Welcome to this blog. Your comments are invited. Please enter your own stories of hashgacha pratis. The compilation will be a source of chizuk. Please subscribe to this blog to receive by email any new articles or comments posted.

On Yom Kippur, we recite the thirteen Attributes of Hashem: Hashem , Hashem, G-d, Compassionate and Gracious, Slow to anger, and Abundant in Kindness and Truth. Preserver of kindness for thousands of generations, Forgiver of Iniquity, willful sin, and error, and Who cleanses. To be close to Hashem, devoted to Him, we are to emulate His 13 Attributes, these 13 middos. Tomer Devorah goes through these attributes one by one, explaining how Hashem manifests the attribute and what a person can do to emulate it. By doing this, we grow spiritually, come closer to Hashem, and protect ourselves.

• Tomer Devorah

Miriam Adahan in her book EMETT, Emotional Maturity Established Through Torah, sets forth a four step process for bringing our spiritual values into our day when we need them the most (when we are feeling stress, loss, pain, anger, and more.) It is an emotional map that can help a person move themselves to a better frame of mind.

• An Emotional Ruler
• Three Thoughts to Keep Us Sane
• Empathy - How To R.E.A.C.H. Others
• More on R.E.A.C.H.
• EMETT sheets and manual

If someone came up to a person and said, “Submit to Hashem,” probably their first reaction would be that it is too constricting, too constraining. This is only because we do not realize how far from happiness our determination to follow all of our negative thinking takes us. In other words, are we really happier because we are free to follow our negative thinking on our journey? Is that what we mean when we say we want to “find ourselves?” Does self-actualization and identity mean bringing to fruition the expression of our physical makeup? Here are the Seven Noahide Laws referred to in the article “How to Find Happiness in 2007”

• Seven Noahide Laws

Perek Shira is one of the oldest prayers. It is a beautiful prayer comprised of the songs of praise that each of His Creations, animate and inanimate, continually sings to Hashem. Some equate reciting Perek Shira to reciting the entire book of Psalms. Involving oneself with Perek Shira each day is very powerful and spiritually enriching.

• Obtain a copy of Perek Shira

Your email is private (and will not be used for anything else.) By subscribing, you will receive a notification of new articles and comments to Nourishment for the Neshama

• Hashgacha Pratis Stories -Shema Yisroel Network
• Naaleh
• Revach L'Neshama
• The Hakhel Community Awareness Bulletin
• Lazer Beams
• Aidel Maidel

Here are some links to sites that offer modest clothing for women and girls

• Rabbinically approved Modest Clothing Site
• Funky Frum
• Below the Knee
• Skirts without slits

I wish to express hakaras hatov to my chaverusas and teachers for the learning they have given me which in turn has led Hashem to permit me the ideas I have composed here. Especially precious to me is my Partner's In Torah chaverusa for many years, whose wisdom and life experiences have given her such a grasp of knowledge that she has been able to share with me. May Hashem grant her continued brachas and health all the days of her life. With deep appreciation, I have learned so much from Dr. Miriam Adahan and her sister, Yehudis Karbal. Likewise, I am grateful to Naaleh.com for the invaluable and relevant classes given by Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller and Rebbetzin Shira Smiles.

• Receipts Unlimited

• I Want What I Want and I Want it My Way
• My Time Out Book
• Who Knows Best Who I Am Anyway?

• Shamash

March 2010
Su	Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr	Sa
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31

• Entries Atom 1.0
• Comments Atom 1.0
• Entries RSS 2.0
• Comments RSS 2.0
• Podcasts RSS 2.0

• 2010
  • February 2010 (6)
• 2009
  • November 2009 (1)
  • October 2009 (3)
  • January 2009 (2)
• 2008
  • November 2008 (3)
  • October 2008 (2)
  • September 2008 (4)
  • August 2008 (1)
  • April 2008 (1)
• 2007
  • December 2007 (1)
  • November 2007 (6)
  • October 2007 (1)
  • September 2007 (3)
  • August 2007 (3)
  • July 2007 (6)
  • June 2007 (6)
  • May 2007 (6)
  • April 2007 (11)

• ahavas Hashem (1)
• ahavas yisrael (2)
• Ahavas Yisroel (1)
• Call to action (1)
• G-d Consciousness (36)
• gdconsciousness (1)
• G-dconsciousness (8)
• G-d-consciousness (5)
• God Consciousness (1)
• Good vs Evil (5)
• Hoshana Rabba (1)
• introspection (1)
• Kindness (15)
• middos (2)
• Moshiach (1)
• Pesach (1)
• Purim (1)
• Self-esteem (14)
• Teshuva (5)
• Trust (2)
• Understanding the Covenant of the Parts (1)
• Unity (1)

<< List
Jewish Bloggers
Join >>

We are going to be doing the Maharal’s essay in Netivot Olam called Netiv Koach Ha Yetzer A bit of introduction: One of the very unique facets of the Maharal’s writings is that he combines so much nigla and nister in a way that unsurpasses scholarship, so questions are answered by him on many levels simultaneously. Nevitot Olam means paths of the world. He speaks about different paths we take in our journey through life. His style is that he brings a pasuk from Mishlei and then asks questions on it after first giving us possibly a medrash or gemara. He then answers some of the questions, brings us more information and draws a conclusion. So because his style goes back and forth, it might seem like he is repeating himself, but in fact he is drawing different points together. This is the style. Perek Beis From Mishlei: If your enemy is hungry give him bread and if he is thirsty, pour out water for him to drink because you will be pouring hot water on his head, Hashem will reward you. If you have an enemy, if someone hates you, he says what you should do with that person. Shlomo tells us if your enemy is hungry don’t fail to give him bread or being compassionate on him. Not concretely and not internally. Why? Compassion is the opposite of animosity. He won’t be your enemy if he feels your compassion. It is a matter of feeling compassion toward him which will change things. When a person gives, the rachmanos turns over the enemy because when the person feels compassion, they identify with them, feels close to them and this leads to a reciprocal feeling, even in an enemy that opposes you. When you pour hot water on his head you annihilate your enemy, he can’t hate you anymore. Because you have attached yourself to him through compassion, you won’t find the opposition. He won’t be able to hate you and you won’t be able to hate him. In our times, we have different ways to face evil. If our enemy is one of us, the first step is awaken compassion, because that can change things. The person goes from one extreme to the other and Hashem will repay him for this. This is especially true if the person is completely compassionate as opposed to self serving compassionate. The way this works is that a person can’t feel compassion and hatred simultaneously. So we move beyond our hatred. For the enemy, he will feel a certain inner shame if he defines us as an enemy. Let us understand how shame works There is a premise that the more the person thinks of himself, the higher the threshold of their shame. Gerald Ford once tripped coming off the plane and it was a source of humiliation. If I tripped, it would not be the same, because my expectations for myself and from other people are not that exalted nor should they be. Some people’s expectations of themselves has been diminished so much they have no shame. They sleep in the street, etc. Their expectations for themselves have diminished so much. When you feel compassion, you give hashivos to someone, you see significance, which in turn gives them a sense of shame. How can I do this to someone who likes me, who understands me? It doesn’t mean when you pour coals on his head that you have set him afire. It could actually be destruction as with Esther and Haman. Why did Esther invite him? The Gemara adds, if your enemy is hungry (Haman wanted power and control), give him bread, which she did, she invited him to the seudah. It will lead him to submission, you are pouring coals on his head. As soon as you sustain him, he is under your control. When he is under your control because he has received from you, your poured coals on his head because you changed his ability to act. Hashem Who does not want opposition will give him over to your hand and He will help you. This is a dear and beautiful explanation. Regarding Haman, Hashem does not want opposition in the world, He wants things to work within the frame of his pattern. That would be Esther should defeat Haman, which restores order. If you are talking hatred within the Jewish community, it would mean something else. It means you turn someone over by to alleging himself through your rachmanos on him. So either way, the bond that is created through giving is the first step to defeating an enemy. Concretely, we realize that hatred and compassion are incompatible. When you are dealing with someone with whom you wish to have compassion, you have to not only give but to feel for him, and that will diminish your hatred and their hatred. If it is a hatred like Haman, the act of giving (not rachamim) makes him subservient. And there is a third component, busha, shame. The enemy will be embarrassed to turn against someone who treated him in a way that he came to grips with his own hashivos. Concretely, some of you may be teachers. If you have teenager who is totally turned off, one way to approach is opposition..I won’t allow…which is sometimes for the sake of the other children, but not for that person. Find out what he needs, what is his bread? You give him what he wants and he will be embarrassed to oppose you. A story of Reb Aryeh Levine…he had a congregation, the people involved in opposing the British rule. Reb Aryeh approached one of them and one of his congregants swallowed a cigarette because he could not stand to be seen in contrast to Reb Aryeh’s wishes. Would this work with every relationship? You know who your enemy is? You may think it is someone who opposes you or does not value you. The gemara tells us your real enemy is yourself. With the present enemies of Israel there is a difference between feeding them enough to give them subservience and giving your country, which would be giving yourself. If we give our selves to them rather than giving them what they need and create dependency, then we become subservient to them. .The yetzer hara presents itself as someone hungry and thirsty. When you feel that lack, that hunger and thirst, you have to fill it with something or else it will make its demands and take whatever it wants from you. Give it bread of Torah, water, of spirituality. He begins by telling us that the yetzer hara has two forms, the yetzer that tells us to uncover the body so you can get at it and take delight in it. Take physical reality and let the pleasure of that fill the lack. This is the pursuit of taiva, lack of kedusha. This comes from the profound feeling of lack and trying to fill it with physical means. For example, food. It is not good for filling the empty space within you….no one loves me, I am bored, etc. Because it emotionally makes that claim, overindulgence in gashmius it opens the door to all kinds of yetzer hara. There is nothing wrong with gashmius, the physical world is purposeful and good. but it can be used for the wrong purpose to fill that empty space. The second kind is avoda zara. What is in it for idol worship. We have an empty space. Either we can fill it by making ourselves bigger or by making G-d smaller and more immediate, so that we have no need to upraise ourselves and uplift our lives. Someone who is frum but has a yetzer and likes to experience everything went to Beth Lechem. People go down these steps, and the crowding was extreme, but she saw at the bottom a cradle…Betsy Wetsy. In the manger there was a plastic doll that you feed and it wets. Thousands of people brought themselves into religious ecstacy using that as a medium. What people do is they find what they admire the most in the aspect of G-d within them and they worship that. So in Christianity, they say that G-d is love. G-d is far more than love…and not only that, it is love as we humans experience it, so they create a legendary human being that is infinitely loving and compassionate and worship that. As opposed to moving what human love and compassion could be to its Divine source through the mitzvohs. So avoda zara takes one sense of yearning for meaning and connection and degrading it bynot moving all the way up to G-d but settling on a more base form of perceived hashivos. For example, lashon hara. When a person speaks lashon hara and throws judgments out right and left, they are in the judge’s seat which feels very good. Or if not judging, they are in a central position, the one in the know that someone else is listening to. So finding self importance through making the G-d within you small instead of taking the G-dliness within you and attaching it to its source is called avoda zara. Both forms have to be fed. And you feed the yetzer with Torah. How does this work? The gemara says, if you happen to find the despicable one, meaning the yetzer hara, drag him to the bais ha medrash . If he is stone he will be erased and if he is iron he will explode and shatter. Are not my words like fire, Hashem swears, and like a hammer He explodes a rock. How does this work? Why does learning and Torah annihilate the yetzer hara. The effect of mitzvahs are in two categories, positive and negative. One form of yetzer hara opposes positive mitzvahs..get up and do, fill the empty space by doing something positive. But we have a part of us that is like a stone. We want others to do for us. We don’t like to move. We like being energized by movement, but we don’t like to move. The nature of the physical body is take a rest, take a break. The body is of the earth. On a deeper level, there is a part of us that is stonelike, that becomes much more a presence in our thoughts when we despair. When we despair, we no longer believe in our ability to move things, we become stone like. It has to be then that you take this stone and you reduce it, with water. Give yourself small steps until you have the courage and will to do. Another form of the yetzer hara is the opposite. We want to do something, but it is destructive. Destruction is just as much fun as creation! The feeling of empowerment that you get by destruction, self-destruction, destroying others, doing – that sometimes is hard to contain. If the yetzer hara within a person tells that person to get up and do wrong and to transgress negative mitzvahs through doing the wrong thing, then that person at that point is similar to iron that breaks and destroys. That person enjoys destruction, I have broken the limit, I have gone past morality, I have done whatever I have done. There is a good feeling of empowerment that comes from destruction. The pleasure and feeling of activity that comes from real learning can quiet this. The yetzer hara can only act when you feel lack. The yetzer hara lives in a vacuum of lack. When a person is full of Torah, they are not lacking. This feeling of lacking…this is where the yetzer hara finds his place and it can always be filled with Torah and mitzvohs. The Torah can fill this empty place deep within us, to the point that whatever is lacking in a person disappears. The process is that at least at the moment a person is full of Torah, they are like an angel because they have moved away from the place of lack (in the body, I want more and more; or emotions and ego, I need to be more and more acknowledged.) The Torah moves a person to a place of seichel. Ordinatry intellectual pursuit tells you about the world, science, humanity, etc. The basis of secular info is observation. Even mystic observation comes from what the physical eye can see. The process of knowing is limited by human observation. We don’t see all that much, and our quest for truth is very limited. The Torah comes from a place that is beyond human seichel from beyond our powers of observation. Because of that when a person enters the seichel of the torah, they can fill any empty space. And it doesn’t just mean learning Torah, it means learning Torah in the way in which one desires to fill the empty space. Righteous people walk in the statutes of Torah, takes them higher and higher. The people who are using the Torah as a means of filling themselves with material or ego gain through the Torah may not get there. What about going through shelo lishma to lishma? The only way to lishma is from shelo lishman. There has to be some will to see shelo lishma as a process and not an end in itself. He tells us the Torah can eliminate ego and materialism with something pure and real. He explains more deeply. The Torah is complete. Nothing that we have is complete. A story A Rabbi in California told this story. He went to the funeral of the late Bobover Rebbe. There was a Black man there, weeping. The Rabbi was interested in why he was there, he was not Jewish nor a convert. He knew the Rebbe. 25 years before, the Rebbe called him to paint the house. The first day, he filled the cracks and the next day you paint. The first day, the Rebbe asked him if he had breakfast, and started to serve him. He ate the breakfast. The next day, he was ready to start. The Rebbe said to him, it doesn’t have to be perfect. The man said I am a very good painter, why doesn’t it have to be perfect. The Rebbe said, in this world nothing is perfect, no people, nothing is perfect. Nothing is perfect? The rebbe said, we had a temple in Jerusalem that was perfect, but since then nothing is perfect. The painter took that in. He had another job in a different rebbe’s home. No one asked him about breakfast the first day. The second day, the Rebbe said, I want a perfect job, no mess, no corner mistakes. The black man said, Rabbi, in this world nothing is perfect, no people, nothing is perfect. You Jews once had a temple in Jerusalem that was perfect, but since it was destroyed nothing is perfect. The black man said, the Rebbe, he is my man. He had a picture of the Rebbe in his wallet. The perfection of the Bais HaMikdosh was real because it brought Hashem’s presence into the world, and Hashem is perfect. The way Hashem communicates His perfection to us is through the Torah only the Torah is perfect. Everything else leaves a missing place. On a communal or national level, we feel this lack. Whatever is lacking predominates and we become disillusioned. The early Communists were often Jewish, they filled themselves with it, to fill the empty space but it didn’t predominate because it was not the justice of Torah. The secular Zionists filled that empty space with building the land, but they, as opposed to other Zionists, wanted to do this oppositionally to Torah and the act of milking cow isn’t going to fill the empty space very long. To the point that the same people who built are in the process of destroying to a very large degree. What the Maharal is saying if you don’t want to end up with that despair of having tried to fill that space with something else, the only thing that fills it authentically is Torah because only Torah has no buchitza to the world. The way the Torah works to erase that which is stone and explode that which is iron. Looking further, it says concerning the age of Moshiach…I will remove the stone heart from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. The place where the yetzer hara can dominate is in the heart of flesh, the place where the stone is, I don’t have the patience, the koach, the part that wants immediate gratification doesn’t get it. It takes time. It wants immediacy. I will give you a heart of flesh not of stone. No one is interested in ideology. If I interview the kids who come out, and I try to tell them about the Guide for the perplexed, they would look at me like I am crazy. The issue is immediacy and desire, I want it now. This was predicted. It says Hashem will take away the heart of stone. That is where we are, with a heart of stone. The fact is if you want to change someone or anyone, you have to feel compassion to bond the person to you. There is a however. For example, there are people in the world to steal because they want to own the item and maybe the feeling of getting away with it. You can’t justify theft if you want someone to stop stealing. Through compassion, you try to give them something to substitute. Let us not be patronizing. Compassion is when the person is lacking and you want to help them, Judgment is to see what is lacking, but if you stay there and just say this is wrong like a broken tape recorder, there will be no change. There has to be a bond of compassion between you. To conclude we have spoken about different forms of yetzer haras and different approaches to it…we spoke about the approach of compassion , bonding, creating a certain sort of busha, dependency in dealing with enemies. We then spoke how the enemy within us, the yetzer hara, within us feeds on perceived lack and we can fill that lack with taiva or self-importance by instead learning Torah, and this works because it is true, and it comes above human limitations.

November 19, 2006 So here is our next class in Maharal, Netiv Choach HaYetzer from Netivat Olam Perek Beis For those of you have books, we are beginning with the perek on Avoda Zara. Question from last week: What would you say to someone who does not feel fulfilled by the Torah filling that empty space. Answer: To tell you the truth that is the topic of this week. The question is deeper than it sounds. Everyone has a hailich in Torah. Sometimes the halik has to do with the theoretical side, and sometimes the hailik has to do with the practical. In addition to that (that is going to be the topic this week – different aspects and expressions of Torah) what we find is that for various reasons a person sometimes doesn’t know their halik in Torah because the nature of teaching in a group setting is that the teacher addresses the group. The Arizal’s talmid Reb Chaim Vital quotes a gemara that says if a person doesn’t see a simmon bracha in what they are learning in five years, they have to go on to another form of learning. In the case of Reb Chaim Vital that other form of learning had to do with Toras nister rather than Toras nigleh exclusively. People have to be creative in their approach to learning. The reason I am not saying maybe you should become an artist to fill the empty space, is that when you look at what a person is, we look at their thoughts, he is in communication with you. The Torah has thought and the part of us that relates to Gd most intimately is our mind. The mind to mind connection has enormous potential. Everyone has their halek. For women, it isn’t Torah lishma but whatever inspires them in Torah, for some it will be mussar, or finding the ideas of Torah in the world, whatever is inspiring. If we find the part that is their halik it will be profoundly fulfilling. He begins by quoting a gemara in which it says “Happy are you who plants upon all of the water.” Happy are you oh Yisrael, at the time you are busy with Torah and acts of kindness then your evil inclination is given into your hand and the Jews are not given into the hand of the Yetzer Hara. Happy are those who plants in all the water, and there is nothing compared to planting more than charity is. Plant charity. There is no water other than Torah. All those who thirst shall come to water. The gemara concludes by saying that we have to put your foot to the work of this the way an ox does (to his yoke by putting his focus on it) and a donkey does (he bears it). All those who thirst will come to water. The gemara concludes by saying you have to put your foot to this the way an ox does (he channels his energy to his yoke) and the way a donkey (he bears his burden). He is saying how does the work of the Torah bring about the situation where the yetzer hara is satisfied by the work? The answer is that there has to be a combination of Torah and gemilas chesed. And not only in Torah and gemilas chesed, the what, but also the how. There has to be a way to take your energy and give it direction. The example of how to do it is plural. There has to be a way to take your energy and give it direction the way an ox does with enormous force controlled by the yoke and the way a donkey does it. Now the Maharal explains the gemara We all have evil in us from the day of our birth. Let’s look at that idea for a moment – do we see little babies as evil? Of course not. So, what does it mean? The Gra explains the way we start out, our awareness is ego centric and physical. For babies all that matters is themselves. The only thing important is physical. There is no reciprocity in the relationship. He doesn’t understand. We start out a very different way than we hope to end up. As a person grows, his spiritual awareness becomes stronger until the point when they become Bar or Bat Mitzvah their spiritual awareness which is experienced to some degree as intellectual openness as such. At Bar Mitzvah, they can understand the logical consequences of their actions. If a 13 year old breaks a window, the child should understand the consequences, he is accountable. But it takes until 20 when the voice of the soul and the body are heard equally loudly which is why people are judged by Hashem only from the age of 20. We are born with evil and to overcome evil we have to have a relationship to good. (a baby is still innocent because he does not choose to do evil) So good is what the Torah is offering you, that is what fills the empty space, not the information but the goodness and devekus that comes forth from the information. The place where you have to let good affect you is in your mind and in your soul. That means there is a huge difference when a person does a positive act with consciousness as opposed to without consciousness. In the highest form of tzedakah, a person makes the other self sufficient. Compare that to an external way of giving…just habitually writing a check. The more your mind and your soul is involved, the more that the good that you do becomes you. It is something we have to do with the mind and the soul. Torah changes the way you think. Torah is called good. When you get a picture about how Hashem wants the world to look, which is what all learning is about, even abstract learning shows how He wants the world elevated, it shows you His plan. And the elegance and logic of His thought gives you a closeness and intimacy to His thought. That gives your mind a relationship to goodness. When you do chesed, your soul is involved, so that your soul and not just your mind (nefesh is the spiritual self experienced through the walls of the body) is elevated and that is what fills the empty space. If a person is devoted to goodness in mind and soul, of course they are distant from yetzer hara which is blocked – which is evil, evil means blockage of good. If a cup is full of wine it can’t be full of milk. If you are full of Torah and chesed, you are not going to want to or try to fill it with something else. He now begins to tell us what that destructive something really is. He stops telling us about good and now he talks about the alternative way of fillinig the empty space. It has a name. What is the name? Ra. Absence of goodness. But it has a name, so there is a presence of something. There is no such thing as a dark wave, only a light wave. If something blocks light, it is dark. Evil is an illusion, it is intangible. Imagine building a lego tower and then taking it down, knocking it over. When you build it, it is there, but when you destroy it, it feels good but there is nothing there, just the absence of the tower and force you generated to make it happen.. The same when you humiliate someone. You make them less, you don’t make them something else. When you are kind to someone and you build up their esteem, you build and there is something to see. Destruction has no mamashal. The Ramchal explains from a different angle. He agrees, saying there is no mamashal, no presence in a physical sense, but there is magnetism. Hashem embued the act of destruction with a certain sort of magnetism and draw and those are called chochos a tuma, the result of destroying something that is rather than becoming something that is. If the yetzer hara doesn’t control a person then they control it. When you do something positive, you fill the empty space by going higher than you were. The illustration is acts of chesed. Let’s think about any chesed…when you visit the sick, you hear someone is ill, you go to Manhattan. You blank out time, you bring something with you, you have the ride, you go to the hospital building, you go see her and it may be stressful. We realize the person before us could be us, and she might need something, a trip to the pharmacy. Could you be happy? If you keep her in mind, and care for her the whole way, you can feel good. You can see that you can have enormous pleasure in what we did. Chesed removes you from the realm in which you associate pleasure with physical sensation (riding on the train is not that pleasant), but you replaced it and are energized by the spiritual sensation of giving. The act of doing chesed does is it redefines the definition of pleasure for you, you take pleasure in giving and building instead of physicality. So you move into the transcendental world, to the world that isn’t limited by what limits physical things and through doing that, the coarseness and the earthiness that holds us down (and in the end keeps us away from pleasure also, by the way) is diminished. He quotes Pirke Avos, “A person of the earth isn’t one who goes beyond the limits and does chesed”. Here, we usually translate am haaretz as ignoramous. But He takes it literally. A person is am ha aretz, when all they understand is physical pleasure, they can’t understand giving and be a chasid. As soon as he does an act of kindness, he becomes a person of kindness. That is the effect of chesed. When you go through the list of cheseds, hachnachas orchim, etc., the acts themselves don’t give pleasure, but you are absorbed by the act of self transcendence by giving to the other to the point where the physical tirka doesn’t matter to you. You are flying on the simcha. Now he talks about how Torah works. The joy of learning Torah, “I got it, I understand!” Sometimes chesed is difficult and it is hard to feel spiritual pleasure. Because chesed is difficult, that is what makes it easier to feel the pleasure. There is a family in Har Nof that is a hard case. The derech a teva is not resolvable. The person who was in charge wanted to help them out, and went there, and saw the list. Another person solicited students – you will not solve their problems, this is chesed lishma. This is chesed where you can effect at the moment, but it is hard. Many volunteered. If you are informed that the chesed is hard so you realize you are running the fast track and there is elation. It is sometimes hard to move from expectation to the fast track. This is really the issue. But when you realize that you can do it, the more elation there is. The more overwhelmed you feel, the less elation you feel. This is something understood for people who think deeply. So now we are leaving what to do and moving toward how to do it. But there is a new question. What if the sick person you were visiting was sleeping or asked you to leave or was discharged? The fact is that the chesed exists not just externally in the effect you have but internally in your desire to move beyond physical comfort. If you were committed to that person the whole trip there, you have moved within yourself. You have accomplished something within yourself. Internal change has to do with intent. There is a famous story of a violent demonstration in Israel a few years ago, and someone threw a rock through a police car window and hit an officer but he wasn’t injured. Word came to Reb Levenstein who called a big meeting and was dramatic. “There is a murderer amongst us”. The person who threw the rock is a murderer. From the negative to the positive, the person is discharged. Your kavannah to rise above yourself and relate to another person and ease their burden is in your hands and you are a baal chesed whether or not there is a recipient. A myth that we have, the more you don’t enjoy a mitzvah the holier you are. NO. Many tzoros in the Torah came upon us because we did not serve Hashem with simcha. The Rambam quotes, the lack of simcha shel mitzvah takes away the energy and spirituality of the mitzvah. Of course you should feel simcha shel mitzvah, it doesn’t degrade the mitzvah in anyway to enjoy the mitzvah. Is a difficult mitzvah preferable? According to the difficulty is the reward. You don’t get kvetch points. In order to get to the mitzvah you may have to make tradeoffs. Ideally you are aware enough of what a chesed and a mitzvah are that you make the tradeoffs with joy. If you make the tradeoffs with joy, and according to the value of the tradeoffs it is visible how you value the mitzvah, the chesed. For example, if I asked you if $15000 is a lot of money, you would say yes. If someone let you buy an apartment for $15000, you would have great joy and think it was nothing. Even though the sum hasn’t changed, you would have joy in spending $15000 for something worth more. If you are getting something worth far more, there is joy in spending it. If less, there is intuitive regret in spending it. The same is true with a chesed. The more you see that the chesed is far more than the maximum tircha, the more you give then the more you are, then the more simcha and the greater the mitzvah. There was a woman active in Bikur cholim who helped a man from Israel who was in bad shape and the airlines didn’t want to take him back on the plane. The woman took off her pearls and gave it to the attendant who put the man on the plane. This woman understood he wanted to die in Israel with his family. That was worth more than the pearls. That is what this is supposed to be. Q Mitzvah at shul involves too much politics and stroking A. If I ever do someone a real favor, I will have to defend myself (he had a rock). Social reality is that most things that involve people involve imperfection because people are imperfect. There is a certain kind of a person who can carry others’ imperfection with them as part of their chesed. (Mrs. Heller has a son involved with the poor. The organizer took the volunteers – you need more food, go ask the farmers for donations. Bring back cartons of eggs. Her son couldn’t understand why the farmer would give him eggs. They taught him to knock and say he is collecting for the poor can I have one egg and see what happens next. The man says yes and gives many eggs. If you can touch their goodness, then besides whatever good the shul is doing you are getting part of the tikkun) Now, he tells us the way you do the mitzvah is specific. He said the yetzer hara has two routes, d’erva, desire or avoda zara, wanting to make Gd small to make oneself feel big – lashon hara, ego stroking, power politics. People want personal significance. If we are skilled enough to give significance to them so they can feel good about themselves, it is a chesed, and you help the person enjoy the good feeling of ruchni direction of egocentricity and you are part of their tikkun which is huge chesed. You should continue with that expectation. You will see imperfection, accept it and be part of the rectification process. Avoda zara has to do with the ego, compared to the shore. Why? Of all the domestic animals the ox is the strongest –the lion for wild – but without wild, the strongest is the ox. The ego is compared to the ox. It is hugely powerful and it yearns for direction. Torah gives direction, it tells you where do you put yourself, where do you put your mind? It makes you part of something bigger than yourself. The word shore is the same as ashrei, has to do with vision. If you take someone’s inner vision, who they are and what the world could be and channel it through Torah, that is huge. Conversely, there is another part of us, that has to be like the chamor --the desire yetzer, which is not a visionary, it wants pleasure. You have to be like a chamor and be willing to take the chumri world, bear it and make it go where you want it to go. A person who is learning is like an ox and a chamor. A person should put their foot to it like an ox and a donkey. The foot comes into direct contact with the earth. We don’t only have the rosh in shemayim, we are held down by ego, material considerations…when a person learns Torah, they have to be able to involve their soul like an ox and move above the earthiness and like a chamor to contend with the physical things that keep us from learning Torah. In general, the Maharal says in other places, go exactly where your koach is maximized but where you won’t be pushed beyond your endurance. However, every so often Hashem will present you with something that does push you beyond your endurance. He thinks it is time to move onto the next level. Open your heart and mind and soul and flow with it. For example my daughter runs a gan. The bus comes at 1 oclock and some go on the bus. One day, the parents came before 1 to pick up the children. One of the mothers had a child who had a syndrome and she was visibly expecting. What is the worst thing someone could say? Aren’t you afraid that this baby might also have this syndrome? There are no words. The woman replied I don’t make the babies Gd makes the baby. I want whatever baby He gives me. This means when things happen, Gd says this is where you can be maximally effective. We have to get rid of what draws us down from both, symbolized by the foot. All of the person’s energies are in control and aim toward that one goal. A person should be focused upon Torah with body and soul. Their physical actions and emotions which are connected to the physical since we experience emotions through our senses which are attached to the physical world via the sense, should be directed as should our minds. The key to everything is direction. This is very clear to those familiar with the remez of ox and chamor. If a person is occupied with Torah, if it is their essence and drive… Q What if someone is struggling, what bracha if Hashem thinks you can handle the situation? Even if someone is standing in the grocery and they are holding a shopping bag with lemons and one falls on the floor and they ask to wipe up, don’t say gam zuletova. People will think you are patronizing unless they know you and trust you so much that they know you have become them at that moment. If you can’t be them at that moment in a way that is credible, there is not much to say. You can’t possibly say something. It is a matter of their trust in you, which means that you are trustworthy, there is nothing voyaristic about your interest, you could say “this is going to take you far and I will be here to help you”. If you really become them that is obviously the next question. Q In a case when Hashem presents a hard situation, does that minimize the yetzer hara. Only if that is where you want to go. It is an opportunity to reduce it, but we have free choice and the possibility of not responding well is in the picture. Not responding well isn’t just in the case of the woman, but on the people who interact with her. It is a nisayon to help. I had a student at Neveh from California with a mentally ill sister. At that time Reagan was governor of Cal and he released all patients in mental institutions who were unlikely to hurt themselves or others. Her sister was released and sent home. The mother was unable to be with the woman 24 hours. The girl would wander, and she was pretty and she was taken advantage of. She had a child. The sister went back to Ca to legally adopt the child. She went through the bureaucracy and what kept her going, she had to find out all the legal ramifications. Someone said, “I’ll help you” he helped her in every way possible. There is no guarantee that those around us will pass our tests, that depends on their free choices.. To conclude, we got as far as understanding that the whole concept of filling the empty space is a combination of Torah and gemilus chesedim, not just good will. Torah works because of its effects on the mind, chesed works because the self trancendance that it engenders. We spoke about the different sources of chesed and how they work, the different forms of yetzer hara and how they have to be dealt with. We spoke about being like an ox and a chamor. We concluded by saying that you can be this and if you become this you can go far far beyond where you were at the starting point.

• What people are saying

When we are close to someone, it means that we are like them or desire to be like them. To strive to be like Hashem, we needs to emulate His Yud Gimel middos. Tomer Devorah is a book that describes Hashem's Yud Gimmel middos in a lesson a day format. It also correlates this to how each person can emulate Hashem's middos in his or her life. It is especially helpful in ridding ourselves of negative feelings towards others. For a copy in English of Tomer Devorah: http://www.workfromhomefamilies.com/tomerdevorah.htm For books by Shuli Kleinman to help build self-esteem in children: I Want What I Want and I Want it My Way (Or Maybe Not!) http://www.lulu.com/content/261720 My Time Out Book http://www.lulu.com/content/292548 Who Knows Best Who I Am Anyway? http://www.lulu.com/content/282702 For tools from Dr. Miriam Adahan's Emotional Maturity Established Through Torah to encourage cooperation, instill respect, and develop self-control in children, click here: Other uses of an Eggtimer http://www.workfromhomefamilies.com/emett/page4.html Help children learn to measure their feelings with this ruler http://workfromhomefamilies.com/emett/page5.html How to stay non-hurtful: Three Thoughts to Keep Us Sane http://workfromhomefamilies.com/emett/page1.html Empathy : How to R.E.A.C.H. others http://workfromhomefamilies.com/emett/page2.html Sample phrases: R.E.A.C.H. Phrases to keep in mind http://workfromhomefamilies.com/emett/page3.html