Shemot opens the journey from darkness to redemption. This week we learn to connect to the Surrounding Light, the Light too vast to be contained within us, and to awaken it, to leave our inner Egypt.
The week of the Torah portion Shemot
✦ Self-guided study based on the teachings of Michael Berg and on articles published on kabbalah.com.
The Hebrew word for Egypt is Mitzrayim, and it means "narrow places". That changes the reading of the whole book that starts here. The Egypt of the portion is not only a country with a pharaoh. It is the name of any tight place a person finds themselves in, and the question of the week is where the way out comes from.
There is a Light too vast to fit inside our vessels, the Surrounding Light, Ohr Makif. It envelops us even when we cannot yet contain it, which is why darkness is never the whole picture. All darkness, in the kabbalistic reading, is an invitation to reveal a greater Light.
The two highest levels of the soul, Chayah and Yechidah, are the channel for that Light. When they awaken, the darkness of the world is removed. And it does not have to be earned through perfect effort: the Surrounding Light is awakened by connection and by the desire to be with the Creator.
This is the point the whole week rests on. The way out of our inner Egypt does not come from inside the limitation. It comes from the Light outside it. Which is why squeezing the same tight place harder, waiting for it to open on its own, does not work.
Mitzrayim names any tight place, not only a country. All darkness is an invitation to reveal a greater Light.
The Ohr Makif is too vast for our vessels and envelops us even when we cannot contain it.
The two highest levels of the soul are the channel for that Light. When they awaken, the darkness of the world is removed.
The Surrounding Light is not won by perfect effort. It is awakened by connection and by desire.
Leaving the inner Egypt does not happen from inside the limitation, but through the Light that comes from outside it.
The portion of Shemot places us at the beginning of the exile: the children of Israel go down into Egypt, Mitzrayim, the word that means "narrow places". Kabbalah reads this Egypt as any limitation in which we feel trapped. And the answer to the narrowness is not found inside it. Michael Berg teaches that there is a Light too vast to fit within our vessels, the Surrounding Light, and that the highest levels of the soul, Chayá and Yechidá, are the channel through which it descends. When that Light is awakened, the darkness need not be fought: it simply ceases to exist before so much radiance. To navigate the week of Shemot is to learn to open ourselves to that greater Light, not through force, but through the will to be in union with the Creator.
Michael Berg describes the most intimate moment of that union, and the Light it awakens:
Bring the darkness into awareness.
write down the limitation in which you feel trapped right now.
Open to the Ohr Makif.
visualize a Light that envelops you, too vast to fit within you.
Awaken Chayá and Yechidá.
before sleep, say silently "I want to be only with the Creator".
Begin your personal exodus.
do something your limitation said was impossible.
Anchor the revealed Light.
write down where the Light entered your week.
"The Light that surrounds me is greater than any narrowness, I open to it, and the darkness dissolves."
May the week of Shemot be the beginning of your own exodus, from narrowness to expanse, from darkness to the Light that was always surrounding you. Shavua Tov.
Watch Michael Berg's lesson, "Connecting Surrounding Light", that inspires this study:
onehouse.kabbalah.com · Connecting Surrounding Light
Free access, no subscription: kabbalah.envoy.gift/xkYzLv
If someone you love is squeezed and trying to solve it from inside the squeeze, this portion says where the way out usually comes from.
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