Shavuot—The Holiday Of Unity

The holiday of Shavuot comes on the 50th day after Passover. For 49 days we perform the Omer count, which is like counting tied bundles, because the main work of man is to bind himself with the Creator. If we bind all of us together with our desires and intentions, we create one common vessel, we create a place for the revelation of the Creator’s light.

There are seven Sefirot in the soul, seven qualities that are developing in the head of the spiritual Partzuf (Rosh): Hessed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut. In each Sefira, there are another seven Sefirot, that is: 7 x 7 = 49, and combining all together, we get 50.

Therefore, on the 50th day after exiting Egypt, from the moment we began to correct our spiritual vessel, the connection between us, we come to this special day when the connection between everybody emerges. This day is called the holiday of Shavuot.

In Egypt, we were still under the control of the desire to receive and could not connect with each other. Pharaoh kept us in slavery and did not allow us to connect with each other. When we escape from the slavery of Pharaoh, we can begin to connect, and that is why we run away from him. After all, it was very good in Egypt in the corporeal sense. It was bad only in the spiritual sense because of the inability to connect.

Those who wanted to connect, considered it a spiritual gain and were not afraid to sacrifice material things for this purpose, they came out of Egypt. After that, when we start to connect with each other, we come to the state of Omer, a bundle. So, we join part by part, counting these bundles until we reach the last, 49^th day in the Omer count when we are already able to receive from the Creator the light that will fill us.

And for 49 days, we were receiving only the light of correction, so it was called the Omer. Each time, we found egoistic qualities between us that did not allow us to connect, but we tried to correct them and connect them, until on the 50th day, everything finally connected and we reached the common quality of mutual bestowal between us and from us to the Creator. Now the Creator can also give us the light and this is why it is called the day of the giving the Torah.

The symbols of this holiday are milk, the sign of bestowal, and a connected group bound together in one bundle (Omer) and in adhesion with the Creator.
[265479]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/28/20, “Feast of Weeks”

Correction After Exile

Torah, “Deuteronomy,” 04:25 – 04:26: When you beget children and children’s children, and you will be long established in the land, and you become corrupt and make a graven image, the likeness of anything, and do evil in the eyes of the Lord your God, to provoke Him to anger, I call as witness against you this very day the heaven and the earth, that you will speedily and utterly perish from the land to which you cross the Jordan, to possess; you will not prolong your days upon it, but will be utterly destroyed.

And so it happened. Because the nation is the group of people aiming toward the Creator and then this desire disappeared.

Generations change, meaning that more egoistic layers are revealed in a person and so he can’t remain in a state of close cooperation with others as one man with one heart.

Mainly it is revealed at the entrance to the land of Israel, because it is especially egoistic from the point of view of correction when you constantly climb your egoistic desires.

They constitute huge hard layers, the third and fourth levels of egoism that are impossible to withstand. On the one hand, they tear you apart by tempting with such cunning pleasures that you don’t have the strength to refuse.

And as soon as you move away from them darkness, depression, and blackness descend on you. Rising above such desires is only possible by being in mutual guarantee (Arvut), in connection, and by fervently praying to the Creator to give you theLight of correction.

Therefore the Creator tells Moses that his children and even more so his grandchildren “will become corrupt and make a graven image, the likeness of anything.”

Worshipping idols means worshipping our egoistic desires. It is unavoidable! “All the same, you will come to it and will become idol worshippers!”—the Creator predicts.

The future of humanity is inevitable. It was known to all Kabbalists, starting with Adam, Abraham, and further, because the real Kabbalists see to the end of creation, i.e., to the end of 6,000 years. The only thing they cannot foresee is the way the current stage, before the end of correction, will be passed, whether it will be by a good or bad way, because during the last stage of correction our freedom of will is revealed.

Comment: Thus, the Creator predicts to the people that they will disappear completely from the nation to which they crossover.

Answer: The people of Israel must go into exile. No wonder the greatest Kabbalist of that time Rabbi Akiva rejoiced at the destruction of the Temple and the fall of the Jews from the spiritual degree, because he saw that the prophecy came true, and the exile would be followed by correction.
[188344]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/2/16

We Don’t Entice With Sweets | Laitman.com

"We need to understand that we experience suffering in our world only because it pushes us toward the real pleasure."

We Don’t Entice With Sweets

Posted on October 20th, 2010 at 12:41 pm

Question: Do we need the screen that would enable us to rid ourselves of all the pleasures prepared by the Creator?
Answer: No. The purpose of creation is to reach the good and enjoy. However, we need to delight in the unlimited pleasures that do not exist in our world. We remain “animals” in this thin layer of reality, but our task is to rise to the human level, where the infinite pleasure originates. And then, after having opened the bestowing Kli, we will enjoy without boundaries.
Suffering is not man’s purpose. We need to understand that we experience suffering in our world only because it pushes us toward the real pleasure. Rabash gives an example of a father who arranges the firing of his son from a factory so he would not stay there for the rest of his life and would move on.
When we encounter unpleasant things, we do not feel that we are being educated in this way like little children. But there is no other path. You cannot always be enticed with sweets because they will become your only goal. Yet without the sweets, you become wiser, you begin to evaluate the situation, and learn to manage it.
Thanks to the environment and the method of correction you begin to always understand what is happening to you, you agree with the “education program,” and go through all of its steps with your own will.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/12/10, “The Matter of Mercy”

“Grace Is Deceitful And Beauty Is Vain” | Laitman.com

On the spiritual path, souls desiring to unite must perpetually work on building a connection between them. In that case they constantly influence Malchut of the World of Atzilut (the bride) and it awakens a connection in Zeir Anpin on the level of faith rather than reception of pleasure.

Then the covenant exists because we sign a pact that we hold on to each other only because of the spiritual goal’s importance regardless of who’s paying and how much. For example, if your girlfriend is beautiful, then when you receive pleasure from her, it’s as if you sold yourself to her. If you live with a woman because she’s beautiful, then you’re a “sell out” because you receive pleasure from her beauty, which is like her payment to you.

That’s why we sign a covenant saying that we advance by faith above reason or that bestowal is more important than reception for us. That’s why we constantly look for ways to strengthen our connection through mutual bestowal.

To the degree I join the connection through mutual bestowal, I start to notice how much uglier my “bride” is (meaning the group and the spiritual world), and that my partner (the Creator) is a liar. So who did I sign a covenant with, to whom did I obligate myself!? Yet, that’s when you have the opportunity to go by faith above reason, to prefer bestowal above the calculation of reception.

From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/17/10, Shamati #52

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Covenant Of Friends
Laitman.com Post: An Eternal Union