Rules or Relationship—What Does God Really Want From You? Kabbalah’s Radical Answer

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Rabbi Dovid Orlofsky’s own words— taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

The Zohar does give a bit of a liberal interpretation of uh of what a mitzvah is. The Zohar calls the mitzvot a bunch of advice. Aitzot, advice. I think that would go better in today's, you know, mindset terminology where, you know, you no one should tell me what to do, not even Hashem, which is very ridiculous. I don't don't think I support such an ideology. But on some level, the mitzvot are also advice. Advice. Hashem's giving us great advice. Who better than Hashem that created us and the world knows how we should navigate through the difficulties of life. So, on some level, the mitzvot are advice, but that doesn't mean they're not commandments. They're both. They're commandments and they're advice. Think we could appreciate it like this. The more mature we are, the more we understand, and the more responsible we can be, so then we could look deeper into the mitzvah as obviously sensible and great advice how to navigate through what we're trying to accomplish ourselves. But when you educate a child, so you're you have to use a language that's suitable to the child. The child lacks an an a sophisticated intellectual process and ability to understand the depth of things. So, you have to say, "This is not allowed. This is bad." So, when you're speaking to beginner, beginners, chil- so to speak, chil- children, and and and and as mankind, we go through our child stage and our adult stage, so we have to be very clear about terms. When you tell a child why she should avoid something, say, "That's bad. It's not allowed. You're not allowed to

Jump to a moment

1. 0:00The Zohar does give a bit of a liberal interpretation of uh of what a mitzvah…
2. 0:30and the world knows how we should navigate through the difficulties of life. So, on some…
3. 1:03suitable to the child. The child lacks an an a sophisticated intellectual process and ability to…
4. 1:35go out when it's freezing outside, snowing, without a a jacket." What do you mean you're…
5. 2:06in a basic sense, but they're they're they're also the ultimate advice in how we can…
6. 3:09decided to be king of the world, when he decided to be our ruler and create…
7. 3:40that we can access to connect with the king. Why 613? So, in another place in…
8. 4:14we can connect to. And those are That's a level where he begins to have these…
9. 4:46which is an exact match. You ever play LEGO or whatever, put the square in the…
10. 5:18advi- great great different advice that Hashem gave us, the mitzvot. Which are, in fact, the…

About Rabbi Dovid Orlofsky on Lehallel

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