An important quote in the wisdom of Kabbalah states:

Two people were in a boat, and one of them took a drill and began to drill a hole beneath himself. His companion said to him: Why are you doing this? He replied: What concern is it of yours? Am I not drilling under myself? The other replied: But you will flood the boat for us both, and we will both sink. (Kabbalist Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, Midrash Raba, Leviticus 4:6)

In the global boat we all share, whoever thinks he can drill a hole under his or her own seat and ignore the well being of others is gravely mistaken. If one person drowns, everyone drowns right along with him.

Why is it so important for us to understand this? It is because we live in a new reality, a reality where we all depend on one another, for better or for worse. From now on, we have no choice but to work together, as one big family. Only then will we be able to navigate our global ship through this winter of our hardship toward the haven of bounty and prosperity.

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The Integration of Israel (Those Who Had Attained Spirituality) into the World

We learn in the Wisdom of Kabbalah how after Abraham established his methodical system for the attainment of spirituality, he and his group of students left Babylon towards the land that later became the land of Israel.

Let us return to those people who could not perceive Abraham’s notion in ancient Babylon. When they departed Babel, they scattered across the globe as seventy nations and developed materially.

Alone, they would never have been able to perceive the notion of the spiritual. Yet, if they could not perceive it, it would contradict the purpose of creation: to bring all the people to the level of the creator. Hence, the contact point between Israel and the rest of the nations had to be recreated.

That process unfolded by intensifying the ego within Israel, after which the people declined from their degree and scattered among the nations. The idea was to mingle the souls of Israel with the souls of the nations of the world, to “sow” seeds of spirituality within the other nations.

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The First Human to Discover Nature’s Plan

According to the Wisdom of Kabbalah it was Adam, who first discovered the single, governing force behind the whole of reality. The day that Adam began to discover the upper force is called “the day of the creation of the world.” On that day, humanity first touched the spiritual world. This is why Adam’s existence is the point from which the Hebrew count of years begins.

According to Nature’s plan, the whole of humanity will discover the upper force within 6,000 years. During those years, the human ego is to gradually grow and bring humanity to the realization that it must be corrected, as well as to the ability to understand the correction method and to implement it.

The first Kabbalah book, Angel Raziel—meaning the “hidden force,” the force of Nature, which governs us but is hidden from us—is attributed to Adam.

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Nature develops us by giving us a feeling of lack of fulfillment in the present state & the possibility of fulfillment in the next state.

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Genesis, 47:28-50:26

This Week’s Torah Portion | December 28, 2014 – January 3, 2015 – Tevet 6 – Tevet 12, 5775

In A Nutshell

In the portion, VaYechi [Jacob Lived], Jacob and his sons join Joseph in Egypt. When the time of Jacob’s death draws near he calls on Joseph and swears him to bury him in the land of Israel and not in Egypt. Joseph asks him to bless his two sons, Ephraim and Menashe before he dies. Jacob blesses them and says that they will be as his sons, Reuben and Simeon. Subsequently, Jacob blesses the rest of his sons and orders them to burry him in the Cave of Machpelah in the land of Israel.

Following Jacob’s death, Joseph receives special permission from Pharaoh to go and bury his father in the land of Israel. Jacob goes to Canaan with his brothers and all the elders of Egypt, arrives at the Cave of Machpelah, buries Jacob there, then returns to Egypt.

Along the way, his brothers fear that he will take vengeance against them for selling him to slavery, but Joseph soothes their fears. He promises them that he will always remain their brother and not their enemy.

Jacob’s blessing comes true and Menashe and Ephraim have many children. Toward the end of the portion Joseph is about to die. He summons his brothers and tells them that the Creator will bring them and his sons out of Egypt, and orders them to take his bones and bury them in the land of Israel.

 Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

The Torah teaches us how to develop our souls. Initially, we have only the point in the heart. It appears when a person begins to ask about the reason and the meaning of life. Through this question, one begins to see that life is not meant only to live here in this world for seventy or so years. Rather, this life was given as an opportunity to develop the soul.

The soul develops from the evil inclination, opposite which is the “light that reforms.” In other words, if we correct the evil inclination using the light that reforms, we thus develop the soul. This is how the evil inclination becomes the good inclination.

This correction does not relate merely to having good human relations. Rather, through the light we also begin to experience the spiritual world, Godliness, as it is written, “You will see your world in your life.”^[1]

The portion deals with the three primary forces: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which are Hesed, Gevura, and Tifferet. These forces exist in the soul of each of us, or in the general soul called Adam. Abraham and Isaac are two opposite lines—right and left, Hesed and Gevura—while the Jacob quality in us, the senior patriarch, includes Abraham and Isaac within it, and is the middle line, called Tifferet. Using the quality of Jacob, meaning the two forces that exist in it, directs us for the first time toward the proper manner of the correction of the soul.

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