The Zohar, Sulam Commentary, Chapter “BaHar,” Item 69: Abraham repented and shattered the idols of paganism and the food that had been placed before them.

Everything that is considered holy and sublime on the previous level that was worth living for, working for, and dedicating myself to, needs to be shattered. All the actions that are performed in our world for the sake of our ego, for our children, for humanity, and for nature belong to that.

Unfortunately, we live simply in order to survive, saying, “Let us live the years that we were given from Above in peace, and I don’t care what may happen afterward.” This is what everyone thinks, not realizing that they deceive themselves that way. Such an attitude is harmful and destructive.

Abraham believed that our world wasn’t created in order to appease the idols—our work, our studies, our children, and the good life, after which we can lay down and die in peace—but that our world was created so that we would reach the next world in this lifetime.

Noah was the first who broke away from the past. He built an ark and hid in it. He realized that he had to be saved from this world and he created his own protection, a shelter from the thoughts and the temptations that surrounded him, and sailed away from them. Therefore, all his egoistic feelings, thoughts, and desires died during the flood.

The point is that we need to perceive the still, vegetative, and animate natures, and mankind as one unique whole. Only a part of this whole, called Noah, survived the flood, which means that this part had been corrected under the influence of the Surrounding Light (the ark is the Light of Hassadim). The part that couldn’t be corrected that way died. However, later it undergoes its own correction in a different manner and is reborn in a new form.

The same thing happened to Abraham. The parts that couldn’t be corrected remained in Babylon, while Abraham shattered, burned, and threw away all the idols and left Babylon. He had a higher understanding than Noah: that everything that belonged to his egoistic state was on the level of still nature and that there was no Upper Light in it. He discerned and distinguished the higher level from the lower and cut off the layer of the still, vegetative, and animate nature and the human level that are inside his soul. He could not be free of the domination of Nimrod (the ego), and so he left.

We see that here, too, the general soul distinguishes and sets aside a certain part that cannot be corrected and follows its own way. Just as Noah detached himself from the entire world, Abraham also detached himself from it. The part of the Babylonians remained and developed following a different path.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 6/18/15

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