Genesis, 12:1-17:27
This Week’s Torah Portion | Oct 18 – Oct 24, 2015 – 5 Cheshvan – 11 Cheshvan, 5776

In A Nutshell

The portion, Go Forth, begins with Abraham being commanded to go to the land of Canaan. When Abraham reaches the land of Canaan, the hunger forces him to go down to Egypt, where Pharaoh’s servants take Sarai, his wife. In Pharaoh’s house, Abraham presents her as his sister, fearing for his life. The Creator punishes Pharaoh with infections and diseases, and he is forced to give Sarai back to Abraham.

When Abraham returns to the Canaan, a fight breaks out between the herdsmen of Lot’s cattle and the herdsmen of Abraham’s cattle, after which they part ways.

A war breaks out between four kings from among the rulers of Babylon, and five kings from the land of Canaan, Lot is taken captive, and Abraham sets out to save him.

The Creator makes a covenant with Abraham, “the covenant of the pieces” (or “covenant between the parts”), which is the promise of the continuation of his descendants and the promise of the land.

Sarai cannot have children, so she offers Abraham her maid, Hagar, and they have a child named Ishmael.

Abraham makes the covenant of the circumcision with the Creator and is commanded to circumcise himself and all the males in his household. His name changes from Abram to Abraham, and his wife’s name changes from Sarai to Sarah.

At the end of the portion, the Creator promises Sarah that she would have a son whose name will be Isaac.

 Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

All the stories of the portion before us happen within us. In the correct perception of reality, this world does not exist, and neither do history or geography, nor the story of the portion. All of them are occurrences that take place within us.

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains that perception of reality is a profound matter, relating to our innermost psychology, to our senses and to our physical structure.

The Torah speaks the truth about the way we developed, and all the people and events that it describes are our mental forces. Abraham, for instance, is the tendency to develop toward spirituality, the desire to approach and discover the Creator.

The story of Abraham in Babylon is really the revelation that only one force exists and manages the world, and the desire to discover that force. Anyone who feels the desire to discover who is managing one’s fate and why, or is asking, “What is the meaning of my life?” is at the same starting point of Abraham, and the force of Abraham is working within that person.

Read the rest of this entry »

Every person has the right to examine whether the place he chooses to study is good for him. However, after a short test, he should make up his mind and enter the study process at the selected place without any further doubts. Otherwise, he won’t be able to reveal the Creator and His world.

There are groups who claim that they study according to their own method. But how can there be a method that was not passed down through the chain of Kabbalists from master to disciple?

It is impossible to receive such a method on one’s own. Only Adam HaRishon received this method “from Heaven,” as it were, and discovered it on “his own.” However, all the others, including Abraham, obtained it through the chain of Kabbalists. At first, Abraham was “an idol worshiper,” meaning that he was engaged in a special spiritual work, only in its reverse form, after which he realized its inadequacy. Twenty generations past Adam HaRishon, Kabbalah was passed on to Abraham.

The method of attainment can be acquired solely through clinging to a teacher. This is the way it expands from Above downward through the chain of souls, from soul to soul. Can you really connect to the root if you are not Adam HaRishon himself? Only Adam HaRishon is tied to the Creator directly. All the other souls must receive from him through the chain of Kabbalists, depending on the soul’s place in it. Everybody receives from the one who stands before him, and is connected by a linked chain with one root.

It is a hierarchic system similar to a tree. I am positioned in it at a specific place and can receive only from the person nearest to me and above me. For this, I need to annul myself before him in the same way a lower Partzuf annuls itself before the Upper One in the spiritual world.

Therefore, when people claim that they receive “Light or enlightenment” from Above or while in sleep, they are not being serious. A spiritual contact can be attained solely by staying close to a Kabbalist while he is alive. If you manage to reach at least one such point of contact, from that point on, you can develop everything else.

However, without this initial point, you won’t have anything from which to advance further: You are cut away from the whole tree, from the entire system of souls. This is why people always ask, “Who was your teacher? Where did you come from?”

For this reason, out of all diplomas, the most precious piece of paper that I possess is a tiny newspaper article where I am named as a loyal student and the right hand of Rabash. It testifies, to the very least, how connected I was with my teacher.

Dr. Michael Laitman, from the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/12/10, “Letter 38”

Photo:Pastel by Moyan Brenn @ flickr.com/photos/aigle_dore/

Wishing only to Please the Creator

The true goal of creation is for the Creator to give pleasures to His created beings. For this purpose, the creatures are endowed with the desire to receive pleasure. In order for the creations not to experience feelings of shame when they receive pleasure, which would spoil the pleasure itself, the creations are given the opportunity to correct the feelings of shame.

This can be achieved if the created beings wish to receive nothing for themselves, but wish only to please the Creator. Only then will they not feel shame at receiving pleasure, since they will receive it for the sake of the Creator, rather than for their own gratification.

Read the rest of this entry »

Genesis, 6:9-11:32
This Week’s Torah Portion | Oct 11 – Oct 17, 2015 – 28 Tishrei – 4 Cheshvan, 5776

In A Nutshell

The portion, Noah, speaks of sinful people and the Creator, who brings a flood on the world. “Noah was a righteous man, perfect in his generations” (Genesis, 6:9). This is why he was the one chosen to survive the flood.

But he did not survive alone. Rather, he was commanded to build an ark and move into it along with his kin, and pairs of all the animals, and to remain in the ark for forty days and forty nights until the flood stopped.

The Creator made a covenant with Noah and his family that the flood would never return. As a token of the covenant, He placed the rainbow in the sky.

The end of the portion speaks of the tower of Babel, about the people who decided to build a tower whose head reaches the heaven. The Creator decided to confuse their language so they would not understand one another, and then He dispersed them throughout the country.

 Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

The portion, Noah, is long, intense, and contains many details and many events compared to other portions. As this portion takes place in the beginning of the Torah, it also marks the beginning of the spiritual path, the most important time in a person’s development.

These initial stages unfold quite quickly, unlike subsequent events, when one begins the actual corrections and corrects one’s qualities meticulously. Later on, the events are far more detailed, as we will see in the future events unfolding in the Torah.

Our development takes place entirely over our egotistical will to receive, which we must turn into bestowal. Today we are still in the midst of a process where the whole of humanity is to begin to work with its ego in the right connection between people. The work against the ego is always a big problem, and appears as waves of a great sea, called Malchut of Ein Sof (Malchut of infinity).

Each time, the ego surfaces more and more, and at first, a person does not know what to do, so the only option is to hide in a box, an ark. It is not merely an escape; it is a correction. A person builds a kind of bubble, the quality of bestowal, and hides in it from all of one’s terrible egotistical qualities, and this is how one advances.

Read the rest of this entry »

Photo:Iceland by Moyan Brenn @ flickr.com/photos/aigle_dore/

Revealing the Evil Inclination Bit by Bit

If while studying, we do not see any personal benefit and begin to suffer from this lack of perceived benefit, this is known as “the evil inclination” (Yetzer Ra). The degree of evil is determined by our level of perception of evil, by the extent of our suffering from our lack of attraction to spirituality, unless we perceive in it a personal benefit.

The more we suffer from the unchanging situation, the greater the degree of our perception of evil. If we understand by reason that we are not yet succeeding in spiritual advancement, but this does not cause us pain, it means that we do not yet have an evil inclination (Yetzer Ra), since we are not yet suffering from evil.

If we do not feel evil, we must engage in the study of Kabbalah. But if we perceive evil in ourselves, we need to rid ourselves of it by faith above reason.

Read the rest of this entry »