Question from Facebook: I don’t understand a lot of what you say and write, but for some reason, I cannot tear myself away. Would you please explain what the oath is that the nation of Israel gave to the Creator as they stood at Mt Sinai, “We will do and we will hear.” Is this an oath of slaves?
Answer: Actually, it is an oath of slaves. We agree to enslave ourselves to a new principle of existence. We agree to do only that which is beneficial for the society which we, previous slaves of the Pharaoh, are now going to create and become slaves of the Creator. To be slaves of the Pharaoh means to work with an egoistic focus, egoistic desire. To become slaves of the Creator means to work with altruistic desire. Only one of these two can operate within the person. He can either become a conscious slave of the Pharaoh or a slave of the Creator.
Under no circumstances should we think that a slave is something negative. Even now, we are slaves. We are slaves all the time; we just don’t see who is our master. Our master is egoism. It spins us around, and we unconsciously carry out all its orders. It lives in us, constantly forcing us to worry, to think, to do something, and giving us unnecessary goals. And we, by doing all this, burn our lives and achieving nothing.
In reality, to be a slave means to be aware that you exist in nature, that you are controlled by desires and thoughts. You need to understand how these desires and thoughts can be corrected, how to change your master from the Pharaoh to the Creator, and in doing so, you achieve complete freedom, even though you are the slave of the Creator.
This is very interesting and, at the same time, an incomprehensible connection between slavery and freedom. In being a slave of the Creator, you gain freedom because you become a slave of the quality of bestowal and love. You rise above egoism, which no longer limits you in any way, and in this manner, you become free.
Shavuot, the holiday of the giving of the Torah, speaks to the fact that from this moment on, a person becomes free. He begins to acquire his freedom, reclaiming all that was in him under the rule of the Pharaoh and gradually correcting himself, pulling out all his egoistic desires, thoughts, and qualities, and changing them to their opposite, to altruistic.
Standing at Mt. Sinai means that we commit, we want, we are ready for anything, in order to receive the upper Light called Torah—the Light that Reforms reforms us to resemble the Creator. We want to receive it and we are ready for it. This is symbolized by standing at Mt Sinai.
Tremendous hatred and large contradictions are revealed along the way, and thanks to this revelation of all of our negative qualities and characteristics, we are ready to go toward any correction if only to rid ourselves of the ego.
This is the exact moment from which the nation of Israel is born, the moment we take the oath to be slaves of the Creator and we ask Him for this.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 5/22/17
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A Joyful Giving Of The Torah Holiday
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