Shavuot, Megilat Ruth & The 10 Sefirot Part Five
Transcribed by Daniel Goldman from a lecture recorded on 4 May 1999: Now let’s go back in history to Joseph. As a child, he gets a coat of many colors, and his situation looks good. Then he gets thrown into a pit and almost dies because of his coat and it looks bad. He then gets sold into slavery and it still looks bad. He is bought by Potiphar and rises within his household, where he is put in charge. Things are looking up. He has a mix-up with the wife of Potiphar, and things get carried away. He is crazy for her and she is crazy for him, and at the last minute he pulls away. He ends up in prison. Not good. Then the wine steward comes in and Joseph interprets his dream. There’s hope of getting a message to Pharaoh. Great. Two years pass. The wine steward forgets about him. Not good. All of a sudden, he’s pulled out of the pit, is given a shave and a haircut, and shampoo, and all of a sudden, he’s viceroy of Egypt. It is really good! It’s unbelievable. Everything he thought was bad is good. I’m not the one running the show, God is. So he understands that there is nothing in him. He is loyal to the source, to the foundation, Yesod.
So when his brothers are so terrified when they discover that this king, Tzefat Paneach is actually their brother whom they sold into slavery, he allays their fears saying, “You don’t understand, it wasn’t you who sold me into slavery, it was God! It was always for the good.” Joseph is saying that everything is a foundation for the next step. The promise made to Abraham that his descendants would have to go down to Egypt was fulfilled in the most unbelievable way. Therefore, Joseph relates to the world through the attribute of loyalty to a foundation, and he is not angry with his brothers. At the end of his life, he realized that it was all a foundation for something else, the enslavement of the Jews in Egypt. Again, he says, “Don’t worry, God will get you out.” He has no doubt. He relates to God through the attribute of Yesod.
But the world is still not finished. Six of the lower seven influences have been restored. The seventh is still missing. The seventh is going to take everything that Abraham did, everything that Isaac did, everything that Jacob, Joseph, Moses and Aaron did, and put them together. And that will be King David.
Actually, the Jews had a chance to restore everything before David and that was before they went down to Egypt. Joseph restored the sixth of the seven lower influences, and so everything was ready. In Egypt, the Jews were supposed to restore the seventh, thereby restore 49 combinations of the Influences to the good side. But they failed to do so and they fall to the 49th level of impurity.
The Jews are sunk. Again, Evil is in control of the negative side of Ten Sefirot. When Moses needs a sign that he can show to Pharaoh, God tells him to throw his staff (a tree) on the ground. What does the staff become? – A snake! Which snake? – The snake from the Garden of Eden! Moses picks it up and the snake turns back into a tree. In effect, he is saying to Pharaoh, “I am going to reverse the process.” This is followed by the Ten Plagues which break the power of the ten evil influences.
But the Jews still have to restore the good side. So for each day that they marched out of Egypt to Sinai, for a of total 49 days, they restored each of the 49 levels. On the 50th day, they reached Sinai. Moses goes up to Sinai and God speaks to the people from the top of the mountain. When they hear God’s voice, and they are so frightened, they die. So God brings them back to life. This was Techiat Ha’meitim, the Resurrection of the Dead!
What is always associated with the Resurrection of the Dead? – The Mashiach. Now the Jews were ready for the 50th level, the state of the world on the first day of creation. This is the world we refer to as Olam Habah, the world that came.