Kabbalah Blog - Part 124

April 2, 2016December 20, 2015

Tazria—Metzorah (When a Woman Delivers—The Leper) Parsha – Weekly Torah Portion

Leviticus, 12:1-13:59 – 14:1-15:33

This Week’s Torah Portion | April 3 – April 9, 2016 – 24 Adar II – 1 Nissan, 5776 |

April 10 – April 16, 2016 – 2 Nissan – 8 Nissan, 5776

In A Nutshell

In the portion, Tazria (When a Woman Delivers), we learn about laws related to a woman who has delivered. If she delivers a boy, she is considered impure for seven days. On the eighth day the boy is circumcised and the woman begins a 33 day purification period. If the woman delivers a girl she is considered impure for fourteen days, and the purification period lasts 66 days.

The portion also details rules concerning afflictions. A person who is infected with something must come to the priest, who diagnoses the sore and knows the rules concerning each of them.

The portion, Metzorah (The Leper), is dedicated to the rules concerning leprosy, and what to do when one has been infected with it. A leper who has healed must be examined by the priest, then bring two birds. The priest slaughters one bird and dips the other in clean water.

The end of the portion discusses the impurity of nocturnal ejaculation and the rules concerning a woman in menstruation—anyone who touches her is impure until the evening.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

Why are the rules in the portions described in such detail?

The whole Torah is an instruction by which to correct our nature. Man was deliberately created with an egoistic desire; this is why we want everything for our own good, as it is written, “For the inclination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis, 8:21). Creation itself is the evil inclination, the sum of our negative qualities. The inanimate nature, the vegetative, and the animate around us are completely neutral—neither good nor bad. It is managed by the laws of nature that act instinctively on all its elements.

Continue reading “Tazria—Metzorah (When a Woman Delivers—The Leper) Parsha – Weekly Torah Portion”

March 31, 2016March 31, 2016

We cannot take a train or a plane to the spiritual world

To enter spirituality, we need only evoke the spiritual sensation within us, sharpen our senses & open our perception to what is right here.

We cannot take a train or a plane to the spiritual world because it is within us. To enter spirituality, we need only evoke the spiritual sensation within us, sharpen our senses, and open our perception to what is right here.

We will then find ourselves in a never-ending, wonderful adventure that will astonish us and fill us with awe; from then on our sense of awe will be never-ending.

Continue reading “We cannot take a train or a plane to the spiritual world”

March 27, 2016March 23, 2016

An Integral Approach to Nature

The way to solve today’s world’s problems is by viewing the world as one whole.

We view life as being multifaceted due to our fragmented impressions of the world.

We divide nature into different branches of science—but how many can there really be? Nature is one. We are the ones who divide it into disciplines such as biology, zoology, botany, and geography; because of our limited perception, we don’t grasp it as one.

Humanity continues repeating the same mistakes because we solve problems differentially—we cannot solve a single problem because we are not internally holistic. The only way to solve today’s world’s problems is by viewing the world as one whole.

There is an integral approach to solving our problems: we can transition from division and differentiation to interconnection. When we consider anything happening in the world as being part of our common world, we will no longer make wrong decisions.

Unity among people awakens the single force of Nature—the force that unites and includes everything, including us.

Continue reading “An Integral Approach to Nature”

March 26, 2016April 1, 2016

Shmini (On the Eighth Day) Parsha – Weekly Torah Portion

Leviticus, 9:1-11:47

This Week’s Torah Portion | March 27- April 2, 2016 – 17 Adar II – 23 Adar II, 5776

In A Nutshell

The portion, Shmini (On the Eighth Day), deals with the events of the eighth day after the seven days of filling.^[1] This is the inauguration day of the tabernacle. Aaron and his sons offer special sacrifices on this day. Moses and Aaron go to bless the people, and finally, the Creator appears to the people of Israel.

Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu sin with offering on a foreign fire, and the fire consumes them. Aaron and the remaining sons receive special instructions how to conduct themselves in the situation, and among others orders, they are forbidden to mourn.

The portion tells of another misunderstanding between Moses and Aaron and his sons concerning eating the sin offering. The portion ends with the rules concerning forbidden food, detailing the animals, beasts, poultry, and fish that are forbidden to eat. Rules of Tuma’a (impurity) and Taharah (purity) are also briefly explained.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

The portion mentions many details concerning the tabernacle and offering sacrifices, what is forbidden and what is permitted. How should we understand it internally?

We need to examine which of our 613 desires we need to correct, and how. It was said about man, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice,”^[2] so we may correct our evil inclination—the egoistic desires—in which we think only of ourselves and cannot perform a single act of giving and love of others.

Continue reading “Shmini (On the Eighth Day) Parsha – Weekly Torah Portion”

March 23, 2016March 23, 2016

Hope for Peace

Altruism is nature’s underlying principle, and it is humanity’s goal to equalize with this principle.

Everything living receives and gives to its surrounding environment. This is nature’s underlying principle, the law of altruism.

An individual cell not only sustains itself, but also supplements other cells and organs: they must “yield” to each other, know about each other, interact, and “help” one another.

This is what happens in any living body. Biologists describe it brilliantly: they say that this is “nature’s wisdom”; that nature lives by this principle, that this is the general law of nature, and that without it, even crystals could not unite, and atoms could not interact.

Researchers are discovering such “altruistic” behavior in the substance’s tiniest particles. Moreover, altruistic behavior of the entire organism and its components clearly manifest at the vegetative and animate levels, where growth is possible only when cells unite and allocate a role for each cell without seizing foreign territory in the “cell community.”

They are talking about self-denial, about mutual understanding and mutual support of cells, parts, body organs, about each being ready to kill itself for the success of the common program. We see that such actions take a form of mandatory law in nature, in general as well as in each of its parts—except for the conscious activity of humans.

In all of nature, this law of altruism acts according to the program inherently instilled in all creatures, without any room for free will—except man. A person must reach such disillusionment with one’s own development and progress to realize the necessity to fulfill this universal law of nature, the law of altruism, within oneself as well.

When together, we exert to adapt to this law and its properties—to yearn for this law to enter our consciousness and to have the strength to establish this rule over us—we will correct the whole of nature and become an integral part of the entire creation.

Continue reading “Hope for Peace”