A woman came into Terah’s idol shop, carrying with her a bowl filled with flour as an offering to idols. Abraham took an axe and shattered all the idols except for the biggest one. When Terah returned and saw the destruction in his shop, he shouted, “What happened here?”

“Why should I conceal the truth from you?” Abraham answered. “While you were gone, a woman came in and made an offering of flour to the idols. Every one of the idols exclaimed that he wanted to eat it first. The biggest idol grew angry, grabbed the axe, and shattered all the others.”

“What is this nonsense?” Terah asked angrily, “You know as well as I do that idols don’t eat and don’t move, to say nothing of fighting.”

“Is that right?” Abraham countered. “But if what you say is true, why do you serve them?”

Here your Abraham springs into action. He begins to explain to your other desires, great and small, men and women, about the ego that rules over you. That is, the first time Abraham is revealed in you, it is as a teacher. He says to you the following: “The ego cannot protect you; it cannot raise you or fulfill you. It cannot!”

What’s interesting here is that Abraham appeals to you, an egoist, saying that your egoistic desires will never be fulfilled. Or rather, he appeals to the ego to seek out new ways to fulfill itself. The search for self-fulfillment is egoistic, to be sure, but it is precisely this search that will bring you to the Creator. Essentially, the ego willingly embarks on the path of self-destruction.

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What are the growth conditions you must provide for your Abraham? You must put him in a cave.

It means to create in the earth, in your own ego, a special place in which Abraham (Bina, the part of the Creator in you, the intention to bestow) can develop.

In other words, in this egoistic, material world, filled with corrupt calculations and hatred, where people exploit one another for personal profit, you must dig a cave for yourself, meaning choose a special environment.

You must find like-minded friends who also aspire to the spiritual, books that describe the exalted, spiritual worlds, and a guide who will lead you toward the spiritual goal. If you do this, it will mean that you have dug a cave in the earth.

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As we read in the story of Babylon, initially the ego, “Nimrod” is in power, demanding to always be worshipped. “Do whatever it takes to make others respect you,” your ego keeps murmuring.

It follows that your Nimrod is incredibly dependent on other people. He must support them, pay them, nurture them, and at the same time, oppress them.

Indeed, the ego rises precisely when it oppresses others. Hence, the next degree of the ego’s (Nimrod’s) development in you is when it begins to recognize its own dependence, vulnerability, and fragility.

This process is called “the recognition of evil in Nimrod.” It is when you finally get the feeling that your freedom is somehow restricted.

You are dependent on everybody else. That is the problem of kings, presidents, and whoever else might be in power. But in reality, it is the problem of every person.

So your next degree is Abraham. He is freedom, he is ascent, he is the revolutionary idea that comes to you after all the suffering, and the discoveries that bestowal, not reception, must be the sole purpose of your existence. He wants to deny and discard all the lies and excesses. This is the new degree arising in you, in your Nimrod.

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