Ki Sisa - Receiving the 7th in the 6th

Why is the concept of Shabbos the introduction to the story of the Golden Calf? Why does Moshe study the Torah for forty days diligently, only to forget it and then receive it as a gift in the end? Why do the Jewish people use the Manna in their idolatrous worship of the Golden Calf? Why do they create the calf at the very moment Hashem is preparing the tablets of the law? What is the concept of extending the Sabbath - the 7th day - into Friday - the 6th? What is the concept of the number forty as it relates to six and seven weeks?

Find out in this week's parsha podcast.

Running time: 28:15

Vaera- Balancing Fire and Ice

Why is the seventh plague - hail - the first that is performed by Moshe alone? Why is there a stress on the fact that he raises his hands 'to heaven?' What does it mean that Moshe has power over heaven and earth? Why does the hail coexist with fire? Why does Hashem's mercy join here with the Divine court of justice to produce this plague? Why is it stressed here that the purpose of the plagues was really to cause Pharaoh to repent? Why does Hashem make rules and then suspend the rules?

Find out in this week's parsha podcast.
Running time: 26:38

Ki Seitze - Intuition and Transcendence

Why does the Torah only tell us the reward for two out of the 613 commandments? Why does it specifically tell us by honoring parents and sending away the mother bird? What is the deeper understanding of the idea of sending away the mother bird when taking the eggs or chicks? How does one access the light of transcendence without being blinded by its' light? How is the intuitive faculty a reflection of that light? How does this idea manifest in the days of the week?

Find out in this week's parsha podcast.

Running time: 25:55

Tazria-Metzora - Beyond Process

Why does the Torah skip the process between conception and birth - why mention conception at all? Why is the concept of the seven days the mother is impure immediately followed by the concept of the eighth day of the bris? Why is the creation of Adam so relevant to this idea, and what is the significance of his soul being created on day one, as opposed to his body on day six of creation? What is the depth of the idea that both originally and in the future, conception and birth will happen without a nine month process?

Find out in this week's parsha podcast.

Running Time: 24:15

Pinchas - 7 Year Podcast Anniversary!

Why is there no prohibition to destroy the fruit-bearing trees of the Midianites? What is the deeper significance of the fact that the woman of the generation of the wilderness were not involved in the sins of the Golden Calf and the Spies? Why does Hashem ask Moshe seven times to be his messenger to redeem the Jewish people? What does all this have to do with the seven years I have been putting out the Parsha Podcast every week?

Find out in this week's parsha podcast.

Running time: 23:39

Chukas - Transcendent Statute

Why is the concept of the Red Heifer referred to as a statute? What is the paradox of this commandment? Why were only Moshe and R' Akiva privy to an understanding of it? Why did R' Akiva have more of an understanding than Moshe? What is the idea of a chok-statute? How and why does the concept of seven times seven play a role in the concept of the Red Heifer?

Find out in this week's parsha podcast.

Running Time: 25:25

Behar - losing oneself in unity

What is the concept of the Shemitah year where one gives up ownership on one's own land? How does this relate to what happens on Shabbos? What is the significance of the sixth and seventh aspects in this context? When is it appropriate to 'lose oneself' in the greater Unity of God and spirituality? What is the aspect of servitude as opposed to the aspect of being a child?

Find out in this week's parsha podcast.

Running Time: 20:27

Dovid, Yosef, the sixth hour and the seventh hour

I thought that title would get your attention. And, to boot, this is post number 607. Cool. Someone recently left a comment on the blog that they miss my moshiach messages. I wrote back that the messages are still there, you just have to know how to hear them.

I don't need to say too much, but I will say that if you listen carefully to this parsha podcast, you will get a good idea of where we are holding and we are headed. It also has the potential to explain a lot of what is going on now. But you will have to put all the old pieces together to get it. If you listen carefully, you will understand why I don't blog or speak too much about Moshiach anymore. But I explained that before. Review is good.

In any event, here's how the podcast appears everywhere else I've put it up:

Vayakhel - Moshiach, Mishkan and Shabbos (21:42)
What is the significance of the fact that all that was done in constructing the Mishkan (tabernacle) is the foundation of the prohibitions on Shabbos? What is the difference between the service of Hashem through the Mishkan as opposed to Shabbos? How is Shabbos connected to Dovid and Moshiach ben Dovid, as opposed to the Mishkan, which is connected to Yosef and Moshiach ben Yosef? Why is the Mishkan the atonement for the sin of the Golden Calf? What is the depth of the fact that the sin occurred at the end of the sixth hour, when Moshe was late in returning? What was at the root of the sin of the Golden Calf?

Find out in this week's parsha podcast.

Tetzaveh - Do We Have Free Will?

If God is all-knowing, how do we have free will? What is the significance of the miracle of the western candle of the menorah that always stayed lit? Why did the kohen gadol start lighting and end lighting there? What is the significance of the fact that Moshe could not succeed in forming the menorah? What is the relationship between the number seven - as represented by the seven-armed menorah - and the numbers eight and fifty?

Find out in this week's parsha podcast.

Running time: 21:54

Vaera - Silence Amidst Chaos

Why is the parsha split up in such a way that we get only the first seven plagues in this week's parsha? What is the significance of the numbers seven and ten? Why is it so important for us to know that the Jews were singled out and that the plagues did not touch their area in Egypt? Why is the Nile river turned into blood instead of just being dried up? What is the concept of blood, which is 'dam' in Hebrew, and what is the relationship to 'dom' in Hebrew, which means silence?

Find out in this week's parsha podcast.

Running time: 20:04

Song of Moshiach

Rebbe Nachman speaks at length (Likutei Moharan Tinyana 8) about a special song that will be awakened in the future. This song will be used by Moshiach to guide people out of the depths of their sins. This is the song that the Torah speaks about when it says 'az yashir Moshe' - then Moshe and the children of Israel will sing. It is a song that comes after a break in tension. It is the cosmic tension of the end of days, similar to when the Jewish people seemed at the edge of destruction as they stood at the Yam Suf, with the sea on one side, and the Egyptians coming to destroy them on the other. This tension broke with the miracle of the splitting of the sea, and climaxed with their salvation and the song at the sea, which we will sing again in the future. Again, we will face near extinction, and Hashem will again perform the ultimate miracles to save us. Only this time, it will be once and for all.

There is a midrash that talks about the seven stringed instrument that was played in the past, that will be replaced by an eight stringed instrument when Moshiach comes. It will be replaced, again, by a ten stringed instrument in the world to come.

You may have heard of the mysterious 'eighth note,' which seems to be implied by this midrash. You may also know that the current scale only contains seven notes - the eighth note is the same as the first, only higher (hence it is called an octave). But this 'eighth note' of the future is something different.

I always thought that it was some type of combination of all the notes, some interdependent transcendent note... or something. Most recently, I realized that it may be so, but there might be a different aspect to this eighth note. And you might already have started to hear this eighth note, if you've been listening out...

The concept of seven always has to do with the physical realm, which was created in seven days. This also corresponds to the seven lower sefiros (out of ten). We also call this teva - nature. Then there is the eighth aspect, which is transcendent, and corresponds to the sefirah above these seven, which is Binah. Binah translates as intuition. This is the aspect which is l'malah min hateva - above nature. This is very much connected to how our intuitive faculty functions - it fills in the gaps. It also corresponds to the aspect of Neshama - soul.

In essence, we could say that there is a seven-stringed instrument which is for this world, which is the physical, natural aspect of the music. Then there is an eighth note, which has the neshama - soul in the music. This is a song that isn't about love between a man and a woman. It's also not a song that has lyrics slap-dashed together, without being such a good fit for the tune. It is a song about our soul's thirst for God. Or it is a song that gives us hope that Hashem will take care of us, despite all of our challenges. Or it is a song that inspires us to love each other. Or it is a song that inspires us to be better people.

There are many songs out there to listen to. How many notes are in your songs?

Ki Seitze - Sending away the mother

What is the concept of sending away the mother bird? How does it relate to the idea of Binah - intuition? What is the depth of the reward of 'long days?' How can one reach a goal if one is overwhelmed by the goal?

Find out in this week's Parsha Podcast.

Running time: 19:28

Shmini - Six, Seven, and Eight

Why is the mishkan completed on the same day as the creation of Man? What is the significance of the fact that it is both the sixth day of creation and the eighth day of the mishkan? What is the deeper concept of the numbers six, seven, and eight? How is the sadness of this day rectified? Where do we see these three numbers in the last day of Pesach? What is the significance of the silence of the Jewish people in the face of their Egyptian pursuers? How does the first day of Nissan connect to the 21st day of Nissan?

Find out in this week's Parsha Podcast.

Running time: 22:20

Re'eh - Cessation at seven

Why are the festivals all connected to the number seven? What is their connection to the seven of Shabbos? What is the special idea of simcha, joy, in this context? What is the connection to Elul, the loving relationship of the Jewish people with Hashem and the lead up to this joy? How does one access this joy in his life, his service of Hashem and prayer?

Find out in this week's Parsha Podcast.

Running time: 18:52

The missing malchus (female aspect)

I wanted to share a deep thought that struck me early today. When one has a good grasp of the core concepts underlying Hashem's world, the ideas laid down in the deeper sources, one can see applications of those ideas in a very broad range of places. Perhaps the most essential concept is the balance between the male and female aspects of creation. These two aspects are in a constant state of disrepair, needing our actions to create the proper balance between them. The actions that do this are the mitzvos we do. This is indicated in the kabbalistic prayer many say before the performance of a mitzvah, "l'shem yichud kudsha brich hu u'sh'chintei" - "For the sake of the unity of the Male aspect of divinity and its female." This is a necessity as a result of the imbalance created through the sin of Adam and Chava, where the male and female aspects lost their perfect state of balance.

Generally, the male aspect is represented by the number six, and the female aspect is represented by the number seven. We see this in the six days of creation, which are the days of 'work' - the male aspect, and Shabbos, which is the seventh, the female dimension, of reflection, of malchus. Malchus means kingship, and it corresponds to the moon, which reflects the light of the sun. The sun is the male aspect, it is the keser, the crown, which the kingship of malchus reflects.

There is something that has long puzzled me, that I was thinking about this morning, and Hashem lit up my eyes with a deep insight I would like to share. We find that there are certain places where we only seem to have the six, without the seventh aspect. For instance, we find that there were twelve tribes of the Jewish people. This twelve corresponds to the twelve months of the year. The twelve months can be broken down into two parallel sets of six - from Nissan to Elul and from Tishrei to Adar. The day is split into twenty four hours - twelve hours for the day and twelve for the night. This can further be split into four sets of six hours. We seem to see that in the dimension of time there is a very strong male aspect, as indicated by the multiples of six. Where is the female aspect? And even if one would answer that Shabbos is the female aspect in time, where is the female aspect in each day?

In discussing a different topic with my chevrusa this morning, we spoke about the idea that the sefiros are what make up all of reality. Our physical bodies are made of the sefiros. The entire world is made of sefiros. Our souls are made of the sefiros. Even the dimension of time is made of sefiros. We see this indicated, for example, in the fact that we count through seven sets of sefiros from Pesach to Shavuos. We see this, also, in that which we mentioned that the week is made of seven days.

One of the places where this is brought to the fore, both in the temporal dimension, as well as the spatial dimension, is in the holiday of Succos. The first seven days of Succos correspond to the seven. (As an aside, the eighth day corresponds to the transcendant aspect of Binah, one of the first three sefiros. We are here discussing the lower seven.) This is the dimension of time. We find that the Succah, as well as the movements of the lulav, represent the aspect of space. The Succah surrounds us in all six directions - East, West, North and South, as well as above and below. The lulav is waved in six directions, as well. Where is the missing seventh aspect - the female dimension of malchus here?

The answer is, as R' Aryeh Kaplan Z'l explains, that the center is the female aspect. The idea of the lulav is that there is a back and forth between the male and female aspects. Each time we wave the lulav, we bring together the six components of the lulav (1 lulav, 3 hadasim, 2 aravos) with the seventh component, the esrog (which represents malchus, the female). We wave this bundle in each of the six directions, each time bringing the bundle back to the center, which is the seventh - the point in the center. In the succah, we are surrounded on all six sides, and we are in the center, the seventh point.

If we extend this idea from the spatial dimension into the temporal dimension, we see something remarkable. In the aspect of time, we seem to only see the male aspect of sixes, as they keep recurring, with no evidence of the seventh aspect. The secret is that just like in space the seventh dimension is the center - where the person stands; so too in the dimension of time, the present moment is the female dimension. The fact that the female dimension is represented by the present moment is evidenced in the exemption that women have from positive commandments that are time bound. Women are not affected by the movement of time - their strength is in living in the present. They are, however, commanded in the time bound mitzvos of Shabbos, because Shabbos is the seventh aspect itself, that time of no movement, where everything is previously prepared - there is only to live in the present.

When Adam and Chava sinned, it created a powerful imbalance in the fabric of the spiritual realms, as well as the physical realms of space and time. This imbalance is reflected in every aspect of reality as a discord between the male and female aspects. The way it manifests is expressed by Hashem in His statement to Chava, "והוא ימשול בך" - "And he shall rule over you." As long as the world is in disrepair, the male aspect forcibly rules over the female aspect. Through the proper fulfillment of the Torah and its commandments, we bring the male and female aspects into their proper balance, where man and his wife are equal partners in reality. This is clearly expressed in the mitzvah of lulav, where we have the joining of the male and female aspects, which are waved back and forth between the male spatial dimension, and the female spatial dimension. This corresponds to the joining power of da'as. Da'as ('knowledge') is the glue that binds together the male and female dimensions, and it works through the back and forth between these opposite polarities of reality. This consistent back and forth motion yields a state akin to the androgynous dimension which Adam and Chava inhabited before they were separated from each other through the Nesirah process. This perfect balance was their state prior to their eating of the forbidden fruit, and will be our state when Moshiach comes and we return to that absolute balance.

In the meantime, we live in a state of disrepair, where the male dimension 'rules over' the female dimension at every level of reality. Our job in this world is to return these dimensions to their proper state of balance through the correct use of da'as - giving significance to each of the opposing aspects, bringing the seemingly paradoxical elements of male and female into a state of harmony. This is the back and forth motion of the lulav.

If we take this idea and apply it to the temporal dimension, we discover something remarkable. As we saw, the present moment is the female aspect of time, while the past and future can be said to be the male aspects of time. The current state of reality is that the male aspect 'rules over' the female. Thus, it is our natural state to be overwhelmingly aware of the events of our past and our projected future. This has the effect of robbing us of our present moment, of completely subduing the female aspect of time. The Torah, however, wants us to achieve the proper balance between the past and future (the male aspect) and the present (the female aspect). This means that we need to have a true and proper perspective on the value of each of these dimensions of time. When the past and the future are so powerful in our minds that we can not live in the present, we are living in a state that is the result of Adam and Chava's sin. When we give proper focus to the present, without allowing the past and (projected!) future to overly affect our present, then we are living in the desired state, which is akin to the state we will be in with the advent of Moshiach. This does not mean we should disregard our past or that we should not plan for the future. It means that we must have the right balance such that none of the aspects of time overtake the other.

When we develop this state of harmony between the male and female aspects of our lives, it brings more elements of the world into resonance with that future time, actively bringing us closer to the time period of Moshiach, when all of reality will be in a state of perfect harmony between its male and female aspects.

Tzav and Purim - secret of seventy

What is the concept of seventy and seven? What is the significance of the seventy years between the two temples? Why is the gematria of wine (יין) and secret (סוד) both seventy? What is the depth of the idea of the seventy nations and the seventy offspring of Yakov? Why does the story climax with the fifty cubit high gallows of Haman? Why are there seven days of the Santuary's inauguration, and why are they in Adar?

Find out in this week's Parsha Podcast.

Running time: 19:06

Succos - Beyond relationship

What is the deeper concept of Lulav and succah? How are they connected? Why don't we perform these mitzvos on Shmini Atzeres? Why is the concept of Succah related to shade? Why is our Succah connected to the future Succah of the righteous in the times of Moshiach?

Find out in this week's Parsha Podcast.

Running time: 19:41

Pesach and Moshiach ben Dovid

Why does Pesach consist of seven days, as opposed to Succos which is eight? What is the significance of the fact that we consistently bring the same korbanos every day of Pesach? Why are the mitzvos of Succos all external, whereas the mitzvos of Pesach are all internal? Why is refraining from eating leavened items, which is the main mitzvah of Pesach, specifically a passive mitzvah? Why is there an active mitzvah to eat matzah on the first day? Why are there such great stringencies the Jewish people have taken upon themselves for Pesach? What is the significance of the Avos being born around Pesach time? What is the connection to Moshiach ben Dovid?

Find out in this week's Parsha Podcast.

Noach - The tzadik's role

Why do the numbers six and seven seem to occur many times in the story of Noach? What is the dual nature of the tzadik's role in the world? What is the connection between Noach and Yosef?

Find out in this week's Parsha Podcast.

This week's parsha podcast is also available in text form (for a limited time) on my website on the Parsha page.