessel is, because this explanation of the Kabbalists completely denies that the fall resulted in the male becoming weaker than the female. The explanation of the Kabbalists justifies the male being weaker than the female as the will of God, and contradicts the revelation that the Lord gave us concerning the World of Points and the Fall: That the male was weakened when the female daughter fertilized the seedlings of the garden, alone, before the Son was added to her, and therefore the second generation of sons [the seedlings of the Garden] was born in a spiritually retarded state which resulted in the female being stronger than the male, which condition is evident through our whole society.

          Men can lose their manhood and remain physically male while they become spiritually weaker than the women that they’re married to, or the women in their lives. We see this plague manifesting in this nation. The women become too strong, the men become too weak and the whole society turns upside down.

          According to the Kabbalists, this condition of potential male weakness, has resulted from Adam Kadmon inhaling the breath of the mouth, and then exhaling it back into the mouth so that it was misaligned with the vessel, because that was the only way to maintain the integrity of the vessel. So I asked the Lord what His solution is to preserve the female vessel.

          The Lord said to me, you’re right, Sheila, this is not the truth. The answer is to strengthen the female, not to weaken the male. The answer is to marry the female vessel to the male, so that the vessel would not be only female, but consist of a mixture of male light and female light. Therefore when the male inner light fills the vessel that is male and female, rather than female, alone, the vessel will be strong enough to contain the male light, and there will be no reason to weaken the male light.

          So here we see a clear example of how this aspect of the doctrine of Kabbalah justifies the fall and declares that the creation is in its present, mortal condition because Jehovah intended it to be this way, which is a corruption of the Truth.

          Then, further, as the Lord revealed to us the other night in the message, The Ascension of the Shekinah, we learned that the female Shekinah which ultimately ascends all the way up to Keter, is not female alone, but is a mixture of male and female. Wherefore, it is not accurate to say that at the end of the tikun process (correction of creation) that the female will be superior to the male because she will have ascended up to the Ayn Sof, above Ze’ir Anpin, who is Tiferet, and Chokhmah, the highest male. This is not accurate, because the Shekinah that ascends all the way up to the Ayn Sof is the married woman, the wife of Zeir Anpin [Christ Jesus]. The male is within her. The man is concealed within her. The woman is not ascended in God’s kingdom alone.

          Of course, the woman does ascend alone in the fallen kingdom of the other side, and the name of that single woman that ascends is Satan. The end of this ascension is damnation and death.  

March 30^th, 2002. 

          I am commenting on the first ever unabridged English translation with commentary of the Zohar. Volume 1, paragraph 250.

          We see here the esoteric understanding of the English word, orchard, such as in apple orchard. I have seen this word used in the Scripture before I came across it in the Zohar, and understood it to possibly mean the Garden of Eden, but didn’t know for sure. After that, I saw the word orchard used in the Zohar to represent the deepest level of the mysteries, but I didn’t understand the genesis of the word.

          We find that genesis in paragraph 250 where we are told that the Hebrew word translated orchard is pardes. Now paragraph 250 tells us that this word, pardes, stands for, or consists of the initials of the words. The p stands for pshat, which is the literal meaning of the torah, the r stands for remez, which are the hints and the illusions in the Scripture, d stands for drash, the homiletical interpretation [homiletical has to do with preaching the Scripture and applying it to a moral value], the s of pardes stands for sod, which is the mysteries of the Scripture. These are the four categories of rabbis or Kabbalah students that I have talked about in other messages: Pshat, those who believe in the literal meaning of the torah, remez, hints and illusions [these rabbis dance and sing], drash, preaching, and sod the mysteries. These are the four different classes of rabbis and their study of the torah that I have told you about on several messages, where I have also related them to the church.

          The Zohar tells us that one of the four sages entered into the river, Pishon, that’s the river or the letter Peh that alludes to the peshat, the literal meaning. This means one of the four sages embraced the literal meaning of the torah, which shines in the orchard. The word, pishon, we’re told means, my mouth repeats, signifying that the mouth repeats or teaches the literal meaning.

          The second sage entered into the river of Gijon. Now this version of the Zohar is amplified and the amplification here says that the river Gijon refers to Moses. But, the meaning of the word, Gijon, is, whoever goes on his belly. I cannot receive this to be Moses, so if I’m wrong let the Lord show it to me, but I cannot receive it at this time.I’m inclined to say that this second river that comes out of Eden, which is associated with the second level of students of Kabbalah, the Remez group, this copy of the Zohar says that the Remez deals with hints and illusions, but we also know that they’re the ones that sing and dance. I don’t really know how to explain the hints and the allusions, so I’m just going to let that go at this time. But this second river Gijon associated with the second category of Kabbalah students refers to the belly energy center. The word, Gijon, means whatsoever goes on the belly. The amplification here, this author says, has to do with Moses, but I don’t receive it at all, unless the Lord shows me otherwise.

          The Zohar goes on to say, of him it is written, of who it is written, of the one who goes on his belly. Now we know it’s the serpent who goes on his belly. So this is talking about the carnal man who tries to enter into the secrets of torah. Then the Zohar says, of this one who goes on his belly, the one who is a serpent, the one who goes into the torah with his carnal mind. This man whose way is hidden and from whom Elohim has screened himself. Well, I’m not sure what this means, but my guess is to this man whose way is hidden, his own motives are hidden from him. He doesn’t even know what his true motives are and from this man, this man who doesn’t know what his own true motives are, Elohim has screened himself. Okay now, this amplification of the Zohar goes on to impute this to Moses. Maybe it’s true, but the Lord would have to witness that to me because I’m not receiving that right now. Now the text of the Zohar goes on to say, no man knew the place of his burial. So I guess that’s where the commentator draws the conclusion that this paragraph is about Moses, but I’m having a problem receiving this, so I’m just going to go on. We’re told that this is the part of Remez, the hints of the torah, and wise men are informed by hints. Hints means that you just hear one word or two words and you get a whole understanding of what the Scripture is hinting at. See, I’m taking my material from different sources. This is the area that Rabbi xxxx our on-line teacher associates with the singing and dancing.

          So I’m not too clear about that myself. But the third of the four stages entered into the river Chiddekel. We’re told here in paragraph 251 that this alludes to a sharp faultless tongue that is quick in giving homiletical explanations. Remember homiletical explanations means a study of the Scripture that draws a moral, that imputes morality or draws morals or conclusions that help people in life. That means you see deeply into the person who’s in this river. Chiddekel sees deeply into the Scripture and can apply it to human life and to the morals that it is teaching us. Now the fourth of the four stages enter the Prat. That’s the Euphrates, which is the inner most stream where procreation occurs. This is paragraph 251. So we see that the procreation came forth from the Euphrates and the book of Revelation, King James, Chapter 9:14, says; saying to the six angel which had the trumpet, loose the four angels, which are bound in the great river Euphrates. Verse 15; and the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour and a day and a month and a year, for to slay the third part of men. So we see that the four angels that come forth from the Euphrates in the book of Revelation can be related to Chapter 251 of the Zohar. We’re told that what this means is that this Euphrates is the place of procreation. Procreation means something new is being born. So the four angels coming forth, I would believe to mean, my guess at this point is that that would be Christ. Not necessarily 4 angels but, perhaps four-sided angels, or completed angels. Remember, we are angels when Christ is revealing Himself through us. Also remember that Adam was four-sided, but became a 3-sided creature when the Serpent stole one of his sides. Adam was a square, but became a triangle when he fell.

          I always said something like that, coming forth out of Euphrates, that it was the sons of God coming forth. So here we have a witness in the Zohar that the Euphrates is the inner most stream and that’s the place where the new birth comes forth from. So we’re told here that the moral of this whole account of what the orchard means and that’s what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about the spiritual significance of the word, orchard. We’re told that these two sages entered into the shells of the torah and were affected by them. So it’s saying people can learn the literal meaning of the torah and be affected by it. People can learn the remez meaning of the torah which is hints and illusions. I really don’t know how to apply that to the church. But you can read the Scripture and you can listen to it preached and it can affect you, but it was Rabbi Akiva who entered the inner part of the torah and he is said to have entered and come out in peace. Now remember, peace means salvation. The only peace, the only true peace, is the putting down of the powers and principalities within us. There are four ways to approach the Scripture and they’re all good. The literal meaning is good. The meaning where you expound on the hints of the Bible is good. Using the Bible to preach and show morals and the right way to live is good. But if you want to come out in peace, if you want the powers and principalities within you put down to the point where there’s no more conflict within you, and to me that means sinlessness, to do that you have to enter into the inner part of the torah, the place of generation where the son is born in you.

          I remind everyone reading these notes that in order to have this experience of peace where your sin nature is completely overshadowed and nullified and paralyzed, first Christ must be grafted to you and formed in you and then you must face your sin nature. You will never defeat your sin nature and enter into peace without looking at it and seeing it for what it is and knowing that it is a part of you. Our sin nature is a part of us that must be dominated and controlled by the Christ within us for us to enter into peace, which is eternal life.

          Going on to paragraph 252. We are told that Chokhmah and Binah together are called ancient and Keter, which is above Chokhmah and Binah, is called the most ancient among the ancient. We’re told in paragraph 254 that Chokhmah is called eyes. The right eye is the upper Chokhmah and the left eye is the lower Chokhmah. Further we’re told that the two tablets that Moses gave to Israel were Binah and Malkhut. You may recall from a recent teaching in our meetings that Binah and Malkhut together are the Shekinah. Binah is the upper Shekinah and Malkhut is the lower Shekinah. So we’re told in paragraph 254 that the firs two tablets that Moses came down with were Binah and Malkhut. The right tablet is Binah and the left tablet is Malkhut and that these two, Binah and Malkhut, correspond to the two eyes. Now according to paragraph 254 the second two tablets that Moses came down with were not the same as the first two tablets. According to paragraph 254 of the Zohar, we’re told that these other two tablets that he came down with were from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. So the first two tablets were from the Tree of Life and the second two tablets were from a lower grade, from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This means that from these two lower tablets the torah was given in a manner of permitting and forbidding, and the aspect of the right, it gives life, but from the left it gives death. This was not the case with the first two tablets. The first two tablets were all life, but Israel showed that they were not ready to receive that life, because of the sins of the golden calf.

          So Jehovah had to give them His covenant on a lower level. We’re also told in paragraph 254 that the destruction of the first two tablets manifested in the World of Action as the destruction of the first and second temples. The first temple is derived from the right tablet, which is the upper Chokhmah, Binah. The second temple is derived from the left tablet which is the secret of the lower Chokhmah, which is Malkhut. This is very interesting. I have never seen this principle before, that we’re told that there is an upper and a lower Chokhmah. The upper Chokhmah is represented by Binah and the lower Chokhmah or the lower wisdom is represented by Malkhut.

          Now we’re told in paragraph 255 concerning the first two tablets that were broken, we’re told that they were broken down here in the World of Action, but that they were never broken in the higher worlds because the first two tablets are Chokhmah. Chokhmah is called eyes. The right eye is the upper Chokhmah and the left eye is a lower Chokhmah manifesting as Binah and Malkhut. So we’re told that those two stones which we’re told are pure marble stones, only broke down here, which means they really didn’t break. When the Scripture says they broke down here in the World of Action, all it meant is that they were denied to the Hebrew children and Moses had to go back up and had to get the covenant of the law on a lower grade because Israel could not receive the upper and the lower Chokhmah, the upper and lower wisdom because of the sins of the golden calf. They had to receive the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

          This is especially interesting to me because years ago I had a dream that I was a receptionist in a school and the building of the school had marble stones, beautiful beautiful marble stones for the floor. When you walked on the stones, they made beautiful sounds. So now I know that the marble stones and the sounds that they make are the beautiful sounds of the wisdom of God, which is a higher grade than the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. There’s no evil in them. I’m trying to remember what I read in another place and it’s eluding me. But I know the first time I read that there was a tree of knowledge that was all good, the first Kabbalistic book that I read, where it didn’t say the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, it said the Tree of Knowledge and there is no evil in it. That is Chokhmah, upper Chokhmah and lower Chokhmah, symbolized by the marble stones. Remember, Keter, Chokhmah and Binah can never be destroyed. Only the emanations that they emanate down into the lower planes of consciousness can be destroyed.

4/7/02 mjs