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Archive for September, 2013
September 25, 2013 at 7:39 pm · Filed under Articles, Books
“And God spoke unto Noah, saying, ‘Go forth from the ark, you, and your wife, and your sons, and your sons’ wives with you. Bring forth with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh, both fowl, and cattle, and every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth; that they may swarm in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.’”
New Perception after the Flood
Coming out to “the new earth” is what happens to you after the ark. You view the earth differently, finding joy in everything. You begin to realize that everything around you is given to you as aid in your spiritual advancement. They help you and you help them, and any instance of suffering that transpires is there only for adjustment, to keep you from stumbling by reminding you that everything comes from one source—the Creator.
The suffering is now mitigated by your understanding that it’s for your own benefit. It allows you to verify where you are and how far you’ve deviated from the right path. You get to work, adjust your course, and come right back to a new ascent.
Looking at Suffering from a New Angle through a New Intention
We can sum up the whole notion of suffering with a simple example. A terribly thirsty man stands before a stream of pure spring water, trying to fill up his dirty cup. The water tastes disgusting and bitter to him. He cannot drink it, and he curses the dirty stream (as we often curse the Creator, who sends us suffering). When the man finally realizes that the problem is not with the water, but with his cup, he cleans his cup and the water tastes wonderful.
It is the same with us. People concern themselves only with their corporeal tribulations and curse the suffering that befalls them. They immerse themselves in their problems, blaming everyone around them. But those in whom the point in the heart awakens—who begin to seek entrance into the spiritual world—learn that suffering is helpful because it identifies the spot (desire) that needs checking and cleansing (correction). And the correction is done only by finding the right intention.
The desire remains, only the intention changes. You are no longer waiting for the next blow to come, but instead you actively try to make contact with the Upper One so He wouldn’t need to push or adjust your path. You advance upward joyously and without pain to where the infinite, pure Light of love and goodness awaits.
This Light is intended for you; the stream is always flowing with pure spring water for any who thirst for it. Understanding this concept is symbolized by Noah “going forth from the ark onto the new earth.”
New Earth, New Covenant, New Life
It is a “new earth” because the earth that was cursed by the Creator (your egoistic desires) began to yield fruit (egoistic desires joined with altruistic ones), enabling life to appear, which steadily brings man to the goal of Creation.
“And God said, ‘This is the token of the covenant which I make between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I have set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between Me and the earth.’”
The bow in the cloud (a rainbow) is a restriction that the Creator takes upon Himself not to hold a true judgment over man: to not make any more floods and ruins, but despite your actions (for you are still egoistic by nature) to lead you only to maximum correction.
The rainbow has seven colors. The seven colors denote the seven qualities (Sefirot) that comprise our small but complete desire, the combination of the qualities of bestowal and reception—the Creator and the creature.
The Creator pledges to lead you through the good path, the path of love, even though you may perceive this path as fraught with suffering.
“And the sons of Noah that went forth from the ark were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth; and Ham is the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah, and of these was the whole earth overspread.”
The three sons beget all life on the earth. “Life” is everything that opposes egoism. If at times things around you appear lifeless—not opposing the ego, but self-serving, leading to ruin and death and tearing the world apart—stop, think about the goal, and continue your work on correcting yourself and the world. Everything is created with only one goal—to rejoin the Creator.
“What Is the Meaning of God Speaking to Noah to Go Forth from the Ark in the Bible Story?” is based on the book, The Secrets of the Eternal Book: The Meaning of the Stories of the Pentateuch by Semion Vinokur.
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September 24, 2013 at 7:32 pm · Filed under Articles, Books
“And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. And he sent forth a raven, and it went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth. And he sent forth a dove… But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him to the ark.”
Probing the Freshly Corrected Desires
What did you do at the moment you were disconnected from the material world, having returned to it afterward with a specific program of correction? You took the light egoistic desires, known as “raven” and “dove,” which were corrected in the ark, and used them to “feel the earth” (the desire). In so doing, you seemingly asked yourself, “Will the ego suck me in again?”
Why does this happen at the end of forty days, and what is the “window” that is made?
Forty is the quality of the Creator, the quality of absolute bestowal, the quality of a mother. What you are doing here is making a “tiny window” in it. You are introducing a certain dissonance into this idyll by adding a dash of egoism to it. This enables you to check whether you can establish contact between your altruistic and egoistic qualities (by sending forth a raven and then a dove—qualities that have undergone correction in the ark).
Can there be contact between the two?
As it turns out, the answer is “no,” since both birds return to the ark.
Giving Birth to a New, Complete Desire
“And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove.”
In Kabbalah, the number seven (7) symbolizes a small but complete desire.
A complete desire has both an altruistic component (the right line), and an egoistic one (the left line). By combining them we “beget” a certain “golden mean,” in which two opposite halves come together, forming one middle line: a single desire directed upward, to the spiritual world.
This method ensures the integrity of the entire creature.
In other words, not a single force is wasted, not a single word is redundant. Rather, it’s all about the correct application of all the forces and processes that take place in man.
Our tiny desire can be likened to a newborn baby; it is already outside its mother’s womb, “outside the ark.”
This “newborn” is that tiny spiritual desire of ours that begins to explore the next degree of correction, called “nursing.”
The newborn still can’t walk, but it is already breathing the air of the earth, demanding sustenance and “kicking its feet.” This means that our desire to bestow can be given a tiny dash of egoism, which it can deal with and correct.
We are embarking on a path of correction. Though this desire is only an “infant” now, it will grow into “the leader of the new generation,” meaning he will lead your other, yet uncorrected desires to correction, to the Creator.
“Be fruitful and multiply upon the earth.”
“And the dove came in to him [to Noah] at eventide; and lo in her mouth an olive-leaf freshly plucked; so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.”
An olive leaf symbolizes the Light of life, which can only be received in an altruistic desire.
The Noah inside you receives a report: “You can deal with the little egoistic desires, for you have been sufficiently washed over with water (Light of Mercy). As evidence of this, you are shown this olive leaf (luminescence).”
It’s not yet olive oil, which symbolizes the complete Light of Life, nor is it olives, but merely an olive leaf. However, it’s enough to begin correcting the small egoistic desires.
You have endured and matured through the flood; you have essentially been born anew, so now you can be certain that there will not be any more floods. This is the blessing that the Creator gave to “Noah and his sons,” the corrected altruistic desires: “Be fruitful and multiply upon the earth.”
You have passed through this state, and now altruism (the quality of the Creator) joins with egoism (the quality of the creature). Finally you are “setting foot on the earth” and embarking on the blessed path of the correction of the ego.
Correcting the Ego through Ascents and Descents
There is a saying in Kabbalah: “In the spiritual you always rise and never fall.” Indeed, you must know that all the ascents and descents you will feel on your spiritual path lead only up the spiritual ladder.
Even if it appears that you’ve stumbled in the darkness or that the night has dragged on too long (“night” refers to states of spiritual descent when the light is absent), know that it is actually helping you on your spiritual path. The only thing required of you is to grab onto everything that you used to “build the ark,” and you will feel the arrival of the morning (the ascent).
Why are there such descents? It’s because the Creator’s quality of bestowal within us has grown strong enough to handle another portion of the ego, which is immediately supplied for correction. The work must not stop. We must undergo complete purification.
The ego’s questions don’t change; they are very logical and earthly, but you are not the same person anymore. You have already gotten a taste of the spiritual state, and you know that the night will invariably change into morning.
From this point on, your entire path, as described in the book, is one of phases of correction of the ego, with the help of the quality of the Creator.
“What Is the Meaning of the Birth after the Flood in the Bible Story?” is based on the book, The Secrets of the Eternal Book: The Meaning of the Stories of the Pentateuch by Semion Vinokur.
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September 23, 2013 at 7:06 pm · Filed under Articles, Books
The Purifying Water
Mayim (“water” in Hebrew) is the flood that will drown your spiritual embryo if you heed the body’s questions, destroying all that you’ve worked so hard to assemble within.
The flood comes as a ruthless force that can destroy everything. Those desires that couldn’t endure the questions, meaning those that didn’t “come into the ark,” truly perish in its waters: “And all flesh perished that moved upon the earth.” And yet, the paradox is that for all its ruthlessness, the flood also purifies.
However, it purifies only those in whom the desires to attain the spiritual world prevail. It is as if man doesn’t even hear the rational questions of his body as he advances toward the goal, no matter what. In this case he acts like Noah, building himself an ark (finding the right books, the right teacher, and the right environment). He will also take shelter there with his numerous individual desires that are yet to be corrected (but will be corrected as the ark “sails” the flood waters).
The Meaning of 40: Bestowal, the Protective Womb
“Then the flood came upon the earth for forty days, and the water increased and lifted up the ark, so that it rose above the earth.”
Forty is a very significant number in spirituality. Naturally, we’re not talking about days here. The number forty represents the quality of bestowal, the Creator’s quality.
Forty is also the numerical value of the letter Mem (?). It resembles a closed space.
If you manage to withstand those forty days of the mind’s onslaught and not break, “the water will lift up the ark” and it will “float on the surface of the water.”
Let’s repeat one last time how you can cleanse, rather than drown, in the time of the flood, and how you can become a “spiritual embryo” and enter the Mem.
To accomplish this, you must pick up the necessary books and begin to “wash” yourself with them, as though with clean water. Bathe in the Light of Mercy, which, through your correct study, will cleanse you on the outside.
You draw it like a magnet by reading these books, and it will fill you on the inside when you are open to the Light and its quality of bestowal, whereupon the Light will enter you.
It is precisely the Light of Mercy that helps you reveal the one desire amidst all your other desires, the desire called Noah.
The Birth after the Purification in the Ark
How long must your desires for spiritual advancement remain in the ark?
For as long as it takes for the “flood waters” to rise above the “earth” (your remaining desires) until they “drown” in the Light of Mercy, cleansing to such an extent that you can use them correctly for your inner, personal and only desire, known as “Noah.”
You were in the ark, detached from all the egoistic desires. You didn’t use them, but remained “inside” the books and the thoughts of spiritual ascent, like an embryo in the mother’s womb. You were under the Creator’s protection, sheltered by Him. You reveled in that silence; it was like Paradise. But now you’re grown and mature, and the time of your emergence into the world is nearing. It’s time to begin your “exit from the ark.”
This means that you must begin your own path, to “leave the Creator’s womb,” as if with female waters, to be born and start working with your thus far “light” egoistic desires. You didn’t take them with you into the “ark,” having put them on hold for the right time. Now that they’ve been properly washed and cleansed with “flood waters,” it’s time for you to start correcting them.
In doing so you become increasingly closer to the spiritual world, to the Creator, since the end goal is the correction of the entire ego. Only then will you feel free, immortal, and absolutely blissful. This is what the Creator wants for you. This is the only condition under which you can be close to Him.
“What Is the Meaning of Noah’s Ark and the Flood in the Bible?” is based on the book, The Secrets of the Eternal Book: The Meaning of the Stories of the Pentateuch by Semion Vinokur.
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September 23, 2013 at 9:03 am · Filed under Articles, Books
“And I, behold, I do bring the flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; every thing that is in the earth shall perish. But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall come into the ark.”
Building the Ark
How is this done? We can do it primarily with the help of the books. In addition to this book, you seek out others like it, written by those who have already attained their root, the Upper World, and convey through them their attainment.
These books are like roadmaps designed to guide you to your goal via the shortest possible route. These books are few in number.
They aren’t meant to expand your knowledge, but to cultivate within you the sensation of the Upper One.
They are written by great Kabbalists: Abraham, Moses, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, the ARI (Rabbi Isaac Luria), and Baal HaSulam (Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag).
So, if you refuse to let up until you’ve found the right books, it means you’re “building an ark.” You delve into the books, and at first, you don’t understand them one bit, but you continue to read. This is how you “erect the walls of the ark.”
Then, you find a teacher, a guide who will not let you stray from the path, and you find friends with whom you will overcome the obstacles that stand between you and the goal. This is how you “lay the roof of the ark.”
Entering the Ark above One’s Mind
Your entrance into the ark begins the moment you “sort out” your desires and select those with which you can continue to develop spiritually. Accordingly, you will understand which desires must be “drowned.”
And this is possible only if you switch off your mind, as odd as that may sound. “Switching off your mind” means you ignore the advice of the body, your ego. It’s a difficult condition, but it can be done, and many have already traversed this journey. They wrote the authentic books about discovering the true, exalted force of love, which they called “the Creator.” They also wrote that the tiniest grain of spiritual pleasure is billions of times greater than all of the earthly pleasures combined.
So, achieving the spiritual pleasure is possible only if you escape from the iron grip of the ego and conquer your mind. Of course, your mind bombards you with questions such as, “What are you doing this for?” and “What are you really getting out of it?” “Where are the tangible benefits?” “Who are these sages that you follow their instructions so closely?”
You hear all this, but your response to your mind is, “I understand your concerns but I have faith in the sages and in what I read in these books.
Confusing Questions in Order to have Free Choice
Who’s feeding you these questions? It is the so-called “impure force.” This force has power only over your mind. But if you act in spite of your mind, you will immediately feel the kind of relief that comes after exhausting labor, because the power of the “pure force” means to do something in spite of the mind.
It may seem odd or bewildering, but both the pure and the impure forces stem from the same source. That source is the Creator, a force of absolute good that wants one thing and one thing only: to turn us into creatures worthy of Him. It is He who confuses us, deliberately, so we can decide our fate for ourselves. Every decision, every step we take we will need to weigh carefully, as though our entire life hangs in the balance.
The Mind’s Questions Flooding the Person
“And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bore up the ark, and it was lifted up above the earth. And the waters prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.”
It means the “earth”—your desire—is being “flooded with flood waters.” “Flood waters” are the questions that literally “wash over” you.
These questions aren’t simple. They are your mind’s questions. They are materialistic, rational, pragmatic, and are triggered by problems that concern the body. Their “where’s” and “why’s” aim to drown us.
The questions never let up; they return a thousand times: “What do you need this for? What’s the point? Think about yourself because your efforts aren’t bringing you any personal benefit. What will you get out of all this work? How will the Creator repay you for observing His commandments? Will it be worth it after all your toiling is done?”
These objections of the body are summed up by the question “What?” (Heb. Ma)
If you oppose the body, citing faith in the Creator that He governs all things in the name of good, then the body objects even more. Now it screams, “Who?” (Heb. Mi) “Who is the Creator, that I should obey His voice?” If you only knew, if you could see and feel that the Creator is great, you could work for Him. Just consider how much more profitable it is to work for someone respected in our world.
It is when these two objections of the body combine in you that the two questions “What?” and “Who?” (Ma and Mi) merge into one word—Mayim, which means “water” in Hebrew. And much Mayim (water) creates a flood.
“The Meaning of the Story of the Entrance to Noah’s Ark Amidst the Flood” is based on the book, The Secrets of the Eternal Book: The Meaning of the Stories of the Pentateuch by Semion Vinokur.
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September 21, 2013 at 9:36 pm · Filed under Articles, Books
The Beginning of Adam’s Separation into a Multitude of Sparks
When the Creator exiled him from the Garden of Eden, the “human in us” (Adam) stopped being a child and began to mature.
The maturation process is a period when we know we must correct our egoism, for we cannot live with it or to simply suppress it.
There is no immediate correction, as the “serpent” suggested. Instead, man must descend all the way down until he feels the full span of his ego and begs the Creator for help, realizing that he’s powerless to deal with it on his own.
“And the man knew Eve his wife.” This means the altruistic and egoistic desires merged in man. The result was a merging, or “giving birth,” to two desires: Cain and Abel.
This is the beginning of the descent. We see how a great egoistic desire that man could not deal with began to split into pieces.
The Separation and Struggle in Between the Two Desires
One desire, Abel, gravitates toward bestowal, toward the Creator. This is why it is written that he doesn’t till the ground, but “keeps sheep.” He can be the “guide” and lead the way to fertile pastures. Whom does he lead there? Man’s egoistic desires, which are ready to follow him, foretasting the future pleasures. It is precisely these desires that are called “sheep.”
The desire called “Abel” is also called the “right line.” The right line is an altruistic desire, an aspiration for the Creator without a trace of egoism. This desire is sent down to us from above, like an outstretched hand or a lowered ladder that we can climb to the Goal.
The desire called “Cain” is the left line. This is the exact opposite – an egoistic desire and an aspiration to use the bond with the Creator for one’s own fulfillment.
In the story about Cain and Abel, the distancing from the Creator is not yet complete. That is, there is no situation such as in our world, where the Creator is absolutely concealed, the mind contends that it’s all a sham, and that man ought to live only for himself.
Here we have a different picture. We are in a dialogue with the Creator: He is felt and the spiritual world is near, but the desires are different.
Abel has pure desires, the desire to bestow, to receive pleasure from delighting the Creator. It would appear that Cain also has the desire to bestow, but in his case he strives to win the Creator’s favor, to merit His attention, to acquire the spiritual world. He wants to receive all the Light and the infinite pleasure it contains, but only for himself.
Finding the “Golden” Middle Line
You must work on your egoistic desires, rather than suppress or try to eliminate them because not receiving isn’t an option for you. This is how you were created. You are required to ascend above them, to use them, to master your egoistic desires, i.e., to receive pleasure from delighting the Creator.
That is the state at which man must ultimately arrive. Therein lies the purpose of man’s creation. Otherwise his ego will rule over him, and the result of its reign will be all the things humanity is afflicted with today: war, death, and tragedies.
“And Cain spoke unto Abel his brother. And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.”
What does the fratricide mean here? It means that the left line suppresses the right. In other words, the egoistic line asserts the following, “I’m the only one that’s useful around here; I act, I harvest, I till the land, and I should be the one to be rewarded for all this.”
The strength of the earth, the desire, lies precisely in the combination of the right and left lines, in finding “the golden mean,” where man delights in reception only when he thus bestows upon another. This is the only way we can remain in infinite bliss.
But if this combination doesn’t take place, i.e., if “Abel is killed,” the earth cannot yield strength, but actually drains it, as all the efforts you made become labor for your own ego, for the left line, for Cain. The ego can never be satiated.
Preparation for Merging the Many into a Single Whole
Cain’s sin and his fate marks the beginning of the story of humankind, the process in which your soul descends from the Creator to our world. The soul itself does not change throughout the process, but simply dons egoistic garments that conceal it, dampening its voice, its eternal bond with the Creator. Thus it transforms from the single, unified heart of Adam into myriad points of an infinite number of people.
The Creator always remains connected to the soul in the part we call the “point in the heart.” This is why there ultimately comes a time when you “hear” His voice once more, sensing a feeble luminescence bursting through the filters and barriers. That’s when you begin to aspire to return to the spiritual world, to the Creator, longing for the Garden of Eden.
Humanity begins to procreate, its numbers are growing, but you already know that all these “people” are really your egoistic desires. It is your mission to correct them, whereupon you will return once more to the one soul of Adam, having joined with it into a single whole.
Lifting the Weight by the Multitude
Why was the great egoistic desire shattered into myriad tiny, egoistic desires? It happened because it’s easier to correct myriad tiny desires than one great desire. By correcting them, we reassemble the one great desire and restore the one soul in the Garden of Eden.
There is an old parable of a king who wished to send a great fortune to his son in another kingdom. This presented the king with a dilemma: he knew his people were all thieves and there wasn’t anyone in the whole kingdom he could trust with so much wealth.
So after giving the matter some thought, he found a way.
The king exchanged all of his fortune into coins of minor value, dispersed them among his subjects, and tasked them with delivering them to his son in the neighboring kingdom.
Naturally, the people couldn’t be bothered with pocketing such a small sum; it was more important to showcase their loyalty and obedience to the king. Every one of them fulfilled his duty with honor, and the entire fortune reached its destination.
“What Is the Meaning of the Cain and Abel Bible Story?” is based on the book, The Secrets of the Eternal Book: The Meaning of the Stories of the Pentateuch by Semion Vinokur.
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