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Today, we would like to present selections from the Lesser Holy Assembly, a volume of the Zohar where Rabbi Schimeon wavers between this world and the next. He directed his students to celebrate his death that day as a Yom Hillula (wedding) as it would messianically unite the immanent and transcendent ohr "Divine Lights" of Creation. It is an honor to present excerpts from ‘The Kabbalah Unveiled’, specifically Chapter 1 of The Lesser Holy Assembly, where Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai gathers his closest disciples for one final revelation before his passing. THE LESSER HOLY ASSEMBLY CHAPTER I WHICH CONTAINS THE INTRODUCTION “[…] Rabbi Schimeon spake and said: ‘Surely now is the time of benevolence, and I desire to enter without confusion into the world to come.’ ‘And verily these sacred things, which hereunto have never been revealed, I desire to reveal before the Schekhinah;’ ‘Lest they should say that I have kept back anything, and that I have been taken away from the world; for even until now these things have been concealed in my heart, so that having entered into these very matters I may be with them in the world to come.’ […]Rabbi Schimeon covered himself and sat down; and he commenced, and said Ps. cxv. 17: ‘The dead shall not praise Yah, nor all they who go down into silence!’ ‘The dead shall not praise Yah; 'so it is certain that it is assuredly those who are called dead; for He, God, the most Holy One— may He be blessed!— is called the Living One, and is Himself commemorated among those who are called living, and not with those who are called dead.’ ‘And the end of this text runs thus: 'Nor all they who go down into silence; ' for all they who go down into silence remain in Gehenna.’ ‘There is another reason appertaining to those who are called living, for God the most Holy One— may He be blessed!— desires their glory.’ Rabbi Schimeon said: ‘How different is this occasion from that of the former conclave! For into a certain conclave came He, the most Holy and Blessed God, and His Chariot.’ ‘Now verily He, the Holy One, is here--may He be blessed— and He has approached with those just who are in the Garden of Eden, which did not occur in the former conclave.’ ‘And God, the Most Holy One— may He be blessed— more promotes the glory of the just than His own glory.’ ‘As it is written concerning Jeroboam, who sacrificed unto and served other gods, and yet God, the Most Holy One— may He be blessed!— waited for him.’ ‘But because he stretched forth his hand against Iddo the prophet, his hand became withered.’ ‘For it is written, 1 Kings xiii. 4: 'And his hand became withered, Etc. Here it is not written that it was because he served other gods, but because he extended his hand against Iddo the prophet, Etc.’ […]”