February 17, 2018

BeHukotai

Our Parasha ends the book of Leviticus and it mainly describes what will happen “If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my precepts…” and what will happen if not. Regarding those two possibilities, the Torah uses a phrase that repeats itself. On one hand “I will face you with favor (ופניתי אליכם) and make you fruitful and increase your numbers…” and on the other hand “I will set my face at you (ונתתי פני בכם) so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you…” The commentators ask how the same word can describe two opposite situations. Furthermore, according to Kabbalah the Creator is an endless light, love, joy, sharing and only good, so how can it be that if his rules are not to be kept so many bad things will happen to us?!

The Zohar explains that the objective reality is a reality of endless love, sharing and abundance. However, our subjective reality interprets our experiences according to our personal story, our essence and our personal structure, and that is why each of us experiences reality in a different way although there is only one reality which is endless love.

At the end of the part that looks like terrible curses the Torah indicates “Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely…”. When one hates another he feels toward him revulsion and disgust. We have a need to give ourselves excuses why we hate our fellowman. In our Parasha, when the creator says these words he talks about his beloved one, about us. The Creation has two sides: the masculine – this is the side that gives and shares, the Creator. And the feminine side that receive, which is us, the creatures of this reality. Therefore this paragraph should be read like this: “I will not reject them or abhor them…” and why so?”to destroy them completely…” – in Hebrew it is written LeKhalotam לכלותם, from the root כ.ל.ה which is also the word “bride”, meaning, because they are my bride.

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According to modern physics, there are two theories describing light in our reality – the particles and the wave theories. These are two theories that are totally different, and researchers found that it all depends on the observer. Meaning, if we will check if light waves behave as a wave we will see they are, but if we also check if they behave as particles we will find they do, as well. If we project it on our reality, here everything is also in the observer eyes: if his perception is of separation and division he will experience the Light as particles limited by the dimensions of time and space. However, if his perception is not limited he will experience the world as a wave, as a flow, a world that its different parts all exist concurrently although in many places.

“I will set my face at you (ונתתי פני בכם)…” – on one hand as a curse and on the other as a blessing and we determine how our reality will be. It does not matter how many times we turn our back to the Light, His love to us will still be endless. The Creator is never angry with us, it is us who get angry with ourselves, and the more we get angry, or upset we bock and prevent the Light from entering. We have to remember that we create the curse and the blessing; it is all in our hands.

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