Parashat Vayakhel: "Fill Your Cup With Blessing"

In this week’s Parasha, Parshat Vayakhel, we pick up right after the incident of the golden calf and are retold the commandment of the Shabbat.

In your spiritual journey, there are two forces to work on:

1. Removing yourself from negativity

2. Connecting to positivity

You cannot truly enjoy a good drink until you clean the cup that holds it. If the cup itself that you’re pouring into is not clean, then the value of what you’re pouring in diminishes. A drink in a dirty cup simply can’t taste that great. Similarly, if we love a person who doesn’t respect us, while our love is beautiful, the love won’t be appreciated. One person will be angry for giving it, and the other will be angry for not receiving it because the cup is not clean. We see the negativity and the positivity at play!

So, how can we begin to clean our cup?

Cleaning Your Cup – Shabbat as the Remedy

In keeping Shabbat, we are commanded not to burn fire or light a candle on Shabbat. What does it mean to "keep the Shabbat"? It means we want to connect to a different place where we behave differently — behave more elevated. For this, we must invest.

The Zohar says that the fire of Shabbat is the fire of anger! Anger is one of the five things that exist in the ego. Rabbi Isaac Luria says that if you work on one thing, let it be your anger. By doing so, we begin healing both our body and soul.

Rabbi Nachman on Money and Anger

Rabbi Nachman of Breslev once said, “All the souls desire to have money, not only do they want it, but they desire to be around the people who have it.” Why do we love the rich man? Not because of his money, but because his Nefesh (soul) comes from an elevated place. Where does the money come from? The highest spiritual level. You’re not feeling the money itself, you’re feeling God going through that person! So don’t judge or hate yourself because you love that energy. It’s God that you love, and that is its source!

However, we must be careful in our love for money. We’re allowed to have lust for the source of where the money came from, but not for the money itself, as that becomes idol worship.

Rabbi Nachman of Breslev also states that everyone should have money, but there’s one thing that will make us lose it all. Even if a person tries to save themselves from it, it’s difficult. From the time you’re a baby, it sticks to us. That one thing is… ANGER. Anger and money come from the same source! So we must choose which part we want to shower ourselves with: the anger or the money, the positive or the negative. I’ll let you decide.

Where Does Anger Come From?

Anger comes from the need for justice. The Zohar asks the question, "What’s happening in the upper world when anger is involved?" The truth is, in the upper world, the soul seeks justice and must look for a change — for repentance to get there. Sickness is not by mistake; sickness is how it may do it. Now, anger is considered a disease, the real sickness that you must work on starting now! When you’re angry, you feel like you’re right and everyone else is wrong. How dangerous! With this, we allow the evil inclination to get us angry.

Working on our anger is where we start. Anger is the beginning of everyone’s spiritual journey.

The Three Angels of Your Journey

When you go up to heaven, you have 3 angel messengers with you:

1. An angel writing the good and bad things about you

2. One that’s been with you since you were a fetus

3. Another angel evaluating what you’ve done with the days you’ve been given

They analyze: Did we study spirituality? Were we fair with business? Were we judging? Were we getting angry at others?

The process of change starts with being more forgiving and allowing the positive things like money, not anger, to flow in.

The Three Telling Things About a Person

The Talmud says there are three telling things about a person:

1. The way he spends money (his generosity)

2. The way he gets drunk

3. The way he gets angry

The bad news is that the enemy is inside us, and the good news is the enemy is inside us! We have the power to change ourselves, starting with Shabbat.

How Does Shabbat Connect to Anger?

The six days before Shabbat are its preparation. To enjoy the energy of Shabbat, do something every single day that relates to Shabbat. Slowly, Shabbat will begin to serve you! We can constantly tap into Shabbat. Shabbat has two sides of energy: the result of last week and the seed for next week.

Three hours before Shabbat, do not drink or eat. Within the physicality of Shabbat is the spirituality. What we do and who we’re with leading up to and during Shabbat affects our week afterward.

If we get angry during the week, it affects our Shabbat and our week to come. Shabbat is a cure for anger! The Zohar states that the fire of Shabbat is more powerful than the fire of hell. If we feel the excitement of Shabbat and begin forgiving and sharing more kindness, that will burn our anger all week long.

The Power of Amalek’s Chaos

The nation of Amalek represents the concept of how negativity and the dark side attack us. It begins by making us believe that there is no order to anything and that everything is random. Amalek was intent on destroying from above and below. By destroying what the people built and believed in, they were able to destroy everything. Amalek wanted to create impurity within the Temple and among the Israelites as well. They were systematic in how they destroyed.

Amalek wanted to create more confusion. For that reason, God told Moses that the Israelites must get rid of Amalek. So too, everything that Bilaam worshipped was around the idea of coincidence. He did not believe in certainty and was intent on having a consciousness supported by random events. Here again, the Amalek game.

If we have disorder in our lives but don’t believe that the disorder is part of the order that God has for us, then the Amalek/Bilaam chaos attacks us and we fall into a victim mentality.

The Power of Community

It’s important to be aware that the community we surround ourselves with has a material effect on our lives. Having people around us who believe in random things creates powerful negative energy for us. People judge because they do not believe in order. If they did, they would understand and believe in the certainty of what God wanted to share. Having certainty in the Creator and immersing ourselves in a community with like-minded people will allow us to have a "clean cup," create an environment away from negativity and closer to positivity, and help us reach our next level of spirituality!

Shabbat Shalom!

– Rabbi Eliyahu Jian