Nugget #55 – Torah Observance

In Nuggets 3, 4, and 5, we learned about the Commandments being attached to our desires and intensions.  Please feel free read or re-read them.

The Commandments are not meant to be obeyed in a mechanical manner.  They are not meant to describe a proper or appropriate behavior that one performs to confirm membership or association to a particular observant group.  They are meant to define the limits of the ego.  Each of the 613 Commands is meant to point out a proper desire and intension behind such encouraged or prohibited actions.  By correcting such desires and intensions the ego will be restrained and replaced with an altruistic soul.

In today’s culture the commandments are overemphasized as being a ruler or measure of moral conduct only.  Unfortunately this creates a lot of ancillary rules and laws that teach and correct conduct only.  It does not focus on correcting or encouraging the real substance of the Commands - that being the intension that produces the action.  Intension is the key behind all actions and inactions.  With the proper intension the proper corrected higher-soul (Nugget #30 and 35) is engaged in the action or lack of action for prohibited activities.

Ask yourself, now that the Torah is not a listing of rules, is there a freedom?  It is a freedom of self-discovery of the ego and its bridling?  Does it now empower you to take positive steps in correcting the self?  Is the yoke now lighter?