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Atzilut is Private Providence The Striking of Thoughts upon Man Against Your Will – 1 If There Is a Virgin Maiden The Meaning of Sins Becoming as Merits A Gentile Who Observes the Sabbath Must Die The Correction of Lines This Is the Path of Torah – 1 A Hedge for Wisdom – Silence - 1 For He Whom the Lord Loves He Admonishes - 1 The Fear of You and the Dread of You Shall Be upon All the Animals of the Earth - 1 The Whole World Is Nourished by My Son Hanina – 1 A Hand on the Throne of the Lord – 1 Thus You Shall Say to the House of Jacob Ordinances The Numbered Things of the Tabernacle – 1 Concerning the Shechina [Divinity] The Garments of the Soul - 1 Beginning to Speak from the Connection with the Creator Concerning the Will to Receive - 1 Sanctification of the Month And You, Israel Behold, I Am Setting Before You The Main Thing We Need The Summoning for the Blessing on the Food Who Will Not Lift Up the Face Three Lines – 1 The Earth Feared and Was Still The Creator Observed Their Works Turn Away from Evil and Do Good – 1 How I Love Your Teaching Man’s Greatness Is According to His Work What Is Amalek, Whose Memory We Must Blot Out TANTA [Taamim, Nekudot, Tagin, Otiot] Find Favor and a Good Mind Who Hears a Prayer Fish Means Worries The Blessing of the Torah Anyone with Whom the Spirit of the People Is Pleased – 1 Concerning Two Witnesses Raising the Hands Serve the Creator with Joy The Discernments of “Woman” and “Sons” in the Torah Ruin by Elders—Construction; Construction by Youths—Ruin Sons of Wise Disciples This Moment and the Next Moment Worse than Everyone Right, Wholeness, and Truth Our Faith in Books and Authors God Made It so that He Would Be Feared Questions in the Work A Kli [vessel] that Holds a Blessing Ani [I] and Ein [nothing/null] A Request for Help You Stand Here Today – 1 Turn Away from Evil and Do Good – 2 Woe unto You Who Await the Day of the Lord The Order of the Work The Difference between Kedusha [holiness] and Sitra Achra [other side] The Meaning of Exile The Work of the Greatest in the Nation Greeks Have Gathered Around Me The War of the Inclination What Is Handsome In the Work? Against Your Will You Live; Against Your Will You Die A Horse to Ride On A Prayer for Life and Nourishments The Degree of “Wicked” Joy and Fear All Bitter Herb [Maror] Old and New The Torah Must Be Received with Both Hands Midnight Correction Faith Above Reason Good Deeds Are Called Sons The Unification of ZON The Ruin of Kedusha [Holiness] Man Determines Nothing New Under the Sun The Meaning of “Torah Lishma [for Her sake]” From Lo Lishma to Lishma Joy that Comes from Dancing Definitions – 1 Exalt the Lord Our God Knowledge and Faith The Testimony of the Creator Upper and Lower It Is All Corrections Passion for Knowledge Suffering and Joy Faith Is Called “Action” The Desire to Bestow – 1 The Need and Importance of Teaching Faith Awakening – 1 Love of Others Colors in the Work What to Ask of the Creator—to Be His Servant Faith Within Reason How Good Are Your Tents, Jacob – 1 Man and the Torah Faith Is Regarded as Above Nature Concerning Shekalim – 1 The Greatness of the Creator Is His Humbleness Foundations The Association of the Quality of Judgment with Mercy Devotion Concerning Suffering – 1 Hochma and Hassadim Raising MAN – 1 Concerning Fear The Torah Is Acquired through Suffering Two Kinds of Repentance Three Things in the World For Your Crimes, Your Mother Was Sent Away The Meaning of Dust A Groom and a Bride Man’s Actions A Palace Run My Beloved Good Taste in Small, Corporeal Things Entry into the Work The Reason for the Faith Moses Is the Quality of Faith Am I In the Place of God? The Whole Earth Is Full of His Glory Mind and Heart Discernments in States As He is merciful, So You Are Merciful Repentance Concerning Shekalim – 2 Inner Keys and Outer Keys Anyone Who Is Settled in His Wine One Learns Only Where One’s Heart Desires One Does Not Toil Over a Meal and Misses It Anyone Who Associates the Aim for the Creator with Another Thing Specifically through a Man and a Woman I Wish They Left Me and Kept My Law Why Israel Are Compared to an Olive Tree Be Mindful with a Minor Commandment as with a Major One – 1 Be Mindful with a Minor Commandment as with a Major One – 2 Be Mindful with a Minor Commandment as with a Major One – 3 I Have a Minor Mitzva [commandment], Whose Name Is Sukkah A Person Builds a Building Turning His Ear from Hearing Torah The Creator Is Meticulous with the Righteous Man and His Role One Who Restrains Himself in Strife The General Public and the Chosen Few Delight Them with a Complete Building – 2 The Meaning of Evil You Have Not a Blade of Grass Below Discernments in a Spiritual Kli [vessel] Man’s Work Prayer Concerning Equivalence of Form Happy Is the Man A Cure before the Blow Noah Was a Righteous Man Anyone with Whom the Spirit of the Creator Is Pleased Mind and Heart The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil The Lord Appeared to Him by the Oaks of Mamre How to Draw Near Him He Who Has No Sons Abraham Begot Isaac And Isaac Was Forty Years Old And Judah Approached Him – 1 And Behold, the Lord Stood Over Him Joy While Learning Torah The Way of the Land Preceded the Torah Jacob Sent Anyone Who Sanctifies the Seventh – 2 The Lord Hears the Poor When Pharaoh Sent the People This Is the Day that the Lord Has Made Hear, O Israel The Lord Your God Was Unwilling to Listen Three Prayers - 1 Save Your Servant, You, My God Your Children, Whom You Said The Counsel of the Lord Ever Stands This Day, the Lord Your God Commands You You Stand Today - 2 The Concealed Things Belong to the Lord Our God Sins Become for Him as Merits There Is Fear Only in a Place of Wholeness What Is Joy? The Ascent of Malchut to Bina The Middle Line Concerning the surrounding lights He Who Comes to Defile “Right” Means Wholeness What It Means to Bear a Son and a Daughter in the Work What Is, He Swallowed Maror [bitter herb], He Will Not Come Out, in the work? Three Lines – 3 Movement Due to Shame You Shall Tithe a Tenth Questions about “Return O Israel” Nourishment Laboring and Finding The Power of Thought The Exile of the Shechina [Divinity] Desire for Spirituality Cast Their Seed Among the Nations General Attainment and Personal Attainment Two Labors Concerning the Goal I Will Remove the Stony Heart The Act Is What Decides Righteous and Wicked The Face of the Lord Is in Evildoers The Upper One Scrutinizes for the Purpose of the Lower One Malchut of the Upper One Becomes Keter to the Lower One Why He Waited until the War Against Amalek And Jethro Heard Those of Little Faith Remember that You Were a Slave Peace at Home Overcoming The Mitzva of Sukkah Anything that the Merciful One Does, He Does for the Best Man’s Inclination Inheritance of the Land Justice, Justice You Shall Pursue By Your Actions, We Know You The Generations of Jacob Joseph If Any Man of You Brings an Offering - 1 Who Despises the Day of Smallness Branch and Root To Admonish Another Annulment - the Baal Shem Tov Way The Quality of Moses Miketz [After] There Has Never Risen a Prophet Like Moses One Who Walks along the Way Action and Thought Tzimtzum The Journeys of the Children of Israel The Measure of Overcoming Man as a Whole Two Discernments in the Kelim Inverse Relation between Lights and Vessels Merging of the Body The Difference between the Soul and the Body It Is Good to Thank the Creator Pleasure Cancels the Mind The Birth of the Moon Bo [Come] We Will Do and We Will Hear – 2 Internality and Externality The Godliness Made the Concealment The Need for Gentiles Dead Fish Turn Away from Evil and Do Good - 4 None as Holy as the Lord The Need for a Kli without Light Three Prayers - 2 Good Writing and Signing Rosh Hashanah The Rosh Hashanah Prayer With a Shofar You Will Renew An Article for Sukkot What Is Hanukah What Is the Miracle of Hanukah The Meaning of Amalek When He Let His Hand Down, Amalek Prevailed Blotting Out Amalek Revealing the Concealment Until He Does Not Know The Meal of a Wicked One His Law He Contemplates Two Opposites I and Not a Messenger Concerning the Environment The Torah Spoke Regarding Four Sons The Need for an Act from Below The More One Speaks of the Exodus from Egypt And he said, “When You Deliver the Hebrew Women” And God Spoke to Moses And I Will Take You as My People Come unto Pharaoh Behold, a People Has Come Out of Egypt The Passover Offering Concerning the Beginning of the Month Peh-Sah [speaking mouth] The First Innovation Concerning the Exodus from Egypt The Duty to Tell the Story of the Exodus from Egypt Concerning the Matza [unleavened bread] The Time of Redemption Questions for the Exodus from Egypt Concerning the Omer [Count] The Exodus from Egypt and the Giving of the Torah The Point in the Heart The Ninth of Av

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Kabbalah Library Home / Rabash / Assorted Notes / Saved Us from the Hand of the Shepherds

506. Saved Us from the Hand of the Shepherds

After Shabbat, Shemot, December 31, 1977

“Moses said … ‘And they will say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?’ And God said to Moses, ‘I will be who I will be.’ He said, ‘Thus shall you say to the children of Israel, ‘I will be’ sent me to you.’” RASHI interpreted, “I will be” with them in this trouble, and I will be with them in the enslavement of the rest of the kings.

He said to Him, “Master of the world, why am I reminding them of another trouble? This trouble is enough for them.” He told him, “Well said, thus shall you say to the children of Israel, ‘I will be’ sent me to you.” RASHI interpreted that the Creator reiterated what He had said earlier to Moses alone, and said “I will be” twice, while to Israel, he said “I will be” only once (Berachot 9).

“And they said, ‘An Egyptian man saved us from the hand of the shepherds.’” There is an allegory in the Midrash about a man who was bitten by a donkey, and he ran to put his feet in the water. He put it in the river and saw an infant sinking in the water, so he stretched out his hand and saved him. The infant said to him, “Were it not for you, I would have been dead.” He replied to the infant, “It was not I who saved you, but the donkey, which bit me and I ran from it. He is the one who saved you.” This is why they said to their father, “An Egyptian man saved us from the hands of the shepherds.” But who caused the Egyptian man to come to us? The Egyptian man that he had killed.

What does this tell us? We can interpret this by intimation. Moses was to come to the general public of Israel and tell them that the Creator will deliver them from exile. Therefore, He told him only once, “I will be,” meaning that they would have exile only in that Israel are in exile among the nations of the world.

In other words, we should discern between the gentile in Israel—who is in exile among the nations, when one wants what the nations want, meaning every corporeal thing, and the gentiles do not give them what they want. When the gentiles of the nations of the world rule over the gentiles of the people of Israel, this is called “corporeal exile.”

But exile is primarily in the quality of Israel in a person, when he should observe the Torah and Mitzvot [commandments] and the gentiles within him do not give him the freedom to do what he wants. At that time, one feels that he is in exile within his own body. Before one emerges from this exile, from corporeal lusts, he cannot feel spiritual pleasures from Torah and Mitzvot.

Then, the body is made to understand that it is better for it to relinquish corporeal lusts, for by this he will be rewarded with real pleasures. And when he begins to relinquish corporeal lusts, the body wants to show its governance and resists his actions. This is the meaning of the words, “Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has done harm to this people, and You did not save Your people at all.”

That is, before we begin to speak with the body, called “wicked Pharaoh,” “to speak in Your name,” meaning relinquish everything for sake of the Creator, we see the lowliness of the body and begin to feel the exile. This is one “I will be,” meaning in this trouble. This pertains to the general public of Israel.

However, there is work called “the quality of Moses,” which is the Torah. This is the second trouble. That is, when one has been rewarded with spiritual pleasures, there is the trouble that at that time he cannot aim in order to bestow, meaning to decide that if not for the purpose of Mitzva [commandment], he relinquishes the spiritual pleasures. This is harder than relinquishing corporeal pleasures because the greater the pleasure, the harder it is to relinquish it.

This is regarded as the second “I will be,” meaning a second trouble. However, this pertains only to those who learn Torah, called “the quality of Moses.” This is (not) for the whole of Israel to learn, but to learners of Torah, who must know that it is forbidden to receive spiritual pleasures for oneself, as well, but rather only in order to bestow, called Masach [screen] and Aviut [thickness].

The Creator promised Moses that He would deliver them from both the first and second troubles. However, we must know that emerging from the first trouble is mainly emergence from corporeal lusts, and that without it, it is impossible to achieve spiritual pleasures.

This is the allegory in the Midrash, “An Egyptian man saved us from the hands of the shepherds.” That is, the fact that he killed the Egyptian, meaning the first reason, we must also remember, even afterward, when we come to the second state, which is the exile over spiritual pleasures, that we must receive them in order to bestow, and the body disagrees. That is, killing the Egyptian refers to corporeal lusts, called “Egyptian.”

Conversely, the second trouble is the quality of Israel, meaning that he has spiritual pleasures, and yet he is in trouble because he must overcome in order to bestow and needs the Creator to deliver him also from this trouble.