The Value of Our Efforts

How much, how strongly, do you want to remove the chaos in your life?

This is a very important question that we must consciously ask ourselves. Why?

In our current state of consciousness, removing our chaos through transformative change is not easy. When we are able to perceive the true benefit and blessings of the Light that come with transforming ourselves, then we will be willing to make the effort.

In the Zohar, Vayeshev verse 8, it says that the Opponent comes with us at birth to get us to believe in the illusion, so that we will think falsehood is truth. Then, when the Light awakens in us as teenagers, we won’t believe in it – or if we do believe the truth of the Light, to do what the Light directs us to do will seem like a huge burden.

Why would removing chaos from our lives be a burden? Because being indoctrinated into the illusion from birth will make it seem that the value of the effort to transform is not worth the energy of said effort; or because we don’t think that our chaos can be removed at all.

In the portion of Tzav, God commands (in Hebrew tzav means ‘commands’) Moses to teach the various sacrifices that people can do in the Tabernacle to remove the effects of their negative actions. We could ask a simple question: if the sacrifices were just commandments, or orders from God, to appease God for whatever reason, why not have just one sacrifice for any type of negative behavior?

The answer is: because the teachings of the Zohar, of Kabbalah, explain that everything is about the energy. There are different frequencies of energy corresponding to our negative or positive actions. Therefore, if we want to cleanse our negative behavior, to transform the negative energy into Light energy, it takes different energies of sacrifices. The greater the chaotic, negative behavior and actions, the greater effort of sacrifice needed to transform and cleanse that negativity.

Every negative/reactive behavior creates a unique shell (referred to as klipa) that covers our soul’s Light, and the different unique sacrifices are the means to remove those shells and free our soul’s Light to shine into our lives and bring us all the blessings that Light can manifest.

The Zohar teaches that a proper ‘sacrifice’ (korban in Hebrew) does two things simultaneously:

1. Disconnects us from the grip of the Opponent/the illusion.

2. Strengthens our connection to the Light of the Creator.

What is the ‘proper’ sacrifice? First, a proper sacrifice is one that is done with Light consciousness and understanding. Second, the sacrifice should be one that requires from us an uncomfortable effort. Reactivity is an action within our comfort zone, so the sacrifice of transformation needs to be beyond our comfort zone.

We don’t have a Tabernacle, we don’t have a Temple of Jerusalem, so what are the sacrifices we can do today to transform our negativity to Light?

Examples of sacrifices are giving charity, spreading the Zohar to others and supporting the spread of the Zohar, apologizing for our behavior, offering forgiveness to those that offended us, bringing people to The Kabbalah Centre to learn this wisdom and technology, being more loving, kind, tolerant, appreciative, generous, and humble. I believe you get the idea.

What do we receive for our sacrifice? The revelation of more of the Light in our soul. What does that do for us? Everything. It’s so important to keep in mind and keep reminding ourselves that the Light of the Creator can manifest as all of the physical necessities – health, protection, prosperity, love, clarity, etc. – but the physical, material things can only be what they are.

This brings us to the value of this portion of Tzav.

The portion of Tzav gives us the spiritual awakening to perceive the tremendous value of the Light. In fact, one of the first lessons in our Foundations Course is that the Light is the only source of lasting fulfillment. It is the most valuable commodity in the Universe.

Now, when it comes to making the effort of the sacrifice, with the support of Tzav we clearly perceive the exponential value of the Light versus the relatively minor effort we make of the sacrifice of our ego, of fears, greed, guilt, anger, and resentments.

One of my favorite analogies:

If your boss asked you to work an extra 6 hours and would pay $15, you probably wouldn’t do it…it’s not worth it. But if the boss offered $5000 for the extra 6 hours, most of us probably would. And, suddenly, we would have some extra energy to work those 6 hours. What’s the difference? Six hours is the same in both cases. Our perceived benefit is the difference.

Tzav empowers us to feel the ‘$5000’ of Light for the ‘6 hours’ of effort.

Tzav gives us the power to ‘command’ the physical universe to manifest more blessings for us and others through the emanation of Light, all as a result our transformational efforts to remove our shells of illusion.

May we all merit to be united in this wisdom and technology and remove all of our blockages to see peace and goodwill throughout the world.