Doing battle with the subconscious and unconscious to reveal His Glory as the most pleasant and desirable experience to choose with our free will.

The extremes of heat and light of summer bring out desires and a sense of independence to a degree that tests us in our ability to recognize and choose against acting upon them.

For the three weeks before Passover, we clean to get rid of Chometz, where has our ego gone beyond what is permissible in Torah? We find behaviors that we wish to corral and we ask Hashem to bring us from being enslaved to freedom. We then spend seven weeks expanding what we need to in order to bring that freed inclination into service of Hashem and contracting what we need to stop doing in order to bring that freed inclination into service of Hashem. In the seventh week, malchus, we live with our re-trained inclinations, and stand at Har Sinai to receive the Torah.

When we sinned with the Golden Calf, the work we did to bring ourselves to the level of Adom before the sin got covered over again. In one second, the keser, chochma and bina, the higher three attributes of the animal soul, dominated the heart of the Jewish people. The three weeks that could have been a joyous time of receiving the commandments have become a time of danger.

Nishmas Am Yisrael, Torah and Hashem’s Name yud k vav k are inseparable. That means our higher soul, the tzelem elokim that is made in the image of Hashem’s attributes of mercy, emulating His Keser is taught Torah in utero. When we understand that all of Torah is available at all times within us, we can approach the work of cleaning off the influence of the animal soul that is covering our awareness of Torah with its arousal of subconscious and unconscious desires, fears, defensive survival reactions and unrectified characteristics inherent in being alive.

During the three weeks, we seem more and more comfortable with the logic and guidelines of fulfilling natural desires based on worldly considerations and comfort. Yet we worked all year to improve our unrectified characteristics – how do we keep from losing them in this time of expanded light and heat that seemingly bring out wisdom in pursuing desires based on worldly rather than Torah considerations?

Parshas Matos tells us that the Leviim fought in the war with Midian because no one is exempt from the need to do battle with the subconscious and unconscious, which are the wisdom and understanding coming from the animal soul. Just as during the three weeks before Passover we cleaned for Chometz to reduce our ego, our gains in retraining our inclination now have to take their next step. During these three weeks, we have to ingrain into our thoughts by overcoming the animal soul’s influence that happiness and pleasure come from learning Torah, emulating Hashem’s Attributes of mercy, and living with faith and belief. The tzelem elokim, the soul that is made in Hashem’s image, has not forgotten this. The battle we do to impress upon the animal soul’s chochma and bina that happiness and pleasure do not come to us as it suggests builds into our brain boundaries that will eventually help us to contain the happiness and pleasure that Hashem desires to give us.

May we understand that love and value come from connection to Hashem’s Torah and attributes and that pleasure comes from the experience of revealing His Glory without impurities. May we speak out to Hashem when we feel a bitterness and tell Him with simple words that we know it is all from Him and that it is our choice to connect happiness and pleasure to the degree we merit to reveal His Glory and to please help us clean off the impurities so as to infuse His Glory into nature.

Until Moshiach comes we will continue to have a subconscious and an unconscious, provided by the animal soul directing us towards the fulfillment of perceived worldly pleasures and comfort. Yet we can do battle with it on an individual level and to the degree we make an effort with free will to reveal His Glory, we establish our name in the heavens and our capacity to draw His Glory into the world.

May we soon see a new light.