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

Vayetze - Growing up

"Jacob left Beer-sheba and headed toward Charan."

This Torah phrase is a code for many events in the spiritual world. Here is how Arizal explains the progression. God leads the world through ten Sefirot that combine and interact. The perfect world does not exist, and spirituality is not final and constant; instead, it grows. Zeir Anpin, the Cosmic Man, who represents this spiritual progress – achieved not by the whole of humanity but by a few select individuals – starts his life with immature consciousness. At this stage, his mind consists of the name of God, "Elohim," taken three times. This mind's gematria or numerical value is 86 * 3 = 258.

The next stage of Zeir Anpin's development is to grow. He must make space in his head for the higher levels of Names of God to enter - these names representing the adult consciousness. The three "Elohim" must descend through his throat and enter his body. The throat represents the narrow passage through which this development takes place. The gematria of the word throat ("Garon") is also 258 (with one added for the word itself).

How is this all hinted at by the above phrase of the Torah? - Jacob leaving Beer-sheba talks about the early conciseness of Zeir Anpin leaving his head and going into his body. Jacob is going to Charan - that is the hint since the gematria of Charan is 258.

Jacob, who could combine conflicting opinions and balance them, originates from Wisdom. He was also righteous, which is connected to the Sefirah of Foundation. The last letters of the words "Jacob left Beer" are aleph-beth-resh, representing "ever," or member, sexual organ. That is because controlling one's sexual urges is both a prerequisite and a means of obtaining righteousness.

Art: Landscape with Jacob, Rachel, and Leah by Nicolaes Berchem

After finishing one’s prayer

After one finishes his prayer with the goodwill from his Master (that is, after one says, “May it be Your goodwill to accept it”), one needs to imagine that he is giving up his life, with perfect love – and that is called “Tachanun”, or “Supplication.”

Once he does this, he is forgiven all the mistakes he had made, and if he did things that are not befitting a Jew, and did them in public – which amounts to the profanation of the Name of God – even that is forgiven. That is why initially it was called “Falling on one’s face on the ground” – because ground and land are connected to Rulership, the lowest spiritual level, from which there is no way but up.

He thus falls into the kingdom of Evil, with the goal of finding the small particles of goodness there, to bring them up when he straightens. He then goes together with them to the level of Rulership again, but this time in the highest world of Nearness.

The source for this is the Zohar at the top of

this post. But how exactly does one imagine it? By giving up his life in four different ways, corresponding to the four methods of capital punishment as they existed when there was such thing as Jewish capital punishment, with Sanhedrin. This is explained in the second picture in this post, from the Siddur HaRashash by Rabbi Asher Anshil Braun.

Matot – Long steps take away man’s eyesight

The Torah describes dividing the spoils of the war with Midianites, giving a full account of the numbers of human captives and animals, as well as the division. The account is almost thirty phrases long and seemingly gives the numbers which will never be needed again.

First, all of the spoils are divided into two. Then 1/500 is taken of the first half and 1/50 of the second half. All the numbers of all groups of animals are spelled out, and it can serve as an exercise in integer division.

The Arizal, however, asks two sorts of questions. First, the practical ones: why were the numbers specified in this order, and why the word “tax” is mentioned about the first and not the second division. He answers that when they were anyway dividing by 500, they did not have to be precise in counting and only cared about the final tax outcome. With the division by 50, they counted every animal like tithe and, like mentioned on Rosh Hashana, when everyone goes “under the rod.”

Second, there is a mystical hidden meaning, the key to which is the statement of the Talmud that “long steps take away 1/500 of man’s eyesight, but the Kiddush on Shabbat restores it.”

There are multiple connecting steps here: first, the secret of Bilam’s prophecy about the end of history, “I see it but not here, I perceive not, but it is not close,” which is related to the concept of stepping outside of time. This, in turn, talks about the Cosmic Female who was together with her Man (Zeir Anpin) in the womb of their mother (Supernal Mother). However, these are not physical bodies but the letters of Hey and the Vav, which is part of Hey in the name of God. This “coming out” is Judgment and Strength, and it is called “division of spoils” in our physical world. This division is represented by “those who went to war” and “the part of the congregation that stayed.”

Art: Balaam blessing Israel by William Brassey Hole

Acharei Mot – Fire, woman, and wine

"Two sons of Aaron brought an unauthorized offering of fire before God and died."

The two sons of Aharon who died were called Nadav and Avihu. The name Nadav (נדב) can be understood as “four sons” (ד-בן) - just as when the Pesach Aggadah says, “The Torah spoke of four sons,” it means these four sons, and they are Adam, Cain, Abel, and Seth. A further hint to this is in the name of Avihu (אביהוא), which means father (אבי) he is (הוא) - that is, Adam.

Thus, the two sons of Aharon were born to rectify whatever Adam and his three sons did not do correctly in their lifetimes, as their names hint to the following: Nadav means four sons, and Avihu means the father. They came to rectify Adam's faults, but instead, they were steadfast in them.

The first one was the fire. Before Adam married Eve, he was together with another woman, called Lilith. This is hinted at in Adam's words about Eve, "This one will be called a woman, because of her connection to the man." This one, but not the previous one. However, Lilith was not his true soul-mate, and this represented the wrong fire. As is known, a man (איש) and a woman (אשה) have a common element of fire (אש) between them. The additional letters - yud (י) in case of a man, and hei (ה) in case of a woman - constitute the name of God Yah (יה). If there is the presence of God (יה) in their union, and it is a true union, then this fire warms them, but if not, it burns them. Nadav and Avihu, too, brought an unauthorized offering of fire.

The second problem was wine. When Eve went to the tree of knowledge of good and evil – which was a grapevine – she squeezed out the juice of grapes and gave it to Adam in this form so that he would not know that it came from the forbidden tree. He should have understood this and stop himself, but he did not.

Nadav and Avihu, too, were drunk on wine when they brought their offering. This is hinted to in the very first phrase in this Torah portion, “Two sons of Aaron” (שני בני אהרן). If you take the last letters of the words, you get wine (יין). The first letters of the words "after... two sons" constitute “from fire” (מאש).

Later, Moses told Aharon that his sons were great, higher than Moses and Aharon themselves. He meant that they came from a higher source – Adam, while Moses came from Adam's son, Abel. They, therefore, had greater potential.

Art: Dutch School - A young boy holding a giant roemer of wine

Slides

Yitro – Here I come!

“He sent word to Moses: 'I, your father-in-law Jethro, am on my way to you...'”

Jethro came to Moses after he “heard about all that God had done for Moses and His people Israel when He brought Israel out of Egypt.” Why didn't he come before, on his own accord? After all, Moses was his son-in-law, and the leader of the Jewish people; besides, Jethro was bringing with him his daughter Tzippora, who was Moses' wife?

The answer is that Jethro was the reincarnation of Cain, and his life had a purpose: correction of the destruction that Cain had committed. There are two theories of when Jethro arrived: before the giving of the Torah (as the sequence of events seems to indicate), or after (which could also work, since the Torah does not always follow the timeline in retelling the events). Both theories have a common point of view, that the essential correction of a person is through Torah. That is the meaning of the phrase in the psalms, “All God's teaching are pure” – that is, they purify the person – and the word “purify” implies strenuous hard work.

According to the first theory, he came to be purified by the Torah which was given shortly afterward, and according to the second, all events and miracles meant nothing to him, but once the Torah was given – he had no doubt that now he had to go. The Torah purified the Jews from the mistake that Adam had made in the first place, and gave them a second chance and a clean slate.

In fact, Abel has exacerbated the mistake of his father Adam by looking at Divine Presence. This happened when he brought his offering, and God “accepted it.” This acceptance meant that Abel was given a chance to experience the Divine Presence, which he misused. Cain, on the other hand, did not have this chance. This “looking” was what made Abel to be liable to be killed by Cain.

At the time of the giving of the Torah, everybody, including Moses, were connected in their soul root to Abel. Jethro was the only exception, for he was the reincarnation of Cain. The continuation of Cain's correction happened through the sons of Aharon, Nadav and Avihu. They tried to use the incense for this, but were also involved in “looking” and thus only partially succeeded – for they died in the attempt – until the final correction came through Pinchas.

Art: Jan Victors - Moses' Parting Of Jethro