To fully understand the world we live in, we need a research tool that can explore what our senses cannot perceive.

The wisdom of Kabbalah gives us a chance to comprehend the hidden part—the spiritual realm. “Comprehending” is forming a new set of sensors that are beyond the regular five bodily perceptions. The sensations that we experience through new sensors are called “the soul.” In addition to our current “animal” sensations, we can develop qualitatively different organs of vision, hearing, and senses of taste, smell, and touch that are called: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut. With their help, we will perceive the reality beyond our corporeal sensors.

Exodus, 10:1-13:16

This Week’s Torah Portion | January 29 – February 4, 2017 – 2 Shevat – 8 Shevat, 5777

In A Nutshell

In the portion, Bo (Come), the Creator—through Moses—tells defiant Pharaoh he must let the people of Israel go. The Creator casts two more plagues over Pharaoh, Locust and Darkness, and Pharaoh says to Moses, “Go away from me! Beware; do not see my face again for in the day you see my face you shall die” (Exodus, 10:28). Moses replies, “You are right; I shall never see your face again” (Exodus, 10:29). Indeed, Moses keeps his word.

The Creator tells Moses that after the final plague Pharaoh will let the children of Israel go. The children of Israel begin to prepare for the tenth plague, the plague of the first-born, and borrow from the Egyptians silver and gold vessels, as well as garments, preparing for their release.

The Creator outlines to Moses the rules of the Passover offering that the children of Israel will need to meet: slaughter a lamb in the twilight, spread its blood on the doorposts (Mezuzot) and on crossbars, and eat the lamb that same night together with Matzot (unleavened bread) and Maror (horse-radish). The children of Israel follow suit.

At midnight, when a great cry rises in Egypt at the strike of the Plague of the First-Born, Pharaoh urges the children of Israel to leave Egypt in haste. The children of Israel leave taking the mixed multitude along with them, and flocks and cattle in great numbers.

 Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

The exodus from Egypt described in this portion is both very significant and dramatic. Each moment in our lives is a remembrance to the exodus from Egypt. This is the point at which the human in us is born, when we come out of our egos, of the will to receive.

We all begin selfish, as it is written, “I have created the evil inclination.”^[1] The evil inclination grows within us and causes us to be increasingly egoistic. Throughout human history we have been developing in this manner until we have come to a state where we feel that our entire nature is evil and we must exit it, get rid of it, and so we look for a solution. It is a process that unfolds in both individuals and in the entire human society.

When the Pharaoh in us grows, meaning our evil inclination, it does not let us live. The point in the heart, Moses in us, escapes from the ego in order to gain strength, then returns in order to fight it. Only once we understand how this “game” unfolds in us do we return to fight against the ego, much like Moses returns to Egypt to fight against Pharaoh.

When a person begins to discover the upper force, even a little bit, he or she discovers that everything happens from above, that “there is none else besides Him” (Deuteronomy, 4:35), and that includes Pharaoh, the Creator, and Moses who is between them. In this struggle, our inner Moses must decide who will rule over him, Pharaoh or the Creator.

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Kabbalah is a wisdom that reveals the comprehensive reality that is normally hidden from our senses.

The reality that exists within our ego is changing day by day and every moment. If we rise above our egoistic feelings, we attain an external reality, the true reality. This reality does not change and is indeed eternal. The method of achieving this attainment is called the wisdom of Kabbalah. Therefore, it is considered a hidden wisdom that uncovers the hidden reality for us.

Exodus, 6:2-9:35

This Week’s Torah Portion | January 22 – January 28, 2016 – 24 Tevet – 1 Shevat, 5777

In A Nutshell

In the portion, VaEra (And I Appeared), the Creator appears before Moses and promises to deliver the children of Israel from Egypt to the land of Canaan. Moses turns to the children of Israel but they do not listen “out of impatience and out of hard work” (Exodus 6:9). The Creator instructs Moses to turn to Pharaoh and ask him to let the children of Israel go out of Egypt. Moses fears that he will not succeed in his mission and asks the Creator for a token. The Creator says to Moses that he will be as God to Pharaoh, while Aaron will be as the prophet who does the actual speaking, and the Creator will harden Pharaoh’s heart and shower plenty of signs and tokens over Egypt. The Creator gives to Moses and Aaron a staff, and when Moses casts the staff to the ground it becomes a snake. When Moses and Aaron come to Pharaoh, Moses is eighty years old and Aaron is eighty-three. There are many magicians and soothsayers around Pharaoh. When Moses and Aaron arrive, they throw down the staff and it becomes a snake. Pharaoh’s magicians do the same and their staffs turn to snakes, as well, but Moses’ and Aaron’s snake swallows the magicians’ snakes. Despite that display, Pharaoh remains defiant. This is when the ten plagues of Egypt begin. This portion mentions seven of the plagues: blood, frogs, lice, flies, pestilence, boils, and hail. After each plague Pharaoh goes back on his word and refuses to let the children of Israel go. 

 Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

While this depiction is graphic and picturesque, it actually conveys the interior of the Torah, the true law that instructs us how to get out of the Egypt within us. The Torah does not tell us to leave one physical place in favor of another, but rather how we can free ourselves of our egos.

The portion deals with a person who is working hard and discovers that he or she is in Egypt. It also deals with that person’s desire that does not agree with being in Egypt, the ego, the essence of evil. Therefore, that person escapes from there while arguing with one’s ego. Such a person cannot tolerate the ego, fearing it might bury or kill him. Therefore, that person rises above it and begins to part from it.

There are two forces in us. The first is the ego, which is Pharaoh and all of Egypt. The other is a “protruding” point called “the point in the heart.” All our desires that are in Egypt and are fed by it while there is a “famine in the land of Canaan” (Genesis, 42:6) create an internal struggle in us. This is the war from which we seek to escape, to rise above the ego with all our desires. In fact, only Moses, the point in the heart, escapes and rises above the ego, fleeing from Egypt to Jethro and to all that there is in Midian.

After forty years, during which we grow stronger in Midian working on enhancing the force of Moses, the Creator appears to us in the burning bush. Through our inner voice we hear and comprehend that we must return, fight against our ego, and get out of it, or we will not be able to attain spirituality. Read the rest of this entry »

The sole purpose of authentic Kabbalah was never anything besides discovering the source of life, the Creator.

I must know that everything is derived from a single power. [Tweet This] This means that all the events that happen with me and with others, all of our feelings, all of the past, present, and future—everything comes from the Creator and for only one purpose, to bring us to Him. All creatures, including myself, the still, vegetative, animate, and humans, everything that exists in this world, what we know and what is still unknown, is received from this higher source. I must concentrate my attention specifically on that, on the Creator.I must know that everything is derived from a single power. This means that all the events that happen with me and with others, all of our feelings, all of the past, present, and future—everything comes from the Creator and for only one purpose, to bring us to Him. All creatures, including myself, the still, vegetative, animate, and humans, everything that exists in this world, what we know and what is still unknown, is received from this higher source. I must concentrate my attention specifically on that, on the Creator.