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Glossary – Emor (Say) – Weekly Torah Portion

 

Cohen (Priest)

A priest is the highest degree in man’s correction, where one becomes similar to the Creator in all of one’s desires, in one’s entire make-up, and is in a state of bestowal and love. By that one matches oneself with the Creator and achieves Dvekut (adhesion) with Him. This is the purpose of creation.

Tuma’a (Impurity)

Tuma’a is intention for oneself. All manners of Tuma’a are the same intentions under different names, such as Pharaoh, Balaam, Balak, and all the other wicked.

It is to the contrary with the same desires once they have been corrected to aim to bestow. The desires remain the same, but the names one receives instead are Cohen, Levi, and Israel.

Curse

A curse means that a person discovers that he or she cannot agree with the Creator on the desire that one is in. A person discovers it as Balaam, Balak, and so forth. Such a person discovers the term of the upper force, the Creator, nature, which requires that a person works in order to bestow, in love and giving. Also, the person discovers that his or her desires are opposite, working in order to receive. Out of that desire a person curses, resists, collides with the Creator, and is opposite in form.

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Aharei Mot (After the Death)—Kedoshim (Holy) Parsha – Weekly Torah Portion

AhareiMot

Leviticus, 16:1-18:30—19:1-20:27

This Week’s Torah Portion | April 6 – April 12, 2014 – Nisan 6 – Nisan 20 – Nisan 26, 5774

In A Nutshell

The portions, Aharei Mot (After the Death) and Kedoshim (Holy), are connected. In the portion, Aharei Mot, following the death of Aaron’s two sons—Nadav and Avihu—the Creator details before Moses various rules concerning the way Aaron may approach the Holy in the tabernacle: it requires offering several sacrifices. Aaron must choose between two male goats, one to be sacrificed as a sin offering, and the other to be sent to the desert as a “goat to Azazel.”

The portion also details the prohibition to slaughter for food without bringing an offering to the tent of meeting. The Creator instructs Moses to command the people not to follow the ways of the Egyptians and the Canaanites, and not to obey their rules. At the end of the portion the Creator tells the people of Israel not to be defiled by all the impurities that the nations that dwelled in the land of Canaan before them did because if they did, the land would repel them.

In the portion, Kedoshim (holy), the Creator says to the children of Israel through Moses: “You shall be holy for I the Lord your God am holy” (Leviticus, 19:2).

The portion details many different commandments between man and God, between man and man, and some that concern offering sacrifices. The portion also deals with fearing Mother and Father, observing the Sabbath, and the prohibition on idol worship. Some of the Mitzvot (commandments) relate to the land of Israel, the land of Canaan, the tithing, fruits of the tree, idol worship, and other laws.

The portion ends with a complete prohibition on incest and adultery, which are punishable by death. The Creator commands the children of Israel to keep the laws when they arrive at the land of Israel, and refrain from what they did while in Egypt. They must separate between pure and impure beasts, and, likewise, the Creator will separate between Israel and the rest of the nations. This is how they will be Holy to Him.

 Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

Most people believe that the Torah speaks of this world, that it is full of physical actions and descriptions of animals, people, and objects, rules of social conduct, what is permitted, and what is forbidden. We either forget, or have never known that this world is but a replication of the spiritual world.

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Glossary – Aharei Mot (After the Death)—Kedoshim (Holy) Parsha – Weekly Torah Portion

Kadosh (Holy)

Holy means using the will to receive that was previously in order to receive. It is the reverse form of the ego—benefiting only others or the Creator. When it is in favor of others it is still at the degree of bestowing in order to bestow, the degree of Levites. But when we receive in order to bestow, it is at the degree of priests, the opposite the initial nature.

Holding a Grudge

We cannot correct ourselves if we are still “keeping score.” It is an internal energy. These are very deep corrections that astonish us when they appear because we suddenly understand how deep are our calculations for ourselves.

Prohibition on Divination

Divination is forbidden because it contradicts bestowal. If a person wants to bestow it makes no difference what will happen in the future. All we need is to connect with others and to give them. In that, we will find our new life. If we make any calculation, it is the will to receive.

One truly advancing toward bestowal is indifferent toward the future. All that that person wants is to bestow, to “be” in the other. In that state one has no connection to divination, as there cannot be any considerations. Hence, we should make the corrections within us because in each of us is the desire to know the future or to guess it.

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Tazria—Metzorah (When a Woman Delivers—The Leper) Parsha – Weekly Torah Portion

Tazria—Metzorah

Leviticus, 12:1-13:59 – 14:1-15:33

This Week’s Torah Portion | March 23 – March 29, 2014 – Adar II 28 – Nisan 5, 5774

In A Nutshell

In the portion, Tazria (When a Woman Delivers), we learn about laws related to a woman who has delivered. If she delivers a boy, she is considered impure for seven days. On the eighth day the boy is circumcised and the woman begins a 33 day purification period. If the woman delivers a girl she is considered impure for fourteen days, and the purification period lasts 66 days.

The portion also details rules concerning afflictions. A person who is infected with something must come to the priest, who diagnoses the sore and knows the rules concerning each of them.

The portion, Metzorah (The Leper), is dedicated to the rules concerning leprosy, and what to do when one has been infected with it. A leper who has healed must be examined by the priest, then bring two birds. The priest slaughters one bird and dips the other in clean water.

The end of the portion discusses the impurity of nocturnal ejaculation and the rules concerning a woman in menstruation—anyone who touches her is impure until the evening.

 Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

Why are the rules in the portions described in such detail?

The whole Torah is an instruction by which to correct our nature. Man was deliberately created with an egoistic desire; this is why we want everything for our own good, as it is written, “For the inclination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis, 8:21). Creation itself is the evil inclination, the sum of our negative qualities. The inanimate nature, the vegetative, and the animate around us are completely neutral—neither good nor bad. It is managed by the laws of nature that act instinctively on all its elements.

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Glossary – Tazria—Metzorah (When a Woman Delivers—The Leper) Parsha – Weekly Torah Portion

A Woman in Labor

This is the will to receive that has received the power to develop and beget new acts of bestowal in every man.

Circumcision

The circumcision is a correction of a newly born desire. If it is a man, he must go through a special correction in his prevailing, to stop him from using his Sium, Yesod, in order to touch the Malchut where the greatest, and worst desires can be found, and which can be corrected only at the end of correction. Therefore, one who wishes to be Yashar El (straight to God, Israel), must make a circumcision, meaning limit ourselves from using the desire to bestow beyond the point of one’s Yesod. We also determine these signs as customs in our world.

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