Entries in the 'Torah' Category

Signs Of The Golden Calf

Dr. Michael LaitmanHe took [them] from their hand[s], fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it into a molten calf, upon which they said: “These are your gods, O Israel, who have brought you up from the land of Egypt!” (The Torah, “Exodus,” Ki Tisa,” 32:4)

Everything is forgotten! It seems that it was not the Creator who led the people of Israel out of Egypt, but rather an idol, the golden calf. It looks like people carried all of Egypt within a symbolic calf.

If one doesn’t advance in the property of bestowal and love of one’s neighbor and then ascends to a state of love to the Creator, if one doesn’t feel a constant appeal to advance accordingly, one will never “exit Egypt.” And yet, people are confident that they are already in the state of the final correction.

5. When Aaron saw [this], he built an altar in front of it, and Aaron proclaimed and said: “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord.”

6. On the next day they arose early, offered up burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings, and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and they got up to make merry. (The Torah, “Exodus”, Ki Tisa,” 32:5 – 32:6)

A firm basis that lets us enjoy this material life and also rejoice in the future life finally appears in all human egoistic desires. We become totally confident that we have everything we need.

However, we have not found the most important thing: the Creator! Moses and the Creator disappear from our sensations, but we don’t sense the deficiency, nor do we feel a need for them. We are so fulfilled that we don’t have the slightest thought of the Creator. We feel great, are getting fatter, acquiring confidence, gaining seriousness, and concerned only with ourselves.

Aspiration to power, knowledge, and wealth create a stable and firm basis for us. All these things are the signs of the golden calf.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/9/13

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To Defeat The “Golden Calf”

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah, “Exodus” (Ki Tissa), 32:11, 32:12: Moses pleaded before the Lord, his God, and said: “Why, O Lord, should Your anger be kindled against Your people whom You have brought up from the land of Egypt with great power and with a strong hand?”

Why should the Egyptians say: He brought them out with evil [intent] to kill them in the mountains and to annihilate them from upon the face of the earth? Retreat from the heat of Your anger and reconsider the evil [intended] for your people.

Moses understands that all the desires that are called “sinful people,” which cannot be corrected, are sentenced to death. They are already in spiritual death and thus they will remain at this level.

Today, as a result of the crisis, we are beginning, to grasp a little bit that the stage of the “golden calf” is nearing its end. In pursuit after it, we gradually realize that this pursuit is killing us.

This is because our miserable humanity is constantly suffering and running after the source of its pain and suffering, and only occasionally feels a slight pause that gives it the strength to continue the pursuit. And there is still no relief. If in such a state a man is transformed to becoming immortal, then there is no more punishment. But we have an outlet in the state that is created and it is specifically to be thankful for the concrete connection with the attribute of “Moses,” meaning the attributes of bestowal and love.
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From KabTV’s “Secrete of the Eternal Book” 9/9/13

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Ascend Above Reason

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah, “Exodus” (Ki Tissa), 32:2: Aaron said to them, “Remove the golden earrings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters and bring them [those earrings] to me.”

This is saying that all of the internal characteristics and senses of a person that help his advancement: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching now receive egoistic tendencies and directions. But a person doesn’t understand and doesn’t feel that he is going in an opposite direction.

In that he feels an acute requirement for support, he relies upon what he has on hand, his reason. He doesn’t have anything more than it. There exist desires and their fulfillments. Fulfillment through knowledge and reason is the highest fulfillment after food, sex, family, wealth, and control.

Fulfillment through knowledge gives us a sensation of mastery over something very significant, a feeling of control. Whereas, in spiritual work we must go forward, acquiring a new, higher reasoning that replaces material knowledge with bestowal and love, meaning to advance contrary to reason.

Ascent above reason happens when I see that according to my reasoning, my egoistic understanding, I must specifically make this step, yet I make a completely different calculation, but not against reason, for I don’t go contrary to reason, but rather above reason. It is very important to feel what “above” means. Sometimes we say “contrary to reason,” but we don’t mean nullification of reason but ascent above it.

By nullifying reason and not taking it into account at all, I seemingly nullify it. Whereas here I am found with my former reasoning and to ascend to the next higher reasoning I must do this through a method of increasing faith, increasing bestowal and love, without any egoistic basis, contrary to my internal egoistic call. In this case, for us the basis for advancement becomes the general rule, “And you shall love your friend as yourself.”
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/9/13

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A Trickle

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah, “Exodus” (Ki Tissa), 32:7-32:11: And the Lord said to Moses: “Go, descend, for your people that you have brought up from the land of Egypt have acted corruptly. They have quickly turned away from the path that I have commanded them; they have made themselves a molten calf! And they have prostrated themselves before it, slaughtered sacrifices to it, and said: ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who have brought you up from the land of Egypt.’”

And the Lord said to Moses: “I have seen this people and behold! They are a stiff-necked people. Now leave Me alone, and my anger will be kindled against them, so that I will annihilate them, and I will make you into a great nation.” Moses pleaded before the Lord, his God, and said: “Why, O Lord, should Your anger be kindled against Your people whom You have brought up from the land of Egypt with great power and with a strong hand?”

On one hand the people erred. But on the other hand, it was impossible to annihilate them because the full correction had to be revealed through this entire mass. And I will make of thee a great nation: in summation this says to do this from a small part of all of humanity.

The Creator seemingly dictated to Moses that here Moses carried out the role of a scribe. In the Hebrew language there is no word for “scribe” in the sense that it exists in other languages. A scribe (in Hebrew “sofer”) is someone who moves his hand. But the Creator is the one who writes. And that is how it is with everything for everything flows from the Creator. Therefore, Moses always transmits into writing what is told to him from his spiritual attainment.

About what did the Creator tell him? That it’s possible to create a nation from the characteristic of Bina which is represented by Moses. But this nation would not be enough because it would have to be the bearer of the characteristic of bestowal only, like an angel that has no free choice of its own, having no ego, suppressing everything. This part wouldn’t be suitable at all for any task that would follow.

Therefore, they demonstrate here analytically that this way would be a blind alley and in principle could not be implemented because it was not given to correct the world and reach the goal of creation with its help. This task can be carried out only through a combination of egoistic desires with altruistic desires, as a result of which a connection is created between them that is constantly renewed.

It’s impossible to correct some part of the soul, thereby completely isolating it and not letting it go out to the entire immense soul that has been corrupted by the ego. So when Moses doesn’t agree with the Creator, he shows again how strong his connection was with the people even though he had ascended so high. He seemingly suggested to the Creator: “Come, let’s do this, through me it will be possible to bring them back to correction.” That is how a part of the connection with others begins to be born in Moses.

When a person ascends to the next level and is found there, it’s as if he is completely disconnected from everyone, and through a shattering, he must pass through an inner passage that makes it possible to discover the connection with the rest of creation. After that his development begins. It’s specifically this thin trickle of connection that connects him with the others, and now he must develop it.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/9/13

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Everything In Order To Bestow

The Torah, “Exodus,” 32:30-32: And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people: “Ye have sinned a great sin; and now I will go up unto the LORD, peradventure I shall make atonement for your sin.” And Moses returned unto the LORD, and said: “Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them a god of gold. Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin–; and if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written.”

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: It turns out that Moses gives up the ascent to the upper world. But how can one give up eternity?

Answer: When a person is on the level of Moses, on the level of the attribute of bestowal, the level itself dictates what he does. Being in this attribute, a person cannot see himself, his own existence, and the fulfillment of his form in any other way. If there is no fulfillment, he doesn’t exist either, since unless it is fulfilled, the attribute of Moses leads to nothing. It’s similar to the state in which Baal HaSulam requested to be lowered from his spiritual height so that he would be able to express in his writings whatever people need in order to fulfill the correction.

So when Moses asks the Creator to blot him out of the Book of Life, there is no resistance, no rebellion against the Creator, since it’s a person’s inner attribute. We shouldn’t imagine Moses as a person standing before the Creator. Everything that the Torah speaks about is inside us and we have to perceive it correctly and not imagine scenes from Hollywood movies. A person who feels the attribute of Moses internally cannot answer any other way since it obliges him. We always assume who we are and which attributes exist in us and manage us.

Any study that brings the Light, that brings us to unite, is fulfilled in order to disseminate and to bestow. Everything is in order to bestow. A person exists only for others, and only so that they will exist. Such absolute detachment is an indication of the attribute of Bina.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/11/13

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On The Verge Of The Correction Of Humanity

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why in the past did Kabbalists intentionally conceal their engagement in the wisdom of Kabbalah and in the inner part of the Torah?

Answer: The point is that the time of the mixing of the desires, of the attributes of bestowal and receiving, had not ended yet, and so there was no one to whom to reveal this knowledge. The egoistic and the altruistic attributes started to mix after the destruction of the Temple. This process had to be a full cycle of about two thousand years, but because of great tragedies such as the Holocaust, times were shortened.

When the mixing was completed, the rebuilding of the whole world began by discovering its globalization, and humanity began to feel it. This has never happened before.

Globalization is revealed in nature and not in humanity. We are used to saying that humanity is mutually connected, but it’s connected only by nature that manages us globally. We exist in nature like a small ball in a great sphere, and this sphere operates and affects us integrally, while we hardly feel the globalization and have no need for it; the ego has no need for it. It cannot work with it in any way.

When the mixing of all the vessels was completed and the rebuilding of the world has begun, the whole structure came together, and now we begin to feel our inner resistance to the sphere that surrounds us. This sphere grows day by day and if it were internally connected on the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature, now it’s on the level of the speaking, and we begin to resist it as we go through the post-industrial egoistic evolution.

As long as the scientific technological evolution of humanity continued, it was in our benefit, but since the middle of the 20th century, we have begun not only to satiate ourselves but to over-satiate ourselves and what is more, we do so in a most inefficient way. After all, no one gains anything by it. Even if someone has made a billion dollars, it’s registered in his bank and is tossed around the world as a redundant burden, while a person has wasted billions of tons of natural resources and has unbalanced himself in order to obtain this billion.

The general crisis began in the middle of the last century, which means the oppositeness of humanity from the world around it, from the system of Providence, and it is now that we have to approach our correction seriously. Now we are only starting to lay the foundations of the practical use of the Torah as the method of correction in our world.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/11/13

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Aiming At The Attribute Of Bestowal

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah, “Exodus” (Ki Tissa), 32:33-32:35: And the Lord said to Moses: “Whoever has sinned against Me, him I will erase from My book. And now go, lead the people to [the place] of which I have spoken to you. Behold My angel will go before you. But on the day I make an accounting [of sins upon them], I will bring their sin to account against them.” Then the Lord struck the people with a plague, because they had made the calf that Aaron had made.

This is a new correction. The Upper Light reveals which of the levels of our ego are closer and which are further away as it descends unto all our egoistic levels. Then they are sorted out: Some sink downwards to the level of death and others rise higher upwards, etc. It becomes clear that it’s a step forward and also what we should advance to and how to do it.

Starting from this clarification, from the understanding of what a person is made of with regard to the Creator, when all the five levels are clearly arranged in him, he focuses on the attribute of bestowal according to them. After all, he doesn’t see the attribute of bestowal; he doesn’t see the Creator. But they are inside him in a state and in the correlation between them that they show him this direction and he can advance. It’s only by the internal information, by his inner feelings, by focusing on what is closer to the Creator than what is inside him, that he turns in the right direction and moves on.

A person focuses himself internally to the attribute that slightly illuminates a bit. By the mutual cooperation of his inner attributes with this illumination, when he establishes them according to his distance, he focuses himself on the direction he should turn to, on where and what the pure attribute of bestowal actually is.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/11/13

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You Shall Not Make Yourself An Idol

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah, “Exodus” (Ki Tissa), 32:19-32:20: Now it came to pass when he drew closer to the camp and saw the calf and the dances, that Moses’ anger was kindled, and he flung the tablets from his hands, shattering them at the foot of the mountain. Then he took the calf they had made, burned it in fire, and gave [it to] the children of Israel to drink.

First Israel had to go down to Egypt with Jacob and his sons, and although they had a good life, they felt that were slaves in Egypt since it wasn’t their home. When they made the golden calf it was the same Egypt, but it was already desirable. They wanted to develop according to the example of Egypt and to build themselves a wonderful state without the help of the Creator; they built a golden calf.

Therefore any figures or images that they bow to in various cultures or societies, this is the personification for the golden calf. A person builds himself a corporeal idol in order to bow to it. It’s totally opposite from the Kabbalistic perspective, but in every religion and belief, until this very day, there are idols to which everyone bows.

A person needs to have something that is sacred; he has to keep something like a child who plays with a toy. He cannot exist without it since everything that is beyond matter is beyond his understanding. He must have certain figures. Thus, there has always been a bitter conflict over the question as to whether we should build a corporeal Temple or not, whether we need a king in this state or not. A king refers to a monarchy and the upper Providence is also a monarchy.

Why do we need all that? It’s a very delicate fulfillment of the social structure, so that society will yearn only upwards, and only the actions will remain below, which means that everything else should only be the intention.

So a person has to constantly distinguish between the fact that spirituality should be in the air and not in a corporeal form, while corporeality should be expressed only in actions that focus us on one another. Then only the positive mutual bestowal will remain until the absolute revelation of love and the connection between us. If people act this way, they will establish the temple in the connection between them in which they will discover the Creator. Only now, after humanity has been through all the levels of its historical evolution, can we gradually explain to people how to give up all the external signs.

The body doesn’t exist. There is only the desire that we must connect and then we will be able to discover inside us, between us, in the neutral area, in the connection between us, the new attribute called Adam (a human being), and in it we will discover the Creator, the force that has created us and which revives us. It’s a great maturation process that a person goes through.

We have to keep all the symbols the Torah tells us about: the flags, the banners, the Tabernacle of the covenant, the tent of assembly, etc. in spirituality and not as a corporeal fulfillment. In order to succeed in doing so, we need to connect. On the one hand, the connection guards you, and on the other hand, you guard the connection. Everyone supports everyone in the spiritual yearning; this is precisely the reason for the connection between us where everyone worries about everyone else.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/9/13

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The Beautiful Outbursts Of The Soul

Dr. Michael LaitmanPeople have been trying to find something holy in material objects over the course of many years. They have unlocked pyramids and coffins and have found nothing except for mold and fungus which kills them.

The fact is that people constantly rely on the material world; there is nothing good about it because it poisons a person spiritually. People build non-spiritual structures, create a world of dark objects, a world where spirituality is perceived in a material form; this is the golden calf.

This is why the Torah constantly mentions a request for Moses and the Levites to rise and kill the people, to stab and burn every fifth and tenth person. This implies an aspiration to eradicate everyone’s natural, egoistic tendency to constantly search for the golden calf.

There is an altruistic impulse in every person’s soul, and they must find it. But this has nothing to do with regular impulses, when a person wishes to pull away from the past, to ease his fate. Many people are prepared to die either to rid themselves of suffering or to seemingly unite with a higher idea. We see soldiers go off to war prepared to sacrifice themselves.

But here the only thing a person has is his aspiration for something higher. This is a special quality of the soul, which is beginning to manifest in him.

After all, the purpose of the program of creation is to bring every person to a state of similarity to the Creator, and then together we will form the single image of Adam.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/9/13

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An Anti-Ego Vaccination

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah, “Exodus” (Ki Tissa), 32:20: Then he took the calf they had made, burned it in fire, ground it to fine powder, scattered [it] upon the surface of the water, and gave [it to] the children of Israel to drink.

This can be compared to the way an antidote for a certain poison is made by a small portion of the same poison. Every medicine is poison, but not every poison is a medicine. What Moses did was the remedy for the Israeli nation. Moses did not think about destroying the nation but about curing it and about preparing a vaccination for it from the golden calf.

The calf (the ego) must actually be ground to powder, so that it will lose its shape, its figure, and will be found in each one in soft power and intensity. Therefore, it’s impossible to manage without the calf. There must be poison so that everyone will know from what he could die and how to be cured.

There is no punishment, but a cure. So no one should fear golden calves. The time will come when the power will be revealed, the ability and the readiness to grind the ego to powder and to start the cure on the right track. The cure for any illness is gradual and especially in this case.

We should understand where we are, where we are headed, what the healing process comes down to, and most of all what it means to be healthy. This is the whole process of internal education.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/9/13

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