Go Forth From Your Country

[Ms Tercy Lonan]

GO FORTH FROM YOUR COUNTRY
Dear reader, we have been navigating the “pages” of the
Midrash for a while now, and with good reason. It is the
only source to carefully detail the story of Abraham, from
the moment when you barely feel him (his “birth”) onward.
The Midrash describes everything that happens to him until
the moment when the Creator Himself addresses him.
But now we’re returning to the written Torah (the
Pentateuch. Midrash is the oral Torah). For the first time
ever, the Creator directly addresses the Abraham within you
because he can finally hear His instruction. Until now, you
were different and incapable of perceiving it, and the Creator’s
instruction would have appeared unacceptable to you.
“Now the Lord said unto Abram: ‘Go forth from your
country, from your relatives and from the home of your
father, to the land that I will show you, and I will make of


you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name
great; and you will be a blessing.’”
This is the start of your Abraham’s journey with those
desires he was able to attach to himself: Sarah, his household,
and his students. The journey is “out of your country, away
from your relatives and away from the home of your father.”
In other words, you must break away from all of it.
“Breaking away from the earth” means parting from all
the desires that you still cannot correct. Their time will
come, but for now you leave them behind and retain only
those desires you can attach to Bina, the part of the Creator
in you, this fervent will to bestow that you’ve acquired. You
will need to take these desires and arrive with them at the
spiritual level called the (First and Second) “Temple,” the
level of desires at which kings David and Solomon exist.
Jumping a bit ahead, I want to clarify that once you’ve
attained their level—the complete correction of those desires
you’ve “taken with you”—you will need to once again fall
into the abyss of egoistic desires you have temporarily left
behind. Having achieved correction, you will need to once
again mingle with Nimrod, with Terah, and with Haran, for
you will now have the strength to correct them.
Indeed, the purpose of your creation is the complete
correction of all your desires. Only then will you merge with
infinity and achieve the absolute bliss that exists even now,
only you cannot feel it because of your uncorrected vessel.
It is written in the Torah, “Go forth from your country.”
That is, “Leave the place where you were born and have
lived until now, reject your egoistic desires. Start developing
above them, as though they do not exist.”


That is followed by: “…and from your relatives and
from the home of your father…” meaning “Part from your
previous degree, leave behind your old environment that
didn’t engage in the spiritual pursuit.”
“…to the land that I will show you.” That is, “Make use of
the desires that will awaken in you. They will be the desires
you’ll attach to your intention to bestow, called ‘Abraham.’”
The Creator will awaken these desires in you, and He will
help you correct them. Thus He will lead you into the land
of absolute bliss.
“And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless
you, and make your name great; and you will be a blessing.”
What is the “great nation” spoken of here? There are
numerous conjectures surrounding this “great nation.”
Some say this refers to the nation being chosen by God, but
this is incorrect. In fact, this kind of separation and sense of
superiority of one nation over another is precisely the root
of all problems, as we can clearly see in our world.
However, everything becomes clear and takes its rightful
place when we realize that the Torah speaks only about
desires that exist within us. It follows that the notion of
“great” refers to one who has reached the quality of bestowal
and learned to truly love others. Therein lies true greatness.
Once you grasp that concept, you will immediately wish to
belong to this “nation.” Indeed, the ultimate goal is to make
the entire world “great.”
“… and I will bless you …”
What is a “blessing”? Whenever we receive a blessing
in life, we are absolutely certain that it’s given to keep us
healthy, successful at our jobs, and so on. In truth, a blessing
does not pertain to our egoistic world at all; it is a spiritual


notion that leads us to the spiritual world. It has nothing to
do with worldly affairs. A “blessing” is the force or Light that
descends to us and corrects our intentions, transforming
them from egoistic to altruistic.
Because you are connected to Abraham, you are granted
this force. Once you have it, all the desires you’ve identified,
those you’ve taken with you “from your country” and those
you have yet to meet on your journey, are all corrected with
this force called “blessing.”
But let us continue. Look how harsh the following passage
from the Midrash sounds: “I free you from the obligation
to honor your father. You may leave him without a second
thought. Your father and brother, who appear very friendly,
are in fact hatching evil schemes. They’re planning murder…”
This reads like something straight out of a thriller.
But by now you know that the passage references your
old states, which you’ve lived with before and which cannot
agree with you. These desires see that you are right and thus
admit that you have risen above them.
However, being the uncorrected desires that they are,
the quality you propose them to live with seems like death.
Therefore, sooner or later there will be a conflict in which
some desires will have to be destroyed by others. When
that time comes, you will have only one option—to separate
yourself from these coarse egoistic desires to avoid quarreling
with them.
Leaving them will preserve them for a time. They will
remain, and you will live peacefully, only to return later and
correct them. However, you will only return once you’ve gained
sufficient strength and become a “great nation,” capable of
defeating (correcting) all the desires you have left behind.


The Creator does not reveal to Abraham where he will
arrive at the end of his journey. “…to the land that I will
show you,” He says to him.
The desires to bestow that become revealed along the
way, guiding you as they gradually manifest within, must be
accepted in accordance with the law of bestowal, meaning
with faith above reason. This means you mustn’t pass them
through your ego, meaning approach them with questions,
“But what will this give me? It seems so illogical…”
The desires to bestow must be passed through your
Abraham, the quality of bestowal within you. You must
constantly identify with the quality of Bina within you,
leaving all the egoistic thoughts by the wayside.
The Midrash says the following about Abraham: “He
didn’t ask the Creator a single question, like, ‘How long will
my journey take?’”
That is correct, because your ascension happens at the
degree of Abraham (Bina) inside you, and at this degree
you don’t ask questions; you only ascend, breaking away
from egoistic desires until you are strong enough to deal
with them. But for now you are undergoing your very first
correction.
The written Torah continues, “So Abram went, as the
Lord had spoken unto him.”
What does it mean, he “went”? It means you have begun
to conquer the spiritual ladder. New egoistic desires keep
popping up within you, which you can correct by attaching
them to “Abraham.” That is, you can view them through
the prism of Abraham, constantly comparing them to
Abraham’s quality, thereby attaching them to him, to the
quality of Bina in you. And so you will always be able to rise
above them.