Life’s Purpose
Contemplating in One’s Heart
New Zohar, Beresheet [Genesis]
741) “I went down to the garden of nuts to see the buds of the valley.” See how much there is for man to contemplate and make precisions on each day, to search one’s actions, and to scrutinize all of one’s matters. One should take it to one’s heart that the Creator created him and placed a high soul within them, above the rest of His creations, only to contemplate His work and to adhere to Him, and to not follow vanity.
Hardness of the Heart
BeHaalotcha [When You Mount]
140) How hard-hearted are people, for they do not watch over the words of that world at all. The evil in the heart, which clings to all organs of the body, does that to them. “There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is heavy upon men.” This evil is the force of the evil in the heart that wishes to dominate the worldly matters and does not watch over the matters of that world at all.
Eyes to See and a Heart to Look After
Aharei Mot [After the Death]
30) Rabbi Shimon said, “I wonder about the people in the world: they have neither eyes to see nor hearts to observe, and they do not know and are not attentive regarding their Master’s will. They sleep and are not awakening from their slumber before that day comes when darkness and gloom cover them and the lender demands His bill of them.
31) “And the herald calls to them everyday, their soul testifies to them each day and night, and the Torah calls out loud in all directions saying, ‘Until when, you fools, will you be loving folly? Whoever is naive, let him turn in here. To him who lacks understanding she says, ‘Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine that I have mixed.’ But no one lends an ear and there is no one who awakens his heart.”
32) In the last generations that will come, the law will be forgotten from among them. Then wise at heart will gather in their places, and none will be found who will close and open the Torah. Woe unto that generation. Henceforth there will not be as this generation until the arrival of the generation of the Messiah, the knowledge awakens in the world, as it is written, “For they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them.”
Upper Wisdom [Hochma]
Toldot [Generations]
189) Everything that the Creator does in the land is with wisdom, and it is all in order to teach people the upper wisdom, so they will learn the secrets of the wisdom from those deeds. And everything is as it should be, and all His deeds are the ways of the Torah, since the ways of the Torah are the ways of the Creator, and there is no small thing that does not have several ways, routes, and secrets of the upper wisdom.
Opening of the Eyes
VaEtchanan [I Pleaded]
35) The Creator is destined to open the eyes, for there has never been wisdoms that would gaze upon the upper wisdom and attain what they did not attain in this world, so they would know their Master. Happy are the righteous who are rewarded with that wisdom, for there is no wisdom like that wisdom, no knowing like that knowing, and no adhesion like that adhesion.
The Wisdom that One Should Know
New Zohar, Song of Songs
482) The wisdom that one should know: to know and to observe the secret of his Master, to know himself, to know who he is, how he was created, where he comes from and where he is going, how the body is corrected, and how he will be judged by the King of All.
483) To know and to observe the secret of the soul. What is the soul within him? Where does it come from and why does it come into this body, which is a foul drop that is here today and in the grave tomorrow? To know the world one is in, and for what the world will be corrected, to gaze upon the sublime secrets of the Upper World, and to know one’s Master. And one observes all that from within the secrets of the Torah.
484) Anyone who walks into that world without knowing the secrets of the Torah will be sent out of all the gates of that world, even if he has acquired many good deeds.
485) The soul says to the Creator, “Tell me the secrets of the sublime wisdom, how You lead and govern the Upper World; teach me the secrets of the wisdom that I have not known and not learned thus far, so I will not be shamed among those High Degrees, among which I come.”
486) The Creator replies to the soul, “If you know not, O fairest among women,” if you have come and did not gaze in the wisdom before you came here, and you do not know the secrets of the Upper World, “go thy way,” for you are not worthy of entering here without knowledge. “Go thy way by the footsteps of the flock,” reincarnate in the world and become knowing by these “footsteps of the flock.” Those are human beings that people trample with their heels, for they consider them lowly; but they are the ones who know their Master’s sublime secrets. From them will you know how to observe and to know, and from them will you learn.
487) Little children in the Temple, studying Torah by the shepherds' tents, more than in those synagogues and seminaries where they study the Higher Wisdom. And even though they do not know, for they are children, you will know and understand from the words of wisdom that they say.
Jonah, who Went Down to the Boat
VaYikahel [And Moses Assembled]
81) Jonah, who went down to the boat, is man’s soul that comes down to this world to be in man’s body. It is called Jonah [Heb: dove] because when it partakes in one’s body, it is a dove in this world, meaning it is deceived from the body, which Me’aneh [deceives] it, as it is written, “You shall not deceive one another.” Then, a person walks in this world as a ship about to break in the great sea, as it is written, “And the ship was about to break.”
82) When a person in this world sins and thinks that he has escaped his Master because his Master is not watching over in this world, the Creator throws in a strong stormy wind, which is the sentence of the Din that always stands before the Creator, asking Him to sentence man. The stormy wind reaches the boat and reminds one’s iniquities, to capture him.
83) When one is caught by the storm in the house where he is sick, it is written, “And Jonah went below into the hold of the ship, lain down and fallen asleep.” Even when one is in one’s house of sickness, the soul does not awaken to repent before its Master to redeem his iniquities.
It is written, “So the captain approached him.” the captain is the good inclination that leads everything. “And he said, ‘How is it that you are sleeping? Get up, call on your God,’” it is not the time to sleep for you are being sentenced for everything you did in this world. repent from your iniquities.
84) Observe these matters and return to your Master. “What is your occupation,” which you were doing in this world? Confess it before your Master, observe where you have come from, from a foul drop, and do not be proud before Him. “What is your country,” meaning see that you are a creature from the earth and shall return to the earth. See if you have ancestral merit to protect you.
If a Man Hides Himself in Hiding Places
Noah
194) “‘If a man hides himself in hiding places, do I not see him?’ Says the Lord...”
195) It is similar to a king who built a palace, and underneath the palace built fortified hideouts. In time, the subjects rebelled against the king and the king surrounded them with his armies. What did they do? They hid themselves in the fortified tunnels. The king said, “I made those hideouts, and they want to use them to hide from me, as it is written, ‘If a man hides himself in hiding places, do I not see him?’ Says the Lord.’ I am the one who made those fortified tunnels, and I made light and darkness. So how can you hide from Me?”
Man and Beast
Shlach Lecha [Send Forth]
21) The fools, who do not know and do not observe with wisdom, say that this world is operating on chance and the Creator is not watching over them. Rather, man’s fate and the fate of the beast are the same.
22) When Solomon looked at those fools who were saying it, he called them “beasts,” for they actually make beasts of themselves, by saying these words ... cursed be the spirit of those beasts, those fools, those faithless. Woe unto them and woe unto their souls; it would be better for them had they not been born.
Redeem Every First Offspring of a Donkey to Redeem One’s Soul
Korah
42) “Every thing that opens the womb, of all flesh which they offer unto the Lord, both of man and beast, shall be yours ... and the firstling of unclean beasts shall you redeem.” This Mitzva [commandment] is to redeem the firstborn of a beast, to redeem himself for the next world. And if he does not redeem his Nefesh, Ruach, and Neshama in the Torah before he goes to that world, he will reincarnate into this world as before, as it is written, “He returns to the days of his youth,” receiving Nefesh, and Ruach, and Neshama.