Nourishment for the Neshama

Thoughts may not be confined to our own minds! With prayer and love for each other, we can make a sincere effort that Hashem could grant success for by bringing the redemption, may it be His Will!

2012-05-25T17:24:00Z

We are where our thoughts are. If we are at a light and deep in thought about something, the car behind us honks! Wake up and go! Where were we? Physically we were at the light but our soul was somewhere else entirely. We are where our thoughts are.

We are visiting with someone and someone texts us. We glance and immediately our thought is with the text message instead of with the person we are with. How could we just leave the scene?

More than ever we should be able to see the truth that we are where our thoughts are. And if we are where our thoughts are, where is THAT?

Our thoughts represent the attachment of our emotion to facts or perceptions. We are like a factory! When a fact or a clue comes into our perceptions, we attempt to collect more facts or clues until we form a belief and attach emotion to it, integrated into our mind. We have just created a spiritual being! Unfortunately, because our perceptions are imperfect, we often make wrong assumptions because our subconscious is ruled by the yetzer hara; the spiritual beings we thereby create are false and create within us negative emotion and pain. That negative, self-destructive thought is where we are! We are now in the sewer of the thought we manufactured -manufactured with a recipe from our faulty assumptions, free will, and internalized yetzer hara life coach encouraging us to feel lack and be “me” oriented. If we spend time looking at our actions and deeply comprehending our emotions and the preceding thoughts, very often we can enlighten ourselves regarding where our primal will has become corrupted.

But what if we don't analyze it, what if we don't realize the entire process? The negative thought we created doesn’t stop there. Where do thoughts stay – in our minds alone? NO! This thought is now energy, a spiritual being that enters into the cosmos! A paralyzed woman is able to mentally convey a thought that will allow her to drink something! Paralyzed woman controls robotic arm sensor with her brain In all the world there is nothing but the simple unity of Hashem, Who controls the world! What use does Hashem have for that negative thought, a representation of our corrupted primal will? He sustains it because He is patient and waits for us to do teshuva. What happens in the meantime?

He can and will use it for our good. Sometimes for our good it means Hashem will find a way that we can struggle with to help us dispel ourselves of our false self-oriented beliefs so that we can make yashar our primal will and come to sanctify His name (which is why He created us). Our continued energy behind that thought propels it and Hashem can bring our worst fears into fruition by allowing that idea into the mind of someone, to test their behira, and if they fail and act on it in a hurtful way, give us a deeper and more intense experience in reality with battling our own negativity and bringing us to a challenge through which we have the capacity to grow closer to Hashem in our mitzvohs or middos.

The good news is that just as we can create negative spiritual beings that cloud over the abundance Hashem wants to send to us, so can we create positive spiritual beings to create unity, rachamim and love. This is where being devoted to sanctifying Hashem’s name comes in, for which we need to strengthen ourselves in emunah and commit to our relationship with Him, accepting upon ourselves the entire Torah, written and oral.

We are getting married this weekend and a good Chosson does what the Kallah asks, within reason! What are we asking of our Chosson for each other? Let us pray for each other, let us forgive each other, let us toivel in our hearts our own sins and the sins we might judge (rightly or wrongly) others as being guilty of – it is the dirty laundry of the Jewish people BUT our soul, the nation of Israel, is pure and untouched. Let us create in our hearts a mikvah to toivel all the garments that are covering over the Jewish people throughout the world!

Pray for rachamim for where we stand, at Mount Sinai, chevlai Moshiach, with all the challenges that we have, that Hashem should please use our positive prayers and wishes for mercy for each other to redeem us! Having trouble getting there? Use that conflicting pressure, that very pain, to form the mikvah in your heart – to turn your heart into a Kiddush cup instead of a sewer, for we have no idea how those terrible thoughts are truly clouding and preventing the geula shelama. We are empowered by our Chosson to bring the redemption just by considering toiveling our negativity and out of love for our Chosson and desire to sanctify His Name, may we beg for rachamim and redemption for all

Please print and use the toolbox below:

Daily Hisbodidus – Torah Basis

(Concept of the Baal Shem Tov: Submission – breaking what grips us to our bad traits, along with Rav Dessler’s terminology, nullification of the lower world due to emunah in Hashem and His goodness)

Thank you Hashem for the flow of thought, emotion, and consciousness to this otherwise inanimate body that houses it, may Your name be praised,

(Concept of the Baal Shem Tov: Separation – the use of daas to discern - along with Rav Dessler’s terminology, total just and good Divine Providence and control of nature)

and for the ability to perceive, experience and learn, for the gift of free willed choice, and for the capacity to discern and integrate.

(Deeper with the work of breaking the hold that our attachment to negativity has on us by applying behira, free willed choice – uses Rabbi Shapira’s method to access unlimited free will)

Please flow through me unlimited will power to direct the recipe of personality, circumstance and emotional flow You send through my heart each day so that through the use of conscious choice which You bestow upon me, I can release the innate natural gift of strong subconscious deep emotional bonding from imperfection (unreality, basic human nature) to perfection (reality of the Divine mind, connection to Divine attributes),

(Concept of Rabbi Dessler to sanctify Hashem’s name by attaching our hearts in loving service to a place that our limited self cannot go, expressing emunah and strengthening Yiras Shemayim)

with the desiring result being that all of my emotions are directed first to loving and fearing and emulating You,.

(Concept of Baal Shem Tov – Sweetening – seeing oneself as a pure good neshama and a healthier relationship between soul and body - see www.bilvavi.org)

May Your Will and Attributes as expressed in Torah be fully conscious within me and grant me success in bringing Your Attributes and Will to visibility in my actions, my relationships, my thoughts, and my emotions. May I be strengthened with unlimited conscious free will to approach my day from loving awareness of choosing what is pleasing to You

Occupy our Emotions - the Process

"I recognize that I am emotionally bonded to this pattern/thought/experience/programming/ nature and I see that it is unpleasant. Hashem please grant success to the choice I declare to shift my emotional bonding from imperfection to love and fear of You. Please see my determination and give me the will power, to the very depths of this emotion, and help me to match the emotion with will power to calm my subconscious clinging to this self-destructive connection. (I am awaiting the will power), I sincerely want to no longer be emotionally bonded with this thought/experience/memory. [once the emotion is calm and the feeling of will power there, say:]

“Hashem I choose that the consciousness that is bonding the emotions You send through me shift (Please shift consciousness given by You which is subconsciously keeping those emotions above my behira and out of my ability to control). Right now this consciousness is emotionally bonding me to a pattern/thought/experience/programming/ nature that is unpleasant. I recognize that this piece of consciousness and emotional bonding have been above my behira and You have shepherded me and guided me to take accountability for my actions( through suffering consequences of the emotional pain of separation of consciousness from You). Please give direction of this orphaned consciousness into my hand. I beseech You to listen to my free willed choice. I direct this consciousness and emotional bonding affecting my actions to detach from pattern/thought/experience/programming/ nature and re-attach to love and fear and emulation of Hashem alone. Please lead me in the path that I wish to go, for the unification and sanctification of Your name, for now I realize that this has been sent for me to responsibly bring the consciousness You give me back into harmony with Your Will. That is my sincere choice and desire, for there is nothing but Your simple unity in all the world. Please grant success to my free willed choice to direct this consciousness and emotional bonding to love and fear and emulating Hashem and please destroy all negative spiritual entities which I may have created by misuse in the past of this consciousness and emotion. I regret it and ask that this negativity be taken out of the world and that my teshuva be a zechus and benefit for all Klal Yisrael.”

Yesod shebe Malchus - Funneling together all the ways we comprehend that Hashem runs the world

2012-05-25T00:30:20Z

Yesod shebe Malchus and Malchus Shebe Malchus -Two days left in the omer, the time before we bring ourselves to the altar of Mount Sinai to be wed to the Chosson - Hashem - with a ring, - the Torah.

Do we want to get married to Hashem? Perhaps in our highest selves we do. But really, does our lower self, the self that has an ego, a body and a limited analytical mind, want to marry Hashem? How can we really bring the lower self to sincerely drop its basic self-orientation in favor of naase v’nisma – wanting to have a relationship through Torah and marry Hashem?

It is possible. Not only is it possible, it is why each of us has been created. Not only is it why we are created, it is the purpose for which Hashem made the entire world.

In all the world, there is nothing but the simple unity of Hashem. Ein od milvado.

That includes me. I am not just a body with some life force running through me for 120 years. My body, my emotions, my thinking both high and low are all powered by something pure and untouchable – a neshama hewn from the Throne of Glory. When we have a relationship with Hashem, we acknowledge our yearning to re-form our sense of self in His Image, no matter how our best and most logical reasoning from a mere perspective of time and space is shouting at us to take me-centered action to achieve a me-centered goal. When we choose to suspend me-centered reasoning in favor of following one of the thirteen attributes of mercy, we reveal the greatest wisdom we can show, that we know that at the core of “me” is an aspect instilled in us by Hashem and we choose to shine His Attributes in our actions and make Him visible. When we do this, we touch the roots of our existence and bring the infinite into the finite. And we build eternity for ourselves.

The body, the emotions, the limited analytical mind – surely with the reasoning capable of the lower self it makes sense to conclude that He can take the very best care of our needs. Who of us can truly comprehend that we exist beyond the way we understand ourselves through the ego? Yet that is what the Torah is a guidebook for. That is what Avraham Aveinu discovered, what Yitzchok Aveinu demonstrated, and what Yaakov Aveinu brought into balance. That is what Rachel Imeinu modeled for us in giving the signals to Leah. Hashem is here! Hashem is real. Hashem is good. Hashem is longing for a relationship with us. And it doesn’t cost money. It only costs us our false beliefs.

Let’s trade in our false beliefs based on a one world picture for true beliefs based on a two world picture and comprehension of Ein Od Milvado! Let’s cling to Torah and love Hashem and may we be zocheh to see Moshiach speedily!

Chesed Shebe Malchus - Being Servants to Serve only Hashem

2012-05-20T15:50:36Z

We have entered the first day of the week of Malchus – a week of simply being with being servants to serve only Hashem

For six weeks we have been struggling each day to improve a facet of one of the Divine attributes. In this week leading up to Shavuous, we are to experience really being with the pleasures of different facets of kingship – of what it means to be and love serving Hashem alone. If for some reason, the feeling of pleasure does not overwhelm us, it is not too late.

In the tangible world, we work very hard to earn money to pay our mortgage and buy food and necessities and tuitions and everything else. It is quite exhausting. Hashem made a world where if we are hungry, we have to earn the money to buy food and cook it and lift the fork and feed ourselves. If I were in my kitchen and I were hungry and I had all the ingredients but I did not feel like cooking anything I would not resolve my hunger. If there were prepared foods on the table and I am hungry and I do not put food on my plate and lift my fork to eat it, I do not resolve my hunger.

Our souls are hungry. Our souls are starving for connection to Hashem, for the joy and pleasure of giving in this world so that our souls actualize connection with Hashem. But our souls are covered over by our bodies, and our bodies don’t necessarily feel that hunger, the hunger of the soul to connect with Hashem. The hunger of spiritual longing is not detectable by the body, the emotions or the limited analytical mind.

Hashem has given us the Torah, the wedding ring between Hashem and the Jewish people, a marriage between the body and the soul. It is incumbent upon us to look at our wedding ring and remember with our limited analytical minds that we are, in fact, not just bodies with emotions related to our desires.

How do we comprehend the pleasure to the body and emotions that is waiting for us to experience when no one can describe the pleasure and the work it takes is enormous?

Perhaps that is the moshel for the hard work it takes to make a living to satisfy the stomach. In order to stay alive, we need food. Look at all we go through, the stress, the distress, the running, the education and more, just to stay alive! Parallel to our physical existence is our spiritual striving.

The arena for our spiritual striving is to conquer the human subconscious. Naturally, all our thoughts, emotions and energy are dedicated to our goals. Is one of our goals to bring out the aspect of the Divine image within us, as the Tomer Devorah teaches us? We are here specifically to fulfill a positive spiritual mission of bringing out certain positive qualities and to fulfill a fixing spiritual mission to repair a certain negative quality by straddling the human side of our emotions with the role modeling of Hashem when faced with a moral situation. The Torah tells us morally what Hashem expects. It can be very high. It can seem completely unrealistic based on human calculations toward goodliness. We can choose within human nature to behave in a very goodly way given the behaviors and conduct of those around us. But the challenge to satisfy the hunger of the soul, the challenge to enter into the inner penimius of the person and connect the soul in unity and Gd-consciousness to the Creator of the world, that challenge is a different order of magnitude and requires not just a moment’s thought but an entire lifetime of dedication in order to develop our souls toward the potential that is placed by Hashem inside every person.

We are standing in the kitchen with a smorgasbord of food and we don’t pick up the fork. Inside every one of us is a place of calmness, of clarity and joy and peace, a place of appreciation for the life we have and the container we are in, the vessel called the body. Without the body, we have no existence, but without the soul’s being able to actualize itself, we are but living corpses.

There are moments of pleasure that no amount of money can buy, no amount of social connection, intimate relations or any other pleasures of this world. To be able in this world to have a moment of touching something implanted within us by Hashem that is His attribute surrounds us with bath of heavenly bliss. All it takes is to give up who we think we are, suspend it even in the face of logic and reason, and choose instead to take actions that demonstrate love of Hashem alone based on His Torah. Forgive, overlook, cast sins into the sea.

Imagine our negative thoughts like cannonballs of gumdrops, all hard and firm, being thrust at the ones stimulating our upset feelings. How strong are our thoughts! How they pelt – we think they are pelting someone else, but each thought is really creating a destructive spiritual being that then pelts US all day and is completely sustained by our own continuing emotions. WE are causing our own pain. Yet we are gripping it, subconsciously clinging. Isn’t it amazing how strongly our emotions grip that negativity, how even if we suspend it for a moment we are attracted back to it magnetically? It seems out of our control.

We just discovered a gold mine! Look at that strength! Imagine if we could take that same magnetic clinging strength and have it bring to us inner peace, calm and joy. Would you like that? Let me provide a visual for what I am suggesting - to bend our negativity into a kli to capture Divine attributes and then shine those forward.

Imagine a piece of aluminum foil and taking those cannonballs of gumdrops and chewing them so they stick flat to the aluminum, and now take another piece of aluminum and put it over, so the sticky gum is sandwiched between the aluminum. Now shape the aluminum foil into a vessel, a cup. The gum provides support and strengthens the vessel!

This is what we need to do in our hearts. Just as the Egyptians put the Jewish babies in the walls instead of bricks, we can re-direct the strength flowing from our negative ideas into a kli in our hearts that with a desire to love Hashem no matter what make our hearts a mikvah for our errors and the errors of others. We can do this because we love Hashem, fear Hashem and wish to emulate Him. And we wish to love and fear and emulate Hashem so that our souls don’t starve to death in a room filled with prepared foods.

Hashem is sending us challenges –the prepared foods- continually. May we use the six constant mitzvahs and the knowledge that there is nothing in this world but the simple unity of Hashem to help us return and to pray that we all return and merit redemption.

SHORT PRAYER TO ACCOMPLISH:
Dear Hashem please with this prayer/tzedakah/ tehillim form lovingkind, gentle, positive spiritual beings to lead me to the highest vision that You have for me and may I grip onto loving Hashem, fearing Hashem and emulating Hashem Who is the only Power with my strong subconscious desires instead of subconsciously gripping negativity, falsehoods and any fears other than Yiras Hashem.

BELOW IS A TOOL TO ACCOMPLISH THE ABOVE:
(Concept of the Baal Shem Tov: Submission – breaking what grips us to our bad traits, along with Rav Dessler’s terminology, nullification of the lower world due to emunah in Hashem and His goodness)
Thank you Hashem for the flow of thought, emotion, and consciousness to this otherwise inanimate body that houses it, may Your name be praised,

(Concept of the Baal Shem Tov: Separation – the use of daas to discern - along with Rav Dessler’s terminology, total just and good Divine Providence and control of nature)
and for the ability to perceive, experience and learn, for the gift of free willed choice, and for the capacity to discern and integrate.

(Deeper with the work of breaking the hold that our attachment to negativity has on us by applying behira, free willed choice – uses Rabbi Shapira’s method to access unlimited free will)
Please flow through me unlimited will power to direct the recipe of personality, circumstance and emotional flow You send through my heart each day so that through the use of conscious choice which You bestow upon me, I can release the innate natural gift of strong subconscious deep emotional bonding from imperfection (unreality, basic human nature) to perfection (reality of the Divine mind, connection to Divine attributes),

(Concept of Rabbi Dessler to sanctify Hashem’s name by attaching our hearts in loving service to a place that our limited self cannot go, expressing emunah and strengthening Yiras Shemayim)
with the desiring result being that all of my emotions are directed first to loving and fearing and emulating You,.

(Concept of Baal Shem Tov – Sweetening – seeing oneself as a pure good neshama and a healthier relationship between soul and body - see www.bilvavi.org)
May Your Will and Attributes as expressed in Torah be fully conscious within me and grant me success in bringing Your Attributes and Will to visibility in my actions, my relationships, my thoughts, and my emotions. May I be strengthened with unlimited conscious free will to approach my day from loving awareness of choosing what is pleasing to You

Occupy our Emotions - the Process
"I recognize that I am emotionally bonded to this pattern/thought/experience/programming/ nature and I see that it is unpleasant. Hashem please grant success to the choice I declare to shift my emotional bonding from imperfection to love and fear of You. Please see my determination and give me the will power, to the very depths of this emotion, and help me to match the emotion with will power to calm my subconscious clinging to this self-destructive connection. (I am awaiting the will power), I sincerely want to no longer be emotionally bonded with this thought/experience/memory. [once the emotion is calm and the feeling of will power there, say:]

“Hashem I choose that the consciousness that is bonding the emotions You send through me shift (Please shift consciousness given by You which is subconsciously keeping those emotions above my behira and out of my ability to control). Right now this consciousness is emotionally bonding me to a pattern/thought/experience/programming/ nature that is unpleasant. I recognize that this piece of consciousness and emotional bonding have been above my behira and You have shepherded me and guided me to take accountability for my actions( through suffering consequences of the emotional pain of separation of consciousness from You). Please give direction of this orphaned consciousness into my hand. I beseech You to listen to my free willed choice. I direct this consciousness and emotional bonding affecting my actions to detach from pattern/thought/experience/programming/ nature and re-attach to love and fear and emulation of Hashem alone. Please lead me in the path that I wish to go, for the unification and sanctification of Your name, for now I realize that this has been sent for me to responsibly bring the consciousness You give me back into harmony with Your Will. That is my sincere choice and desire, for there is nothing but Your simple unity in all the world. Please grant success to my free willed choice to direct this consciousness and emotional bonding to love and fear and emulating Hashem and please destroy all negative spiritual entities which I may have created by misuse in the past of this consciousness and emotion. I regret it and ask that this negativity be taken out of the world and that my teshuva be a zechus and benefit for all Klal Yisrael.”

Yesod shebe yesod - Yosef HaTzaddik and a day to serve Hashem completely

2012-05-18T12:28:44Z

Today is yesod shebe yesod, foundation in foundation, a day for us to comprehend that all there is in the world is the simple unity of Hashem and how in our very essence to relate to Hashem with that understanding. Relating to a Being that has no corporeal body, a being that is alive yet providing absolutely everything we see, hear, taste and feel along with our abilities to do so and to think and contemplate is a meritorious goal. Where can a person begin, with what understanding can we reframe our lives?

The understanding we need to reframe towards relating to Hashem comes from understanding the tools He gives us to relate with others – what forms the strongest bonds between people? Talking, emotions and intimate relations.

We live in our hearts. That is the home for the ruach, the emotions that represent our experience and unique personalities. Our ruach contains our subconsciousness – the impact of our environment, the traumas, the personality in general. It is the home of our willfulness. And it is, without our awareness, the place that the yetzer hara rules. If a person does not know that there is a ruler of the subconscious, namely the feelings of lack programmed into us through jealousy, lusts and the desire for honor, these emotional impulses provide us with a sense of purpose and direction that we pursue as true personal needs.

What yesod shebe yesod gives us the opportunity to comprehend is that Hashem has "hidden"Himself within us, not in our hearts, but in our mind, the home of the neshama, formed in the Divine image, the thirteen attributes of mercy (see Tomer Devorah). He is awaiting us to seek Him out, to bend our hearts into a Kiddush cup strengthened with the same glue that sticks us to our subconscious thoughts, only formed through free willed choice into a kli to contain more and more of His attributes instead. He wants us to choose to be like Him.

In the world, most people regularly experience humiliation, shame, chastisement, frustration, disappointment, sadness, and a range of other challenging heartfelt emotions. Very often, if the trauma is big, we spend years or even lifetimes trying to rise above it, but we are attracted back to the negativity over and over again, seemingly with no recourse. We think this is who we are, who we have become, what life has done to us, and we mistakenly think it is our true selves and that it can’t be different. We think we have no control.

Hashem hides in this world with harmful and deadly circumstances abounding! How can a Being that is creating everything and that does only good hide and permit such darkness? The answer lies within us. When we know with 100% certainty that it is He Who Loves us Who is behind the darkness, we can use our free willed choice to bend OUR heartfelt natural responses to what is happening and WE bring Him into the world through shining His attributes. We let Hashem know we know it is He every time we emulate Him in a tough situation. And then He is there, through our hearts and actions. And then His need to hide behind the darkness dissipates, may we soon see the Moshiach.

Today is a day to serve Hashem with everything we are – talk to Him! Love Him! Give our whole selves to Him, right to the root of our mistakes from the past. With every word we say today, guard ourselves according to Torah and even more, search for the root within our hearts as to why we even have a desire to say something we should not, for that is an attraction to falsehood, the domain of the yetzer hara. don't fall for that same old trick any more! Yosef HaTzaddik conquered yesod in the episode of with Potifar’s wife.

Every person we see is just like us, struggling with our hearts and emotions and the subconscious that covers our otherwise knowing His attributes within our neshamas. But we have free will, the ability to choose and the Torah that teaches us how to choose. He is in charge of success 100% of the time. The effort that WE can do is to sincerely choose! He is behind all nature, including our nature, and He can shift our attachments from falsehood to truth if we are sincere and IF WE ASK HIM TO (see occupy emotions process below)

May we focus and comprehend today that Hashem is behind our potentials, our abilities, our circumstances, our thoughts and emotions and may we use our free willed choice effortfully to align our hearts with His Torah and let Him know we know we love Him and wish to sanctify His name and make His name known in the world through our deeds. And in so doing, may weremember the wells that Avraham and Yitzchak dug and redug and see this as our way to reach our tzidkus, may our hearts desire it..

BELOW IS A TOOLKIT TO HELP ACTUALIZE THE ABOVE:

Daily Hisbodidus – Torah Basis
(Concept of the Baal Shem Tov: Submission – breaking what grips us to our bad traits, along with Rav Dessler’s terminology, nullification of the lower world due to emunah in Hashem and His goodness)
Thank you Hashem for the flow of thought, emotion, and consciousness to this otherwise inanimate body that houses it, may Your name be praised,

(Concept of the Baal Shem Tov: Separation – the use of daas to discern - along with Rav Dessler’s terminology, total just and good Divine Providence and control of nature)
and for the ability to perceive, experience and learn, for the gift of free willed choice, and for the capacity to discern and integrate.

(Deeper with the work of breaking the hold that our attachment to negativity has on us by applying behira, free willed choice – uses Rabbi Shapira’s method to access unlimited free will)
Please flow through me unlimited will power to direct the recipe of personality, circumstance and emotional flow You send through my heart each day so that through the use of conscious choice which You bestow upon me, I can release the innate natural gift of strong subconscious deep emotional bonding from imperfection (unreality, basic human nature) to perfection (reality of the Divine mind, connection to Divine attributes),

(Concept of Rabbi Dessler to sanctify Hashem’s name by attaching our hearts in loving service to a place that our limited self cannot go, expressing emunah and strengthening Yiras Shemayim)
with the desiring result being that all of my emotions are directed first to loving and fearing and emulating You,.

(Concept of Baal Shem Tov – Sweetening – seeing oneself as a pure good neshama and a healthier relationship between soul and body - see www.bilvavi.org)
May Your Will and Attributes as expressed in Torah be fully conscious within me and grant me success in bringing Your Attributes and Will to visibility in my actions, my relationships, my thoughts, and my emotions. May I be strengthened with unlimited conscious free will to approach my day from loving awareness of choosing what is pleasing to You

Occupy our Emotions - the Process
"I recognize that I am emotionally bonded to this pattern/thought/experience/programming/ nature and I see that it is unpleasant. Hashem please grant success to the choice I declare to shift my emotional bonding from imperfection to love and fear of You. Please see my determination and give me the will power, to the very depths of this emotion, and help me to match the emotion with will power to calm my subconscious clinging to this self-destructive connection. (I am awaiting the will power), I sincerely want to no longer be emotionally bonded with this thought/experience/memory. [once the emotion is calm and the feeling of will power there, say:]

“Hashem I choose that the consciousness that is bonding the emotions You send through me shift (Please shift consciousness given by You which is subconsciously keeping those emotions above my behira and out of my ability to control). Right now this consciousness is emotionally bonding me to a pattern/thought/experience/programming/ nature that is unpleasant. I recognize that this piece of consciousness and emotional bonding have been above my behira and You have shepherded me and guided me to take accountability for my actions( through suffering consequences of the emotional pain of separation of consciousness from You). Please give direction of this orphaned consciousness into my hand. I beseech You to listen to my free willed choice. I direct this consciousness and emotional bonding affecting my actions to detach from pattern/thought/experience/programming/ nature and re-attach to love and fear and emulation of Hashem alone. Please lead me in the path that I wish to go, for the unification and sanctification of Your name, for now I realize that this has been sent for me to responsibly bring the consciousness You give me back into harmony with Your Will. That is my sincere choice and desire, for there is nothing but Your simple unity in all the world. Please grant success to my free willed choice to direct this consciousness and emotional bonding to love and fear and emulating Hashem and please destroy all negative spiritual entities which I may have created by misuse in the past of this consciousness and emotion. I regret it and ask that this negativity be taken out of the world and that my teshuva be a zechus and benefit for all Klal Yisrael.”

Yesod shebe Hod - Omer and Parshas Emor

2012-05-11T13:04:15Z

Reflecting on the week of hod – of a week of yielding, of humility, of bowing to the honor of Hashem – perhaps we have more perspective on what we say in morning davening: “You are awesome, O Gd, from Your Sanctuaries, O Gd of Israel – it is He Who grants might and power to the people, blessed is Gd.”

Whatever qualities that we are happy to have the use of, whatever health we enjoy, it is incumbent upon us to thank Hashem for He is the Source of it. We are in possession of it for the 120 years we are here, but we cannot take credit for it. The honor is Hashem’s.

From this basis do we love and appreciate each other. For in every Jew, we see goodness and therefore Hashem’s kindliness.

And when we are in distress, may we realize only that He is attempting to elicit from us an awakening of something good that He has implanted within us that we have yet to shine. For His vision for each of us is only to bring out within us His aspects so that we may merit the good He desires to give us after 120 year.

Each time we stop dong the things that keep us from recognizing His Kingship, we grow in hod and in unity with every Jew.

Parshas Emor – the word emor has the same letters as omer. The Parsha describes how the Kohanin are to maintain purity within themselves. The Kohanim are qualified to go into the kadosh hakadoshim to daven to Hashem on behalf of the Jewish people. Each person has an inner kadosh hakadoshim – our pure neshamas. We are to make our hearts, our ruach, into a vessel, a kli, to contain Hashem’s attributes. The Hebrew word kli is composed of a Kof from the word Kohen, a Lamed from the word Levi, and a Yud from the word Yisroel. Every person can develop seichel, the mind, the neshama, and choose to bring out the aspect of the Divine image we can know because we are neshamas - we can move ourselves toward purity, like the Kohanim., by building in our hearts a kli to catch what is in our own neshamas.

What it takes is to examine our thoughts and truthfully analyze them compared to Hashem’s will and attributes. Is what we are attached to the truth or have we improvised based on the world class life coach the Yetzer Hara? If we are honest, we see that mostly we are improvising, sometimes with patterns that have grown into tall trees with many branches and roots. When we are fortunate to see a glimmer of where our habit has grown from something less than what Hashem wants, that alone is a blessing. We need Hashem’s help to really change ourselves, for our human nature is totally sourced in Him. The glimmer we get is a gift He gives us when we merit through our efforts to yearn to be more. Grab those glimmers and then beg! Beg Hashem to please accept our teshuva and help us lovingly and gently to detach from the root that is not emes and re-attach it to emes. We want to move toward purifying ourselves to build an inner vessel in our hearts strengthened with the insight, a vessel to hold what we know from our neshama is true, built out of the comprehension the glimmer shows us with the hearfelt strength of our misdoings.

May our constant yearnings bring us breakthroughs in our actions and relationships that bring peace, understanding and love amongst us.

Clarity Seminar - for Netzach shebe Hod - Wipe the Yogurt off your Glasses

2012-05-09T01:54:55Z

How do we remain persistent in trying to bring respect to Hashem ? How do we persist in having gratitude to Hashem when sometimes the circumstances that fill our day tempt us to be blind to Hashem's goodness? How do we go about our day, fixing what needs to be fixed, from a place of darche shalom, building love and companionship between people?

Step one is to comprehend the basics of our personalized lens. Rebbetzin Tzipora Harris gives a tremendous shiur to help us understand that we are not walking through our day alone EVER. And with that knowledge, we see ourselves in a much different way and the events that happen to us with the option of asking Hashem to lead us out of it as a practical option because no one can possibly overcome the yetzer hara on their own.. Listen here: theclarityseminar.com/uploads/may82012.mp3

Today, if the day doesn't go exactly as we planned, thank Hashem for the Torah that saves us from so many mistakes and that gives us opportunities all day long to express to Him our faith, and say that we know every situation that He brings is for our ultimate growth in emunah and in emulating His 13 attributes of mercy.

Today, let us do what we can to encourage the people in our families and circles to like each other more.

Today, let's thank a mentor for an inspiring moment or express gratitude to Hashem for an inspiring book (e.g. Torah) that helps save us from our yetzer hara.

Thanks Tzipora!!

Yesod shebe Netzach - Funneling our expanded neshamas into our hearts

2012-05-04T14:50:22Z

Today is yesod shebe netzach. How do we funnel all of what we did this week of expansion -a week dedicated to growing in our ability to give respect and honor to Hashem, a week where we seek to to prevail over our challenges with love, determination and yearning?

Have you ever programmed your GPS to go somewhere and it sends you one way but you know a better way, only wanting to rely on it for later in the trip when you don’t know where you are going? What happens? You have 100% certainty that you are not lost but the GPS tells you, turn left, make a u-turn, etc. Even though with our intelligence we know we are correct (let’s call this neshama, seichel, brain) the heart feels, “Oh this is hard to not listen” (ruach, desires both good and bad, in the heart). We continue the way we know is right, but we want to turn off the GPS because we feel conflicted.

What a great analogy this is to what happens when we have Torah and Hashem’s attributes in our mind but our hearts are vulnerable to the pleadings of the yetzer hara, who sounds so convincing!.

The heart wrenching pleadings of our yetzer hara is the power of steel in our human nature that we are here to rise above. How can we make this budge when it is built into our nature? Hashem creates our nature! How can we possibly change or prevail? Who wouldn’t agree that this is human nature and only natural! How can we not give into what is “normal?” Let’s use a different mental image and say mold into a vessel, a vessel that we will then be able to pour our neshama, funnel our neshama, into our heart.

The raw materials are the yetzer hara and the circumstances. The tool is free will and love of Hashem and emunah that Hashem is 100% in control of success 100% of the time. The action is to choose lovingly to pray to Hashem that He allow us success ino molding the strength of the steel beam of the yetzer hara from a useless block into a Kiddush cup to hold the flow from Hashem’s attributes through our neshama into our hearts. Tell Him we choose to be like Him and to please help us bend our nature to be more like He is.

Perhaps a person’s yetzer hara might say “Why be like Hashem? Does being loving and forgiving and merciful sound like what would be pleasing to you? Are you going to swallow who you are and make your life into some kind of stifled existence where you won’t be able to just be yourself?” Sounds normal, doesn’t it. But know with 100% certainty that the opposite is true. There is no greater pleasure than to mold this strong-mindedness in our hearts into a beautiful vessel to contain our neshamas. Our ruach joined with our neshamas will be joyful in this world and for all eternity. And we won’t experience the loss of any pleasure whatsoever. Our joy will be enhanced. Naase v’nisma!

With free will and determination and total emunah, may Hashem grant us success in molding our steel strong heartfelt desires into a Kiddush cup to receive abundance and joy!

Netzach shebe netzach - what we can do today to bring the geula shelama

2012-05-02T17:06:12Z

Chazal tell us that three things take us out of the world, jealousy, lust and the desire for honor. It is in these three areas where we experience lack that generate reactions and rationalizations to bring us from pursuing ratzon Hashem to pursuing our subjective ratzon. When we pursue our own will when it is not Hashem’s will, we make the mistake of thinking that there is something other than the simple unity of Hashem in all of the world. In truth, there is only One. Hashem is the Source of everything and the place of the world is within the mind and total control of Hashem. There is no other place for us to be where we can succeed. Hashem is 100% in control of success 100% of the time. He may use us to accomplish tests and goals but it is only in His Infinite Wisdom that anything happens here, even though we may have no idea how or why He sees it as good.

Today is Netzach shebe Netzach. We must continue to conquer the evil within us and in the world. How can we do this if we are asleep to a very basic evil that does not even seem bad?

Rabbi Dessler speaks about the difference between giving and taking. We are all inherently takers, being that Hashem is the Giver and we are the receiver. There is nothing inherently evil about taking. The problem is that we want to take and take and take, and we find ways that go right up to or even across the borders of what is permissible in Torah. I am not even speaking about violations of stealing, which is of course an aveira. I am speaking about a different type of taking.

The type of taking that I am referring to is jealousy. When we see that someone is more powerful, more beautiful, more desirable, more talented, more affluent, more anything, inside of us is a piece that wants to take it away, no different from a two year old who sees someone with a toy. The difficulty is that we may not recognize this urge for it is very subconscious.

In today’s day, we see a devolution of society. What has happened in my view is that we have seen how brute force and violence have become part of the way of getting what people want, even as we shake our heads at the terrible crimes involved. That inner part of our psyche sees that violence and anger and ferocity produce apparent results, that those willing to use such tactics grow in strength. Hashem is allowing us to see this, along with what it is costing us, which is attachment to Him.

Even as Rabbi Shteinman tells us that there is a gezeira against us and we see the threat of nuclear destruction before our eyes, we are asleep and not trying to reach inward to find our inner connection away from pursuing our own taking agendas and returning to begging Hashem for what we need and want. Do you remember after 9/11 how everyone was so horrified but there was a flurry of “anthrax” letters? The psyche of people wanting, in a hidden way, to take something from others and hurt them is very strong. It is a veritable steel beam within the makeup of human nature.

And we are blind to it. And it is robbing us of everything.

We must, on this day, recommit to becoming givers, to emulating Hashem, to eradicating from our hearts jealousy and all the rationalizations we do to take from those who we see as more of anything. Crucial in doing this is to remember that we are not in charge of success. Hashem may allow us to think we succeed, but it is costing us our eternity. We are not earning Olam Haba for it. On the contrary, we are separating ourselves from the awareness of our Divine attributes and causing our own eternal destruction.

A great way to shift ourselves is to realize that no one can take anything from anyone but our efforts to do so create negativity that boomerangs onto us in the long run and in ways that we have no way to predict.

Today let us focus on what we CAN do to bring the geula shelama, of creating shelamos, of becoming a giver like Hashem.

And may Hashem grant success and send us the redeemer immediately in a peaceful way with no harm to anyone.

Meet Your Bad Angel (The Six Constant Mitzvos with Charlie Harary: Mitzvah #3)

2012-04-30T14:42:02Z

http://thesixconstantmitzvos.com/lesson.php?id=24

The 6 principles of G-d awareness are the building blocks of establishing a real relationship with G-d. To be a part of any relationship, you need to understand who the other person is. In having a relationship with G-d, we need to not only know that He exists, but the extent of His presence in the world.

Every day we say Shema Yisroel Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad – G-d is the Master of the world and He is One. What does “He is One” mean? How many would He be? We refer to G-d in the singular; why clarify that He is only One?

Oneness of G-d means that He is everywhere and a part of everything. G-d created a unified world. There is no fragmentation. Every aspect of our lives is connected to something greater. Sometimes, we see the world as consisting of separate components – good and evil, holy and mundane. We feel that inside of us there are two diametrically opposed forces. We have a good angel and a bad angel.

We are all familiar with this classic imagery. Some guy is walking around minding his own business when this good angel pops up on his right shoulder, sporting his usual garb – a white robe and floating halo. On his other shoulder sits the bad angel, all dressed up in his red one-piece costume, long tail, and trusted pitchfork.

The good angel whispers in a sweet melodious voice: “Let the old lady go in front of you”; “Give charity”, “Be more sensitive.”

The bad angel retorts, “Cut her off! She shouldn’t be driving anyway”, “Keep the money for yourself”, “Get angry!”

Listen to the good angel and we feel him nodding in approval. Listen to the bad angel and he slaps us five with pride.

That’s not true; there aren’t two forces – only ONE. The bad angel, or evil inclination, works for G-d. He also has a halo. He doesn’t want us to listen to him. He’s just trying to challenge us so when we don’t, we grow even stronger.

But it goes even further. The Oneness of G-d is how we relate to our everyday lives.

I have a friend who’s training to be a commander in the Israeli army. He told me that when he was going through training, he was given a specific mission. As he got close to completion, one of his men got injured. He was devastated and determined to finish it the next time.

Then, as he was about to succeed, the tire of his jeep blew out. The night before his next assignment, it hit him. He wasn’t being tested on getting to a specific location; he was being tested on how he dealt with challenge. What would he do if a man went down?

As he grew in his ranks, he realized that each moment of his test was carefully crafted to build him as a soldier that he could become. Nothing that happened was coincidental, and each aspect was as important as another.

We have moments that are holy: prayer, Torah study, holidays, charity. And we have moments that are mundane: going to work, exercising, fixing a flat, and waiting on line. Oneness of G-d means that each moment of our lives is there to help us achieve perfection; to help us get closer to G-d. Every detail, every curveball, every pleasure, every challenge can be holy or mundane, based on our response to it.

When you live life this way, you live a life in which there’s no fragmentation. G-dliness is everywhere if we want to look for it.

Oneness of G-d means there is no such thing as an unimportant task or an unimportant person. Being the president doesn’t make you more important than the person holding the door for the president. Each person, each moment, is infinitely valuable and infused with the potential to be holy.

Living with G-d’s oneness will change the way we look at our lives from being worried, angry, and jealous to being excited, happy, and ready to see what comes next, knowing that the world is a mechanism for G-d to convey his messages to us, to be to who we can be. Living with G-d’s oneness means there’s no reason to fear, because G-d is in control, and anything He sends us can lead to our ultimate benefit.

The third principal, God’s Oneness, changes the way we look at ourselves and the world. It is the awareness that He is everywhere and is the source of everything, and all that we do and see, at its core, is ONE.

Netzach 5772 - a Week of Expansion to conquer what is holding us back in becoming givers

2012-04-29T23:38:01Z

Netzach – the week of enduring, a week to expand and conquer what is holding us back from emulating Hashem’s eternal and constant giving

Da es Atmecha teaches bilvavi.net/content/view/186/57/ us
“When a person is with other people, and he senses negative feelings toward them for whatever reason, he must bring forth the power of the soul through which one can live with himself, and disengage from what is occurring around him. Even if an opponent has caused him distress and harm, and he does not feel he is participating in sinat chinam (baseless hatred), but "required hatred," he must nonetheless find in himself the world called "alone." This exists from the time of our initial formation, and did not disappear after Chavah's creation, but was hidden deep in the heart. One must know how to use it in the proper times and places. But if, chas veshalom, one uses this power in the wrong place and time, he will live in an environment and care only about himself, and this is a negative kind of "alone." It is egotism, where one lives only for himself. Hashem gave us the power of "alone," and gave us the ability to decide how to use it. Will we use it in the proper place and time, disengaging inwardly from whom we should, or will we, chas veshalom, use it when we should relate to others, yet choose to live with only ourselves?

Inherently, the power of "alone" is a positive force. There is no power in a person that is inherently negative. The only question is: where do we use the power? If used in the proper place, it is constructive. If used in the wrong place, it is destructive. The power of "alone" should be employed in situations where one senses negative feelings toward another person. That is the time to activate the sense of "alone" and sever the emotional attachment.

Don't think that the final goal is to be emotionally detached from others. We mentioned earlier that there are three stages: hachna'ah, havdalah, and hamtakah. The first two cause separation; the third brings unity. The separation is only a temporary means for reaching the ultimate unity. The goal must always be to unify and not to separate, but in the process, there must also be a separation. If so, when we mention that one must use the inner power of detachment, it is not the goal. Obviously, the goal is to attain love for the other person, but it is impossible to switch from hatred to love. There must be the intermediary process known as havdalah. From the hatred, one goes to the world of "alone." Then, when cleansed of the hatred, one can develop love even toward a person who had harmed him. As we said, that will occur in the stage of hamtakah, but we are now dealing with havdalah.”

The world of “alone” that is pure within us is the aspect of the Divine image. It is our highest self, cannot be diminished. It exists pure in each of us. This part of us which is, in its very essence, our truest and eternal self, our soul has come to Olam HaZeh for a mission, a mission that we, with our free will, must choose. We know the answer. Hashem creates the world for us to sanctify His name by making ourselves into givers, like He is. Getting to that point is the focus of every mitzvah, midda, and Torah study.

Rabb Schwartz teaches us that the soul has movements, series of expansions and contractions. Rabbi Aryeh Nivin, in teaching about the omer, describes this time in those terms. First we expand, then contract, then find balance, and that is weeks 1 to3, repeated 4 to 6 for the next set of middos. What is this all about? Why does it matter?

Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller in her Omer Workshop describes day by day what we are to do practically to help ourselves to reach the level of Adom before the sin, as we did when we all stood at Mount Sinai. Do the middos seem esoteric? How do they actually help us get anywhere?

When we comprehend that the aspect of the Divine within us can be built up and become a vessel for His light, we begin to comprehend the answer. Our truest selves, our souls, are who we are for all eternity! But we can find out who we are and who we can be in this world! When we choose to discover within ourselves the capacity to touch these aspects and then sweeten our this world experience with a new way of viewing the matter – from the perspective of unifying with the Divine mind and emulating Him and bringing THAT to the situation rather than our subjective reality, we find our true identity. Instead of feeling hatred, jealousy, desire or legitimate anger, we can be like Him and cast sins into the sea, comprehending that our own attraction to those lower impulses are mere garments not different from the garments of the person who triggered our lower emotions. We are all one. Cast all our sins into the sea, for we are all pure neshamas with garments that need to be cleaned! We are not victors or victims, we are here to conquer the battle between the urges that attract our focus. Shall we invest time in thoughts, speech and deeds that ultimately benefit our self-interests first or Hashem’s interests first? Hashem wants us to be happy but He wants to do it for us. And He will do it for us, when we selflessly seek to bring out the Divine within us. That is where emunah comes in. What we take and the harm He may attach to our efforts may seem distant and in Hashem’s hands but it is time that we come to divest ourselves of cultural norms and invest ourselves in Hashem’s Torah, lovingily living as He wishes.

We are in the 72 days of chesed on our way to Mount Sinai. We must ask ourselves continually if what we are doing is what Hashem would do and even if we feel our efforts are within a normal range and permissible by Torah, ask ourselves if it is lovingkind, if it were done to us, would we see it as good?

Rabbi Walerstein points out that the first day of the omer is chesed shebe chesed and that is what eventually brings us to malchut shebe malchut. While we begin the fourth week of the omer, Netzach, endurance, let us not forget that this week of expansion, like the first week of expansion in chesed, is to strengthen our inner being and make ourselves into a fitting vessel to access the Boreh Olam.

May our journey to Mount Sinai bring us back to the level of Adom before the sin and may we merit redemption.

Torah sources directing us to choose soul over body and how to do it, with a podcast example and updated tool kit

2012-04-25T21:44:10Z

Mesillas Yesharim by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (Ramchal) brings us along a spiritual journey from being watchful that we do not breach the negative commandments, to zeal in doing the positive commandments, to learning how to “clean” ourselves of bad traits and of sins, including those that are rationalized because of the heart’s being still partially afflicted by what the Ramchal labels as lusts that then lead us to relax our standards. When we succeed in removing from our hearts whatever desires might sway us toward bad traits and sins, we move upward from watchfulness to being a clean person.

The description above reveals that it is within our ability to bring our subconscious upwards to consciousness so that we “will recognize as evil, and withdraw from every sin that he had committed, though it were the slightest of the slight.”(p.107, Chapter 10, Concerning the Trait of Cleanliness)

“You will now note the distinction between the watchful and the clean man (although they are closely related). The first is watchful of his deeds and sees to it that he does not sin in relation to what he knows, and what is universally acknowledged to be sinful; however, he is still not so much master of himself as to keep his heart from being pulled along by natural lust and inclining him to rationalize in relation to things whose evil is not thus acknowledged. For even though he exerts himself to conquer his evil inclination and to subdue his desires, he will not, because of this, change his nature; He will not remove bodily lust from his heart. All he will be able to do is overcome it and be governed, not by it, but by reason. The darkness of earthiness, however, will still persist in its work of persuasion and deception. But when a person habituates himself to watchfulness to the point where he completely cleanses himself of the acknowledged sins, and accustoms himself to zealous Divine service so that love and yearning for his Creator grow strong within him, then the force of this habituation will draw him farther from the realm of earthiness and direct his mind towards spiritual perfection. Eventually he will attain to perfect cleanliness, a state in which physical desire is extinguished from his heart through the strengthening within him of the longing for Gd. His vision will then possess the purity and clarity that I spoke of above. He will not be deceived, he will not be reached by the darkness of earthiness, and his deeds will be absolutely clean.” (pp. 107-109)

With the above excerpt in mind, when we use our free will to choose soul over body in order to show Hashem our love and fear of Him and our desire to emulate Him, slowly we grow in the feeling of calmness that is the result of yearning for connection and attachment. When we are ready to do battle with our more subconscious rationalizations, what I am finding is that we can have breakthroughs in areas that before might have been life-long enigmas of negativity that we may have accepted as who we are! Perhaps when we sincerely yearn to serve Hashem, then Hashem, Who is behind our nature 100%, and Who only does good, is standing there ready willing and able to give us breakthroughs because it is now good for us to have that breakthrough as He sees that we will re-direct ourselves truly to grow to be more like Him, to bring out the aspect of Him within us!

May we all grow in clarity that we are here to sanctify Hashem’s Name and lovingly embrace the challenges we face to make ourselves in His Image, as the Tomer Devorah teaches us. May we create unity by submitting our subjective realities to the sweetness of Torah, mitzvahs and middos and may Hashem Yisborach help us in our journey and redeem us speedily!

Please listen to this 7 minute podcast example of how the internal process described below is used on the spot, in an every day example that can happen many times a day.
.

Below is the toolbox and Torah basis that is reflected in the above podcast.

Daily Hisbodidus – Torah Basis

Thank you Hashem for the flow of thought, emotion, and consciousness to this otherwise inanimate body that houses it, may Your name be praised,

(Concept of the Baal Shem Tov: Separation – the use of daas to discern - along with Rav Dessler’s terminology, total just and good Divine Providence and control of nature)

and for the ability to perceive, experience and learn, for the gift of free willed choice, and for the capacity to discern and integrate.

(Deeper with the work of breaking the hold that our attachment to negativity has on us by applying behira, free willed choice – uses Rabbi Shapira’s method to access unlimited free will)

(Concept of Rabbi Dessler to sanctify Hashem’s name by attaching our hearts in loving service to a place that our limited self cannot go, expressing emunah and strengthening Yiras Shemayim)

with the desiring result being that all of my emotions are directed first to loving and fearing and emulating You,.

(Concept of Baal Shem Tov – Sweetening – seeing oneself as a pure good neshama and a healthier relationship between soul and body - see www.bilvavi.org)

Occupy our Emotions - the Process

Rav Brevda shiur Rosh Chodesh Iyar - What we have not been taught is crucial for our times. Rav Moshe Weinberger article says same

2012-04-23T18:46:08Z

This inspiring shiur reveals what focus is important in Iyar 5772, choosing soul over body, paralleling to the time before the exodus from Egypt. www.ravbrevda.org Enter shiur 752 and the shiur will come up. It costs $4

Here is a clip from the end so that you understand the urgency of listening to the Rav.
http://www.moment-of-prayer.com/lvracha/ravbrevdaiyarclip.mp3

May the insights you receive be a merit for Rav Brevda, who asks that people continue to say tehillim for pain from a life threatening condition

HaRav Shlomo Leib ben Miriam

Addendum: from http://klalperspectives.org/rabbi-moshe-weinberger/

"This article originally appeared in the journal Klal Perspectives, Spring 2012, as part of a symposium on: "Are We Experiencing a Crisis of Connection?" The journal is available at www.klalperspectives.org."

Rabbi Moshe Weinberger

by Editor on April 19, 2012

“Just One Thing is Missing: The Soul”

THE REBBE OF PIACEZNA, R’ Klonymous Kalman Shapiro, z”ya, was approaching his fortieth birthday:

“My heart pounds from my impending fortieth birthday, my entire body shakes from my oncoming declining years. Still, I will try to muster all my strength to commit myself and my life to G-d. Perhaps, perhaps, something will remain. But to what shall I commit myself? To learn more? I think that as far as possible, I don’t waste any time. To abstain from physical pleasures? If my own desires are not fooling me, thank G-d, I am not so attached to them. So what am I missing? Simply to be a Jew. I see myself as a self-portrait that shows all colors and features real to life. Just one thing is missing: the soul.” (Tzav V’ziruz, To Heal the Soul, page 45)

I have often reflected upon these searing words penned by the Aish Kodesh a decade before his holy body was consumed by the inferno of the Holocaust. The post-Holocaust generation has come of age. We have prospered financially and religiously. The self-portrait of our Torah community “shows all colors and features real to life.” Soon, the Siyum HaShas will take place before an anticipated audience of 90,000 people. Our institutions are bursting at the seams. We have a formidable array of daily and weekly publications filled with our own current events and advertisements for the latest, non-gebrokts, Pesach getaways. Many neighborhoods take pride in their “minyan factories” where a Maariv can be caught until the wee hours of the night. We have morning kollels and evening kollels and gemachs for everything under the sun. “Just one thing is missing: the Soul.”

R. Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev once called all the Jews of the city to a massive “asifa” (gathering) in the main shul. A hush fell over the “oilam” (crowd) as the Tzaddik climbed to the top of the bimah and cried out, “Yidden (Jews), don’t forget! You must always remember that the Ribbono Shel Olam (G-d) exists! He really exists!!” The Kedushas Levi was appealing to a shul filled with strictly observant Jews. Apparently, he felt that despite all the “colors and features” of Yiddishkeit, something very precious was slipping away. Real davening cannot be manufactured in a “minyan factory;” it longs for a soul. True tznius (modesty) is not just a matter of stockings and sleeves. It has a neshama, a soul. Torah learning that does not lead to a meaningful Torah life filled with sincere joy, authentic yiras shomayim and simple human decency, is without a soul.

In the seforim hakedoshim (holy books), this intangible ingredient, this soul, is often referred to as “ohr,” light. A couple might enjoy the security that comes with a marriage in which mutual responsibilities are taken seriously. But if that is all the marriage consists of, it is a dark and dismal home they share. When a relationship is “lichtig” (“lit up”), when it has a neshama, even the “C minor” of everyday life is illuminated by the light that binds them together.

The Noam Elimelech (Yisro) teaches that when Hashem gave us the Torah, He gave us infinitely more than the actual words and commandments. “And Hashem spoke all these words saying, ‘I am Hashem your G-d…’” (Shemos 20:1). “All these words” means not only the actual words, but all their implications, as well – even from the white space of the parchment surrounding them. According to Chazal, “I am” – in Hebrew “anochi” – is an acronym for ana nafshi kesavis, yehavis – “I have inscribed My very soul [in this Torah] that I’m giving you!”

In davening, we say, “with the light of Your face, You have given us a Torah of life.” It is impossible to define this light, but when it’s missing from a marriage, a family, a friendship, or from one’s Yiddishkeit, it is painfully obvious. Some might admit to remembering the lyrics of an old song, “Something inside has died, and I can’t hide it, and I just can’t fake it.”

Our communities – spanning the entire spectrum of Orthodoxy – are swarming with Jews of all ages and backgrounds who feel little, if any, connection to Hakadosh Baruch Hu (G-d). This is not a conclusion reached by way of scientific study or formal assessment, and it cannot be proved in a laboratory. It is, I believe, glaringly apparent to anyone who has taken a peak outside the bais medrash.

It is obvious to anyone who is not fooled by the billboard brand of frumkeit that is as shallow and empty as the so-called “Jewish” music blasting at our simchos. Forget about data. The “defectors” who simply couldn’t go on hiding and faking have shed the external uniforms of Yiddishkeit to become the object of our latest outreach efforts. These individuals comprise but a fraction of those who are simply unable, or who are afraid, to disengage, who listlessly drag their feet through the motions of avodas Hashem (service of G-d), while waiting desperately for the next “bain hazmanim” (intercession), “break in davening,” or any other distraction from the monotony of the charade.

This type of “disengagement” or “disconnection” has little to do with the intellect or with matters of theology. Thus, enjoying a fascinating shiur provides little assurance that one will find meaning in davening, or even behave in shul. It does not even prove that he believes in anything at all. Attending a seminar on the meaning of davening and the structure of the siddur, while important, has little to do with passionate tefilah. Many of our grandparents knew much less about davening than we do. They, however, knew G-d, cared deeply about Him and lived in an ongoing dialogue with Him.

This void is wreaking havoc upon the spiritual integrity of our communities. Yet, this very same void is itself responsible for a resurgence of spiritual longing among those who are honest enough to admit that something is so terribly wrong and broken that something must be done about it.

We are all familiar with a number of wonderful kiruv initiatives that were initially established as a means of reaching out to the assimilated and unaffiliated. While these are still the populations officially being targeted by kiruv seminars and shabbatons, a large percentage of attendees are actually (forgive me) FFB’s of all stripes and colors. Last year, I was asked to speak at such a convention and prepared a drasha geared for the uninitiated and newly observant. Upon arriving, it became quite apparent to me that the great bulk of those attending were Chassidish, Yeshivish, Heimish and Modern Orthodox. Their common denominator? The intense longing they had to connect to Hashem and the sincere need they had to understand why they were keeping mitzvos and making sacrifices for Yiddishkeit.

Many shared with me a sense of “lamah nigara” – why should we be kept back and denied the rich spirituality and the open and honest discussions about emunah typically offered to our secular brothers and sisters? Mind you, these were intelligent, observant individuals – most graduates of our finest yeshivos and seminaries. Why do so many of our fold flock to Carlebach minyanim on Friday night, or try valiantly to introduce some of the song and spirit into their shul’s davening? And these are not a fringe element of “holy hippies.” To dismiss or misinterpret these and many other phenomena of this genre would be both wrong and dangerous. Jews – healthy, learned, and sincere Jews – are aching for meaning and inspiration. They are not, G-d forbid, rejecting traditional Torah learning and halacha, nor do they seek to stir some revolution against the old guard. They are simply searching for the soul and light they are missing.

These various trends and behaviors should cause us to wonder whether or not the latest technology is truly the greatest problem facing Klal Yisroel. Judging by the number of proclamations, as well as their content and tone, one might conclude that our world would simply be perfect but for the Internet and all of the accompanying gadgetry that comes along with it. Life would return to the simpler and more civilized sixties and seventies. It is quite obvious that technology creates a serious threat to all that we’ve worked so hard to achieve, and we must support every effort to combat this malady. Yet, there is something I find profoundly pathetic in the great search for the perfect filter.

The Nesivos Sholom (Tzav) cites a mashal (parable) in which a certain fellow would like to build a housing development on a huge piece of property that he owns. The property, however, is covered by a forest, so he grabs an axe and begins to chop away. After falling a tree or two, he realizes that even if he were to have a whole crew of lumberjacks, this effort would take many years. It dawns on him that what he needs is a fire – a powerful, controlled conflagration that can destroy the forest in a matter of minutes. The Nesivos Sholom explains that it takes a fiery, passionate, and soulful Yiddishkeit to overcome the vast forests of filth and confusion that dominate our environment.

In every generation, the outside world stands as a tempting alternative to Yiddishkeit. History and common sense prove repeatedly that wielding the axe can never provide more than a short-term, superficial respite from the onslaught of secularism. Hashem sent the Baal Shem Tov and R’ Yisroel Salanter to set Klal Yisroel on fire! Only a deep, introspective, passionate Yiddishkeit bursting with a tangible consciousness of Hashem’s presence can expose the emptiness of any alternative.

Let’s face it: if on Monday the anti-Internet convention takes a powerful swipe at the latest technology, by Tuesday the kids (and the “young at heart”) will discover something better and faster. Many express shock upon hearing about the latest fad of Shabbos text messaging. But was this not inevitable? What exactly does Shabbos mean for these kids? In fact, what does Shabbos mean for many of their parents? Aside from some fuzzy familiarity with the do’s and don’ts, what is it about Shabbos that would make the pastime of Friday night texting abhorrent in their eyes? The shock is usually followed by a shaking of the head and the comment “but he (or she) is learning in a fine yeshiva!?” It is true. The yeshivos are wonderful, and they are filled with many talented and sincere rabbeim and teachers. But there is Torah and there is Torah.

The navi (prophet) Amos said (8:11), “Behold days are coming, says Hashem, when I will send a famine in the land – not a famine for bread nor thirst for water, but for hearing the word of Hashem.”

One of Ramchal’s greatest disciples, R’ Moshe Dovid Valli, zt”l, in his commentary Mashmiya Yeshua, explains that, in Tanach, Torah is often referred to as bread and water. During our long galus (exile), there have been an astonishing number of seforim written and an incredible amount of Torah taught. Is it really accurate to describe our present state as a famine or drought? Whoever is hungry for Torah and thirsting for its wisdom can simply dive into the infinite resources at his fingertips! R’ Moshe Dovid answers that the key lies in the final words of the verse; “but for hearing the words of Hashem”:

ומ”ש: “לא רעב ללחם ולא צמא למים” וגו’, הטעם הוא, שהרי בזמן הגלות והסיתום אין שום רעב וצמא ממימיה ולחמה של תורה, כי אדרבא לא נתחברו ספרים כל כך ארוכים ורבים כמו בזמן הגלות שרבו הדרשנים בהם ועשו ספרים הרבה אין קץ. אלא שיש בהם פטומי מלין הרבה מאד, והאמת שהוא הנקרא ממש “דברי ה’” הנה היא מעט מזעיר בכל ספר וספר. וזהו הטעם שישראל שהם זרע אמת אינם מוצאים קורת רוח ברוב הספרים שכתבו המחברים שלהם לפי סברתם ורבוי המחלקות ותהיא האמת נעדרת בהם, מפני הקליפה הסותמת שלא הניחה לעבור אורות האמת בעת שליטתה. וזהו שגורם: לא רעב ללחם ולא צמא למים כמ”ש, אלא רעב וצמא לשמוע את “דברי ה’”, שהוא סוד האמת ממש

Yes, never before have as many Jews had the privilege to learn Torah. Neither a famine nor drought has befallen us. Our generation is starving for “divrei Hashem” – the clear, deep, penetrating and powerful divrei Hashem.

The kids “off the derech” or “on the fringe” are not running away from Yiddishkeit. They have never met it. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov once told an atheist: “I also don’t believe in the God you don’t believe in!” Look into the eyes and hearts of the kids on the streets and in the clubs. You will see the hunger and thirst for the “divrei Hashem” – for the truth and nothing but the truth. Rav Kook wrote of the “chutzpah,” the insolence, that Chazal predicted would be rampant before the arrival of Moshiach. The time has come when many are simply refusing to settle for merely bits and pieces of the truth. If this demand is not satisfied, if our schools and homes ignore or misinterpret this hungry chutzpah as rejection, it will claim countless more victims.

“The human soul relishes sensation, not only if it is a pleasant feeling but for the very experience of stimulation. Sooner sadness or some deep pain rather than the boredom of no stimulation. People will watch distressing scenes and listen to heartrending stories just to get stimulation. Such is human nature. So he who is clever will fulfill this need with passionate prayer and Torah learning. But the soul whose divine service is without emotion will have to find stimulation elsewhere. It will either be driven to cheap – even forbidden – sensation or it will become emotionally ill from lack of stimulation.” (Tzav V’Zeruz, To Heal the Soul, page 23)

It is easy to blame the Internet for all our problems. It is much more difficult and painful to consider the possibility that we have failed to communicate the true inner joy and light of Yiddishkeit to a generation that is anxious and ready to hear it.

Recently, a serious, G-d-fearing young man, who teaches math in a yeshiva high school, told me that his students shared with him (though not with their Rebbe) their skepticism about G-d’s existence and the truth of Torah. Many simply admitted that they do not really believe in anything. Mind you, this is an afternoon, secular class. The boys had spent the entire morning engaged in sophisticated “lomdus,” (Talmudic analysis) and by four o’clock in the afternoon they are candidly sharing with a teacher their doubts in Torah MeSinai (divinity of the Torah). The teacher, a Baal Teshuva who fought long and hard to become who he is, shared with his class some of the thoughts and insights that inspired him on his journey to Yiddishkeit. The boys were very inspired, and asked to continue the discussion after school hours. The teacher told me that he went to the administrator but was told that these are issues that are best left to the home. Unlike him, he was told, these boys come from frum homes and have a “mesorah” (tradition) about these matters (i.e., they can be presumed to have each picked up the correct beliefs they need). Those who are intimately familiar with the situation know that this is far from an isolated or extreme incident.

What is to be done? As the questions is posed: “Are there any proven methods to inspire observant Jews experiencing a gap in religious enthusiasm?” The answer, I believe, is a resounding YES! We must pursue two approaches in meeting this challenge: one experiential and one educational.

Rav Yosef Ber Soloveitchik zt”l, often agonized over what he felt was his inability to impart the emotional world of Yiddishkeit to his students. In a lecture delivered in 1968, he said,

“In the past, this great experience of the tradition was not handed down from generation to generation through the medium of words. It was absorbed through osmosis; somehow, through silence. We used to observe. Today in America, however, and in the Western world, this is completely lost. The father cannot pass it on to his son. The father does not possess these emotions, because he never observed and experienced them. He cannot expect his son to receive something he himself does not possess. Therefore, it is up to the Yeshiva and the teacher to open up the emotional world of Judaism to the student…”

In this lecture, Rav Soleveitchik insisted that the only way to inspire the observant is by having them actually observe inspired Yiddishkeit in the parents, rabbis, teachers, and mentors of the generation.

“…I do not believe that we can afford to be as reluctant, modest, and shy today as we were in the past about describing our relationship with the Almighty. If I want to transmit my experiences, I have to transmit myself, my own heart. How can I merge my soul and personality with the students? It is very difficult. Yet it is exactly what is lacking on the American scene” (The Rav. R’ Aaron Rakefet, Vol. 2, pages 168-169).

In essence, there needs to be a fundamental reconstruction of the traditional model of the teacher/rabbi.

On another occasion, the Rav explained that, “the disconnection of modern man from living examples of religious experience has made self-revelation an educational necessity.” It is fascinating that the most sought-after speakers and teachers generally are not known for their scholarship. Their effectiveness is in their ability to inspire – not by dazzling their audiences with brilliant insights, but by sharing their own experiences and struggles in Yiddishkeit. Self-revelation has become an absolute educational necessity.

Obviously, this is difficult to implement. How can a rebbe or rabbi transform himself into such a person? There are no guidelines for this; it is usually a matter of one’s personal charisma. Nevertheless, there must be constant encouragement in this area. Again, it would be helpful to make use of the methods commonly used in Jewish outreach: storytelling, music, shabbatons or other such venues of inspiration. All of these have proven to be astonishingly effective in the world of kiruv, and the observant are desperately in need of this warm, exciting brand of experiential Yiddishkeit.

On the educational front, our institutions must begin to bring the Infinite into the four Amos (cubits) of the classroom and of the shul. Rebbeim, morahs, and rabbonim must be trained to impart the heart and soul of Yiddishkeit in a lucid and inspiring way. There are many extraordinary mashpiim and mashpios (influential role models) whose talents have been mostly tapped by the world of Jewish outreach. We (the “FFB’s”) must admit that many of our rabbis and educators are simply unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the language of emunah. There seems to be an expectation that emunah will be miraculously conveyed to baalei batim and students by means of some mysterious osmosis that is perhaps complemented by an occasional shabbaton or seminar. But, it ain’t happening.

The thirteen fundamental principles of faith must become a basic part of the curriculum in all schools and shuls. G-d must be brought back into our institutions and into our homes. It makes no difference if one place prefers a Litvishe G-d and the other a Chassidishe G-d. Open and frank discussions about faith and doubt must be encouraged – not feared and stymied. To ignore these critical dimensions of religious growth by claiming that it would supplant the traditional format of chinuch is, I submit, a grave error. All the regular Torah learning must surely continue. If anything, such learning will be energized and uplifted when taught to individuals who are struggling to get to the bottom of what this whole undertaking known as Yiddishkeit is about.

It would be wonderful if seforim such as Nesivos Sholom, Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh (Rav Itamar Schwartz) and those of R’ Shimshon Pincus, zt”l, would be adapted as a means of developing a curriculum to teach emunah, beginning even with young children.

I have often been asked whether it is really possible to teach emunah as a subject. The answer is no. A rabbi, rebbi, teacher, and parent must begin with the belief that emunah is inherent to the Jewish Soul. The child/student/congregant is already a maamin (believer). Rather than actually being taught, faith already lies in the neshama, but must be nurtured and drawn out through Torah, tefilah, and kiyum hamitzvos. There is a great thirst for pnimiyus HaTorah (the inner light of Torah) that cannot be ignored. It is a healthy sign of revival that must be used as a tool of inspiration in classrooms and congregations. We must begin.

I conclude with a story that my daughter, Suri, shared with me. It is apocryphal, but it hits the mark. Years ago in London, a poetry recital was taking place in a large auditorium. The finalists in the competition were given one last poem to recite – the twenty third Psalm. The obvious winner was a young gentleman whose rendition of the Psalm was perfect. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want… He restores my soul… and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” The audience responded with thunderous applause.

Suddenly, an elderly, Eastern European Jew called out, “Judges! Would it be alright if I had a chance to say the Psalm?” The judges were amused and invited him up to the stage. In his heavy accent, the gentleman made his way through the kapitel (chapter). A reverent hush fell over the crowd, and many people were moved to tears. The winner received his prize but followed the old man out to the street. “Rabbi, you know that you really deserve the prize.” “Not at all,” he responded. “I wasn’t competing. You did a fine job and it belongs to you.” The young man continued: “But rabbi, perhaps you could explain to me why it is that when I concluded the Psalm the audience cheered, but when you concluded many people were crying?” The alter Yid replied: “The difference between you and me is that I know the Shepherd.”

Hopefully, the recitation of our Yiddishkeit will soon be accompanied by an honest – if somewhat accented and imperfect – outpouring of the soul. The Ribbono Shel Olam is waiting for us, and the prize is redemption, waiting right there in His outstretched hand.

Rabbi Moshe Weinberger is the Rav of Congregation Aish Kodesh in Woodmere, New York.

Apply Behira to Our Subconscious to bring out the aspect of the Divine within us - our inner selves

2012-04-20T22:19:20Z

Even with a little depth, we may be missing something crucial! Until we apply our behira to our subconscious, we remain focused on being a body in time and space sorting through a range of natural responses to choose from as our options.

Rav Moshe Weinberger in his Das Es Atzmechah series Shiur 4 “The Winning Combination -Breaking the Code to Our Inner Selves” gives a comparison of explorers who never made the journey to America and could not agree that it was there or not. It was a question, but once the trip was made, America was found.

We have wealth within us, and we know where the safe is – we have inside of us a treasure – our soul. How do find out who we are?

When we begin to apply behira to our subconscious, with the intention to align our basic subconscious direction with Hashem’s will, we can begin the journey of focusing on Hashem and using our body within time and space to bring aspects of the Divine into the world. And this is our true self, for we are building our eternity with every choice to do so.

When we shift our focus every moment to willing to sanctify Hashem’s name, we begin a journey dedicated to bringing the natural personality with which we are born to a higher place. Psychology tells us that a person’s personality is formed by age 2 and developed to a large measure by age 5. Yet a person lives to 120! And we know that we are here to grow spiritually. How does this make sense, that before we have adult faculties, our personality is formed and yet we are to be judged after 120 based on who we become? It must be that we can affect ourselves. Granted, we may not be able to change the raw materials, the handicaps, the genetics, the personality characteristics, environmental factors that affect us. But WE CAN affect the emotional charges that we associate with who we are and what happens to us. And, in fact, we come to see that the personalities, the environment and the circumstances were all Divinely orchestrated uniquely for us to have the opportunity to apply our behira for the purpose of bringing our emotional charges from whatever negative connections there may be and whatever erroneous beliefs we may have formed, to love and fear and the desire to emulate Hashem.

During the time of the omer, we work each day on improving seven iterations of seven middos. Chazal tell us that we have the ability to change during this time, with Hashem’s lovingkind assistance, to an even larger degree than in Elul. Let’s begin the journey to uncover our true inner being and bring to light His thiretten attributes of mercy. We are up against an angel of Hashem, the Soton, so we need Hashem’s help! With behira, we can identify the point within us where we are experiencing the challenge and ask Hashem to lead us in the path we wish to go, to choose soul over body and sanctify His name. Slowly, day by day, we can improve.

May Hashem find our efforts meritorious to attach success and may we be zocheh to redemption.

Podcast - Example using the Toolbox - Make our ratzon Hashem's ratzon and Sanctify His Name

2012-04-18T16:47:48Z

Once a person feels that they have behira, then whatever the initial circumstances were, it is possible to take action that will shine Hashem's light into the world.

May we all grow in clarity to help us sanctify His name!

Toolbox explained - we are our ratzon - make our ratzon His ratzon

2012-04-17T20:45:11Z

The emotional bonding that we have with negative occurrences is rooted in subconscious rewarding payoffs like “I am right!” “He is wrong” “I have to protect myself from her!” The bad news is that these subconscious rewarding payoffs are human nature and operate without our full permission. The good news is that we can bring ourselves to freedom from them with Hashem’s help through emunah and through use of His gift to us, free willed choice!

Who is behind nature? Hashem. And that includes human nature. It includes every iota of energy and power in the universe. There is no other Gd, there are no independent powers. There is only one address for every occurrence and energy and emotion and thought. Hashem is the power.

Hashem invests a spark of His attributes within us and instructs us to develop and shine out into the world His 13 attributes of Mercy. We all have in common human nature and a spark of the Divine attributes. And we all have our subjective emotions and circumstances. And Hashem gives us free choice.

If I were to say to a tree – be a flower! Or to a mouse – be a cat! It would not have any effect. But when I say to Hashem I see that my nature is lacking and falls short of the thirteen attributes of mercy and I see that my nature is unpleasant and I ask that You Hashem please help me – I see that the emotional bonding I have to cling to unpleasant subconscious payoffs is holding me back from being more like You! I love You! I want to be like You! I know You are totally behind my nature, including every occurrence that triggers my emotions and thoughts, and that this is my opportunity to choose to let You know that with the soul You invested in me, I want to emulate You and Your Will because I want to be close to You and just like You.

Hashem I know You are behind everything and that without Your help I won’t be able to shift the emotional bonding I have, for that emotional bonding is a glue You built into us to give us choice and challenge. I want to harvest that powerful glue! I direct that the part of my soul that is sticking to negativity and unpleasant subjective experience no longer be glued there. Instead I want it glued to loving and fearing and emulating You! Please shift it for me! Please help me uncorrupt my primal will, the strongest subconscious part of human nature that belongs to You and through which You glue us naturally to the yetzer hara! I have free will and I choose for You to move my primal will to Your Will, for that is what I know through my emunah is the only truth!

It is with great emunah that a person applies sincere effort. It is because Hashem loves us that He grants success and gives more control over our subconscious into our free willed choice.

When we harbor negatively charged emotions, we are creating negative spiritual beings THAT BEAT US UP, NOT THE ONE WE ARE UPSET WITH We are producing clouds above our head that are keeping out Hashem’s love and brachas.

When we experience any surge of emotion, re-direct it immediately to “How can I sanctify Hashem’s name?” To stay calm, remember that everything Hashem sends to us while on our pathway of subjective reality is for our growth and development in emunah and in emulating His attributes. When we know the energy is from Hashem, tell Him so and that it is your wish to use this energy to sanctify His name. If another person is involved who is the trigger of the negative experience, instead of stewing or feeling afraid or hurt or angry, give a bracha, such as “May we all grow in clarity that we are here to sanctify Hashem’s name.”

In summary, the soul of a Jew yearns to connect to Hashem. It does so through mitzvahs, learning Torah, and emulating Hashem’s attributes. Each of these things requires us to be self-negating and choose Hashem’s ethics and values over the natural emotions and constraints.

Sometimes the ego and body trap the soul with incredibly believable erroneous beliefs.

The intellect is above it and understands that the erroneous belief is a GARMENT and not the soul. In fact, the intellect loves to find areas in our heart that are pockets of soul clinging to erroneous beliefs. The intellect loves to draw down will power and uncorrupt our hearts by freeing the soul to re-connect to truth.

When we ask Hashem to help us shift our soul to loving Him, fearing Him and emulating Him and we direct our soul with our intellect, expressing our choice, Hashem helps. 100% of outcome is Hashem 100% of the time, so we must comprehend our role as to CHOOSE sincerely knowing that our Partner, Hashem is waiting for us to see our personality flaw, genetic or otherwise, and ask Him. It is ok. He creates our personality. He put it there. He wants to see what we will do with the corrupted primal will, live it and stay disconnected from Him or choose to re-direct it out of love and yearning for connection to Him..

If every one of us does this, imagine how quickly all the negativity in the world would dissipate. We are creating it! We can instead shine an incredible light!

A Bracha - Reflection on Passover 5772 and our ongoing journey through the omer

2012-04-15T21:34:34Z

I give a bracha that we all continue to grow in clarity

1. that Hashem is sustaining our individual human nature just as He sustains all of nature and

2. that our personalities and circumstances and subjective reality is a Divinely orchestrated individualized unique pathway upon which to use the Divine gift of free willed choice to direct our hearts to align with Hashem’s attributes of Mercy and Will, and

3. that we can have a "good" relationship* with our most difficult emotions** by comprehending*** negative emotion and experience as opportunities to tell Hashem that we know He is behind the matter, that everything Hashem does is for our ultimate growth and development in strengthening our emunah and emulating His thirteen attributes of mercy, and to please lead us in the path we wish to go which is lovingly and gently unify with Him and improve our attributes and middos.

May we be zocheh that our efforts are granted success by Hashem, creating tikkun, yeud, eternity and salvation.

* we can be understanding and loving to our limited selves - body, ego and limited analytical mind - while seeing ourselves as a soul - from a more transcendant place
** feelings that simply would be disempowering and negative
*** from the soul's desire to connect with Hashem - to be more transcendant

Daily Hisbodidus

Thank you Hashem for the flow of thought, emotion, and consciousness to this otherwise inanimate body that houses it, may Your name be praised, and for the ability to perceive, experience and learn, for the gift of free willed choice, and for the capacity to discern and integrate. Please flow through me unlimited will power to direct the recipe of personality, circumstance and emotional flow You send through my heart each day so that through the use of conscious choice which You bestow upon me, I can release the innate natural gift of strong subconscious deep emotional bonding from imperfection (unreality, basic human nature) to perfection (reality of the Divine mind, connection to Divine attributes), with the desiring result being that all of my emotions are directed first to loving and fearing and emulating You,. May Your Will and Attributes as expressed in Torah be fully conscious within me and grant me success in bringing Your Attributes and Will to visibility in my actions, my relationships, my thoughts, and my emotions. May I be strengthened with unlimited conscious free will to approach my day from loving awareness of choosing what is pleasing to You

Occupy Our Emotions Process

Permalink: lvracha.com/2012/01/05/toolbox-updated-jan-5-2012----10th-of-teves-5772.aspx

Sefiras HaOmer Week two - Gevurah - Self-Discipline and Emunah

2012-04-12T19:10:15Z

May the insights and learning here be for a refuah shelama for HaRav Shlomo Leib ben Miriam

On Friday night we will begin the second week of the omer where we work on the midda of gevurah, including seven iterations of it. Chesed of gevurah, gevurah of gevurah, tiferet of gevurah, netzach of gevurah, hod of gevurah, yesod of gevurah and malchut of gevurah. Yitzchok Aveinu demonstrated this midda. What does it mean for us?

Below are clips from Rabbi Akiva Tatz (entire shiur can be heard on Simple to Remember http://www.simpletoremember.com/media/a/the974generations-of-souls/) and from Rabbi Shlomo Brevda (audio library available at a cost at www.torahmedia.com/flexcart/search.php?evid=jb51s845q6 shiur numbers 750, 751a 751b) Because of the proprietary nature, only clips of Rabbi Brevda are provided to share essential information and the reader is invited to download from Rav Brevda's site the entire shiur ($4 for 750, $2 for each of 751a and 751b))

In Rabbi Brevda shiur 750, the first set of clips, Rabbi Brevda draws an analogy between the exodus from Mitzrayim and current times. Specifically he compares the end of slavery and six months later, the exodus, and why the plague of darkness took 4/5ths of the Jewish people's lives to our day today being a similar period, a test, after the Holocaust and before the redemption. This is an urgent message given the terrible threats against Israel and crimes against our people worldwide.

Rabbi Tatz's shiur is specifically designed for the Omer Week 2 as he explains ein od milvado through self-annulment and the use of gevurah towards developing the crucial midda we need to actively moment by moment fulfill our role of eved Hashem. In the clips from 751a and 751b, Rabbi Brevda introduces and explains in detail regarding why we work hard for Pesach, how it is relevant to our being able to serve Hashem and exactly what that means. He explains that there is a huge difference between being an employee and being an eved of Hashem, which boils down to a level of will and desire that perhaps we have not yet begun to approach,

Rabbi Tatz's clips follow Rabbi Brevda's clips on Pesach and give details on how to do what Rabbi Brevda teaches us is so crucial - to uncorrupt our basic will by wanting to serve Hashem at every moment. Rabbi Tatz explains our use of self-control as a rectification for Adom and the 974 generations of souls.

Enjoy
http://www.moment-of-prayer.com/lvracha/brevdalostclip1.mp3
http://www.moment-of-prayer.com/lvracha/brevdalostclip2.mp3
http://www.moment-of-prayer.com/lvracha/brevdalostclip3.mp3
http://www.moment-of-prayer.com/lvracha/brevdalostclip4.mp3

http://www.moment-of-prayer.com/lvracha/brevdaaclip1.mp3
http://www.moment-of-prayer.com/lvracha/brevdaaclip2.mp3
http://www.moment-of-prayer.com/lvracha/brevdaaclip3.mp3
http://www.moment-of-prayer.com/lvracha/brevdaaclip4.mp3

http://www.moment-of-prayer.com/lvracha/brevdabclip1.mp3
http://www.moment-of-prayer.com/lvracha/brevdabclip2.mp3
http://www.moment-of-prayer.com/lvracha/brevdabclip3.mp3
http://www.moment-of-prayer.com/lvracha/brevdabclip4.mp3
http://www.moment-of-prayer.com/lvracha/brevdabclip5.mp3
http://www.moment-of-prayer.com/lvracha/brevdabclip6.mp3

http://www.moment-of-prayer.com/lvracha/tatzselfcontrol.mp3
http://www.moment-of-prayer.com/lvracha/tatzeinodmilvado.mp3