Weekly Torah Portion – 07.30.10
Posted on July 30th, 2010
It is written: “I created the evil inclination and the Torah for its correction.” We have gotten used to all these sayings and think that they are just pretty words about the Torah. However, in reality, this is all very profound and serious. If we do not approach the Torah studies correctly, we suffer from it. The Light is a powerful force that influences us, and with its help we can reach either goodness or the opposite.
This “opposite” is also a path, meaning that revelation of evil lets us achieve goodness as well. We see this through the example of the last exile. Exile means that we are torn away from spirituality and have no chance to reach a connection with the Creator until the end of the exile. However, how can we study the Torah while we are disconnected from spirituality and have selfish intentions? All your studies will be for the sake of self-gratification, receiving a reward, not even “Lo Lishma,” that is, they will be completely devoid of the right intention.
Yet we already understand that precisely because we study the Torah (the external Torah, not Kabbalah) during the exile, we thereby draw the Surrounding Light. But instead of bringing us closer to correction, this Light distances us from it. This means that we use the Light of the Torah as a “potion of death.” However, thereby we discover that we are immersed in evil, and with the descent of the generations, when “the face of the generation has become like the face of a dog,” we reach a state about which it is written: “And the sons of Israel cried out from this work.”
In other words, whether we are in the state of spiritual attainment or the exile, we constantly use the Light of the Torah, doing so either from the negative or the positive side. Without this we would never be able to reach a sensation of exile, the need for redemption.
Therefore, now, when we exist in such a special state which Baal HaSulam calls “the generation of the Messiah on the threshold of redemption,” it is very important for us to understand that all this is a condition given to us from Above. We, however, haven’t accepted it yet. What does this mean? It means that we were given an opportunity to start using the same Light that Reforms, the Light that returns one to the Creator, in a new way, so that it will return us to the Source instead of distancing us from it as it did during the exile.
During the exile our intentions were constantly directed at ourselves: how can we benefit by using the Torah in this world and in the future world? Now we need to change our intentions. Due to this we will change the influence of the Surrounding Light on us, and it will truly return us to the Source – directly to it, rather than through its reverse side.
Hence, now we need to primarily think about the intention with which we approach the studies. The more clarified, desirable, and precise our intention will be, the better we will organize ourselves in such a way that our prayer will become a “group prayer,” and we will all unite into one whole standing opposite to the single Source. The more we do this, the more we will advance.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/23/10, The Zohar
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If a person’s actions are directed at uniting with the friends, he very quickly discovers the need for direct connection with the Creator who should aid this unification. Every action should lead us to the correction of the breaking, to unity among us, and then the need for the Creator’s influence for the quality of bestowal and love will manifest in it.
Thus, three components of our state – the Torah, Israel, and the Creator – are revealed. The Torah is the force that creates the desire (the world is created through the Torah), the force that corrects the intention of the desire ( the Light that Reforms), and the force that fills the desire (pleasure and wisdom, the goal of creation). “Love your neighbor as yourself” is the general rule of the Torah. Israel (one who aspires to the Creator, the soul) is the common Kli (the unification of souls, Shechina). The Torah is the Light, the force that corrects. The Creator is the inner source of this force.
Together we create the condition for unification and a mutual guarantee. We prepare the place for the revelation until “the sons of Israel cried out from the work,” that is, when we require His help. We see the comparison of the society and the Creator in almost all of the descriptions in the Torah. Without the society, we are unable reach the Creator. Therefore, the group is the means. It is the Shechina, Knesset Israel (Assembly of Israel), the collection of souls which ask not to stay in the dust (egoism). All the articles state this.
A person forgets about the need for connection with the Creator since this goes against his nature. However, this connection will appear in our nature if we unite into a group. If I am not connected to a group, then I am not aiming at the Creator and will not find the direction to Him.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/19/10, Article, “On My Bed At Night”
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Question: If Abraham and Lot are both within one person, how is one of them perfect and dwells in the abode of the Creator and the other stays with the wicked?
Answer: Can Abraham reach Elon Moreh (the place of union with the Creator, the state of Brit – adhesion with the Creator) without Lot? How will a person attain holiness (the property of bestowal) if he doesn’t have a Klipa (egoistic desire) in the first place?
It is written: “I have created the evil inclination and gave the Torah to correct it.” There is no holiness in the world. The Creator created Klipa or an evil, wicked intention. He did not create the good. He does not say: “I created the evil and the good inclination. Pick the good one.” On the contrary, He says: “You will do the good (by correcting the evil that I created). But it is I who created the evil.”
How will man reach Elon Moreh, the place of his first union with the Creator, if he has neither Lot nor Sodom? He will reach this state only after having made corrections. Therefore, Lot has to be close to Abraham until they separate. However, Lot returns numerous times. In this way, a person makes discernments.
Without discernments and corrections you have no holiness, the quality of bestowal. Holiness by itself does not exist – we build it. Let’s hope we will succeed!
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/19/10, The Zohar
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It is believed that a collective prayer occurs when a person raises his or her prayer among others who are praying at the same time. Yet, those who are more spiritually aware believe that a collective prayer is a plea for society. Such a prayer is immediately accepted by the Creator, whereas an egoistic prayer (when a person prays for himself ) is not heard.
Nevertheless, even a request to the Creator for society is not perfect. In fact, if the Creator “is good that does good,” my request implies that society is suffering because of the Creator, doesn’t it? It seems like I think that the Creator is mistreating society, and that I should pray for them. However, if the Creator is always benevolent to everybody, for whom am I asking?
It follows that I cannot ask the Creator to change His attitude toward me (a personal prayer) or toward society (a collective prayer). Since the Creator is absolutely and invariably good, I can ask Him only to correct me and all the others in such a way that we will feel that He is only good.
If all who desire to be connected to the Creator in the property of love and bestowal are willing to unite with others in the same property, then through their aspiration, they create a place where the Creator is revealed. That place is our mutual love.
However, such a state can be achieved only through the correction of each individual’s 613 desires, which is called the “fulfillment of 613 commandments.” In the degree of our correction, we draw closer to each other since the correction of desires lies in their unification.
This is why the sages said that “love of others is the greatest law of the Torah,” and all the commandments are necessary only in order to attain the last one, the universal commandment: love. As a result, in these individual and collective corrections, we will feel the power of love and bestowal filling us.
But if we are not corrected and united, and everyone wants to receive for himself, our prayer is solely for material things. (Material is what is received egoistically, whereas spiritual is what is received in order to bestow). In this case, receiving for ourselves, we become “the nations of the world,” and not “Israel” (straight to the Creator).
These terms are not related to some nation or nationality. They describe the states of a person on the spiritual path. According to this, our prayer is either to improve our personal state of existence or to correct our attitude toward the others and the Creator.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/10, Article “The Importance of the Prayer of the Many”
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A person who doesn’t yet understand the style of Kabbalistic writings experiences difficulties while trying to comprehend them. While reading words such as “Mitzva,” “the Creator,” “to please the Creator,” “fear of sin,” and so on, a modern secular person doesn’t understand where he is and what the text is really about.
In fact, the whole problem is that we don’t know how to read the text correctly. Kabbalists have been using this style of expression from generation to generation since the times of Abraham who was the first to expand the wisdom of Kabbalah (although it was Adam HaRishon who discovered it.)
Those who perceive spirituality comprehend what the books are talking about; they understand that there is a will to receive whose sole aim is to gain for one’s self, and indulging in this desire is called “sin” because this behavior is opposite to the Creator. On the other hand, receiving in order to bestow makes one similar to the Creator, and this is called a “Mitzva.”
However, it has nothing to do with physical actions in this world. A Mitzva (spiritual law) doesn’t relate to the physical body. It refers to our inner desires regarding the Upper Light, the Creator, and not the corporeal world.
All of this was evident to the sages who wrote the Torah and lived according to its laws 2000 years ago because they attained, mastered, and perceived spirituality. They understood what was written and did not confuse it with corporeal acts. But after the destruction of the Temple, there was a general decline; man’s sensation of the Creator disappeared.
From then on, people started interpreting the books [of the Torah] from their perception which was solely materialistic and ascribed them to our world. They translated the words and sentences, thinking that they referred to actions and relationships in our world.
This was the period of spiritual exile, but it is now coming to an end. We must return to revealing the Upper Force again, to our connection with it, and to mutual bestowal. Thus, we must understand that there was no other way to write these books.
To follow the laws of the Torah means to use the Upper Light in order to correct my 613 desires, which means to carry out the 613 Mitzvot of the Torah. If a person remembers to translate everything he reads (all the terms heard since childhood – Torah, Mitzvot, sin, etc.), into the spiritual language and spiritual definitions he will have no trouble understanding what Kabbalah is talking about.
The language and its definitions comprise one simple system of the basic laws of nature; after all, the word “Creator” means “nature.” Kabbalah, therefore, is a science that involves the entirety of reality including our world.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/10, Shamati #108
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It is written that it is prohibited to study the Torah without intention because thereby one doesn’t draw the Light that Reforms and immediately turns the “potion of life” into the “potion of death.” This point of choice is our only choice in life. Hence, when dealing with The Book of Zohar, the only weapon against evil or egoism, we should try to use it correctly.
Obviously, we can’t push the “red button” that would lead the world to harmful irreversible results, but we might step into the states of suffering, which had already happened in the past (see “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Items 70, 71). This is why before reading The Zohar, a person should review a supply of Kabbalistic aphorisms, adages which impress him, which help him to start awakening from the animate level (desire for oneself) to the human level (aspiration toward unity, bestowal, and love).
The human level amounts to the desire to unite with the others. The corrected system of souls is called “Adam” (man). As soon as this system breaks and crumbles into multiple pieces, each of them turns into its solely animate part. The human level (equivalence to the Creator, “Adam” comes from “similar to the Creator”) appears in us only when the broken parts (souls) begin to unite and experience a unified desire.
It turns out that the souls live not within themselves but in the connection among them. It is called life “above reason,” that is, in the relationships among the souls, in mutual bestowal. The sum total of these relationships of bestowal is the Creator who connects us. This unifying force that is dawning in the distance is called “The Surrounding Light.”
Thus, the Creator is the force that actually unifies us, and the Surrounding Light is its manifestation from afar. There is nothing but the Light and the desire (Kli). We assign various names to them, but ultimately, there are only these two forces.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/6/10, The Zohar
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