This week’s portion is referred to as Lech Lecha, “Go out unto the land that I will show you.” As most of us know, we are essentially born into a prison of our five senses. Our senses are instruments that make us totally incapable of really understanding what is around us. What the eye sees is so little of what is out there. Our mind understands 1% of our psyche; our consciousness is limited to that 1% illusionary reality. We need to remove the barriers to see the real world as it is, not as it appears to be, no less than like seeing a beautiful woman and projecting onto her physical quality other assets like seeing her as intelligent, smart, capable, and everything else under the sun. As the old adage goes, “you cannot tell a book by its cover.”
"How can we say we have control?"
The Zohar says that when we connect to the portion of Lech Lecha it can give us the ability to reach higher levels of consciousness to see things as they really are, and not be handicapped by time, space, and motion.
A person is essentially born with the evil inclination, so are we all evil when we are little children; is that what the scripture is trying to say? The Zohar explains that being born with the evil inclination means we are all in a prison to time, space, and motion. Can you imagine if everyone could see what is really around us? How few people would perform negative acts if they knew we could see their intention, their negativity, or any form of activity because we could see beyond the area of our limitations?
Although scripture is describing Abraham moving from one city to another, the Zohar says that the internal lesson is devoted to how we can achieve mastery over our destiny. Without the removal of these limitations—and we are all subject to these limitations - we are not free. We may imagine how we can master our own destiny, but unless we have the ability to rise above, how can we say we have control?
"Our minds are not confined to these five senses."
We have accepted the idea that we have to suffer, “Oh it will end soon,” and so we bear it because we have neglected to overcome mind over matter in our own existence. What scripture wants to tell us is we can all find reasons, justifications, for what we are going to do; whether it is something that can hurt others or help others. Unfortunately, we are more prone to only see our side of the picture.
We need to understand that time, space, and motion should not be a limiting factor. The Zohar explains that our minds are not confined to these five senses. There is nothing in existence of a physical nature that has survived to the degree that the teachings of Kabbalah have done.
The kabbalist knew 4000 years ago that a tooth has a DNA. The first time the heart grew, the liver grew; it was DNA that created it. Why do our other features not grow back like our hair and our nails? What we limit our consciousness to is what it believes to be true.
