Deuteronomy, 3:23-7:11
This Week’s Torah Portion | Jul 19 – Jul 25, 2026 – 5 Av – 11 Av, 5786

In A Nutshell

The portion, VaEtchanan (And I Besought), repeats the prohibition that Moses was prohibited—to enter the land of Israel—and that Joshua is to succeed him and lead the people to the land of Israel. The portion deals with the commandment to keep the Torah and remember the standing at the foot of Mount Sinai, as well as with the concept of repentance, which appears here for the first time. Here appears the known text of Shema Ysrael (Here, O Israel).

Moses makes another speech, where he repeats the Ten Commandments. He also distinguishes three cities of refuge on the Eastern side of the Jordan River, warns of idol worship in the land of Israel, and instructs the destruction of the statues. He also reminds the people that the Creator is the one who led them into the land of Israel, the good land that they are destined to inherit.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

The portion, VaEtchanan (And I Besought), contains all the conditions for the dwelling of the people of Israel in the land of Israel. The people of Israel began its history with Abraham, who established in Babylon a group. That group distinguished itself from the rest of the Babylonians, who did not wish to unite “as one man with one heart,” meaning to be in the quality of Hesed (mercy), which is Abraham’s quality.

That group of people agreed to live in Arvut (mutual guarantee), and actually began the formation process of the people of Israel. Following the exodus from Egypt, the group took upon itself the commitment to be as one nation despite the problems and the egos of its people.

The formation of a single nation was conditioned upon a successful “passage” of the ordeal at the foot of Mount Sinai, which is a mountain of Sinaa (hate). On Mount Sinai, the people assumed the preparatory stipulation for climbing over that mountain—being “as one man with one heart.” Only by adhering to this condition is it possible to receive the Torah, the upper force that can unite everyone. That condition is met through the point in the heart of each person, a point named Moses, which draws the people onward into the desert and subsequently to the land of Israel. This is the point where everyone must unite.

The stipulation that held the people together was Arvut (mutual guarantee). Even today, to be a nation we must meet the condition of caring for one another on the material level, too. This is the scrutiny that we are facing in Israel today—having everyone see that no one lacks basic sustenance on the material level.

When we come together, we enter the land of Israel through the correction called “forty years in the desert.” This is a state in which all become a nation and are willing to live together in a global and integral manner, as is appearing in the world today, and as Nature requires.

Today, some have much more than they need, while others barely meet their most basic needs. The only way we can acquire what we need is by being responsible for one another. Only through unity will we be able to create a special force that will help us overcome the difficulties and properly divide our produce and profits, just like a family.

“As one man with one heart” really means “as a family.” In a family we divide what we have to each one based on each one’s needs. We sit at a round table and talk. We take every argument and problem into consideration, weigh each one’s priorities, and decide how to divide what we have gained among us. We reinforce the weak and support them.

If we manage the people and the country in this way, we will find that the nation is connected, and that the Creator—the force of bestowal and love—is among us. We will feel how we resolve all the problems and rise above all the obstructions. When we take upon ourselves the good, we immediately produce new powers among us, and then, “This day you have become a people” (Deuteronomy, 27:9).

The condition of unity between us allows us to resolve all the problems, as it is written toward the end of the portion, that adhering to that condition leads us to being as one, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One” (Deuteronomy, 6:4). When the force of love is between us—the force of unity, the necessity to be together, the Arvut—we sustain and keep one another. That force is leading us, the people of Israel, to the land of Israel—to the desire Yashar El (straight to God), straight toward the quality of love and bestowal.

Only if one produces the force called Elokim (God), which is the overall love, the Arvut, does the force, “The Lord your God,” which one has created, walks ahead when one enters the land of Israel. That force helps us cope with the difficulties there, and fight the seven nations there, which are stronger than us.

In many ways, it is similar to Israel’s current situation, being surrounded by nations that wish to destroy it. It is only by that force that we truly “defeat” everyone. In the end, we bring not only ourselves into unity and connection, but the entire world. We become “a light for the nations” by showing how we can all be united in our world, which requires a global-integral connection among everyone. It is just as Nature, the Creator,^[1] appears to us as one, and closes us in such a way that compels us to be like it, as one, in Dvekut (adhesion) with it.

When we produce the force of love between us by bonding, we become similar to the Creator, to the overall force in Nature. In that state we are in harmony with Nature, and we balance the ecology, technology, economy, and everything else. Everything falls into place only by the force of unity, albeit it may not seem that way, and it may not be clear what the force of unity has to do with resolving any of these problems.

We have yet to understand that we are part of Nature, that we are in it. The network we are in is integrally managed, with all its parts interconnected. If we, too, connect in synchrony with Nature, we will be rewarded with the fruits of the land of Israel, as the spies saw them but thought they would not be able to enjoy them because the fruits were so great, and the people that dwelled in the land were so mighty. Here lies the solution: if we unite, that force will march before us and will shatter all the enemies.

As long as we produce between us the force of Arvut, it will resolve everything. Whatever happens, through the force of unity we can all be under the umbrella of Arvut, the umbrella of love, through which the world will truly be corrected.

Following Moses, Joshua had to lead the nation into the next stage, the next degree. How does one lead the people while keeping everyone united despite the challenges?

The Torah does not tell us what happened after the entrance to the land of Israel, or how to break the idols, which are our evil inclination. When idol worshipping, we place before us statues such as money, power, respect, envy, and hatred. The Torah does not tell us precisely how to break them down within us. Nothing is said about the construction of the Temple and the conduct within it.

We basically have two ways to go. We can take the short, and good way, where we achieve our own correction and the correction of the world, or we can take the hard way, if we do not keep the condition of Arvut.

Now we are going through difficult times, through troubles …

We need not regard it as trouble, but as an opportunity. The conditions we are in are an opportunity, and in them we must become corrected. Without difficult times, how will we overcome the evil inclination, how will we know it?

Assume we all establish Arvut, we all take care of each other and people go along with it because it solves their problems. What is the next step?

There is nothing but maintaining the Arvut.

What about the love we have to reach?

It is Arvut. The first stage in Arvut is “that which you hate, do not do to your friend,” meaning at the very least avoid harming others. The next stage is “love your neighbor as yourself,” which is the overall rule of the Torah. There is nothing more than that. There are two conditions we must follow: avoid harming others, and then, above it, treat them with love.

Lately, we have seen many people openly admitting that what they really need is love.

People need to understand the true meaning of Arvut. We need to sit together at a round table and discuss things, explain the definitions of each word until we actually feel what we are talking about.

Arvut means that we are all responsible for one another, in everything in life. When one has the right relationship with others, there is no need to think of oneself. While you think about the others, the others think about you.

It is just like a family. In a family, the care is not for oneself, but rather for the entire family: the children, the elders, the sick, and the weak. We divide the family income and everything else we have according to everyone’s needs.

How do we make decisions in a round table format in a country of seven million people?

Imagine what it will be like when we need to make this type of decisions with seven billion people! We need to aspire to have all factions around the table. We need to find factions whose representatives have not come to the table, perhaps because they are too weak or have despaired. We need to help them raise their questions.

Also, the round table must be an ongoing thing. We must set an example of a nation that is discussing with love, with everyone seated together around the same table: left, right, and middle, even enemies and foes. The common point that connects us is that we all belong to one nation, as it is written, “love covers all transgressions” (Proverbs, 10:12). The transgression is the hate that we feel for each other. In other words, it is fine that we are hateful, but there is one rule: we must all live like a family.

Will that make the hatred subside?

No, it will not subside. The principle in the wisdom of Kabbalah is that “love covers all transgressions.” In other words, the transgression of hate remains. It points to disagreements and to the difference in qualities that we all have. Disagreements between us are good because above them we build a Masach (screen), an umbrella that covers over those transgressions.

We unite despite our disputes because the principle of love must be above everything else. That principle “uses” those disputes as a lever to raise us above Mount Sinai, above the mountain of hate. We all sit around the table and build above us the concept of “Moses on Mount Sinai,” and Moses pulls us up. When we achieve the quality of love that connects us, we become a nation. Before that, we are not considered a nation.

Is this true for the rest of the world, as well?

First, about us here, in Israel: We have had the spiritual gene since the time we were a nation. Today we are not a nation but a collection of exiles. If we implement the principle of Arvut and use the differences between us to add to the concept of Arvut, we will truly feel that we are in the land of Israel.

If we are united, no one will be able to harm us. It will not be because we will be strong, but because the force of Nature will be in us, in synch with the global, integral Nature, as it was written that the Creator walks before us and fights all our wars,^[2]  just as He shatters man’s hatred toward others.

There is no doubt that our neighbors will gladly join us, and then we will see that the hatred was there only in order to unite us. No other country in the world is in a similar situation. Our unity calms our neighbors because there is only one force that operates in Nature, and its purpose is to lead us all to unity, connection, harmony, and balance with the global Nature.

Do the Ten Commandments detail how to achieve Arvut or do they detail what we find once we achieve it?

The Ten Commandments are a condition. The system of unity between us consists of ten parts, called “Ten Sefirot.” We should interpret each of them. We need to set those ten parts—our connections to others—in order. If a person puts his relation toward others in order, in ten distinct approaches, he puts in order his entire attitude toward others.

Do these ten Sefirot appear once we achieve Arvut?

It is also about how to achieve Arvut because this is the goal. In discovering the Arvut, you discover your own higher state where you have risen above troubles. All of a sudden you discover that Nature is already producing everything you need. You discover the sources of energy, vitality, health, and love that exist in the world, and the close relations that exist between all parts of Nature, and which we suppress.

This sounds like a miracle.

If you speak to people who live in the wild, such as in the woods, they often say that Nature actually radiates love to them. The unity, the holism in it radiate an attitude of love.

Will we enter a new realm of reality through our desire to achieve Arvut?

Yes, we will discover internal forces that are currently hidden from us because we constantly view others through our egos. When we begin to give as Nature gives, we begin to perceive a completely different wavelength, much like a radio receiver.

How do we begin? What is the first step toward Arvut?

We have to sit at the round table and scrutinize those concepts and how we can achieve unity. Arvut is the condition that made us a nation in the past. Afterward, we lost it with the ruin of the Temple. We have been in exile, and now we need to recreate ourselves as a nation.

A nation is like a family. We must see ourselves as one big family. We need to relate to all the problems, and we will find that it is good that they are appearing now. The problems give us something to talk about, a need to feel each other. These days, people’s primary need is connection with others; they even riot and go on protests just to feel connected.

You Have Begun to Show

“Come and see, the Creator has given all the nations in the world to appointed ministers who rule over them,” meaning the different forces of Nature. “But Israel, the Creator holds them as His lot and His share, to actually unite with them.” We see what is happening with us throughout history. We are a special people and there is no way to avoid it. “And He gave them the holy Torah to unite in His name. Therefore, ‘You who cling to the Lord,’ and not to any other appointee, such as the rest of the nations.”

(Quotes in the above paragraph are from Zohar for All, VaEtchanan, item 17.)

What is the holy Torah? It is “love your neighbor as yourself, this is a great rule in the Torah.” There is nothing but the love between man and man; this is the whole Torah, and there is nothing else. We think that these are different actions and means, but these are customs, superficial actions whose purpose is to sustain the people as long as they do not understand what is required of them, meaning while they are still in exile. It is only until we come to the global situation when Nature demands of us, when Elokim demands that we unite.

What Nature are we talking about? What is this law? What do you mean by “Nature”?

“Nature” is the common force that runs the entire universe according to a purpose and a plan. We see that all of Nature’s parts are connected. That connection includes us, except we are detached from the rest of Nature. This is why we must first unite in a manner of “love your friend as yourself,” become global, integral, connected like the rest of Nature.

When we achieve that, we will begin to feel the common force that operates and that has operated throughout evolution. We will unite with that force and we will be aware of the path that we have taken. In that state we will discover the reasons for everything that happened along the way, the reason and the meaning of life, and the goal to which we are drawn.

^{[1] In Gematria (Hebrew numbering of letters), Hateva (The Nature) is tantamount to Elokim (God)
[2] “The Lord your God who goes before you, He shall fight for you” (Deuteronomy, 30:1).}

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Deuteronomy, 1:1-3:22
This Week’s Torah Portion | Jul 12 – Jul 18, 2026 – 27 Tammuz – 4 Av, 5786

The portion, Devarim (These Are the Words) begins with a long speech that Moses makes before the people of Israel just before his death. The portion contains a historic review of the forty years in the desert, which Moses describes to the people of Israel.

The portion also deals with appointing the presidents of the tribes and the judges, the sin of the spies and the punishment, the relationships between Israel and Edom, Israel and Moab, and Israel and Amon, as well as the wars with Sihon and Og. Moses reinforces Joshua, son of Nun, as the next leader of the people of Israel, who is to lead them into the land of Israel.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

From the cascading of the spiritual degrees and what we learn about the perception of reality, we know there is no world outside of us. All that exists are the spiritual states we go through, states that are depicted within us. Everything is within us, as it is said, “man is a small world.”

We move from state to state. Each state emerges out of its predecessor and is included in it. This is called a Partzuf (face). Each state contains what exists in the previous one, the Reshimot (recollections), impressions, and memories out of which it is born, and which it must now implement. Nothing comes out of thin air; everything relies on what precedes it.

These are the stages by which one ascends from the degree of the desert to the degree of the land of Israel. The degree of the land of Israel contains all the previous degrees, from Adam HaRishon (the first man, Adam), with whom the Torah begins. This is why we find that the Torah always repeats states described in previous books and extends them to the next, higher degree.

We use the same pattern in our daily lives at schools, repeating the same material each time on a higher level. That is, we study the same laws but in greater detail. When we study Newton’s laws on a college level, we reencounter what we have already learned several times at school. The difference is that more formulas are added. This pattern repeats itself in various areas in life.

In this portion we ascend to a very high degree. “The land of Israel” comprises all of man’s desires that are processed and corrected into having the aim to bestow, meaning completely corrected.

All we need is to correct what is in us from the state in which we were born and in which we evolved. We need to turn it from aiming to use our traits egotistically, into using them for the sake of others, as in “Love your neighbor as yourself; it is a great rule in the Torah.” Actually, it is the whole Torah, which explains to us how to correct the heart, meaning of all our desires, which are called “heart.”

Today we do not know where we are. We want to discover the meaning of our lives, the reason for life, and what life is for. These and other similar questions awaken specifically in our generation, and often lead to depression, and drug and alcohol abuse. We have no idea what to do with ourselves.

A little less than a century ago we thought that the more we had, the happier we would be. We believed that over consumption was better than balanced consumption, until we found ourselves in a state of crisis specifically because we received too much and did needless things only to satisfy ourselves. We acted out of the assumptions, “the more we sell, the happier we will be,” and “the more we buy, the happier we will be.” We created the monstrous advertising industry to advertise redundant products and to make us think that they were actually essential.

In the last one hundred years or so humanity has progressed in this manner until we have come to a situation where we are not only unhappy, but are also becoming increasingly poor. We are experiencing repeated instances of scarcity, emptiness, and helplessness.

And yet, we have to learn all that on our flesh. It is the first stage in our development, the “preparation period.”

From that current stage we will advance to the next one, in which spirituality develops. We will understand that if we continue living as we have been, we will ruin ourselves completely. We have become a machine that consumes and disposes, but in the end, the world will be depleted of raw materials and we will have nothing with which to sustain ourselves in a reasonable manner.

This brings us back to the old questions, “How are we to survive?” “How can we have a happy life in a society that is balanced, just, and equal?” “What are the values we should follow in order to have a good life, where we have what we need and deserve?”

The heart of the problem is that part of the society receives without any restraints, while others suffer. To mend that, we are entering with the questions we just mentioned into the next stage—the stage of correction, when we must correct ourselves. That stage begins at the foot of Mount Sinai, when we realize that we must establish a just and equal society, with spiritual happiness among everyone, which will spread through unity and mutual guarantee. If we agree to it, we will take upon ourselves the correction method.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is the correction method. It explains how we go through the first stages of our correction. The first stage after the preparation period is called “forty years in the desert.” In that stage we must have a leader who understands what must be done, who moves ahead, and whom everyone follows toward the desert.

A desert is a place where we do not know how to survive, or how to sustain ourselves—our children and women, as well as the cattle—without food and water. It is a people that passes through the desert, an entire nation, or an individual, in whom there are desires and thoughts that one must gradually correct.

In the desert we correct all our desires to the degree of “desiring mercy.” On that degree a person consumes what is necessary for living, and gives the rest to society. “The rest” is everything that one can produce or do in favor of others. A person dedicates everything to society. This is the correction of desiring mercy. Moses, who is in that correction, is the one who pulls a person from the ego into bestowal upon others. He is the one who takes a person through various individual corrections.

Within that process there is a disclosure of man’s egotistical desires, which are called “the sin of the spies,” “waters of quarreling,” and wars with certain nations—Amon, Moab, and Edom—some of which should be “slaughtered.” These are desires we must refrain from using for the time being because they are so intense that we cannot correct them, but only restrict them.

Under special conditions, a person can correct some of one’s egotistical desires, such as “women.” One can also correct desires that were not used egotistically, but still belong to the ego.

For example, the spoils are some of those desires, some of the Kelim (vessels), the abilities that one can correct. This is how we advance through the desert, where each portion is a stage as we pass through stops and camps where we advance and correct ourselves toward a stage of “desiring mercy.”

This is why the children of Israel, with all the tribes, count who is and who is not advancing toward the state of desiring mercy. It is work for the sake of the public. Each person has what he or she needs for normal sustenance. This is called “just division.” The rest, one gives to the public.

It is not that we all have the same. Rather, it is that each of us has what is suitable for our relative consumption. In other words, since everyone is born different and unequal, the meaning of equality is interpreted differently for every person.

Moses’ speech prepares the people for the next degree. The next degree is not one to which Moses belongs, but is the degree where Joshua continues. How can he prepare the people for the future challenges in the land of Israel—with just division and equality among them—when they conquer the land, encountering desires they have never used but must now cope with? How can Moses prepare them for this degree?

The children of Israel used the desires that they corrected, and which they will now correct on a deeper level. In total, there are 613 degrees within us. First, we correct them only on the level of the desert, meaning use them only on the degree of Bina, the degree of desiring mercy. Subsequently, on the level of “the land of Israel,” a person turns these desires to ones with the aim to bestow.

These are the same desires; there are no others but them. Within us is a kind of package of desires, all of which are egotistical with respect to others. They are called the “evil inclination.” We correct these desires in two stages—the “desert” stage and the “land of Israel” stage. However, we always work with the same desires.

In the “desert” stage, a person corrects the desire using the special upper force—the Creator. However, the means to do that is Moses, who is our connection to the upper force. Within us is a quality named Moses, where by using it and connecting to it, we connect to the upper force. This is why Moses is called a “leader.” A leader is one who can help us connect to the upper force. The leader understands and knows all the processes we must go through, or we would have no need for him. He is the highest quality within us, which recognizes the Creator and is similar to Him. Through it, he connects to the upper force.

A person sets himself in a special, direct line, where all of one’s desires connect to Moses, and through Moses to the Creator. For now, this is how he discovers the Creator—partially, from time to time. He “speaks” to Moses openly, and through signs to others, as much as those desires in a person can discover the Creator.

In the next stage, when we enter the land of Israel, the quality of Moses in a person can no longer accompany us. There needs to be a more advanced quality toward the other corrections, a quality called Joshua, son of Nun. In fact, it is still Moses but with a higher role, with more responsibility. Although Moses seemingly gives him this role during their forty years in the desert together, in fact, Joshua is Moses having ascended to the degree of the land of Israel.

The degree of Moses passes away on Mount Nevo, on the other side of the Jordan River. The desires are divided within us into the land of Israel, Jordan, beyond the Jordan River, Lebanon, Syria, and so forth.

Afterward Moses begins the next degree, called Joshua, son of Nun. We all begin our corrections on the degree of the land of Israel. That is, all the desires at the level of the desert climb up to the level of the land of Israel, becoming fully in favor of others.

First the people who live in Israel today must become aware that they are not yet in the “land of Israel.” Can it be said that we have hardly reached the desert?

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, we are in total exile, not even in the desert.

What about leadership, do we have it?

We have no leadership because we do not want one. If we wanted spiritual leadership we would receive one; we would discover the leader internally as well as externally.

How will there be leadership if we are entering uncharted territory?

Indeed, the leaders themselves have no idea what to do.

Where is Moses?

If we want him, we will have him.

Is it inner work?

It is also inner work. If we want to correct ourselves we will discover him on the outside, too. All of a sudden, a new leader will appear whom we did not see or know before. And we will know that it is truly him.

The children of Israel also did not wish to accept Moses’ leadership. Several times during the period of the desert they tried to bring him down. On each degree, a person must scrutinize if this is truly the force that one is following, since that power constantly increases.

It is not a nation or cattle that someone is taking with them. Everything is obtained by educating the people. Only through education does the people begin to see where to go and who can be the leader. The people will see it very clearly. This is why everything must be done by education. All the slogans that people write must first be explained: What is equality, what is justice?

Indeed, what is equality? After all, we are different and we have different needs.

True, everyone should receive differently in both quantity and quality. It cannot be any other way.

But someone might say, “My ego requires ten million dollars a year.”

This is why we first need an education system that will teach us Nature’s laws, the laws of Creation that are appearing before us now. First, we must all learn about it, open our eyes, and see the world we live in. Perhaps we are unaware of what the world is truly like; perhaps we are demanding things that harm us, as babies sometimes do.

Those who are suffering might listen, but right now not everyone is suffering.

We all think we are suffering, and we all think we deserve more. Therefore, according to the wisdom of Kabbalah we must begin to balance out society, and at the same time begin to educate, teach, and oblige everyone to study Nature’s laws. We send our children to approximately twenty years in school and university to prepare them for life. Now we are all as little schoolchildren in regard to the world that is appearing before us, and we must all go to school.

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains what we are facing. This is precisely why it is appearing. If we do not learn, we will continue on our path, just like an obstinate child who does not listen to its parents and puts itself in danger.

We need a preparatory stage. At the moment, many people are out on streets yelling with pain. First they need to be given something to calm them down so they may listen.

It has to be in tandem, or it will lead to terrible destruction.

You mean you cannot settle for just one of them, but must establish both?

Yes.

The ruin of the Temple happened due to unfounded hatred. How can we avoid unfounded hatred today?

This hatred is the result of our heightened egos, the sin of the spies. We do not want to go to the land of Israel, and it seems to us that it is hard, forbidden, that it is not for us, that it is dangerous. We are made to think that Kabbalah can make us mad, that it is mysticism. In short, we are repelling our own correction any way we can.

The spies tell us, “We must correct ourselves; we must come to a state where we are all friends, brothers, in mutual guarantee and equality.” But what equality are they talking about? Do they want equality? These are nothing more than slogans. Everyone is saying, “Give me what I deserve!” But why do they deserve what they demand?

For people to listen there must be a terrible decline.

True, but we can prevent it. To do that, we need to make our real situation known. We are currently in a new generation, in a completely different place. Our reality is different. We have yet to find the proper name for it, but social ties are different, and so are our international connections.

When people are in pain they begin to hate those who are not like them. And yet, we are now witnessing a process of fusion. How do we keep from disintegrating due to unfounded hatred?

It is a process of coalescing whose purpose is to break, not to build. This is the biggest problem—that all these forces are now uniting in order to break. Therefore, we should explain as much as we can that there is something very risky here, that we must deliberate, that we must set up round table discussions and begin these discussions throughout the nation, continuously.

What is social justice? Is there such a thing as objective, absolute justice?

Yes there is—when each receives only what is needed to survive in a reasonable manner.

Who would monitor it?

According to the overall budget, as much as one can. First, it is tested in percents, how much each one needs overall. Similar to Social Security, everyone receives the same amount, the poor and the rich receive the same allowance from Social Security.

It is an economic calculation that in the end must be balanced out. The important thing is to bring the world and the nation to know where we are and why we are the way we are. Now we are required to understand what is a state (country), what is that system, how it works, and how to determine rules. Each of us must partake in it, giving something of ourselves.

What is the condition for success?

The condition for success is that we sit down and learn what is the new world, just as children are prepared for twenty years before they become productive citizens. We have yet to reach that level—being citizens of the integral world we live in. There are new laws that have surfaced, and no leader or government knows what do with them. Answers can come only by studying the new foundations, which the wisdom of Kabbalah reveals to us.

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Numbers, 33:1-36:13
This Week’s Torah Portion | Jul 05 – Jul 11, 2026 – 20 Tammuz – 26 Tammuz, 5786

In A Nutshell

The portion, Masaei (Journeys) describes the journeys of the children of Israel, the stops where they parked in the desert, and their final preparations to enter the land of Israel. The portion details several commandments, such as the obliteration of idol worship, cities of refuge, the rules regarding involuntary manslaughter, appointing presidents to the tribes under the leadership of Joshua, son of Nun, and Elazar the Priest, dedicating cities for the people of the tribe of Levi, and a description of the boundaries of the land.

The portion ends with the continuation of the story of the daughters of Zelophehad, the fear of the tribe of Menashe that they would marry men from other tribes, thus causing the tribe of Menashe to lose its lots. In consequence, Moses issues a warrant prohibiting the daughters of Zelophehad from marrying men of other tribes, as well as other prohibitions that concern marriages of people from different tribes.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

The portion is a preparation to enter the land of Israel. At this stage we begin the inner work, rising to a degree where our will to receive connects with the upper force. Here we discover the upper force because we are living inside that desire.

It is written that the land of Israel is the land where the Creator is present from the beginning of the year to its end. That is, He is always in the land of Israel—in a desire that is aiming entirely to bestow, Yashar El (straight to God). A person discovers the upper force within that desire and is in Dvekut (adhesion) with it. This is the intention of the land of Israel.

From this we can learn to what extent we are not in the spiritual land of Israel, but in the corporeal one. Kabbalists tell us that we have been given the opportunity to return to the corporeal (physical) land of Israel so as to rise to the spiritual one. For this purpose, we must all be together, united as a family, “as one man with one heart,” as in “All of Israel are friends” and as in “love your neighbor as yourself.” We have connected on the stipulation of mutual guarantee, and only if we meet this criterion will we enter the land of Israel.

All the conditions and laws we have adopted thus far—and have attempted to keep when coping with the problems that arose within us as unfavorable desires that should be corrected—have been corrected in the previous state in the portion, Matot (Tribes). In Matot, we arranged the Kelim (vessels) as a summary of what we went through in the period of the desert, when we rose to the state of wanting to bestow in order to bestow. Now we are facing the entrance to the land of Israel, the will to receive in order to bestow.

For this reason, before us are a summary of the previous matters and a last examination of the conditions. We are coordinated in our corrected state, a state called “the land of Israel.” On the one hand, a person must be connected with all the tribes, with all the others, with his brothers. One must be in a state of “all of Israel are friends,” “as one man with one heart,” seeking everybody’s favor, and we must be in equivalence between us.

On the one hand, we need to see the other parts of the people—to detect the twelve tribes and to adhere to the prohibition on intermarriage. That prohibition means that one must match the right desire to the right act. It is called “matching a woman to a man” so they are in congruence and can bear the proper, good results, and are not confused by one another. To obtain something, one must work with the desires with which one was born, and not confuse a person toward achievements on the earthly level.

The same is true for the cities of refuge, the division of the land, and the boundaries of the land. The word Eretz (land) comes from the word Ratzon (desire). By knowing one’s own desire and the people’s general desire, we must all, like cells in an organism, work as cogwheels in a uniform manner to achieve the state of “the people of Israel in the land of Israel.” Then, according to the level of congruence between us, the favorable integration and the right connection we will have, we will feel that the upper force is present among us. That state will protect us against every trouble and plight, from the smallest to the biggest.

If each of us—and all of us together—arrive, even if just a little, at a state that resembles that desire, a state of mutual bestowal, mutual love, mutual connection, a bit like the true definition of the land of Israel, we are guaranteed to be rewarded with the upper force. We will be rewarded with the strongest spiritual “roof” over us, with which we will thrive and chase our enemies away.

The people of Israel has returned to the land of Israel sixty-four years ago, but still seeks the real meaning of being “in the land of Israel.” What does it really mean to be in Israel?

Man comprises the whole of the will to receive (which is the heart), and the thought (which is the mind). These are the two primary elements that exist in man, and which distinguish humans from animals, from the beast. Our body is an organism that is part of the animal kingdom. However, we are distinguished from that kingdom by our desires and thoughts. For this reason, it is only our thoughts and desires that we must correct.

Our desires divide into “bodily desires” for food, reproduction, and family, and to “social desires” for money, respect, power, and knowledge. We may want many things, but basically, all our wishes fit into those seven primary wants. We want to fulfill all our wishes, both on the physical-corporeal level—food, reproduction (sex), and family—and on the social level—money, respect, power, and knowledge. All of them exist in everyone, but in different combinations in each of us.

There are other desires from our day-to-day life, which we are unaware of, such as desires between people. These desires turn outward, such as a person who gives of oneself to others, not seeking to obtain from them for oneself. These desires are the 613 desires between man and man.

When we connect to others without the aim to exploit and to gain, but truly come out of ourselves for the sake of others, we discover those 613 desires. We discover them in their egotistical form, and if we shift them into working for the sake of others, it is a correction, the performance of a Mitzva (good deed/commandment).

We perform the Mitzvot (plural of Mitzva) through the light that comes to us when we study the wisdom of Kabbalah correctly. It is called “the light in it reforms.” The wisdom of Kabbalah is called “Torah”, “The Torah of light,” “the internality of the Torah,” or “the true law (Torah),” since by studying it we draw to ourselves the light that corrects these desires between us.

Correcting the 613 desires in the relations between man and man leads one into the corrected desire. The corrected desire includes within it the 613 desires of love, bestowal, friendship, unity, connection, and mutual guarantee. This desire is called “the land of Israel,” where all the desires are Yashar El (straight to God, the Creator). They are Yashar El not only due to our approach to others, toward the friends, toward the people of Israel, but because it is a desire to bestow, the same desire as the Creator’s—a desire to do good to all.

Hence, when we reach the land of Israel, the desire straight to others, we can also live in the physical land of Israel. That, however, must be on the condition that we are connected among us in a reciprocal connection, called “the spiritual land of Israel,” a state of “all of Israel are friends.”

This is why Kabbalists such as Baal HaSulam (Rav Yehuda Ashlag) and the Rav Kook write that today we have been given an opportunity to return to the corporeal land of Israel, but we have yet to merit it, so we may achieve correction—connection—in the short time we have been given. Kabbalists explain that if we do not contemplate it and move in that direction, we will not merit staying here and will be exiled.

Why is there such a strict division into twelve tribes with a prohibition to intermarry?

Connecting means to marry. The different organs in our bodies work very differently from one another. You cannot connect the kidneys to the lungs or the liver to the heart because each organ works in its own system. It is like an engine in which one piston is working in one direction and the other is working in another. You cannot connect these opposites without the proper adjustment. It has to follow an overall plan.

Is the end result a single system?

The result is one: the people of Israel in the land of Israel.

What are the parts?

The parts are as pistons, as parts of an engine, moving in opposite directions but toward the same vector.

So is an individual person like a piston?

The individual is part of the whole. One must only actualize one’s desire in the right manner, and others, too, must actualize their desires in the right manner. If we all realize ourselves with the qualities we were born with, we will reach the end of our correction on the personal level, our personal fulfillment. In this way, we will not confuse one another.

Is this equality vs. difference?

Precisely.

How does one make that equalizing?

Initially, we are not equal; we are different. There is no reason to deny it. Imagine a person having a unique gift for something, such as music, and we tell him, “No, you have to be a mechanic.” Can you force a mechanic to be a physician?

How does one know one’s role?

These days we get “scattered” in every direction. This is why we are told, “Don’t marry, don’t look at others, find out for yourself where you belong.” If a person is born to a certain tribe and possesses certain qualities in the common soul called “the people of Israel,” that person must find one’s destiny and actualize it. This is when he or she will be happy.

With children, it is easy to see how each is special. Yet, this leads to competition.

There cannot be competition if one is a mechanic, another is a musician, a third is a physician, a fourth is an author, and a fifth is an engineer. The only competition that is possible is in how much each of us contributes to society.

Assume that two mechanics are born in a tribe of mechanics. One of them is smarter than the other, and can invent special machines. The smarter one should be a team leader in a big factory that develops engines, while the less astute should be working at a small garage or for a garage owner.

Why does today’s society appreciates the smarter mechanic far more than the simple one?

The problem is that our society is not uniform. We cannot appreciate people according to their relative efforts. In a family, we admire a little baby who does the silliest thing as though it were the greatest achievement. But to an uninvolved observer it would seem as nothing to cheer for.

The point is that if we treat each other with love, we feel that when one contributes to society from the bottom of the heart, that person should be appreciated far more than someone who is simply talented and to whom the contribution is effortless.

Today we have no regard for those who contribute to society, but to the rich and famous.

This is the problem. We are not actualizing the goal for which we received the land of Israel. This is why our situation is so bleak.

Is this the idol worship that the portion mentions?

Yes, it is idol worship when we admire famous people and social icons and so forth.

How can we change that? Is it not part of the human mechanism?

The only way is education that explains to people on a daily basis over a period of time, until people see the situation as it truly is and change. Today the world is pressing on us. We will not be able to keep doing as we please; we cannot isolate ourselves from the declining world.

To enter the land of Israel, idol worship must be abolished. Is this a feasible task?

Any act that does not unite the nation in equality and love, or places the concept of unity above all other values, leads to idolatry.

How can we know the borders of the desire called “the land of Israel” before we enter it?

Our desire contains within it the whole of reality. From that, we can single out all the desire that is on earth. Out of the desire that is on earth, we can single out the additional desire called “the land of Israel,” which is a very small country, if we look in the map.

It can hardly be seen.

This gives us an idea of what we correct. First, we must correct this desire. Once we correct it, we can move on to correct the general desire, the rest of the continents, and the entire world. This is the meaning of being “a light for the nations.” Here the text does not mention it, but only the entrance to the land of Israel, which must be by one’s transcending one’s egotistical desire and being ready to begin to correct one’s desires into love of others.

How does one find out the boundaries of this land?

When we work on our connections with others, we begin to see with which out of our 613 desires we can relate to others. These are the boundaries. Within us are many more desires, called “desires of the nations of the world.” These are very powerful desires, like the size of the world compared to the size of the land of Israel, but we correct them later.

These are the stages. Anyone who engages in the wisdom of Kabbalah reaches both types of desires.

In the Torah, we read about far wider borders than the dot we see on the map today. Is this something we will ever reach?

Without a doubt.

Physically?

We will reach it physically, but they will not be borders anymore because we are already in the state of complete redemption. That is, borders will disappear; there will be no borders whatsoever.

Are there borders in spirituality, as well?

No, which is why all of us, the entire world, will be as “one man with one heart.” The children of Israel will be the ones to begin the correction, but later, being “a light for the nations,” they will join the entire world into the correction, as it is written, “For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations” (Isaiah 56:7). What was previously limited will become boundless.

Another issue is the cities of refuge. If a person kills someone, he can escape to a city of refuge and be protected there.

It is so when one is still not working with all of one’s desires. If a person makes a mistake or fails in something, it is not because that person is no longer worthy of being in the land of Israel, but because there are various scrutinies and problems in it, too. Clearly, a person enters the desire so it would be directly toward brotherly love, love for all. This was impossible in the desert, except through the law, “That which you hate, do not do to your friend.” When entering the land of Israel, then the law, “Love your neighbor as yourself” applies, the law of love.

Is it possible to make mistakes here?

Of course. There are new desires, new corrections, and there is the conquering of the land. In all these desires, a person needs to face up to one’s egotistical desires and truly exploit them, defeat, break, and expel them. A person needs to do the entire work that the people of Israel does in the land of Israel in the story, except here, it pertains to an internal story, concerning the desires within us, and here we could err. This is why we were given the Torah. Just as Israel repeatedly made mistakes in the desert and then corrected themselves, the same applies to the conquering of the land—we make mistakes and then correct them.

What does it mean to make mistakes if we say that there is none else besides Him?

It means we must discover these desires.

Where do I truly begin to correct?

Each time we succeed, we immediately fall into a mistake, a transgression.

Is it because we attribute the success to ourselves?

No. The mistake, the transgression, is not even ours. We are being introduced to a new, corrupted desire, where we see ourselves as sinful, like the sin of the spies, the sin of the water, the sin of the serpents, and many other sins. The people of Israel seems to never listen to what it is being told.

However, it happens only because they do succeed. They are introduced to more and more of their corrupted desires in order to correct them. We all come from the breaking, from Pharaoh. This is why Pharaoh gradually appears as cruel, broken, egotistical, and we need to correct him.

Therefore, we need not attribute our egotism to ourselves because “he who is greater than his friend, his desire is greater than him.” On the contrary, all that is revealed to us in the Torah is our own broken soul, which we correct. And it is not even we who do it; it has been done before us. The Creator is telling us, “I have created the evil inclination,” and “I have hardened Pharaoh’s heart” (Exodus 10:1).

Does obliteration relate to idol worship?

Our work is to correct. This is why we constantly reveal the evil and correct it.

But it seems endless.

It is not endless. At the end of the day, we are living in the land of Israel, and we are building in it a house of sanctity. There is already light of Hochma being filled with light of Hassadim, and it is filling our souls, so we are already beginning to discover the eternal and perfect world.

Is the land of Israel a state of “no errors,” a perfect state?

It is the perfect state. Today we need to come to a state where the land of Israel spreads throughout all the countries and all the continents. It is called “the land of the gazelle” because that desire with the aim to bestow, to love others, must eventually encompass the whole of reality.

We have the method that explains how to do it, and we must explain it to the whole of humanity. The work of disseminating the wisdom of Kabbalah is called “the Messiah’s Shofar.” It is our duty to carry it out because otherwise humanity will still achieve the complete correction, but after great torments, while in our way, humanity can achieve correction quickly, using the light that reforms.

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Numbers, 30:2-32:42
This Week’s Torah Portion | Jul 05 – Jul 11, 2026 – 20 Tammuz – 26 Tammuz, 5786

In A Nutshell

In this portion Moses alerts the heads of the tribes about the commandments connected to the making and untying of vows. The portion also speaks of Pinhas, who leads Israel into a war with Midian and emerges triumphant. Following the war, the text details the division of the spoils (some of which are dedicated to the Creator) as well as the commandments to make the Kelim Kosher, detailing the process of dipping and immersing them in boiling water.

At the end of the portion, the tribes of Gad and Reuben ask to stay on the Eastern bank of the Jordan River because of its good soil for their voluminous cattle herds. They infuriate Moses because he thinks they are seeking to avoid the war for the conquest of the land. In the end they commit to participating in the war and Moses grants their wish for a lot outside the land of Israel.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

Kabbalists attain the forces and discernments of the spiritual world. These are the forces that operate and manage our world, including the still, vegetative, animate, and human, each of which has a force that runs it. This is why it is impossible to ask anything of people who are not Kabbalists, as they have no free choice, as it is written, “They are all as beasts (animals).” When we read a story in the Torah that seems to be happening in this world, we need to understand that its roots are in the spiritual world, in the network of forces that governs the world.

Today we already feel and understand that we are approaching the network of the forces of the integral nature, which closes in on us and compels us to behave accordingly. It is the appearance of Godliness, which is gradually nearing us.

We see that we can no longer manage the world. Each day we are feeling more and more clearly that nothing in the world depends on us. We are losing our ability to manage the world because we can no longer act in life using our egos.

Kabbalists discovered the upper network and told us how it manifests on the upper level. They did so using words and stories of this world, our world, because everything that exists in the upper one descends to the lower one.

During the forty years in the desert, and even before, Moses wrote his five books, the Pentateuch. Through his attainment, Moses wrote part of the Pentateuch about the times preceding his own. He wrote it in the language of the branches, in the connections between upper and lower. Moses wrote about everything that takes place in the upper world and how the forces are managed. He spoke of them as results, as “marionettes” that move about our world and change.

This is why it is pointless trying to deal with this world; it is utterly governed; there is nothing in it of its own. To know everything, we need to rise to the upper degree, the place where decisions are made, where forces operate and influence our world.

We cannot change anything in this world, and we are well aware of it. Yet, there is one way by which we can change. If that happens, a person can be in bestowal and love according to one’s nearing to the forces in one’s nature. In this way one can change one’s fate here in this world.

In fact, only by changing ourselves can we achieve, “I have created the evil inclination, I have created for it the Torah as a spice,” because “The light in it reforms them.” Only through the light that we draw from the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah can we change ourselves and rise to the upper degree. From that upper degree we can influence the decisions and the mechanism that operate our world. This is why Moses turned to the heads of the tribes and explained to them about untying the vows, about going against Midian, etc.

We need to imagine man as a small world, and everything that happens in the world as happening within. Indeed, within us are Moses and the entire structure called “the people of Israel,” with its priests, Levites, and Israel, being the three lines that comprise our soul. There are also the nations of the world within us, the Midianites, Pharaoh, and everything else that the Torah narrates.

When we discover ourselves and detect within us all those forces and qualities, we perceive the Torah as an instruction. Accordingly, we act to change and adapt ourselves from a person in this world to a higher, spiritual human, aware of the spiritual world, at the spiritual degree known as Matot (tribes).

This is a very high degree, working out of Hesed, the highest Sefira (singular of Sefirot) of the structure of the soul. Out of the ten Sefirot, Keter, Hochma, and Bina are the top Sefirot. They are above our attainment and are the ones that manage us. We approach them through our inner qualities, through arranging them properly as Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut, which are the seven remaining Sefirot.

We correct these seven Sefirot repeatedly on each degree, and they are called “the seven days of the week.” Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, and Yesod correspond to the weekdays, and Malchut corresponds to the Sabbath. By correcting them we go through the weeks in a circle that eventually brings us to Keter, Hochma and Bina, the top three Sefirot, meaning to the end of correction.

Each week in the year has its Torah portion or portions. These are degrees by which we gradually elevate ourselves to the top degree, by opening up to our interior. As we do that, we find the forces within us and act alongside them.

The quality of Moses in us turns to the heads of the tribes in us, according to the division of the soul into twelve tribes, the tribes he arranged correctly while working with the growing ego from a state called “reception of the Torah” to a state called “entrance to the land of Israel.” The process one undergoes between the states is called “the forty years in the desert.” The desert represents our need to sort out the desires within us and correct them from reception for ourselves into the altruistic form of bestowal, to the right approach toward others, which can be summed up in the maxim, “That which you hate, do not do to your friend.” On the degree of “tribes,” one scrutinizes one’s qualities and how to work with the will to receive.

At first, a person can scrutinize the vows. Vows are states and conditions by which one attains a higher degree. The vows indicate the limitation one can take upon oneself and not fail. However, when one cannot persist with them, it is possible to rid oneself from them much like the untying of vows before Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement).

There are fundamental laws in spirituality that concern man and the scrutiny that takes place within—to what extent one can ask for correction for oneself and work with the force that corrects. Following these preparations, a person becomes aware of one’s ability to work with one’s ego on the level of Midian. Such a person works with the force known as Pinhas, which is the next stage of the force of Moses.

This is when one can truly go to war. A person goes against one’s ego in order to conquer it and works with part of it in order to bestow. We ascend to a spiritual degree by correcting the evil inclination into a good inclination. There is no other substance but our own—the will to receive.

First, it comes with only the intention to receive. At that point it is called “the evil inclination” because it prevents itself from participating with others. When it turns into the good inclination, it connects to everyone. This means that a person has succeeded in the war and has conquered the ego.

Once a person has conquered one’s ego, he gives spoils to the tribes, the priest, the Levite, Israel, the women, and the children. He gives spoils from everything he could take from the still, vegetative, animate, and the speaking degree (human). The Torah details what we must do with the masculine part, which is the right side of the Klipa (shell/peel), and what we need to do with the feminine part, the left side of the Klipa.

On Yom Kippur there is a custom to untie vows. Why then is there a need for vows in the first place?

We cannot grow without a vow. When approaching a higher degree, we have to annul ourselves before the upper one because we have not yet reached that degree and therefore cannot accurately evaluate it. As we study we constantly correct and “update” ourselves.”

There are also complementary actions such as the Second Passover where if we did not prepare ourselves for the correction known as Passover, where we “pass over” the ego, we can come to it a month later.

This sounds like a negotiation. We make vows so we can complete the work later, that if we do something we will receive so and so.

No, there is no such thing. It is not how spirituality works. A person does everything honestly until one discovers that it is impossible to keep moving forward, or that the conditions have changed. We are in a system of interconnected souls that supports us when we fall. We learn about our being in an integral system from Moses, who did nothing wrong except for the striking of the rock, yet the whole nation suffered because of it.

There was only one Moses, but we are just beginners.

There is nothing to say about this world. Here we are nothing more than outcomes of the spiritual world. If we can influence the spiritual world through the study of Kabbalah we will change this world, as well. If we do not, we will change nothing.

In fact, we can impact the spiritual world just by aspiring to ascend to spirituality, and this will impact this world favorably. If we have no ability or desire to change our spiritual situation even if we can, our world will still advance, but on a path of suffering.

How can we change our world if it is only a world of results and we are being operated on, without any free choice?

As soon as we begin to ascend toward the spiritual world, we begin to change this world. Nothing in this world changes it but the forces that influence it from above. Therefore, our only choice in this world is to rise above it.

Is this done by connecting and uniting with others?

Yes, through unity with others.

Will we improve our financial situation, too, by studying Kabbalah?

Everything will change. All the outcomes in this world depend only on the connections between us. There is nothing truly worth doing but securing our sustenance, and dedicating the rest of the time to spiritual ascension. This, in turn, will change everything.

Is the correction personal or does it affect everyone?

The correction is both personal and general, but today it is primarily general.

Why is it so hard to understand it even though it sounds so simple?

We are built according to our individualistic egos. We view the world egotistically. And precisely because of it, today the systems of economy and education are becoming dysfunctional. We cannot succeed anymore because everything is broken and scattered. Throughout history we have become used to advancing using our egos, by trying to profit and benefit ourselves the most. But today these egotistical, linear systems have stopped functioning. We are moving into systems that are round, integral, connected.

Is the reciprocal impact sensed immediately?

Yes, people will feel more important, more successful, and even stronger than the government. Governments act egotistically, like a linear arrow. Conversely, the connections between people are circular. Today we are in a global mechanism in a nature that is integral and global. As a result, we cannot continue to advance egotistically, linearly, as before. Now we have to learn how to ascend, how to increase the aim to connect “as one man with one heart,” because only through unity can we change the way things are.

Matot (Tribes)

“‘And you who cleave unto the Lord your God are alive every one of you this day.’ What is the reason? It is because the soul of Israel comes from the spirit of the living God. ‘For the spirit before Me will enwrap.’ ‘Before Me,’ meaning before Divinity, from ZA, the living God.”

Zohar for All, Matot (Tribes), item 5

What is the spoil?

The spoil is a result of man’s work with the evil inclination. In this war, a person turns the evil inclination into good inclination using the light that reforms. As a result, a person receives light through that inclination. The light that fills a person—the attainment, that sublime sensation—is a great possession. This is the spoil.

The division of the spoil refers to how one divides the light among all of one’s parts, all of one’s desires and qualities. It denotes how one operates that division mechanism, who receives more, and who receives less.

This portion seems to discuss the root of the conduct of making utensils kosher.

The root of the matter is in our Kelim (vessels), the will to receive. This is where we receive the light. The light may appear in our desires on condition that they are not working only in order to receive, but also in order to bestow—to share them with others. When we connect ourselves to others in this way, the light appears in us. It follows that all our corrections are really qualifications of our Kelim, making them kosher.

Put differently, we need to qualify our will to receive so it aims to bestow, so it is connected to others. The water, which represents Hesed, qualifies the Kelim. If we need to correct a metal Kli (singular of Kelim), meaning make it kosher, it requires a deeper correction. It has to be passed through fire, representing Gevura. A metal Kli represents a desire that was used egotistically and that must be corrected and cleaned more powerfully through “whitening” (heating to the point where the metal becomes white), Mikveh Kelim (a tub used for ritual immersion of utensils), and Hagaalah (dipping in boiling water).

Correcting our Kelim is all that we have in the wisdom of Kabbalah. The correction of the Kelim takes place once a person has acquired them and has shifted them from the aim to receive into the aim to bestow, having conquered one’s desires. This is not only about correcting Kelim in the sense of utensils, or dishes, but about correcting the Kelim when one makes offerings.

The offering is a Kli on the animate level. One “kills” one’s will to receive, meaning the manner in which the will to receive was used before, egotistically, and brings it as an offering (Korban), from the word Hitkarvut (nearing), toward bestowal, in favor of others. Only then can one bestow love upon others using that same will to receive, which then becomes holy.

This is not the only Torah portion where there are wars and struggles.

We are always at war, always struggling, until we reach the end of correction.

If a person has already attained a certain degree and enjoys the light in it, why should one relinquish it?

Because that person would want to pass it on to others.

But that person still has no desire to pass the light to others.

Wanting to pass it on is a precondition for receiving the light.

You mean, in order to receive the light, you first need to want to give it away?

Of course. We already want to receive it because we heard it is good. But we will not receive it until we desire to share it with others. Our world mandates that we become connected because we are approaching the end of the correction process.

Once a person has tasted the light, what would stop one from wanting it all the time?

We advance “on two legs.” One receives Kelim, corrects them, fills them with light, shares them with everyone, and thus does a very good deed, a Mitzva (good deed/commandment). Using the will to receive in favor of others is called a Mitzva. Once a Mitzva is done, another part of the person’s ego that was hidden inside rises and appears.

Eventually, the entire “Egypt” of a person appears, and one is now immersed in an ego that is spreading over the good. The bad suddenly becomes dominant over the good. When that happens a person becomes wicked, and the struggle begins anew: the previous degree disappears inside, “drowning” in the bad.

When Israel enter Canaan and conquer it, there is the Eastern side of the Jordan river. Gad and Reuben wanted that lot. Why did Moses suddenly object to their dwelling on the Eastern bank of the Jordan?

Our will to receive is in the three worlds Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya. There is also the Temple, Jerusalem, Mount Moriah, and the rest of the degrees: The land of Israel, around which is the Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Babylon. Additionally, there are the rest of the lands in the world, but they are not considered as having anything meaningful.

The Eastern bank of the Jordan is the first boundary outside the land of Israel, and therefore does not have the same level of sanctity as the land of Israel itself. This is why Moses, the force that manages all the corrections within us, opposes the children of Israel’s presence there. All the children of Israel must first be inside the land of Israel, and only afterward are there the conquests of David, which include Lebanon, Syria, and Babylon, from the Niles to the Euphrates.

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Numbers, 25:10-30:1
This Week’s Torah Portion | Jul 13 – Jul 19, 2025 – 17 Tammuz – 23 Tammuz, 5785

In A Nutshell

In the beginning of the portion the Creator thanks Pinhas for stopping the plague and gives him a “covenant of peace,” and a “covenant of an everlasting priesthood” to him and to his descendants. All the while, the children of Israel are preparing to fight the Midianties.

Following the instructions of the Creator, Moses divides the land into lots, following censuses held in the people by tribes and by families. At the conclusion of the censuses, the daughters of Zelophehad, from the tribe of Menashe, complain to Moses that their father died and as women, they did not receive their lot. Moses looks into the matter and the Creator rules that to do justice, the daughters of Zelophehad will be given a lot in the land, which will be named after their father.

The Creator commands Moses to climb up the Mountain of Avarim to see the land of Israel, which he will not enter, and to appoint Joshua, son of Nun, as his successor.

At the end of the portion there is a detailed description of the offerings that needed to be sacrificed each day and on different occasions during the year.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

According to The Book of Zohar, the portion, Pinhas, is profound and evokes many questions. The story tells of people such as Pinhas, who are seemingly greater than Moses. The Creator blesses and praises him that he is as great as Joshua, that he is replacing Moses, who is climbing down from center stage. There is also the issue of women’s rights, some of whom can be as the men, receiving a lot.

As we know, the Torah does not speak of corporeal events or physical bodies, but of souls. The souls are what is important, the eternal part in each of us. This is why we need to understand that the text describes the “human within us,” which must experience all the portions of the Torah along the spiritual development.

This portion speaks of a very special point that awakens in us, a special desire called Pinhas.Only this point, this desire, achieves the “covenant of peace”—peace and wholeness with the Creator. The desire known as Pinhas unites in Dvekut (adhesion) with the Creator, in a covenant of complete and eternal connection, which lasts forever and does not wane. This is the first of the stages of correction and connection that the soul goes through. In that correction it becomes attached to the highest degree in its correction and development.

The second stage comes after all the successes of the children of Israel. Now all the forces within us are called Israel, Yashar El (straight to God), having received the previous corrections. A person begins with an egoistic will to receive that has come out of Egypt in its entirety. In that stage, a person has hardly escaped one’s ego, and wants to avoid using one’s egoistic qualities. In that stage a person has nothing. It is as though one is standing in the desert with nothing to eat. “Eating” is an attainment of spirituality, which fills the soul until it is completely satiated with Godliness, with the revelation of the Creator. “Return, oh Israel, unto the Lord your God,” consciously, with understanding, fulfillment, and a sensation of the attainment of the Creator. These are the stages of the correction of the soul from the entrance to the desert through the wars, and up to that point, Midian.

Once we have a grip of a high degree, a part of the common soul, then we are all parts of a single soul, “as one man with one heart.” We are all in mutual guarantee, in that covenant that we agreed on for the first time when we received the Torah.

The children of Israel constantly keep strengthening the covenant. Each day we pass through the “desert” in our empty lives, not knowing what to do, immersed in struggles and corrections. Each transgression and mistake that the children of Israel make is because the evil inclination is surfacing. However, it is a descent in order to ascend.

We discover that we are broken and cannot bestow, so we cry out and demand the light that reforms. The light, meaning the Creator, comes and corrects, and guides us on how to act against the will to receive. It is called “punishing the ego,” so the man in us ascends.

This is the process we go through. It is a stage of deep egoistic discernments in a person, which one can correct. These discernments are called Midian.

This is how Moses—who emerged from Pharaoh’s house—grows. His wife comes from the house of Midian because Jethro was the priest of Midian.

Moses nurtures Pinhas. Pinhas is in fact Moses on a higher degree, and in this progression it is a complementation of the degree.

On that stage, all the forces, all the elements within a person are ready to wage war on Midian. A “war” is a reawakening of all the corrupted desires in a person that seemed to have calmed down, but which have yet to be corrected. We must reawaken them and mend them. It is a time to calculate, to find out the number of Israel, who is on the camp, who is outside the camp, and for counting the heads of the tribes.

Calculating means reaching a degree in which the light of Hochma (wisdom) dresses in light of Hassadim (mercy). Seeing a calculation (accounting) is the light of vision, the light of Hochma that we see. On that degree we can already count what is in it and what is not. It is not a degree of VAK, the degree of the desert. Rather, it is already the GAR of the degree.

On a complete degree there is light of Hassadim and light of Hochma. Using one’s desires is done both in bestowal and in the intention to receive in order to bestow. These are acts of Gadlut (adulthood) of the degree, with which one corrects one’s soul on a very high level.

It is a profound correction of part of the will to receive, of the deficiency in the soul. This is why the women come and say, “We need the correction and we cannot receive it. How do we do it?” It is the point of deficiency in a man, the profound will to receive that is corrected into working in order to bestow. This is also the reason for Moses’ reply to the daughters of Zelophehad.

For this reason, when the biggest desires appear, the desires called “a woman’s desires,” it is possible to correct them as with those of a man’s. With the men it is an intention to bestow in order to bestow, while with the women it is an intention to receive in order to bestow—bigger desires and deeper corrections.

The portion, Pinhas, narrates a stage in the advancement toward the end of correction. The portion details very deep corrections in the soul, in the corrected part of the soul. Our soul is the entire desire that the Creator created. It appears as broken in us, as our ego that must be corrected.

We should be happy when a piece of ego appears because it is written, “I have created the evil inclination,” which is the appearance, “I have created for it the Torah as a spice,” because “the light in it reforms.” That is, after the revelation of the evil inclination in us, once we have learned that we have no idea how to work with it, we discover the spice of Torah. Through the Torah we can correct the evil inclination.

The spice is the hidden light that is called Zohar (brightness), or Ziharah Ilaa (Aramaic: upper brightness). This is the light that corrects and reforms, and this is the process we must undergo.

Afterward, the portion speaks of Moses climbing Mount Avarim and watching the land of Israel from there. This is the conclusion of the degree of Moses, who is the “faithful shepherd,” entirely adhered to Bina, bestowal, the aim to bestow in order to bestow. That state does not allow him to enter the will to receive called “the land of Israel,” in which the correction is to work in order to bestow. The Hebrew word Eretz (land) comes from the word Ratzon (desire). The word Ysrael (Israel) comes from the words Yashar El (straight to God), meaning straight toward bestowal. This is why that stage was given to Joshua and not to Moses.

The Creator said to Moses that his place was given to Joshua, that he is the one who will enter the land of Israel, while Moses will stay outside, on Moses’ degree. The next degree is the next stage, which Joshua, son of Nun, must correct. Joshua is an extension of Moses’ degree, just as Pinhas is an extension of the same soul.

The quality called Moses in each of us develops into the quality called Pinhas, then advances to the next quality, Joshua. Moses, the observer, brings the light of Hochma, the light of seeing. He brings that degree to all of Israel. However, the one who carries out this action is the corrected part in the soul, which is called Joshua, son of Nun.

The portion also speaks of the offerings (sacrifices). When a person discovers that one’s nature is bad, a person wants to rid oneself of it and escape it. Such a person is willing to sacrifice, burn, kill, slaughter, anything to rid oneself of the evil inside. In sacrificing, a person does not slaughter something outside, but only the beast within. Such a person slaughters the vegetative, and even the still (inanimate) within, using water and salt, as it is written, “On all your offerings you shall offer salt” (Leviticus, 2:13).

We “process” the desires below the human degree—on the degrees of still, vegetative, and animate—through the human degree in us. We turn desires that were with the aim to receive, egoistic desires with the evil inclination, into such that work with the aim to bestow. We sacrifice them. In Hebrew, Makriv means both sacrificing and bringing closer. Thus, we bring the desires closer to correction, and through it we draw closer to the Creator and become like Him.

This is called the “work of the sacrifices,” “holy work,” “work of the priests,” the “Levites” that exist within us. Israel is the part that brings the offerings. The part of Israel within us brings the part in the desires on the levels of still, vegetative, and animate to the Levites and the priests. In this way we take all the desires within and raise them to correction through the work of the sacrifices.

Keeping the Covenant

“It is written in Pinhas, ‘I give to him My covenant of peace,’ meaning peace from the angel of death, who never controls him and in whose judgments he is not judged. Should you say that he did not die, he died but he certainly did not die as do the rest of the people. He lived longer than all his contemporaries because he clung to that upper covenant. When he passed away from the world, in sublime passion and in comely Dvekut (adhesion), he departed from the rest of the people in the world.”

Zohar for All, Pinhas, item 22

Each time, we correct our corrupted desires and add them to the structure of the soul in us. The corrupted desires are called “desires that comprise the soul, the “Kli (vessel) of the soul,” the “body of the soul.” The desires are corrected to work in order to bestow, for the sake of others, and from the love of others to the love of the Creator.

The soul has a body: the desires outside a person, which work for the sake of others. These are desires that act out of the evil inclination, in favor of oneself, but receive the form of working in order to bestow, the good inclination, working in love and bestowal, as it is written, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” this is the great rule of the Torah. To the extent that a person acts within those desires, performing acts of bestowal and true giving, one feels the “clothing of the Creator,” the “clothing of the upper light.”

This is why it was said that Pinhas did not die like others. Rather, it is a stage within us that only grows. It is that corrected degree of attainment of Godliness within the corrected Kli with the light that fills it.

Can spirituality be passed on by inheritance?

There is an unbreakable law here: it is all one man. There aren’t many people in the world, there is only one. In other words, the Torah is written for a single person, who includes within the entire world. It is written that “Man is a small world” (Midrash Tanchuma, Pekudei, item 3). Everything is included within us; we perceive the whole of the outer reality within us.

We have no idea whether anything exists outside of us. All we know is that we feel it within. For example, when we touch something, we cannot tell whether we are actually touching it, but we can feel it as solid, liquid, warm or cold.

We feel that it exists and that we are touching it. But in the end, all we feel is ourselves. We see ourselves existing in some reality, but that reality is depicted within us, in the back of our minds. The people and the objects around us are not really there; they are within us.

The reality we perceive is divided into still, vegetative, animate, and human. We are the ones who sense all of them in this way because this is how our will to receive is built. It is divided into four stages—1, 2, 3, and 4—where it perceives sensations and impressions.

As far as the history of the Jews is concerned, it is as though the Torah describes a play, but these are all things that happen within us. If we want to read the Torah as it truly is we should ascribe everything that is written there to ourselves. We should read every word in the Torah as an explanation of what exists within us: Pinhas, Joshua, Midian, a Priest, a Levite, Israel, the tribes, and everything else.

A priest, for example, is a degree of a person. It arrives when the will to receive is entirely corrected into working in order to bestow. This is why priests have no lot.

When the degree of Moses ends and the degree of Pinhas begins, Moses climbs Mount Avarim and looks at the land of Israel. It is a certain degree called “seeing.” Through it he makes a correction for the entire nation. What is the correction of seeing?

Moses performs a great correction. There is a correction in potential, and there is a correction in actuality, de facto. A correction in potential is when there are still no Kelim (vessels) that are large enough to fit the correction. Moses is a degree in which one does not work with vessels of reception with the intention to bestow. This is why he did not enter the land of Israel—the desire that must be turned into Yashar El (straight to God), Israel.

His following degree, Joshua, son of Nun, will do it, as it is a more practical degree. Joshua is an extension, a degree that is annulled before the degree of Moses. This is why Joshua was Moses’ assistant, always supporting and always by his side, and he was chosen to succeed him.

The relationship between them was such that Joshua would set up the benches at Moses’ seminary. However, Moses, too, made great spiritual corrections. He belonged to the degree of Bina. But because Bina is detached from Malchut, Joshua was the one who implemented the corrections.

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Numbers, 22:2-25:9
This Week’s Torah Portion | Jun 21 – Jun 27, 2026 – 6 Tammuz – 12 Tammuz, 5786

In A Nutshell

The portion, Balak, begins with the people of Israel conquering the land of the Amorites. Balak, king of Moab, understands that the children of Israel are nearing him, and prepares to face the nation that came out of Egypt. He sends messengers to Balaam, son of Beor—who was famous for his great wisdom and power of his curses—and asks him to curse the people of Israel.

Balaam leaves for the land of Moab having accepted the harsh stipulation to say only what the Creator will permit him to. Along the way his mare stops. Balaam beats her but the mare won’t move. Balaam cannot see the angel stopping the mare. The mare opens her mouth and speaks to him, and instead of cursing Israel he blesses them.

Balak is furious with Balaam. As a compensation, Balaam tips him that Israel has a weak spot: the daughters of Moab. Balak sends the daughters of Moab and the people of Israel fornicate with them so much that even Zimri, son of Salu, one of the presidents of the tribe of Shimon, takes a Midianite woman.

This situation leaves Pinhas, son of Elazar, with no choice. He takes a spear and stabs them to death, thus stopping the plague that has spread in the nation claiming twenty-four thousand lives.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

This story does not happen on the corporeal level. It is not about a process unfolding between two nations, but rather an internal correction process that one experiences. The story itself comes to show us how to correct the evil inclination. It is not a tale about children or grownups, nor is it a story about nations, countries, wars, prostitutes, or mares. All it describes is the correction of the evil inclination. It is the only thing that the Torah (Pentateuch) describes from the very beginning, from Adam—who began the correction—to the end.

The text speaks of a person who went through this path as Adam HaRishon (Adam), as Abraham, and as Moses, and who went through the whole process in Egypt and in the desert. During the gradual correction of the desire, a person gradually nears the land of Israel until one is faced with the “conquest” of the land.

The “desert” is a desire that a person still cannot use correctly, and therefore cannot see the fruits of the work with it. These corrections precede the ones known as the “land of Israel.”

The spies discovered that the land of Israel is a desire that, if aimed entirely at the Creator, yields beautiful fruits [Israel means Yashar El (straight to God)]. A person who approaches that correction initially acquires the land of the Amorites followed by the land of Moab, which is a higher degree. Man’s egoistic desire known as “the king of Moab,” Balak, begins to seemingly rebel against him because it does not want the corrections.

All our desires are initially evil inclination, as it is written, “I have created the evil inclination.” This is why the desire called Balak seeks out a way to resist. It is resistance to a person who is trying to correct one desire at a time, degree by degree, until all the desires are Yashar El, straight to the Creator, aiming to bestow upon the Creator.

The desire called Balak cannot do anything by itself. A desire is just that—a desire—devoid of any strength. The power is found in the intention that directs the desire and works with it. The desire is called Balak, and the intention is called Balaam. The intention of working in bestowal in order to receive is called a “curse.” In this manner, the evil inclination operates in its fullest form.

This is why Balak invites Balaam and tells him, “Come, let’s work together.” In the meantime a conflict breaks out between the substance (mare) and the angel (human) who is walking straight to the Creator and aiming himself toward success. On the one hand, within man is the next degree, Moab, the will to receive in Moab, which is Balak. On the other hand, a person intends to control the desire in order to receive, which is Balaam, who is awarded the real egoistic benefit from it.

The inner substance in that degree, the mare, cannot advance because it detects the resistance, the angel standing before it, not letting the substance advance, which is help from above. However, the man cannot detect it because he is on the degree of Balak and Balaam. In other words, we cannot advance in the intention, but the evil inclination can no longer fail us with the intention because the previous degree, the Amorite, has been corrected and there is no reason why we should fall now.

A person is in a position in which he does not make mistakes in the intentions or desires. The people of Israel stood before the next degree but could not advance further. On the one hand they were blocked by Balaam and Balak, and on the other hand there was no other way to advance.

After his blessing, Balaam did not let Israel advance because the blessing had nothing on which to rely. The blessing must “ride” over the will to receive of the next degree in order for advancement to occur. “I have created the evil inclination, I have created for it the Torah as a spice,” because “the light in it reforms him.” This is how we advance with a bigger desire, a desire that is corrected in order to bestow, and we continue degree by degree.

This is why there is nothing we can do in the next degree. We advance by failing, but that failing is not because of our corrupted intention. Rather, it is because of the heightened will to receive on the left line.

This is why Balaam advises Balak to make the people fail by increasing the evil inclination, the “women” in them. The deficiencies begin with hardening the hearts of the children of Israel with a desire that is more egoistic, more toward oneself. This desire is called a “fornicating woman.” A woman has two “directions”: either a righteous or a whore, meaning in order to bestow or in order to receive. This is why it is possible to make a person trip and fall because in truth, it is impossible to advance without falling.

The Torah tells us about the degrees we must all experience. All the actions and names in the Torah are holy. When we kiss a word in a book of Torah during a service, we pay no attention to the word we are kissing. It might very well be Balak or Balaam, yet we kiss and make the blessing of the Torah.

The stages of the progress all aim toward our correction. However, there are steps along the way called Balaam, Balak, countries, Midianites, their wives, and we reach a state where we correct them.

When we kill the desires to receive with the intention to receive, we are actually killing the intention. Along with those desires, we should kill the connection between Israel and Midian, which is a degree of twenty-four thousand, twelve and twelve, corresponding to the tribes, in Direct Light and in Reflected Light. The “thousand’ is the height of the high degree of twelve-twelve on the level of Zeir Anpin. When rising to the high degree of Arich Anpin, it is called “one thousand.”

The Difference between a Blessing and a Curse

A blessing is an act that a person can do, an act that aims to bestow. A curse, however, is an act in order to receive. We should note that an act in order to receive is necessary because without it we would never discover the evil inclination. On each degree there is a process of disclosing the evil and correcting it through the Torah. This is how we are reformed—rise to the next degree—as it is written, “I have created the evil inclination, I have created for it the Torah as a spice.”

Once on the degree, the left-right-middle “ritual” repeats itself, meaning a curse from which one is corrected and ascends. Correction is impossible without curses, without the evil inclination. Without Hell it is impossible to rise to the degree of Heaven.

Pinhas, Son of Elazar the Priest—the Power or the Light?

Pinhas, son of Elazar is the highest degree that appears. The light is what makes the correction using the Kli (vessel). Everything happens in the Kelim (plural of Kli). Even when we speak of “lights,” we actually refer to an impression of the Kelim, an impression we call “light.”

Similarly, we cannot sense the electricity that runs through a lamp, but we sense its manifestation. In other words, we can only sense manifestations, not the forces themselves. The forces must “express themselves” through a substance.

In our case, Pinhas, son of Elazar, was from the priests, from whom we have all the corrections.

Can a person curse another person, cast an evil eye on another?

If we are talking about our world, regardless of this Torah portion, then of course. All our desires have an impact, even the smallest ones. People are connected; our thoughts are connected. We are living in a global and integrally connected network.

We can prove for a fact that there are instances when people think of something on one end of the world, and people on the other end of it think of the same thing at the same time. It was said that this concept was also proven in monkeys. The book, The Hundredth Monkey, reports a study of macaque monkeys on an island near Japan in 1952. The scientists observed that some of the monkeys learned to wash sweet potatoes, a behavior that spread through the pack. Once it spread among a critical number of monkeys—the so-called hundredth monkey—this behavior instantly spread to monkeys on nearby islands.

Fear Not, My Servant Jacob

“That wicked one, Balak, was wise in all the degrees of above, in those who tie ties by which to perform witchcraft and magic, in all those degrees above them by which they would force the lower degrees. …Balak and Balaam said to him, ‘All through that time, we witches, magicians, and soothsayers have certain degrees and certain angels that are known to witches and magicians. But henceforth, you should look elsewhere, higher.”

Zohar for All, New Zohar, Balak, items 60-61

A person knows only about one’s own degree, which is the degree of Balak. Here Balak rules over the piece called Moab. The will to receive in order to receive that operates in a person from one degree to the next, with the aim to receive, is called Moab.

Does a person know of the limitation, that there is another, higher place?

Yes, this is why we need to draw a bigger force and not let the correction happen.

Will we be able to see Moab as we advance in our studies and scrutinize within?

Even without reading the weekly Torah portion we would discover the Torah within us. This is also how Kabbalists discovered and wrote—by sensing it within. The Torah comes out of the will to receive that is gradually corrected.

When a person discovers the portion Balak within, does one also discover a speaking mare?

He or she will speak just as it is written in the Torah, and at the same time know the details in their true sense.

What does it mean that a mare speaks in a person?

It is the will to receive. The mare is the female of the donkey. That is, out of Malchut’s ten Sefirot, nine are the donkey and the tenth is the mare.

Is it specifically the will to receive that senses the angel?

Yes.

Is the will to receive unable to see? Is it blind?

It is specifically the will to receive that will perform the act, that will sense—either in order to receive or in order to bestow. It is there that all the operations of the forces take place. This is why all the forces of correction or corruption aim toward it.

Is this why it is said that the Messiah will come riding a white donkey?

A white donkey means that a person needs to make the donkey white. Only then will one feel it.

What does the whitening mean?

It means that a person completely “whitens” the substance, making it entirely in order to bestow, which is called “white.”

There is a strange process happening here. Balaam is the will to receive in order to receive, or even the will to bestow in order to receive. Balaam undergoes a process: in the beginning he wants to curse, but then he swears that he will act only by the command of the Creator, and finally he blesses. Balaam acts with the intention to bestow.

Was he corrected?

No, he cannot do it on the next degree. In fact, Balaam performs no actions here, neither does Balak, nor does the Creator. Only Israel acts. That is, if we want to rise to the next degree, the blessing is before us and we can advance, except we do not have the strength.

We need to discover that we cannot advance using Balaam, Balak, the Creator, the mare, or any other factor, until we stand bewildered, not knowing how to advance to the next degree, how to acquire this desire called Moab. The children of Israel must conquer Moab, something needs to appear, and it appears only by connecting to the women of Moab.

A person needs to take the females from there, the deficiencies of that degree. When taking those deficiencies, there is plenty of substance to move ahead. Once a person connects to all of the substance, a correction appears that is known as “the killing of the intention to receive.” We correct the will to receive into aiming to bestow. This act is called “the conquering of Moab.”

There is a sexual element here. On the one hand, the sexual desire is very natural, but on the other hand it seems to be a bad example because they took Midianite women.

We are not dealing with morals here, or with ethics. In our world, sexuality is animalistic, meaning it exists in animals.

But in this portion the sexuality is presented as an obstruction, with the president bringing a Midianite woman into the tent.

True, it appears as negative. However, all the measures discussed here are necessary steps along the way. We cannot succeed without them. It is written, “There is not a righteous man on earth who does good and does not sin.” That is, we must go through the sin; we have no choice, even if we do not want it.

The order of degrees is such that a person falls and then rises. But the fall is not of one’s own volition, though it is how one builds the ascent.

Therefore, Israel did not seek to mingle with the Midianites; they simply had no choice because a person must mingle with all the females of the next degree. To mingle means to be at the degree of the female, Malchut of the next degree, the fornicating woman, entirely immersed in her intention to receive, and afterwards correct it.

When rising from one degree to the next, a person needs to seemingly despair, and then ask for help. Clearly, there is a force that opens it before us and helps, but we forget it from one degree to the next.

Why do we forget it? Why does it seem to become more difficult? After all, if we got the idea once, it should have been easier. The thing is that we got it, but in the previous sin that we corrected. In the current sin we perceive nothing. Everything we had is in the past, and it is as though we have forgotten everything because we are rising from below upward. It is not that we really forget, but the old ways simply do not work on the new degree.

In the correction of “killing the Midianite,” the president of the tribe of Shimon is killed, as well. Why is this so? After all he was part of Israel and was supposed to be corrected?

He belongs to the previous degree.

So he could not cope with the new degree?

He could not cope with it because he connected to her, and they are both in the intention to receive. Both need to correct. It is not only the evil inclination that is corrected; it is also the force that comes down to the evil inclination and connects with it. They both rise together.

A person who descends, descends entirely into the intention to receive, down to the Klipa (shell/peel) with all the previous success. Afterwards the light takes effect and saves them both, which is considered that along the way it kills them because they are aiming to receive.

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Numbers 19:1-22:1
This Week’s Torah Portion | Jun 21 – Jun 27, 2026 – 6 Tammuz – 12 Tammuz, 5786

In A Nutshell

The portion, Hukat (The Statute), deals with Israel’s continuing journey, with the Mitzva (commandment) of the red cow (heifer), the laws of the impurity of the dead, and the episode known as Mei Meriva (waters of Meribah [Heb: quarrelling]). In the episode, the children of Israel complain about the lack of water, and the Creator commands Moses to speak to the rock. However, instead of speaking, he strikes the rock. Moses and Aaron are punished for this act by being banned from entering the land of Israel. The people of Israel reach the land of Edom, and the king of Edom forbids them to pass through his territory.

Aaron dies, and Elazar, his son, succeeds him as the high priest. The people of Israel continue to complain about the difficulties along the way, and the Creator sends snakes to bite the people. Moses makes a copper snake and shows it to the people, and anyone who sees the copper snake is healed.

The people of Israel reach the boundary of the land of Moab and sing “the song of the well.” The people fight Sihon, King of the Amorites, and Og, King of the Bashan. Israel wins and inherits their land.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

This story details the primary correction in the corrections of the souls. Because our souls are initially the desire to receive, to enjoy, in order to correct it we must invert the intention of that desire toward bestowal. We must correct our souls to have the aim to bestow, to love others, by which will resemble the Creator. This will endow Dvekut (adhesion) with the Creator—which is the purpose of creation—to each and everyone in the nation. This is why we need to mingle and become integrated with the force of bestowal, called Bina, and with the force of reception, called Malchut.

Connecting the two forces—the two Sefirot just mentioned—results in four options: Malchut in Malchut, Malchut in Bina, Bina in Bina, and Bina in Malchut. When Bina is inside Malchut, it is the evil force because Malchut governs Bina, and when that happens, all the evil forces emerge.

While these forces may occasionally appear as good, they appear so only to lure and entice a person, leading toward the evil. It is a special Klipa (shell/peel), cunning and shrewd, which is in Malchut. This is how Malchut acquires Bina and uses it. This is also why it was said that evil can exist in the world only if it initially appears as good.

At first, the only forces that exist in man are the still, vegetative, and animate, meaning Malchut at the degree of still, vegetative, and animate. This is a straightforward will to receive. A person who possesses the power of Bina within the will to receive becomes very clever and very shrewd. Such a person knows how to appear as giving to others, as serving them, while in fact that person takes from others and uses them as much as possible. This is how the negative forces operate when the force of bestowal is “taken captive” by the force of reception.

Conversely, when we raise Malchut to Bina and become included in it—when we want to permeate Bina and be there as servants, as an embryo inside its mother’s womb—Bina is called “upper Ima (mother).” At that time we want to develop only by integration, by being dominated by the power of bestowal, under the “protection” of the power of the Creator. These are the good forces, which gradually take bits of the egoistic desire and correct them.

The portion, Hukat, begins with the red cow, which corrects some of the desires and corrupts others. It is that pendulum between Bina and Malchut that purifies the impure and defiles the pure. That topic is scrutinized all through the portion on different levels, such as the ashes of the cow, the well, and the pit.

The pit is dry, absorbing everything but remaining completely empty. On the other hand, a well is full of water. This compares to Bina in Malchut and Malchut in Bina. If the well is empty, it is Malchut. If there is water in the well, it is the right kind of integration. And when Malchut ascends to Bina, Malchut’s deficiency rises to Bina, to heaven, and brings down water from heaven, which is the rain.

Afterwards the serpent is mentioned. The serpent isn’t just the will to receive; it is a person in whom there is integration of Bina, opposite which there is the copper serpent.

In the story of the waters of quarrelling (Meribah), there is the rock, the ground. If a person is integrated in Malchut, and speaks with it at the level of the desert (the level of Bina), that person elicits water out of it. Conversely, one who strikes elicits waters of quarrelling. This water is called “waters of Gevurot,” which is dominated by Malchut. Hurricanes, floods, and tsunamis share the same root as the forces dominated by Malchut.

As for the red cow, the text does not relate to any corporeal cow whatsoever. The word Adumah (“red,” in the feminine) comes from the word Edom, meaning connected to the Adamah (earth). The cow symbolizes the power of Bina, giving milk, which is one of the symbols of the festival of Shavuot, on which we eat dairy products. It is a symbol of the power of giving.

However, when connected to Malchut, Edom, she has the powers of the mingling with Malchut opposite the power of Bina. When the force of bestowal and the force of reception—Bina and Malchut—are together, everything depends on the individual. If a person wishes to be corrected, to achieve bestowal, then specifically by combining these forces, a combination known as the “red cow,” a person elicits the force of bestowal and becomes purified.

Conversely, if that person was pure, the mingling of Bina and Malchut has the opposite effect. We need to understand that this opposite form is only a person’s discovery that he or she is on a good degree. That is, a person discovers an additional desire, with which one cannot work.

The Meaning of the Acts of Purification

These are rituals, a sort of idol-worship. It is not that simple to find a red cow, burn it, and then deal with the whole business with its ashes. It doesn’t exist in our world, but we are still looking.

It is said that in the past there was indeed a red cow, at the time of the Temple, when the whole nation was on a spiritual degree using the wisdom of Kabbalah. It is written, “They checked from Dan to Beer Sheba and no ignoramus [uncorrected person] was found from Gevat to Antipris, and no boy or girl, man or woman was found who was not thoroughly versed in the laws of purity and impurity [corrections according to Moses’ law].”^[1] That is, the laws of impurity and purity (Tuma’a and Taharah, respectively) explain precisely what it means to work in order to receive and what it means to work in order to bestow with all the desires, all the problems, and all the communications with everyone and with Godliness.

In the past, the majority of people achieved complete attainment, except for a few, as we know from history about the quarrels that took place even at the time of the First Temple. The people who attained a spiritual degree knew the laws of impurity and a target=”_blank” href=”https://www.kabbalahblog.info/2013/06/glossary-hukat-the-statute-weekly-torah-portion/#purity”>purity; they were at the level of connection of Bina and Malchut, a level known as “red cow (heifer).”

The Torah details an order of correction, instructions on how to correct the soul. These people lived by it and corrected themselves from the state of “Egypt” to the state of “reception of the Torah,” going through the “desert” and into the “land of Israel,” names that represent spiritual degrees.

Why Israel Could NotPass Through Edom, Even though It Is Bina

The red cow is Bina. The land of Edom is the connection between Bina and Malchut as it should be according to the degrees. The king of Edom is a desire that sits within us. Even though the people of Israel wish to go through the land of Edom, they must first enter through the Klipa (shell/peel) that is in Edom—the king of Edom. They must go through the mingling of Malchut and Bina on the degree of Edom. That Klipa does not let them through. The passage depends on correction—either they go around Edom or they fight and go through it.

Moses, the greatest of the prophets, leads the nation. He is man’s most sublime quality, and it seems as though he is not doing what the Creator told him.

In fact, it is not that he is disobeys the Creator. Rather, there is the nation, meaning individual desires, there is Moses, and there is a possibility to absorb “waters of Bina” by raising Malchut (the will to receive) to Bina. In the state of the people at the time, Moses could not muster the strength to rise and draw all of his desires that are called “people” or “nation” to the level of Bina. Thus, instead of climbing a degree and speaking and acting there, he acts on the degree of performing actions. This was his transgression.

Why Does It Seem as Though He Was Punished?

All the punishments in the Torah are corrections. Although it is clear that one must attain the level of speaking—a level of connection between Malchut and Bina that is simpler, shorter, and more correct—a person cannot find another manner of correction, but performs it in actual fact. It is similar to Moses using his staff.

Is it like an experiment, where we are given the tools to carry out a task, yet we must fail.

Indeed we have to fail. Although it seems as though we are punished in our corrections, in truth, there are no punishments.

But when Moses wished to enter the land of Israel he was refused.

Of course he was refused. The land of Israel is not the degree of Moses. Moses is “the faithful shepherd,” whose highest degree is Bina. There needs to be an upgrade here, which must be performed by his followers, those who are not from the generation of the desert, such as Joshua.

They Journeyed from Mountain to Mountain

“And Israel journeyed … and they went after the slant-serpent that was ruling in the land of Edom.”

Zohar for All, New Zohar, Hukat (The Statute), item 3

“Slant” means that it keeps twisting and walking ahead of a person so it is impossible to discern what is good about it and what is bad.

They seemingly “detoured” the mountain. In truth, they could not climb the mountain—the thoughts along the way, the doubts in the faith, in the attainment of mutual bestowal and unity. And because they were unable to attain, they “went around” that situation. On the one hand it is not the right way, but on the other hand, if they do not circumvent the mountain, they cannot go above it. For now, this is the way—by the hardening of the heart. The correction is always done on an egoistic desire that is very hard to cope with, but after which one obtains abundance.

They Journeyed from Mountain to Mountain

“They complained about everything—about the oral Torah, the written Torah … for there is no bread, oral Torah, and no water, written Torah, and the words of the oral Torah were trivial in their eyes.”

Zohar for All, New Zohar, Hukat (The Statute), item 3

“Trivial” means that the oral Torah was not very important. This was the problem, since the oral Torah comes to us from above, from the degree of Zeir Anpin, while the written Torah is in Malchut. This creates a disconnect between Zeir Anpin and Bina for reception, to receive the quality of bestowal. Also, it is clear that they did not have the strength, and therefore went around Mount Horeb.

Concerning the serpents, we know the story of the serpent and Adam, and the story from The Book of Zohar about the snake that bites the doe and retreats. However, the portion before us presents another aspect: a copper serpent that heals anyone who sees it.

We cure the flaws in us, our egos, according to the way we connect to the serpent, by how we look at it and take from it the strength we want. It is the will to receive that we can extract for our Kelim (vessels), and the desire to bestow for our intentions, by which we are corrected.

Our advancement is according to our egos, through forms of serpents—a slant serpent or a copper serpent—turning all those desires that currently hide within us and are initially cruel and cunning, in order to receive—from Adam’s first serpent—into desires with the aim to bestow.

As then so now, there is nothing worse than the snake, the venom, the destructive force. We must turn the power of the serpent into a healing force, just as in the symbol of medicine, because the healing comes from the same place. It is all a question of approach: if one knows how to use that force correctly, it is a healing force; if one does not know how to use it correctly, it is a potion of death.

The Serpent as a Messenger of the Creator

The serpent is our will to receive, which comes from the Creator. The Torah, which is called “the potion of life,” as well as “the potion of death,” also comes from the Creator. In our means, in our desire, intentions, in every thing and in every detail there is good, as well as bad, and we can use them for better or for worse.

It is written that everyone loved Aaron, even more than they loved Moses. What is the quality of Aaron within us, and what does it mean that something dies?

Priests are on the degree of actions; they are the power within us that performs the corrections de facto. Moses is the only force that connects to the upper one, to the next degree, to Godliness, while Aaron prepares the actions and carries them out. This is why his whole work is the Temple.

What about his son, who was appointed after him, is it hereditary?

These are two degrees, just as in our world there is a custom that the father inherits everything to the son. It is likewise in kingship, and even in biology, in genes.

It seems as though the story repeats itself—there is a will to receive that needs correction. It needs to receive light and turn from reception to bestowal. Why then are there all those subtle differences, as though each portion is a different story altogether?

Indeed the only thing that was created is the will to receive. That desire is used egoistically, and the Torah depicts its process of correction. The will to receive contains 613 “sub-desires,” all of which must be shifted from being used egoistically into being used altruistically—for the sake of others, to love of others. This is called “observing 613 Mitzvot (commandments).” The whole Torah consists of instructions by which to receive light in these corrected desires, a light called “Torah,” or “the revelation of Godliness.”

Therefore, these are not subtle differences, but consecutive degrees, appearing one at a time in a manner of cause and consequence. At each stage we correct all 613 desires from “In the beginning” to “In the eyes of all Israel,” the final words in the Pentateuch. Only when we achieve it do we actually become Israel—Yashar El (straight to God).

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Numbers 16:1 – 18:32
This Week’s Torah Portion | Jun 14 – Jun 20, 2026 – 29 Sivan – 5 Tammuz, 5786

In A Nutshell

The portion begins with the story of Dathan and Abiram, and 250 of the presidents of the congregation who rebelled against Moses and Aaron with what seemed like a just argument: Since the entire nation is holy, Moses and Aaron should have the same status as the rest of the people. The reply they received was that although they are all equal, Moses and Aaron are the leaders that can be in contact with the Creator. Following the mutiny, the ground swallowed the 250 presidents of the congregation, as well as Korah and his company, and the people suffered from a plague until Moses asked the Creator to end it.

The end of the portion debates the question of leadership in the nation. A test was held between all the staffs (rods) of all the leaders, and the only one that blossomed was Aaron’s staff, which signaled his unequivocal leadership.

• Glossary of Terms Used in the Korah Weekly Torah Portion

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

We can interpret the explanation of the Torah (Pentateuch) on two levels—the level of this world and the level of the hidden, spiritual world. On the level of our world, the story of Korah is very relevant even today.

For thousands of years, our world has been developing through our egos. 3,800 years ago we lived in what is now known as Ancient Babylon. This is when Abraham—the quality of Hesed (mercy)—rose, as well as the priests that followed him, who are also from the quality of Bina, Hassadim.

Abraham discovered that the whole world must develop and achieve a state of unity and connection, and shared his revelation with the Babylonians. While many followed him, they were only a handful compared to the majority that rejected his ideas. Abraham had to flee from Babylon, chased by Nimrod, the king of Babylon.

Abraham established a method for correcting human nature. Today we call that method, “the wisdom of Kabbalah,” whose purpose is to elevate man from the depth of egoism to the level of bestowal and love.

This ascent is in fact the goal of our development—to rise from the level of this world to the level of the spiritual world. Spirituality is bestowal and the love of others, by which we acquire eternity and wholeness. This is the meaning of the text in this portion, as well as in The Book of Zohar, which talks about freedom from the angel of death.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, initially everyone in Babylon was united as one nation speaking the same language. But then the ego “plague” broke out and people started hating each other, eventually moving away from one another. Because the Babylonians didn’t take upon themselves Abraham’s method of correction (but rather that of Nimrod), humanity dispersed throughout the globe.

Kabbalah explains that from the moment when people chose between the methods, it became necessary to reunite people. That unity will come because we are compelled to reach it. Had we corrected ourselves then, we would have achieved unity back in Babylon, and would have reached the purpose of Creation—being “as one man with one heart”; we would have achieved the revelation of Godliness and would have concluded the correction. But since the Babylonians chose a different path, we are now being compelled to follow through with the correction process.

We went down to Egypt and came out of it, ascending in spirituality to the degree of the FirstTemple, followed by the SecondTemple. We went through destructions, exiles, redemptions, and today we are at the end of the last exile—beginning to rise toward the last, complete redemption.

Today we are in a very similar situation to the one that formed in Babylon. The difference is that today we have nowhere to disperse, since we have already covered the globe. While there can be many “Nimrods” today, they cannot say anything because we have already recognized the negativity in us; we are already aware that our egos are destroying human society. Reality shows that unless we unite we will disappear from the face of the earth. The worst-case scenario is that we will finish ourselves off, or that ecology and the rest of Nature will finish us off since we’re living opposite to Nature, which is God.

In Gematria, Hateva (Nature) is Elokim (God). We must achieve balance with Nature, and this is achieved by uniting “as one man with one heart.” Unity pertains not only to the small number of people that fled from Babylon, stood at the foot of Mt. Sinai, received the Torah, and became a nation. Rather, it pertains to everyone.

Jews must be “a light for the nations,” explaining to them Abraham’s method, by which we all unite, as it is written in the Torah, “They shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” and “For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the peoples,” and also, “And all the nations shall flow unto Him.”

We are faced with a huge, crucial challenge: to finally achieve the purpose of creation. We will succeed in it only through unity between all people.

That unity can take place after great pains, which the wisdom of Kabbalah and prophets have prophesied concerning the days of the Messiah, but we can also take the method of Kabbalah, which is intended to draw the light that reforms.

Kabbalists warn us that unless we use the wisdom of Kabbalah, a third and even a fourth world war will break out, that only a handful will survive them, and they will still have to implement the purpose of creation. Hence, we have no choice but to do it. We can do it in a favorable manner, which is short, pleasant, and easy, through The Book of Zohar, the writings of the ARI (Rav Isaac Luria), and the writings of Baal HaSulam (Rav Yehuda Ashlag), using them to unite us through the light that will affect us. Kabbalah is called “the interior of the Torah,” “the true Torah (teaching/instruction),” due to the light within it. For this reason, today we must explain to everyone the need to disclose and utilize this method.

The story of Korah is a perfect example of our aforementioned words. Korah came from the tribe of Levy. Dathan, Abiram, and 250 representatives from the entire nation, all the tribes, apparently objected to the unity. They rejected the hierarchy, but there was no other choice. There must be a leader, Moses, connecting the Creator to the priests, followed by his priest brother, Aaron, the right line, the quality of mercy that they taught to the people. The ones who actualized the entire work besides the priests were the Levites, followed by the rest of the tribes, which were arranged according to the structure of the common soul.

The Creator created one soul, one desire. The people of Israel is arranged by that structure, and the rest of humanity should be connected around it. When people suddenly rise and say, “No! We want a different order; we don’t want to be so tightly connected,” it goes against the purpose of creation, against unity itself.

“Love your neighbor as yourself” is the rule that induces the connection between us. It is the great Klal (“rule” but also “collective”) of the Torah. It is a Klal that is a common Kli (vessel) that we build and in which t

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Numbers 13:1-15:41

This Week’s Torah Portion | Jun 07 – Jun 13, 2026 – 22 Sivan – 28 Sivan, 5786

In A Nutshell

The portion begins with Moses sending the twelve heads of the tribes to spy in the land of Israel, to examine it and prepare to enter it. The spies return and describe a land flowing with milk and honey, but occupied by giants that will make it impossible to enter the land, conquer it, and rule it. Their words spread fear in the people, except for Joshua Ben Nun, and Caleb Ben Yephunneh. This angers the Creator and He wants to destroy the entire people. Moses prays and asks for mercy on the people. As a result, only the ten spies that slandered the land die in a plague. The other two, Joshua Ben Nun and Caleb Ben Yephunneh continue to accompany the people. Later in the portion, the children of Israel trip once more and seek to run back to Egypt. In the end they repent and abort their decision. Afterward Israel make another mistake: they try to fight and conquer the land without instructions to do so, and therefore fail. The portion ends with the instruction to wander another forty years in the desert until the entire generation of the spies passes away, except for Joshua Ben Nun, who is to lead the people into the land of Israel. 

 Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

We have to develop from our will to receive, from our ego, into a state in which we come to be “the people of Israel,” when we are all Yashar El (straight to God), having the quality of the Creator: bestowal and love. We will all be in “love your neighbor as yourself,”^[1] in love of others, because we have no other choice. We must not go by our own reason, which alternates between dictations to advance and retreat. Rather, we must fight while examining if we are doing what is right, and if the way is right. The portion explains that we cannot know what to do or even where to start. It is a problem because we are accustomed to work by the mode of “A judge has only what his eyes see.”^[2] It seems as though we must advance by following our essence, according to our Kelim (vessels/tools), using our minds and hearts. The Creator demands that we develop and do something. But how can we do something if we cannot tell between right and wrong, if we do not know whether to move forward into war or run back to Egypt? We can see that there are giants in the land of Israel. And while there are also fruits there, we cannot tell who rules there, which desires, or how big they are.Hence, the portion, Shlach Lecha (Send Forth) explains how we should advance correctly. There is a demand by which a person must check the road with one’s reason and see how to advance in spiritual development. The whole Torah speaks of spiritual development, how we can move from a state of egoism into one of love of others, as in, “love your neighbor as yourself; it is a great rule in the Torah.”^[3] This is why we must go by what our eyes see and examine our egos, our ill wills, and see how we hate others, repel them, think only of ourselves, and how isolated we are from others and cannot even think of them. Instead, we should picture what love is, if and how much we love others others, how much can we think of others and unite with them (as the global crisis demand of us to do these days). We feel that we are facing this great assignment, which is why the wisdom of Kabbalah is appearing, so we may ask for help to rise to the degree of connection and unity, of real love of others, since without it we will not survive in this developing world. The time has now come for us to begin to actualize the Torah. This is why we have come to the land of Israel and settled here after the exile, after all the preparations we have experienced all through history. Today we must be as spies, scrutinizing the meaning of “being a spy” and the meaning of “love your neighbor as yourself,” to see if we can do it or not, and what we must in order to achieve it. When we consider our current state compared to the state we must achieve we see it is impossible. This is the problem of the spies. They were not told that they had to do anything except check and see that it was impossible, yet want it so much as to make us feel we have to achieve love of others because this is the Creator’s will. This is how our entire development should be. We must reach one of two pressure points: the first is that we cannot achieve love others because without it we have no life, and the second is that we must achieve it nonetheless. We have to come to a great cry with faith above reason, and then comes the light that reforms, as it is written, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice”^[4] because “the light in it reforms.”^[5] The light embedded in the Torah, in the proper study of it, in the internality of the Torah, namely the wisdom of Kabbalah, comes and corrects us. Therefore, there is no need to run back to Egypt or cry that we cannot do it because “It is not for you to complete the work, neither are you free to idle away from it.”^[6] Rather, all we need is to act, as it is written, “Whatever your hand finds to do by your strength, that do” (Ecclesiastes 9:10). And the minute we come to a point of complete shattering, then “The Lord will fight for you” (Exodus 14:14). Therefore, we need not go to war and think that we will win by our own strength. Who are we after all? One the one hand, before us is the massive, bursting ego that is stopping us, as those giants that live in the land of Israel portray.”^[7] In truth, they are our own desires facing us, and we cannot fight them. However, we must confront them although we know we cannot overcome them. On the other hand, we must rise to faith, to a great power of demand until the light comes and corrects these desires from hostile ones into desires of the land of Israel. Indeed, it is a dilemma that we face prior to entering a new degree, to which we must prepare. It always happens, every time. The inner war is against our desires and qualities because “the inclination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21). We are all born with an ego that keeps developing. If we advance toward spiritual ascent it develops even more, as it is written, “He who is greater than his friend, his inclination is bigger than him.”^[8] This is why we cannot fight the ever growing ego. However, if we are in the right environment and annul ourselves before it, regarding the people around us as the greatest in the generation, we begin to absorb from them the importance of the goal. The friends give us the sensation that it is possible, that we can burst in such a way that will lead to a genuine prayer, to the “gate of tears.” On the one hand, we are aware that we cannot that correction in us; on the other hand we know that the light, the Creator, can make it in us, if we only ask, if the goal is more important to us than anything. This why our work is in a group, in the right environment, because this is the only way we can muster the strength to advance on the right path. Questions and Answers It takes time before one can adopt a new environment. True, there are many inner struggles and things to overcome, but it does not always feel like that. That is, we experience different situations, some good, some not as good, and some frightening. It depends on the pace of progress and the time we dedicate to tit. What are the spies? Whom are we fooling? The spies are within. When we want to know how to advance despite everything, we need to examine the road. After we examine it we must not go with the spies, favor them, or listen to them since we examine the road with only our five egoistic senses. In other words, should we not believe what we think and feel? Of course not, how can you believe them? Assume we are at a certain degree, and need to rise to a higher one. The gap between the degrees is an entirely different life, and different mind and heart. How can we rise from degree to degree when we do not know what the next degree is like because it is in a different, spiritual dimension? In that dimension, the qualities and thoughts are different, the perception of reality is different, and so is the worldview. When do we understand that we have risen a degree? We understand it only once we are there. The question is how can we reach it? The desires and the fruits in the land of Israel are so big; everything is big. From the point where we stand we cannot ascend by ourselves because only the upper light that created the ego can correct it. 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.” That is, only through the light are we reformed. And once we are corrected we rise to a higher degree. What does it mean that ten spies say one thing and two of them say something else? It is very confusing. They are qualities within us. “Man is a small world.”^[9] All the portions in the Torah deal with the development of man’s soul. This portion describes the spies, where ten think one way and two think another. However, this is a good situation, when the soul advances properly, this is why ten are against and two are in favor. How do we know to whom we should listen? It is a problem. We have to make mistakes. It is written, “A person cannot understand words of Torah unless he has failed in them,”^[10] and also, “There is not a righteous man on earth who does good and will not sin” (Ecclesiastes 7:20). At each step, we sin, fall into wickedness, and taste our own evil. Our lack of progress is caused only by us. We see how we make our own lives bitter, as though retreating further from our initial point. This is the sign that we are advancing correctly. Henceforth, we move on. That is, we must go through everything that is happening in the Torah, all the mistakes, problems, and everything that is on the way. Is there nothing we can do? We cannot avoid doing. We must examine our evil inclination to the fullest and ask for help each time we are stuck. If we do not taste the bitter, we also do not demand the light that will come and correct our evil. Then the light enters the evil, corrects it, and we receive a soul. The evil, along with the light that corrected it and fills it is called a “soul.” This is the only way to obtain a soul. Prior to that, we have none. Is this what “a land flowing with milk and honey” means? Yes. Eretz (land) means Ratzon (desire), a desire that is all milk and honey. That is, it is the degree of Bina, light of Hassadim, the desire to bestow, with light of Hochma inside, meaning attainment, closeness to the Creator. The spies point out the nations that live in the land; why is it important? These are desires within us that we need to correct in three lines. We need to correct them in the twelve tribes—Yod–Hey–Vav–Hey in three lines, to make it Yod–Hey–Vav–Hey times three. The land is also called “the land of Canaan”. Did Moses not lead them to the land of Israel? Before it was called “the land of Israel,” it was called “the land of Canaan”. Before it was “the land of Canaan”, it was Egypt, then a desert. It is the same desire; there is only one, but it is given different names each time according to its corruption or correction. Is Canaan a desire that is scrutinized before it becomes Israel? Before one conquers the desire in the proper manner, it is called “the land of Canaan”. What are the giant fruits? The fruits are what a person receives as a result of one’s work. It is the flavor of the intention to bestow that one performs and feels in the will to receive. These are truly huge fruits, 620 times bigger. We taste pleasures because we develop and understand what bestowal means, what is the sensation of the Creator in a corrected desire. The children of Israel are still in the will to receive, yet they are told about fruits that exist in the desire to bestow. How can they grasp what it is about or know it is good? When a person stands before the next degree to which one ascends, it is possible to see that degree “from afar,” similar to Moses who saw the land of Israel from Mount Nevo. What does it mean that we taste the good, which is then taken from us so we may climb another step? A person can take these fruits, carry them on one’s back, and possess them, but not taste them. There is still no Kli (vessel) in which to fill oneself with all the attainments, pleasures, and fulfillments that exist in the desire to receive in order to bestow in a corrected soul. It sounds like a great promise; why would anyone want to run from it? It requires substantial, difficult corrections, which are impossible to do. The reward for doing them is wonderful, but this requires fighting huge desires—all the nations that dwell in the land of Israel. But it is not a war that one fights alone; rather, the light does it. It is not easy to attain it, understand that we do not correct the desire. The children of Israel want to advance, which is a mistake. Alternatively, they want to run back to Egypt; this is a mistake, as well, or go to the land of Israel by themselves, and again, it is a mistake. So what do you do? Cry out and demand. Where does one find the strength to endure not being able to fight or run? Is it the group that gives strength? Yes, the strength of Arvut (mutual guarantee). The Creator broke the single soul that He created into myriad pieces. Other than that, the Creator created nothing. And it is all so we may feel that we are independent in our own shares, and be able to acquire the rest of the parts, thus becoming similar to the Creator. Each of us acquires that great soul; each one becomes as great as the Creator and is in Dvekut (adhesion) with Him. Our whole work is to keep acquiring parts of our soul, which seems to us as though it is not ours, but others’. The means to do it is the group, as it is written, “Either friendship or death.”^[11] When we connect to a group and to people who want the same goal, we create unity among us, which elevates the importance of the goal until we are ready to demand it, and then comes the light and reforms. The Creator wanted to destroy the people of Israel and Moses prayed for them. What kind of a solution is that? It is a struggle within. Moses is the point that pulls us forward, the point of Bina. He is the faithful shepherd. We constantly advance with faith, with the power of bestowal. The term “faith” does not refer to blind faith, as we normally think, where we do what we are told. Rather, faith is the quality of bestowal. It is when one is willing to give to everyone, as it is written, “That which you hate, do not do to your friend,”^[12] and “love your neighbor as yourself,” meaning give everything we have. This is the goal we must achieve. Moses is that point within each of us, the spiritual gene that pulls us toward that quality. It gradually develops in us and through it we can reach the land of Israel. Why did the ten spies die? It is not life and death in the sense we think of it. Their death means that their role has ended because in the form that they have it is impossible to advance. These are all qualities within us. It is possible to advance with the qualities known as Joshua and Caleb, but not with the rest of the qualities. Joshua and Caleb are two lines, Gematrias, qualities. From The Zohar: The Spies However, do not rebel against the Creator. We must not rebel against the Torah because the Torah does not require wealth or vessels of silver and gold. And you, do not fear the people of the land, for if a broken body engages in the Torah, it will find healing for everything. It is written, “And health to all their flesh.” All the slanderers over a person turn into his helpers and declare, “Make way for so and so, the King’s servant!” In other words, let no one stop him from coming to the King to serve Him.

Zoharfor All, Shlach Lecha (Send Forth), item 67

It is impossible to advance to the next degree, the land of Israel, unless we see it as a great, sublime degree, the degree of Bina. When entering the degree of the land of Israel, when we acquire it, it becomes Keter (crown), meaning the world of Ein Sof (infinity). When we see what fruits grow there and how incapable we are of getting them we enter the desert. We cannot go around the desert or avoid walking through it. Forty years is the distance between Malchut and Bina, the distance of the ascent to that level. After forty years we are ready to reacquire the quality of bestowal, to reenter the ego and begin to correct it into the intention to receive in order to bestow, namely the degree of the land of Israel. Following the desert, we enter the land of Israel, where wars over the conquest of the land take place. There we turn the will to receive into the desire to bestow. In all forty years of the desert, we only had the intention to bestow in order to bestow. That is, we corrected ourselves only to the point of not harming others. But once we enter the land of Israel we do good to others. Why did the Creator not let the people win? After all, they awakened with a certain desire and He seemingly prevented it from them. The Creator did not prevent it; He only showed how unprepared to enter the land of Israel they still were. However, by seeing that they were unprepared they understood which Kelim they had to acquire. These are the forty years in the desert, the great corrections we have to undergo, and which we cannot avoid.

^{[1] Jerusalem Talmud, Seder Nashim, Masechet Nedarim, Chapter 9, p 30b.} 

^{[2] Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Baba Batra, 131a; Masechet Sanhedrin, 6b.}

^{[3] Jerusalem Talmud, Seder Nashim, Masechet Nedarim, Chapter 9, p 30b.}

^{[4] Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Kidushin, 30b.}

^{[5] Midrash Rabah, Eicha, Introduction, Paragraph 2.}

^{[6] Mishnah, Seder Nezikin, Masechet Avot (a.k.a. Pirkey Avot), Chapter 2, Mishnah 16.}

^{[7] Deuteronomy 1:28. [8] Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Sukkah, 52a.}

^{[9] Midrash Tanchuma, Pekudei, item 3.}

^{[10] Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Gitin, 43a.}

 ^{[11] Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Taanit, 23a.}

 ^{[12] Masechet Shabbat, 31a.}

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Numbers 8:1-12:16

This Week’s Torah Portion | May 31 – Jun 06, 2026 – 15 Sivan – 21 Sivan, 5786

In A Nutshell

The portion, BeHa’alotcha (When You Raise the Candles), takes place a year after the reception of the Torah. The people of Israel is getting ready to journey and holds a special ceremony for the inauguration of the altar. The portion details the laws concerning making the offering of Second Passover for those who were far and could take part in Passover.

The portion speaks of the tabernacle, on which there was constantly a cloud. It is an indication to the children of Israel when they must rise and journey, and when they must settle down. The portion also tells of the two silver trumpets that were used to assemble the people at times of war, when making an offerings, on Sabbaths, festivals, and special occasions.

Toward the end of the portion, several events take place that point to the heightening of the ego. The wicked in the nation complain about Moses and the Creator, and a consuming fire is sent to the wicked at the camp’s edge. The rabble, who is a group of proselytes that joined the children of Israel upon their exit from Egypt, complains about their condition, and the Creator showers quails on the camp. Anyone who jumps on the quails voluptuously is put to death. This is why the place is called “the graves of voluptuousness.”

The end of the portion talks about Miriam—Moses’ and Aaron’s sister—slandering Moses. She says to Aaron, “The Creator appeared to me, as well as to you, so why is Moses the leader? Why are we listening only to him?” She is punished for it with leprosy, and the nation waits for seven days until she returns.

 Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

All the events are spiritual states within us. Each person needs to correct him or her self and achieve equivalence of form with the Creator, as it is written, “Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God” (Hosea 14:2). The text speaks only about correction. It is not about having to cross the desert and reach the Jordan River, cross it, and reach the land of Israel. Rather, it is about ascending, as in BeHaalotcha (When You Raise).

Ascending refers to building the soul. Each of us builds his or her soul. We gradually build the soul—called “a portion of God from above” (Job 31:2). One begins the spiritual work, wanting to build oneself and achieve bestowal and love of others, connection with everyone, because by these acts one becomes similar to the Creator, as it is written, “From the love of man to the love of God,”^[1] from loving of people to loving the Creator.

We achieve the love in stages, although we hate it because we are the complete opposite of it. These are the stages described in all the portions. To begin with, the Torah speaks only about a person receiving the spark called the “point in the heart.” With that spark we begin to correct ourselves. The Torah describes the way we go until the end of correction, through what is called “in the sight of all Israel” (Deuteronomy 34:12), through the end of the Torah (Pentateuch).

Therefore, when we begin to work and correct ourselves we immediately find all kinds of problems within us. It is written in the portion that a year after all the preparations, when the children of Israel began to move, problems began to arise in the camp. A person begins to find the problems only after all the preparations, when it seems that we are ready for the spiritual ascent. We begin to encounter many obstructions such as thoughts and desires that go against spiritual ascents.

The obstructions that appear are actually revelations of the desires and the thoughts, the mind and the heart we must correct. It is precisely by correcting them that we ascend. Hence, we need not see them as obstructions, but as a means for ascent, a springboard. We can see on ourselves and on groups in Israel and elsewhere in the world that problems begin the moment everything is organized and everyone is ready, eager, and must begin to act in the center of the group, begin to correct the connections. This is when trouble starts. But this is the right way, the only way to ascend.

The problems that appear reveal different desires and layers of desire in us. Our general desire is divided into many layers, so it is no surprise that “people” suddenly appear, meaning those desires within us. The whole of Israel is called Adam. He includes everything, even the nations of the world within us. However, Israel is the desires with which we can advance for the time being, while the nations of the world are kept “frozen” so as to not deal with them.

When we want to go only with desires with which we can go up to spirituality, we discover that even with them it is not that easy. There are desires that have not sanctified themselves, and this is the purpose of Second Passover. All those who did not do it during the exodus from Egypt can now be corrected, so now we sanctify them. “Sanctifying” means that we bring the desires to the quality of bestowal, which is called Kodesh (holiness), bestowal, or love of others.

We should learn how to sort the desires that are ready to be corrected in a person, and those that are not ready. The same goes for thoughts, working in the tent of meeting, and in the tabernacle. These are works of scrutiny and correction.

The work of the sacrifices or the Mitzvot (commandments) connected to the offerings are the most important because they entail instructions how to separate each desire from the rest of the desires, how to process it and understand it, what it is, and how possible or impossible it is to advance with it.

Our only way to advance is by turning our egoistic desires into desires of bestowal and love. There are always problems in this process, such as leprosy or plagues, as described about Miriam or the people who wanted meat. It happens because our desire divides into still, vegetative, animate, and speaking. “Speaking” refers to different kinds of people that the Torah mentions: priest, Levite, and Israel. Yet, we find that there are also strangers, proselytes, mixed multitudes, and kinds that seemingly do not belong to Israel yet joined it.

The sorting and the scrutiny are not done all at once upon the exodus from Egypt, but later, when it turns out that there is more to correct. We need to separate the sanctified part from the rest of our desires, which we temporarily “put on hold.” Some of these desires can be corrected, and through them it is possible to be sanctified and advance. It is possible to bestow with them, to ascend on the ladder. But with some desires it is impossible to do so.

The parts that can already be in bestowal and receive in order to bestow have already awakened. The light shines in them, as it is written, “When you raise the candles” (Numbers 8:2). There are clear signs in the scrutinies, which indicate when to take certain actions. If we are under a cloud, sitting, it is preparation. If the cloud wakes up, the heaviness and scrutinies awaken in us and we can start moving. The whole Torah is only about how to correct the will to receive, which parts, and how it becomes scrutinized.

Questions and Answers

What is Second Passover? Do desires we have not brought out suddenly make a higher discernment and discover that they, too, deserve to come out?

It is not a higher discernment, but a more accurate, finer one. We discover that desires with which we thought we could come out of Egypt and continue toward the reception of the Torah and the land of Israel do not really support bestowal. Eretz (land) means Ratzon (desire), and Ysrael (Israel) means Yashar El (straight to God). After taking a few steps forward we discover some “uncleanness” within us that we previously did not notice. Only now that we advanced we discern desires with which we cannot advance, so we sort and correct them.

We sort and correct our desires in stages. It is possible to ruin the desires, to kill them, separate them, or some how mend them, as with the work of the offerings. We divide our desires into still, vegetative, animate, and speaking, and we sort the desires at the level of speaking into priest, Levite, and Israel. We should also remember the mixed multitude, the proselytes, and the nations of the world, the various gentiles that awaken within us.

There are primary desires on the animate level because the soul consists of Shoresh (root), Neshama (soul), Guf (body), Levush (clothing), and Heichal (house/hall), or Moach (marrow), Atzamot (bones), Gidin (tendons), Bassar (flesh), and Or (skin), depending on how we divided. When referring to Moach, Atzamot, Gidin, Bassar, and Or, we cannot correct the Or. The correction of the Or is making parchment out of it, on which to write the book of Torah. The Or is divided into two—the outside, and the Duchsustus (inner part). This is how it achieves correction.

Before that, we correct a Kli (vessel) of Bassar, on the animate degree. This is our main work at the altar. While there are salt, water, and other elements at the altar, the main one is the flesh. This is the Kli by which we correct our will to receive, which is the most important. The flesh is red; its structure is the great will to receive, hence the work of the offerings, as the Torah describes, is primarily in the Kli (vessel) of Bassar (flesh).

Before that, a person does not know or thinks there is a need to perform these corrections. A person understands it only as one advances at each stage, parks at the stops, prepares all the camps, each with its own banner, and each in its place in the division. If we take the entire people of Israel that is divided into camps, tribes, according to location and form, we either advance or stand still. Instead of finding the tent of meeting, all the desires stand around the tent. The Levites, the priests, and the whole camp is only describing the structure of the soul.

Bigger problems surface each time in the camp—whether it is external thoughts and desires that want to join the ranks, tribes along the way that attack them, or people in the desert who have not corrected themselves from their desires into a desire that is entirely Yashar El, which is the land that is full of milk and honey. That is, there are light of Hassadim and light of Hochma, while in the desert everything is dry; there is no water, no light of Hassadim; hence everything is only scrutinies.

There are many “physical” descriptions, such as the cloud going in front of the camp, and when the children of Israel rest, it rests, too.

This is the concealment: we only see our measure of concealment from the revelation of the Creator. If the cloud, meaning concealment, departs from us, we advance. If the concealment descends on us, we lower our heads, sit, and scrutinize. Indeed, most of the forty years in the desert were spent sitting and making scrutinies, only to move a little forward and stop again for scrutiny.

Why is it written that the cloud is going before the camp?

We follow the concealment because we want to accept it, since according to the concealment we discover the process by which we are going.

What is the concealment in relation to us?

Concealment is when a person receives it from the will to receive, when one wants to be in it, as it is written, “wisdom is with the humble” (Proverbs 11:2), or Safra de Tzniuta (Book of Humbleness, part of The Zohar), meaning disclosures. Safra means book (in Aramaic), and a book is disclosure, a Megillah (scroll), from the word Gilui (disclosure). When one hides oneself, agreeing to receive concealment from the Creator, this is when one advances.

True, it contradicts commonsense, since what does it mean to walk in bestowal? It is when a person does not want any disclosure, seemingly rejecting it. That person advances with Ohr Hozer (Reflected Light) because we are in the forty years in the desert.

What does it give us?

This is how Malchut rises to Bina. We acquire the qualities Bina’s qualities of bestowal in our Kli of Malchut. With the qualities of bestowal we walk with our eyes shut because we are following the concealment, the cloud, until we reach the entrance to the land of Israel. Upon entering the land of Israel, the light of Hochma begins to appear through the light of Bina acquired during the forty years in the desert. This is when we begin to see.

The land of Israel is a land where the Creator is present, a desire filled by the Creator, when one has already discovered Him. But before that, when Malchut only rises to Bina, one acquires the concealment and consents to work only in bestowal without anything in return.

From where is the strength to walk in such concealment?

The strength is given from above. It is the strength of the light when receiving the quality of bestowal. The whole problem is that spirituality is not like corporeality, where everything is in our hands, in our vessels of reception and this is how we advance. It is not hard to advance this way because this way we remain in the ego. But in spirituality we do not advance egoistically. Rather, we have to receive from above additional strengths, the added desire, a new desire called “a new land,” “a new heaven.” Everything is new. “Through the desert” means that we cannot find any answers in our will to receive, any fulfillment.

So what motivates us? Why do we advance?

The motive comes from beginning to feel that we are following the upper force. It is good to feel it, but only if we are willing to follow the cloud, the concealment, with our eyes shut.

What does it mean to walk “with our eyes shut”?

Walking with our shut means that we do not receive any justification to advance in bestowal, neither in our minds nor in our hearts. Our hands, namely our corporeal, egoistic Kelim (vessels), is where we feel in the heart and understand in the mind. Here we do not feel or understand anything. All we want is the chance to go above these worldly Kelim and rise to another, higher dimension. We exist there in completely different Kelim from the ones we understand and feel.

How do we know that we are even making any progress there?

The cloud, concealment, is showing us the way, but only to the extent that we are willing to make constant sacrifices. That is a person sacrifices parts of the flesh, of the various desires. If a person sacrifices and does not want to engage in them, and is also willing to leave them with no rhyme or reason, as a result of these sacrifices that person will draw closer. Korban (sacrifice/offering) comes from the word Karov (near/close). In this way we draw closer to the quality of the Creator, to pure bestowal, Bina.

What is the meaning of what happens to Miriam the prophetess? She makes a just complaint regarding Moses’ leadership. If a person wants to lead, then why only Moses?

Moses’ quality of Bina is perfect, complete, GAR of Bina. It is not so with any other desire.

How does the Creator speak to Moses, and how did Moses speak to Him?

This is the revelation. In spirituality we have no sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Rather, “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalms 34:9). A person does not taste in the mouth, but in the new Kelim that appear.

Does a person taste beyond the five physical senses?

There are Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut, Yod–Hey–Vav–Hey. Hochma is vision, Bina is hearing. Some prophets said, “I saw,” and some said, “I heard.” The Creator spoke to Moses. Moses is the degree of Bina, GAR of Bina, pure, faithful Bina. He was faithful, at the degree of faith. He heard; he was primarily at the degree of hearing, which is the degree of Bina. This is how the Creator appeared to him.

Did Miriam not know this? What is the punishment she got? We know that there are no punishments, so how come after the leprosy she understood?

All punishments are corrections. When Miriam is made ill and sits for seven days outside the camp, the whole camp waits for her return, and only then do they advance in the desert. “As they walked” speaks of corrections. The Nukva (female) is a deficiency that stands opposite Moses. She does not speak at the degree of GAR of Bina, as does Moses, but from the degree of VAK of Bina. That is, the whole degree is connected to that hearing. The Creator speaks to everyone; but Moses also knows because he is in the part of Bina where the light of Hochma (wisdom) dresses, in GAR of Bina.

Aaron and Miriam are not in GAR of Bina.

No; this is why Moses is considered the Creator’s house trustee, as it is written, “He is faithful in all My house” (Numbers 12:7).

Miriam is a woman, and almost everywhere in the Torah it is men who lead.

Not quite. Women exist in every stage and every action, but they are not mentioned. For example, Abraham begot Isaac, but he also had daughters.

Where it writes Et (the) in the Torah, does that refer to a female?

Yes, of course. The woman is the primary part of the Torah; she carries the deficiency that the man corrects. The reason why we talk more about men than about women is that the male part is the Masach (screen) that brings Ohr Hozer (Reflected Light) that discloses the Zivug de Hakaa (coupling) on the deficiency of the woman. In this portion it is quite clear that without Prophetess Miriam it would not be possible to draw near. In other words, she is at the degree of Bina, the degree of revealing the Creator.

^{[1] Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), The Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Love of God and the Love of Man,” p 482.}

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Numbers 4:21-7:89

This Week’s Torah Portion | May 24 – May 30, 2026 – 8 Sivan – 14 Sivan, 5786

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.

When we study the wisdom of Kabbalah in the right group, with people who want to acquire the good inclination, the revelation of the Creator, who want to change and improve, then we discover a whole world within us. We find layers, degrees, and various parts. Indeed, the priests, Levites, Israel, and the entire world with its still, vegetative, animate, and speaking are all in our desires, in the evil inclination.

The Torah tells us how, by which context and which order can we begin to transform the evil inclination into a good inclination. This is what we need to do in this world. The Torah teaches us how to use the light that reforms, which parts of the evil inclination should be treated first, and which ones later.

This process is like a doctor telling a patient, “First we will take care of one thing, then the other. If a patient has a heart problem, it is the most urgent issue, even if the patient says, “But the sore in my leg hurts worse.” Here the doctor has to say, “Wait, we’ll get to it, but it is not your most urgent problem.” The same goes for us.

The Torah instructs us how to scrutinize each detail, to correct it, tie all the corrected parts together, how to temporarily part from desires that still cannot be corrected because they are too big so we must hide them for now. We advance toward connection with others in order to discover the Kli (vessel) of the soul, where we discover the upper light, Boreh (Creator), called Bo Re’eh (come see). We discover gradually, one at a time, through cause and effect.

The previous portion talked about dividing man’s desire into tribes, priests, Levites, and Israel. Who are the priests and what is their role in the people? How should the people divide into twelve tribes? Why is it specifically twelve, three lines and HaVaYaH, three times HaVaYaH, which are four letters, making up twelve parts of the will to receive?

Here we are talking about the next stage in the correction of the soul, of a person who wants to correct it, nurture it, since it is a “portion of God from above.” The Creator is utterly good and does good. A person who wants to work with the good inclination instead of with the bad does it by acquiring the good inclination, the form of the Creator. This is why it is called “come see.”

The portion describes how it is done. The tabernacle is something magical and unknown, a special place in our will to receive. There is nothing but the will to receive; the whole of creation is a will to receive, and within our desire is a special place where we are connected with the upper light. We bring our desires there much the same as we go to a doctor. It is called “a healer for the brokenhearted,”^[4] and they are corrected there. The tabernacle is the primary, central place, where our desires are corrected.

Questions and Answers

Does each of us do it separately?

Yes, each one must do it. This is why our work is mainly the work of sacrifices. Prior to that we make all the scrutinies: what is kosher (fit/proper/legitimate), how it can be done, and what within us is a Levite, a priest, Israel, nations of the world, Klipot (shells/peels), still, vegetative, animate, or speaking. We need to learn how to sort and arrange our desires. At the end of all the scrutinies, a person brings an offering. The word, Korban (offering/sacrifice) comes from the word Karov (near/close). When one corrects one’s will to receive in the tabernacle, it is where the point of nearing the Creator is found.

It is truly holy work because the priests are the pure quality of bestowal in a person. The high priest is GAR, meaning the “head” of this quality in us. This is the force within us that is called “priest.” This is also what can correct all the layers of the will to receive that are below it. This is why there is elaboration on what to do with parts of the will to receive such as an uncorrected woman or man, or other problems that arise in the process of correction.

Our whole progress on the path of correction is similar to being in the desert. We discover our evil inclination—that it is an entirely egoistic desire, and we cannot elicit any vitality from it. This is why we feel in it as though we are in the desert. Hence, we are all nourished by the light from above, called “manna from heaven”; this is how we advance.

The desert is a short phase in the process. Why did we stay in it for so long? It is written that we could have traversed it in three days, yet it took us forty years. Why?

The three days are what it takes to obtain three lines. Forty years is the participation of Malchut in Bina, which is called the “degree of forty.” It is not forty years; the Torah does not refer to years the way we do. Rather, it is a degree. A person who attains a degree in the will to receive that is called Bina ascends to the degree of the quality of bestowal and is entirely immersed in the desire to bestow. Although the will to receive that has not yet been corrected burns within just as before, that person “freezes” it and restricts it, holding the burning inside. It is as if there is a box about to erupt like a volcano, and one puts the lid on top and remains above it. Such a person controls all of the egoistic desires, and this is called ascending to the degree of Bina and being ready to enter the land of Israel.

Rising above the “volcano” means rising above the great desires, over all the big Kelim (vessels) that we took out of Egypt. Each time we had to discover the bad in the desert, it is considered that we sinned in the desert. Throughout this process of erring and sinning time and again, Moses and Aaron were tending to these matters.

In other words, one discovers all the corrupt thoughts and desires in the mind and in the heart, and is constantly looking for actions and efforts in connecting to the environment, to the group one is in, to the upper light, the Creator. It is done in order to find out how one connects to external elements and brings them closer, and through them is sanctified.

We keep saying that the only thing we need to correct is our connections, yet all that is described here seems to be internal. If we say that preparations are over and we can set out, is this about something that a person did alone?

The person completed the preparations with all the desires, arranged them in order and sorted them, and has already been equipped with one’s arms. Now that a person can set out and discover the new desires that will indicate how to proceed in the desert.

With whom does one proceed?

A person proceeds with one’s own desires that are already prepared for this process, namely the priests, Levites, Israel, tribes, the division that was done in the previous portion. After tending to all of one’s desire, one sets out with them. In other words, a person is now ready to advance toward the land of Israel, Bina, with all the desires that have been “paused.” Now one proceeds with all those desires—the women, children, and all the men.

Even the animals are taken, meaning all the desires, one’s entire inner world. From here one advances entirely toward bestowal, to the quality of Elokim, called Bina.

What is the measure of dependence? For example, if a friend is already there but I am not, does that mean that I am slowing or holding my friend back?

It has nothing to do with friends; it is one’s own inner work. The friends can only help on the outside, evoke the importance of reaching the land of Israel and being in the state of Yashar El (straight to the Creator), where all the desires aim to bestow. Friends can help us increase our desire to correct the entire evil inclination into a good inclination, and they can increase the importance of the goal thus indirectly helping us wake up and muster strength.

Are some of the scrutinies we make done with friends?

All scrutinies are internal. It is inner work, and others should not know the work we are doing.

What are impure people, or a woman who strayed?

We all have such desires, hence we discover them. The Torah speaks of what exists within us. It opens up our own interior and explains what we can find inside: desires, qualities, and thoughts. It also explains how we should work with our “self.” We need to bring all these qualities and desires to identify with the Creator, as it is written, “Return, O Israel to the Lord your God” (Hosea 14:2). It is not referring to us rising “above the moon,” but about spiritual ascension, inner elevation from out own qualities.

My thoughts are also sent to me; is it the Creator who sends them?

Everything is sent to us. The Creator says, “I have created the evil inclination.” We have nothing to worry about; it is “His problem.” All we need to do is ask that the light that reforms will come and turn our evil inclination into a good inclination. This is our entire work, our entire life is for that purpose.

If, for example, I discover within me the quality called a “woman who strayed,” what does it mean that I bring it to a priest? What does the priest do?

It refers to what we sanctify. In this case we sanctify a desire called “a woman who strayed.” A woman who strayed is a desire to receive that does not want to work in order to bestow, but only to receive. It is a desire that wants to draw the light of Hochma (wisdom) from above downward instead of from below upward. In other words, it does not want to work in bestowal and love of others, but for itself. It is an egoistic desire at the degree of a woman.

There is a husband, there is a wife, and there are nations of the world. It is all inside of us. Our desire suddenly appears as one that wants only for itself, as having no intention of ever being close to the Creator, to others, or to bestowal. When we discover we are like that and that this is what delays our progress, we discover it as a woman who strayed.

Assuming someone asks, “What is a woman who commits adultery?” Someone might say that there are male adulterers, too. Moreover, today adultery is very prevalent.

The men and the women in this case are our own desires. You cannot say that men are doing something wrong, or that women are doing something wrong in our world. Everything is in our inner world—the men, as well as the women—they are all our own desires.

A woman carries with her a greater deficiency, while the man is more prone toward Masachim (screens), toward the power to overcome. But in fact, when a person discovers these discernments within, it does not pose a problem as it does in this world. After all, it is about one’s own desires, and it makes no difference what they are called, “woman,” “man,” “priest,” “Levite,” “Israel,” or “nations of the world.” All of them must be arranged by levels and qualities, to see what should be done according to the Torah, called Hora’a (instruction), meaning what should be corrected within me next.

Is there any connection between that and people’s relationships in everyday life?

No connection whatsoever. You might meet a person on the street who seems wicked or foolish, or someone who seems smart, or someone who is a complete righteous, but you cannot really tell about that person’s insides. It could be nothing but an act.

From The Zohar: A Woman Who Strayed

Why should a man bring his wife to a priest and not to a judge? The judge is the best man of the queen, correcting the Malchut for a Zivug with ZA. Hence, the correction of the flaw of the straying woman, which reaches Malchut, belongs to him. …Only the priest is fit for it. It is the quality of Bina, the strong quality of bestowal. Priests have a special character. It is such a powerful and strong desire, and so corrected in order to bestow, that it can add to itself all the small, corrupted desires and correct them … because he is the queen’s best man. Also, all the women in the world are blessed by the Assembly of Israel … while the priest is poised to correct the words of the queen, Malchut, and look into all that she needs. This is why only the priest is worthy of it, and none other.

Zohar for All, Nasso (Take), item 61

We talked about the strength of the priest, but this portion also mentions hermits and even rules about them. What is a hermit?

A hermit is anyone who limits him or herself. If a person who weighs 300lb (136 kg) stops eating something, does that make that person a hermit? Likewise, when we see that we cannot work with the revelation of the Creator, with the great pleasures being revealed, and we might take everything for ourselves and become egoists once more, we limit ourselves and do not draw these pleasures. In the wisdom of Kabbalah it is considered “not drawing light of Hochma.” Such a person does not touch grapes or grape products, such as wine. This is called being a hermit. However, it is not so for a priest, who is permitted to have some of it.

These are forms of corrections that everyone will have to experience in some of the desires. Through them we correct the desire and move on. In that state we already know how to use the light of Hochma from below upward and receive it. All the things that were forbidden were so only because he or she was not strong enough to use them with the aim to bestow.

Assume that a person offers me a box of great chocolate, and I really like sweets. Although I could give it to others, I say, “Don’t give it to me.” This is called being a hermit. Afterward I acquire a bigger Masach (screen), I acquire a measure of love for someone, and that measure is greater than the love I have for the chocolate, so I say, “Give it to me.” I am now ready to make an act of bestowal, to pass this light, this pleasure, through me to another.

In our world Kabbalists talk about a person having to enjoy life, marry, and lead a normal life. That is, we can do anything as long as we bring these pleasures to a spiritual level and not lose them on the corporeal one. After all, on the corporeal level we cannot enjoy everything in life.

The Torah teaches us how to rise to such a level of pleasures that they will all flow through us to others and return back and forth. This is called “spiritual life”: endless, whole, and this is where we are being elevated. When a person grabs for oneself everything one thinks that he or she deserves, it immediately stops the flow and leaves a person with nothing in its stead, until that person dies. However, if one enters the circle of energy, flow, knowledge, and sensation of endless pleasures—because it passes among everyone—that person is regarded as leading spiritual life.

What is a blessing and priests in spirituality?

A blessing in spirituality is a force that exists on the level of Bina, influencing lower desires and blessing them, leading them to the level of Bina, too. A blessing is the degree of bestowal, Bina; it is the ability to bestow, to give.

^{[1] Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Kidushin, 30b
[2] Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Kidushin, 30b
[3] Jerusalem Talmud, Seder Nashim, Masechet Nedarim, Chapter 9, p 30b.
[4] The Book of Zohar, Hayei Sarah (The Life of Sarah)}

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Numbers,  1:1-4:20

This Week’s Torah Portion | May 10 – May 16, 2026 – 23 Lyyar – 29 Lyyar, 5786

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.

We can see it in today’s life, too, throughout our desperate world. Judging by divorce rates, drug abuse, and terrorism, more and more people are unhappy. They feel that life is no longer satisfying. We have grown and cannot settle for what we have; we aspire for more. It is a sensation that this life is a desert.

If we can compare our lives to a desert, we must arrange our lives accordingly so we may traverse it in peace and arrive at the land of Israel. The word Eretz (land) means Ratzon (desire), and Ysrael (Israel) means Yashar El (straight to God), so I am directed only toward the revelation of Godliness.

For that, we must use the wisdom of Kabbalah. Kabbalah is a method to reveal the Creator to the creatures in this world. Reaching the land of Israel means correcting our desire into a state where we discover the Creator and the spiritual world here and now, as it is written, “You will see your world in your life.”^[2]

The Torah is instructions. It tells us that if we follow the stages described in the portion we will traverse the desert in peace and achieve the revelation of Godliness. This is the purpose of our lives and we are built for, and intended to obtain it. Hence, we should see all the rules and counsels in the portion as internal corrections we must find.

My twelve tribes are my own will to receive. That is, they are my inner qualities that must be arranged according to the Yod–Hey–Vav–Hey, by the three lines. It is a structure of my soul—HBD–HGT–NHY. The priest, Levi, and Israel are HBD. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, and David are the structure of the qualities of the soul. Accordingly, each of us should set ourselves up.

To the extent that we correct our desires, we gradually come to a state where we discover the stages of walking in the desert. In that process we obtain the qualities of bestowal, Bina. Upon completion of the process we reach Moses’ state—a loyal shepherd. This means that we rise to the degree of faith, bestowal, completion. When the Moses in us dies, namely concludes its work, that degree remains “on the other side of the Jordan.” This is when we move to the land of Israel and begin to conquer it.

In the desert, as well as in the occupation of the land, there are Klipot and struggles. In the desert we were only acquiring the new quality of bestowal over our will to receive. We rose above the will to receive. But in the land of Israel we must conquer the land. When we enter the land of Israel, we literally invert our will to receive from reception into the desire to bestow. The occupation is managing our ego in the form of bestowal and love.

The portion explains the approach to the first great corrections we experience on our spiritual path. The whole process of our correction divides into two parts: the desert, and the land of Israel. Our journey through the desert over the forty years is Malchut rising to Bina, symbolized by the letter Mem, which is forty in Gematria (numeric values given to each letter in the Hebrew alphabet).

From Bina, we climb to the degree of Keter, conquering the land and building the Temple. This is when the heart becomes a Kli (vessel) for reception of the light, the revelation of Godliness. This is called Beit HaMikdash (House of the Temple, or simply, the Temple).

Questions and Answers

Why does the portion begin with the need to appoint heads to the tribes and count everyone from twenty years of age and above?

This process represents a person having to choose which principles to follow. We are only desires to receive, but we also have a little bit of the desire to bestow from above. It is called “a portion of God from above” (Job 31:2). It is the beginning of the soul.

Using the beginning of this soul as a head and beginning to manage our general, egoistic will to receive through it toward bestowal, love of others, Arvut (mutual guarantee), “love your neighbor as yourself,”^[3] and “that which you hate, do not do to your neighbor,”^[4] will divide this mass of our will to receive properly. It will follow an order of tribes, thousands, and tens. This division also happens within each tribe—to priest, Levite, and Israel.

The priests, and the Levites who help them, are detached from the tribes. They serve only spiritual needs. This is why they are considered “the collective head.” Through this internal psychology, we distinguish what is important, what is not, and gradually correct ourselves, where the secondary joins the primary and follows it.

Currently you cannot feel this division, but as you work on yourself you will begin to feel that your will to receive is not merely a desire, but truly consists of twelve tribes—men, women, children, animals, the desert, and other parts, and even the entire world.

You will discover that your will to receive is divided into degrees: still, vegetative, animate, and human. The still, vegetative, and animate are the surrounding world, and the human is people. In desires that belong to the human degree we have free choice; we can manage them. This is how we should sort our desires and advance.

Within us there is nothing but desires and instructions. The instructions is the Torah—the wisdom of Kabbalah as the inner Torah. We sort our desires so that each desire, which is the speaking, the Kli (vessel) that was taken from Egypt, is corrected into a Kli that belongs to the land of Israel, to the Temple, and is working entirely in order to bestow, toward love.

From The Zohar: The Count and the Calculation

And yet, the world was not rooted in its root until Jacob begot twelve tribes and seventy souls, and the world was planted. However, it was not completed until Israel received the Torah and the tabernacle had been established. Then the worlds persisted and were completed and the upper ones and lower ones were perfumed.

Zohar for All, BaMidbar (In the Desert), item 6

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are the three lines. The right line is Abraham, and his Klipa (shell/peel) is Ishmael. The left line is Isaac, and his Klipa is Esau. The middle line is Israel, and its Klipa that is usually referred to as “mixed multitude.” We have to manage this order through the Torah, namely by proper study of the wisdom of Kabbalah, where the light is concealed, as this is the Torah of light, as it is written, “The light in it would reform them.”^[5]

If we truly want to correct ourselves and see ourselves arranged and corrected as the Torah describes, in three lines, we must study so the light will influence us. We are divided in such a way that on the left we have the ego, and on the right we have the light of Torah that reforms. The more the light of Torah reforms the ego, according to our labor, the middle line—which includes these two forces—accumulates and subjugates the ego to the rule of the light. Thus, a Kli is formed in which the power of the Creator, the upper force, appears.

We constantly add ego to the correction using a greater light that appears. In this way we climb up the middle line, the line of Jacob. Hence, before the arrival of Jacob there is no match between man and the upper force, the upper world. As soon as a person puts the inner Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the order of these three lines, he or she begins to match the upper force and work with it in reciprocity.

What does one need to do until these discernments develop?

We need to follow what the Kabbalists write for us to the letter: study only in a group with love of friends. Our three primary sources are The Book of Zohar, the writings of the ARI, and the writings of Baal HaSulam. Internally, we must follow only what is written in these books.

Why were Israel commanded to appoint men who served in the army and were twenty years of age or more?

Being twenty years of age in spirituality means that a person is fit for “real estate” deals. Ibur (conception), Yenika (nursing/infancy), and Mochin (adulthood/maturity) are the three phases by which we grow. It is like a fetus who is born after nine months and begins to grow. The stages of spiritual growth are identical—from infancy to maturity. Spiritual infancy ends at age thirteen.

In spirituality, Ibur is a very high degree: a person becomes completely annulled before the upper one, included in it as a drop of semen, while the upper one is nurturing it. For the light to influence us we must cancel ourselves as if we do not exist. If we want to draw the light so it will raise us, we must learn with a group and be part of it, we must want the good environment and the light that comes through it to influence us. In this way we advance in stages that may last less then nine months. It all depends on our efforts.

When we are born, our will to receive is already greater. We develop in awareness and understanding until we are at age thirteen, and from there continue through twenty. At twenty, we are not merely grownups. Rather, we can be owners of our land. “Land” refers to the greatest, lowest, most basic will to receive. Henceforth we are fit for every internal correction.

Is there a connection between the spiritual degrees of Levi (Levite) and Cohen (priest), and people whose last name is so?

No, the roles of Levi and Cohen will appear according to one’s spiritual level, not by one’s last name. In spirituality, a person’s son indicates a result of a spiritual degree because the wisdom Kabbalah speaks only about spiritual degrees. In the physical world we cannot know who is a priest, who is Levite, and who is Israel. It will appear in due time.

Establishing of the Temple will be possible only after we correct ourselves and restore the Temple in our hearts. Then, as with Bezalel, we will be able to build the external structure out of our attainment and understanding. When we are wisehearted and our hearts are filled with the light of Hochma (wisdom), the revelation of Godliness, we will know what external action to take through our feelings. In the Temple will be priests, Levites, and Israel, each according to one’s degree.

This portion focuses on the tribe of Levi; what is so special about it?

It is written about Israel in relation to the nations of the world: “And you will be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). Generally speaking, in this world we are only required to recognize the negative, become sensitive to what is bad, and correct it into being good. To the extent that we discover that our nature is bad, we want to rid ourselves of it. But our problem is education—of ourselves and of others.

Therefore, the only role of priests and Levites is to educate the people. The priests connect to a higher degree and bring from there the light that reforms in order to pass it on to the Levites, who then pass it on to the people. Thus, each degree, each spiritual Partzuf, divides into three: HBD, HGT, NHY, which are Cohen (priest), Levite (Levi), and Ysrael (Israel).

Levites have no lot because the Creator is their lot. They are in Dvekut (adhesion) with a higher degree, the upper force. They have no desire to receive for themselves what they must correct. They have reached a level of correction where their will to receive aims entirely to bestow. For this reason they are attached to the upper force. Through the Levites, we too, Israel, who are at a lower degree, can receive the light and the direction toward progress.

Is there a meaning to the order of the portions, and if so, does it concern our spiritual development?

Yes, it is how our world is divided. In our world, as in the spiritual world, there are terms, times in the year that are divided into portions. Everything possesses a unique force. Hence, each week has its own portion because there is a special force that acts from above accordingly. As we advance from portion to portion, we correct ourselves.

Therefore, as root and branch, this state also occurs in our world. You must not mix the portions; each portion must be read in its time. Thus, you cannot read the portion, Bamidbar (In the Desert) on Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year’s Eve), nor can you read during the winter a portion that is to be read in the summer.

Sometimes when we read a portion, it feels as though it is no longer relevant to us.

We do not treat portions as being in the past. The Torah is the law of life. To reach the source of life we must assume it on ourselves. The Torah was given only to discover the Creator and cling to Him.

What is the meaning of the “hurly burly” concerning the tabernacle: rising, leaving, journeying, and standing around it?

It is the holy, corrected Kli within us. I focus all my desires, discernments, inclinations, and qualities on a state of bestowal, similar to the Creator, the force of bestowal, the good who does good. I try to correct and bring myself to a state where my nucleus, my hope, my entire being has something in them that is similar to the upper force, and the upper light will come and correct me into that state.

The tabernacle is actually man’s soul. If, out of my entire egoistic will to receive I correct a part so that it aims to bestow, in that part I feel the Creator. That part is called “a soul,” and what fills it is the revelation of the Creator.

The work of correction makes us a tabernacle and surrounds us in the tabernacle. We, in fact, must turn ourselves into the Temple.

What or who is the shepherd in the portion?

A shepherd is the degree of Moses, the loyal shepherd. One must choose this degree every moment. At every stop I have to choose what is leading me and where, what is my life, who is my shepherd, and whom my desires and thoughts follow.

Our correction is to walk in a way known as “the Torah, Israel, and the Creator are one.” If we want to be Israel, we must follow the light that reforms. When we follow it, the light brings us to the quality of the Creator, as it is written, “return, O Israel, to the Lord your God” (Hosea 14:2).

I must decide that I must have that quality of bestowal and absolute love. This is the only reason why the Torah was given to us, and this is what we receive when we use it. It was said about it, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice,” for “the light in it would reform them.” What reforms is the good who does good, the quality of bestowal and love we acquire. We attain that quality within, not in some image outside of us. We perceive within us the quality of bestowal and love that we call Boreh (Creator), from the words Be Re’eh (come and see).

Will such guidance appear in our world in a more corrected state, and if so, how?

Of course the guidance will appear. Today the world is falling into a global crisis, to a feeling that we are truly in the desert. This desert will push us to advance only toward the inner land of Israel, because this is the whole purpose of the global crisis.

^{[1] Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Kidushin, 30b.
[2] Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Berachot, 17a
[3] Jerusalem Talmud, Seder Nashim, Masechet Nedarim, Chapter 9, p 30b.
[4] Masechet Shabbat, 31a.
[5] Midrash Rabah, Eicha, Introduction, Paragraph 2.}

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Leviticus, 26:3-27:34

This Week’s Torah Portion | May 03 – May 09, 2026 – 16 Lyyar – 22 Lyyar, 5786

In A Nutshell

The portion, BeHukotai (In My Statutes), deals primarily with the topic of reward and punishment for the children of Israel according to their behavior—whether they follow the ways of the Creator. It is written, “If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and do them” (Leviticus, 26:3). The portion begins with presenting the reward: “Then I shall give you rains in their season, so that the land will yield its produce and the trees of the field will bear their fruit” (Leviticus, 26:4). Opposite that is the presentation of the punishment: “But if you do not obey Me and do not carry out all these commandments” (Leviticus, 26:14), “I will appoint terror over you: the tuberculosis and the malaria,” (Leviticus, 26:16), and the worst punishment of all—exile.

If the people of Israel repent, the Creator promises to remember the covenant He has made with them and forgive them. It is written, “Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I so abhor them as to destroy them, breaking My covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God” (Leviticus, 26:44). The portion ends with additional laws concerning vows, ostracism, tithing, and others.

 Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

The issue of reward and punishment was not presented at the beginning of the Torah because it is impossible to understand it unless you are able to make free choice. Without this ability it is pointless to instructions on this issue. First you must learn the laws and judgments. Then, if you keep them you will be rewarded, and if not, you will be punished. You cannot punish in advance. First one needs to reach the spiritual degree of shifting from unfounded hatred to brotherly love, to “love your neighbor as yourself,”^[1] which is the whole Torah. This is the way we must walk: we must correct our evil inclination and turn it into a good inclination through the light that reforms^[2], by studying the wisdom of Kabbalah, the wisdom of light.

An ordinary person does not have free choice. Rather, such a person is “managed” by Reshimot (recollections), which are desires and thoughts that awaken within without knowing their origin. A person simply wants something without knowing the source of that desires, living one’s life aiming to satisfy the desire that awakens within without any ability to rise above those Reshimot, these bits of data, or govern them.

Such people cannot scrutinize and sort: I want this but I do not … as it is written, “And you will not follow after your own heart” (Numbers, 15:39). Rather they do it as a natural instinct, as part of the process of development. This sort of work does not require reward or punishment. This is why it is written, “They are as beasts” (Psalms, 49:13).

A person begins to develop through the Torah—by studying the wisdom of Kabbalah and drawing the light that reforms, thus correcting the heart. The heart is all the desires we must correct from aiming to receive for ourselves to aiming to bestow, to love of others, in favor of the world and in equivalence of form with the Creator—similarity with Him, as good as He is.

We do not feel this goodness because it is hidden from us. Through our egos we feel everything as bad, as it is written, “I have created the evil inclination.”^[3] We are required to gain extensive knowledge and experience in order to correct ourselves so we can control our inclinations and thoughts, to aim those lights, those upper forces, and connect with the right approach, in mutuality and partnership with the Creator. By that we adhere to the Creator, connect with Him, understand the purpose, the plan of creation, everything that is happening, and the process we must undergo.

In the physical world we teach children until they are twenty years old or so. According to the Torah, at twenty, a child is ready for everything, unlike at thirteen. At twenty years of age we can control everything and be in our own right. That degree gives one the ability to withstand any correction in spirituality, face the reward and the punishment.

We cannot tell a person who knows nothing, “Be careful or you will be punished.” That person is like a little child who has no idea what is being asked. Therefore, reward and punishment requires serious preparation.

This portion comes after a person has gone through a lot, the exit from Babylon, the development leading to the exile in Egypt, the reception of the Torah, and so forth. Following the learning in the desert, a person seemingly rises a little above the ego, gradually reaching the state of reward and punishment.

Today the whole world is in a process and a system that are in fact, reward and punishment. All 613 Mitzvot (commandments) are to correct the evil in us toward others. We are all good to ourselves and to an extent, mean to others. We must invert it, become considerate only of others because this is the only way is go from “The love of man to the love of God.”^[4]

Many people doubt that it is even true that if they correct their attitude toward others, as in “love your neighbor as yourself,” which is the great rule of Torah, all the problems and illnesses, and all the bad in the world will be corrected.

Can we prevent diseases and plagues by correcting our relations? Will the climate suddenly change for the better and we will live in paradise? What is the connection between treating others well and a good life in every sense and on every level?

This is just how it works—keeping the law, “love your neighbor as yourself,” corrects everything; there are no other Mitzvot. All 613 Mitzvot are the 613 desires in our soul. They appear when we begin to correct and rise above our “beasts” in the correction of the human in us, in our desire to connect with others, to give them abundance, desiring to rise above ourselves in order to discover the Creator.

As we come to know the 613 desires of the soul, we discover that they are all bad. This is why we say during the days of the Selihot (asking forgiveness, special days before Yom Kippur [Day of Atonement]) and on Yom Kippur, “We are to blame,” “We are at fault,” without understanding where all this evil came from.

As we discover our soul, we first discover that it is broken. This is how we receive it because “I have created the evil inclination.”^[3] If we correct these desires we will not need to correct anything else, and all the problems will vanish and disappear.

It is written in the portion that if they follow it they will have rain in time, health, and success in everything they do. They will be blessed in everything. It seems perplexing that there is a connection between rain and good behavior, especially if we are talking about treatment of others. And yet, this is the general solution for everyone.

According to the development of humanity, we are in a state where we are begin to take control over our fates, something we did not have before. It is surprising because we have always developed through desires that appeared from within.

Today, however, we are moving into a very special situation where the next degree is appearing to us, the degree of the “round,” integral world where everyone is interconnected, and where the obligation to be “as one man with one heart”^[5] is appearing.

For the first time in history we must implement this law, and not only in Israel, but throughout the world. Therefore, we must tell about it and explain to everyone, learn, to teach, and be the “light of the nations” (Isaiah, 42:6). We must convey the light that corrects the evil inclination, and this is how the whole world will achieve the desirable correction.

Questions and Answers

If I can see and feel the reward or punishment, there is no need to explain. If I mistakenly put my hand in the fire, I will naturally pull it out. But if I cannot see or feel the transgression, what is the point of explaining it? I cannot keep what I do not know, so what are the reward and punishment for, and for whom is the explanation?

We are not talking about putting our hand in the fire. We are talking about correcting our egoistic desires. Each desire is luring us to what appears as good so we will profit at the expense of others, consider only ourselves, and never give a thought to what happens outside of us. This is how we feel naturally, namely that the world was created for our own pleasure. But the Torah requires the opposite—that we rise above the ego and transform into “love your neighbor as yourself.”

This is why we must obtain Arvut (mutual guarantee) between us, Arvut that was the initial precondition for the reception of the Torah. Arvut means that I think of everyone and vouch for them. It seems as though the Arvut is like signing for everyone and being responsible for what every person does. This is unreasonable. Yet, this is the degree we must achieve. It is the correction we must eventually obtain.

The world is advancing. Each day we are discovering that it is changing toward demanding this of us. The Torah explains that if we do this, things will be good, and if we do not, we will be punished. And if we are completely unworthy, we will be exiled.

Exile is complete detachment. It is a state where one is living a harsh life, detached and tormented. These torments are like the torments of Pharaoh, leading us back toward the goal, as was said about Pharaoh, who “brought the children of Israel closer to our Father in heaven.”^[6] From this point onward we try once more to rise to the degree of choice.

It is best if we learn in advance what to do and how, and on what it depends. We need to learn the general law of reality using the wisdom of Kabbalah, which explains how the forces act on us, how they are set up, and how they rear us as embryos and as growing children.

As we are advancing toward that state, we must take upon ourselves the laws of this vast reality, and keep it consciously and willingly. In other words, we have to change our desires, as it is written, “Make your wish as His wish.”^[7]

The world is in a very difficult state today. If we look at where we are and at what lies ahead, we will feel obliged to make that leap of faith and spread the wisdom of Kabbalah.

From The Zohar: If You Walk in My Statutes

“If you walk in My statutes.” “In My statutes” is Malchut, the place upon which the sentences of the Torah depend, as it is written, “My statutes shall you keep.” Malchut is called “law.” The sentences of the Torah are included in her. “My ordinances shall you keep.” An ordinance is another, high place, ZA, to which that statute, Malchut, grips. Thus, upper and lower conjoin. The statutes in Malchut are in the ordinances in ZA, and all the Mitzvot [commandments] in the Torah and all the sentences in the Torah and all the sanctities in the Torah are gripped to these ZA and Malchut, since the written Torah is ZA and the oral Torah is Malchut.

Zohar for All, BeHukotai (In My Statutes), item 16

Malchut is called the “Assembly of Israel” because she assembles all our souls. She is also called Shechina (Divinity) because the Creator is in her. She becomes revealed by the law of equivalence of form.

The Creator is called “The Holy One Blessed Be He,” Zeir Anpin. Toward Malchut, it is her upper one, and the upper one is always considered the “emanator.” Our work is only to correct Malchut (kingdom/kingship) as it is written, “To correct [also establish] the world in the kingdom of Shadai [the Lord].”^[8]

The world is concealed, and we must make everything revealed. Shadai means She Dai (enough), meaning under limitations. When Malchut clings to Zeir Anpin there will be Zivug (coupling), connection between them. This will connect the Creator and the Shechina, Zeir Anpin and Malchut, law and ordinance, the written Torah and the oral Torah. Everything will connect.

It is not the Torah that we know as a printed book or as text on parchment. Rather, the Torah is a revelation of the Creator to the creature. According to our level of revelation, we have the written Torah and the oral Torah, either at the level of Malchut or at the level of Zeir Anpin. The Zohar relates to our ascent from souls scattered in the worlds Beria, Yetzira, Assiya, to the collection of our souls, desires, our cravings to reveal the Creator, to rise to His degree, when all of us gather in Malchut, the Assembly of Israel. By the force of our desire to be together we compel Malchut to rise to Zeir Anpin and unite with him. This is how we achieve Dvekut with the Creator.

Do reward and punishment indicate where we are not acting according to nature’s laws, so nature acts toward us in an unfavorable manner?

We live in the world we have built for us. Even now we are standing right before the light of Ein Sof (infinity). The world is a projection of our own qualities. The Creator fills everything; we only feel the world outside and others. That is, we only feel our own qualities: still, vegetative, animate, and speaking, projecting various shades on the abstract light, which we see as the image of the world. We have no idea how truly immersed we are in that depiction, in the charade. We build our world by ourselves. The wisdom of Kabbalah often writes about it, such as in Baal HaSulam’s “Preface to the Book of Zohar,” and in the ARI’s Gate to Intentions.

Today even science is saying that to the extent that we correct ourselves, we see an opposite world. If we change one of our qualities from bad to good, we will see a different world. This is how we correct all the desires that the light that reforms shows us. Of course, it is impossible to correct them alone, but one can ask for the correction and sympathize with it, and thus achieve the corrected state.

In other words, the animate degree that humanity is currently in must pass away and rise to a higher degree, called Adam (human). Only then will we understand what reward and punishment truly are feel them.

When and how will that transformation take place?

It will happen only through disseminating the wisdom of Kabbalah, as the Kabbalists write. This is why the Kabbalists hid it until now, as Baal HaSulam writes in his essay, “Time to Act.” Today we must disseminate the wisdom and correct ourselves, as well as work for the correction of the world, thus being a “light for the nations.”

Is this the natural flow of humanity?

Of course, we have to do it. It is the future of the whole of humanity. In the near future all of us will have to make that change. First, the people of Israel will dispel anti-Semitism and the negative attitude toward Israel that is prevailing in the world today.

Actually, anti-Semitism is a natural attitude, which will only worsen as the ego grows and the people of Israel delay the correction. Israel will be blamed for the world not being in good condition. It is arranged this way from above. The world is feeling it subconsciously, and we are witnessing reflections of that accusation on a daily basis.

From The Zohar: Seven Times More for Your Sins

The Creator’s sublime love for Israel is like a king who had an only son who sinned before the king. One day, he sinned before the king. The king said, “All those days I have been striking you but you did not receive. Henceforth, see what I will do to you. If I expel you from the land and take you out of the kingdom, bears might charge you in the field, or wild wolves or murderers could obliterate you from the world. What should I do? Instead, you and I will go out of the land.”

“You and I will leave the land and go into exile.” This is what the Creator said to Israel. “What shall I do with you? I have stricken you but you would not listen; I have brought upon you enemies at war and harm-doers to strike you, but you would not listen. If I take you out of the land alone, I fear that several bears and several wolves will rise against you and obliterate you from the world. But what shall I do with you? Thus, you and I will leave the land and go into exile, as it is written, ‘And I will chastise you,’ to go into exile. And if you say that I will leave you, I, too, am with you.”

Zohar for All, BeHukotai (In My Statutes), item 49-50

The above text does not concern exile from the plot of land we live on and call “the land of Israel.” rather; it is exile from the spiritual land of Israel. The word Eretz (land) comes from the word Ratzon (desire). Ysrael (Israel) comes from the words Yashar El (straight to God). We want to correct all of our 613 desires one at a time, so they all aim Yashar El, in order to bestow, like the Creator.

It is called being in the “complete land of Israel.” As long as we want to correct our desires so they are Israel, we will be worthy of being in those desires, as well as in the physical land of Israel. Baal HaSulam writes that we have received the land of Israel and the state of Israel as an advance so we may begin the correction. However, we have not actually won it, and if we do not carry out the correction, it will be taken away from us.

<sup>[1] Jerusalem Talmud, Seder Nashim, Masechet Nedarim, Chapter 9, p 30b.
[2] “Through engaging in it, the light in it would reform them” (Midrash Rabah, Eicha, Introduction, Paragraph 2).

[3] Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Kidushin, 30b.
[4] Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), The Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Love of God and the Love of Man,” p 482.</sup>

<sup>[5] RASHI, Exodus, 19b.
[6] “Who caused Israel to draw near to their father in heaven? It was Pharaoh, as it is written, ‘And Pharaoh drew near’” (Zohar for All, BeShalach (When Pharaoh Sent), item 67)

[7] Mishnah, Seder Nezikin, Masechet Avot, Chapter 2, Mishnah 4
[8] Likutey Moharan (Assorted sermons of Rabbi Nachman of Breslev), Part 1, 17.</sup>

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Leviticus, 25:1-26:2

This Week’s Torah Portion | May 03 – May 09, 2026 – 16 Lyyar – 22 Lyyar, 5786

In A Nutshell

The portion, Bahar (On Mount Sinai), deals primarily with what appears to be laws of finance. It begins with Moses being on Mount Sinai, receiving from the Creator the Mitzva (commandment) of Shmita (omission of cultivation) of the land every seventh year, and the Mitzvot (plural of Mitzva) of Yovel (jubilee, 50^th year anniversary). The Creator gives His blessing to it so that the sixth year will be so productive that enough produce will grow to last for the next three years, to observe the Mitzvot of Shmita and Yovel without worrying about sustenance.

Later, the portion details laws of selling a house or property, redemption of a house or a field from one person to another, laws of the lot of the Levites, forbidding selling of towns or houses that belong to them, laws of selling a person from Israel to slavery, how to treat such a person, and laws prohibiting idols, pillars, and figured stones.

 Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

The laws that this portion details are spiritual laws. Shmita ^[1] is a profound and sacred matter. It exists only in the land of Israel, in a desire aimed toward the Creator, in order to bestow, toward love of others. The Shmita can occur in a desire only in a process of correcting the soul.

The soul consists of six Sephirot HGT NHY (Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, and Yesod). The seventh Sephira is like Sabbath, Shmita. Also, seven times seven is 49, and the Yovel (jubilee, 50^th year anniversary) in the Omer count. These are the degrees we climb.

We cannot correct the seventh quality, Malchut, only the six qualities included in it. Therefore, we leave it and avoid correction, and this is the observing of the Sabbath, similar to observing the Shmita. Following the corrections is a state defined as “He who labored on Sabbath Eve will eat on Sabbath,” opposite, “And he who did not labor on Sabbath Eve, from where will he eat on Sabbath?”^[2]

On Sabbath, everything one has received from the corrections made during the six workdays comes true. The correction permeates the seventh day and appears in it. This is why on Sabbath everything is twofold: the meals and the customs, as is the case with a year of Shmita. On that year a person must work and live in such a way that at the end of the sixth year there will be enough crop to last for the seventh year, as well, during which one does not work, and also enough for the eighth year, until new crops are harvested. This is why the profits on the sixth year must be threefold the normal.

When we rise in degrees as we correct the soul, we skip the three Behinot (discernments), 1-2-3, and only Behina Dalet (no. 4) appears. It is impossible to correct Malchut; it is only possible to leap over it because it collects and gives us the results of what happened earlier.

This is why it does not mean we do not make profits on Sabbath, Shmita, or Yovel. On the contrary, there are rules specifically for those years making it possible to sell, buy, and make other corrections that cannot be made on other years. Specifically on the seventh year and its products (math.), special conditions appear where if one has worked and gained in the previous states, the profit is received now. These are not years of empty-handedness, but rather the time of reception of the reward for the labor we have given before.

These rules concern the Shmita. Concerning buying and selling of houses, we must understand that in spirituality, a house is the “wrapping” of a person. Our inner structure consists of Mocha (marrow), Atzamot (bones), Gidin (tendons), Bassar (flesh/muscle), and Or (skin). Another way to put it is, Shoresh (root), Neshama (soul), Guf (body), Levush (clothing), and Heichal (house/hall). Levush is the clothes, and Heichal is all that is outside of us.

Specifically during Shmita, it is possible to correct desires that are very big on these degrees, such as selling of houses, Levites, etc. It is not simple to reach these degrees, especially the laws concerning Israeli slaves: buying and selling them, freeing them from slavery and passing over, or making an idol and an image, which is a high degree.

The degrees of Shmita and Yovel belong to the degree of Bina. Our entire correction concerns joining Bina with Malchut. Bina is the quality of bestowal, known as “desiring mercy,” while Malchut is the egoistic will to receive, which is initially corrupt. The goal is to connect the two, as it is written, “And the two of them went” (Ruth, 1:19), written about Ruth and Naomi.

The portion is called BaHar (On Mount Sinai) because specifically when a person climbs toward the Creator, to the degree of Bina, one receives the laws of the Sabbath, Shmita, and Yovel, which symbolize our egoistic will to receive with the qualities of the Creator, the qualities of Bina.

The symbol of Sabbath, the Yovel, and the Shmita, is the connection between Malchut and Bina, when Malchut is included in the degree of Bina, the quality of bestowal. From that bonding—the connection between the degrees of Bina and Malchut, while prohibiting to touch the will to receive and correct—emerge all the laws of the Sabbath, the prohibition on performing the 39 works, the corrections of Malchut.

Questions and Answers

For all the efforts of governments and economists, we cannot resolve the global crisis. We are unsuccessfully looking for a solution. What does the economy reflect today?

The economy reflects our ego. We are not working properly with our egos. If we direct them even slightly toward others’ benefit, to bonding, love, mutual guarantee, and sharing, we will begin to feel its benefits in every realm of life.

We must understand that the laws mentioned in this portion were given long before modern economy was established. At that time there were no banks, investments, or multinational trade. People lived off the land. All of a sudden they were told to stop tilling their lands and stop harvesting its crops.

This poses an existential question, seemingly stemming from an irrational approach to the world. It stems from the fact that we do not follow the rules of the nations, but the rules of Israel. Israel means Yashar El (straight to God). This is why we must perform corrections on Malchut after its connection to the degree of Bina, to the superior quality of bestowal, to the upper light. We must let the upper light work.

On a year of Shmita a person leaves one’s desire and does not correct it. Unless he receives powers from above, he will not have the strength to correct it. Therefore, a person must correct the degree in which the light gives from a higher degree, from Bina, and fills one up. Only then can one correct the desires in the soul using the above-mentioned six qualities HGT NHY. And then again one must be filled by the degree of Bina, receive the power from her, and subsequently become corrected.

Therefore, as was mentioned above, Sabbath comes as a result of the six days of work: “he who did not labor on Sabbath Eve, from where will he eat on Sabbath?” Moreover, it “charges” us with strength for the coming week, for the next correction, the next degree. Each week is a new degree, and the same goes for Shmita. The omissions do not mean that a person eats what he or she has sown before. Rather, it is a summary of the former, a preparation for the next degree, the six years ahead. If we kept this in spirituality we would be in a wonderful situation.

What practical advice can we give economists to improve the situation?

We can improve the situation only through inner work, when we have a genuine desire to correct our desires and raise them to the degree of Bina, “desiring mercy,” or at least to the attitude, “That which you hate, do not do to your friend,”^[3] so we could at least avoid harming or exploiting others. But ideally, it should be “love your neighbor as yourself.”^[4]

What will the new economy look like in the near future?

There is nothing that can be done. The economic situation in Europe, for example, is very bad. Corrections are possible, but only by educating first.

First we need to reeducate people through Integral Education, which provides an explanation about the circularity of nature and our interconnectedness. By understanding it we establish the first condition—Arvut (mutual guarantee).

We need to raise humanity’s understanding in the following areas: what is happening to us, the kind of world we live in, the challenges we are facing, why they are sent to us, by whom, why we must correct ourselves specifically in this manner, what we gain by it, and if we have free choice in the matter.

How can we do this work?

We need to do it in our relations with all other people. We need to create the infrastructure from our corrected desires toward others, and so do others, mutually, so that Godliness will appear in those desires.

So in order to solve economic problems in the new era we must first build a social infrastructure throughout the world?

Yes, because otherwise nothing will happen. As we can see, throughout the world no one can reach any agreements. There are even no plans or fantasies of reaching one. The world does not know how to solve the situation and exists only by accumulating debt.

How do you “translate” the laws specified in this portion into a social infrastructure?

We are talking about desires in Shoresh, Neshama, Guf, Levush, Heichal, or Mocha, Atzamot, Gidin, Bassar, and Or. Our world is only a replication of our corrupted desires over the light, similar to black and white images we see in movies. The black is absence of white. It is we who cast shade on the light and darken it. We need to neutralize ourselves so everything is light, and then we will be able to maintain ourselves in a complete and eternal world.

From The Zohar: Then the Land Shall Have a Sabbath for the Lord

Hey is rest of the upper and lower. This is why there is the upper Hey de HaVaYaH, Bina, and the lower Hey de HaVaYaH, Malchut. The upper Hey is rest of the upper ones, and the lower Hey is rest of the lower ones. The upper Hey is seven years seven times, the forty-nine gates of Bina, and the lower Hey is only seven years. The lower one is called Shmita, and the upper one is called Yovel (Jubilee, fifty-year anniversary).

Zohar for All, BaHar (On Mount Sinai), item 7

Everything stems from Malchut and Bina, between whom there are 49 degrees, as we count in the Omer Count between Passover and the festival of Shavuot. All our corrections are in Malchut, which is a collection of desires we must elevate to the degree of Bina, desiring mercy.

It is not the end of the process, only its middle. By making this correction we make the correction of “desiring mercy,” as Old Hillel said, “That which you hate, do not do to your friend.”^[3] However, it is only the middle of the way. The rest of it concerns elevating the degree of Bina to the degree of Keter, which is “love your neighbor as yourself.”^[4] This is additional work, which forms a term from which onward a person will yield crop.

How can you explain to a contemporary person that every seven years you have to stop producing?

If a person is not reared toward it, he or she will not be able to understand it, nor will it be possible to explain about it. Education must come first.

Education divides into two sections: learning, and education. Learning (provision of information) entails explaining about the process humanity is going through, the system of providence and guidance, building this world in accord with the upper world, and the rules and forces that operate our world. We must learn how these forces evoke in each of us the Reshimo (recollection), the spiritual gene that develops us. We need to understand the direction, purpose, and goal we will reach as we develop from day to day and from moment to moment. We need to know how we can aim our fate—as though with two reigns—to arrive in peace at the final, perfect state.

Without receiving an explanation about the entire system, the world we are in, the physics of the world, and how it functions, how it moves, we will not be able to understand it. People cannot simply be told, “Stop working.”

It is done today; we know there are foods such as bread that are made not on a year of Shmita.

Indeed, but you cannot observe something to the fullest before it is kept in its spiritual root.

From The Zohar: The Slave and the Son

The meaning of those two degrees, son and slave, is found in the words, “And He said unto me, ‘You are My servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.’” “And He said unto me, ‘You are My servant” is the degree of slave, left line, Malchut. “Israel” is the degree of son, right line, ZA. When they are included as one, it is written, “In whom I will be glorified.”

Zohar for All, BaHar (On Mount Sinai), item 85

On the one hand, a slave of the Creator is a high degree. On the other hand, “You are the sons of the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy, 14:1) is also a high degree, and both connect in the middle line. Comparing the degrees is similar to the written Torah vs. the oral Torah, to law vs. rule, to Zeir Anpin vs. Malchut. Here, too, we must come to a state where the degree of slave and the degree of son do not contradict, but rather connect with one another, reaching the middle line, the Masach of Hirik. This is how we advance.

On the one hand a slave is a very high degree. It was said about Moses that he was the Lord’s servant. On the other hand, it is a degree of lowness. We also know that there are laws prohibiting selling of slaves. How does it all fit together?

Man is in the middle, neither a son nor a slave, but both. Man contains both the right and the left lines. The appellations refer to a working person, who advances toward the Creator, where each appellation points to a unique manner of connection to the revelation of the Creator.

^{[1] Omission of cultivation of land every seventh year.
[2] Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Avoda Zarah, 3a.
[3] Masechet Shabbat, 31a.
[4] Jerusalem Talmud, Seder Nashim, Masechet Nedarim, Chapter 9, p 30b.}

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Leviticus, 21:1-24:23

This Week’s Torah Portion | Apr 26 – May 02, 2026 – 9 Lyyar – 15 Lyyar, 5786

In A Nutshell

The portion, Emor (Say), begins with rules concerning priests, forbidding them to marry a divorced woman, a widow, or a whore, and permitting them to marry only a virgin. They are also forbidden to approach the dead. Only kin are permitted to be defiled and approach the dead. The High Priest is forbidden to be defiled even by his own kin have died. They are forbidden to shave their heads and beards, and they are forbidden to cast any flaws in their bodies. A Cohen (priest) with a blemish in his body will not be considered a priest, and will not be able to serve in the Temple. The portion also introduces laws of purity and impurity for priests, such as the prohibition on eating offerings, and the rules for a barren or divorced daughter of a priest.

The portion also mentions many rules concerning the Sabbath, Passover, the seventh of Passover, Shavuot, the Omer Count, and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). The end of the portion speaks of a quarrel between two men, one of whom said the name of the Creator and cursed. He was punished by ejection from the camp and execution by stoning.

 Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

What is so special about this portion that elaborates so much about priests and festivals?

The correction is only a correction of the heart, which contains all 613 desires we need to correct from using our ego in order to receive into using it in order to bestow, in favor of others and love of others. The whole Torah deals with the correction of the heart. The first stage in the correction of the heart is when we get rid of the ego. The second stage is when we use all of our heart in favor of others.

The portion describes all the levels of correction. It is written, “And you will be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus, 19:6). This means that everyone must reach the highest degree (a Cohen [priest])——following the preparation described in the portions, Aharei Mot (After the Death) and Kedoshim (Holy). The Torah constantly promotes us until we enter the land of Israel and achieve Dvekut (adhesion) with the Creator.

The portion starts with elaborating on the terms of the degree of priests. A person must correct the desires, as it specifies—prohibition on marrying a divorcee, a widow, or a whore. A priest must also avoid shaving his face and his head. He must also maintain these prohibitions until he is corrected and sees his desires in the image of man. It is as we learn regarding the perception of reality: the whole world is a reflection of our desires, an outward projection of our internality.

A priest must have natural desires that have been corrected into aiming to bestow. He must not impair his body, make any kind of paintings on it, or touch his hair. The hair is a special correction. The word Se’arot (hair) comes from the word Se’arah (storm). They are to be corrected and therefore must not be removed.

A priest is a state in which one can truly work with all the desires in order to bestow, with all the deficiencies, with the “stormy hair.” His females, namely his desires to receive, have been corrected and are no longer on the degrees of whore, divorcee, or a widow. Rather, they are virgins. A person comes to a degree where he corrects his desires back to their natural state.

The priest must approach the work of God through the work of sacrifices. He must bring his desires closer and closer to the aim to bestow, to love. Everyone must reach this degree. A person who has reached this degree is regarded as “serving in the Temple.” On the degree of priests, we place all 613 desires, called “our heart,” in the house of Kedusha (holiness) as a holy Kli (vessel) that is entirely in bestowal.

On festivals, we correct ourselves in stages that are seemingly external stages. The system changes and gives us a chance to correct our desires further in external conditions on the festivals mentioned in the Torah: Passover, Shavuot, and Yom Kippur. The Torah tells us about all the festivals except for Hanukah and Purim.

Hanukah means Hanu Koh (parked here). We achieve the correction of bestowing in order to bestow when we rise above our egos and reach the degree of Bina, of the phrase, “That which you hate, do not do to your friend.”^[1] In this way we detach ourselves from the egoistic will to receive and rise above it.

Purim is when a person actually achieves the end of correction. On Yom Kippur (Kippur means Ke Purim [as Purim]) we discover the evil in us has and regret it. At the same time, we are happy because now we know what to correct. Yom Kippur is not only a day of weeping. Rather, it is a day of great joy because we are happy that a trail by which to reach Purim has opened up to us, and we correct all the desires into bestowal, to love. On Purim we kill the Haman in us, all the evil in us, and achieve the end of correction—complete equivalence with the Creator.

The portion, Emor, contains all the preparations, all the previous portions. It deals with ascending to the highest degree. The portion also deals with the Sabbath, a sabbatical year, the seventh day of Passover, the seventh day of the weak, and the seventh year. It is a degree we always acquire along the way because Zeir Anpin contains six workdays; it is the upper Partzuf from which we receive the lights.

All the lights, which correspond to Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, and Yesod, enter our hearts (Malchut) during the six days. Then comes the seventh day, when we do nothing. These qualities conclude the work, so no further efforts are required of us, except to maintain the situation so the lights will treat it and sanctify it. This is why the seventh day is considered a “day of holiness,” since on it we raise all the desires to the aim to bestow.

There also concerns the seventh day of Passover, the seventh day of Shavuot, as it is written, “Seven whole weeks shall there be” (Leviticus, 23:15), which are forty-nine days from Passover to Shavuot, and the seventh year, Shmita (omission). Such is the cycle of seven.

The seventh of Passover, the Omer Count, Shavuot, it all seems like a process. What is Passover and what is the process between Passover and Shavuot?

Passover is our escape from the ego, from Egypt. Although we begin to detach from it, it continues to accompany us on future degrees in problems that befall us, such as the golden calf, the water of strife, and the spies. These are all results from Egypt.

The desert is a state where one detaches and cleanses from the ego up to the degree of Bina, the entrance to the land of Israel. That state is called “forty years in the desert” because it is the correction we receive upon the exit from the ego. It is not simple; the corrections are recognition of our nature, disclosing of our broken desires and the understanding how to correct them.

The first correction is when we emerge from the ego and rise above it. This is called the “exodus from Egypt” and the “tearing of the Red Sea.” We instantaneously shift from the will to receive in order to receive, namely Egypt, and move into the desert. This is why we still do not know what to do, what will happen to us, and how it will unfold. We cannot know how to work with our nature not for our own benefit. For this reason we go through a period of confusion until we come to the tearing of the Red Sea and being at the foot of Mount Sinai.

Here the correction is in the same will to receive from which we have detached, and over which we transcended. Toward Shavuot we begin to correct it in order to bestow, toward the reception of the Torah. Seven Sabbaths are seven times seven, which is forty-nine days for corrections. Our correction is done by the six Sephirot of the upper force, Zeir Anpin, who is called The Blessed One Be He. This is the upper system that corrects us, containing six qualities—Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, and Yesod—which enter Malchut, our will to receive, and correct the will to receive. When these qualities correct the will to receive, we have actually corrected ourselves by counting. That is, when we seemingly count money, we pay by performing corrections each day.

During each day and night, we bless for the Sephira (singular of Sephirot) that is a result of the passing day, from night to day, as it is written, “And there was evening, and there was morning” (Genesis, 1:5). In the previous day we have corrected in the evening, too, in the revelation of the bad, as well as during the day, in the revelation of the good. We have drawn lights that corrected the desires to receive, and thus concluded the day. This is why we give thanks for having corrected the Sephira. We count the Sephirot, which is why it is called the “Omer Count.” This is how all our desires are corrected.

After thirty-three days there is a special day, LAG baOmer. LAG means thirty-three, in the Sephirot Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut. Multiply the seven Sephirot by seven and you have forty-nine. We begin to search for the middle. If have received all the lights before we have reached the middle, we are guaranteed to finish successfully. It is similar to a person not being given everything, but if some of the forces have been given, if some of the forces have been corrected, that person can help him or herself and begin to understand and advance independently toward the end—the correction of Shavuot. This is the state of a person on the 33^rd day of the count.

We count Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, and Netzah, which are complete Sephirot, the lights that must reach us. In the Sephira Hod we count five Sephirot—Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, and Hod. In Hod of Hod, if we have received the lights from above up to the point of incision, we are guaranteed to continue successfully. Thirty-three symbolizes the reception of all the lights of correction; this is why we are happy and celebrate the festival of light by lighting fires.

Does the thirty-third Sephira, Hod of Hod, symbolize the conclusion of part of the process?

Yes. Henceforth there is no doubt that the person will accomplish the Shavuot. This is why the prohibition on marrying (that begins after Passover night) is lifted on that day. Marriage means connection with Malchut. Other prohibitions are lifted on that day, such as the prohibition on cutting one’s hair. These corrections manifest externally, too, but the majority of corrections are inside, corrections we perform on ourselves by the light that shines on us, and through the giving we obtain the love of others.

Why is it that once a person has already reached the degree of “priest,” one is still bound by many laws and prohibitions?

It is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus, 11:44). When in Kedusha (sanctity/holiness), we delight in these actions. They are not unwelcome, but rather desirable. Thus, if we try to take from a mother half her work with her baby she will not let us. She enjoys what she does for it. The baby has become a source of pleasure for her. Now this work seem hard to us, but when it becomes bestowal, and corresponding to it we receive the light that shines for us and fills us, we feel the eternity and perfection in nature, and rise above all the limitations of this world. Then there is only goodness for us.

Why is marriage such a serious matter for a priest; is marriage the connection?

The will to receive in him (Malchut), must be cleaned of any blemishes. Previously he was seemingly married to a whore, a widow, or a divorcee. That is, his desires were faulty. Now he has risen to a degree where his desire to receive is like a virgin, like the desire that the Creator created. The Creator gave us a desire to receive, but we discover it only in the final, fourth stage. Yod–Hey–Vav–Hey, this is how we go through all the desires until we come to the virgin, meaning as the Creator gave it. This way we can work with the entire desire.

Why is it forbidden to say the name of the Creator?

“Saying” is revealing. There is an inner revelation, which is to bestow in order to bestow, and there is an external revelation, which is to receive in order to bestow. There are limitations to it, but it does not refer to saying the words ADNI, HaVaYaH, and so forth. A person makes a Zivug de Hakaa on the upper light that must reach the Kelim. In revealing, one discloses it from the lips and out, to the external ones. “External ones” are desires that have not been corrected. It is forbidden to disclose the name of the Creator, the upper light, to the external desires, which are outside of Kedusha and have not been corrected, as this would seemingly “short-circuit” the light with a Kli that has not been corrected with a Masach and Ohr Hozer. This is why it is called the “revelation of the bad,” and not the “revelation of the good.”

From The Zohar: The Sons of Aaron

Aaron is the beginning of all the priests in the world because the Creator chose him out of everyone to make peace in the world, and because Aaron’s ways rose with him to it. It is so because all of Aaron’s days, he would try to increase peace in the world. And because so were his ways, the Creator lifted him to priesthood, so he would instill peace in the household of above, for by his work, he causes the Zivug of the Creator with His Divinity, and peace is made in all the worlds.

Zohar for All, Emor (Say), item 2

A priest’s role is to enhance peace in the world.

A research in genetics revealed that priesthood is hereditary. The researchers sampled Jews with surnames that indicate relation to priesthood (Kahana, Katz, Cohen, etc.) from all factions of the Jewish people, and discovered the same gene among all of them. How is being a Cohen related to the corporeal world if we should all be priests?

We cannot know what genetic changes will happen when we are all corrected. Perhaps we will rise above all that is physical. We must understand that there is the first HaVaYaH in the world of Ein Sof (infinity), then a replication of the HaVaYaH in the four Behinot (discernment) of Ohr Yashar (Direct Light) on each degree, called “ten Sephirot.” Every bottom degree consists of a more materialized substance than the top degree, but the combination, HaVaYaH, remains. This is why it is written, “I the Lord do not change” (Malachi, 3:6).

The first HaVaYaH is the light that expands in four Behinot and reaches Malchut. That structure stays. According to this pattern, as the light descends from degree to degree, from the world of Ein Sof to our world, it gives us Partzufim (plural of Partzuf), worlds, and Sephirot, and everything we learn in the upper system. This is how it is in all the worlds. The Neshama (soul), called Adam HaRishon (the First Man), was also created by the same structure, following the same internal make-up. That pattern exists in everything.

We learn that Abraham wanted to correct all of Babylon, and in each of us is a root by which we can reach the high priest. Everyone must reach it, as it is written, “They shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them” (Jeremiah, 31:33), and “My house shall be called ‘a house of prayer’ for all the nations” (Isaiah, 56:7). There are desires and souls that are easier, and there are those that are harder, depending on the level of the flaw. The easier ones are the children of Israel. They have to be the first to correct, hence there are stronger sparks of light in them, which are clear and burning, and appear as Cohen, Levi, and Israel.

There are people who look at a person and know if he or she is a Cohen (descendant of a priest). It is harder to spot a Levite or Israel. Not surprisingly, we can find these things in biology and medicine because everything in our world comes from the world Ein Sof and is replicated in our physical world, in our genes. This is why it must also happen in this world. Perhaps we have not discovered all the phenomena, but it is clear that every phenomenon in the world is the same as the phenomena that exist above, except here they exist in matter, not in potential.

^{[1] Masechet Shabbat, 31a.}

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Leviticus, 12:1-13:59 – 14:1-15:33

This Week’s Torah Portion | Apr 12 – Apr 18, 2026 – 25 Nisan – 1 Lyyar, 5786

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.

But man has free choice, and therefore uses the ego to others’ harm. Such is the software from which we are built. We constantly examine ourselves in relation to others—if we are worse or better off they are. This is how human nature constantly operates us with the thought, “How can I benefit myself or harm others?” One who does not see it is unaware of this law.

The Torah indicates and explains how to correct ourselves, how to transform us from a form that is the opposite of the form of the Creator, and into a corrected and complete form. This is why we cannot see the upper worlds, the upper force, the eternity and perfection we are in, and which is hidden from us. We can only see a tiny sphere known as “this world.” In this world there is nothing but a set time in which we exist, then leave, just like animals. We incarnate from above, descending from the upper world and back up, unaware of the rest of the stages in our development.

The Torah tells us how we can correct ourselves so we may begin to discover ourselves in our eternal and complete form. The Torah shows us how we should work in order to discover the eternal, perfect world, and exit the sensation of exile we are in, toward a good and enlightened world.

The two portions indicate all the corrections we must do. Tazria and Metzorah detail how one can correct the egoistic, corrupt signs we constantly discover in ourselves.

It is written in Tazria that birth is a good thing, a new degree. The one who can deliver is the desire that craves birth, in order to turn itself to bestowal. When that desire can deliver from the woman the male part in her, all the surpluses of the will to receive that cannot be corrected are secreted as birth-blood, impure blood.

At that time a person is called a “woman,” though it may well be a man. It depends on whether one is in a state of reception or bestowal. If a person delivers out of oneself an act of bestowal, that person is called a “woman,” who delivers a child. Then a person is told what to do with all that did not come out in this act, called a “newborn.” Thus, those desires that he or she used but which still could not be corrected come out as blood, as various secretions, as it happens in a physical birth. After some time these desires return and become corrected on higher degrees.

Accordingly, after delivering a boy we undergo seven days of Tuma’a (impurity), a circumcision on the eighth, and the thirty-three days of purification. After delivering a girl we undergo sixty-six days of purification. These are special corrections. Once we have corrected these desires through a special act called Korban (sacrifice/offering), we perform an act in order to bestow in which we sacrifice, meaning bring ourselves closer to bestowal upon the Creator, according to the law of equivalence of form in order to become more similar to the Creator. This is how we progress another step in the correction.

Here the corrections are in the tiny revelations of all the forms of the egoistic desire, which appears through leprosy, and through other problems that encounter us in our homes and our animals, namely in all the degrees, meaning desires of still, vegetative, and animate.

The portion, Metzorah, details the corrections performed by the priest. We begin to discern forces in our inner structure that help us from experience—from previous corrections—to correct ourselves in all the qualities that appear as bad.

The portion speaks of a man who brings himself or his wife to the priest. The portion details how to correct the “dresses” over the soul, which are called “garments.” The clothing is called Ohr Hozer (Reflected Light) or Ohr Hassadim (light of mercy), meaning an intention to bestow. Although we are born with egoistic desires, if we “clothe” them with the aim to bestow and want to perform acts of bestowal, we will thus correct our “garments.” The highest degree in this correction is to clean the clothes and show them to the priest for his examination. This is the meaning of the relation between the degrees in the upper system.

In this manner we advance in our corrected desires toward the revelation of the upper world, as it is written, “You will see your world in your life.”^[1]

We are constantly developing and discovering the world. We feel more and more included in something eternal and complete. A person lives in this world as an animate body, yet discover the eternal part within, which is called the “soul.” We identify with that part because it is much greater and more powerful than the animate part. That sympathy causes us to feel that our animate part is like a domesticated animal we keep in the yard, and it makes no difference whether it is dead or alive because the self, the human we have raised within, which we have built in similarity with the Creator, is as eternal and complete as Him.

All this is done through work by which we discover all that is still not “clean” in us. We clean ourselves from all the ill thoughts and intentions, which aim for our own benefit and to others’ detriment. With each correction and cleansing we become increasingly similar to the Creator.

The two portions are connected. One speaks of a quality called “woman,” and the other of a leper. What is a woman? What is a leper? And what is the connection between them?

In our perception, “man is a small world.”
^[2] Within us is a special force that “paints” an image in the back of our minds, in our awareness and consciousness, that there is a world before us, outside of us. But if our senses suddenly stop working we will not perceive any world. If one of our senses disappeared, such as sight or hearing, part of our perception would disappear as well.

The world is a product of our senses, which depict within us a certain reality. That reality has nothing to do with what is actually happening outside. If we study animals that live near us we will find that they perceive our world very differently. A dog’s world, for example, is full of scents. Dogs perceive the world through their sense of smell. They have no problem discerning things using that sense. Snakes perceive their world through temperature, distinguishing each element with great accuracy. 97% of the perception of our world depends on our vision. Thus, each one has a different picture of reality, but it is still a picture of reality.

When we attain the perception of the actual reality, the sixth sense opens in us. We begin to see the upper force, the upper world alongside this world. The upper world is present here and now. We need not die in order to perceive it. Our death changes nothing in this case. Also, we begin to discover that the world is very different from what we previously imagined. This is why it is written about our world that it is imaginary: “I saw an upside down world.”^[3]

We attain the true perception through all those corrections that appear in the portions before us, when we correct our desires into having the intention to bestow more and more. If we use our desires with the aim to receive, we constantly absorb everything our tiny and limited tools of perception depict for us. But when we come out of ourselves into the endless frequencies beyond those of our eyes and ears, whose range is very limited, we enter the sense called “in order to bestow,” the “sense of giving and love.” In that state we find an unbounded reality, as though we have emerged from our skin, as it is written, “After my skin they lifted it” (Job, 19:26). Then the reality we begin to see is not limited to the five physical senses, but is the actual reality, the upper world that the Torah describes.

In that new sense, what is a woman who delivers, and what is a leper?

A woman who delivers is a correction of one of the senses, thus achieving new attainment, new bestowal, in which we discover another new world. Yet, we cannot use these forces for correction in order to bestow, a limitation formed by the contrast in it. We perceive everything through opposites. As creatures, we always see one thing opposite another. When we have only one color, or something without an opposite, or something for which we have no scale by which to measure or compare, we cannot see or feel it. If there is no black and white situation, we cannot see black, white, or yellow.

The revelation of our correction is always under limitations. The boundary gives us a sense of orientation, that we are in something, gripping something. Otherwise we have no idea what is permitted and what is forbidden. In that state everything is completely amorphous and our sensations disappear.

The woman is the one who gives birth. The Creator could have created a man who can give birth; why did He create only women with the ability to give birth?

A woman is called the “will to receive.” The man is called the “intention to bestow.” Therefore, the man assists with the birth; it cannot happen without him. The man gives only a drop, from which the woman raises the newborn. The man begets only the will to receive through the correction he performs on himself. These corrections are called “nine months of labor.”

In Baal HaSulam’s book, The Study of the Ten Sephirot, as in the whole of the wisdom of Kabbalah, we learn about this form, in which we grow and put ourselves by ourselves into a complicated situation, the upper womb—a situation in which we can grow. We are assisting our growth inside the womb. It is great work that we do in order to adapt ourselves to the degree of the Creator until we are similar to Him, and then we are born. However, each of us has a personal reality, the stage of adulthood, opposite the stage of Katnut (infancy). The rest of the stages continue until we achieve the complete level.

So a woman symbolizes the will to receive and a man symbolizes the desire to bestow?

Yes.

Are matters arranged from above in a way that the will to receive is the only one that can deliver, while the man, who is bestowal, cannot?

The man provides the future form of bestowal. Were it not for the force of bestowal, the woman would not be able to deliver. If there is no expansion to the will to receive itself through the force of bestowal, it will not be able to give birth to anything.

The portion, Metzorah, deals with skin infections. Why specifically the skin, there are many other afflictions?

The skin is our place of scrutiny. Our desires consist of five degrees: Mocha (marrow), Atzamot (bones), Gidin (tendons), Bassar (flesh), and Or (skin). The Or desire contains seven layers; it is the final, crudest desire. This is why it is where we scrutinize our egoistic intentions, our ability to correct, and how.

We correct a part of the skin by writing a book of Torah on leather. There is a parchment of leather that we cut in the middle, and write the letters of the book of Torah on the outer part. We separate the part that cannot be corrected. This part will be corrected only at the end of correction, when there are no limitations and no letters. The actual revelation of the Creator is on the last, most egoistic degree that can be corrected.

Does leprosy symbolize inappropriate use of this concept?

Leprosy symbolizes the revelation of the boundary, the place of recognition of evil that a person corrects through the force within—the great force of bestowal called “priest.”

The Torah is dealing with a disease that is still today incurable.

All skin diseases are hard to cure. We suffer from them our whole life. It happens because the skin is the last degree of the body, so it is very difficult for us to influence it. We treat it as the ending of the body, an outer cover of our internal organs, but the skin is just like the heart, lungs, and kidneys. It is an organ in and of itself, which we have yet to comprehend.

When we weigh the skin we find it is the heaviest organ in the body. Also, we cannot live without it.

True. We can see it with the problems that people who suffered serious burns have. It is an offshoot of spirituality, where the corrections on this degree are the hardest. It is Malchut at its conclusion.

Is the skin “curable” or is it a chronic disease?

Only at the end of correction, when we have corrected everything, will we be able to correct the skin, as well. Then the light will shine in Aleph through the whole structure known as Adam, as well as inside the skin, in the letter Ayin.

From The Zohar: Two Live Birds

“He took for the purification two live, pure birds, and a cedar tree, and scarlet, and hyssop.” One who engages in the work of one’s master and engages in the Torah, the Creator is over him and the Shechina (Divinity) connects with him. When one comes to be defiled, the Shechina departs from him, the Creator departs from him, and all the side of Kedusha (holiness) of his master departs from him. Then the spirit of Tuma’a (impurity) and the whole side of Tuma’a are on him. If he comes to be purified; he is aided. Once he has purified and repented, what has departed him returns to him, and the Creator and His Shechina are on him.

Zohar for All, Metzorah (The Leper), item 18

This concerns a person who has come to be purified. The person brings two different birds, as well as part of a tree, through certain people. This is how we correct through our own forces, the desires that appear on the road to correction. Such people must discover the desires that require correction and correct them.

^{[1] Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Berachot, 17a.
[2] Midrash Tanchuma, Pekudei, item 3.
[3] Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Nezikin, Baba Batra, 10b; Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Pesachim, 50a.}

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Leviticus, 6:1-8:36

This Week’s Torah Portion | Mar 22 – Mar 28, 2026 – 4 Nisan – 10 Nisan, 5786

In A Nutshell

The portion, Tzav (Command), deals with rules of sacrificing, especially those related to priests. The portion mentions the commandment to donate the fertilizer, the gift offering, sin offering, guilt offering, peace offering, and the prohibition to eat animal fat.

Tzav also mentions punishments for those who eat non-kosher meat, as it is written, “The soul that eats from it shall bear iniquity (Leviticus, 7:18). One who eats fat from the offerings, “The soul that eats shall be cut off from its people” (Leviticus, 7:25), and one who eats the offerings’ blood, “That soul shall be cut off from its people” (Leviticus, 7:20).

Subsequently, the portion deals with the seven days of filling, and the inauguration of the tabernacle. The Creator commands Moses to assemble Aaron and his sons the priests, and the whole congregation at the door of the tent of meeting. Moses washes Aaron and his sons and dresses them with the clothes of priesthood. Moses puts the anointing oil over the tabernacle and all that is in it, and sanctifies Aaron and his sons, showing the priests—following the Creator’s command—what to do with the various organs of the offerings.

 Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

The Korban (offering/sacrifice, from the word, Karov [near]) is the way to draw near the Creator. There is nothing but the offerings. Today we are in the worst state. There is nothing worse than this world and our current state. We must come out of that state and advance toward the Boreh (Creator), from the words Bo Re’eh (come and see). We will discover the Creator according to the changes and corrections in us because the upper force, namely the upper light, is in complete rest, and all the changes occur in us, as it is written, “I the Lord do not change” (Malachi, 3:6).

Nearing the Creator depends on our qualities. Therefore, we must all change ourselves and correct all the negative and egoistic desires in us, according to the order the Torah narrates. The word Torah comes from the word Horaa (instruction) how to correct our egoistic desires, turn them into aiming toward bestowal and love, and shift from unfounded hatred to absolute love.

The bad global crisis is happening due to unfounded hatred among everyone. There is abundance in the world, but we cannot share it among us. We cannot establish social justice, connection, unity, and arrange ourselves and our lives better because of our characters, as it is written, “The inclination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis, 8:21). To correct the heart, which symbolizes our 613 egoistic, corrupted desires, we need the Torah.

The Torah is the “light that reforms.”^[1] One who treats the Torah properly discovers one’s wickedness, as it is written, “The world was created only for the complete wicked or the complete righteous.”^[2] That is, we must discover that we are completely wicked, created with an evil inclination. Then, “I have created for it the Torah as a spice”^[3] because “the light in it reforms them.”^[4] Then we come to a state of complete righteous. This is how we must see it.

The word Tzav means commandment. We can go through the process by a path of suffering, taking blows. This way is neither respectable nor desirable in the eyes of the Creator or the creatures. But there is another way. We can go through the process recognizing and understanding that we are being led to discover the upper force, and we are being raised to a higher dimension. The crisis and the suffering we feel in this world were intended to push us to develop to a higher level, the human one, which resembles the Creator.

There are many stages in this work. Some stages are called “the nations of the world,” and in them we scrutinize our desires and slightly correct them on the level of “nations of the world,” in whom there are seven Mitzvot (commandments). Only then we reach the degree of Israel, meaning Yashar El (straight to the Creator) where we can already direct ourselves toward the Creator.

Keeping, or observing Mitzvot (in Hebrew it is described as “making”) means performing corrections on our desires. From the 613 desires that belong to the work of Israel we achieve the degree of Levites and the degree of priests. Thus we go through the Yod–Hey–Vav–Hey from below upward, from Malchut through Zeir Anpin, Bina, Hochma, and Keter until we achieve Dvekut (adhesion) with the Creator.

This is the entire order of the work that the Torah describes, and is presented in the Babylonian Talmud. The offerings are a more complicated issue. It is in fact our entire work. Making an offering means nearing the Creator through consecutive corrections on our desires. We gradually approach the Creator with corrections that begin with the easiest desires and continue through the hardest, heaviest, and most egoistic ones.

These are desires that we sort within us and determine how to correct them. This is why the text mentions body parts, oil, time, movement, places, and a mention of the force by which we correct, and in what state. We must also keep in mind that it all concerns only our inner structure.

We are immersed in an ocean of upper light, which is the Creator, as it is written, “The upper light is in complete rest,”^[5] and all the changes appear only to us, who are inside the light. If we do not feel that the light, the Creator, is filling the whole of reality, it means we are in “double concealment.” That is, we have no sensation that something is hidden from us. The first degree we reach is the sensation of concealment, that something is hidden from us.

Today the whole of humanity is beginning to perceive it. Scientists and psychologists are beginning to see that the world is round. They speak of a single force that closes in on us and controls us, that there is a unified guidance and governance, and the world is tied in harmony by fixed laws.

It is written, “He has given a law that shall not be broken” (Psalms, 148:6). Like it or not, we will eventually have to approach that law, study it, replicate it to ourselves, and keep it. If we want it, good. If we do not, we will be forced to accept it by blows, as many stories in the Torah describe.

The Torah tells us about bad things that will ostensibly happen if we do not do what we should. It is necessary to have the recognition of evil and its disclosure. It is written, “I have created the evil inclination,”^[6] so each time the evil inclination must appear, and we must correct it. We can discern the evil inclination only if we fall into it. But if we come prepared we will not mingle with it or fall under it, but control it and correct it. This is actually why we were given the Torah.

The whole world is approaching that recognition. Many scientists already maintain that we exist in a circular system, that there is one force of nature that is acting on us and demands that we adapt ourselves to it in a global and integral world, in harmony and balance with nature. They are already talking about holism and other such phenomena, so there are already some excitement and impressions, and approaching the truth.

First we must obtain the recognition that there is truly something hidden from us. This is considered “concealment,” and it is good; it is the sensation of exile. When we are in exile, we feel it by the contact with the upper force that controls us and acts on us. It is so although we do not feel how it works or how it controls us; we do not understand its commands nor know what it wants of us. In fact, even if we did, we would not know how to do its will, we would be incapable of improving our situation. Internally, we recognize that if we do not know it, it will be a terrible loss. The whole world is gradually advancing toward this recognition and understanding.

Questions and Answers

When we say “Him,” are we referring to a superior law or to the Creator?

We are not referring to an image, but to a comprehensive quality that governs us—the quality of comprehensive bestowal and love. The closer we come to it, the better we can detect it.

We draw near it by establishing good connections between us, as it is written, “From the love of man to the love of God.”^[7] If we establish groups for teaching the higher nature, in order to become closer and be in brotherly love, we will begin to feel the upper force according to the law of equivalence of form, namely equivalence of qualities. Then we will discover that we truly are in exile. This is the beginning of the process. Hence, when we read the story of Esther we discover the concealment, which is the first step.

As we approach Passover, a state where we feel we are in Egypt, exiled from the revelation of the light, the upper force, we have the “great Sabbath,” which stresses the importance of the sensation of exile, as it is impossible to achieve redemption without that feeling. The difference between Galut (exile) and Geula (redemption) is in the letter Aleph, representing the Aluf (Champion) of the world, in which the Creator appears. Exile is the desire to discover Him, that it is Him we must attain.

When we want to discover the Creator, we bring all our desires to a state where they do not stand in the way of the upper light, as it is written, “His glory fills the world.”^[8] He fills everything without our interruption. When we restrict our sense of self-importance—the ego, independence, and sense of uniqueness, our entire “I”—we feel that the Creator passes through us. Thus we discover Him.

But first we have to be “transparent” and avoid being a partition, interfering with the quality of bestowal and love that prevails in the world. Then we discover that we truly are immersed in the upper light that fills everything, and we are in it. This is the degree we should achieve. It is the first stage of redemption.

The nearing happens in our feelings. We come to feel we are inside the upper light that fills everything and does everything, as it is written, “He did, does, and will do all the deeds.”^[9] This is our salvation from all the crises, despair, and confusion in our lives.

The offering is to the Creator. We burn it, and thus seemingly give something. Why do we not offer to each other in order to draw closer? This way we could really say that through love of others we obtain something higher.

It only seems that way because of how we use our language. In the work of the offerings, a person needs to work with each egoistic desire that repels others, desires with which one wishes to exploit others and be oblivious to them. The sacrifice is to stop that desire from hindering our approach to others.

As we approach others, we create a system of mutual bestowal and discover the upper light. The upper light is between us, not in us individually. We draw it and discover it precisely by creating the quality of bestowal between us.

Does this nearing take place among the friends in the group?

The nearing is between people, not within us. Within us we can only feel egoistic phenomena. This is why we currently feel only this world through our five physical senses.

How does one offer a sacrifice from the group to the Creator?

It is the same whether one corrects one’s desires toward others or toward the Creator. We all perform the correction together, among us, to reveal the comprehensive quality of bestowal and love that prevails in the world.

The quality of bestowal is the Creator. It is a quality, the thought of creation. We do not aim toward a certain entity. It is difficult to explain it because in our world everything is very “down to earth,” clothed in matter, while in the wisdom of Kabbalah there is no substance, only forces.

It is written in this portion that if the children of Israel do not make the offering properly they will be punished. What is the punishment?

The punishment is that we will do it regardless, as it is written, “For no banished shall be cast out from Him” (Samuel 2, 14:14), and everything will return to its root.

It is written in the portion, “that soul shall be cut off from its people” (Leviticus, 7:20). What does it mean?

It means that a person is cut off from one’s degree. If that person was already on the level of “Israel” (Hebrew: Ysrael), meaning Yashar El (straight to God), and falls from it to the degree of “nations of the world,” that person will suffer because he or she has moved away from bestowal, love, revelation, understanding, and awareness. Hence, one must spend more time searching in an unpleasant way, and only then will he or she return. This is the punishment.

When one cannot process the information properly and quickly through working on the desire with the mind, as the Torah invites us to do, it still happens but on a path of suffering. That person will do the same work but it will take longer and will be unpleasant. Similarly, if children listen to what they are told and do what they are asked well, they benefit. If they do not, they still do their chores, they have no choice, but they suffer.

How can we use the topic of offerings in our approach to education?

There is no difference. If a person is born lazy and stubborn, can he or she turn to the parents and tell them, “You have made me this way; I don’t want to study; I don’t want to listen to you; all I want is to play, that’s the way I am. Did I ask for these qualities? No, there is nothing I can do.”

Is it the parents’ fault or the person’s? What that person can do is form an environment that will help him or her be smart and successful. The environment can help us understand the purpose of creation, how to achieve it, and how to diminish suffering. Everything depends on the environment. If we work in a proper, good, supportive environment, it teaches us how to be givers, like it. This is how we approach bestowal and love. This is the work of the offerings that a person performs.

The portion speaks of priests, which indicate a very high degree. Can matters be attributed to education on this level, too?

We begin from zero, from the degree of “nations of the world. Everyone is destined to achieve it. The purpose of creation is for everyone to come into this work, correct themselves, and reach the complete end of correction, called “complete redemption.” In the First Temple, the people of Israel were already at the level of redemption, Mochin of Haya. In the Second Temple we descended to the level of Mochin of Neshama. Now we must come to the Third Temple, the highest degree on the ladder of spiritual degrees, where we include the whole of humanity.

If the sacrifice means coming closer to society, do we incorporate education in it, or is it a separate matter?

You cannot be educated alone, only in a society. A person is taught to connect with others in a relationship that is similar to the quality of the Creator. We discover this quality between us because it is only between us that He is revealed. It is akin to changing something in a radio receiver so it receives the wave outside.

From The Zohar: NRN of Week Days and NRN of the Sabbath

A wise disciple should see himself equal to all the students of Torah. This is how he should consider himself from the perspective of the Torah, from the perspective of the noetic NRN. But from the perspective of the organs of the body, the perspective of the beastly NRN, he should regard himself equal to all the uneducated people, as it is written, “One should always see himself as though the whole world depends on him.” For this reason, he should aim his mind, spirit, and soul to make those sacrifices with all the people in the world, and the Creator adds a good thought to the act. By that, “Man and beast You deliver, O Lord.”

Zohar for All, Tzav (Command), item 71

The upper light is intended to reform everyone—those on the animate degree, and those on the human degree. This is why no one can say, “It’s not for me.” There must be a study of the wisdom of Kabbalah because cannot draw the light without it. This is why the wisdom of Kabbalah is called “Torah of light,” “internality of the Torah,” the light that reforms.

Is it only the light that corrects? Will we never be able to correct our relationships?

Never. The world is beginning to realize it. It may take some time but we are already approaching it, beginning to agree with it.

It is palpable that the world is on the verge of giving up on most everything else.

It is felt, and they are in the right direction. They already understand that the change has to happen within us, regardless of whether one is Jewish or not, secular, or orthodox. The change has to be substantial and equal for all—begining to correct human nature. It is fine if one follows what is called the “practical Mitzvot (commandments), but it is just as fine if one does not. In relation to the inner change we are all the same; we must all do it.

Is the direction toward which the world is heading considered sacrifices?

Not yet. Sacrifices begin only through the light that reforms because this is what corrects us. We are all on the worst degree, though we have yet to recognize it as the worst. We are still unaware and unconscious in regard to the evil.

^{[1] Midrash Rabah, Eicha, “Introduction,” Paragraph 2.
[2] Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Berachot, p 61b.
[3] Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Kidushin, 30b.
[4] Midrash Rabah, Eicha, “Introduction,” Paragraph 2.
[5] Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), The Writings of Baal HaSulam, p 521.
[6] Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Kidushin, 30b.
[7] Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), The Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Love of God and the Love of Man,” p 482.
[8] Part of Tefilat Amidah (Standing (18) Prayer).
[9] Said after the morning prayer (Tefilat Shaharit), the first of Maimonides’ 13 tenets.}

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Leviticus, 1:1-5:26

This Week’s Torah Portion | Mar 15 – Mar 21, 2026 – 26 Adar II – 3 Nisan, 5786

In A Nutshell

The portion, VaYikra (The Lord Called), deals with rules of sacrificing and the priests serving in the tabernacle. Some offerings are optional; some are mandatory. Some of the offerings are burnt to ashes on the altar, and some remain for the priests and the giver of the offering.

The rules of offerings speak of a “burnt offering” that a person brings voluntarily from the cattle, flock, and poultry. There is also a “gift offering,” which a person brings voluntarily from the flora. Also, there is the “peace offering,” which is an offering that a person brings from the cattle, sheep, and goats. The “sin offering” is an offering brought by one who sinned by mistake. That person makes an offering to atone for the sin.

 Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

The portion, VaYikra (The Lord Called), teaches us about the work of the offerings, which are also the main topic in the Talmud. We learn all the works from the works of the Temple.

People are nearing the purpose of creation and Dvekut (adhesion) with the Creator, to the human level, a life in a totally blissful world, and experiencing all the worlds and the sensation of nature as complete and eternal, as it was prepared for us. That nearing is called Korban (offering/sacrifice) from the word Karov (near).

We are approaching it step by step by correcting our nature. There are 613 desires in us, which we must correct one at a time, each desire with all of its parts. Our desires divide into four levels: still, vegetative, animate, and speaking. The work of the offerings teaches us how to sacrifice and correct them so they are in bestowal and love. The rule in our work is to correct our nature and achieve the state, “love your neighbor as yourself; it is a great rule in the Torah.”^[1] By that, we become similar to the Creator and achieve Dvekut with Him.

The correction of the egoistic desire from receiving for myself into bestowal upon others is called an “offering” that a person offers. The offering may come from several sources. It may be from the still, as it is written, “On all your offerings you shall offer salt” (Leviticus, 2:13), or water or oil. It can also be from the vegetative or processed plants, such as the showbread. From the animate, only a certain kind is offered. The priests’ and the Levites’ daily work in the Temple is to sacrifice the flock and the cattle.

There are offerings that one must make on a daily basis, similar to our progress from day to day according to the plan of creation, on a predetermined pace. When we do not follow suit, we suffer a thrust from behind, from the negative forces.

The offerings we cannot make—namely the desires we cannot correct into aiming to bestow upon others—become negative forces that manifest as problems that push us from behind through suffering. These desires accumulate until they break out as crises, similar to the comprehensive crisis we are currently experiencing.

The crisis is not a negative state, but a result of neglect. It is happening because we are so engrossed in materialism instead of rising above it, because we are so obstinate and refuse to listen to the guidance of Kabbalists.

In fact, the crisis is a point of new birth. It points to our inability to live according to the old paradigm. Our perspective on life and the attitude toward values in our lives break and fall apart, as it manifests in education, family relations, and so forth.

The order of the work of the offerings is very important because it explains how we advance in life. If we follow this order, our lives will flow in order too.

The general nature is built so that if each moment we correct more and more pieces of the egoism into altruism and love of others, into connection with humanity, with nature, we draw nearer to the Creator—the only force that exists in reality. In this way we are in balance with it, and there is no better state for us than that. After all, in that state we do not need anything and reside in a world of utter bliss.

VaYikra details the order of correction of all 613 broken, egoistic desires into connection with others, and through it, connection with the Creator. It is written about it, “From the Love of man to the love of God.”^[2] However, before we connect with others, we must be properly built within. We must prepare ourselves for it internally, as well as externally.

Assume that a person must be “married,” meaning have a deficiency. A woman is a deficiency next to the man, a deficiency adapted to the ability to correct it. The feminine part of a person is as a deficiency, the left side, while the masculine part is the right side, which complements. In a state of collaborative work, a person is considered “married.” The man—which is higher than the woman and wants to advance and correct the deficiency—makes an offering. The offering is also for the feminine part in the person. The same applies to the rest of the people.

The work of the offerings is the work in the Temple, the common Kli of the world where a person expresses one’s attitude toward the Creator. There are many details to this work: how to slaughter, burn, and how to discern all the parts in the offerings.

There is a part in us that enjoys, and a part that is as “smoke.” The word “smoke” is an acronym for Olam, Shana, Nefesh (ASHAN [smoke]) by which a person transcends the limitations of our world, thus advancing toward the purpose of creation.

When one begins to connect and approach the Creator through the offerings, one becomes more suitable for the Creator. Each time, one of the 613 desires becomes more suitable for the Creator. This way a person begins to feel that the system within is becoming more similar to that of the Creator. Then the person begins to understand Him since one contains a partial sample of Him, which gradually expands. The more one’s desires close in on a similar structure to Godliness, the more the Creator “clothes” in the person. Thus one becomes more similar to the Creator.

Through one’s internal system, where there is already a part of the Creator, a person begins to understand and know Him. Such a person can picture and imagine that system, thoughts, desires, and approach of the Creator toward him or her. Thus one can increasingly understand one’s attitude toward the Creator. The model that one builds within allows one to be in mutual connection with the Creator, and this is how a person becomes man (Adam).

From the beginning of creation through its end we undergo a process by which we must correct ourselves and rise from our world to the world of Ein Sof (infinity). We must do it internally, in our inner structure, so that each time we become increasingly similar to the upper force. This is the work that this portion deals with.

The Creator is inviting us to this work hoping that humanity will respond. The whole work is of the part of us called “Israel,” and of which it was written, “And you will be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus, 19:6). The priests are the ones who manage the work at the Temple, bringing the rest of the nation to this work so the whole nation may able to correct itself.

All of Israel are regarded as priests in relation to the rest of the world. VaYikra (The Lord Called) is first and foremost a call to Israel because Israel are obliged to teach the rest of humanity how to approach the Creator. It was written about it, “they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them” (Jeremiah, 31:33), and “for My house shall be called ‘a house of prayer’ to all the nations” (Isaiah, 56:7), once it is built.

This is why VaYikra is a call to the entire nation of Israel to correct itself as quickly as possible, thus also correcting the global crisis, the world’s problems, and abolishing anti-Semitism. Then everyone will truly be as one group, a single nation.

Questions and Answers

We sacrifice to the Creator, but the sacrifice is actually nearing between people. What is the connection between bringing people closer and drawing closer to the Creator?

There is an act here, and there is the intention. To perform correction we must draw closer to others. We cannot draw closer to others unless we have the intention to draw closer, and unless the common force of bestowal that exists in the world, namely the Creator, appears between us. Through mutual nearing, we build an opportunity, a place, a space of mutual desire where the mutual force of bestowal appears, meaning the force of love, which does not exist in our world. That force does not exist in our qualities unless we exert to make it, to make room for it. The place where the force of bestowal appears is called “dweller” or “the revelation of Divinity.” It requires three conditions in order to exist: you, me, and the Creator.

What is the order between them? It seems reasonable to say, “Give me this type of Temple and I will sacrifice my cow there.

It is all within us, the cow too.

It follows that we must approach the Creator so He may give us the strength to love others. So one does not reach the Creator through others, but from the Creator to others because the problems are between us and not with the Creator?

True, there is no other way. We begin from hating each other; we have no desire whatsoever to draw near. Only through troubles and problems, when we ask how and why, what is the meaning of life, what is happening in the world, do we understand that we must correct our nature and start looking for a solution. Our correction is from reception to bestowal, from hate to love, from understanding that the hatred is destroying the world and our lives.

Today the whole world is dealing with correcting human nature because it ruins everything, including this planet. Many scientists are warning about these problems, which are already causing our collapse.

The problem is that we cannot restrain human nature. We are marching as sheep to the slaughter, unable to stop ourselves. Baal HaSulam wrote that the angel of death comes with a drop of poison on the tip of his sword, and you open your mouth to it because there is a last bit of pleasure on it, and you die. You cannot see past yourself, and even if you do, you simply must have this drop.^[3]Go to the craftsman who made me, Just so, we are advancing blindly, following our nature into wars and troubles, ruining everything along the way because it is all done without higher guidance.

We need the upper force. This need arises from the sensation of troubles and problems that are already appearing in the world, but it should come with an explanation. There must be a system that provides information that we, the children of Israel, must pass on to the rest of the world. This is the meaning of being a kingdom of priests. The priests are those who teach the people, as it is written, “And you will be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus, 19:6).

We must make the reason for the crisis known, as well as the means for correcting human nature, in order to bring the whole of humanity to balance with nature, or we will not survive.

Although the conditions for it have all been prepared, we have to do our share in this work. This is why we are witnessing an increase in global anti-Semitism, which will only increase unless we make the method of correction and its use known in due time, and promote its implementation the world over.

It is therefore clear that we ourselves must be connected to the Creator, study, and demand the revelation of the Creator in order to allow ourselves to advance. All we need is the sense of lack and our drive toward it, since the moment we need His strength, we will ask and receive it.

What does it mean that we sacrifice a cow, a sheep, or a goat?

The Book of Zohar explains that these are not cows, sheep, or any other kosher animal. Rather, it is a person who needs to correct, to discern the animal part within, the speaking part, which is the priest, Levite, and Israel. A person offers and sacrifices part of the animate, which is all the animate within us. Actually, it concerns the desires within us, which divide into still, vegetative, animate, and human.

Why is it so difficult to offer the sacrifice?

A person cannot perform correction without first knowing what to do, without internally distinguishing good from bad. Currently, we do not know what to correct. You might say, “Yes, sometimes I lie,” but how can you tell that this is what you must correct? Anyone can say that, at least to oneself. However, even then it is not a sincere confession. So how will you know what is stopping you from approaching the goal? For this, we need the revelation of the Creator, the light that reforms to illuminate for us the desires we can sacrifice.

From The Zohar: One Who Did Not Marry a Woman Is Flawed

“When any man of you brings an offering” means excluding one who did not marry a wife, since his offering is not an offering and there are no blessings in him, neither above nor below. This means that when it writes, “When any man of you brings an offering,” and he is different, not a human and not included in man. Divinity is not over him because he is flawed and called “maimed,” and one who is maimed is removed from everything, all the more so from the altar, from offering sacrifices.

Zohar for All, VaYikrah (The Lord Called), item 63

If one knows and feels that one is flawed, namely still has an egoistic intention, how can one sacrifice it? How can one move closer to the Creator?

Such a person must first be whole.

Ask most people and they will tell you, “I’m fine with the Creator; I get along with Him. How do they know? Do they feel this way? Is this how the Creator is depicted for them?

They feel so because the Creator is hidden from them, so they are sure they are OK with Him.

If the person is OK with the Creator, why is He hidden?

We do not ask ourselves this question. We say, “I pay my taxes, I’m friendly to my neighbors, I even put the garbage in the right bins. I’m just fine.”

How do you explain to people that there is a connection, that we must discover the quality of bestowal within us, that this is the Creator? How do you explain that VaYikra means that the Creator is calling us to approach something very different?

We determine our own situation, the scale, according to the upper force, which is benevolent, whole, in which there is no hate but only love. We measure in comparison with it how similar or different we are from it, from the Unique one from whom everything was created and to whom everything returns. First we must see and feel how different or similar we are to Him. We must also engage in the wisdom of Kabbalah, or we will have no chance of nearing Him.

This is how everyone thinks, which is why it is impossible to turn to anyone in this manner. We need to measure people compared to the Creator, and then it will be possible to see how obligated we are, and how the Creator has made us so. We could say, “Go to the craftsman who made me,”^[4] since He has made me this way, and only through bringing the upper light will anything be resolved.

Our qualities have been designed since childhood by our parents, education, the environment, the Creator, genes, grandparents, and previous generations. Then there are our own additions. Over that part which we add to ourselves, which we could avoid adding, too, or add negative traits to ourselves, over that part we have choice and can say, “This I need to correct.” This is the initial scrutiny. It is a very special work, which is why we do not immediately arrive at the offerings.

During all the previous portions we advance toward this work, discovering the Creator—the upper force—at the level we are in through the quality of Moses in us. We measure ourselves compared to them, and only then can we correct our qualities and know how many of them we should fix, and how. After all, we have many qualities that need no correction because they are corrected by themselves, as they are not ours.

^{[1]Jerusalem Talmud, Seder Nashim, Masechet Nedarim, Chapter 9, p 30b.
[2] Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), The Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Love of God and the Love of Man,” p 482.
[3] Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), The Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot (Shining and Welcoming Face),” p 149.
[4] Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Taanit, p. 20b.}

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