February 17, 2018

Aharei Mot

Our Parasha describes the work order of the High Priest in the temple on Yom Kippur; hence it is also being read on that day. However, the commentators ask why do we read a Parasha that is dealing with Yom Kippur in the spring?

Now, what is common to the spring and Yom Kipur is that in both of them we determine our destiny. On Yom Kippur the Teshuvah (repentance), Tefilah (prayer) and Tsedaka (charity) have the power to change the decree, and also during the spring, facing the cleansing of The Omer we need the cleansing powers of Yom Kippur in order to connect to our “True Self”.

Aharei Mot deals with Yom Kippur and the work of the high priest, which is related with the energy of Hesed – the power of giving and sharing. Hesed has healing abilities, and in our days, when there is no high priest we should take this job on ourselves. Meaning, we need to ask ourselves how we could bring Hesed to every action and thought we have, so our life and environment will be filled with a healing energy.

The Zohar about this Parasha starts with two quotes from Psalms: “Serve the LORD with awe and celebrate his rule with trembling” (Psalms 2:11) and “Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs” (Psalms 100:2), and asks how those veses could exist together?! And answers that word “awe” is not to be interpreted in our days meaning. The letters of the word “Awe” (Yir’a יראה) is also (with different vowels) the word “Vision” (Yireh יראה), Hence, when we have “awe” we actually have “Respect”. We can see and understand that there are things that are bigger than us and then we become humble and act in modesty and restrain, and that is exactly the place we could grow from, elevate ourselves and draw into our lives the power of life.

Our spiritual work is meant for us neither for God. It is a constant maintenance of the energy flow from the upper worlds to us, and since it all happens in a way of cause and effect there are things not to be done, as it was already said about the Torah, that it could be the zest of life or poison – it is all a matter of how we fulfill it, and only then we could reach happiness, joy and affinity to the Creator. This is our free will – to which frequency we would like to connect.

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