Path of Teshuvah

Deuteronomy 6:5 instructs us to love G-d in “three ways.”

“You shall love the Lord your G-d with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”

These correspond (in descending order) to the levels of:

  • Soul = Binah/Understanding, with your intellect via study
  • Heart = the six Middot, with your emotion, via prayer
  • Strength = Malchut/Kingdom, with your actions and assets

Allowing negative emotion, especially anger, “blocks the path,” as we are resisting the reality that G-d alone is in control.

Thus, anger is seen as a form of idolatry, and it is vital to address and correct it.

Prayer is a key component to rectifying negative emotion, just as Torah study is for temptation (which lies in the mind) and performing mitzvot for others helps with depression.

In the movie, Mali corresponds to the level of Binah and the Etrog (with the blessing for a child) to the level of Malchut. The path between these (repairing “the six”) lies within Moshe himself.

ANGER can cause a sage to lose his WISDOM, or a person who is destined for greatness to forfeit it. – Talmud, Pesachim 66b

(Table modified from original work of Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh.)


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