And so at long last we come to the last section of the Bahir called, ‘Secrets of the Soul.’

Bahir 194. Rabbi Rahumai said: This I received [from the tradition]. When Moses wanted to know about the glorious fearsome Name, may it be blessed, he said (Exodus 33:18), "Show me please Your glory." He wanted to know why there are righteous who have good, righteous who have evil, wicked who have good, and wicked who have evil. But they would not tell him. Do you then think that they did not tell him? Can one then imagine that Moses did not know this mystery? But this is what Moses said: "I know the ways of the Powers, but I do not know how Thought spreads through them. I know that Truth is in Thought, but I do not know its parts." He wanted to know, but they would not tell him.

Commentary: As we have been learning all along that it is Thought that moves within and creates the vibrations of life. What are these Powers? They are the levels of vibration produced by Thought. Moses says here he knows the Powers because he can feel their presence and witness the actions that result by proper reflections of these Powers. What Moses doesn’t know is how Thought makes up itself out of itself. He is unable to see the connection that good and evil have together and how one balances out the other and both contribute to the continuity of reflection. He doesn’t see how on one level a person may be considered righteous and then on another level they may be termed evil. Evil may be defined for this context as meaning anything that degrades the unity. One may contemplate holiness and yet if even the slightest doubt enters that contemplation the holiness does not reach the level of understanding that it is destined to because of the doubt or evil that has crept into these contemplations. What is the glory of the fearsome Name? It is the unqualified unity that exists within and because of the Name. Why wouldn’t they tell him about this Glory? Because you must answer a person in their language of understanding in order to communicate the truth of the answer. Moses by his questions demonstrated the duality of thinking that prevents a true understanding of the fearsome Name. The only answer that ever suffices for this question is to become the Unity and then no questions are necessary.

Bahir 195. Why is there a righteous person who has good, and [another] righteous person who has evil? This is because the [second] righteous person was wicked previously, and is now being punished. Is one then punished for his childhood deeds? Did not Rabbi Simon say that in the Tribunal on high, no punishment is meted out until one is twenty years or older. He said: I am not speaking of his present lifetime. I am speaking about what he has already been, previously. His colleagues said to him: How long will you conceal your words? He replied: Go out and see. What is this like? A person planted a vineyard and hoped to grow grapes, but instead, sour grapes grew. He saw that his planting and harvest were not successful so he tore it out. He cleaned out the sour grape vines and planted again. When he saw that his planting was not successful, he tore it up and planted it again. How many times? He said to them: For a thousand generations. It is thus written (Psalm 105:8), "The word that He commanded for a thousand generations." It is in relation to this that they said, "Lacking were 974 generations. The Blessed Holy One stood up and planted them in each generation."

Commentary: We are talking here about thoughts and the way in which they come to harvest as experiences. It is our thoughts that make us righteous or evil according to their direction. We have the responsibility to change our thoughts if they are evil. We are to change them to good thoughts. Thoughts combine together in what is called generations above to provide the templates that we live our lives through. Realizing this frame of reference we aim to always plant good thoughts knowing full well that their harvest will continue the process ad infinitum. The process we take in order to clean up our lives is to take out the sour grapes (negative thoughts) and begin again anew to plant the good thoughts that will then take root to produce a good harvest for us time and again. This is something that cannot be directly explained without the experience gained through planting and replanting.