“Vayikra” translates to: “and he called”. The question we want to ask is, “who called?” It is assumed that it is God calling, because who else is going to call to Moses?
Yet, in The Kabbalah Centre, we learn that what is written in the Five Books of Moses is very specific. There are no mistakes, no extra words or letters; everything is exact.
We also learn from Rav Shimon in the Zohar that there is a much greater depth to the five books; that we should not try to understand the Torah only on its literal level.
The teachings of the great kabbalists are from the deeper levels of wisdom derived from the Zohar. That is the level of not only practical understanding, but also the level that allows us to use this kabbalistic wisdom in our daily lives to achieve greater satisfaction, peace, serenity and all the blessings that we are meant to have.
So let’s look into this portion for kabbalistic wisdom that can assist us to achieve higher levels of consciousness and fulfillment.
The Zohar teaches that the Torah calls to us every day. What does that mean? The word “Torah” means “law”. That’s why there is “written Torah” and “oral Torah”. The written is the Five Books of Moses, and the oral law is the Zohar. Therefore, when it says that the Torah is calling to us it means that the “laws of the universe” call to us daily to bring us closer to the methodology of manifesting all our soul’s Light. The universe is set up to make sure that we will achieve our mission of revealing and sharing all our Light, so that the Creator’s desire of total bliss be actualized by all humanity.
Ultimately, then, who is calling? It is our soul, our higher self, our perfected self. The “me” that God created in the endless world. Our perfect self wants to be revealed, it wants us to remove all the “klipot”, or “shells” of negativity, falsehood, and lies that we have covered our true selves with over many lifetimes. Our perfect self contains all the Light to give us 100% eternal bliss. We have to do the work to remove those klipot. That is why the universe and our soul are calling out to us.
What The Kabbalah Centre teaches is the methodology, from the Zohar, on how to reach our goal in the most efficient and merciful manner by actively and consciously living the kabbalistic principles that will remove all our klipot and transform our negativity to Light.
The portion then teaches us three main steps in our spiritual work.
The first step is sacrifice. The portion lists the various sacrifices that were prescribed when people committed a “sin” – when they did a negative action.
I know for most people that “sacrifice” is not a word we like to hear; it is not something we readily want to do. We have come to understand and feel sacrifice as something that we must do in certain situations to make other people happy, or to do as punishment for some action. We generally don’t feel happy with sacrifice.
But Kabbalah teaches us the practical benefits of sacrifice, and how we can achieve those benefits in today’s world.
In today’s world, we don’t have a tabernacle or a temple of Jerusalem to take our sacrifices. The Zohar explains that the sacrifices we need to make are the effort to sacrifice our instant gratification and to transform our negative behavior into sharing, proactive behavior; for instance, sacrificing our ego behavior for an act of humility or our greed for an act of generosity. The other aspect of sacrifice is to share more than we are used to sharing; for instance, being more forgiving, tolerant, and caring than we are used to being.
These are ways that we are sacrificing our personal “animal” nature and revealing a new level of our soul’s Light. Our ego is the klipah that separates us from the source of Light, the Creator. The ego says, “I am the source of my Light, my talents, abilities and resources.” Our ego is the source of chaos because it allows us only short term, temporary fulfillment.
We can strip away the klipot of our ego and acknowledge that the Creator is the source of our Light and all our talents, abilities, resources – our life. That will bring us much more good than we can imagine. Rav Ashlag teaches that the Creator wants to give us more than we want to receive.
The third aspect to revealing our perfect self is to have a spiritual guide and teacher that can teach and support us in manifesting all our Light. In this portion we have Moses telling us what the Creator told him; the technology of the soul.
In our world today, we have the Rav’s writings, we have Karen’s teachings, and The Kabbalah Centre classes, publications and teachers that are all dedicated and committed to supporting every student that seeks to live into their perfect self.
Today, take advantage of the steps given us in the portion of Vayikra, and the resources of The Kabbalah Centre, and join all the students of the Centres worldwide in revealing heaven on earth, peace to all peoples, by becoming your true image and likeness of God.
