Category Archives: Weekly Torah Parashat

The Dance

One of my most favorite Kabbalah teachers (Karen Berg) said this in regards to this week’s Torah reading…..

“I like Garth Brooks; in fact, I like country music in general. One of my favorite songs by Garth Brooks is “The Dance.“ If you know of it, you may remember these lyrics:

“I could have missed the pain, but I’d have had to miss the dance”

This makes me wonder: How often do we miss out on good things just because we are afraid to face the short-term pain?

Now let me first clarify that the pain I am talking about is not necessarily physical pain.

Rather, I am talking about the times that we want to avoid the “pain” or discomfort of speaking the truth, so instead of speaking up, we stay quiet.

I am talking about the times when we want to avoid our responsibility to say, “It is not right. I am not going to allow this to happen,” because we don’t want people to judge us or our families to be upset with us. I am talking about the times when we sidetrack our responsibility to do or say something that could potentially bring about positivity.

This week, by facing the uncomfortable head on, we can set ourselves on the path to reveal our potential—to become who we can be—which, after all, is our purpose in life.

Sure, we can try to avoid pain (it’s not terribly hard to do), but when we do, it may also mean that we miss the dance.”

Purim

This Monday evening, March 6, 2023 at sunset, 6:41pm in Indianapolis, 5:52pm in New York Purim begins. It ends the next day at sunset.

Kabbalah is not a belief system. It is not a religion. It is a technology for connecting to Source. In my opinion, it is not the only technology but it seems to be a very dynamic one.

Every week’s reading and every “holiday” is looked at as a “window of opportunity” to connect in a specific way. It is said that at the end of the world….which means when the final correction is completed then only one holiday will remain…..Purim.

Beresheet

It is a brand new cycle. Right Now. Right Here. In the Hebrew Calendar it is year 5782. Did you know there are only 6000 years to complete the cycle? What does this mean?

“The Zohar says that in Beresheet we capture the idea that physical reality is a development, an evolution of our consciousness, which is the immaterial aspect. The seven days of Creation is speaking about sefirot, seven levels of energy, Names of Divine Inspiration. These energies should become implanted in our consciousness to understand the real reality.” Rav Berg….

The reading in The Torah is Genesis 1:1 – 6:8.

Sukkot

The only instance where the body does not reject a foreign object is in the bearing of a child.

When a child is in the womb, it is a total parasite, taking its nourishment entirely from the mother. Yet it is completely accepted and protected. What is it that brings this protection? The answer is the amniotic fluid, which allows the fetus to grow for its period of nine months.

Each of us has this same amniotic fluid in our lives. It is called the mikveh,. The mikveh is a pool of water that we immerse ourselves in for spiritual cleansing.

At this stage in our lives, however, the amniotic fluid is not about facilitating growth. To grow means that we ourselves need to apply the spiritual tools that we have; in other words, we must use our own resources to spiritually evolve ourselves.

The purpose of the mikveh is to allow us a place of protection from the negative energies that are around us. The water of the mikveh brings us back to a place of neutrality and protection.

Monday night (the 20th) we enter a period of seven days called Sukkot, and the amniotic fluid for us during this period is called the sukkah. The sukkah acts as a protective shield that comes from Above. This shield is the powerful Light of the Creator, which enters our world through the sukkah, allowing us to breathe in the Lifeforce Energy so that we can use the spiritual tools at our disposal to further our spiritual growth.

As the mother is to the child, the Light of the Creator is to us on earth, and the sukkah allows us to draw upon that protection. The sukkah acts exactly like a mikveh, allowing us the time and space to draw spiritual energy and to learn how to use it for our benefit through the tools that we use now and for the whole year to come.

This is what the sukkah is all about.