November 21, 2024
Archive for May, 2017
May 30, 2017 at 3:00 am · Filed under Student Articles
And by the exodus from Egypt they received the level of faith…and after Passover; the purifying work begins in preparation for the receiving of the Torah. And when the Torah is dressed in a person’s soul, this is the time of Shavuot, the time of the giving of our Torah.—Rabbi Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag, Letter 52
Like a whisper from Nature’s backwaters, there is a call to the Universe to return in integral maturity to Unity. From the faded glow of the Creation Event congeal particles, atoms, and molecular chains—the gases, liquids and solids of the still. With the soul of growth, come forth the walled, chlorophyll-filled cells into upwards drive—communities of trees, grasses into the lush plains, leafy forests, and vine-entwined jungles of the great vegetative ecosystems of Earth.
With the soul of movement does the flexible cell of animal tell of its rising to the buzz, squawk, squeal and growl—the herbage eaters, and carnivores on prowl. The balanced communities of colony, swarm, school, flock, herd and pack—do not hold back their cacophonous concert as they ever so await the organization of the Maestro—still coming back his greased hair with such ego. Where is he of soul of speech, some screech? Locked in his dressing room, and he won’t come out others shout!
So great is the human ego that we believe the journey to the ultimate is complete in our individual selves. We’ve played out our little chess game with Nature, placed It check without needing to blink. Ah, but Nature is a much more clever player than we think.
It whispers a little louder and a bit more, through a keyhole in our dressing room door. So the words most mistily penetrate through the natural straight into human history. “Yes, you individual humans are very important indeed. Why what nobility there is in your arrogance and greed—and you should succeed.
It is right and just that you simply must obtain the wealth and power you deserve. Ah, also deep knowledge your wisdom demands—I really respect your nerve. Now here’s the plan, you’ll need to use your fellow man. So relate to him, trade with him, and across the globe join into larger community—nothing real, fear no loss of independence in this pretense of unity.
Oh my, you’re getting a little uncomfortable? Your civilization has some discontents? It’s okay, all you need is an internet lollipop to feel less vulnerable, and gain some newfound confidence. Now there, some ties just a little stronger for just a little longer…
“Do you feel it now in your hi-tech sensation, globalization? Feel the interdependence, my arms about you my little darling? Oh, stop being so tense, and please quit the snarling! Come to me, grow up and be One, my son, truly it is the ultimate happiness, I promise! I love you. I don’t want to hurt you, you’ll strangle—don’t struggle!”
Every day, a voice goes out from Mount Sinai. Every year, we are reminded. We are taken out of the slavery of Egypt, as Kabbalists tell us, the external mask dropped—the slavery of ego.
There is a count each day, each week of this process towards the singular vessel designated to accept the Light of Love from above the mountain of hatred, Mount Sinai, at the end of seven weeks (Heb. “Shavout”) of seven days.
Hidden within this count are corrections of connections, the highways and byways of mutual responsibility, the tendons tying hated differences into beloved differentiated organs that make future life possible and take it to a higher plane.
By Shavout, we are “as one man with one heart” and worthy of the illumination that can lighthouse a world safely to shore through the stormy seas of globalization.
We don’t circle the square in the plane, but in the higher dimension of integral intricacy and intimacy, to found the column building block of the architecture of unity. Search out each other, learn together, do—and teach. For so we have been designated from time immemorial for this moment…
“’The quality of light of the Messiah, the place of the throne of God in the world—”this is his name that he will be called: The Lord-is-our-Righteous-One (Jeremiah 23:6)’—is built upon the foundation of the viewpoint of actual unity, growing so strong that it penetrates all particulars and all causes.” Rav Kook
By Eliyahu
May 27, 2017 at 10:00 pm · Filed under Torah Portion
Numbers 4:21-7:89
This Week’s Torah Portion | May 28 – June 03, 2017 – 3 Sivan – 9 Sivan, 5777
In A Nutshell
The portion describes the children of Israel’s preparations to set out on a journey from Mount Sinai to the land of Israel. The bulk of the work revolves around the tabernacle. The census in the tribe of Levi continues, and there is a description of the distribution of duties between the families of Levi, Gershon, Kohat, and Merari. The Creator gives an order to send the impure people outside the camp as preparation for the inauguration of the tabernacle.
Afterward the portion narrates different situations in which the people need the help of the priests and the tabernacle. The incidents are connected to negative acts such as stealing, a person swearing in the name of the Creator in vain and must offer a sacrifice, and a woman who strayed and is suspected of committing adultery and is therefore brought to the priest. There are also positive incidents, such as the story of the hermit, detailing the laws that a person who makes a vow takes upon himself, and the blessing of the priests, the blessing that the priests bless the people.
The end of the portion discusses the gifts of the presidents and the great celebration—the inauguration of the tabernacle. The portion ends with the conclusion of the preparations, when the people of Israel can set out to the land of Israel.
Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman
The Torah speaks only about our soul and how we should correct it. We do not correct the body because the body is an animal and acts according to its nature. We must reinstate the “portion of God from above” (Job 31:2); this is the soul.
We do it as it is written, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice”[1] because “the light in it reforms.”[2] When we begin to connect to others under the condition, “love your neighbor as yourself,”[3] we find how repelling we find this act. We do not want to see anyone, only use them for our own benefit.
This is our nature, as the Creator said, “I have created the evil inclination.” However, the more we study and try to draw closer to each other, and discover how utterly impossible it is, the more we feel our nature as bad, as ill will, evil inclination. Then we need a means to correct it, and this is the light that reforms.
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May 20, 2017 at 10:00 am · Filed under Torah Portion
Numbers, 1:1-4:20
This Week’s Torah Portion | May 21 – May 27, 2017 – 25 Lyar – 2 Sivan, 5777
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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May 19, 2017 at 11:22 am · Filed under Student Articles
Throughout our lives on this planet, we observe and feel within ourselves the perennial and unyielding cycles of nature. Anything that exists adheres to those laws. During the lifetimes of many of us, we have seen anti-Semitism sprout, grow into its most horrific manifestation, then abate again. And it seems that now we are on another upswing. Is another Nazi-like regime possible? Is this an inevitable outcome that can’t be prevented or overcome?
Nature is a vast system where harmony, altruism, interdependence, and interconnection thrive. These are principles that when carried out maintain the exquisite balance of the universe.
When the human level emerged out of the inanimate, vegetative, and animate phases of evolution, we came endowed with ego, a quality not present anywhere else in nature. Through the misuse of ego, we have developed into a society that creates incalculable separation through our exploitation of nature and each other in the quest for satisfaction of our desires.
In the days of Abraham, the Jews understood that the only way to manage egoism was to rise above their egos and unite in that upper space. When Jews unite above all the disputes and disagreements, the positive force that can do wonders spreads in the world.
The fact is that the Jews were chosen to create unity among themselves, then teach the world how to do the same. The problem is that today Jews are not united. They are divided by geography, by internal polarization into liberals and conservatives, even in their loyalty to the state of Israel. In his article “Can There Be Nazism in America?” in The Jerusalem Post, Dr. Laitman says:
“If American Jews do not take their lives in their own hands and force themselves to unite above their mutual dislike, the Americans will force them to do so through bloodshed. There is no more time. The Jews must put aside all differences and unite because unity is the Jewish people’s sole salvation, and because when we unite, we are a light unto nations—giving the world what Abraham intended for humanity to have almost four millennia ago, and what the world so badly needs today.”
In another Jerusalem Post article, “The 2nd Holocaust—How We Can Prevent it,” Dr. Laitman tells us: “We can prevent the second Holocaust. All we must do is little-by-little, unite ‘as one man with one heart.’ We are still masters of our fate; the choice is still in our hands. Let’s not miss out again.”
In nature there is exquisite balance. As anti-Semitism rises again, like crocuses in the spring, Jews must restore balance by carrying out their role of becoming a light unto the nations, not only for themselves, but for the world.
“When the Children of Israel are complemented with the complete knowledge, the fountains of intelligence and knowledge shall flow beyond the boundaries of Israel and water all the nations of the world” (Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot and uMasbirot,” Item 4).
By Annabelle
May 14, 2017 at 9:15 am · Filed under Student Articles
My daughter recently started kindergarten. No words can express the sensations a mother feels when she drops off her children for the first time in kindergarten or daycare. We worry, we fret, we want them to be safe, make good friends, and be happy.
The worry continues throughout our children’s lives and we experience the same trepidations as they begin dating, enter universities, and start their first jobs. We envelop them with as much love as we can muster and send them off hoping that they receive the support and nurturing they need to be happy and succeed.
From this perspective, the latest wave of anti-Semitism in the world is particularly troubling. Of course we always worry about our own safety and wellbeing, but when it comes to our children, parents would agree that it’s a whole different ballgame.
The sensations we feel when we know that our own children are alienated or ostracized, made fun of, or put in any sort of physical danger are sharp and painful. But this is exactly what I fear may begin to happen (if it hasn’t already).
As the world moves to more extreme forms of anti-Semitism as we are already seeing, everyone in our communities becomes a victim, and that includes our children. We see that community centers and universities are not exempt from the hatred the world feels towards us and it’s not long before our children become direct targets. My heart sinks at the very thought.
Is there anything we can do as parents and as a community to turn this around?
Yes.
As much as we would like, we cannot wipe out anti-Semitism overnight. However, we can take definitive steps to make it less aggressive and maintain it at a manageable, much less threatening level.
In order to understand the solution, we must first accept that anti-Semitism exists because of division, hate, and disconnection between Jews. Thus the remedy for it lies squarely in the hands of those who identify themselves as Jewish, in their connection. The more Jews work on their connection and the tighter their bond, the more it will become like a shield that protects them, guards and develops their children and strengthens their communities.
No matter what personal ideologies or belief systems, Jews have to connect with each other above everything and they must do this urgently or else, they risk putting themselves, and more importantly, their children in real danger.
The moment Jews start connecting, they will see how this threat dissipates, how news of anti-Semitism diminishes and how their children become happier and more confident in their dealings with the rest of the world.
Why not then start connecting for our children’s sake?
By Veronica Edwards
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