Weekly Torah Portion – 03.10.11
Posted on March 10th, 2011
Question: Why is it much easier to rise above the repulsion from each other at the big Conventions?
Answer: 1. At the Convention a person is not in his group. He dissolves in an ocean of people with whom he did not have close contact and therefore did not reveal his evil toward them.
2. At the Conventions we do not work on revealing the evil in ourselves, but rather we awaken goodness. However, this goodness comes in spite of the evil that has already been revealed and in order for us to acquire forces for the future.
Therefore, people who do not work on themselves in the group do not feel a drive to come to the Convention. They do not see this as an opportunity to advance. “What will I do there? Jump? Sing? I can just watch it on TV or the Internet at a time that’s comfortable for me!”
In reality there is a big difference between virtual and physical participation at the Convention because in the latter case a person exerts energy, money, and great efforts to take part in it. In addition, prior to entering the sensation of the upper world, we cannot revoke the importance of material contact. Therefore, the Convention is intended for people who desire to come there with the realization of evil they have accumulated from before, as well as those who desire to receive the forces there to overcome the realization of evil in the future.
The Torah talks a lot about how in ancient times people would meet by a well to communicate and establish connections. That is how we should feel at the Convention: like people who have gathered by a life-giving well in a desert, and from that well we can receive the vital forces of Bina (water is the quality of bestowal, the quality of Bina).
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/7/11, The Zohar
Related Material:
What Is A Congress?
The Effect Of The Critical Mass
Light Is The Mightiest Force In The World
Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.
613 Suggestions and 613 Deposits
We should keep the Torah and Mitzvot so [specifically because] it will bring us into purity [and not in order to receive reward in this or the next world or because it was commanded by the Creator]. Purity means purification of the Kelim [vessels] from the will to receive for oneself, which is called “dirt” [impurity] for it is in disparity of form from the Creator, who is all about [the property of] bestowal. Hence prior to cleaning the Kelim, it is impossible to place anything good [exalted] in them [it’s impossible to fill them with the sensation of eternity and perfection] because anything that is placed in a dirty Kli (vessel) will be spoiled [according to the law of the equivalence of form].
Therefore, we must seek good advice [of Kabbalists who already underwent the path of correction] for things that will purify our Kelim [egoistic desires]. This is called “qualification [suitability] and preparation to be able to receive the delight and pleasure” [which awaits us in the revelation of the Creator]. And because of that, we were given 613 Mitzvot [instructions], which The Zohar calls, “613 counsels.” These are suggestions on how to purify ourselves [our desires since man is specifically a vessel of desires] from the filth of our vessels of reception.
It is written in the “Introduction of The Book of Zohar” (p. 242), “The Zohar calls the Mitzvot in the Torah, ‘deposits.’ However, they are also called ‘counsels.’ The difference between them is that there are front and back in everything. The preparation for something is called ‘back,” and the attainment [reception] of that thing is called ‘front.’ Similarly, in Torah and Mitzvot there is ‘We shall do,’ and ‘We shall hear.’
When keeping the Torah and Mitzvot by way of ‘Who do His words [correcting their egoism],’ before they are rewarded with hearing, the Mitzvot are called ‘613 counsels,’ and they are considered ‘back.’ And when rewarded with hearing the voice of His word [the property of bestowal within], the Mitzvot become deposits [the sensation of the Light within], from the word “deposited.”
– Rabash, The Rungs of the Ladder, “Holiness and Purity in the Work”
[36431]
Related Material:
Kabbalists On The Torah And Commandments, Part 36
Kabbalists On The Torah And Commandments, Part 35
Kabbalists On The Torah And Commandments, Part 34
“Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “The Twelfth Commandment,” Item 245: … [it is] being said about the eleventh Mitzva and not this Mitzva. Indeed, The Zohar mixes them right at the beginning of the eleventh Mitzva for it says, “There are two Mitzvot here.” The printer, however, divided them into two.
The Book of Zohar in its initial form was a commentary on the entire TaNaKh (the Torah, Nevi’im or the Prophets, and Ketuvim or the Scriptures), which implies that its volume was much greater than what has reached us. But for various reasons, the major part of The Zohar vanished, and we have to accept whatever was left of the original text as given to us by the upper management so that we could correct ourselves.
Evidently, we don’t need more that that. Each generation is endowed with what is necessary for the type of souls that appear in that generation in our corporeal world.
Therefore, we have to embrace The Zohar as it has come to us, as its parts are printed and intermixed. The Light that emanates from this Book reforms us; its effect is evident. We must accept everything as a fact and do the job we are responsible for.
[36278]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”
Related Material:
A World Of Adventures You Can Step Into
Open Sesame!
A Driver For Entire Mankind
The Zohar, Introduction, “General Explanations for All Fourteen Commandments and How They Divide Into the Seven Days of ‘Creation’,” Item 1: …Rabbi Shimon explains the fourteen Mitzvot, which include all 613 Mitzvot, as the seven days of creation include 7,000 years. This is why he divided them into seven days of creation and tied each to its ascribed day. And since they include all 613 Mitzvot, it is worthwhile exerting to keep each day.
What does it mean to observe a commandment (Mitzva)? How do I even know what that commandment is? And what can I do now if I don’t even know what it is talking about?
Nevertheless, I have to read this text with the intention that it will correct me. After all, for now we don’t even know how to connect to the text or extract the spiritual action from it so it would become an instruction manual for us, the Torah, because “Torah” comes from the word “Oraa,” instructions. For it is written, “A man’s soul shall teach him.”
When each of us will have a soul instead of its embryo or spiritual spark, then inside of our soul we will reveal various phenomena. These phenomena will become “my book,” “my Torah,” my revelation, according to the instruction to write the Torah on one’s heart, where the heart refers to all of a person’s desires.
From them we will find out how to advance, how to take the next steps, and will take them inside of us. That is exactly how we will perform various actions inside of us according to the instruction manual.
But for now we are looking at the instruction manual without realizing what the instructions are saying. We do not know what it is talking about because we do not feel what each of them is talking about inside of us, where various parts of our soul are, and what connection between them is.
Therefore, we must only ask and pray to reveal the inner structure of our soul: Where are these desires in the states that are being described, what exactly is the book talking about, and what actions does it describe which we must perform inside of us?
The intention to desire and to attain this is the right intention, which Baal HaSulam describes in Item 155 of “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot”: …through the yearning and the great desire to understand what they are learning, they awaken upon themselves the Lights that surround their souls.”
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/28/11, The Zohar
Related Material:
A Miraculous Transformation Of The Zohar
A World Of Adventures You Can Step Into
Are You Anticipating The Light’s Arrival?
Torah, Bamidbar, 25: Behold, I give him My covenant of peace…because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the sons of Israel.
In essence we are always looking for the covenant, the connection with the Creator in order to receive all of the means from Him, to arrange them correctly, and to accelerate our development. That is why the Creator endowed man with a mind: It’s only so we would be able to rise above our instincts to force our development, forestalling the speed of Nature, the Creator. That is how we “forestall” (Okvim) Him, similar to how Jacob bought Esau’s birthright.
This is what our path to the goal is like and we have to build it accordingly. Our entire activity is meant to eventually accelerate the phases of development, exceeding its natural speed. Of course, we thereby change our attitude to development and our sensations in the process. We work exactly on what is incumbent on man (Adam), filling our lives with “the Creator’s work” instead of the animate existence, which is completely devoid of the understanding of the process and the goal. Therein lies the entire difference between opposition and peace in the spiritual world.
[36464]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/11, Writings of Rabash
Related Material:
The Accelerating Human
Under A Press Or In The Incubator?
The Paradigm Of Acceleration
Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.
613 Suggestions and 613 Deposits
There are two parts in Torah and Mitzvot.
A. The Torah and Mitzvot as they appear to all, are the keeping of Mitzvot and the study of Torah in the form of 613 counsels. These have the power to purify and refine the body [desires], and enhance the merit of the soul [intention] to be worthy and to merit receiving the Light of the King’s face, as the soul was in its root before it diminished and came into this base body [egoistic desire] in the base world.
B. Keeping the Mitzvot and studying the Torah in the form of 613 deposits, namely the matter of attaining His Names and the full reward of the souls.
The merit of the latter part over the former is as the merit of Heaven over Earth. This is because the first part is mere preparation, and the second part is the actual completeness and the purpose of Creation.
– Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book, From the Mouth of a Sage”
[35598]
Related Material:
Kabbalists On The Torah And Commandments, Part 33
Kabbalists On The Torah And Commandments, Part 32
Daily Audio Version-MP3
Get the Weekly eNewsletter
Follow on Twitter
