Egoism of a Part Leads to the Death of the Whole

The cause of all conflicts is human nature: egoism, the desire to fulfill ourselves at the expense of others.

Human egoism is the only destructive force that exists; hence, the world will not be able to persist unless we change our egoistic approach to society. Egoism of a part leads to the death of the whole. If a cell in a living organism begins to relate egoistically to other cells it becomes cancerous. Such a cell begins to consume surrounding cells, oblivious to them or to the needs of the whole organism, and thus, eventually extinguishes the entire body, including itself. The same applies to human egoism with respect to nature: while developing for itself, detached from the rest of nature and not as an integral part of nature, the egoism leads everything to death, including itself.

Lech Lecha (Go Forth) Parsha – Weekly Torah Portion

Genesis, 12:1-17:27
This Week’s Torah Portion | November 6 – November 12, 2016 – 5 Cheshvan – 11 Cheshvan, 5777

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.

Continue reading “Lech Lecha (Go Forth) Parsha – Weekly Torah Portion”

Creator=Nature=Law Of Bestowal And Love

The goal of creation is to attain adhesion with Nature’s quality of love and bestowal.

The goal is adhesion to the Creator. Love is the means. The pleasure is in becoming like the Creator. Adhesion is attained through my bestowal to Him and His bestowal to me. In order for us to have a connection with mutual reception and bestowal, we need love for one another.

Know the Unified Theory of Everything—It’s Simply Elegant

Kabbalah is a Grand Unified Theory letting us both understand the full scope of reality and experience its oneness.

Now we perceive the world only through our five senses or by instruments that expand their range of perception a bit, whereas Kabbalists perceive nature in its absolute form, because they develop abilities of exiting themselves, by ascending their egoism. Kabbalah meets all the requirements and the definitions of a science, more than all the other sciences because it explores nature in its real form—not in the narrow framework we receive in some confusion of a range of influences, reflections, refractions of our understandings and feelings, and out of our impact on the environment.

Noah Parsha – Weekly Torah Portion

Genesis, 6:9-11:32
This Week’s Torah Portion | October 30 – November 5, 2016 – 21 Tishrei – 4 Cheshvan, 5777

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.

Continue reading “Noah Parsha – Weekly Torah Portion”