M. Weisman, “Midrash Sefer,” Chapter 96: The smoke from the fire that was lighted by the priests rose to the alter in the form of a vertical pillar and there was no wind that could sway it.

The rising of the smoke (Auchan) is the rising of a person’s hopes to the Creator. The smoke refers to the spiritual concept of world, year, and soul (Olam, Shana, Nefesh). A person unites all the actions inside him and performs a complete correction of the crudest and lowliest desire that includes all the desires that are above it.

Then smoke rises as a result of these actions and unites the world (Olam), year (Shana), and soul (Nefesh).

It is by this action that a person’s most concealed devious, egoistic desires are clarified, which a person previously concealed in his subconscious and now brings them out in order to be corrected. Their scrutiny is according to the result of their burning, according to the smoke.

If the smoke rises vertically, it means that the scrutiny has been done full heartedly and that a person’s intentions are clearly focused on bestowal. If it isn’t so, it means that we are not candid yet in the scrutiny of our egoistic desires and are still under certain external influences.

We mustn’t associate the descriptions of fire with our world and imagine any corporeal images. When we enter the story of the Torah, the corporeal description should be transformed correctly into an internal feeling.

Only then is it possible to be incorporated in the story and to start identifying with what is going on, to feel ourselves both as an object that performs these actions and as an object on which these actions are being performed.

It is then that a person begins to understand that the whole Torah is inside him and he performs it in order to unite with the actions that are described in the Torah. He reformats himself with the help of the Torah.

This means that a person performs a spiritual action; a person fulfills the instructions of turning his ego into the state of love and bestowal.

The inner force called Torah helps him perform the action on himself and then he resembles it. It enters him and begins to change all his desires and intentions, and as a result be becomes similar to the Torah.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 6/12/13

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