Deuteronomy, 33:1-34:12
This Week’s Torah Portion | September 8 – September 14, 2013 – Tishrei 4 – Tishrei 10, 5774
In A Nutshell
The portion, VeZot HaBracha (This Is the Blessing), is the last portion in the Torah. It is dedicated to the greatness of Moses. In this portion, Moses blesses the tribes of Israel and mentions the uniqueness of each tribe and its lot.
Moses dies at the age of 120. Before he dies he climbs up Mount Nevo and is buried in a valley in the land of Moab. The children of Israel mourn his death for thirty days and assume Joshua as his heir.
Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman
“This Is the Blessing” is the portion that concludes the Torah, and there are new issues in it that are not immediately noticeable. The whole Torah speaks of one person, within us. The Torah relates to our correction, the correction of the heart, our desires, to our rising above our egos and to the work by which we invert the ego, as it is written, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice” because “the light in it reforms them.”
Our entire ego becomes good. Instead of exploiting, deceiving, and stealing from others, we need to act to the contrary—bestowing and loving others. We perceive the spiritual, upper world through the quality of bestowal to others. This is really the entire correction that we need to make on ourselves. It is the entire process we must go through, and which we do in this portion, at the conclusion of the corrections that the Torah details.
Throughout the portions, we gradually correct ourselves through the light that we draw from the Torah. It is not a simple thing to do because we need to know how to draw the light. In the end, when we have drawn enough light during all the portions of the Torah, having corrected our egos, we arrive at the last stage in which the point in our hearts—the point of Moses, which has accompanied us, prepared us, explained to us, and took care of us—concludes its work.
There is no death in spirituality. In fact, there is no death anywhere; it is only how we perceive things. When we speak of someone being dead or a live, it only seems to us that way, where in fact there is renewal of forms of matter.
Many treaties deal with the issue of Moses’ death not being death. It is considered that he “went up to God.” In fact, it is the last degree in the corrections of the desert, which corrected only some of our Kelim (vessels), the part called Galgalta and Eynaim, vessels of bestowal. Now we must rise to the next level of corrections, to Eretz Ysrael (land of Israel). Eretz comes from the word Ratzon (desire), and Ysrael (Israel) comes from the words, Yashar El (straight to God).
Now we need to correct our heavier desires, the desires of Eretz Ysrael, which are at a higher level than the degree of Moses, in a degree called Joshua. Therefore, now a new leader appears in us—Joshua. Previously he was next to Moses, growing alongside him. Now he is accompanying us and leading us toward the next corrections.
This is also why it is pointless for the Torah to speak of the future corrections because we are already prepared for them, and we make them; we will achieve the correction of the land of Israel and the entire world. This is the role of the next degree, the degree of Joshua, in which the land of Israel, the land of beauty, spreads to the rest of the world.
Moses’ dying means that one has gone through 120 degrees, which are three times forty. These are forty degrees in which he was reared in Pharaoh’s house, and a degree called the “evil inclination” appeared in him, the “great serpent,” “Pharaoh.” He spent another forty years in the house of Jethro, priest of Midian, and led Israel through the desert for another forty years. All together, it is 120 years that one needs to go through in order to realize the point of Moses in one’s heart.
The Torah begins with the letter Bet, and The Zohar writes that it is because Bet stands for Beracha (blessing). The Torah also ends with the portion, “This Is the Blessing.” What is a blessing, and what is so special about it?
A blessing is a force from above. When we connect to a higher degree, we obtain the force that corrects us, a force that is absent on our degree. It seems to us that we can change our world, that we can fix it and make it better. But each time we try we see that we are unsuccessful, to say the least.
This is what many think, today.
It is what we see. Economists, financiers, and industrialists still think that there is something they can do. On the one hand they are helpless and do not know what to do, but on the other hand they are still trying. This is the right way toward despair, helplessness, and a great cry, as it is written, “And the children of Israel sighed from the work” (Exodus 2:23). It is similar to the situation in Egypt when they built the cities Pithom and Rameses. When the building was done, they saw that everything they have been building for so many years was not in their favor.
We are in the exact same situation as that of the children of Israel in Egypt. Henceforth the proper, good degrees are beginning to appear. We are beginning to reflect on our lives, what we need to obtain, how we can progress, how we can support ourselves, our souls, and our bodies.
We are finally realizing that it is not within our power and we need a higher force. This is why it is written, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice” because “the light in it reforms them.” To succeed, we need guidance, the knowledge of something we do not have. Everyone is helpless, every leader in the world, and no one knows why. They are still running on momentum, trying to do something, but these efforts are all futile.
It seems as though we are in the stage of Egypt. Does that mean that everything has been preordained? If so, what should we do?
Of course it is all preordained; we only need to carry out the plan.
But will it not happen anyway?
When a child goes to school, the curriculum is pre-prepared: all the tests, works, and everything the child will learn at school. But the child does not know all that. Everything is still ahead of the child, and when the child goes to school, he or she is taught new things each time, new exercises are given, and the child must do them. This is how children grow.
But a child cannot know if he or she will grow up to be an engineer, a doctor, or will drop out in the last year of high school.
Neither the child nor the teachers know the answer to that. However, if we read what psychologists, biologists, and geneticists write about the child, we will see that they feel quite confident about what is happening and what will happen to the child.
The thing is that we still do not know all the systems, and yet, everything is already determined in advance, there is nothing new. This is not where our free choice lies; we do not decide anything at any point along the way. Our free choice is only to be in a good environment that will accompany us on the right, short way toward those states we must experience.
When we look back on our lives, we often feel that we did not really control the situations in our lives.
True. We acted, but things simply happened one way or the other, not always as we wanted them.
Children, too, have no real choice up to a certain age.
Not only children, none of us determines anything in life, not when we are twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty. The only thing we do determine is our relation to what is happening and to where we want to go. This is the only way that we can change our destiny. We must go through the stages of development, but we can experience them as good or not so good.
In other words, does understanding the system and perceiving it turn a person into a giving part in it?
Of course, this is how we change our destiny. We feel that we partake in the actions in a meaningful way, entering better degrees and steps, which will promote us toward the goal.
For example, when one begins to study, it is clear that he or she must also complete the studies. It is possible to go through with it suffering “blows,” failing tests, and staying extra years, but it is also possible to go through it nicely and smoothly, winning praises and awards.
It is all a question of approach, encouragements, and the example that the social environment gives. This is why our choice is in a good environment, by which we develop faster and better. Everything depends on the preparation.
These days, many scientists are concerned about the world; they seem to agree that there is an overall collapse. What kind of world are we leaving for our children?
It is called, “And the children of Israel sighed from the work.” We have come into a situation where we have nowhere to go. All the work we have done with our egos is like the work in Egypt. We wanted to develop systems, build buildings, build Pithom and Rameses. These are beautiful cities for the ego, but the text calls them Arei Miskenot (cities of misery), which are both poor and dangerous. [1] A person can stay in them, drown in the dust, and never rise again. And yet, there is a turning point here, from which we can leap into the next degree.
What is the next degree? Which blessing should come now, or that we should summon?
We need to understand that where the wicked fall, the righteous rise. In other words, it seems that this point is actually an invitation for us to ascend. We must leave our egos, not erase them, but work with them in a different way.
We need to turn them into “help made against us,” to become our assistants against themselves. We need to understand that at this point there is an invitation to reach the enlightened world, the next degree.
Our entire world is in our egos, and we need to rise to a world that is entirely above the ego. It is written, “love covers all transgressions” (Proverbs 10:12). Below is hate, and above is love. If we unite we will discover the spiritual world between us, the eternal life, harmony and abundance.
Assuming a person has achieved that state, but the rest of the world did not, what will change, if anything?
It is possible to do it individually, as well.
Today we are very much dependent on each other, so what is the difference who does it?
We must all do it. Those who accomplish it will help others do the same; they will circulate it, revealing the information everywhere and helping to build an environment.
The first thing that our world needs is an environment that encourages people to unite, that teaches to us that we are all inevitably connected because the world has become circular. Everyone writes about it. Scientists are addressing this topic and are publishing essays on the internet. We are not connected between us although by Nature we must be connected. A gap has surfaced for the first time between us and Nature, which in Gematria, is God.
In other words, the Creator is appearing to us as a general, integral, and global system by which we must connect in order to draw close to Him. The more we unite, the more we will succeed. The lack of unity between us is the problem because we have no desire for it. We detest this bonding, which is why we need to build an environment that constantly influences us into thinking that it is good to be connected.
It seems like it is people’s personal work, but what about the leadership? After all, as individuals, what can we change?
We must make it happen. Today we can all be influential because we are all present in the internet, on Twitter, on Facebook, and so on. Today, anyone can make a difference.
But we have become accustomed to being managed, and we are still managed by institutions and authorities.
We see that those authorities cannot do a thing. All the committees and the protests, all the organizations that pop up everywhere scream, “We will do, we will do,” but what are they actually doing? Do they want the same kind of revolutions we had two or three centuries ago? Everyone knows it will not work today.
Is it impossible that someone with wits will rise and see things in this light?
No, because they are not studying Kabbalah. For this to happen it must be a person rising out of the circular, integral system. That system exists only in those who study the wisdom of Kabbalah, who connect among them in groups and draw the light that reforms together through their bonding.
These people are making corrections called Mitzvot (commandments/good deeds). The word Mitzva (singular of Mitzvot) comes from the word Tzavta (together). When they unite and draw the light, the light corrects them, and this is the making of the Mitzvot. They correct the 613 desires that exist in each of them by connecting with others. When they are corrected, they become tied together.
Each group that is studying the wisdom of Kabbalah becomes a miniature corrected world. When these people circulate this knowledge together, they carry with them the power to show the world how we should unite, and what we need to do.
Does it not say that a new leader will be born, a new Moses? Assume that a leader such as Moses is born now, what qualities would he have so as to help us through the crisis? Or, is this a group issue?
It is not a leader or a certain personality; it is a large group, people with points in their hearts who are connected among them. They are the ones who draw the light that reforms, and through them the light traverses to the whole of humanity. This is the role of the Israeli people, to be “a light of the nations.”
It is a big responsibility; is it up to us?
We have no choice, we must. Moses, too, did not want the responsibility, saying that he was “slow of speech” (Exodus 4:10). He rejected this hard and committing role as does everyone else. However, we must carry it out nonetheless.
The world is demanding it of us through its anti-Semitic approach. They are really saying that they depend on us. It is we who are to blame for the world’s troubles. And yet, the fact that the world depends on us means that we have the power to change things.
“Our sages said (Midrash Raba, Portion “And This Is the Blessing”), ‘The Creator said unto Israel: ‘Regard, the whole wisdom and the whole Torah is easy: anyone who fears Me and observes the words of the Torah, the whole wisdom and the whole Torah are in his heart.’’ Thus, we need no prior merit here; and only by virtue of fear of God and the keeping of Mitzvot is one granted the whole wisdom of the Torah.”
Kabbalah for the Student, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” item 21
(Canada, Laitman Kabbalah Publishers, 2009), 325
This is the answer; we need nothing else. Fear means that we are trying to carry out a simple order: to want to unite because we have no choice. Today Nature and the world are compelling us to do it.
To unite, we have to build an environment that educates us through the media, internet, radio, and other means. Soon millions of people will be out of work; they will need to learn and to receive supplements to their income in return for studying it. Each person will work for 2-3 hours daily because there will not be work for more than that, and they will spend the rest of the time studying. The study will draw the vital force, the power of the light, and through it we will succeed in everything. This in itself will be a job.
According to statistics, today only two percent of the global population needs to work in agriculture, and ten more percent are needed in industry, commerce, and everything else. When we establish a balanced world and more balanced consumption, when we stop consuming redundancies, ninety percent of the world’s population will have nothing to do.
It sounds ideal; everyone will want to work only two hours a day, study the rest of the time, and get paid for it.
It is not that simple. The study consists of two parts: provision of information, and social education. In the provision of information section, students will learn about the world, about the meaning of an integral system, why the crisis is happening, human nature, free choice, the purpose of creation, the correction of creation, and what we must finally achieve. This is a study about our lives, and about the whole process of our evolution.
The social education part will contain group exercises so people can see and experience our psychology first hand. They will learn how to connect, in what way, and what motivates each person. In this way people learn psychology, and from the psychology they come to feel the soul within them.
This is how we will connect through the souls. We will begin by attaining the next degree of existence, the degree of the “speaking,” the human degree (Adam), which is similar (Domeh) to the Creator, as it is written, “Return, O Israel, unto the Lord your God” (Hosea 14:2).
[1]The word, Miskenot, derives from the word Miskenut (misery), but also from the word, Sakanah (danger).
