The Virus Softens Our Hearts

We are in a special period of preparation to leave Egypt. This is a multilateral preparation because we need to realize that we are being held in Egyptian slavery under the rule of Pharaoh, our egoism, which entangles us and disallows us to escape.

We need to feel connected, as if we were in straitjackets, in the captivity of our own egoism, which rules over all of our thoughts, desires, and movements. The more we will feel this alien power, the further we will be able to advance toward the exit and attain a desire to escape from egoism.

Every day we will increasingly feel the power of egoism. The coronavirus will help us realize that we have always been slaves of Pharaoh even though we did not notice it. Our whole past life was arranged according to the laws, rules of conduct, and program of Pharaoh.

The whole world is Egypt, but people do not feel like slaves of an evil ruler. Instead, they consider their lives to be normal under a good king who cares about them. Pharaoh demands nothing from us except to honor his laws and worship his values.

This is how things used to be. Suddenly, a foreign power called the coronavirus appeared and shows us how disgusting our relationships are and how unbearable the power of Pharaoh is. This becomes evident if one exits it and looks at it from the side instead of accepting it as inevitability and the law of nature.

It is necessary for us to revise all the industrial and family ties that we built before as well as our attitudes toward life and death. We must not go back to our old ways. This virus is giving us an opportunity to sort out our past state. Let’s analyze it and find out if we want to go on with our lives as though nothing happened.

Did we like that kind of life? What kind of joy did we experience traveling from place to place all the time buying everything that advertisements enticed us to buy? All our life was built according to the template imposed on us by the media and advertisements that dictated how to think, what to buy, and how to act.

A full revision is the first step in our correction. We will try to evaluate what was good and what was bad. Then, we will imagine a new state, a new life, and how we could change it. After all, even before the epidemic, our lives were not cloudless.

We did not choose how to live; our egoism chose for us and pushed us to build the type of society, environment, and world that was convenient for it. It turned us into nature’s enemies. We destroyed it; we burned and killed plants and animals so that there is no longer any place on earth where we can live normally.

We built concrete houses in which we hide from everyone, and we are afraid of each other. Our children have gone even further and they hide inside computers so they have nothing left but the artificial world that we created for them.

The coronavirus, which has shaken us so hard, gives us the opportunity to see where we are, where we have arrived, and who we are, so proud of our minds, enlightenment, and freedom, who could build a different type of life for ourselves.

Maybe we are just animals developing according to the egoistic program of nature installed in us? Egoism forces us to build relationships that lead to war, destruction, and global crisis.

We have long expected a crisis to break out. But suddenly, the coronavirus appeared in its place. This is something new: not a financial crisis nor a war, but a crisis of our relations. First of all, the virus is breaking our ties. is forcing everyone to isolate themselves and to fear one common threat. Today, all the inhabitants of this world are afraid of one common thing. it is good that we are not afraid of each other but of one common enemy.

Maybe, amid the fear of coronavirus, we can better connect with each other, help one another, get closer, and feel that we belong to one humanity? It turns out that coronavirus is our friend and assistant, the pointer of the Creator from above? After all, He was able to resolve our discord and unite us!

Imagine that you have many children who constantly quarrel with each other, fight, and curse, and you don’t know how to calm them down. Now suddenly, something appears that resolves the fight, moves the children away from each other, and instead of the claims against each other, something external gives them a general alarm. A common misfortune brings us together, and gives us a reason to think about one thing and feel in unison.

Let’s see in this virus a means of drawing closer to each other; it softens our hearts. Although we associate it with deprivations and fears, this is not so, it comes out of love. It comes to us with love, not with a stick, hatred, or threat.

Instead of separating us from each other, the virus will give us the opportunity to build new relationships between us. The virus expresses our egoism because it settles down where there is egoism. It turns out that we need to look not for a virus, but for egoism, and so we will reveal our evil more and more and move away from it. And having turned our attitude into a good one, we will heal everything with this attitude.

We will be able to hug each other without fear of infections or viruses. The whole world will be connected with good, friendly ties. Each one will think, first of all about what good means in the eyes of the other, and then approach him accordingly.

That is, I rise above my egoism, find out what is good in the opinion of other people, and build connections with them on this basis. This resembles the order of spiritual work: self-restriction, screen (refusal to work with one’s desires), and the reflected light (the desire to bestow according to one’s perception of the good).

It turns out that every crisis has been given for our benefit. It is written that “No one is cruel in the king’s domain.” One only needs to advance quickly day by day, and the most important thing is not physical actions but spiritual ones.

Otherwise, the opportunity for correction that this virus provides us will dissipate. Then nature will push us with tougher measures, and we should not wait for them. Let’s advance in it’s direction and help it of our own freewill.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/18/20, Lesson on the Topic “Pesach (Passover)”