Nourishment for the Neshama
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Nourishment for the Neshama

Reflections on Elul 5768 before 5769

Reflections on Elul 5768 before 5769

 

As we approach Elul, we bring in the season of crowning Hashem the King.  The King will enter the field and we will pass before Him to be inscribed for the next year, may we all be inscribed in the book of life for a year of health, prosperity, and an abundance of  what we recognize as good.

 

For myself, I embark on a process to arrive at Rosh Hashana.  To love Hashem means to love that He loves justice.  As a limited person who makes mistakes and commits averahs, I do not particularly care to be the recipient of such justice, for most of the time I like to consider that I have done a pretty good job and that I can feel good about my conduct and mitzvahs.  That would be my ego talking.  We all like to think of ourselves as basically good and doing the right thing, having good judgment and executing things in a manner that is pleasing to Hashem.  At least, I hope we all like to think of ourselves in this way.  Surely I do.

 

What I have learned as I approach my 57th birthday (5 Elul) is that there is another perspective on everything I do. And yes, overall I may be getting good marks, but there is no such thing as perfect when we are in bodies.  For this reason, when we understand there is another perspective, we have to understand that there is a process to arriving at Rosh Hashana, one where we cleanse ourselves of the inevitable imperfections and errors and averahs which are unavoidable, assuming a person is emotionally and intellectually honest with themselves. 

 

Now here is the thing – many of us have fragile egos that often cannot admit that we made a mistake or confess any wrong-doing  - we become angry and offended at the thought that we of all people might be punished for something we might have done.  We are quick to justify our actions in human terms and feel we did no wrong.  Without finding fault with this, since most Jews really do put much thought into their actions, I would bring this matter into focus in a different way.

 

I would suggest that the process of confessing ourselves and doing teshuva does not diminish one’s self esteem but rather establishes one’s self-esteem in two worlds.  Yes, that brings in a two world picture. In fact, there is only Hashem and either we are serving Him in a manner that is pleasing to Him or He will find a way to utilize our actions for His purposes. Preferably for us, we are here to fix and mend things within ourselves so that we can draw closer to Him and merit Olam Haba through our actions in this proving ground of a world. 

 

Often, we do not spend much time comprehending that there is more than Olam Hazeh to consider when making our decisions. Our instincts are self-interest- to take as much as we can in ways that we can justify.  But in fact, a two world picture is something that we must wake up to.  This area of emunah, this faith in Hashem, and our ability to build our faith and establish for ourselves a connection to Hashem within ourselves,  needs to be a part of our decisions whenever we are at behira (at our free will point).  Our actions must meet a standard – are we doing things that please Hashem or not?

Why? Why do we have to consider doing things that please Hashem?  It is because inevitably we have erred in our judgments and offered ourselves as a stick to hit someone else. No matter how well-justified we may feel, in Elul, we must recognize these things. Heaven forfend that we arrive at the Heavenly gates without having availed ourselves of this process while here in Olam Hazeh, for there, it will not be possible to do teshuva and we will have to undergo a process of Gehinnon to cleanse us. 

 

The primary reason in Elul to be aware of a two world picture and the process of teshuva  is that when we confess ourselves to Hashem, when we regret our wrongdoings, it means that we recognize who and what we are…not only our good deeds and successes, but the struggle that it really is to be human and have limitations and weaknesses and emotions, and our gratitude that there is a Hashem Who stands ready to cleanse us.  By standing before the Creator and confessing to Hashem what we know are our limitations, we silence the need to be accused from above.  There is no need for Heavenly accusations when we ourselves have recognized ourselves. We may not regret our action – perhaps we regret an inevitable outcome of our action.  Either way, we must recognize and be sensitive to what we produced in the previous year…did we produce constructive or destructive things?

 

From recognition and confession, kaparah and healing can occur. Without this confession, when we are blind to our faults or if we egotistically deny or rationalize them, we invoke the need to be accused from above.  This is the system we live in, whether or not we like it does not change that this is the process of Elul.  And we are all in the same boat…no one is exempt.

 

A healthy ego must have room to understand that we make mistakes and need to take responsibility for these mistakes.  Pushing them away, not liking to hear that there is punishment and judgment in the world, or perhaps relying on segulahs - these will not provide the road to kaparrah and healing that we truly do want (even though we don’t know we want it). If we created destructive influences, our teshuva is required to remove them.  When we understand that Hashem Loves us and wants to give us a clean start, a fresh year, a new beginning, we need to run with all of our negative deeds into His arms and beg forgiveness. Or, if we have caused damage to another, run to them and relieve them of the pain we caused by confessing and asking forgiveness.  To presume at any time that we are above this is inherently a fault of ego, something for which we are surely to be accused.

 

I am not suggesting a decline into an unhealthy search into our weaknesses that will cause us headache and depression. Nor am I suggesting a cruel self-flagellation that triggers anger with oneself.  Not at all.  Hashem’s perspective knows who we are and we are asked here to be accepting and honest, knowing that if we ask for His help, perhaps we will gain some ability to rise above our limitations.  We are not to degrade ourselves so terribly as to be overwhelming.  However, an honest appraisal of our strengths and weaknesses, blindspots and areas of confusion establishes us in two worlds on a healthy basis.

 

On the flip side, it is imperative that those who have been pained by the actions of another Jew prepare themselves mentally to forgive the person who may come to stand before them.  Please remember that the Jew who comes to confess his wrongdoings is attempting to do teshuva and receive mechila from you.  If you went through pain because of that person, that pain came from Hashem, who used that person as a stick to hit you.  And now, that person, having regretted failing at their free will point, is now doing what he can to grow closer to Hashem.  Ultimately that is what we all need for the redemption to come.

 

Forgive, forgive, forgive.  Confess and ask for forgiveness from above, recognize our weaknesses and commit to working on them and forgive ourselves our process, and forgive those who come to us. When a Jew comes to ask mechilah, allow the pain you experienced to be a kaparrah and forgive the good Jew who is standing before you.

 

Let us all merit to have a successful process so that we stand with no or very few debts on Rosh Hashana before the King!  And may our teshuva generate rachamim in the eyes of Hashem so that He sends our Redeemer!

Posted by Shuli Kleinman at Sunday, August 24, 2008 12:29 PM | Add Comment

A Prayer for Unity - Rabbi Usher Freund published by US Friends of Yad Ezra

Hashem, who is merciful and compassionate:  Please inspire us to come close to You, to strive to overlook one another's faults and unite with each other, and to endeavor to help one another, as it says: "Let each man assist his fellow, and say to his brother, "Be Strong!" May we manage to overlook personal considerations and honors, and in merit of this, say the Sages, we will be forgiven all our sins.  We must understand that should we suffer, it is because G-d wants to arouse us to Teshuva through the medium of our friends' actions against us.  This is meant to heal us improve ourselves through submission in silence, and to prompt  us to recognize that our friends; short comings are but a mirror of our own faults.

Self-involvement makes us so insensitive to the realities of our existence, that we overlook our complete dependency on Divine mercy, which empowers our every action and supports our every achievement.  We even forget that our very existence is only by His mercy, for left to ourselves, what are we but an embodiment of nothingness!  So Hashem must arouse us through suffering to make us aware of who and what we are.  He wants only to bring us closer to Him, so we merit release from the bitter exile we are currently suffering.

If we but refrain from responding to our friends' taunts, instead cry out to our Creator, then all the pain and difficulties we endure will achieve their intended results by bringing us closer to Him.  This inner strength can only grow from humility, as King David said: "Hashem is lofty and takes note of the humble."  Should we fail in these efforts, it would only be because we are not whole-heated in our efforts to be humble.  Unfortunately, our true goal is usually grandiosity, and our attempts at serving Hashem are illusory.  And when Hashem prods us through the acts of a friend who annoys us, or depresses us or lords over us, we become angry with the friend for daring to impinge on our glory.

True submission to G-d is only achieved through suffering, as King David said:  "It was good for me that I was afflicted, so that I could learn Your decrees." The greatest benefit man can achieve is being close to Hashem, as it says in Tehillim: "For me closeness to G-d is my goodness."  And as Rabbeinu Moshe Cordevero wrote in Tomer Devorah: "If a person would but know the degree to which humiliation and suffering caused by others cleanse him from sin, elevate him and bring him close to his Creator, he would run in the street and chase after humiliations in order to attain perfection of his soul."

May it be His will that we merit to be silent to a friend - not silence out of anger and hatred, but silence out of submission to Hashem, for it is He who strikes us:  the friend is but His staff. Let us forgo our anger and accept everything with love and joy.  May Hashem Yisborach remove from us dispute and baseless hatred and give us forbearance, the desire and the strength to walk in HIs ways, and to emulate His attributes. As the Sages said, "Just as He is merciful, so should you be merciful..." And let us merit true and complete unity.  May we arise from darness and pain, and at long last, merit true salvation, as it is written, "May light shine in the darkness."

As the Tzaddikim have assured us, if we will be united and there will be no hatred among us, we will remove from ourselves all the accusers regarding our sins.  In this merit, may Hashem's mercy exceed the limits of Law, and may He speedily bring the Moshiach and our complete redemption.

Posted by Shuli Kleinman at Wednesday, April 09, 2008 9:31 AM | Add Comment

Reflections on Mortality

This essay is offered for a refuah shelama for Margolit Masha Bat Tova Gittle

STOP

THINK

What if someone were to tell you that you had a fatal illness and had only a few months of decent health left, with pain?  What if you knew that the amount of time you had left to function in what we consider to be a “normal” range is very limited?

What would you fill your time with?  I imagine you would fill your time with the things that you value the most, that bring you the most enjoyment, meaning, and sense of purpose.  Arguably, it is doubtful that you would run to do things that would shorten the amount of time you have, like drinking, extreme sports, or criminal acts. For many people who believe in a higher power, the time left would be filled with what the person feels will provide them with eternity.  Earning eternity.

Let’s call the motivation that we have regarding the remainder of our lifetime a desire to increase the amount of love we feel in our lives and to cherish the time that has been given to us and use it wisely, to connect to something in us that is eternal.   We are told that when the Angel of Death takes us, it is like removing a hair from a glass of milk. Our physical beings encase our souls here on this earth for a short period of time and then, like a garlic peel taken off the garlic, our bodies are buried and the fruit continues in a different frame of reference. By connecting here, we have something forever.

Picture one person standing next to their grave.  Picture a second with a different set of values.  And yet a third.  Ask each, what do your values dictate to you to do in order that when you jump in and get covered your eternal part will continue to have an existence?  For a Jew, it is charity, kindness, honoring parents, visiting the sick, and 613 mitzvahs of the Torah.  For the Greeks of old, as we approach Chanukah, it would have been pleasure, stoicism, intellectual pursuits.  Throughout human history, we Jews have suffered pogroms, extermination and more.  If the perpetrators of these crimes against us were standing next to their grave, would they say, just keep on killing Jews, then I can get my eternal reward?  If that were true, Hitler and Stalin and many more would be in the highest heavens.  I tend to doubt it.  Truly.  Which one of our bodies does not end up in the grave? Our physical selves are limited in time and purpose.  They are like the shell on a seed – plant the seed in the ground and the shell disintegrates and out comes a plant.  Or like the peel of the banana  What is inside? Is the fruit brown and mushy and unpleasant or is it just ripe enough to enjoy?  This is what our deeds are – are we bringing brown, mushy, unpleasantness to the world or are we a benefit that brings joy?

Do you believe that our lives are in the hands of the Creator?  I do.  Do you feel good about yourself when you do a good deed, treat others kindly, give forgiveness, and settle disputes?  I do. I didn’t always feel that way, but as I grew up, I realized the great pleasure there is in connecting to the Creator, in emulating His kindness and generosity wherever I could manage it.  It was not natural to do that.  Circumstances in my life had to show it to me.  But I got it, I understood it.  Taking is no comparison to giving.  Why?  Because when we give, we tether ourselves to eternity. There is a relationship that we can develop with the Creator that brings the greatest joy there is on this earth. If you have not experienced it, it is time to seek it out.  NOW. Before we stand any nearer to the grave.

If our lives are in the hands of our Creator AND the conduct which produces the greatest pleasures in living are when we emulate  the Creator (as we are instructed and commanded), why then, at times of loss and desperation,  do we ever try to rely on man’s intelligence alone to defend our lives and our lifestyles?  When we need to listen to the Creator’s commandments and instructions the most, our physical selves override our sensibilities and our lower instincts surface.  As intelligent people, it does not make sense to do this, to act out our lowest instincts of hatred, jealousy, greed or desire for power or respect. Yet this is human nature, our physical messages outblast our spiritual sensibilities.  I would suggest that this is akin to a terminally ill patient shortening the amount of time he has with drinking, extreme sports, or criminal acts.  If we remember where we are all going, where every person who ever lived has gone to, we wake up to a different reality, a search for eternity and connection.

At the poignant time when we individually realize that we will all eventually have to give our souls back, the souls that animate the physical bodies in which we travel through this world, do we realize that our intelligence and our abilities to traverse this planet have come from a part of us that is eternal and connected to eternity?   As our physical capacities slip away from us, and we become just the flesh and the consequences of physical forces working on our bodies like a person in a coma, we must recognize that we have been privileged to have a knowledge, a daas, which is given to us by the Creator each and every day we have strength in order that, through the hands and feet that He gives us, we can bring His Middos into the world, His Characteristics, of love, kindness, patience, forgiveness, and more.  Yet so often, we use that very intelligence to deny His existence, to judge others harshly, to do harm or take more than we are allotted or to do other destructive actions.  Chutzpah!  With the very intelligence He bestows upon us, because we have free will, we are blinded and can even deny His existence!  Amazing world.

The inner experience of our lives is what is precious about a person, the choices we make regarding how we use the gifts the Creator has given us, for as long as He gives them to us.  It does not last forever.  There is no one alive today that was alive 150 years ago.

A person who uses his intelligence, love and creativity can become someone in this world -  a Gadol or if not in learning, a big force in the business or professional world, and yes, this too can be precious to a person.  We try to be who we are until we can’t anymore.  So, if we live because the Creator sends us knowledge, and we conduct ourselves and protect and develop ourselves with the love and talent that the Creator gives us, why on earth when it comes to defending ourselves do we rely on our own hand and not continue to pursue means that the Creator would suggest?
For example, when mankind has disputes, we resort to courts, which the Creator has instructed us to do, but then people might resort to other, lower tactics stemming from revenge, which could even lead to taking the life of another, as is often the case in domestic disputes.  When countries have disputes, we use politics, but as we see in the current times, people are resorting to dramatic tactics to influence the emotions involved with the politics, which has led to war and much injury and death. When we deviate from the Creator’s instructions and turn to our own instincts and ideas, what are we really doing?  We must be true to the same parts that give us pride, purpose and pleasure in living even when there are disputes.  We must recognize that all of mankind is ONE.  We, mankind, are all connected through the Creator.  What has meaning to all of us is OUR connection to what the Creator sends to us - our very lives.  And likewise with every living person. When we need Him the most, we must turn to Him and NOT to our own man-made ideas that stem from our physical side.  Yes, our politics are influenced by emotions, but our emotions stem from our thoughts and our thoughts are hooked into fear of losses, and it is loss that makes us forget that there is only One Creator and mankind is ONE.  When we think there is more than One, we go astray and, instead of emulating His Kindness, Love, and Mercy we cannot help but emulate our own anger, self-interest and limited misconceptions.

He shares His intelligence with us every day.  We are able to give love to our family and friends because we are created in His image, which is loving. When we need to protect the very lives that He has given us from those who would do us harm, we need trust in Him and His assistance in defeating those who rise up to kill us.  Did the Creator not drown the Egyptians in the Red Sea?  We need to stop, think, pray and emulate Him, Who loves every person, every creature, Who provides life and sustenance and good to every living thing for as long as it is His Will.  We need to stop taking on the role of being the one to bring justice.  We cannot.  We don’t know what we are doing.  We can’t.  We are too caught up in our own self-interest.  We are losing what we value the most – the quiet enjoyment of our lives, doing acts of kindness, developing our talents and creativities to improve the world.  Many of us are seeing in the world today a decline of energy toward constructive altruistic goals and an increase in goals that are selfish for a particular ideology or belief system.  Mankind can be ONE only when we live at peace with every belief system, seeing that behind each face is a connection to the Creator Who loves every being.   Each person is a piece of the puzzle.  We fit in.  Every one of us.  Every person receiving life from the Creator is a puzzle piece too and this is crucial to mankind becoming what the Creator intended.  Stand next to the grave and look in.  What does the Creator truly want us to do to earn eternity?  It does not make sense to me at all that the answer would ever be go out and kill someone I hate or who is my political enemy.  I am not saying to rely on miracles when there are real forces of evil out there.  What I am saying is that the world is getting to the point where every person must be seeing that what we are doing is leading nowhere, and that the human race will quickly come to a point where there is no enjoyment or goodness to live for.  This only will work if every single living person buys into it.  That means EVERYONE.  No exceptions.  I realize that is unlikely by our own free will.  But it is possible.  Just give your objections the grave test and be honest with yourself, for you are made in His Divine Image.

I beseech every living person:

STOP.  Be who you are.  Believe what you like.  But think and know that it is YOUR puzzle piece and it does not entitle you to disrespect or harm another puzzle piece.  Even if that other person is, in your opinion, totally wrong.  He is still a puzzle piece placed there by the One Creator who will bring that person to justice in the best way for that person. It is not the job of man but the job of The Creator to rectify every soul, either in this world or the next.
Behind every face is the Creator.  Respect every person.  Live peaceably. Another person need not be a threat to anyone.  Forego idols and ideology that can’t be true – give it the stand next to the grave test.   Be honest.  If I only earn another million, I will earn eternity?  Hardly.

The most passionate of us are simply trying to tell the world about the Creator and how He wants us to live so that HE CAN LIVE AMONGST US.  Surely He does not wish for us to die in the process.  I personally believe that as long as we resort to killing, war, revenge, hateful dialect and other actions stemming from our physical side, the human race will drain itself down like a battery until we STOP.   What is it all about?  The Torah teaches us that He wishes for us to serve, to bring His light into the world so that He can be visible, not covered up. 


THINK

PRAY SINCERELY that He make Himself visible in our world

And then

EMULATE His 13 attributes with trust so that He can be seen.
 
 
 

Posted by Shuli Kleinman at Monday, December 03, 2007 3:53 PM | View Comments (1) | Add Comment

Rebbetzin Heller Chosen People class 5 as given on Naaleh.com

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Posted by Shuli Kleinman at Sunday, November 18, 2007 5:03 PM | Add Comment

Rebbetzin Heller Chosen People Class 4 as given on Naaleh.com

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Rebbetzin Heller Chosen People Class 3 as given on Naaleh.com

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Rebbetzin Heller The Chosen People Class 2 as given on Naaleh.com

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Posted by Shuli Kleinman at Sunday, November 18, 2007 4:21 PM | Add Comment

Rebbetzin Heller The Chosen People Class 1 as given on Naaleh.com

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Posted by Shuli Kleinman at Sunday, November 18, 2007 4:18 PM | Add Comment

Reflections on Respect

One of the most amazing realizations that I have had in my journey through Torah and mitzvohs is learning about all the different types of Jews, their minhagim and their chumros.  For a people who all together make up only 3% of the world population (97% of the world is not Jewish, and of the 15 million Jews, if 1 million are Torah observant -.0016% of the world population-which means that Torah observant Jewish people are statistically insignificant), within our .0016% of the world population we are hardly homogenious. As a person who found Torah and mitzvahs as an adult, the numerous variations and strongly held opinions came as a surprise.
If you speak to non-Torah and mitzvah Jewish people, you are likely to hear within their language when talking about Torah and mitzvah observant people a negativity, a criticism that I attribute to cognitive dissonance.  At some level, non-observant people know there is something that they are not doing and they have rationalized it and they hit hard to make it seem to themselves as though they have a good reason.  By making an emotional issue out of it, they can safely take their position within their opinion and close the book to discussion.  Don’t confuse me with the facts – I feel emotional about this!  What can a person say?  Nothing.  Yet we know that it is a psychological truth that when we speak negatively about an authority, we not only undermine what we are speaking about but we also undermine our own authority.  How?  By utilizing harsh words as tactics to distinguish our position, we actually teach this method to those listening.  By discrediting the authority of Torah, we teach that it is okay to use these tactics to discredit what we do believe in!  Which part of any ideology cannot be scrutinized and criticized and made an emotional issue?  When we attach negative emotions to any level of Torah and mitzvohs, we undermine the whole religion.

In comes the need to instill in ourselves respect.  We are viewed in Shemayim as one people.  We all need each other.  One is not right and the other wrong.  We are one and we are viewed that way, as a whole.  There is halacha.  Then there are people who choose to take a step above halacha.  And there are those who might go further still. It is best for each one of us to see every Jew as following a positive path in his or her relationship to Hashem. 
What are we really?  From young to old we are skeletons at different stages of getting there.  Our physicality is a shell into which Hashem gives strength and intelligence.  The only thing I am completely sure of is that Hashem did not give us strength or intelligence so that we could judge others, claim we are deserving of respect, or deny His existence.  Hashem gave us strength and intelligence to serve Him.  If each Jew accepts this, then the manner of another Jew’s observance does not affect him.  Each Jew is on his own path in reaching closeness to Hashem. 
There is the halacha.  Then there are those who wish to take a step above the halacha.  We do not need to judge either ourselves or others as right or wrong in comparison to each other.  One’s practices do not impact on another’s.  Each forges his or her own relationship with Hashem and together, we are one.  Yaakov had 12 different children.  We are one.  We can be who we are without emotionally or verbally condemning those who do things differently.
And in this merit, may we bring shelamos to our people and may Hashem redeem us.

Posted by Shuli Kleinman at Thursday, November 15, 2007 11:45 AM | View Comments (1) | Add Comment

Meaning of Trust Class 1 by Rebbetzin Heller

 We are going to begin a topic of how to gain trust in Hashem.  For most people, trust is very elusive. It is hard for us to trust ourselves, harder to trust other people, and hardest of all to trust Hashem.  We have to trust. None of us is an island, none of us could survive on our own, and Hashem embued us with the need to trust.  What we are going to be doing in these shiurim is learning how and under what circumstances trust is valid, what it really means, how it relates to faith and how to make it our own.

We are going to be approaching this through several different authors.  We are going to be dealing with first Orcha Tzaddikim, then Chovos HaLevovos, then the Chazon Ish and finally the Maharal.  Beginning with the beginning then we are up to Shaare HaSimcha.

Simcha is a midda that comes to a person because he is tranquil in his heart and nothing feels like a tragic or unfortunate occasion.  A person whose achieved their desires, and nothing has happened to make him sad, that person will always be happy and his face will be full of light and his countenance will shine and his body is healthy, and old age doesn’t come to him quickly.  I want to analyze what we just read with you.

The first thing that he tells us is that simcha is a midda, not a response to outside events.  It is a midda, a trait of the soul.  The same way with other middos, chesed, emes, a midda can be developed.  Some midda are inborn, some people have a stronger desire to do chesed from the very beginning…you see babies that smile back at you just wanting to see you smile, they want to see you happy.   Not everyone has chesed to the same degree as everybody else. Some people have to develop it. Not everyone has a sense of truth to the same degree as everybody else, and not everyone has simcha the way everybody else does. It is a midda and it can be developed.

So what he says is that this midda isn’t a consequence of either fun or pleasure, which are two things that we confuse with simcha.  Think of fun. Now I like fun so I can’t push myself too hard on that one. Whatever it is that you like you like…swimming, sports, music, whatever it is that you like.  If it is real fun, it takes you out of your own reality.  Swimming in the baby pool is not fun if you are an adult. There is no challenge there. If you like sports, competing in a game of roly poly with a four year old loses something after a short while because there is no adrenaline flowing. The same holds true for other pleasures.  Seeing a movie where the plot is transparent and the characters are cardboard so that you are in your own reality is not as interesting as seeing a movie that is compelling.  Of course a frum movie we are talking about.   That being the case, fun is not simcha because it makes you LEAVE your reality. It is not a midda.

Another thing that people confuse with simcha is pleasure.  There are all things we enjoy. I am not now talking about fun which has a certain stream of escapism to it, but pleasure…eating, having a down comforter on a cold day in the winter, those things don’t affect you essentially, they are external to you. What simcha is –it is feeling great tranquility regardless of what is happening.  A person who has that kind of tranquility, who doesn’t feel that their desires have not been fulfilled, what is happening IS their desire, there are signs of it.  Now I am sure you have met people who say with a scowl on their face, I am very happy. I am a very joyous person.  Simcha looks like what it is. If a person has simcha, they look happy, it is what it looks like.  Having said that I want to share with you how I learned that simcha is not a response to the outside.

When I was 14, I was in Bais Yaakov, my teacher Rabbi Bedlefsky, a tzaddik of a person, taught us halacha, a very ehrlich person, a person of enormous sincerity, he wanted to whip us into shape spiritually  We were a mess, we were very vacant, lots of nonsense, lots of 14 year old nonsense.  So in order to make us into Bnos Aliya, he wanted us to get in touch with our spiritual side, so he made a chesed club, chevra chesed.  Now today, in all seminaries, they have Monday afternoons where the girls are sent out to do chesed.  There is someone in charge of it who matches the girls and her abilities with what needs to be done.  That is not how they did it in the old days. He himself was a bale chesed, he did many acts of kindness for people, so he sent us to do the same.  No coordination, no preparation, no liaison, didn’t always match. In my chevra chesed days he sent me and my friend Rivky to a place that was really called Brooklyn Chronic Disease Hospital, formerly Brooklyn Home for Incurables. That is what it said on the gate. They had a big outdoor yard and the people on nice days would be taken out to the yard and they would be sitting in wheelchairs or if there were people who could not sit there were devices that held them at sort of a three quarter angle and we went with no preparation, we had no idea what we should do with these people, what we should say to them, whether they would want us there or not, but we decided to try.  So we figured we should go over and say hello. So we went over and said hello. Now there were two terrible things about these people in terms of what their lives seemed to be. One was that they were there on a one way ticket and the other is that no one there could possibly be very physically comfortable.  So we expected the majority of people to be angry and bitter.  What we discovered that within the context of Brooklyn, they were completely normal. Around 10% were nasty and bitter, around 10% were delightful and self-transcendant.  There was a woman that we would visit who became our confidant, she was so ill that she wasn’t even down in the yard, she was in one of the rooms, she was attached to all sorts of devices so she could not be moved. But she was so uplifting and optimistic. Hello girls! Thank you for coming. Oh I love when you read me Readers Digest it is my greatest pleasure. Come sit with me, and what do like and what do you do?  We could tell her our stuff! She was completely safe emotionally. She was the one who we could tell I cheated on the test and I think the teacher knows and I will be in big trouble. Or, and after five dates, after all of that, he said he is not interested. And she would say you’ll marry someone better, you deserve someone who will cherish you, not someone who is in doubt about a wonderful girl like you. That sort of thing.   So 10% like her, 10% awful, and the 80% were standard Brooklyn. That doesn’t mean they were happy, just hey, hello, that sort of thing.  So it is not the outside. It is an attitude towards the outside. And as we will see, this attitude towards the outside comes from trust in Hashem.  Let’s read further.

A happy heart gives forth goodness in expression, a person who is happy will laugh easily. Not that an intelligent person should be frivolous or go to far, but the kind of laughter that will characterize a person who is b’simcha, won’t take you there.  Now we are going to skip some of it because he discusses all the things that are simcha’s negative side, the escapism, the frivolity, all of the bad stuff, so we are not going there, but we are going to talk about where the simcha will take us in the positive.  

A person who believes in Hashem with a strong heart and trusts Him with a strong trust, that trust will bring a person not to be afraid of any bad thing.  That person will never enslave themselves to any person to appease them.  And he won’t invest his hopes in a person. And he will never agree with people when agreeing with them is in opposition to serving Hashem.  And their matters don’t scare him, and he won’t be afraid of their quarrels. The more a person trusts Hashem, the less fear he has of anything else in the world.  What are we afraid of?  He doesn’t just say bad things that could happen. But we are afraid of opposition, we are afraid of rejection, we are afraid of a lot of things.  Why won’t we fear other things if we trust Hashem?  Let’s start simple.  The simplest idea is that greater fear always eclipses smaller fear.  Let me illustrate that.

I will assume that for many of you the following would be a nightmare. Let’s say you get up in the middle of the night and you step on something and you feel a liquidy substance and a crunch and you realize you stepped on something alive and big.  How many of you can picture being petrified..you stepped on a mouse…horrible!  Could you scream? I could scream. But as you are screaming, you notice your bedroom door is open and you know you closed your bedroom door and you locked your outside door. Someone is in the house.  Do you remember the mouse any more? No.  So you don’t know what to do, so you draw your robe around you and look in the other room and there is a man with a knife. What mouse?  But as you stand there too frightened to even scream, you notice through the open outside door that a mushroom cloud is beginning to develop outside radiating. You don’t even see the man anymore. What man?

Why am I telling you this horrific scenario?  Bigger fear always eclipses smaller fear. The reason why we fear people and events is that we don’t fear Hashem, we don’t believe in His Mastery. We believe in His Mastery in our minds, but not in our hearts. Simcha is contingent on two things..Hashem’s Mastery and His compassion.  So if you believe that only Hashem has control, you are not going to be afraid of people and look at the other things that you are not going to do, you are not going to appease them, you are not going to be whomever they want you to be.  You won’t twist yourself into a pretzel-shape, you won’t invest your hope in people who will invariably disappoint you because invariably only Hashem could do everything.  You won’t destroy yourself because of fear of rejection.  He goes on.

And if you have to give them rebuke, you are not going to worry about their kovod. Why? Because you are not worried that your sense of self has to come from them, only from Hashem.  Now he is going to take us to ways of thinking that develop this sort of trust and from there, we are going to work on taking these ways of thinking to specific sorts of situations.

The first thing you must know is that Hashem has more compassion than any human could possibly have. So not only is Hashem the source of everything but He is compassionate.  Let’s say something happens in your life that you don’t like.  You don’t like it. The first thing you have to realize is that things come only from Hashem. It can come through other people, but it only comes from Hashem.  For many people that just changes the address for their embitterment and anger, so I am not angry at my mother or my boss or the shadcan, or at whomever, I am angry at Hashem. The second thing that you have to know is that not only does everything come from Hashem, but he is not caught up in reaction or limitation. He is only compassionate.  He is not like a human being who does this but can’t do that because of his own limitations and you suffer. He is not like a human who could only be here and not there. He also is not limited by His own fears or of rejection or whatever.  Only compassion.

Third thing, Hashem is involved with you whether it is revealed or hidden, whether you can see His involvement or whether you can’t see His involvement. It is there.

Let’s say you deflect the anger away from other people and Hashem and you blame yourself. It is not Hashem it is me, I ruined my life. I should have said yes but I said no, I should have married this one but I married that one, I should have taken this career training course but I took the other one, I should have made aliya but I stayed in Holy Oak Ohio, whatever it is.  You blame yourself. So listen to what he is saying. Even if you should have guarded yourself better, Hashem has mercy upon you and will still guard you.  Hashem guards the fools. So if you close a door, which you could in life, Hashem will open another door. And if you walk through that other door, you will get where you want to go. This way of thinking is the way you have to train your mind to go whenever something happens that doesn’t fit your existing plan. How would this work concretely?

There is a discussion from a Rav.  A man came to him, he was totally distraught he was afraid he would do an act of violence against his own wife. What happened? He had a terrible marriage, the man has a terrible temper. He has been trying to get past his terrible temper with only limited success. He is controlling, he is angry, his wife wants out. He saw this as an insult, how dare she say that.  She gets a court order and he is out of the house. He was afraid of where he would go next…he was out of his home, the product of all his hard work and money, she is not letting him in!  Could this be from Hashem, she is going to poison the kids against him, he is going to end up divorcing her, he will have to pay her alimony, he will be tied to her even though she will be free of him, she will have to do nothing for him and he will have keep paying and paying..you got the picture?  The Rav said to him this comes through your wife but it is from Hashem. There is compassion here. Let’s look at your situation. There is compassion – what is compassion? If you have compassion for someone, you are giving them exactly what it is that they need. The word for compassion rachamim comes from the word rechem which means womb. The same way a baby in utero receives everything it needs, Hashem’s compassion is to give people exactly what they need. You need to be thrown out of your home, he said, because you need to come to grips with the reality of where you are in life and fix it.  Why did your wife throw you out? Because she is unhappy.  The first thing you have to do is realize that your job as a husband is to make your wife happy. That is what you have control over. You are upset by her responses to you. Instead of looking at her responses to you, he said, you have an opportunity for tikkun, look at yourself.  He thought the Rav would give him legal advice, how he could get out of the court’s act against him. This is not what he expected, but he heard it.  They made a plan together. First thing, what would she need to be happier?  Send her money. Don’t be in a hurry to back into the house. That is not your goal, your goal is being the kind of person who can live with your wife and children.  He sent her money every month. He called the children every day.  He spoke to them nicely about their mother. He sent her gifts. He softened her, he had to be patient, he knew it would take a year and he did it. And he became a changed person. He closed the door and Hashem opened another door and this happens every time we suffer a disappointment.  Again, I want to review with you the thought process in what he is speaking about here.
1.    Everything is from Hashem who is compassionate
2.    Everything is to fix you, to make your life better
3.    If you closed a door, Hashem will open another door, if you are willing to see that what is happening in your life is coming from a compassionate source.

All of the good that a person has ever gotten from their parents, from their siblings, from their relatives and friends, it comes through these people but it is from Hashem. The trust we have for the people we love really should go a step further. Now this doesn’t mean don’t love them, but don’t let that be the end of the story. Let’s say you have a good friend who is there whenever you need her, you call her and she is there for you. She can only do that if Hashem gave her a mind and a heart and access and caused her to cross your path. The same holds true  with parents, siblings. It is Hashem’s providence that puts them in your path and their ability to give us what we need. No one can give what they don’t have.  Everything ultimately is from Hashem which doesn’t mean don’t be grateful to them.  Be grateful to them because of their choice, because of their commitment, but what they have, comes from Hashem.  

These people are Hashem’s messengers, so what that means is that Hashem wanted you to have whatever they gave you, the closeness, the intimacy, the security, came through them but from Hashem.  The third way of thinking….all of the things Hashem does comes from chesed, and not that we deserve it.  Hashem doesn’t give you any benefit in life because He needs you, it is just generosity and kindness.  We tend to do bookkeeping…for some people it is conscious and for some it is sub-conscious.  Here is how it sounds. I deserve better than this. I have been living a good life, I try to improve myself, I daven with kavannah, I give tzedakkah..I deserve better than this.  Do people think this way? Yes they do. Let’s look at it. You go to the store, you take a loaf of bread, pay the man, even. He needs your money and you need the bread.  Hashem doesn’t need you..He was doing just fine before you were on the horizon and He will cope without you also.  He created you as a chesed out of generosity to give you the opportunity to build yourself into a person who could be a spark of eternity. He gave us Himself. The mitzvahs that we do give us what we could never acquire on our own – eternity, constancy, depth, joy.

Next. Everything has limits.  Sometimes a person thinks as follows. Yes I believe that this is for my good, but I can’t bear it. I believe it is for my good, I have no doubts that it is for my good, but I can’t handle it. The reason why we say I can’t handle it is because we assume that the way we feel this minute is the way we will feel a year from now, and ten years from now. Let me illustrate how this works.  Imagine a 7 month old baby going to the doctor for an inoculation. He screams and cries and does not want it. In the end, the mother holds him down and he gets the injection.  He did not want it, and if he could talk, he would have tried to explain to his mother that no one has small pox