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

Leviticus, 9:1-11:47

This Week’s Torah Portion | March 9 – March 15, 2014 – Adar II 7 – Adar II 13, 5774

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.

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

Inauguration of the Tabernacle

“Inauguration of the tabernacle” is the point from which we can bring offerings, meaning correct our desires in actual fact. In that state we can correct each desire by making it similar to bestowal, love of others, the Creator. We become similar to the Creator in that desire, understand the wholeness of creation, the eternity of creation. We ourselves become as the Creator, as it is written, “Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God” (Hosea, 14:2). This is what we should achieve, and these actions bring about great joy.

So it is not a coincidence that the revelation of the Creator is mentioned on the same day as the inauguration of the tabernacle. But what does revealing the Creator mean?

Upon beginning to perform the work of the tabernacle we discover the Creator according to the law of equivalence of form. As we perform the same acts as the Creator, the Creator “dresses” in us, and we begin to feel that our actions create our situation, our place, and our status. One who performs acts of bestowal and love, correcting one’s evil inclination, becomes like the Creator. This is why such a person is called “man” (Adam), from the word Domeh (similar) to the Creator.

It is said that Nadav and Avihu sacrificed with foreign fire. What does it mean?

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Abraham’s Immortal Wisdom on How to Best Understand God

How the Wisdom of Kabbalah Originated

Let us, for a moment, journey back through time to ancient Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization. Roughly 4,000 years ago, situated within a vast and fertile stretch of land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what today is Iraq, a city-state called Babel played host to a flourishing civilization. Bustling with life and action, it was the trade center of the entire ancient world.

Babel, the heart of the dynamic civilization we now call “ancient Babylon,” was a melting pot and the ideal setting for numerous belief systems and teachings. Its people practiced idol worship of many kinds, and among the most revered people in Babel was a priest named Abraham, who was a local authority in the practice of idol worship, as was his father, Terah.

However, Abraham had a very special quality: he was unusually perceptive, and like all great scientists, he had a zeal for the truth. The great 12th century scholar, Maimonides (also known as the RAMBAM), described Abraham’s determination and efforts to discover life’s truths in his book, The Mighty Hand:

“Ever since this firm one was weaned, he began to wonder. …He began to ponder day and night, and he wondered how it was possible for this wheel to always turn without a driver? Who is turning it, for it cannot turn itself? And he had neither a teacher nor a tutor. Instead, he was wedged in Ur of the Chaldeans among illiterate idol worshippers, with his mother and father and all the people worshipping stars, and he—worshipping with them.”

In his quest, Abraham learned what lies beyond the borderland that William Crookes described so many centuries later. He found the unity, the oneness of reality that Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Einstein, Leibniz, and others intuitively sensed. In Maimonides’ words, “He [Abraham] attained the path of truth and understood the line of justice with his own correct wisdom. And he knew that there is one God there who leads…, and that He has created everything, and that in all that there is, there is no other God but Him.”

(To interpret these excerpts correctly, it is important to note that when Kabbalists speak of God, they do not mean it in the religious sense of the word—as an almighty being that you must worship, please, and appease, which in return rewards devout believers with health, wealth, long life, or all of the above. Instead, Kabbalists identify God with Nature, the whole of Nature. The most unequivocal statements on the meaning of the term, “God,” were made by Baal HaSulam, whose writings explain that God is synonymous with Nature.

For example, in his essay, “The Peace,” he writes, “To avoid having to use both tongues from now on—Nature and a Supervisor—between which, as I have shown, there is no difference…it is best for us to…accept the words of the Kabbalists that HaTeva (The Nature) is the same…as Elokim (God). Then, I will be able to call the laws of God ‘Nature’s commandments,’ and vice-versa, for they are one and the same, and we need not discuss it further.”)

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Now You Can Know the Grand Unified Theory of Everything

Why You Must Understand How Global Interdependence & Global Crisis Interconnect

When the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression first broke out in August of 2008, many politicians and financiers in key positions emphasized the need for unity and cooperation. They voiced a need to restrain the egocentric frame of mind dominating Wall Street and expressed a fear of separatist and protectionist tendencies. Headlines such as The Economic Times’ “World Leaders Seek Unity to fight financial Crisis” prevailed in newspapers all over the world, signaling a general willingness to unite and cooperate in the face of economic uncertainty.

At first glance, this spirit is understandable, if not called for. After all, the world’s financiers knew that their institutions were linked together so tightly that if one failed, the others would follow, and politicians were warned that if they did not bail out the banks in their countries, their own economies would collapse, precipitating a domino effect that would bring down the entire global economy.

However, in the face of a crisis, it is natural to do the opposite of uniting: close yourself off and protect what is yours. This seems like a safer route than joining forces with “foreigners,” especially when those foreigners may be regarded as culprits or, at least, contributors to the making of your plight.

For politicians, it would seem more natural to put their own countries first, as with the British Corn Laws tariffs of the 19th century and President Hoover’s 1933 “Buy American” Act. Yet, as the delicate balance of cooperation and self-interest teeters back and forth, we survey the destruction wrought by the financial crisis and find that the majority of voices champion unity and denounce protectionism and separation. Why is this so?

If we consider this question from a purely economic or psychological aspect, we will not arrive at a conclusive answer. However, when we view it from the perspective of the science of Kabbalah, we will see that the forces involved in international relations, and indeed in any relations, are forces of integration, not of isolation. They are far more powerful than any rational or irrational decision-making process, and determine our moves “behind the scenes.”

On the international level, these forces determine global trade, politics, treaties, conflicts, and ecology. On the national level, they determine the trends in education, welfare policy, media, and local economy. On the personal level, they determine our relationships with our families, and on the deepest level of existence, they determine evolution—ours and that of every other element in Nature.

To understand the forces and elements that create reality and stir it in its course, we must first come to know their origins and their final destinations. Otherwise, trying to understand reality is like trying to grasp the inner workings of a car—its engine, the engine’s connection to the gear, the way the gear shifts the power to the wheels, and so on—without explaining that a car is a machine built to transport people safely, comfortably, and quickly from place A to place B. Without explaining the car’s purpose, what good is any discussion of its structure?

 

The Secret to Reality Even Cutting Edge Physicists Haven’t Found Yet

Like science, Kabbalah researches the inner workings of reality. But unlike science, which observes phenomena and offers theories as to their end goal, Kabbalah sees the goal first and from there explains the structure. That goal, as explained by Kabbalah, is for every person in the world to discover the single, fundamental force that creates and governs all of life. In other words, the goal of Kabbalah is for every person to discover life’s creative force, obtain it, and reap all the benefits this discovery implies.

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What Is Purim?

Purim is the holiday of opposites, which connects between happiness and despair, concealment and revelation, Mordechai and Haman, exile and redemption.

Purim (which stems from the word “Pur” [“lot”]) is the ideal spiritual situation, the final correction (Gmar Tikkun). It is a state where a person’s desires are corrected with the intention in order to bestow, and one becomes united with all desires, thus filling one’s desire with the Creator’s revelation (i.e. the revelation of the quality of bestowal and love that connects among all desires).

 

Table of Contents:

What Is the Spiritual Meaning of Purim?

Megillat Esther (The Book of Esther) describes forces that unfold in the person. These forces are what a person attaining spirituality discovers in connection with the Creator. They manage everything taking place in everyone’s lives, and have been given the names Mordechai, Esther, Haman, as well as many others.

The story of Purim unfolds before the construction of the Second Temple, soon before the Aliyah (ascent) to the land of Israel. It depicts the final battle before the final correction (Gmar Tikkun). At this stage, the people of Israel, the innermost desire within the person that aspires to spirituality, live calmly and peacefully in the kingdom of Achashverosh.

Mordechai, the spiritual desire that wants only to adhere to the Creator (the quality of bestowal and love), lived happily and the kingdom was at peace.

The people of Israel represent the majority of the desires that want to go straight to the world’s leader to learn the law of the universe (the word “Israel” comes from the words “Yashar Kel” [“straight to God”]).

Indeed, in the beginning of the story, the narrative suggests that there is something wrong: “There is one nation that is scattered among the nations.” This passage can also be read as “There is one desire that is scattered among the desires.” It is this nation, Israel, the desire for spirituality (a desire of bestowal and love), that is supposed to be united against all other nations, which are desires for self-gratification. The strength of the desire for spirituality (Israel) comes only from its unity, so when it is dispersed, it signifies that the person has not yet fulfilled his destiny, for only the people of Israel (the united desire for bestowal and love above all other desires) can lead the other nations (all other desires for self-gratification) to the common goal, adhesion with the Creator.

The evil Haman, who represents the egoistic desires in the person, wants to exploit the situation for personal gain. He eventually wants to overthrow the king from his throne. Haman believes that the fact that the people of Israel, the Jews, are dispersed testifies to their weakness, confusion and lack of faith. Therefore, he finds the situation to be a rare opportunity to eliminate the Jews from the face of the earth, as they are the sole force that stands between him and exploiting the Creator.

What Haman fails to understand, however, is that the Jews are dispersed for a reason: The Jews’ dispersion (i.e. the dispersion of the small amount of spiritual desires among the large amount of egoistic desires) is in order for all desires to acquire the form of bestowal and love, i.e. that spiritual unity comes in integration and perfect balance with all desires, and not in separation to them. Indeed, we will see the truth of it when at the end of the story, all people reform. The meaning is that all the desires in the person, called “people,” accept the spiritual desires that leads to confidence and happiness, called “Israel.”

The Israel in a person (the altruistic part) is limited. That limitation can only be overcome by the evil Haman. That is why we need to find the Haman (the egoistic part) within us.

The Story of Purim

The beginning of the story depicts how Mordechai saved the king from the two assassins Bigtan and Teresh. Naturally, we would expect the king to pay him for his deed, perhaps give him a raise, or any other kind of reward.

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