Baal HaSulam writes that the nation of Israel was based on just one principle, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” the law of mutual guarantee. But they could not observe it because egoism grew, evolution continued, and they had to build the Temple with an altar in the material world.

If earlier a person sacrificed his egoism, later in the external world it began to manifest itself in the form of animal and plant sacrifices, where supposedly all kinds of egoistic qualities of a person were taken and sacrificed for the soul’s ascension.

But this is an external manifestation of a person’s inner correction when he is ready to give everything that is in him in order to turn the qualities of reception into the quality of bestowal, to change his egoistic movements to altruistic impulses.

Question: If we talk about nature as the Creator, as an upper force that controls everything, how can this reconcile with the fact that there are some stones where some unfortunate animal is taken, killed, and some words said? And how does this relate to the correction of the soul?

Answer: It is very hard to understand. If we were in an ancient Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, we would see that it is like a slaughterhouse where cows, calves, and sheep were slaughtered, bread was baked, and wine and water were poured on stone tables upon which animals were butchered. This is some kind of incomprehensible work like in a slaughterhouse.

But in fact, it is all internal work. Unfortunately it should be held at this level too because this is the lowest level of egoism of a person who is corrected in this way.

We consist of two levels: animal and human. The human level is corrected by the fact that we change ourselves from receiving to giving, from all bad and negative egoistic qualities to positive, altruistic qualities. While doing this, we should not forget, at the same time, that we are in this world.

How can we perform such actions in our world? We take the animal that is in us— this is personified by any kosher animal—and kill it within ourselves, that is, kill the animal nature in yourself and then burn it in a certain way and eat it, which means, use it correctly.

In other words, we must raise it to the level of service of a person within himself who is already in connection with the Creator. This is an allegorical personification of correcting our qualities and raising them to a spiritual level.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 2/22/22

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