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About Baal HaSulam’s Article ‘Disclosing a Portion, Covering Two’

In “Disclosing a Portion, Covering Two,” Baal HaSulam describes how over the course of humanity’s history, from the time when the science of Kabbalah was received, when Abraham revealed Kabbalah in Mesopotamia over 5,000 years ago; Kabbalists preserved the entire knowledge, developed it, and adapted it for us. They passed it down into our time.

However, even a very long time ago, thousands of years before our era, they had already predicted that this knowledge will have to be revealed precisely in our time because humanity will reach the state when it will need it.

The Free Kabbalah Course is based on the articles of Baal HaSulam and provides step-by-step guided learning from experienced Kabbalah instructors of Kabbalah’s basic concepts. Baal HaSulam was the first Kabbalist in history who wrote articles not only for Kabbalists, but for the broad public, in order to explain Kabbalah’s fundamentals, because he understood the need that would emerge in humanity to answer deeper questions about life’s meaning and purpose. Therefore, if you’re interested in such topics, we recommend taking the free course and start learning about the world around you and inside you anew. Click the banner below to sign up for the free course …

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Why Everyone Secretly Wants to be Like the Creator

Where Does the Desire to be Like the Creator Come From?

There is a Creator who wishes to give. This is the Root, or Zero Phase. In order to give, He must have someone to give to, and because the Creator wants to give, He creates a Kli that receives the “gift,” meaning the Creator gives to the Kli. This is State One.

For this to occur, the receiver must first want the pleasure. If I build in you a desire for something and then give you what you want, you will not enjoy my gift because this is not your own desire. You must feel that it is your own desire before you can define it as “pleasure.” Thus, at the end of State One, the creature begins to sense the Giver and His nature.

The will to receive evolves by sensing the Giver (State One), and consequently wanting to be like the Giver (State Two). In that state it becomes worthwhile for the creature to be like the Giver (State Three). However, this is only a phase in the formation of the will to receive, and the creature is not really aware that it is receiving anything.

In fact, the creature isn’t aware of any of these observations; they are merely phases in the evolution of the crude will to receive. This crude desire must still descend, formulate, and drift far from the Creator until it stops sensing Him altogether. It must descend to the level of our world, and only then will it sense the desire in it as its own independent will (State Four). In this way, it will believe that it’s free and does not submit to the Creator’s guidance.

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Nasso (Take) Parsha – Weekly Torah Portion

Numbers 4:21-7:89

This Week’s Torah Portion | May 25 – May 31, 2014 – Lyar 25 – Sivan 2, 5774

In A Nutshell

The portion describes the children of Israel’s preparations to set out on a journey from Mount Sinai to the land of Israel. The bulk of the work revolves around the tabernacle. The census in the tribe of Levi continues, and there is a description of the distribution of duties between the families of Levi, Gershon, Kohat, and Merari. The Creator gives an order to send the impure people outside the camp as preparation for the inauguration of the tabernacle.

Afterward the portion narrates different situations in which the people need the help of the priests and the tabernacle. The incidents are connected to negative acts such as stealing, a person swearing in the name of the Creator in vain and must offer a sacrifice, and a woman who strayed and is suspected of committing adultery and is therefore brought to the priest. There are also positive incidents, such as the story of the hermit, detailing the laws that a person who makes a vow takes upon himself, and the blessing of the priests, the blessing that the priests bless the people.

The end of the portion discusses the gifts of the presidents and the great celebration—the inauguration of the tabernacle. The portion ends with the conclusion of the preparations, when the people of Israel can set out to the land of Israel.

 Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

The Torah speaks only about our soul and how we should correct it. We do not correct the body because the body is an animal and acts according to its nature. We must reinstate the “portion of God from above” (Job 31:2); this is the soul.

We do it as it is written, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice”[1] because “the light in it reforms.”[2] When we begin to connect to others under the condition, “love your neighbor as yourself,”[3] we find how repelling we find this act. We do not want to see anyone, only use them for our own benefit.

This is our nature, as the Creator said, “I have created the evil inclination.” However, the more we study and try to draw closer to each other, and discover how utterly impossible it is, the more we feel our nature as bad, as ill will, evil inclination. Then we need a means to correct it, and this is the light that reforms.

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Glossary – Nasso (Take) – Weekly Torah Portion

Mount Sinai

Mount Sinai is a mountain of Sina’a (hate). If a person discovers all the evil within, it is considered being at the foot of Mount Sinai. However, it is possible to discover it only if the point within, called Moses, climbs up that mountain. There, in the chasm between the bottom of the mountain and its peak, under that condition one acquires the Torah. This happens because that person feels that he or she simply must correct, but does not know what to do. Such a person is worthy of receiving the light that reforms, called “Torah.”

Family

A family is a whole person consisting of a man, woman, children, a house, and the entire world. It is a complete Kli.

Impure

One who is impure is fraught with self-interest. Such a person defiles everything he or she touches because anything that that person wants is only for self-gratification instead of giving to others. Conversely, giving, or bestowal upon others, is called Kedusha (holiness), purity.

Camp, or Being Outside the Camp

A camp is the part of the will to receive that a person can define and say that in this part one is advancing only with the intention to bestow. That is, a camp is our corrected desires.

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Introducing the Layman’s Guide to the Spiritual Development of Reality

Did You Know that Reality Is Really a Desire to Receive Pleasure?

The wisdom of Kabbalah is a method for discovering the hidden part of reality, that imperceptible realm of reality that our five senses cannot grasp. It develops another sense in us, one that perceives the reality that exists beyond our present perception.

Kabbalah says that the whole of reality consists of a substance called “the will to receive pleasure.” This will to receive pleasure is essentially a desire to be filled with delight, enjoyment; it is what we so often refer to as “egoism.” This will to receive operates on all levels of existence: still (inanimate), vegetative, animate, and speaking.

Although the will to receive is the substance of all reality, the desire in itself is neither matter nor atoms, which came later. Everything that was created, that exists as the basis of reality, is based on the desire to enjoy, an aspiration for pleasure. In each level of reality, this aspiration takes on different forms.

Every Kabbalist, without exception, from Abraham to the last great Kabbalist, Baal HaSulam, maintained that the entire substance of Creation consists of a desire to receive. Every Kabbalah book speaks of the same thing, and all Kabbalists are in agreement in that regard.

Kabbalists are people who attain the Upper World; they speak from tangible attainment, not from theory. The word, “attainment,” refers to the ultimate degree of understanding. Let me make things easier to understand by using some drawings.

 

How Reality Develops in a Step-by-Step Process

Phase One in the Development of Reality: A Giver Needs a Receiver

We said that the will to receive is the basis of Creation. It is created by the expansion of the Upper Light. (In Kabbalah, the term “Light” designates giving, bestowing, love; it is referred to as “the Creator”). Thus, the Light created the will to receive that wants to be filled with the Light. Hence, the will to receive is also called Kli (vessel/receptacle), see Figure 1.

In other words, the desire to give creates the desire to receive, meaning the Light wants the Kli (vessel) to receive what it wants to give it.

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