THEMES of Featured Contemporary Kabbalists Articles

G-d commanded the Jewish people to take vengeance against Midian because they enticed them into the idolatry of Pe'or ; this idolatry of is hedonism, the indulgence in sensual pleasure as an end in itself, implying that physical pleasures are either too "low" and vulgar to serve divine purposes or are somehow off-limits for the holy life.

The nation's exodus from Egypt is both its own birth as a nation and an allegory for every individual birth, the liberation of the fetus from the confines of the womb into the freedom of the outside world, where it can develop and become independent. The final journey is to the spiritual Promised Land, the afterlife that awaits us after death.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe teaches that, allegorically, the Land of Israel represents the physical world in general; we can only perform G-d's commandments and elevate material reality while our souls are in this world, that is, during our physical lifetime.

In the First Temple era the Jews committed major sins that were clearly evil and therefore easily recognized and repented of. Their exile lasted only seventy years.

But during the Second Temple era, the primary sin of the Jews was senseless hatred; subtler and more difficult to correct. Thus the second exile lasts much longer, due to the length of time necessary to recognize the evil and repent.