Emor: Shame, Nefesh, Tikkun |
Leviticus 21:1: “And Hashem said to Moshe, Say to the Kohanim the sons of Aharon, and say to them, none of them shall defile himself for a (dead) person, for a Nefesh among his people.” The first point Rashi brings is the double language of “Say, and say.” Rashi notes the Gemara in Yevamot 114a: “That the elders should warn the youth.”
The word Nefesh particularly struck me. I am constantly seeing this word as a stage in life as regarded by the Arizal, and with that I paired the concept Rashi notes to the concepts of Nefesh. Here it goes.
We sit alone feeling that familiar weight in our chests, the one that has us rushing to find comfort and consolation. We are usually drawn to physical remedies, some good and some bad, to help us cope with that heart-pull. But at times something inside us knows that it is time to go deeper. We need to understand not just why we struggle, but where we truly come from, and the actual architecture of our souls.
Turning to the teachings of the Arizal in Sha’ar HaGilgulim, we can start to change everything.
Before our physical world existed, Hashem created the World of Tohu, a realm filled with such intense divine light that the vessels meant to contain it could not hold it. These ten great vessels shattered. This is called Shevirat HaKeilim, the Breaking of the Vessels. From that shattering, many holy sparks and souls fell into the lower worlds, becoming scattered and trapped within physical reality, trapped in places, things, and circumstantial stories.
Figure the concept of song waves. Each one has a unique pattern which makes each one distinguishable from the next. Think about a pattern on a key. It needs the bumps and grooves to open a particular lock. The same is with every story. Each lived experience has the ups and downs, the emotional roller coaster which forges the rhythm and shapes that key to finally unlock this scattered particle of light and bring it back home to its source, Hashem.
Then came Adam HaRishon. He lived in a place where there was no shame, as the Pasuk Gen 2:25 states, “And they were not ashamed.” In Eden he had it all, he had what we are so desperately trying to get after our Tikkun, perfection. All of humanity’s souls were originally contained within him as one vast, unified soul. When he sinned by eating from the Tree of Knowledge, that great soul shattered as well. The oneness was broken. Every person alive today carries only a small fragment of what was once part of that single soul.
The Etz Hadaat is the root to all patterns, because up until the sin everything flowed with divine truth. But the properties of the tree contained the ability to question, “What if this or what if that?” And now with these new questions we........