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BaMidbar (In the Desert) Parsha – Weekly Torah Portion

Numbers,  1:1-4:20

This Week’s Torah Portion | May 18 – May 24, 2014 – Lyar 18 – Lyar 24, 5774

In A Nutshell

The portion, BaMidbar (In the Desert), begins with the Creator commanding the children of Israel by tribes to bring men who had served in the army and were at least twenty years old, and appoint them as heads of tribes and presidents. Following the nomination, Moses is requested to explain to them where each tribe should be during the journey and while stopping in the desert, how to arrange themselves by tribes and banners according to the four directions, with the tabernacle in the middle.

The portion reiterates the role of the Levites, who are to serve in the tabernacle. The tribe of Levi is special because it has no place or lot of its own; it is to serve everyone and help everyone, especially the priests in the tabernacle. The role of the Levites is to assemble and disassemble the tabernacle at each stop during the journey of the children of Israel. They must follow strict rules that explain what to do with each part of the tabernacle and how to keep the vessels of the tabernacle.

 Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

The Torah is divided into two parts: external and internal. The external Torah is the one we read and know. It is the Torah that our fathers (ourselves in previous incarnations, since our souls reincarnate from generation to generation) observed in the past. However, there are things to sort in it. The Torah describes the journey of the children of Israel in the desert and how they should conduct themselves there. It details how to build the tabernacle, divide into priests, Levites, and tribes, how to set up the camp, and how to continue the journey where each one moves from place to place under the tribe’s banner up to the boundaries of the land of Israel and the onset of its conquest.

The inner Torah is actually the main thing. Through it we correct and adjust ourselves internally in order to discover that upper force from which we receive the Torah in actual fact. That is, it is about revealing the Creator to the creatures. Here we are talking about man as a small world, where all that is described in the Torah—priests, Levites, Israel, and the twelve tribes—is within us as replications. The inner Torah touches each of us and instructs us what we must do in order to discover the upper force here and now.

One who has not corrected him or herself is certainly immersed in the ego, the evil inclination, as it is written, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice.”[1] That state is called a “desert.” The sensation of the desert is the place of the Klipot (shells/peels), meaning uncorrected desires. While in that feeling we have nothing to revive us, to give us spiritual life. Even if we have material abundance we still feel that we are in the desert.

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Glossary – BaMidbar (In the Desert) – Weekly Torah Portion

Tribes

Tribes are a part of the will to receive, which is divided into HBD, HGT, NHY. In all of them there is HaVaYaH (Yod–Hey–Vav–Hey), and HaVaYaH times three is twelve. Our general will to receive is divided into twelve parts that—when corrected—are called “tribes.”

The Holy of Holies

The Holy of Holies is GAR of Bina, the absolute quality of bestowal.

Army

The army is all the desires that can join the head, faith, the shepherd.

Banner (Flag)

A banner is the task that I assume. Each part and each group in the twelve tribes has its own banner, which indicates how each part progresses and corrects itself. The banner is unique to each tribe, hence the division into twelve tribes remains even after they achieve the corrected desire, the land of Israel.

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Are You Aware of the Enormous Benefits that Come from Developing a Global Perception?

“Mankind will never see an end of trouble until… lovers of wisdom come to hold political power, or the holders of power… become lovers of wisdom.”

–Plato, The Republic

 

Here’s a Quick Way to Understand Why Today You Need Good Relations With Everyone

The change humanity requires in order to solve the global crisis is not a superficial one, but a fundamental change that goes beyond how we build our economic system, our education system, or even our political system. It is a change in our understanding of life, and as a result, of the society we live in. For the change to last, we need to realize that at our stage in human development, we as individuals cannot prosper unless the whole world prospers, too.

In the past, it was enough to be good to our families. By doing so, we balanced ourselves with the giving force of nature on the only level we were conscious of—our families.

Afterwards, as our communities grew, we needed to become aware of larger groups, and we learned that it is not enough to be good to one’s family, but also to offer care and kindness to one’s townspeople. This put us in balance with the giving force at the community level.

Then, we grew even more and needed to balance ourselves with nature’s giving force on the national level, beyond that of our towns or families.

Today, we need to do the same towards the whole world. Our awareness, whether or not we are conscious of it, now encompasses all of humanity. Hence, to balance ourselves with the giving force in nature, we must be positive and contribute to everyone, everywhere.

The consequence of not doing so is the crisis we see unfolding before our eyes. It is not a punishment from some higher force, but a natural result of not obeying a natural law, similar to the pain we feel when we disobey the law of gravity and jump off a roof without proper preparation or equipment. For us humans, our best defense is awareness.

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How Changing Education Will Change Everything

“This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation.”

–Albert Einstein

 

Why Education Should Be About More than Giving Knowledge

In Webster’s dictionary, education means “the action or process of educating or of being educated [schooled/informed].” But in a world where fifty percent of what we learn in the first year of college is outdated and irrelevant by the end of the third year, what good is our schooling?

Even more important, with the escalating global crisis, can we guarantee our children’s education, even through high school? Because the current crisis is global and multi-faceted, the education system must adapt itself and prepare our youth to cope with the current state of the world.

Therefore, our challenge today is not so much to acquire knowledge as it is to acquire the social skills to help ourselves and our children overcome the abundant alienation, suspicion, and mistrust we encounter today. To prepare our children for life in the 21st century, we must first teach them what makes our reality what it is, and what they can do to change it.

This does not mean that disseminating knowledge should stop, but that these lessons should be part of a larger story that teaches students how to cope in the world they are about to enter. They should be able to leave the classroom and use this knowledge to grasp the full picture of reality and the forces that design it, and to understand how they can use it to their benefit.

 

Competitive vs. Collaborative Education: All About Me or All About We?

In nearly every country in the world, education systems are designed to prod students to aim for personal achievements. The higher the student’s grades, the higher his or her social status. In America, as in many countries in the West, this system not only measures how students perform, but how they perform in relation to others. This makes students not only want to excel, but inevitably makes them want their fellow students to fail.

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What Makes a Healthy Economy? Why, Healthy Relationships of Course!

“Despite massive wealth creation, happiness has not risen since the 1950s in the US or Britain… No researcher questions these facts. So accelerated economic growth is not a goal for which we should make large sacrifices. In particular, we should not sacrifice the most important source of happiness, which is the quality of human relationships—at home, at work, and in the community.”

–Richard Layard, The Financial Times, March 11, 2009

 

Why Human Nature, and Not the Economy, Should be Regulated

No aspect of our lives better expresses our interconnectedness than the economy. When we are united, the economy is the first to thrive and boosts every aspect of our lives along with it. But when we are separated from each other, it is the first to collapse. Then, everything grinds to a halt along with it.

Centuries ago, when we first began to trade with each other, we began to interconnect, and globalization was born. If we knew then about the desire to receive and the desire to give, the history of humanity would be very different from the bloody march of folly it has turned out to be.

Today, it is impossible to “de-globalize” the world. We must begin to act as one united humanity, in line with nature’s principle of collaboration and self-fulfillment, or life as we know it will end. And the way to unite is to become aware of the two desires and employ both in our negotiations, especially around finances, given today’s monetary crisis.

It is not tougher regulation or buying of “toxic assets” that will help us through the present crisis. The way out is to understand that what needs to be regulated is human nature, not the economy. Our economy is only a projection of our one-track minds: receiving, receiving, and more receiving.

Today, humanity must come to realize that it is in our best interest to consider others in our plans, or else those plans will fail. Therefore, the first step in the financial bailout plan should be to share information and provide facts about the kind of world we live in, which is global and interdependent.

People should know that there are two forces running the world. The first is the desire to receive, which economists call “the profit-oriented economy,” meaning capitalism. The second force is the desire to give, which aims to increase general prosperity and well-being.

 

 

The Lazy Man’s Guide to the Dark Side of the Free Market

Simply put, in today’s financial dealings, everyone must profit or no one will profit. To be exact, the term, “everyone,” does not refer to the parties involved in a contract, but to the entire world.

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