A World Without Borders

The Torah, “Leviticus,” Parshat Kedoshim, 19:23-25: And when ye shall come into the land, and shall have planted all manner of trees for food, then ye shall count the fruit thereof as forbidden; three years shall it be as forbidden unto you; it shall not be eaten. And in the fourth year all the fruit thereof shall be holy, for giving praise unto the LORD. But in the fifth year may ye eat of the fruit thereof, that it may yield unto you more richly the increase thereof: I am the LORD your God.

Question: What is the intention of division into three, four, and five? What is this gradation within a person?

Answer: A person who is involved in correcting himself has five levels of ego within himself. In the first three levels (0, 1, 2) he can’t feel his egoistic desires yet, just as a little child who is also unconscious of himself. After he goes through these three years, he attains the fourth level, the level of the sacred.

In the fourth level, the level of Bina, he must give all the fruits that he grows in the present level. This is called bestowal in order to bestow. And on the fifth level, his reception will be intended in order to bestow and so on this level, he can consume the fruits of his effort.

In the physical world, when talking about fulfilling a Mitzvah (precept) of consuming fruit, we take into account only what grows within the boundaries of the land of Israel, and not what is outside of the land. So from generation to generation, there have been constant debates about where the true borders of Israel stop. According to the Biblical borders, all of the holdings of King David, which existed even before the first Beit HaMikdash (temple), belong to Israel.

This included quite a wide area that included Transjordan, Syria, and Lebanon. And so when we bring fruit that grows from there, a problem is created. On the one hand, the Israelites didn’t grow the fruit, but on the other hand, it is not clear in whose territory they were working. There are a great many questions here, but they don’t affect us since we are involved with spiritual correction not physical correction.

It is said: “And when ye shall come into the land, and shall have planted all manner of trees for food.” In spiritual work, when you come to a desire and begin to work with it, it transforms from the level of the still to the vegetative. You can use it in order to bestow, only after you pass it through the first four phases: 0, 1, 2, 3 without using it, for in the fourth phase of Bina, everything is transmitted to the Beit HaMikdash. Only in the last phase is it possible to use it for yourself, because now your reception will be in order to bestow.

Question: Do you suppose that the physical borders of Israel must be like those in the days of King David?

Answer: According to the Talmud, there was a time that the borders of Israel stretched from the Nile on one side, including the Sinai, and on the other side, to Babylon.

I suppose that we don’t need to argue about this at all because the correction that is forcefully approaching us now will, in any case, destroy all the borders and blur them between the different people, their cultures, and all the different forms of life. The correction will unite everything and the mixture of the people will itself become the same Babylon, except corrected.

Question: Why doesn’t this directly affect Israel? Why is the mixture of different people taking place everywhere, whereas Israel is apparently left on the side?

Answer: It is because Israel must be the teacher, the leader of the overall correction, and must provide the demonstration of the correction.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/09/14