Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down unto them, nor serve them; for I the LORD thy God Am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and showing mercy unto the thousandth generation of them that love Me and keep My commandments (The Torah, Exodus 20:3 – 20:5).

Commandments are considered the basis of the entire human code of human existence. They are acknowledged by all religions, by all societies, and serve as a basis for all social life. However, in Kabbalah, they have a totally different meaning.

In other words, “I am the Only! I am incorporeal! I cannot be depicted, imagined, or understood! I don’t give you any hints of Who I am! I cannot be put in your pocket, placed in the corner, or hung on a wall. It is impossible to make an amulet of Me, nor can I be shaped as some kind of a sign! Nothing like that is possible!”

Humans are quite different. A child grabs a toy and doesn’t toss it away for a month or two. It calms him down.

A person goes to a temple, prays, confesses, and cools down. Everything will be all right! For everyone, it is a medicine, a remedy, to settle their worries, a prevention of various social, family, and other problems.

We don’t have anything tangible here. If it is impossible to imagine Him, meaning that there is no one to appeal to, this is a big problem. Does it translate into the fact that there is no God for a regular person who lives in this world? We are unable to visualize Him or sense Him. He is some abstract property of bestowal, something shapeless that fills everything and, at the same time, nothing. What sensors will allow us to reveal Him? We must begin feeling Him one way or another. However, there is nothing around us.

We simply cannot imagine the Lord, the upper force, as described in the Torah, nor can we establish contact with this force. In order to stay in touch with Him we must grab onto something, appeal to somebody, and portray Him somehow.

Question: Why are these “threads” cut off of us? It is as if we are floating in the air. Why is that so?

Answer: It is because we must find Him at a completely different level. We should rise to His degree. Then we will sense something that we have not sensed before and will define things that we previously were unable to comprehend. It will become possible because we will acquire a new set of sensors that are called the five Sefirot.

Before we achieve this, there is no such thing as “God” for us. There isn’t anything at all! Of course, there is nature that twists us, pulls us ahead, and plays with us, and forces us to continue living and to give birth; it controls our behavior in our surroundings and society, and then buries us in the ground. That is it.

I am exaggerating everything by showing that people have no connection with the Creator or with the Torah whatsoever. That is why it is said that the Torah is spotless since no one has ever touched it, not even once.

The Torah is a teaching; it is a spiritual mechanism that is totally disconnected from humans. The fact that we picked it as the source of our beautiful rules and legal laws is very reassuring. Without it, we would just be barbarians.

Nevertheless, I want to emphasize that these rules and laws do not have anything in common with the authentic Torah. We must understand that the Torah’s power, its veracity, and the very core of it are not about the rules or laws. It does not matter what we are doing in this world. Rather, what matters is if we happen to rise to the next level where the Creator reveals to us. For that, we do not need Him to be observable or appear as an image or a phenomenon. Our awareness rises to such a level that we don’t need any images any more since we manage to get out of ourselves.

This explains why the commandment “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me” comes first, why it is considered a major commandment, and why it precedes all the others. Each subsequent commandment (their order is not random; they are organized in a certain way) delineates the execution of this particular main commandment.

If one cannot observe this commandment, all other commandments are worth nothing. They do not lead us to the goal. We should constantly keep in mind this primary commandment. For it we should fulfill all other commandments.
[R109450]
From KabTV’s, “Mysteries of the Eternal Book” 2/25/13

Related Material:
Two Levels Of The Torah
Do Not Create An Idol
The Point Where You Begin

Question: There is some similarity between Moses and the current state of the people of Israel today. Moses does not feel confident about the people of Israel or the Pharaoh although he is in contact with the Creator. The current state of the Israeli nation is also quite insecure.

Answer: It doesn’t matter. If there is a specific direction, if we understand that we have no choice, then despite the conditions that force us to escape from Egypt and to jump into the Red Sea, we do what we have to do.

Question: But you say that the modern Israeli nation doesn’t feel that it is in Egypt. Perhaps a certain force should appear or someone who can explain and start this process?

Answer: This is exactly what we are trying to do. Our group, our organization, wants to show the whole nation of Israel that there is a way to be saved. Let’s change our lives! After all, things are constantly getting worse; the world is becoming more and more hostile, and the Israeli society is disintegrated and divided. Our security is in an increasingly growing danger.

The blows that we feel do not come upon the “nation of Israel,” but upon “Egypt,” upon our ego, since we do not want to exit it. Israel in us, the desire to bestow that wants to come out of exile and to ascend, does not feel the blows. When we are in the ego, it feels the pain, but the moment we leave it, we become disconnected from the “plagues.”

Question: What should we do in order to stop falling into the ego?

Answer: The only thing we should do is to unite. We have the method of connecting for the whole people of Israel, and it is the means to be free of all our troubles.
[R103732]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalists Write: The Night of Passover Seder” 3/4/13

Related Material:
How Is The Feeling Of Exile Born?
Under The Yoke Of The Ego
“Dressing” Into Someone Else

Question: When we are talking about the holiday of Passover, why do we say: “Remember the exodus from Egypt?” After all, there were other exiles, from Babylon, Greece, and Rome, but we are reminded only about the exodus from Egypt. Why is this?

Answer: The Egyptian exile is the root of all the exiles. All the other exiles are as if superimposed on it. This exile is the most difficult and fundamental. A person rises above his egoism and, for the first time, realizes what the spiritual world is and what it means to feel the property of bestowal instead of the property of receiving that we are born and exist in.

We perceive the world through the senses that constantly want to enjoy and benefit from everything. The revolution in the sensory organs—when I begin to “exit myself,” to identify myself with the world, to give to others, to feel myself outside of my body so that my heart stays there—is called the exodus from Egypt. All the other exiles already happen outside of me.
[R103664]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalists Write: The Night of Passover Seder” 3/4/13

Related Material:
A Good Pay For The Labor In Egypt
The Whole World Is In Exile, The Entire Earth Is Egypt
How Is The Feeling Of Exile Born?

Question: As a rule, the people of Israel were hated and expelled from various countries. However it is different in Egypt, the people of Israel seemed to be pulled into it.

Answer: We were expelled from country to country until we had a desire to exit egoism. After all, we are liberated only when we want to get out of it in order to unite. Therefore during the entire period of exile, we only collected, added, and accumulated misery and misfortunes.

Today we have reached a state that we simply are obliged to realize ourselves, i.e., unite. This is the action that is necessary to ascend above egoism. Then we will come out to freedom, to the land of Israel. Now we cannot yet imagine this state when you do not depend on anyone, are not afraid of anyone, are not oppressed by anyone, and you feel freedom in the full sense of the word.
[R103823]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalists Write: The Night of Passover Seder” 3/4/13

Related Material:
Nachshon’s Leap
Under The Yoke Of The Ego
The Leap Into The “Red Sea”