The Torah Was Given to Us as a Means

Welcome all! Today's a very special day - who can tell us why? Because we're 17 days before the big regional convention! We hope you're all registered. We'll have six different gatherings in Israel, with one of them right here in Petach Tikvah.

Today we're continuing with Baal HaSulam's writings on Matan Torah, letter 7. And while we're reading we'll think about the convention. We going to run through everything with you here - all the information you need is on the convention site.

Opening clip: The Torah Was Given to Us as a Means

We face a challenge regarding the concepts of the "Giving of the Torah" and the "Receiving of the Torah." The difficulty lies in the fact that if we approach the Torah as a form of wisdom, we want to grasp it intellectually. If we wish to experience life - spiritual reality - we want to feel it emotionally. We possess either the mind or the heart - the two instruments through which we perceive ourselves and reality - and we cultivate them to enhance our ability to feel. Culturally and educationally, we respect the person who is sensitive - sensitive to various influences and to connections with nature and other people. We also respect the wise person - someone who uses their intellect to understand what they feel, thereby connecting with the broader reality.

Yet, it is very difficult for us to grasp that what the Torah offers is something entirely different - something distinct and quite strange: primarily, the acquisition of new qualities. Until a person possesses this new quality - which must truly take root, gestate, and be born within them - they have no idea what it is all about. Ultimately, the entire Torah serves as the means to instill within the person the new quality known as "Creator," spanning the entire spectrum from His negation to His full revelation. Neither our intellect nor our emotions can assist here - except perhaps as a form of peripheral support - because they have no bearing whatsoever on the revelation of the Creator.

The revelation of the Creator is the formation of the Creator’s quality within the person. And this is precisely why the Torah was given to us: as a means to create this new state within us. Michael Laitman

How much light can we attract? The bigger our vessels, the more light we can attract. A convention is a special opportunity to do this. On the one hand we have friends studying for decades, and on the other hand we have new students. Everyone can advance equally at a convention as long as they connect with the whole. To find a connection with friends you don't know at the convention - you need to connect with that deepest point inside you that brought you here. That point wants only one thing - the truth. They it will reveal the network with other people who want the same thing. A convention is an artform - to bring many benefits into our vessels. Now we'll read the source - letter 7 of Matan Torah. Let' not forget why we're reading - to bring light.

7) But here came the sages of The Zohar and asked why we were not created in this high stature of Dvekut with Him to begin with. What reason did He have to burden us with this labor and burden of creation and the Torah and Mitzvot? They replied, “He who eats that which is not his is afraid to look at his face.” This means that one who eats and enjoys the labor of one’s friend is afraid to look at his face because by doing so he becomes increasingly humiliated until he loses his human form. Because that which extends from His wholeness cannot be deficient, He gave us room to earn our exaltedness by ourselves, through our work in Torah and Mitzvot.

These words are most profound and I have already explained them in my book, Panim Masbirot on The Tree of Life, Branch One [and in the book, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Histaklut Pnimit, Part One]. Here I will explain them briefly to make them understandable for all.