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Archive for September, 2013
September 16, 2013 at 5:36 am · Filed under Articles, Books
“And the Lord God said: ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help made against him.’”
Man Needs a Woman to Become an Independent Creature
It is not good for man, who was created in God’s image and likeness, to have only the Creator’s power and nothing of man himself (meaning his egoistic nature). That is, it is not good that he is stifled by the Light, and has no free will. Bit by bit, his nature must be awakened, his ego revealed to the extent that he can control it. Thus, his ego would stand “behind him.” That is to say, the ego could be utilized, but would remain under his control.
The “woman in us” is the embodiment of this controlled ego.
He resides in the Creator’s Garden of Eden and is completely under the authority of the Light. Man exists in a kind of narcotic state, but he must ultimately become free, for the Creator’s objective was to make a creature equal to Him, rather than a slave to the Light. It follows that sooner or later, man must begin to activate his ego and correct it.
The “Rib,” the Place Where Opposites Connect
“He took one of his ribs, and closed up the place with flesh instead thereof. And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from the man, He made a woman, and brought her unto the man.”
A rib is a “place” in the chest where the altruistic desire in us connects to the egoistic desire.
In each of our desires is a vulnerable, but absolutely essential “place.” It is the moment of doubt and struggle, when the temptation arises to take for yourself, even though you’ve already decided to “start a new life” and be exclusively in bestowal. This is the material from which “your inner woman” is made, and it exists in every one of us. This material is that very common quality that exists between the desire to bestow and the desire to receive.
The male desire within you strives to receive spiritual pleasure by bestowing upon others, upon the Creator. It waits for the moment when man declares, “I will take only the bare essentials for myself, and gladly bestow everything else to the Creator.”
The female desire within you strives to receive spiritual pleasure, but for its own delight, realizing that this pleasure is the greatest in existence. This common point is called “receiving pleasure,” and the only difference is who you are fulfilling with this action: yourself or others.
If the desire to receive spiritual pleasure for self (female desire) is not controlled by the male desire to bestow, it becomes man’s demise (in the spiritual sense).
Reaching Eternity through “Love Your Neighbor as Yourself”
Try to understand that what you see and feel is imaginary. In fact, besides you, there is only the Creator. “For the Creator’s sake” and “for others’ sake” are the exact same thing. Until you reach the state of the end of correction, this illusion that others exist will persist. But then you will see that there are no “others”; there is only “me and the Creator.”
Advancement can be infinite, as your soul has no limitation with respect to capacity, for through the soul you connect to others. The soul is the communicator with other souls. One can connect all of humanity to himself – to feel, think and understand in their stead. You need only “exit” yourself and “enter” them.
This is the essence of the Biblical principle, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” What is our true egoism? It is when you love yourself egoistically, willing to disregard the whole world just to grab something for yourself. If you can exit yourself and give up all your possessions, you will begin to feel other people and become eternal.
Taking off the Clothing in Order to Reach Our Origin
To summarize, the manifestation of an egoistic quality in Adam, which he had never felt before, is the birth of a “woman,” the additional, external form called “Eve.” Adam and Eve are the same flesh, in that they create between them a combination that has a right to exist independently.
Our nature is egoistic and must be corrected. The connection to the earth is the “woman” to which “man” attaches, becoming one flesh with her, meaning drawing to himself egoistic desires, but not yet exposing them. Neither the man nor the woman have yet discovered themselves: “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”
The term “naked” alludes to the absence of “clothes” – that is, egoistic desires that coat man, clothes-like, concealing his true, primordial yearning for the spiritual world.
By donning these “clothes” – newer and newer egoistic desires – man distances himself from the Creator, although the spiritual basis always remains in him. He simply needs to begin to remove these layers and always strive for the root – the Creator who created us all. This is exactly what we are now doing.
“What Is Man and Woman 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 15, 2013 at 12:02 am · Filed under Articles, Books
“And the Lord God planted a garden eastward, in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed.”
One-on-One with the Creator in the Garden of Eden
What is a “garden?” It is man’s qualities, which, utilized correctly, will provide him with the opportunity to reach the spiritual world. This “garden” was “planted” for the sole purpose of leading us to life’s goal. The garden is “planted” within us by the Creator, which means that we cannot attribute any of our qualities to ourselves.
Try to imagine that the people around you, the entire universe, are all your qualities projected into your consciousness. It only appears to us that something exists on the outside. In fact, as we correct ourselves, we begin to perceive that all of these are our own qualities, which exist within us. People, animals, plants, planets, the entire world, and the entire universe—everything exists within us.
The moment we attain this, we are left one-on-one with the Creator, and we understand that nothing exists but we and the Creator.
In Between the Trees of the Garden
“And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
So what is the meaning of, “the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”?
The “tree of life” is the higher part of your soul, the quality of bestowal that draws you. It is that innermost quality that’s close to the Creator, which is why it is written to be “in the midst of the garden,” at the center of all your qualities.
The “tree of knowledge of good and evil” is the lower part of your soul, the quality of reception, your egoistic component.
Here is where the issue of good and evil comes into play. It depends on how you utilize your ego, and this is called the “intention.”
Nourished by the River of Bestowal
“And a river went out of Eden to water the garden.”
What is this river that flows out of Eden to water the garden?
The “river” is the Upper Light, nourishing your quality of bestowal from within, imparting confidence that you can exist without desiring anything for yourself.
How can you claim that you don’t want anything for yourself? You can if you have the opportunity to possess everything.
It is the sensation of security and serenity that is provided by the river (Upper Light) that waters everything.
Avoiding Death by Not Eating from the Tree
“And the Lord God commanded the man, saying: ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it; for in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die.’”
You currently exist in an exalted state, for you have finally attained the “human” in you.
All your desires at this stage are in euphoria from attaining the spiritual world. You feel good in this Light, and you wish to continue living and breathing only in this way.
At this moment, it is as if you forget that inside you lurks the ego, that you’re surrounded by egoistic, worldly desires for money, fame, power and knowledge.
Presently, you exist in this “garden” with your qualities of bestowal. Therefore, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat.”
However, if you use your egoistic qualities, “…but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat,” the Light will instantly vanish and you will find yourself disconnected from the Creator, the universal Law of Life, from bestowal.
Connecting to the Creator is life; disconnecting from Him is death.
Erecting a Screen to Protect from Temptation
When a “human” is born inside you, you mustn’t rouse the full extent of your ego.
Because you still cannot correct it, you mustn’t use it.
That is, the “human in you” must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, as that would harm him.
It is as if you say to yourself, “No, I will not receive! I won’t be able to resist and instead will take for myself, and all will fall into my egoism. But I want to learn to bestow, like You. So what can I do? I have only one option: I won’t receive anything. I don’t want to take for myself. I want nothing! And so I’m erecting a screen on everything.”
“What Is the Tree of Life, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Garden of Eden 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 13, 2013 at 6:00 am · Filed under Articles, Books
The Creator wished to make the body of Adam. This is how He worked: To fashion the hands and legs of Adam, the Creator gathered earth from all the corners of the world. For his torso, He took the earth of Babylon. To fashion Adam’s head, the most important part of the human body, He took the earth of Eretz Ysrael (The Land of Israel). The Creator put all the gathered earth atop MountMoriah, where the sacrificial altar shall be in the Temple. He mixed it with water taken from all the oceans of the world, and from the resulting clay He fashioned the body of man.
A Mixture of Receiving and Bestowing Forces
The Midrash isn’t speaking of how the biological human body was made, or about mixing clay and earth with water. Rather, it describes how man includes within him all of the world’s forces. Here is what is written, “To fashion the hands and legs of Adam, the Creator gathered earth from all the corners of the world.” This means that man contains the desires of the whole world. If he corrects them, he will thus correct the whole world.
“He mixed it with water taken from all the oceans of the world, and from the resulting clay he fashioned the body of man.” The “water” in man represents the force of bestowal, the quality of altruism, which animates everything, which is also collected from the whole world.
Thus, both the desire to enjoy and the desire to bestow exist in abundance in man. They are mixed and connected together in man’s every desire. We need only identify the force of bestowal and use it to correct the force of reception, so that bestowal will dominate reception. Then all our desires to enjoy, gathered within us from all the “nations” of the world, will be activated only by the quality of bestowal.
“To fashion the head of Adam, the most important part of the human body, He took the earth of Eretz Ysrael.”
The Creator made man’s “head” out of the “earth” of Israel, out of desires aimed at the Creator. Thus, all of man’s aspirations must be aimed at acquiring the Creator’s qualities. Israel comes from the words Yashar El, which translates as “straight” and to the Creator.
The Creator took the “earth” for man’s “torso” from Babylon, the degree that pertains to the quality of bestowal. It is no accident that Babylon was the setting for a great crisis known as “the Tower of Babel.” The Babylonians wanted to attain Godliness with the help of the forces of reception, and this is impossible. After the people dispersed and realized the futility of their aspirations, they reunited and achieved the degree of the Creator with the help of the forces of bestowal.
Between the Spiritual and the Material
Where was man created? He was created in a special place where the spiritual origin touches the corporeal one, at the point of contact between the two adjacent degrees.
The reality above “MountMoriah” is called the spiritual reality, whereas all that exists below is called “the material world.” The peak of Mount Moriah is a spiritual summit, the highest possible point in this world. It towers over all the material of this world, and the greatest spiritual forces assemble there. It is precisely where man—the “coordinator” between the material and the spiritual dimensions—was created.
“Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” We mustn’t forget that we’re always talking about what’s happening within. You have undergone the phases of development of the still, vegetative, and animate desires, and now you’re no longer fulfilled by all that pertains to them. Now you want another level—the spiritual one!
Seeing the Creator through the Point in the Heart
If you catch yourself thinking this way, it means the point in the heart has awakened within you and is drawing you to the Creator. If you don’t want this incarnation going to waste, follow your point and listen to your inner voice.
You begin to identify with the point in the heart that is drawing you to the Creator. You enjoy being in this state, and you want to acquire spiritual sensations. This is the meaning of “…and man became a living soul.” The human inside you has been born. If you follow this “human,” He will surely lead you into the “land that flows with milk and honey,” and there you will see the Creator.
What does it mean to “see the Creator”? He has many names, but the one that relates to us is Boreh. It consists of two words: Bo (come) and Re’eh (see). In other words, you will see the Creator; no one else can do it for you.
“What Are You Made Of? – According to the Midrash” 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 12, 2013 at 4:01 am · Filed under Articles, Books
The following text is taken from the Midrash on the creation of man: “When the Holy One, blessed be He, came to create Adam, the ministering angels formed themselves into groups and parties, some of them saying, ‘Let him be created,’ whilst others urged, ‘Let him not be created.’”
What is the meaning of this passage, which details the Creator’s “conversation” with the “angels”?
Doubts about Man’s Right to Exist
The Creator is the unified Law of Nature, the Law of Love and bestowal, present within us and all around us. We don’t perceive Him because we live by completely different laws, but the whole purpose of our lives is to reveal Him.
The “angels” are nature’s (the Creator’s) forces, which obey the Law and are unable to act or think independently.
The story symbolizes as the opposing forces begin to manifest, illustrating human nature, which is wholly egoistic and evil.
Imagine flicking on a flashlight in total darkness. As it illuminates your surroundings, you discover that you’ve been sitting in a cesspool all this time. At first, it may seem as if you would have been better to remain in the dark, but that is not the case. At least now you know the source of the stench, and why you’ve been so miserable. Our task is to clean up the cesspool, to rein in our egoism.
Man Is Born with a Destructive Nature
Man is born an egoist. From the very beginning, he is mired in imbalance and prefers falsehood to truth.
Precisely because man is an egoist, he will have the opportunity to realize this, and then to show mercy. Thanks to his good deeds, starting from the opposite end, he’ll be able to realize what is good, so that afterward he can acquire the quality of bestowal and correct himself.
Man is aggressive, delights in the misery of others, strives to harm others, and longs to hoard more than necessary for his existence. Although he evolved from the animate degree, while the animate degree is in harmony with Nature, man is not!
The lion and the cow take from their environment only what they need for their sustenance, but man does not. Nature dictates this behavior in animals, but not in man. There is not a single quality in man that he uses to achieve peace.
Man is born with a grotesque desire to rule and dominate the whole world to suit his needs, which is contrary to Nature’s quality of bestowal.
We see that the history of humankind is a procession of wars. If man were to grow cognizant of his essence, he would realize that all he thinks of is how to use others for his own benefit.
The whole progress of humankind throughout millennia amounts to the development of weapons of mass destruction. Man sought ways to rule, profit, and use his strengths by elevating himself over others.
Not one of his inclinations is directed toward achieving balance with his environment, which would allow him to give others their due. Instead, man strives to acquire and control everything that belongs to others.
Given the circumstances, man should not be created, for he is opposite to all of Nature.
Man Justifying His Own Creation through Struggle and Free Choice
However, when man uses his powers correctly and achieves correction, he becomes king over Nature and the world, the whole process becomes purposeful, and man becomes equal to the Creator.
The Creator says to the angels, “Nevertheless, I am for creating man, despite his flaws, because I see that through this process he will obtain a spiritual degree. That is what I need from him. He will correct himself. He will rid himself of his ego and come to Me. And when he does, it will be of his own accord, not as a slave to My Light. This is very important.”
Thus, the Creator doesn’t mind the initial state of Creation and all the states we go through. He already sees us in the final state, which is the reason for our existence.
The struggle described in the Midrash is ever-present within man. With every step, at every moment in life, man works to establish this balance, and thereby brings balance to the whole world. He cannot stand still, for every state compels him to act, and he chooses his path with each step. Every second, man must connect to the goal of Creation, scrutinizing why the Creator had chosen to make him, despite all the forces and qualities that opposed his creation. Indeed, the goal of man’s work lies in justifying his own creation.
“What Is the Meaning of the Angels’ Argument Over Whether Man Should or Shouldn’t Be Created?” 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 11, 2013 at 3:48 am · Filed under Articles, Books
By correcting one’s inherently egoistic qualities to bestowing ones with the help of the Screen, one attains more and more names of the Creator, becomes capable of seeing reality in an increasingly perfect way, gradually revealing its source.
Receiving the Anti-Egoistic Filter through the Right Request
The Screen is the force of resistance against egoistic desires. If you acquire this force, you are in perfect shape, headed straight for the Creator. Here I must add that you cannot build the screen by yourself. Rather, it must be obtained by persistently demanding it of the Creator, which is the Upper Degree. The Upper Degree in the spiritual world is the degree directly above your current degree. This degree is the Creator for you.
At each subsequent degree, you will know the Creator better, meaning you will be revealing more and more of His names until you reach the complete revelation of the Maker.
So, when do you acquire a screen? When the Upper Degree feels that you’re prepared to do anything to get it. The plea must come from the bottom of the heart: “Give me strength to bestow like You… Help me correct myself, I beg You.” If your plea is sincere, you will receive the screen
Gradual Self-Correction in the Creator’s Clinic
That is, you must “correct” the egoistic desire with the intention to bestow. Every day, it is as if you place your “I” in the Creator’s “clinic” and ask for the cure—the screen that will enable you to open your eyes and see the true picture of reality. In this clinic, you are given additional egoistic desires with which you must begin to work and feel, to check your attitude toward them, realize how powerful they are, and only then to ask for the screen—the force that can protect you from falling from this degree.
The goal is clear—to correct your ego, which is supplied to you in portions as you ascend upward and mature. Thus, you gradually move from degree to degree. Once you’ve dealt with one portion of egoism, you are given an opportunity to ascend, to draw closer to the next batch of egoistic desires. And then you begin to work with them, correcting your intention from egoistic to altruistic, so you can say, “I receive and in so doing I am giving You delight.” Every degree contains its own work, its own screen, a new name of the Creator.
“How to Attain the Names of the Creator” 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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