OC2 – Lesson 059 – Birkhas HaReyach 4 – Para. 23-30 – The Jewish Soul is a Bridge between Hashem and His Creation

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Speaker: Rabbi Nasan Maimon.
00:00 – PARAGRAPH 23. Hashem offered the Torah to all the 70 root nations, but each nation refused it.
06:22 – PARAGRAPH 24. Why Parshas BaMidbar is read just before Shavuos. Counting is an aspect of clarifying the כח המדמה Koach HaMeDaMeh – power of imagination. What is special about the People of Israel? The clarification of misguided imagination depends on the People of Israel. When a Jew does a mitzvah, he serves as a bridge between the different worlds of existence, uniting all creation to the Creator Himself.
13:15 – The Jewish soul is in perfect unity with Hashem. They are One. The power of imagination is the lowest level in the Jewish soul. This is the point of interface between the blessing of Hashem and His worlds. By counting Jewish souls, this point of interface is repaired because counting clarifies imagination.
18:05 – The confusion of the imagination streams from the venom of the nachash (serpent), the original mistake of Adam and Chava. Counting souls is dangerous and can bring judgment, so the half-shekel is given by each Jew and the money is counted instead. This donation was given for the public sacrifices of the community. What does the sacrifice of an animal accomplish?
22:10 – The design of the mishkan, with all of its different elements, reflects the diversity of all the elements in creation that need to be purified at the level of imagination. As long as the imagination is impure, we are in exile. In Sefer Daniel, there is an allusion to the fact that even when the Second Beis HaMikdash was standing, we were actually still in exile.
*24:50 – PARAGRAPH 25. The beginning of the redemption of Israel begins with Purim.
*27:15 – Hashem sends the remedy before the illness. He draws the light of the redemption into the present time. He did this when He performed the great miracles in the time of Mordechai and Esther, overturning the plans of destruction made by Amalek. This light from the future sustains us now and returns every year, at the time of those miracles. In Likutey Moharan 2 (Tinyana), Torah 74, Rebbe Nachman explains how Purim and Pesach are connected. The light accessible on Purim helps a person be protected from eating chometz on Pesach.
38:10 – PARAGRAPH 26. On Purim we received the Torah anew. The date that Haman was hung, was the sixteenth day of Nissan, which is the day from which the Omer is counted. Description of the powerful way the kehilla counts the Omer in a Breslov minyan.
43:10 – PARAGRAPH 27. Haman tried to choose the best for the lottery. Hashem commanded the allocation of the Land of Israel by lot, because the main center for clarifying imagination is Eretz Yisrael. A lottery is used in place of rationality. To the point that a person has purified their imagination, their dreams are pure.
51:30 – A lottery is a form of Ruach HaKodesh. Mikra (coincidence) is made of the initial letters of “Rak MeyHashem” (Only from Hashem).
52:50 – Yom HaKippurim is the most powerful day of clarification of the imagination. On that day there was a lottery between two sacrificial goats, which to honor Hashem, and one to be sent l’Azalzel. Fortune tellers are an aspect of bilbul hamedameh (confusion of the imagination).
57:45 – Haman and his family knew magic, which actually existed at that time. Purim is called “lottery” because through submitting to “chance” we allow Hashem to demonstrate His powers above human rationality.
*62:30 – Rabbi Rosenfeld z”l brought from the Chessed l’Avraham, grandfather of the Chida z”l: just as a person receives a neshamah yiserah (additional soul) on Shabbos, similarly a neshamah yiserah is given to a Jew the moment he or she sets out to go to Eretz Yisrael.
75:36 – PARAGRAPH 29. Every time we try to get to a higher level, we’re sent trials and opposition. Therefore it’s important to ask Hashem to prepare a protection for us when we set out on a new spiritual endeavour so we can withstand the obstacles. This is how we can benefit from Hashem’s miraculous ability to prepare the remedy before the illness.
*78:00 – Getting drunk on Purim – why?