Entries in the 'Commandments' Category

Why Are We Given Commandments?

712.03Comment: There are commandments relating to the Creator, to one’s neighbor, or a person himself that we can understand. And there are commandments that relate, for example, to the Temple, the land of Israel, and to inanimate nature.

My Response: That is right. We must have a certain intention, purpose, and a specific attitude toward nature, home, animals, in general—to everything. Through our relationships, we can get closer or move away from each other. Therefore, it is very important to keep the commandments.

Question: The sources say the purpose of all commandments is to unite creation. How, for example, is the commandment about cultivating land related to the uniting creation?

Answer: You need to know how to treat the land, nature, water, air, everything to keep nature as healthy, whole, and holistic as possible. That is in the commandments.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 11/21/23

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Incomprehensible Commandments

549.02Question: Some commandments can be explained logically, for example, washing hands helps maintain a person’s health. Observing the Sabbath commandment is also understandable, people need to rest.

But some commandments are completely inexplicable; they are just some actions to perform. How can this be understood?

Answer: The fact is we do not understand everything in nature.

In principle, commandments are a little irrational from our perspective; they lack common sense.

However, if we had a deeper understanding of nature, we would grasp where these instructions, which we call commandments, originate.

The point is that everything in them stems from an understanding of the higher nature. And if we delve deeper into the environment around us, we will see that all commandments are as rational and necessary as those we can comprehend and analyze.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 11/21/23

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Internal and External Commandments

533.02Question: Why are there commandments that can be performed as external actions, like putting on tefillin, etc. and others that can only be performed internally, such as, “do not make an idol,” “exalt the Creator,” and so on?

Answer: This suggests that there are commandments under which we must internally adjust ourselves to a certain attitude toward a person or some action. The most important thing in fulfilling these commandments is our attitude.

There are commandments in which the main thing is not the attitude toward someone or something but the physical fulfillment itself. Therefore, the commandments differ from each other. But this does not mean that each of them is more or less important relative to the other; rather, it is that they can be sorted according to such criteria.

Question: Why does Baal HaSulam say that there are only two commandments in the world: reception and bestowal?

Answer: It refers to a person’s actions. That is why Baal HaSulam calls them commandments of reception and commandments of bestowal. That is, we must learn how to receive from any person, from the world, and from nature, and bestow in accordance with this. We practically do nothing else.

Question: Does this have something to do with the division of the 613 commandments into commandments to perform an act or to abstain from an act?

Answer: No. This is a completely separate division.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 11/21/23

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The Relevance of Fulfilling the Commandments

937Question: What does it mean that there are commandments that could previously be fulfilled, for example, those related to the Temple, but now cannot?

Answer: There is no Temple, and there are no such commandments.

In past centuries during the time of the Temples, we kept the commandments concerning them. But today, there is no need for this. That is why the Temples disappeared. Now, we can do something else that was not necessary in those days.

Question: It seems to me that there may be confusion here between internal action and physical action. As explained in Kabbalah, the internal action of the commandment is a change of intention from reception to bestowal, right?

Answer: Baal HaSulam writes in one of his letters that when the Jews received the Torah as one man with one heart, they first observed the most important commandment: Love your neighbor. But their egoism constantly grew and they were unable to stay in this state; they replaced it with external manifestations.

But the fact is that without physical actions, the intention is dead. Therefore, we must understand that we need to fulfill the commandments physically and internally in our attitude.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 11/21/23

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“Love Your Neighbor” Is the Main Commandment of the Universe

504Question: Baal HaSulam writes that there is one commandment: “Love your neighbor.” Why does the Creator require us to fulfill this particular commandment?

Answer: The commandment “Love thy neighbor as thyself” includes all human corrections. If a person starts treating others the same way he treats himself, he will transform his egoistic nature into the property of bestowal and love.

In principle, this is all that the Torah should lead us to. It is in this action that we reveal the Creator.

Question: Can we say there are more important and less important commandments, or are they all equally important?

Answer: It is difficult to say which commandments are more important and which are less. But it follows from Rabbi Akiva’s explanation that “Love thy neighbor” is the most important, general commandment.
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From KabTV’s”Spiritual States” 11/21/23

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Our World Is a World of Spiritual Consequences

234Question: The Torah describes the laws of communication with the upper force. Do these laws manifest themselves in our world as a root and branch?

Answer: Some do because the Creator is the whole of nature around us, Elokim, in gematria is the same as Teva (nature). And if we treat it correctly, then, naturally, we will influence correctly the upper force called the Creator, and by this, it will influence us correctly.

Comment: That is what is confusing. On one hand in The Book of Zohar, which in principle comments on the Torah and decodes it, it is written that the Torah does not say a single word about our world but only about states outside of time and space.

My Response: It is about the forces that are above our world.

Question: Yes. On the other hand we see some manifestations of things in the Torah in our world also. There are some well-established traditions. How can one figure it out?

Answer: Very little is said about our world because our world is a world of consequences. If we begin to correctly impact the upper force, the Creator, according to the fact that we will become more and more correctly like Him, then naturally, His influence on our world will be positive for us.

In other words, a commandment is an action to change an intention for oneself to an intention for the sake of bestowal, for the sake of the Creator.

Such an action is possible only when a person is in direct contact with the Creator. And before that he performs simply mechanical actions in our world, which are, as it were, preparation for spiritual ones.
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From KabTV’s”Spiritual States” 11/21/23

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Questions about Spiritual Work—40

281.02Question: How can we work correctly with negative examples in the environment, which sometimes affect us more than the positive ones and distance us from the source?

Answer: We try not to see them, according to the rule all crimes will be covered by love.

Question: What is the difference between the big and small commandments?

Answer: There is no difference between them, all the commandments are the same. There are commandments concerning all people, and they are the main ones. And there are commandments concerning the person himself or something else, and they are secondary.

Question: We can avoid the state of forgetfulness only by working for bestowal and multiplying good deeds in the ten. So why do they still arise despite the fact that you try to work for bestowal?

Answer: Since we cannot stay in a good state, egoism rises in us, and we fall into it again.

Question: Is it taken into account above how a person evaluates himself or how the group evaluates him?

Answer: The group’s assessment is taken into account.

Question: In order to feel the giver in the ten, we must awaken a point in the heart so that it connects us, and we, constantly receiving pleasure, feel Him?

Answer: No, you will not be able to constantly feel pleasure and the giver. You will be able to achieve these states to the extent that you become givers yourself.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Round About Him It Storms Mightily”

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The Answer to All Troubles

292Victor writes:

You Jews were given the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. Please explain why the commandments that cannot be fulfilled were given? If possible, concretely. Even if not all ten, at least these four, in my opinion, are the most burning. “Do not kill”—we kill. “Do not steal”—we steal godlessly. “Do not speak of your neighbor with false testimony”—everything today is built on this, to slander another. “Do not commit adultery”—that is all we do. Why are impossible commandments given?

Answer: It is so that we can see that we would like to fulfill them, but we can not. And if we ask the Creator, He will give us strength, and then we can.

Question: What should be the result? You thereby prove that they are impossible for a person to fulfill?

Answer: Just for a person—no. Without the help of the Creator—absolutely not. They are intentionally given in such a way as not to be fulfilled and to ask the Creator to help.

Question: Is there any hope that they will ever be fulfilled?

Answer: When the Creator responds to our request.

Question: So it should be the request of all requests?

Answer: Yes, such a cry.

Question: Today, it seems this cry is maturing. Don’t you have that feeling?

Answer: No! People have experienced such disasters, nothing will calm them down.

Question: Are these commandments given to the whole world?

Answer: In general, yes. Only the order of execution is important. First we have to fulfill them, and then the whole world.

Question: So it is not for nothing that they were given to this nation so that it would be the first to fulfill them and then pass it on to the world? Is this its main mission?

Answer: Yes, it is its mission. And therefore, “and all the nations of the world will be blessed in you.”

Question: If they are fulfilled, what will the world be like then?

Answer: In principle, the world will be different. The world will be stricter. The world will be more restrained. The world will be drier and more open. In general, there will be many opposites that we will need to balance.

There should simply be a direct connection with the laws of nature, with the Creator. This is a very strong response to any sicknesses of man and humanity.

Question: What is the spiritual meaning of these commandments? “Thou shalt not kill,” what does this mean from a spiritual point of view?

Answer: You have to be responsible for the existence of another person. Our egoism constantly pushes us to start showing ourselves egotistically cruel. And we have to dodge it. That is what all these commandments are.

Question: Can we say that these are commandments that constantly divert from the use of egoism?

Answer: Yes.

Question: At the same time, you say that egoism will not be destroyed, it is not killed?

Answer: No! Life cannot exist without it.

Question: That is, it is life and it is impossible to kill it. Do we have to maneuver all the time? Until the end?

Answer: Until the last moment of life’s existence.

Question: So these commandments will exist until the last moment?

Answer: Of course.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/26/23

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The Commandment of Circumcision

232.09And since he has one Mitzva, which he always keeps, the Mitzva of circumcision, a Mitzva that the body cannot resist, if he can be happy with one thing, even that he is keeping the Creator’s commandment, if he is thinking about keeping this Mitzva, of which the body has no opinion, by that he can reawaken his work and toil diligently once again, as he did prior to the descent. (RABASH. Article 17. (1985). “Know Today and Reply to Your Heart”)

Question: You said that circumcision is the ability to rise above your desire to receive. The article says that with this power a person himself can reawaken his state of action and work again with full energy as he did before the descent.

How do we acquire this power to rise, the circumcision, to work every time as before the descent?

Answer: When a person rises above his desire, as if breaking away from it, it is called that he circumcises himself. This is when he gets the force of bestowal he did not have before.

Question: How can you acquire this force, how can you rise above yourself?

Answer: By circumcising yourself, that is, by cutting off everything relating to the egoistic desire to receive.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah lesson 11/15/23, Writings of Rabash “Know Today and Reply to Your Heart“

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According to a Spiritual Source

200.02All laws of Judaism come from Kabbalah, which has fallen into our world and somehow left its imprint in it especially in terms of social mutual support.

In any country, anyone can be a street child, except for Jewish children. There is no such thing! The people are educated to take care of children so much that you just cannot leave them on the street.

Let’s say you arrange a wedding after which you have 50% of the food left, you have no right to throw this food away until the poor come and take with them everything they want.

You have no right to harvest the entire crop from the field because you have to leave the so-called peah. Peah (paces, remnants), the strands of hair that descend from the sides of the head of religious men symbolize the light of Hochma descending from the head into the body.

Therefore, it is forbidden to pick up from the ground the fruit that has fallen from a tree. You may only pick them from the tree, and what is under the tree is not yours, but is for the poor. Before you eat challah (bread), you should cut a piece for the benefit of the poor. All these laws of the separation of tithes from each part come from Kabbalah.

I think that over time humanity will begin to apply them based not on Judaism, but from a spiritual source.

Direct internal correction will make them think and care about others, and therefore, they will behave this way regardless of any factors.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Prison” 8/16/11

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