How do we prepare to receive the Torah?

and what is the Torah? The Zohar teaches us that  the essence of the Torah, the essence of God, and the essence of the soul are one. But we cannot attain the essence of God directly —even the essence of ourselves, our soul, is hidden from us. So the one aspect of this godly essence that we are given as a gift to grasp and to attain, is the Torah. When we learn, immerse ourselves, in the Torah, we are connecting directly with the Holy blessed One and with our own soul. And this is the great gift that we are given every Shavuot, to renew our connection with the Divine essence. But we’re not just a soul, we are also made up of the body. These two components, while they need each other, also oppose each other. Our body aspect, our egoism, tells us, “Whatever you do to better yourself in the material sense, or whatever actions you take that increase your importance in the world are good.” Whereas the soul, says, “Whatever we can do in giving unconditionally, whether to God or to our fellow human being, is good, because such actions bring us close to God.” Our body aspect is more familiar to us: it starts to grow the moment we are born, whereas our soul incarnates later. The voice of the ego is strident, fitting in with the messages we get from the society around us and from the media, whereas the soul whispers and we have to strain to hear its voice. So how are we going to want to contact the soul? How are we going to decide that the yetzer hara , our evil inclination, is really our worst enemy ? How are we going to want the Torah, our connection with our soul? In this podcast, we study a beautiful article of Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag in which he shows us that it is God, who, when He comes down into the mind and heart of a person, as He came down on Mount Sinai, shows us the reality of our own egoism, so we will want to receive the Torah again, here and now, with all our heart. Podcast luilui nishmat Shalom Lev ben David haLevi Segal z”l Based on article of Rabbi Baruch Shalom Halevi Ashlag, Sefer Hama’marim Volume 2 תשמז article 18

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How do we prepare to receive the Torah? is an episode from Nehora School presents the Kabbalah of Rabbi Ashlag by Yedidah Cohen.

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This episode was published on Jun 2, 2022.

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