COUNTERING NEGATIVE FORCES

Dear Family,

I hope everyone is well.

Mazal Tov to Hirshy and Mariasha on the birth of a baby boy BH! Such wonderful news! The bris should be beshaah tovah umatzlachas and you should have much nachas from him, and from all your children.

Wishing long life to Mendel on the yohrtzeit of his brother Nadiv, who we were fortunate to meet. His neshamah should have an Aliyah!

Apologies for the delayed email this week but I have been travelling around to a few places.

Many thanks to all for the wonderful hosting and care! Much appreciated.

I saw an interesting Dvar Torah in this week's Parshah Ki Sissa, from the Rebbe's father R Levi Yitzchok, based on the ingredients of the ketores -Incence Offering, which we learn about this week (30: 34-35)

"The Talmud extrapolates from the above verse that there were 11 components to the mixture.

Four of these are spelt out clearly in Torah and seven are inferred from the text = Eleven.

In Parshas Vayishlach, Torah enumerates the 7 Kings of Edom, and they represent impurity.

In Kabbalistic terminology they are referred to as the Kings of Tohu. Tohu is chaos, and in this world it is expressed as negativity and impurity, where there is a lack of light ie the opposite of Holiness.

In listing these Kings, Torah puts the father's name with four of them.

This means that there were seven Kings and four fathers, making a total of eleven.

The Arizal explains that the spiritual purpose of the Incence Offering was to serve as a shield from the eleven unwanted forces of negativity and impurity! Ie the Arizal is pointing out that the number eleven relates to the number of negative forces.

And R Levi Yitzchak points out the fascinating detail of how the 4's and 7's align up so precisely in Torah."

And what can we do practically?

As I was leaving the Ohel yesterday, I heard the Rebbe saying on a video "To increase in Tzedaka with JOY AND GLADNESS OF HEART."

Wishing everyone a Gut Shabbos and to continue with joy through Adar