Glossary of Terms Used in the Hukat Weekly Torah Portion

Place

A “place” is a desire. Each desire is a place in which something appears, whether good or bad.

Purity

This is the power of bestowal.

Impurity

This is the power of reception.

Death

“Death” is the inability to work in order to bestow.

Water

“Water” is a force that revives the will to receive and turns its intention from reception to bestowal.

A Rock

A “rock” is a will to receive that needs to be corrected so it can be used in order to bestow, meaning that one can use the water that comes out of it in the act of bestowal. There are two modes of action to perform an act of bestowal: 1) striking the rock, which are waters of Meribah (quarreling) or waters of Gevurot, 2) speaking, which are waters of Hassadim (mercy), waters of bestowal, the water of life.

A Boundary

A “boundary” is a place where one must stop one’s act of bestowal for lack of strength to aim in order to bestow. It is a point where one must restrict oneself and refrain from using one’s desire any further.

A Serpent

The egoistic will to receive that destroys a person and consumes him is the “serpent.” The serpent exists at the core of the will to receive existing in every person.

Healing

“Healing” is a correction. If we use that same serpent correctly, in favor of people’s lives, it becomes a good force. It is written, “I have created the evil inclination, I have created for it the Torah as a spice,” because “the light in it reforms him,” meaning reforms the serpent. That is, the evil inclination becomes a good inclination.

Inheritance

“Inheritance” is what we receive from a higher degree, from the father or the grandfather. In spirituality, too, there are degrees. We receive strength from a higher degree, a force that lets us ascend; it is called “inheritance.”

This Is the Statute of the Law

“The creatures were created with a nature of being receivers ... Since it is impossible to go against Nature, He has given us the advice that through Torah and Mitzvot we will be able to turn the nature within us.”¹ This is why the laws of the Torah are considered laws only when the evil inclination asks ... and then one needs to take upon himself everything as a statute, which is Hassadim, bestowal, where everything is only above reason, which is called “faith.”