ParshaNut: 54 Journeys into the World of Torah Commentary

We are carrying around with us all the horrors of the past.

we remember that we are only alive because others have died.

when we speak of God, we are speaking of “the life force and spirituality that is in each creation.” And that includes us. In this theology, we are one with God. Our separateness is just an illusion. Moses stands outside of the Tabernacle because he senses the presence of God and assumes that he is other than that presence. But in truth, Moses is a

this is not a question of what he “deserves,” for it is not meant as a “kindness” to him, per se. He must go free. He has no choice.

That is the secret of the world: God is in the details.

the point of it all – the sacrifices, the purity laws, the holiness codes, all of it – is to come close to God. We are being trained, throughout Leviticus, to see the ultimate Oneness that underlies the dizzyingly manifold nature of our existence.

We are carrying around with us all the horrors of the past.

symbolically, we extract the principle of The One, from every multiple set of Ten. And what do we do with that one? We dedicate it to God. For every appearance of abundance in our lives, we must remember to acknowledge The One from whom it all comes forth.

The obstacle to spiritual enlightenment, according to this model, is not physical pleasure, but social pleasure. It is not temptations of the flesh that will keep me away from God, but the bonds of friendly and familial obligation. How can I cultivate a deep relationship to the Divine, if I am balancing it with all my other relationships?