Balak – The son of a bird

“And Balak saw all that Israel had done...” – what did he see? Balak was a wizard who saw things, just as Avimelech was able to see what happened inside the house of Isaac. The fact that Abimelech looked “through the window” is impossible – did Isaac “enjoy with his wife” during the day? And with open windows?” – Rather, this “window” is a name of wizardry. Balak used the same.

Balak is called the son of a bird because he had this magic bird with iron wings who would fly around the world and tell him the news. He got this news from Aza, one of the two fallen angels. However, this time, the bird was late in coming back, and when it did come, it had its tail singed with fire. It also argued with Balak. He would say, “a certain people came out of Egypt,” and it corrected, “They are called Israel, which means “Isra El,” prince of God. He said "big," and the bird corrected him "great." That is what made Balak and his nation very much afraid.

Art: Open Window Lilacs Study by Valentin Aleksandrovich Serov

Chukat – What does the letter “vav” mean

And (“vav”) this is the law of the Torah – to burn the red heifer.

To explain this, Rabbi Yose started by praising the words of the Torah and those who study them. Then, Moses said, “Today, you are becoming a nation since you have the Torah.” But really, the Torah was given forty years ago; what did Moses mean? – Rather, this teaches that the Torah is beloved to those who learn it, every day just as the first time.

Now he could continue: the letter “vav,” which means “and,” joins subjects together: the Torah, which is symbolic of the community of Israel, and the Holy One Blessed be He, which usually denotes the Zeir Anpin, the “Supreme Man,” or the communication between God and this world. These are all united with the letter “vav.”

Those who read the daily prayers remember one of the phrases in the beginning, “All and some detail and then all again – the last 'all' includes only those things that were mentioned in detail.” That is a rule of the understanding the Torah, but it is also a means of connecting the Knesset Israel and God – since Malchut (or Shekhinah, God's presence) is called “All,” and Beauty is called “detail,” since it “details” the six directions of Zeir Anpin. Thus one does not exist without the other, and the other does not exist without the first.

Art: Rabbinical Students In A Classroom by Edouard Brandon

Naso – What happens at night

"God spoke to Moses, saying: 'Also take a census (raise their heads) of Gershon's descendants by families...'"

To explain this, Rabbi Abba quoted, "Happy is the man for whom God does not account his wrongdoings, and whose soul is pure" - and said that it does not make sense. If God does not count his wrongdoings, then they must exist. If so, why is his soul pure?

However, he explained that the world experiences judgment in the afternoon, which continues into the evening. The man's soul goes up and, free from the body's restrictions, testifies about his actions during that day. At midnight the righteous praise God and study Torah, and cause joy to the spiritual beings. Meanwhile, the soul that testifies retells man's words spoken during that day, and if they were only good and if he said nothing wrong about his fellows that he was not permitted to say, then his soul is pure. So now we understand that when is it that "God does not account his wrongdoings?" – When his soul is pure because he does not recount the wrongdoings of others.

Now here is what God said to Moses: Raise the righteous in the spiritual world where they cause joy, called 'head,' for the service that they do in Dispersion (Gershon is a hint to this since that word means 'I am a stranger here.')

Art: Procession of Souls By Louis Welden Hawkins

Bamidbar – Why count the community of Israel?

“God spoke to Moses in the Sinai Desert, in the Communion Tent...saying 'Take a census of the entire community of Israel.'”

To explain this, the Zohar goes all the way back to God creating a man and a woman, the man violating the first commandment, and how the rectification of his act was started with Adam's son, then continuing with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and still not be completed until the descendants of the twelve tribes accepted the Torah. It was not completed until the building of the Communion Tent, with its most important part – the Ark, containing the Tablets.

The actual means of correction was God's love to Israel, exhibited through counting the community three times. This counting served to bind their souls to the spiritual worlds above and correct both the souls and the worlds. Thus the words “in the Sinai Desert" and "in the Communion Tent,” which seem to be redundant, in reality, denote different worlds – giving Israel connection to both the theory and the practice of the Divine love.

Art: Adam and Eve Mourning for Abel By Johann Liss

Ki Tisa – the rich and the poor

"Everyone included in the census must give a half shekel. This shall be by the sanctuary standard, where a shekel is 20 gerahs. It is half of such a shekel that must be given as an offering to God."

A man's body is a hint to this shekel. The word “shekel” is closely related to “mishkal,” meaning “weight” and to the weighing scales. Man's two hands are the two cups of the scales, and his arms are the scales' beam. Since a hand has five fingers, it is represented by the letter hey (ה). We thus have two letters hey, the letter vav (ו) as the beam, and the letter yud(י) as the ideal holy shekel. All together they create the name of God yud-hei-vav-hei (יהוה).

The first hey in the name of God is the “rich hey”, and its numerical value is five, but each of these units is ten (since this is “Ima Ilaa,” or “Supernal Mother”, one of the highest spiritual entities in the four spiritual worlds), and thus the value of this first hey is 10 * 5 = 50. The second hey, the completion of God's name, is represented by the Jewish people. Since this physical world is spiritually impoverished in comparison to the the upper worlds and to its true potential, this letter hey is called the “poor hey.”

Therefore the “rich should not give more than half a shekel.” The rich is the righteous, his intention is to unify the name of God, and he wants to connect the lower and the upper hey. And yet, he cannot bring more than ten Sefirot, because (as Sefer Yetzirah points out), there are ten ways of God's interaction with the world, and not more. The poor (one who is poor in spiritual knowledge and who acts within the confines of the physical world), cannot bring less than half a shekel: his “ten” are for the poor, worldly hey, yet he brings them all.

That is why at the Passover Seder we talk about “This is the bread for the poor.” The poor usually asks at the door, and the letter hey has the shape of a door (ה). “All who need should come and eat” - because it is the spiritually poor who come to the “rich table” of the Seder.

Art: Balancing the scales (after) Gabriel Metsu