Rabbi Yaakov Zalman Labinsky on The Core Fears in Money and Intimacy
Ever wonder what happened when Columbus went back to Europe and told people there was another land? Did everyone believe him?
Obviously, they did, and people came to settle the West, to live freely.
There are no more lands here on earth that have not been discovered in physicality.
But there is a land that has little been discovered, here on earth, by people.
That land is the land of living with connection and complete trust in Hashem.
What does it look like? How does one get there? Is there a map?
It looks like this world only filled with the attributes of our forefathers, Avraham, Yitzchok and Yaakov and foremothers, Sara, Rivka, Leah and Rachel instead of with despair. The Torah is the map and how we get there is by comprehending that Hashem has created and programmed within us each, individually, a unique route to travel from being egocentric to becoming Gd centered.
Facing a breed of Occupy Wall Street types and nuclear-bomb crazed dictators, is it time to question where the "me" generation has taken us? Have we crossed a boundary whereby retracting from the focus on self could be the simple but hard remedy that could help us discover a new reality, a reality of light and expansiveness? Can we see that our motives, while well-intended, might be corrupted with too much self-interest and can we use our free will to straighten our motives to submit to Hashem's spiritual design of the world (and thereby "discover" a new "land")
Please listen NOW to Rabbi Yaakov Zalman Labinsky, Shlita,, The shiur below is also findable at http://www.becomingdivine.com/classes/7-Pirkei-Avos/Pirkei-Avos-1-3-4-Circumcising-ones-own-heart—Fear-(Practical).mp3 under the Pirke Avos series, circumcising the heart 3.5
Download | Duration: 00:40:35
Transcript of the introduction:
Circumcising the heart with fear on the practical level. when it comes to fear there is no way we are going to begin to exhaust in breadth and depth all the fears on all the levels. It is impossible because it is a lifetimes work and we are not going to cram a lifetime's work into two or three hours. we will cover a range of different kinds of fears and the methodology will be the same.
Concept ad methodology
The main principle we are dealing with here is that all there is is misdirected fear and healthy spiritual fear. We need fear to survive and thrive spiritually. Because ultimately we need to have true fear of Hashem to keep us doing the right thing and to keep us responsible and accountable to our own truth. without fear we will never have that. the challenge is if we don’t rectify fear toward the side of the soul, to have fear of heaven, all that fear that is unrectified fear goes to the side of the body, to the yetzer hara, to the side of falsehood and then it projects fear that looks real but in fact are not. all it is is a distortion of true fear of Hashem. Until we are fully integrated with fear of Hashem we will have some type of fear at some level, overt or subtle nuance fears. our challenge is to try to uproot the fear that immobilizes us, the fear that is based on falsehood and to do our best to rectify as much fear that mobilizes us to pursue doing the right thing, being responsible to our own spiritual truth and acting with Divine integrity. That is it and it is a lifetime work and that is why it is a lifetime topic. we will do our best to cover a range of topic. we can’t fully exhaust them it is not possible. what are we trying to internalize ultimately as the Baal Shem tov said, that we are meant to fear Hashem in the best most complete way that we can, knowing that all there is is Hashem and nothing else. whenever we have a fear of anything other than Hashem we are saying that there is something other than Hashem that we give power to more than Him. Rectification really means aligning our heart fully with Gd and redirecting all of our outside emotion only to Him. to the extent to which any fear is in anybody or any thing or object means we have not fully aligned our heart with our divine truth. that is the main point.
I want to mention another point - even when it comes to dealing with fear, and trying to go from an immobilizing sphere to a mobilizing sphere we have to take pleasure, be connoisseurs of pleasure and one of the higher level of pleasure is enjoying doing the right thing. if we feel that doing the right thing is a burden and a tremendous effort, a heavy yoke, a great weight, and it is just so hard...what will happen after awhile is you wont be in it for the long haul. you will say I have to accept my fears and there are many things that I can’t change and after awhile I will say whatever I have done I have done, my nature is to fear and that is all I can do. that form of admission of defeat or submissiveness only comes because we are not really willing to own that doing the right thing is pleasurable. doing the right thing should not feel like a burden. If it is there is something wrong with the way you are trying to rectify yourself. you are not doing Gd any favors. He does not owe you anything. it is all for us. you have to take pleasure in it appreciative, to choose to do the right thing to rectify the fears that get us closer to him. even when we are trying to rectify the fear, we have to have a sense of love within the fear of doing the right thing and being thankful for doing it, be responsible and accountable for it. without our truth and integrity we are nothing. and if you can’t take pleasure with your own integrity and your own sense of doing the right thing, then go to the drawing board and what is the point of it all. I am striving to acquire my own spiritual truth. it should not feel like a weight. you should feel so light that you need to puts weights to keep you on the ground. on the one hand -this is a daunting task and on the other hand, this is the greatest pleasure and privilege in this world. and the reason why this is so important to do is because if you are not willing to take pleasure in doing the right thing and to rectify your heart including in the realm fear, without a sense of pleasure in doing the right thing, you won't make it in the long haul in the next few weeks, because this is work. this is hard work. breaking yourself breaking your ego, breaking your own sense of internal divisiveness between your yetzer hara and yetzer tov your truth and falsehood and divisiveness between others and Gd it is hard work..It is a labor of love. I love doing this, there is nothing more important than doing this right now. there is nothing else to do. Gd gave us this fear of Hashem and it is up to us to rectify our heart and we have to enjoy it every step of the way. part of this means take please in the pursuit of your own fears. you can destroy your own illusions and transform them to inner truth and if you can't enjoy that process you won't find a true fear of Hashem that will be enduring and make it for the long run.
Categories: G-d Consciousness, Chosen People, Free will
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