Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down unto them, nor serve them; for I the LORD thy God Am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and showing mercy unto the thousandth generation of them that love Me and keep My commandments (The Torah, Exodus 20:3 – 20:5).

Commandments are considered the basis of the entire human code of human existence. They are acknowledged by all religions, by all societies, and serve as a basis for all social life. However, in Kabbalah, they have a totally different meaning.

In other words, “I am the Only! I am incorporeal! I cannot be depicted, imagined, or understood! I don’t give you any hints of Who I am! I cannot be put in your pocket, placed in the corner, or hung on a wall. It is impossible to make an amulet of Me, nor can I be shaped as some kind of a sign! Nothing like that is possible!”

Humans are quite different. A child grabs a toy and doesn’t toss it away for a month or two. It calms him down.

A person goes to a temple, prays, confesses, and cools down. Everything will be all right! For everyone, it is a medicine, a remedy, to settle their worries, a prevention of various social, family, and other problems.

We don’t have anything tangible here. If it is impossible to imagine Him, meaning that there is no one to appeal to, this is a big problem. Does it translate into the fact that there is no God for a regular person who lives in this world? We are unable to visualize Him or sense Him. He is some abstract property of bestowal, something shapeless that fills everything and, at the same time, nothing. What sensors will allow us to reveal Him? We must begin feeling Him one way or another. However, there is nothing around us.

We simply cannot imagine the Lord, the upper force, as described in the Torah, nor can we establish contact with this force. In order to stay in touch with Him we must grab onto something, appeal to somebody, and portray Him somehow.

Question: Why are these “threads” cut off of us? It is as if we are floating in the air. Why is that so?

Answer: It is because we must find Him at a completely different level. We should rise to His degree. Then we will sense something that we have not sensed before and will define things that we previously were unable to comprehend. It will become possible because we will acquire a new set of sensors that are called the five Sefirot.

Before we achieve this, there is no such thing as “God” for us. There isn’t anything at all! Of course, there is nature that twists us, pulls us ahead, and plays with us, and forces us to continue living and to give birth; it controls our behavior in our surroundings and society, and then buries us in the ground. That is it.

I am exaggerating everything by showing that people have no connection with the Creator or with the Torah whatsoever. That is why it is said that the Torah is spotless since no one has ever touched it, not even once.

The Torah is a teaching; it is a spiritual mechanism that is totally disconnected from humans. The fact that we picked it as the source of our beautiful rules and legal laws is very reassuring. Without it, we would just be barbarians.

Nevertheless, I want to emphasize that these rules and laws do not have anything in common with the authentic Torah. We must understand that the Torah’s power, its veracity, and the very core of it are not about the rules or laws. It does not matter what we are doing in this world. Rather, what matters is if we happen to rise to the next level where the Creator reveals to us. For that, we do not need Him to be observable or appear as an image or a phenomenon. Our awareness rises to such a level that we don’t need any images any more since we manage to get out of ourselves.

This explains why the commandment “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me” comes first, why it is considered a major commandment, and why it precedes all the others. Each subsequent commandment (their order is not random; they are organized in a certain way) delineates the execution of this particular main commandment.

If one cannot observe this commandment, all other commandments are worth nothing. They do not lead us to the goal. We should constantly keep in mind this primary commandment. For it we should fulfill all other commandments.
[R109450]
From KabTV’s, “Mysteries of the Eternal Book” 2/25/13

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Question: There is some similarity between Moses and the current state of the people of Israel today. Moses does not feel confident about the people of Israel or the Pharaoh although he is in contact with the Creator. The current state of the Israeli nation is also quite insecure.

Answer: It doesn’t matter. If there is a specific direction, if we understand that we have no choice, then despite the conditions that force us to escape from Egypt and to jump into the Red Sea, we do what we have to do.

Question: But you say that the modern Israeli nation doesn’t feel that it is in Egypt. Perhaps a certain force should appear or someone who can explain and start this process?

Answer: This is exactly what we are trying to do. Our group, our organization, wants to show the whole nation of Israel that there is a way to be saved. Let’s change our lives! After all, things are constantly getting worse; the world is becoming more and more hostile, and the Israeli society is disintegrated and divided. Our security is in an increasingly growing danger.

The blows that we feel do not come upon the “nation of Israel,” but upon “Egypt,” upon our ego, since we do not want to exit it. Israel in us, the desire to bestow that wants to come out of exile and to ascend, does not feel the blows. When we are in the ego, it feels the pain, but the moment we leave it, we become disconnected from the “plagues.”

Question: What should we do in order to stop falling into the ego?

Answer: The only thing we should do is to unite. We have the method of connecting for the whole people of Israel, and it is the means to be free of all our troubles.
[R103732]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalists Write: The Night of Passover Seder” 3/4/13

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Question: When we are talking about the holiday of Passover, why do we say: “Remember the exodus from Egypt?” After all, there were other exiles, from Babylon, Greece, and Rome, but we are reminded only about the exodus from Egypt. Why is this?

Answer: The Egyptian exile is the root of all the exiles. All the other exiles are as if superimposed on it. This exile is the most difficult and fundamental. A person rises above his egoism and, for the first time, realizes what the spiritual world is and what it means to feel the property of bestowal instead of the property of receiving that we are born and exist in.

We perceive the world through the senses that constantly want to enjoy and benefit from everything. The revolution in the sensory organs—when I begin to “exit myself,” to identify myself with the world, to give to others, to feel myself outside of my body so that my heart stays there—is called the exodus from Egypt. All the other exiles already happen outside of me.
[R103664]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalists Write: The Night of Passover Seder” 3/4/13

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Question: As a rule, the people of Israel were hated and expelled from various countries. However it is different in Egypt, the people of Israel seemed to be pulled into it.

Answer: We were expelled from country to country until we had a desire to exit egoism. After all, we are liberated only when we want to get out of it in order to unite. Therefore during the entire period of exile, we only collected, added, and accumulated misery and misfortunes.

Today we have reached a state that we simply are obliged to realize ourselves, i.e., unite. This is the action that is necessary to ascend above egoism. Then we will come out to freedom, to the land of Israel. Now we cannot yet imagine this state when you do not depend on anyone, are not afraid of anyone, are not oppressed by anyone, and you feel freedom in the full sense of the word.
[R103823]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalists Write: The Night of Passover Seder” 3/4/13

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 116

How Is the Concept of “a Vessel of Bestowal” Possible, Both a Vessel and a Bestower?

Indeed, there is something strange about the concept of a vessel of bestowal, a will to receive for the sake of bestowal. Since the Kabbalists lacked linguistic tools to express spiritual states, they used various simplified and condensed formulations. Had they not done so, they would have had to write entire books just to describe states such as Ibur (embryonic state), Katnut (smallness), Rosh (head), Toch (inner part), and so on, and even that would not have been enough. Therefore, they developed a language that would let them express spiritual states.

How does this language work? Through a kind of pre-agreed “password,” information is conveyed. This password carries extensive details about the subject matter and the intent of the author. If the reader is on the same spiritual level as the author, they share a common conceptual framework, and the meaning of the password is immediately clear to them.

For example, someone who does not know the meaning of the word “Rosh” (head) in Hebrew will have no idea what to do upon hearing it. We must be familiar with the word to understand its meaning.

However, mere familiarity with the word is not enough to grasp its full context. We must also understand the intent behind the term.

The language of Kabbalah is like a coded language where only those who recognize its codes can comprehend the meaning hidden behind the words. That is, in order to read Kabbalistic texts, we must know what the Kabbalists mean by their terms. They write to one another much like spies communicating in coded messages with no one but themselves able to understand what they were writing.

Why is it necessary to read Kabbalistic books? Baal HaSulam writes in “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot” (item 155) that when we long to understand the inner content of the words, without deceiving ourselves by forming imaginary, physical representations of them (as people often do when reading the Torah as if it were a historical narrative), and without interpreting the text in a corporeal, materialistic way, but instead deeply yearn to grasp the true, inner meaning of the words, we draw upon ourselves the surrounding light (Ohr Makif) from the state the text describes.

However, if instead of delving into the deeper layers of what the Kabbalists write, we imagine pictures from this world, then both the narrative and the imagery remain within the framework of this world. In such a case, we do not draw any illumination from above and remain stagnant, unable to progress.

This is the essential difference between the method of Kabbalah and any other approach to studying the Torah. In Kabbalah, we seek to draw the surrounding light upon ourselves. We strive to understand the inner meaning. This is called studying the inner aspect of the Torah, that is, learning precisely what it is conveying in its coded language.

Then, as we repeatedly attract the surrounding light during our study, we gradually advance until we enter the spiritual world.

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Matan Torah (Giving of the Torah),” Item 7-8 (12.7-8.2003)

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati 21, “When One Feels Oneself in a State of Ascent”

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Selected Highlights

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Question: The people of Israel were afraid to leap into the Red Sea (Yam Suf – Final Sea) until Nachshon decided to do this. It seems that it was not easy to do.

Answer: Indeed it is not easy. We see that difficulties arose in all stages of the spiritual process. There are always those who were ready to turn back. Our ego is so multi-layered that it does not immediately give us the opportunity to escape from it or at least to define it as bad.

It is difficult for a person to nullify himself before others. If I do not act first, it means I would prefer someone else to. Is this a desire for love and unity? At the moment, this has not been clarified yet. And we see that after that the “golden calf” and many other problems were to appear.

Question: What does “Nachshon’s leap” symbolize?

Answer: There is a quality in a person that can go above reason: “Better death than such a life.” So the person leaps into the sea, come what may. Of course this is not our present state. The act called “Nachshon’s leap” requires preparation.

It is required to pass to the next stage, but are we prepared to carry it out? In the meantime, we are far from realizing it, even though this moment is quickly approaching. There is no doubt that we are in the stages of redemption. Peace and perfection are achieved in the connection of hearts. This is our salvation; this must replace the current state of Egypt. Therefore all of our work, study, and dissemination are aimed at connection and unity. Only with the help of connection and a good mutual relationship can we be saved.
[R103820]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalists Write: The Night of Passover Seder” 3/4/13

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Question: What property does Nachshon ben Amminadab, who was the first to jump into the Red Sea, symbolize in a man?

Answer: The Gematria (numerical) value of the name Nachshon ben Amminadab indicates the height of his spiritual condition is a property of pure Bina.

It is this quality that enables him to withstand the wall of water. On one hand water is a soft quality that is the basis of life, and on the other hand it is a hard property since it is manifested as Gvurot, the force of judgment.

The hard and soft forces hidden in water can only be moved by rising above egoism. Nachshon is able to do this because everything moves aside for a person who breaks away from egoism since he completely adheres to the Creator.

There is no empty space in the world: it is either reception (egoism) or bestowal  (the property of the Creator). After rising above the ego, you do not enter a vacuum, you enter but the property of the Creator, as Noah did when he entered the ark. So it is here, you enter the property of bestowal, as if in a cocoon, and exist in it. This is the effect of Nachshon. The sea harms someone, as in the story of the flood, and someone else gets to be saved.

Thus the actions of Noah and Nachshon are the same actions that occur at different levels of egoism and return to their original place in the four stages of development. This takes place at each stage. This is what spiritual advancement consists of.
[R152607]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/30/14

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Question: How can I find the part of the Creator within me?

Answer: The quality of bestowal that arises in you in relation to others is the quality of the Creator within you.

Question: How do I discover this quality? How can I recognize it? I might just be fooling myself.

Answer: Try it out with others, and you will see whether it is there or not and to what extent. When it truly appears, you will feel the Creator.

Question: Is it only at that moment that one can find the Creator within oneself? Is there nothing before that?

Answer: Nothing.
[342935]
From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. The Creator Within Me” 8/2/10

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