When The Ego Is Helpless

The Torah, “Numbers,” 22:28 – 22:30: The Lord opened the mouth of the she-donkey, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you that you have struck me these three times?” Balaam said to the she-donkey, “For you have humiliated me; if I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now.” The she-donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your she-donkey on which you have ridden since you first started until now? Have I been accustomed to do this to you?” He said, “No.”

As long as Balaam didn’t use his entire ego for his own sake, which Balak forced him to do, he didn’t have any problems and lived with his ego in peace. However, when the time came to use the ego against the goal of nature, trouble started. Today, everyone encounters these problems. This is the reason for the global crisis.

Question: Isn’t using the ego always against the goal of nature?

Answer: During our lives, we build houses, dress ourselves, create different machines, develop technology and communications, and seemingly improve the world. We use the ego in this way. We must gradually understand that all of this is in vain and is not the right fulfillment of the ego. Although this trend is against the goal of nature, this is how we approach it.

Question: Why did the she-ass stop and begin to speak? After all, the ego always works contrary to the goal of nature.

Answer: It is because the ego is on the level of the desert here. There are six parts to the desire—food, sex, family, wealth, honor, and knowledge—but there is an additional part, which is the yearning for the Creator, to be in His place, to remove Him from the top, and this is actually what the ego wants.

First, Nimrod, the symbol of egoism, embodies this desire, and then Balak and Haman who wanted to take the Creator’s place, that is, to use the ego to its fullest intensity in order to be filled. After all, there is nothing in nature but the ego. And if we fill it, the ego will continue to exist forever.

But we have a more sublime mission—to use the ego in order to bestow. This means not to imprison all of nature, all of humanity, and all of the worlds in the ego, but rather to turn it inside out and use it in infinity, eternity, and perfection. The ego doesn’t feel this mission, and therefore people don’t understand it.

The only ones who do understand it are several thousand who have the desire that is above the human desires for food, sex, family, wealth, honor, and knowledge. They also have a desire to attain the laws of the universe and to exist on a level of general harmony and perfection.

The people who yearn for this are called Israel, and therefore when the question about the fulfillment of the ego comes up through exiting the desire—exiting outside of ourselves and not by the desire to be filled as Balak and Balaam wanted—the she-ass in us awakens and asks, “How do you want to use me? What do you want from me?”

This means that, when a person works with his ordinary human desires, everything is normal. He uses the ego, plows it and rides it, but now the ego says, “You cannot use and exploit me anymore. I cannot go on or do anything.” Here, the ego is helpless.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/12/15