The Torah, “Leviticus,” 23:24 – 23:25: …In the seventh month, on the first of the month, it shall be a Sabbath for you, a remembrance of [Israel through] the shofar blast a holy occasion. You shall not perform any work of labor, and you shall offer up a fire offering to the Lord.

A person is a desire to receive, to enjoy. There is nothing in him but an egoistic desire. This means that he has to limit himself in some way and to sacrifice his ego. I, for example, stopped smoking, if it can count as a sacrifice of certain pleasures.

Actually it isn’t a sacrifice, but a simple calculation: I want to be healthier, which means that under the influence of the environment a person calculates what is more beneficial and the environment increases the benefits of this specific action. That is what happened when I stopped smoking. I got together with a couple of friends and we swore to each other that we would stop smoking. Everyone threw his pack of cigarettes into the center of the circle and then we swore that we were committed to keep the oath.

In other words, if I promised my friends in the circle, I have to keep my promise since it was a spiritual action that I was about to perform with the friends I came to this unified decision with. I wanted to establish an even greater connection with them through that action, which is the preparation for the feeling of the revelation of the Creator, and so I see it as a spiritual action.

There is no greater treason than breaking a promise because it is exchanging one state with another when we raise the earthly decision to the spiritual level. Generally speaking with such a yearning for unity, we can commit ourselves to anything and it will be achieved. This already depends on the people.

Question: Why do people sometimes break their promise?

Answer: A person tears himself from the circle. There are two approaches that he should constantly renew internally and even cultivate: First, he holds on to the point of view that now he is much more than whole, perfect, purer, and higher compared to the state he was in previously when he smoked, for example, and thus reaches a new level. Second, he has to constantly feel that he is in front of his friends and that he cannot betray them since the Creator is a witness to this oath.

If I keep cheering myself that I am on a higher level than I was previously, or that I am facing the friends and promise them (actually not to them, but to myself) that I will never have another cigarette, it gives me power and then I feel that nothing is too difficult. I know that I could suffer terribly if it weren’t for the friends, since a person’s physiology doesn’tchange. But it is actually because I imagine that I am committed to them that I have no problem.

For us it was a remembrance of Israel. We realized that we had gathered not simply in order to stop smoking but that we could also use this means (the group) in order to purify ourselves or to even realize that it was possible, with the help of the wisdom of Kabbalah and our advancement forward.

Question: What does the Shofar blast refer to in this case?

Answer: The Shofar blast refers to something that cannot be expressed, which stems from the heart, not of an individual but of everyone together. The Shofar blast symbolizes this state, which stems from Malchut that wants the Creator to appear in order to perform a spiritual connection and to give birth to the next level.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 6/11/14

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