Nourishment for the Neshama

Reflections on Elul 5768 before 5769

Shuli Kleinman — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:33:45 GMT

Reflections on Elul 5768 before 5769

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shuli Kleinman — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 09:45:38 GMT

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reflections on Mortality

Shuli Kleinman — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 09:46:57 GMT

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

STOP

THINK

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A person who uses his intelligence, love and creativity can become someone in this world - a Gadol or if not in learning, a big force in the business or professional world, and yes, this too can be precious to a person. We try to be who we are until we can’t anymore. So, if we live because the Creator sends us knowledge, and we conduct ourselves and protect and develop ourselves with the love and talent that the Creator gives us, why on earth when it comes to defending ourselves do we rely on our own hand and not continue to pursue means that the Creator would suggest?

For example, when mankind has disputes, we resort to courts, which the Creator has instructed us to do, but then people might resort to other, lower tactics stemming from revenge, which could even lead to taking the life of another, as is often the case in domestic disputes. When countries have disputes, we use politics, but as we see in the current times, people are resorting to dramatic tactics to influence the emotions involved with the politics, which has led to war and much injury and death. When we deviate from the Creator’s instructions and turn to our own instincts and ideas, what are we really doing? We must be true to the same parts that give us pride, purpose and pleasure in living even when there are disputes. We must recognize that all of mankind is ONE. We, mankind, are all connected through the Creator. What has meaning to all of us is OUR connection to what the Creator sends to us - our very lives. And likewise with every living person. When we need Him the most, we must turn to Him and NOT to our own man-made ideas that stem from our physical side. Yes, our politics are influenced by emotions, but our emotions stem from our thoughts and our thoughts are hooked into fear of losses, and it is loss that makes us forget that there is only One Creator and mankind is ONE. When we think there is more than One, we go astray and, instead of emulating His Kindness, Love, and Mercy we cannot help but emulate our own anger, self-interest and limited misconceptions.

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

I beseech every living person:

STOP. Be who you are. Believe what you like. But think and know that it is YOUR puzzle piece and it does not entitle you to disrespect or harm another puzzle piece. Even if that other person is, in your opinion, totally wrong. He is still a puzzle piece placed there by the One Creator who will bring that person to justice in the best way for that person. It is not the job of man but the job of The Creator to rectify every soul, either in this world or the next.

Behind every face is the Creator. Respect every person. Live peaceably. Another person need not be a threat to anyone. Forego idols and ideology that can’t be true – give it the stand next to the grave test. Be honest. If I only earn another million, I will earn eternity? Hardly.

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

THINK

PRAY SINCERELY that He make Himself visible in our world

And then

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

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

Shuli Kleinman — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 19:08:47 GMT

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

Shuli Kleinman — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 17:00:06 GMT

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

Shuli Kleinman — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 16:35:58 GMT

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

Shuli Kleinman — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 16:27:31 GMT

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

Shuli Kleinman — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 16:42:33 GMT

Reflections on Respect

Shuli Kleinman — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:59:27 GMT

One of the most amazing realizations that I have had in my journey through Torah and mitzvohs is learning about all the different types of Jews, their minhagim and their chumros. For a people who all together make up only 3% of the world population (97% of the world is not Jewish, and of the 15 million Jews, if 1 million are Torah observant -.0016% of the world population-which means that Torah observant Jewish people are statistically insignificant), within our .0016% of the world population we are hardly homogenious. As a person who found Torah and mitzvahs as an adult, the numerous variations and strongly held opinions came as a surprise.

If you speak to non-Torah and mitzvah Jewish people, you are likely to hear within their language when talking about Torah and mitzvah observant people a negativity, a criticism that I attribute to cognitive dissonance. At some level, non-observant people know there is something that they are not doing and they have rationalized it and they hit hard to make it seem to themselves as though they have a good reason. By making an emotional issue out of it, they can safely take their position within their opinion and close the book to discussion. Don’t confuse me with the facts – I feel emotional about this! What can a person say? Nothing. Yet we know that it is a psychological truth that when we speak negatively about an authority, we not only undermine what we are speaking about but we also undermine our own authority. How? By utilizing harsh words as tactics to distinguish our position, we actually teach this method to those listening. By discrediting the authority of Torah, we teach that it is okay to use these tactics to discredit what we do believe in! Which part of any ideology cannot be scrutinized and criticized and made an emotional issue? When we attach negative emotions to any level of Torah and mitzvohs, we undermine the whole religion.

In comes the need to instill in ourselves respect. We are viewed in Shemayim as one people. We all need each other. One is not right and the other wrong. We are one and we are viewed that way, as a whole. There is halacha. Then there are people who choose to take a step above halacha. And there are those who might go further still. It is best for each one of us to see every Jew as following a positive path in his or her relationship to Hashem.

What are we really? From young to old we are skeletons at different stages of getting there. Our physicality is a shell into which Hashem gives strength and intelligence. The only thing I am completely sure of is that Hashem did not give us strength or intelligence so that we could judge others, claim we are deserving of respect, or deny His existence. Hashem gave us strength and intelligence to serve Him. If each Jew accepts this, then the manner of another Jew’s observance does not affect him. Each Jew is on his own path in reaching closeness to Hashem.

There is the halacha. Then there are those who wish to take a step above the halacha. We do not need to judge either ourselves or others as right or wrong in comparison to each other. One’s practices do not impact on another’s. Each forges his or her own relationship with Hashem and together, we are one. Yaakov had 12 different children. We are one. We can be who we are without emotionally or verbally condemning those who do things differently.

And in this merit, may we bring shelamos to our people and may Hashem redeem us.

Meaning of Trust Class 1 by Rebbetzin Heller

Shuli Kleinman — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:12:36 GMT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next. Everything has limits. Sometimes a person thinks as follows. Yes I believe that this is for my good, but I can’t bear it. I believe it is for my good, I have no doubts that it is for my good, but I can’t handle it. The reason why we say I can’t handle it is because we assume that the way we feel this minute is the way we will feel a year from now, and ten years from now. Let me illustrate how this works. Imagine a 7 month old baby going to the doctor for an inoculation. He screams and cries and does not want it. In the end, the mother holds him down and he gets the injection. He did not want it, and if he could talk, he would have tried to explain to his mother that no one has small pox and that he doesn’t need it. The baby can’t understand that there is no small pox because of inoculations. The baby wants to go with his own experience, not with the mother’s intellectual understanding. What happened here is that the baby knows his own experience but doesn’t know where it goes. He is too shallow, he is a baby. Every experience we have in life has intrinsic purpose. The reason this is simplistic is because if it were possible to give the baby the inoculation without the suffering we would do it. But our possibilities are limited. Hashem’s possibilities are not limited. Anything we have to experience we have to experience as it is. The suffering may be part of the tikkun inherently. Now a more sophisticated example.

Everything has a limit. My neighbor’s father in law was in a concentration camp.
Before he got there he suffered terribly. The week before that he lost his business, his family, his home, his freedom, his appearance, everything was gone in a week. It was the worst week a person could experience and survive. He got to the camp and he was assigned to a bunk house, three layers deep with three in each bed. He got up and found himself in bed with another man and a corpse. Just a week ago he was in his own bed, with sheets that match, with blankets, with his wife. This is where he is now. Something like that could drive a person mad. His bunk mate said don’t say anything because if you tell them that he is dead they will put another person here. That was his greeting. The next day he and the other man were assigned work and it was work that had no meaning. They had to break rocks using sledge hammers. The other man was so embittered that with every hammer blow he would curse G-d. The hero of our story didn’t correct him, he didn’t give him mussar, he didn’t see this man as someone who could hear, but he didn’t curse G-d either.

Time passes, the liberation takes place. My neighbor was in mid-town with his father-in-law, who at this point was quite an old man, and he is holding onto his arm. He suddenly breaks away from him and begins crossing the street in the middle of midtown traffic. He sees another old man on the other side of the street and he says, Yankl is it you? He recognized him after 60 years. And he said, it is. So there is embracing, weeping, and then the questions. Where has your life taken you? After the war, I got to the US, I remarried, I had children and grandchildren, I did well financially (this man is one of the people who developed Monsey), and where has your life taken you? And Yankl said I did nothing. You know what I have done these last 60 years? Nothing. Never remarried, never had a real world job. And he is not the only survivor who could answer like that. This should tell you what the suffering in the camps were like. You would think that the man who made something of himself would have said, well why didn’t you do anything? No, he understood him.   It was the man who did nothing with himself who asked how did you start again, how did you do it? And he said I want to tell you something. When you were cursing G-d with every hammer blow I didn’t say anything, maybe I should have, maybe it was wrong, I don’t know. But you know what I was thinking? With every hammer blow I would look up to the sky and I would see the heavens and I would say Hodu Lashem Kitov, I will praise G-d because He is good. Humans are terrible, my life may be horrific at this moment but G-d is good and this is going to end. Evil doesn’t endure. This is a challenge and a test, and I am going to make it. And he did.

No person can add or subtract from what Hashem wants for you. If Hashem wants you to have little, no person can increase or lessen that amount that Hashem wants for you. And what should come later, nobody could make it come earlier, nor that which should come later to happen now. Everything is Hashem’s decree and His Will.

The fifth way of thinking. It is knowing that Hashem sees your heart. What does that mean? You can go through the motions of trusting Hashem but not trust Him in your heart. And when you doomed and you say, where is the simcha, the answer is it was never in you. For example, someone suffers, they lose their job, the perfect job, that they love. They are fired and not because of incompetence, but because their boss’s sister in law needs a job. Could this happen in real life? Yes. So they will say things like, I know it is all l’tova, but like I really don’t see why this had to happen..translate- I don’t see that this is l’tova, I would like to see it, but I don’t see it. You can’t fool anyone. You have to move yourself emotionally. The way you do this is through imagery and this is why the bitachon stories are so important. Hashem knows if you have trust in Him, if your trust is full, if there is no deceit. A servant who is serving a human master can fool his master and make him think that he is serving him with a full heart even though he hates him. The master will do good to him because he thinks the servant loves him. But this can’t happen with the Creator. He knows the inclinations in our hearts and our thoughts. He knows that which is higher, meaning that which we would like to be, and that which is lower, that which we really are, and the part of us that believes and the part of us that denies. And therefore we can’t deceive Hashem. It means that if we are unhappy because our trust is not full, we have to try to change our trust, not just to change our vocabulary of trust. Rav Wolbe says that they way you move things from your mind to your heart is through imagery. The more you can affirm that Hashem is there for you, and this has to do – the Amshenever Rebbe said even say one blessing on food a day with joy – he doesn’t say with kavannah- he says with joy, enjoy the grape, look at it, see its color, its texture, its smell, think about it. It is enough to make you love Hashem. But you have to have a tangible image.

Six – you can’t say that you trust Hashem but you don’t do what He tells you, it doesn’t make sense. I trust You but I trust myself more? I trust you but I have to do things according to my judgment and not Yours? The acid proof of trust is when you want to do what Hashem wants of you. He doesn’t do what Hashem warns us against doing. When you want Hashem to do what you want, if you make your will Hashem’s will, if you want to flow with Hashem’s will, you will find that your will becomes Hashem’s will. What does that mean? It means as follows: let’s go back to the person who lost her job, the job she loved. She could at that point instead of saying, oh I love being unemployed it is the best thing that has happened, which is just being dishonest, she can affirm what we said in the first idea, which is that there is compassion here, I am going to look for it. What should I be doing with this spare time, what could I become at this moment? Now the answers could be as varied as there are varied people in the world. But at that point, the person could say I am becoming who Hashem wants me to be at this moment, I am going with that. And at that point, Hashem will make it that you will realize that His will and your will are the same thing.

Negate your will before His will, don’t be rigid, inflexible, and Hashem will cause other people’s wills to be negated before you. But when a person trusts Hashem and does not do what He commands, he is a fool, an idiot. What hope is there for a flatterer, someone who thinks that he can fool Hashem by using the vocabulary of trust without living it, is Hashem going to listen to him? Look how we can be, you can have a person who is a thief, a murderer, who is an adulterer, who swears falsely, who worships idols, and he comes and he stands before Me in My house (meaning in the Bais HaMikdosh).

I want to talk about hypocrisy for a minute because it is the great enemy of joy and trust. Let’s start with the simple one, a thief. I am going to give you an example of a simple one that people like us could at least consider, not that we should or would actually do this. You buy an air ticket. Let’s say you have never been to Israel. Now there are all sorts of ways of getting to Israel now a days for free. Birthright is one of them. As far as I know, the upper age limit in birthright is 26. and you are not that far from 26 and you are good at graphics, and they don’t make you show your passport, they just make you show your birth certificate let’s say. I don’t know that this is the case. So you doctor it a little bit because you know, what is a year? Now that is not something you are going to do and I will tell you why. It requires too much work, it makes you face up to what you are doing as forgery. But let’s say it is like this, that you are on the phone with the person. She fills out the form with you on the phone, Social security number, address,name, education. Then she says, date of birth. You give her your actual date of birth and she says you are over by two months, you know what, no one has to know you were born in October. You were born in August, just between you and me, and you want that trip. Why do you want the trip? You want the inspiration, you want to come closer to your roots, you want it for spiritual reasons. I am sure that there are some people who would have no trouble saying, yes, whatever you want. Why? Because desperation is a real factor. If I don’t do the wrong thing, I will never get what I want. Meaning you are unwilling to trust Hashem to decide what course you should take. Maybe you don’t need to be there, maybe you need to be here.   Maybe He will get you there some other way, maybe He won’t. But you don’t have to be desperate. Where He wants to take you is a better place than you will ever take yourself. There is no need for desperation. All theft that is done by people who want to trust Hashem is done out of perceived desperation. Let’s go further.

You steal and you murder. I used to think because I read the newspapers that murder is more frequent than it actually is. I think it was in Newseek..the amount of murders by gunfire that take place in the US per day. I thought it would be like hundreds and hundreds. The average per day in the US was under 80. First surprise. Next surprise, I was sure that all of these murders by gunshots were about gang violence and drugs. NO! The vast majority of them were domestic. The third thing that I thought and I was wrong about is that I was sure the murderers had terrible regret once they had been tried and convicted. Most of them had no regrets. Why am I telling you this? The reason is that when people do murder, a lot of the time they do it out of emotional desperation. What do I do, let him get away with it? And again, Hashem does not live in your heart if desperation lives there. The same holds true with adultery. People have affairs because they feel desperate. I’ll never be happy without him or her, and you know what? You will be. The same holds true for everything false, oaths, idol worship. So people want two things at once. They want what they want and they will do anything they have to do to get it but they also want closeness to Hashem, and sincerely so. So they will steal and they will also go to the Bais HaMikdosh. It is not because they don’t believe. It is because they want what they want but they also want closeness to Hashem. We are very complex. So he says a person has to be wise enough to realize that this is hypocritical and that they really don’t trust Hashem to give them what they want.

Is this house the cave where burglers hide, that is what my name is called before you?

Seventh, which is the last way of thinking that we have to learn to adapt… we have to know that the Creator made man in a way that he can do many things. And Hashem made it that in order to get what we want, and the example that he is giving is parnassah, that we have to do many things, all sorts of work. So it isn’t as though work is there because we have to get parnassah. NO. Hashem makes it that we have abilities and in order to express those abilities He made it that parnassah comes through work. If every matter that a person needs, their food, their clothing, without any effort, he would be cut off from many mitzvoth. He can only give tzedakah if he earns the money otherwise the tzedakah has no meaning. You have to identify with the money, see it as the fruit of your efforts, but give it away any way and then it has meaning. Refraining from theft or from desire only has meaning if you have earned and you want more. And without needing to work, even our bitachon would have no meaning. Therefore, Hiskiachu hid the book of healing, there was a book called the book of healing that all of the cures for all of the illnesses were there, and Hiskiachu hid it so we would trust Hashem and not our abilities. We have to struggle. We have three reasons for struggle now, expressing our potential, doing mitzvohs, and trusting in Hashem. And if a person did not have to work or struggle for his sustenance, his energies which are not channeled will cause him to sin. Yisroel became fat and kicked against Hashem. And our Rabbis say, it is good to work and to learn, we have to struggle because that is what keeps us from sin. We have enormous inner potentials and they have to find expression. Better they should find expression through contributing to the world than through nonsense or worse.

Next time we will review these seven means of thought and we will talk about how to apply them concretely. Meantime have a joyous week.

Reflections on Yom Kippur 5768

Shuli Kleinman — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 11:49:54 GMT

Reflections on Yom Kippur 5768

During the course of davening today, Yom Kippur, and because of reports in the newspapers of open threats against Eretz Yisroel, the idea came to me to continue certain prayers in this davening through at least Hoshana Rabba.

The year 5768 is 68 years after Germany invaded Poland, in September 1939 when the year was 5700, leaving only 300 years left on the Hebrew calendar. This rememberance was in my mind during davening, during the reading of the Martyrs, and during the reading of Yonah.

The prayers below reflect the sections that stood out to me in the context of our condition today and our condition 68 years ago which began the destruction of millions of innocent, holy souls, killed for no reason other than they were Jews, senseless loss and destruction that ripped away from us our great-grandparents, our relatives, cousins, Rebbes, role models and more. Bereft. For what? May their memory be a blessing. Eretz Yisroel, formed as a secular state, followed this terrible loss. A secular state that Baruch Hashem continues today, although when have we had peace? Perhaps we can beseech Hashem in the prayers below to spare us now, to bring Moshiach, to overlook our faults and our failings on their account, that their loss of life and our pain over their loss be credited to our spiritual account so that we may be spared today any pain due us for our failures and inadequacies.

In the Musaf service, there is a hymn that starts Asher Aimoten, a mystical hymn that expresses the magnificent vision of a devout poet:

Though thou art revered by the faithful and mighty angels,
Formed of ice and of flashing light, for thy awe is on them,
Yet Thou desirest praise from dust-made men dwelling on earth,
Who fall short and are poor in good deeds- and that is thy fame!

Though thou art revered by roaring camps of angelic hosts,
In the assemblies of myriads, for thy awe is on them, Yet thou desirest praise from men whose glory fades away,
Who lack sense and contemplate evil-and that is thy fame!

Though thou are revered by the widely extended heavens,
The serene celestial spaces, for thy awe is on them,
Yet thou desirest praise from men who are tainted with sin,
Caught in a snare, steeped in bitterness – and that is thy fame!

Though thou art revred by the lofty and resplendent skies,
The firmament and the floating clouds, for thy awe is on them,
Yet thou desirest praise from men impure and full of grief,
Faithless thought ended by thee from birth – and that is thy fame!

Though thou art revered by those exclaiming Holy, Blessed,
Six-winged angels with four faces, for thy awe is on them,
Yet thou desirest praise from men worthless and deceptive,
Far from truth and void of righteousness-and that is thy fame!

Though thou art revered by sparkling angels and water-paths,
Exalted hills and high mountains, for thy awe is on them,
Yet thou desirest praise from men who are mere fleeting breath,
Grass that withers, a passing shadow, a fading flower.

Their breath of life departs and they are summoned to justice.
They die by thy decree, and are revived by thy mercy.
They acclaim thee, Eternal One! Thy glory is on them.

From the Martyr service:

Mourn, O my people, not yet bereft; their blood was shed for a worthless whim; they surrendered their lives to sanctify the name of G-d.

From the Book of Yonah

Then the Lord said: “You would spare the gourd, though you spent no work upon it, though you did not make it grow; it sprang up in a night and perished in a night. Should I not then spare the great city of Nineveh with more than a hundred and twenty thousand human beings, who do not know their right hand from their left, and much cattle?”

In our times, how many of us truly know our right hand from our left regarding Judaism, closeness to Hashem and spiritual goals? I plan to say the Asher Aimoten to plead with Hashem to spare us, that no harm befall us.

And may this prayer be a connection to our ancestors and to Jewish history starting with Avraham Aveinu, and to our forefathers to whom Hashem promised that we would be redeemed. May we be saved even if we have no merits, and may the Geulah Shelama come to reveal His Glory to all the world, with no harm to any Jew, nullifying all false prophets and idols.

Rabbi Ephraim Wachsman Teshuva Drasha 5768

Shuli Kleinman — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 23:24:58 GMT

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Rebbetzin Heller on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur for 5768 Audio File 48 minutes

Shuli Kleinman — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 23:21:02 GMT

Reflections on Elul - Paying our debts

Shuli Kleinman — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 23:21:22 GMT

In Rabbi Cohen’s shiur (Aug 21 2007 on Naaleh.com = notes on this blog) introducing Mesillas Yesharin, he delineates revenge as the dividing line between the animal soul and the tzelem elokim. He defines those who are involved with revenge as lowly and animalistic. Instead, we are to say thank you to those who hurt, insult and damage us, and this indicates our refinement and identifies us from our tzelem elokim.

This is not to be dismissed. The more I think about it, the more urgently I realized how central this is.

Avraham Aveinu’s midda of chesed is our beginning. Avraham recognized Hashem and that our purpose is to serve Hashem and emulate His middos. On his merits, we are still here, and we, through our acts of chesed, we replenish ourselves and our world by using our free will to choose to attach to the heritage established by Avraham. Should we, with our free will, choose otherwise, we hang loose like a broken branch swinging from the tree in the wind. To stay spiritually attached to the tree, we are instructed to choose chesed and say thank you to Hashem when we are wronged or injured through the acts of others.

In his shiur on Elul, Rabbi Mordechai Miller from Gateshead (Talmud of Rabbi Dessler and Rebbe to Rabbi Akiva Tatz) discusses how it is hardly a coincidence that we read Shoftim in Elul. Hashem Who is righteous loves justice. Rabbi Miller helps us understand that, although we would much prefer Hashem to be a bale chesed with us, overlooking our faults, not exacting punishment, in fact, it is an act of kindness from Hashem that He treats us justly in order that we may receive the reward for our mitzvohs in the world to come. He explains that we cannot receive any of our reward until our debt is paid. That is, it is not like a cut in salary – instead of $10 million we only get $8 million because our averahs were subtracted out. We get $0 until we pay our debt.

Rabbi Miller explains that when a righteous person pays off his debt, he feels joyous. In the month of Elul, when the King is in the field, he instructs us to receive our suffering and losses and frustrations, handle them appropriately, and realize with happiness that we are paying our debt for our inevitable errors and averahs so that Hashem can give us a chasima v’kasima tova on Rosh Hashana. We will, through these sufferings in Elul, have paid our debts. And, if we handle our sufferings and losses in a manner that facilitates further spiritual growth, we also acquire merits in the process. Every moment can be a gift.

But when we are in a time of stress, loss, suffering, damage and the like, we do not feel like saying thank you – we feel like getting back at the person who inflicted it. Sue! Complain! Speak lashon hara! Stab him in the back! Take! All good advice from our best friend and lawyer, the ever-present yetzer hara, who surely makes much more sense than saying thank you Hashem. And there in is the fulcrum, the central point, the decision, the behira, our eternity, our identity and our future. In that subconscious emotional moment where we want to throttle the one in front of us lies eternity and connection and significant self-definition and self-esteem. Which one do we choose? Stand up for ourselves at any cost OR Thank you Hashem?

We feel lack or loss. Surely we can protect our boundaries in loving ways. The issue becomes – do we violate someone else’s boundaries? Rabbi Cohen’s shiur triggers the thought that we can never get so wrapped up in the story line that we forget to connect to Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. We are, in fact, obligated to Hashem. What are we obligated to? The mitzvahs are connections. We are obligated to connection and service – and why are we so obligated? By pursuing connection, we fulfill Hashem’s purpose in Creation – to give us reward. We are in the corridor where we earn our eternal reward. Rabbi Miller tells us to be happy when we pay our debt to Hashem in Elul because in this way, He is able to give us eternal reward and a chasima v’kasima tova. We suffer. We have loss. What are we permitted to do? Where do we draw the line?

We draw the line at not hurting others for revenge, for then we hurt ourselves. Let’s consider this from the famous Bar Kamsa story. Rebbetzin Heller’s in depth analysis of this story (July 1 2007) concludes with the following:
"However, when a person relates to someone on a physical and material level, they are going to end up with Kamisa (grasping, taking) and I will tell you why. The physical world is really limited. I am sure you observed this when you were a young child, that if you have two waffles and you give one away now you only have one. So the more materialistic and less spiritual people are, the more inevitably they see everyone else as a competitor. As soon as you see everyone else as a competitior, me against them, that means I am not them, we are separate and we are at each man for himself and that is the source of sinas chinum., where we distance from a person because we despise them, not because we don’t like what they have done, but because we see them as a threat, a threat to something that we hold precious…could be our ego, or something material. But either way the source of it is always not seeing the other person’s spirituality .
There is no king of locusts because a king would gather them all together by catching them collectively without division. The reason we are held accountable for our government is because they are our collective voice. Locusts can’t govern because each one is going out for himself. So this is all part of the name kamsa. The person kamsa, the friend, this was his essence, this was his personhood. The host, our unnamed host, was friends with him and that tells us where the host was holding and where all the beginning of the degradation started and where the sinas chinum also started. You can’t have two opposing forces in co-existence without relationships to each other. So the achdus of Yerushalayim, where everyone saw what they have in common with everyone else on a spiritual basis, can’t co-exist with the midda of kamsa (grasping and taking)
What we still have to talk about is how does this affect the rest of the story, - we don’t know what this has to do with Reb Zachariah, how this affects the generation, and other things that we still have to find out. But in the meantime we are beginning to understand what sinas chinum means and the sort of ahavas chinum that we have to try to acquire to enter a situation of geulah – geulah means bringing the Shechina back - that is what geulah is. Being who we could be. The first of the three components of being who we could be, of geulah, is the restoration of Shechina, which comes through achdus and the rejection of the midda of kamisa (taking, grasping.)"

Rabbi Cohen’s shiur started with the last line of Koheles, which talks about what man could be – the spiritual heights and ideals of man’s potential. He uses this to explain by way of introduction sefer Mesilas Yesharin:

"Shlomo HaMelech tells us what is going to be in the future? What is going to be with this world of ours. Shlomo HaMelech tells us I will tell you what is going to be with this world of ours. There is going to come a time that things will be good. Everyone will listen to Hakodosh Baruch Hu, and this means not just hearing, I hear You. No. I understand You and I feel You. Not only will we hear HKB’s words and all the ten commandments and mitzvahs of the Torah. Not only will we hear You, I understand it, my mind will understand it, AND my heart will feel it. I will feel the words. This is the meaning – the entire world and creation will hear and do.We hear, we will feel it, in the mind and heart. When we stood at Sinai, we saw it ..it was not hefker. A world without an owner, shapeless. The pasuk is telling us, the future will be for mankind, that we will fear HKB and observe His commandments. This should be the end of the sentence but there are three more words…not only will the world come to recognize the Creator of the world, this is what man is…what man really is. Not that he will develop into something that he is not. This is what we should have always been, this is what we are, to listen to HKB and have yiras shemayim. "

"This introduction to Mesilas Yesharim, which tells us that there are gates of righteousness, of ethics of mussar, it directs us how to live a daily life. He tells us in the first chapter the foundation of chassidis, which means to follow the law to the fullest. You know what chassidus means? A kind person who goes above and beyond the law. The foundation of chassidus means nachas ruach, HKB is part of us. We should all strive for it."

A kind person who goes above and beyond the law. That is how we give Hashem nachas ruach. We stay connected when we are kind and avoid revenge [giving up our anger, making our ego smaller, accepting Hashem’s Will as our Will].

Rabbi Tatz in his shiur on the 13 principles tells us that a non-Jew who builds a beautiful world here, who is honest and good, does not necessarily build eternal life. His reward is the beautiful world he builds in olam hazeh. To earn eternal life, he must have the intent HERE to serve Hashem and the Noahide laws. Again, connection is from intention to serve Hashem and follow Torah.

We stay connected to Hashem through emptying ourselves of ego and utilizing what Hashem gives us to serve Him.

When we are kind, we give to others, and when we give to others, we are emulating Hashem, and when we emulate Hashem, we can unite with Him in the next world AND FEEL that unity as a reward. If Hashem is the giver and we are the takers, being united with Hashem (Who is only a Giver) will not generate a rewarding feeling because a giver and a taker are opposites and we will not have acquired what we need spiritually to experience the reward. We have to engrave being a giver on our souls so that we have a means of receiving the FEELING of reward. Giving up anger (which stems from ego) and revenge (which is a primary animalistic expression of anger) are the central issue.

With this in mind, let’s replay the scene of the Bar Kamsa story utilizing the principle of kindness and consciousness of two worlds.

The host invites Kamsa. Bar Kamsa comes in. The host wants to send him away. Bar Kamsa begs to stay rather than be humiliated, offering to pay for the whole feast. Instead of turning him away, the host thinks to himself, “Thank you Hashem. You sent my enemy here to diminish my pleasure at this party - you sent me this suffering, so that I can repay a debt to you. Since it is Your Will that my joy is diminished because of his presence, then I choose to understand it as a kaparah to cleanse me of unintentional wrongs I have performed in my service to you.” And the host says, “You may stay.” Bar Kamsa no longer seeks revenge and the Second Temple is not destroyed.

Or let’s replay it utilizing the principle of not taking revenge:

The host invites Kamsa. Bar Kamsa comes instead. The host wants to send him away. Bar Kamsa begs to stay rather than be humiliated, offering to pay for the whole feast. The host, finding Bar Kamsa’s presence some kind of a threat, insists that he leave. Bar Kamsa now thinks “Thank you Hashem. You sent me this humiliation, this suffering, as a way to repay my debts to you. I am very hurt. Please protect me from my negative urges right now to strike back at the host, the "stick" you used to strike me, because I know everything you send is good and my connection with YOU is my primary goal. If I give in to these negative urges, it will break my connection with You and I will be overwhelmed by the yetzer hara and do wrong in Your eyes. Help me to empty myself of this insult and become a vessel that You instead can fill with holiness, that I may emulate Your middos and thereby bring light into this world. Help me to rise above my limitations and bear this insult without revenge.” Can you imagine the power of that? The Second Temple would be standing.

And now, in our era, we continue to suffer from this golus. We are in exile, sinas chinum is rampant and lashon hara is the revenge we take, embarrassing others who we feel wronged us. What would happen if we traded this in – what if we try “Thank You Hashem for allowing me to pay my debt to you.”

We are obligated to connection (613 of them) so that we can fulfill the purpose of Creation (receiving eternal reward.) Say “Thank you Hashem” at times of suffering. Our suffering is the payment of our debts to Hashem for our inevitable mistakes and averahs. Choosing a kind way to protect our boundaries when we suffer, or choosing to say tehillim or give tzedakah, connects us to Hashem and replenishes the account established by Avraham from which we benefit today. We pay our debts and we acquire merits in the process. And most importantly, we imprint giving upon our souls – giving to others, serving Hashem – and that imprint, that giving which becomes tattooed on our soul, that example of rising above our limitations towards holiness, will serve as the channel through which we are capable of experiencing our reward for all eternity, the pleasure of attachment to the One without Limits, the Holy One Blessed Be He.

Rabbi Cohen Introduction to Mesilas Yesharim - notes from Aug 21 2007

Shuli Kleinman — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 23:21:41 GMT

I would like to make an introduction for the first perek in Mesilas Yesharim that the last pasuk in sefer Koheles, written by King Solomon the wisest of all human beings, Shlomo HaMelech tells us what is going to be in the future? What is going to be with this world of ours. Shlomo HaMelech tells us I will tell you what is going to be with this world of ours. There is going to come a time that things will be good. Everyone will listen to Hakodosh Baruch Hu, and this means not just hearing, I hear You. No. I understand You and I feel You. Not only will we hear HKB’s words and all the ten commandments and mitzvahs of the Torah. Not only will we hear You, I understand it, my mind will understand it, AND my heart will feel it. I will feel the words. This is the meaning – the entire world and creation will hear and do.We hear, we will feel it, in the mind and heart. When we stood at Sinai, we saw it ..it was not hefker. A world without an owner, shapeless. The pasuk is telling us, the future will be for mankind, that we will fear HKB and observe His commandments. This should be the end of the sentence but there are three more words…not only will the world come to recognize the Creator of the world, this is what man is…what man really is. Not that he will develop into something that he is not. This is what we should have always been, this is what we are, to listen to HKB and have yiras shemayim.

The meforshim explain as follows. What does it mean kzecha because Mesilas Yesharim discusses man, it doesn’t discuss history of the Jewish people, our past or our present or our future, it discusses man himself, Adom himself, the purpose of man being in this world. Shlomo HaMelech which preceded Mesilas Yesharim by many years says this is man. The Zohar says “In sefer Bereshis, HKB said naaseh adom – in the plural, let us make man. “ Which is a very dangerous pasek, because it means that the Ribono Shel Adom not only made man, but He needed a partner, He couldn’t do it Himself. Let US make man. Rashi points out that those words are a pandora’s box, those words let us make man shows that the Ribono Shel Olam is not the only Creator, that there are other Creators – He had a partnership –We should make man and THAT IS NOT TRUE G-d Forbid. There is only one Creator of the World. Elokim. The Creator of the World.

That language is sent to tell us that HKB created man with derech eretz kovod a Torah – how He spoke – He didn’t say I will make man, He said We will make man. If a person gives a lecture for an hour and a half – to an audience of 100’s of students – and he can hear a pin drop – and he asks many questions and gives many answers, yet throughout the shiur, he says “We have asked the following question and We will now give the following answer, and we have the following difficulty and we found the following solution. Who is WE? It is only the lecturer. It is You. I am asking the questions, I am giving the answer..be honest with yourself- we are just taking notes – you asked the question and you are answering it. I. this is gaiva, arrogance.

HKB created the world with the lashon of we to show the humility of HKB, His simplicity, to show the derech eretz. It is We even though the truth of the matter is that it is I, to show the humbleness of HKB. We understand it is I. Even though it is a dangerous word, because an apikoris could say the Almighty needed help to create the world, it is very important. Yet, he did have help, not in the creation, but in the material.

The zohar says he took the whole animal kingdom and he put it to man. Man has the personality of many of the behemos of the creation. He is a man. The ability of a lion, a tiger, a wild animal, a snake, is within man. Man is like the Bronx zoo. He is a Zoo, and I don’t think I have to give too many proofs of that. You will never say I don’t believe you –did you ever look at the papers, at today’s news? How many killings, murders, rapes…what is happening to man? Every single day, and this is nothing to do with the terrorists – this is caused by man who is angry. But the man said he killed his wife – they had a lengthy argument and he killed her. He went in front of the judge and he asked him are you guilty or not guilty. He went in front of the judge and he said not guilty. The judge said did you kill your wife. Yes. I am not guilty. How can you not be guilty? He answered, Judge, you have to understand my situation. If you had a wife the way I had you would have also killed her, you have to understand me. She drove me nuts. She irritated me and aggravated me. Therefore I take revenge. That is an animal. I take revenge. You get angry at me I get angry at you. You started the fight first, so I fought back. So the lawyer says, yes, my client did something very bad, very evil. But he didn’t start it. He didn’t start it. What was he supposed to do say Thank you after he was offended by the other person? That is an animalistic concept. That is what man is. Let us make man. Bring into man the animal. Now put in the tzelem elokim. Therefore the end of the pasuk is man has animalistic characteristics but he also has yiras Hashem, that is what the end of the pasuk tells us, that man is your Elokim, besides all the other personality traits that there are, gaiva, sinah, jealousy, he has a feeling of revenge, nekama, but besides all that, he has something that can get him through it all, he has Elokim, Yiras Hashem. Not just fear of G-d because of punishment if we violate the laws of the Torah the 365 commandments, but from admiration because he wants to be closer to HKB. This is what Shlomo tells us. And you will see the admiration and love and fear for Hashem as you get closer to Him because that is what man really is, not just an animal. He is above that. He is not just another animal with intelligence. Intelligence. A dog doesn’t have intelligence.

This introduction to Mesilas Yesharim, which tells us that there are gates of righteousness, of ethics of mussar, it directs us how to live a daily life. He tells us in the first chapter the foundation of chassidis, which means to follow the law to the fullest. You know what chassidus means? A kind person who goes above and beyond the law. The foundation of chassidus means nachas ruach, HKB is part of us. We should all strive for it. If you have children, you will see your baby in the cradle, you will see him 1 two three years old, he gives me nachas. He is not going to give me nachas if he marries a nonJew. I am not going to smile if he doesn’t put on tefillin every day – what is there to smile about? I will smile when he lives the derech of Torah, I will smile with a satisfaction. A smile is unique to a person, not an animal. An animal can eat and sleep and jump and sounds, but it can’t smile. An animal can laugh but not smile. Why? Smiling comes from the soul and an animal has no soul. No olam haba, no other world for this animal who won the Kentucky Derby in the preakness…he doesn’t go to heaven. We are part of HKB and our smile shows that. Not laugh. It is a smile, the face lights up, only a nefesh that has a soul can do this.

Mesilas Yesharim starts off that the foundation of Chassidus, of giving HKB a nachas ruach of smiling, and the roots of doing HKB’s acts wholeheartedly, how does one come to this madrega, how does one become serious to this idea of worshipping HKB in such a manner – he should be clear in his mind, what is man’s obligation in this world. This is what he should ask himself. We learn in the Gemara – if you are a bal choiv – you owe money to someone and he has a right to take the shirt off your back. You have to pay him a certain amount of money or he can take your shirt. You are obligated. Your property, your body, your shirt belongs to him. You are indebted to him because he gave you a loan. You needed a loan and he gave it to you and without interest, you are obligated to him. And what about us? Are we committed to HKB from the moment we get up in the morning we are able to get out of bed? As you get older it isn’t so easy to get out of bed if you have arthritis, it gets into the bones. It is hard to get out of bed. I have difficulty. But we are able to walk and we do walk. We should thank HKB for every moment.

We are obligated and this is something people don’t like. We are all this way. We don’t like a person who is a parasite, that lives off others, who doesn’t do a stitch of work and takes off others. You don’t have to know Yiddish to know that is word – a schnorr- not me. You can say anything about me but don’t say I am a schnorr. That is a terrible thing to say. Take and take, cigarette, candy, get anything you can for nothing. A schnorr. We don’t like a schnorr. What are we with HKB? He gives and gives, life, ability, to eat, to sleep, to be successful, a mind to create, a mind to have love, a mind for parnassah, a mind to be a parent, everything. We are all schnorrs. What do we give back to HKB…we daven once a year on Yom Kippur? Three times a day? Whatever we do it will never be enough. What is our obligation to HKB? What should my yearning and desire and goal be in this world. Every human being should ask this. What is our obligation and what should be our desire and our goal in this life? A career? What is your career? Is that the ikur? Career? I have to prepare for my career. My son will be a doctor, he is 5. My daughter will be the governer, she is 6.

A man was dying of cancer, 32 years old. He had a 3 year old son and what was he crying about? I will never see my son play baseball. I will never see it. Someone suggested he go to NYU hospital and he took treatments and there was a remission. He will live. He says thank you! My son will be a big leaguer. He will be a great player, and I will see that thank you. What a life. This is what we hear in the world. This is not our purpose. Our purpose in this world is to have hana, enjoyment, from closeness to HKB. And that is only in the world to come, not in this world. This world is a corridor, a pathway, a taste, one potato chip of what is in store for us. This is the purpose. You have to hear this all day long because we forget it. There is so much in this world that counters this basic concept you know it, you feel it. If a person feels this way, he is not so depressed about a career, a shidduch, because that is not the ultimate of this life, the ultimate is our davening, our mitzvohs, our chesed, this is our purpose. Hopefully, through mesilas yesharim it will become crystal clear without any doubt that this is our purpose. What Shlomo is telling us, that in the end we will listen to HKB, this is the purpose of man. We should be zocheh to see it more pronounced in our world and schools and personal life. This world is only a tunnel, a hallway, for the olam HaEmes. We get closer, and we can see what HKB has done for us in our body, this brings us to a higher madrega, brings us to fear and admiration of HKB.

Reflections on Tznius, Boundaries and the World Today

Shuli Kleinman — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 23:22:02 GMT

Reflections on Tznius, Boundaries and the World Today

In Rabbi Falk’s book Modesty, An Adornment for Life (p. 211-212) he discusses the halachos of a man saying a bracha, krias shema or any other davar shebikdusha in front of an inadequately-clad female.

Firstly, Chazal, the Rambam and the compiler of Shulchan Aruch did nt arrange a section on the halachos of Tznius concerning female clothing. Their approach was quite different. Within the halachos of krias shema they wrote a section which deals with a man who wishes to say krias shema when there is an inadequately-clad female present in the room at the time. In the context of these halachos, almost all halachic points concerning what needs to be covered and which clothes are or are hot suitable for a Bas Yisroel are recorded…thre is a very powerful message, even for women, in the issur for men to say krias shema and brachos in front of an inadequately-clad female. From these halachos, women and girls can see for themselves the far-reaching effect that even minimal carelessness in dress has on men who catch sight of them. ..we are dealing here with factors that are of critical significance to the purity and chastity of the Jewish people. When a bracha is said by a man facing a woman with semi-uncovered arms, the bracha is imperfect and according to some is even invalid and classified a bracha levatala…If a woman sits at the breakfast table with her hair or a tefach of her hair uncovered, or if just half the upper sections of her arms are uncovered, and her husband sits facing her, all brachos he recites while in that position are imperfect and according to some are rendered brachos levatala. This is so even if he is not actually looking at her while saying the bracha.

While many may wish to dismiss his statements or quote other sources that are more lenient, the purpose of this essay is to ask…”what if” and suggest “if so then” regarding boundaries.

I learned from Rebbetzin Heller’s shiur on the Maharal’s Netzach HaShalom about boundaries and how understanding our boundaries leads us to respecting the boundaries of others which, in turn, leads us to accepting the picture of shalaim that HaKadosh Baruch Hu has created through His Will. When boundaries are crossed, the general reaction of a person is a sense of loss or pain, leading to anger, despair, or a whole range of fearful and angry responses. And, from Rebbetzin Heller’s shiur on the Maharal’s Netzach Koach HaYetzer, I learned that the yetzer hara feeds off our sense of lack and steers us in the wrong direction. We follow the yetzer hara’s temptations trying to regain something when instead, we are instructed to remember that we never lack anything that is good for us, that Hashem only sends good, and that this is the preserving route to take when we experience pain or loss. In sum, our boundaries get crossed, and our choices are to pursue after erroneous goals that we believe might reset our boundaries and make us whole but which drain our higher selves and lead us most often into averahs and lowly conduct OR to see that our boundary is crossed and that the suffering is a cleansing to lead us back to our identity in devekus, closeness to Hashem, this being the only path that will, in fact, give us a sense of fulfillment.

Now how is this relevant to tznius? What Rabbi Falk’s description of the halachos of tznius is telling us seems to be that whether or not we believe it or feel it, Torah tells us that a man’s boundary is crossed when women are inadequately dressed. With all due respect to all the objections that are coming to mind (mine and yours), let us take a moment to reflect. What if it is true? After all, it is the Torah, and the Torah is emes. And it encompasses more than we can understand. Given that we are not able to have more than fleeting moments (if that) of contact with our neshamas, how can we be certain that our neshamas’ boundaries (or the boundaries of a man’s neshama) are in fact NOT being crossed? For example, what shifts our thinking during prayer from kavana to the mundane? Is not it likely and possible that even the slightest distraction leads us there? Why wouldn’t that hold true for a man as well when faced with an inadequately dressed woman or girl? Obviously it is. And since there is no way to really block it out, let us assume that what Chazal is telling us, that his boundary is being crossed and his tefillos are being compromised with more lowly feelings and urges, is true.

We can debate all the halachos and interpretations, but that is not my point. Let us accept for a moment on faith that this is true because I would like to make a more far-reaching point.

Our boundaries get crossed every day. In a world where anything goes, how does one protect one’s boundaries? How today can anyone stop anyone? We are experiencing this through threats of terror, the war in Iraq and many horrifying crimes. Israel is physically building a wall to protect its boundaries.

Hmmm.

Are you understanding where I am going?

We know that mankind has a tremendous impact on the way Hashem runs the world. What we do matters in sending upward to the indeterminate forces influences on the world. What would happen if we, Jewish women, ALL decided to follow the halachos as described in Rabbi Falk’s book? We would be protecting our boundaries and the boundaries of our men, protecting the sanctity of our people. If we are careful in the way we dress, recognizing the impact we can have on another person, is it not likely that we will be more respectful of others, and also that others will be more respectful of us? And further, if we protect and set our boundaries properly, perhaps the boundaries for our people will receive help from above as well.

This is my thought. If we dress properly, and this leads to mutual respect between us, which creates also positive indeterminate forces, then it becomes easier to protect our boundaries as a people in two ways. Firstly, our relationships with our fellow man will be more respectful naturally and secondly, we might acquire more spiritual merit upon which the Shechina will protect Israel and save us from those who wish our destruction.

We learn from the laws of tznius a truth about boundaries. They matter. Even if we don’t understand how the boundary is crossed, it is crossed. And impurity in a spiritual realm matters. Let us keep holy the things that are holy.

ADDENDUM
On reflection, I only wish to add the following.
If we accept upon ourselves to dress tznius lishma, because Torah tells us that this is necessary for the purity of our people, what we are really, in essence doing is saying, okay! I am more than meets the eye. I have a holy neshama with a boundary that I can't measure because it is in two worlds. Likewise those I meet have this same "condition," a holy neshama in two worlds whose boundary that I can't measure is crossed unless I dress appropriately. In essence, when we now look at another person, we are not only seeing their physical form, but we have, in our own minds, acknowledged their holy essence. Our decision to dress in the manner we do is a constant reminder. The outcome? Respect for each person, and a return to understanding mankind as having the capacity to grow in holiness.

When we make considerations and allowances in a realm that is so vague to us, we change this.

Would it not be reasonable to set our boundaries in such a way as to bring respect into every contact? Would we need weaponry if each person perceived the other in such a way?