How do we prepare to receive 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, also 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 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 which increase your importance 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 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 the 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 came down on Mount Sinai to show us the reality of our own egoism , so we will want to receive the Torah again with all our heart.
