The portion of Tazria deals with bringing life to the world, which signifies an action of absolute sharing. The portion starts with the verse: “If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child...”
This verse refers to the entire process, up until birth, that a woman goes through if she wants to bring a child to the world. However, the kabbalists explain that the portion is actually talking to each and every one of us, not only to women. The woman represents the vessel, and the phrase ‘have conceived seed’ is our awakening from our spiritual sleep, from our blindness to the work we came here to do. In other words, to awaken our real desire to reach our maximum potential in this life time. Rav Berg always said that we don’t have a choice, that we have to do our correction. The question is what type of process will we go through? A process with mercy or a process with judgment?
A process with mercy is one in which we overcome our fears, we initiate the conversation, we jump into the cold water, and we make an effort where it is hard to do so. It is to listen to the signs the universe is giving us from time to time and to follow them knowing that this is the only way I can grow. It is to catch the waves and to flow with the stream, to be flexible and to learn to listen. It is to embrace the challenge and to remember that every time we feel pain, the universe wants to help us break our blockages.
A process with judgment, on the other hand, is exemplified by reactive consciousness; to wait until it is too late and then to deal with the situation in a reactive way, with panic, quickly, making mistakes along the way and being frustrated.
Rav Berg once stated that: “life is like climbing on a downward moving escalator”. We always have challenges because we need them in order to go through our correction. Therefore, if we stop our spiritual work, make no effort, we will go down the escalator.
This year we read the portion of Tazria on Shabbat HaChodesh, on Rosh Chodesh Nissan (New Moon of Aries), two weeks before Pesach. This means that this year we receive extra help to inject the seed level of the month while we read from a portion that gives us power for life, keeps us going up the escalator, and helps us to be always awake to our spiritual work.
Chodesh Tov everybody!
