Weekly Torah Portion – 12.30.11
Posted on December 30th, 2011
Question: What do the Creator’s names refer to and how can they be attained?
Answer: The Lights, which enter desires and fill them, evoke the sensation in the desire of the kind of fulfillment that it is—the degree of the desire’s similarity to the Light, the Creator. They are referred to as the holy names of the Creator.
Part of the desire to receive pleasure becomes “holy,” which means that it is able to work for the sake of bestowal, and this is why it becomes filled with the Light of Hassadim or even the Light of Hochma. These desires become similar to the Creator.
The Creator Himself does not have a name. The Creator is a complete and perfect HaVaYaH filled with the Light of Infinity. But there are no names in the world of Infinity because names stand for a certain limitation: “kind,” “merciful,” etc. This is why the Creator does not have a name.
All of His holy names are different forms in which we perceive Him in accordance with the degree of our correction. It is similar to your individual characteristics, which I perceive you with: you wear glasses, you dress well, you are a father, an engineer….
In other words, I give you different names or definitions, but I do not know you in reality. I only distinguish a certain particularity in you every time, in relation to a certain specific quality. This is how the attainment of the Creator happens—through His “holy names,” different forms of bestowal, which bring us closer to Him.
But when we correct all our “620” desires and turn them into desires to bestow, they become 620 holy names, and we eventually attain Him through their collectivity. And when we combine all these names into one Name, as it is written: “And the day will come when He and His name will be One”—we truly attain the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/24/11, Writings of Rabash
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Question: Out of all the material published by you and Anthony Kosinec, it was easy for me to synchronize all your teachings with the Holy Quran. This made it clear for me that both the Torah and the Quran came from the same source. However, I don’t see you talking at all about the devil or how he can affect our desires. Could you please explain from your teachings where you can position him or his effects? (Saudi Arabia)
Answer: All positive (giving) and negative (egoistic) forces exist only in a person himself. There is nothing outside a person but the concealed correcting force (the Light, the Creator), which manifests to the extent of our aspiration to become similar to it in our relations.
That is why “love thy neighbor as yourself” is the general rule of the Torah (the method of correction). There is no doubt that the Holy Quran is also a consequence of the same laws of nature (the Creator) that the Torah (Kabbalah) speaks of.
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Question: Does the amount of men necessarily have to reach 600,000 in order for them to come to connection, like the number of men at Mt. Sinai when they received the Torah?
Answer: It isn’t about quantity. It says that there were 600,000 men at the foot of Mt Sinai and around them, women and children, a total of three million people. The number 600,000, however, doesn’t stand for quantity, but rather for the intention to reach Gmar Tikkun (the final correction).
Six is the number of Sefirot in Zeir Anpin, VAK. 1000 stands for Hochma (Wisdom), and 600,000 stands for the height of Arich Anpin.
If all the shattered souls discover that they want to reach mutual guarantee together, they express their request in a cry that they raise to Malchut, to the Sechina. This demand rises from Malchut to Zeir Anpin, in which there are six Sefirot (VAK), and in each one there are ten Sefirot. Because of the desire of the lower one, the six Sefirot of Zeir Anpin rise to a level that is 600,000 times greater than the original one.
It means that the souls want to reach a connection that corresponds to Arich Anpin, the end of correction. They themselves don’t know what the meaning of this connection is, but they want it. So they are considered to be 600,000, and this refers to their desire, not quantity. In spirituality the intensity of the desire is taken into account, and not its quantity.
It can even be two people, after all, it says that two people is a minimal group. And where are all the women, men, and the cattle they took from Egypt, all the vessels they took from Egypt? It is all inside a person!
Each person should feel as if he came out of Egypt and is standing at the foot of Mt. Sinai. But where are all these 600,000 people? How can I count them? They are all inside you.
The Torah tells us about what actually happens inside a person, and not about the number of people that took part in some historical event. It talks only about our inner changes.
On the other hand, there is a law according to which every spiritual root has to expand all the way down and touch its corporeal branch at least once. So there probably were 600,000 men at the foot of Mt. Sinai.
I feel the inner meaning of this concept, and so I can only imagine how it was revealed externally. But you shouldn’t worry that what existed in the past still obliges us today. Once there were the First and Second Temples, the Egyptian exile, but you don’t plan on going back to Egypt, do you?…
Don’t think that there actually have to be 600,000 people at our big convention in December. In spirituality, quality is much more important than quantity, although quantity is also important because today the whole world has to start the process of correction. But don’t think that we have to bring 600,000 people together, not to speak of three million.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/2/2011, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”
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The people of Israel received the Torah when this group agreed to be as one man with one heart, in mutual guarantee. Because of their connection, they first received the ten basic commandments, the “Ten Commandments,” the plan of our complete correction against the ten full Sefirot.
This means that I have to be corrected according to these ten laws: respect that, don’t do that, and so on, that is, fulfill the ten conditions. Then I begin to adapt myself to the other laws that are revealed to me.
I discover that I as if build the “golden calf,” then the “waters of dispute” manifest to me, then the “sin of the spies,” or I may miss the onions and garlic that I ate in Egypt. This means that a person discovers different states, which he tries to correct. He must be immersed in the shattering and feel all these attributes. This is why the Torah describes so many sins.
So instead of the details of the ten main laws, we receive a whole book that gives us advice on how to gradually go through ever new corruptions and corrections within ourselves. If you act correctly, the Light that Reforms shines upon you, awakening you, showing and clarifying various dark hollows.
Then you begin to understand who you are, and you cry out, trying to connect with others as one man with one heart every time. And the forms of connection that you need for that are revealed to you.
Eventually, you complete all the corrections, and it means that you have fulfilled all the “ten commandments” that have been clarified to you through this process, made up of 620 corrections or “commandments.”
If you agreed to connect as one man with one heart, you have to move forward now, to keep this line, and in every step to be connected as “one man.” Then you will begin to discover one fall after another: the golden calf, the waters of dispute, the sin of the spies, and so on. Each time you will discover a problem and will correct it.
This way is called “the path of the Torah” or the “path of the Halakha” (the word “Halakha” comes from the Hebrew word “Alicha” or “walking”), which is a set of laws that one is supposed to follow. When you come across a problem and you don’t know what to do, the Torah tells you how to perform a correction. Thus you put together the whole vessel of the collective soul.
The book of the Torah tells us about the internal process you have to go through, about clarifications and corrections. If you read this book and feel what it says, you see the way.
The path is long, and you haven’t started to advance yet, but you can read about it, hoping that some correction from the future corrections will shine upon you. Then from there, you will receive the illumination called the Surrounding Light or the Light that Reforms.
This will happen if you want all these corrections and if you comprehend what you are reading about. Perhaps you are reading it like some historic novel or some law book? It all depends on your attitude.
It is the same when it comes to The Book of Zohar and The Study of the Ten Sefirot. All the books tell about the same thing: how to reveal the evil within oneself and how to correct it. This is called the “Torah” since both the revelation of evil and its correction happen thanks to the reforming Light. If a person works on these corrections, it means that he studies the Torah. Without this he simply studies in order to acquire dry knowledge.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/2/2011, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”
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Question: What’s the use of the group’s seclusion at the Convention in the Arava desert?
Answer: We have gathered here to lay the foundation for a new society, whose purpose is to attain adhesion with the Creator. In order to attain adhesion with Him, we have to attain adhesion among us. And in order to attain adhesion among us, we have to unite, disconnecting from the disturbances of the outside world. After all, we’re small and we have to strengthen one another, so let the world not interfere with our doing so. That is why we are going to the desert.
In the past, groups of Kabbalists took much more extraordinary measures to isolate themselves from the external environment. A person has to allow himself a bit more freedom from this confused and senseless world, to collect himself inside a bit more and understand what his predestination is.
In the whirlwind of life, under the roar of the radio and television, you can’t make out the fine voice of your soul or attain the fragile inner inspiration. You simply don’t have the energy for it. Even Kabbalists living hundreds and thousands of years ago in a completely different world, which did not know the “wonders” of mass media, still secluded themselves, barring themselves from their habitual environment, and even “going into exile,” leaving home without taking anything with them and going off to wander for years, getting by with occasional earnings and food.
You don’t even know what you are losing in the modern world, which is stuffing and miring you with its filth. Do you want to attain something exalted? If you do, then what efforts are you making to break away from the lowlands?
It’s worthwhile for us to find time for this kind of seclusion where we will feel only our own forces, without the disturbances of the outside world. Let’s separate a day in life to feel who we are instead of who they are.
Obviously, we don’t force anyone to participate and we don’t make lists of participants or deserters. We don’t put check-marks for the future. Whoever doesn’t want to or can’t come just doesn’t come. In this sense, everything is very liberal and open. But on the other hand, if a person comes there, he has to participate in the actions that the group has assigned to help us detach from everything and feel only ourselves.
Don’t you sometimes wish to be alone with yourself? That is how the group wants to be alone with itself, to feel itself. You enter a room, close the door, and remain with your own thoughts. That is how we want to remain with our thoughts. In reality, this is clear and commonly accepted. But for us it’s not just a minute of rest, but a detachment from “the degree of women and children” and an ascent to the “men’s level.”
In the article, “The importance of the group,” Rabash writes, “When a person works on the true path, he needs to seclude himself from other people. After all, the path of truth requires fortification because it contradicts common notions. The world’s opinions are built upon knowledge and reception, whereas the Torah’s opinions are built upon faith and bestowal. And if a person is distracted, then he immediately forgets about all work on the path of the truth and falls into the world of self-love. Only in the group do the friends help one another, and therefore every person receives forces from it to fight the commonly accepted notions.”
The upper world is our inner world. We have to shift our gaze from externality to internality. Therefore, with the help of the friends, I try to go inside, to look inward, to acquire a deep wisdom, to attain the inner meaning of the Torah. There is no other choice—I need this.
A person must constantly immerse himself inward, penetrate into his depths—and precisely there he reveals the true world. The external world deliberately confuses us so through the conflict with it, upon the resistance, we would build our direction inward. Our struggle is to penetrate deeper and deeper on the background of this world’s reality, which pulls us outward.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/16/11, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”
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