Hello to one and all. I hope that everyone had a good week.
Yidishkeit isn't black and white! It's all of the colors of the rainbow and then some!!! Since Hashem is infinite and covers every area of the spiritual spectrum from top to bottom, Rav Noson teaches that we therefore must connect and experience Him on both extremes of the spectrum in order to better understand Him. In every thing and every living being there is a spectrum ranging from on end of eternity to the end of days. The holy Torah is what gives us the instructions on how to connect to that spectrum and use it to get closer to Hashem. Which brings us to the mitzvahs!! In every mitzva there is a spectrum, and its all up to us to access it on whatever level we may be on or even better yet, on whatever level we desire, we yearn for. Once we see start trying to think in these terms we enter "an incredible wonderland...(When Earth and Heaven Kiss by Reb Ozer Bergman) “ Avraham Avinu, our second father (after Hashem, of course!!) went against the entire world until he found the door to this “mitzvah wonderland”. That door was the mitzvas, and he was just all about doing mitzvahs. Kiruv rechokim, shalom bayis, pidyon shvuim, bikur cholim, hachnosos orchim, chesed, etc.... “Olam chesed yibane” Hashem built the world for chesed. Avraham was the epitome of chesed in order to get as close to Hashem as possible and to teach us how to achieve that as well throughout all of the generations. And now back to the spectrum. Every mitzvah can be done on all different levels ranging from just yearning for the mitzvah, to doing the mitzvah with every kavanah, to just doing the mitzvah without feeling. It all counts and Hashem’s there to help us all along the way. On the way to give the son that he had waited so long for, back to Hashem the posuk tells us “Vayisa Avraham es einav vayar es hamakom merachok. / On the third day, Avraham raised his eyes and perceived the place from afar.” Avraham and Yitzchak where at that time, down in the valley, far from Hashem (the top of the mountain was where the Beis Hamikdash was and would be in the future). About Yitzchak Rashi tells us that he was 37 years old at the time of this incident, yet in this story he is referred to as a "na'ar", a young boy. A "na'ar" is someone who has an under-developed mind and refers to people who are not wise enough to develop an attachment to G-d. So they start going up and Yitchak sees the wood, the knife, and asks his father “Ayeh haseh laolah” Where is the lamb to offer up? Without getting into detail now we’ll just introduce “Ayeh” one of Reb Nachmans biggest teachings. On the simplest level its just asking Hashem “Where are You? I want out! I want you to show me the door to the “mitzvah wonderland!!” Hachnosos orchim, and bikur cholim are mitzvahs that we can take from Avraham Avinu and put into our every day lives. We unfortunately know many sick people, if we all took it upon ourselves to do this mitzvah a bit more often, we can change the world. Hachnosos orchim we can also do in some way or another every day (On the simplest level, its making someone feel at home no matter where you are!) But Shabbos is also a prime time for hachnosos orchim, from simply giving a stranger your seat at shul, to what we learned from Avraham Avinu of having an actuall guest room in our homes. If we would just start yearning for Hashem, Ayeh!!!! and for his mitvahs we could really come closer to Hashem, bring Mashiach and give Avraham Avinu the best nachas that he could get by being “A light unto all nations!!!” A gut Shabbos,
Peace and Joy,
Etan
Friday, October 26, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
The Family Jewels - Parshas Lech Lecha And another reposting...
Hello one and all. I hope that everyone had a superb week.
"Reb Nachman tells us about a person who lived long, long ago. There were no Jews in his community and no yeshivas in any nearby towns or even distant villages. This person was alone in his spiritual quest and had no one from whom to receive instruction about how to live a sacred life. Nonetheless, he was consumed with love for Hashem. Hashem therefore opened for him the primordial Torah so that he would be able to transform his yearning into concrete deeds. This person was our first patriarch, Avraham Avinu." (Taken from the holy book Where Earth and Heaven Kiss by Rabbi Ozer Bergman)
"Hashem said to Avram, lech lecha/Go for yourself, from your land, from your relatives and from your fathers home to the land that I will show you." The word lecha (which the Artscroll translates as for yourself) seems superfluous. Why not just say lech/go? Why lecha/for yourself? Reb Nachman takes the words in their litteral sense. Lech lecha means go to yourself. Sometimes we start looking for deeper meanings in the Torah when it's all there in the pashut pshat. Go to yourself. Avraham was the first yid, the first one to see through all of the sheker in the world and say "there must be more". So Hashem came to him and told him, "You want to find meaning? You want to find Me? Look first into yourself. Every Jew, no matter in what land, no matter from what family, no matter who he or she's father may be has what Reb Nachman refers to as the "Nekudas haemes/the point of truth". We may know it as the "pintile yid". Its all the same. What Hashem is teaching us here became later on one of Reb Nachmans teachings, every Jew is good, no matter how bad he or others thinks he may be. When one finds, at least looks for, or even more at least yearns to find his true Jewish self the n Hashem will come to him and show him "The Land". But it's not easy. Avraham was called ivri because he stood on the other side of the river. He went against the trend, he did his own thing. If it was just to leave his land, his family, his fathers home, that would have been easy. Avraham was thrown into blazing furnaces, his life was constantly threatened but he did it anyway. And then Hashem tells him to go to the land that He will show him. But he didn't show him anything!?!?! Where is Avraham supposed to go?!?!? That’s how deep his faith was, because really its all about faith. Put your faith in Hashem and you can defeat the most powerful armies (the war of the four kings!!), Avraham is then offered to take the booty but he shuns the honors and instead gives it up to Hashem. Then Hashem makes a covenant with Avraham and adds the "hey" of His name to say now that you proved that your willing to go the extra mile with me, I will be with your forever.
Back to us. The bottom line is if you want to find Hashem, if you want to live a meaningful life, look into yourself, look for yourself and Hashem will find you. We see the same thing by Moshe. After Hashem came to him at the burning bush and told him to go save the Jews, Moshe refused for a week!! How could he refuse Hashem!?!?! He was saying the whole time "me ani?" Who am I?? And that’s why he was zoche to be the leader of Cllal Yisroel. He was a prince, he had it all, he could have been anything, but he saw that it was all sheker. So he started looking, and Hashem found him. We'll get back to that when we get there be"H. Our lesson is to look for the good, the emes in not only all others but especially in ourselves. Once we start to do this Hashem will find us and we will be able to do so much more with His help.
And when we get down on ourselves lets just remember what the Baal Shem Tov said about when Hashem showed Avraham the stars. The decendants of Avraham are like stars. We see the starts from a great distance and they appear to be mere tiny specks but in reality in heaven they are gigantic. So too, in this world many people look very small. But if we remember that in reality, in Hashems eyes both we and every Jew have real greatness. If we tell ourselves all these things over and over with Hashem's help they will start to sink in. Once we start having just a little more emunah in Hashem our lives will change with leaps and bounds.
Always remember that these aren't just stories, their life lessons, they are the map to help us get through. We say three times a day in shemona esre, elokeinu, v'elokei avoseinu / our G-d and the G-d of our fathers. First he is our G-d, lets not worry where we came from we can still reach the heavens.
Peace and joy, and a wonderful Shabbos,
Etan & Gang
"Reb Nachman tells us about a person who lived long, long ago. There were no Jews in his community and no yeshivas in any nearby towns or even distant villages. This person was alone in his spiritual quest and had no one from whom to receive instruction about how to live a sacred life. Nonetheless, he was consumed with love for Hashem. Hashem therefore opened for him the primordial Torah so that he would be able to transform his yearning into concrete deeds. This person was our first patriarch, Avraham Avinu." (Taken from the holy book Where Earth and Heaven Kiss by Rabbi Ozer Bergman)
"Hashem said to Avram, lech lecha/Go for yourself, from your land, from your relatives and from your fathers home to the land that I will show you." The word lecha (which the Artscroll translates as for yourself) seems superfluous. Why not just say lech/go? Why lecha/for yourself? Reb Nachman takes the words in their litteral sense. Lech lecha means go to yourself. Sometimes we start looking for deeper meanings in the Torah when it's all there in the pashut pshat. Go to yourself. Avraham was the first yid, the first one to see through all of the sheker in the world and say "there must be more". So Hashem came to him and told him, "You want to find meaning? You want to find Me? Look first into yourself. Every Jew, no matter in what land, no matter from what family, no matter who he or she's father may be has what Reb Nachman refers to as the "Nekudas haemes/the point of truth". We may know it as the "pintile yid". Its all the same. What Hashem is teaching us here became later on one of Reb Nachmans teachings, every Jew is good, no matter how bad he or others thinks he may be. When one finds, at least looks for, or even more at least yearns to find his true Jewish self the n Hashem will come to him and show him "The Land". But it's not easy. Avraham was called ivri because he stood on the other side of the river. He went against the trend, he did his own thing. If it was just to leave his land, his family, his fathers home, that would have been easy. Avraham was thrown into blazing furnaces, his life was constantly threatened but he did it anyway. And then Hashem tells him to go to the land that He will show him. But he didn't show him anything!?!?! Where is Avraham supposed to go?!?!? That’s how deep his faith was, because really its all about faith. Put your faith in Hashem and you can defeat the most powerful armies (the war of the four kings!!), Avraham is then offered to take the booty but he shuns the honors and instead gives it up to Hashem. Then Hashem makes a covenant with Avraham and adds the "hey" of His name to say now that you proved that your willing to go the extra mile with me, I will be with your forever.
Back to us. The bottom line is if you want to find Hashem, if you want to live a meaningful life, look into yourself, look for yourself and Hashem will find you. We see the same thing by Moshe. After Hashem came to him at the burning bush and told him to go save the Jews, Moshe refused for a week!! How could he refuse Hashem!?!?! He was saying the whole time "me ani?" Who am I?? And that’s why he was zoche to be the leader of Cllal Yisroel. He was a prince, he had it all, he could have been anything, but he saw that it was all sheker. So he started looking, and Hashem found him. We'll get back to that when we get there be"H. Our lesson is to look for the good, the emes in not only all others but especially in ourselves. Once we start to do this Hashem will find us and we will be able to do so much more with His help.
And when we get down on ourselves lets just remember what the Baal Shem Tov said about when Hashem showed Avraham the stars. The decendants of Avraham are like stars. We see the starts from a great distance and they appear to be mere tiny specks but in reality in heaven they are gigantic. So too, in this world many people look very small. But if we remember that in reality, in Hashems eyes both we and every Jew have real greatness. If we tell ourselves all these things over and over with Hashem's help they will start to sink in. Once we start having just a little more emunah in Hashem our lives will change with leaps and bounds.
Always remember that these aren't just stories, their life lessons, they are the map to help us get through. We say three times a day in shemona esre, elokeinu, v'elokei avoseinu / our G-d and the G-d of our fathers. First he is our G-d, lets not worry where we came from we can still reach the heavens.
Peace and joy, and a wonderful Shabbos,
Etan & Gang
The Family Jewels - Parshas Beraishis & Noach A repost:
I wanted to make sure the end connected to the beginning so heres last years posts. I have till Vayigash to catch up and get back into posting.....
Hello to one and all. The Family Jewels is a revival of the weekly dvar Torah that I used to send out by the name of Points To Ponder. I realized afterwards that the name was already taken and therefore came up with this new name. The prayer is that these words of Torah and chizuk should be a zchus for all of my ancestors and a cause for an aliya for their neshomas, and at the same time be a zchus for my children and their children after.... I also will give a prayer that all of these words both today and in the weeks to come be as true as can be and that they should help myself and whoever else better serve Hashem. With that said lets get started....
Lets start off with some ideas and then try and tie them together. 1) "Breishis Bara Elokim" The last letters of these words spell the word Emes, truth. 2) Rashi brings down the chazal that says that the world was created for the Torah and for Yisrael. Our goal is to try and find our true connection to the Torah and by that better serve Hashem. 3) "Vhaaretz haysa tohoo vavohoo vchochech al pnai tehom....Vayomer Elokim yehee or vayehee or" "The earth was unformed and desolate, and darkenss covered the surface of the abyss... Elokim said Let there be light and there was light". 4) In the story of Kayin and Hevel after Hashem accepts Hevels offering and not his the pasuk says "Vayichar lKayin meod vayiploo panav" "Kayin became very angry and depressed" "And Hashem said to Kayin, Why are you angry? Why are you depressed? Is it not so if you improve, there is forgiveness?...." 5) At the end of the parsha it says " Vayinachem Hashem kee asa at ha-adam ba-aretz vayitatzev el leebo" "Hashem was comforted that He had made man on the earth and He grieved in His heart". Rashi says that man grieved and then it says "Hashem said I will obliterate mankind..."
The Torah starts off by telling us that in the beginning Hashem created the world. Emes - truth. The essence of the creation was for Truth. Truth is Torah. Truth is Yisroel(2). On Simchas Torah everyone goes up to the Torah, not just the scholars, not just the important people in the community, but rather every Jewish male goes up to the Torah. This is to teach us that the essence of the truth of the Torah is to bring everyone close to it and not to push them away. 4) What got Hevel to mess up? He got angry, he got depressed!!! "Let's say that you are sitting at a table, absorbed in your reading. Or you are walking down the street, engrossed in some subject that has struck your fancy, and all of the sudden, someone sneaks up from behind and yells, "BOO!" Before your conscious mind is aware of what happened, you react with fright. But how can a person be scared before he or she is even aware of what happened? Asks Rebbe Nachman. The answer, he explains, is that the person is not scared. Rather, there is an "other" within the person that is frightened. It is this "other" that fears and casts dread into your thinking and emotions. This "other" also usurps control of your cognition and decisions before you know it." (Quoted from Where Earth and Heaven Kiss by Ozer Bergman) This is the same "other" that got Chava to eat from the Etz Hadas and give Adam to eat from it and get kicked out of Gan Eden. He doesn't care so much about the actual sins that we do, he's in it to get us depressed afterwards. "How can you put tefillin on that hand? How can you daven with that mouth? Why bother? We see it again at the end of the parsha. Some opinions say "And He grieved in His heart..." Is going on man. Forget about the "chamas" and all of the other sins that mankind was doing back then, what was going to cause Hashem to obliterate the world?!?!?! Grieving!!!! Depression!!! We sin, we mess up, everyone does in his or her own way, its ok as long as we don't get down on ourselves and keep going in the ways of Hashem. How can we do this what can help us? By striving for the true truth which is to always come closer to Hashem Bsimcha!! We go back to 3) for some inspiration. The world was dark and desolate, tohoo vavohoo. We can't even begin to understand what kind of darkness that was, but yet Hashem came along and said "Vayihee Or" No drashas, no equations, no complications just "Let there be light and there was light" The Chofetz Chaim says that this is a huge inspiration to us, no matter what darkness we may have fallen into. All we have to do is turn to Hashem and He has the power to take us out of that darkness in an instant.
I'm not sure if any of that was clear but the bottom line is that Hashem wants us to come closer To Him through His Torah with happiness and any time we have negative thoughts all we have to do is know that it isn't us but rather the "other" and then ask Hashem to bring us back to the true light of His Torah. May we be zoche to be truly happy in our serving Hashem and through that bring the Mashiach and the Third and final Beis Hamikdash speedily in our days Amen!!!
A gutten.....
Peace & Joy,
8on
Hello to one and all. I hope that everyone had a wonderful week.
I forgot to give my introduction last week from the Zohar hakadosh, but it's all good, because it applies just as much to this weeks parsha and of course the rest of the Torah. It's actually quite simple, the Zohar hakadosh says that anyone who thinks that the Torah is a nice story book, or a nice book of the history of the Jews is a FOOL!!! So, ok we all know that that’s not what the Torah hakedosha is, we all know that it is The Living Torah. But we can all take some mussar from this statement and try and look just a bit closer a bit deeper as to what we can learn from the parshios and apply to our everyday lives.
"Noach was a Tzadik, a righteous man, perfect in his generations...." We can look at this in two different ways as Rashi points out. He was a Tzadik in his generation, the generation of complete corruption. Were he to have been in the times of Avraham he would have been an even greater tzadik. The second opinion is that were he to have been in the generation of Avraham he would have been a nothing. What did Noach do wrong? "Make for yourself and ark...." The Alshich says "Make an ark to symbolize your own behavior. You separated yourself from the rest of the people in the world, instead of giving them mussar and trying to bring them back to Hashem. Now you will isolate yourself in an ark with beasts and animals." Where do we see another ark in the Torah? By Moshe rabeinu. The difference there is that Moshe's wasn’t closed, he didn't have to hide, because Hashem, saw that not only was he going to be a tzadik but he was also going to be for the people and in the end even be willing to sacrifice not only his life but also his eternal memory for the people ("erase me from the Torah"). We live in very trying times. It's hard to be a Jew. What?!?!? We have now things and opportunities that previous generations didn't have?!?!? What I meant is that it's hard to be a real Jew!!! So what do we do? We build ourselves arks. Our shuls are our arks, our schools are our arks, our yeshivos are our arks, our homes are our arks, our Shabbos tables are our arks, and even more so we ourselves are arks. We have to look into the Torah for the instructions as to how to build these arks, we have to look to our Rabbonim who maybe understand a little better than ourselves. And after all of that we have to make sure not to make that same mistake that Noach made. We have to try our best to bring all of the yidden into our arks, and save them from the flood. This is end game, bottom of the ninth, the last quarter, sudden death overtime!!! It's now or never. So if Noach was a tzadik, why didn't he know this? Because he didn’t see the "nikudos tovos - good points" in the other people, and some say even in himself. Yes, there are those that say that Noach didn't even think that he was going to survive. That’s the yetzer harah!!! He says "what are you worth? Why bother? Whats that person worth? Why bother?? Lets not listen and look for those nikudos tovos both in ourselves and in all other yidden and in that zechus may we be able with Hashems help to strengthen our arks and weather the storm.
One last note to get us into the Chanuka spirit. Reb Nachman brings down that when the dove came back with the "olive branch" that was the ner Chanukah which we light with olive oil. As we'll try and learn more about as Chanukah gets closer, it is the light of Chanukah that can light up any darkness until we can see the dry land!!!
Have a wonderful Shabbos!!! Peace and joy!!!
Etan
Hello to one and all. The Family Jewels is a revival of the weekly dvar Torah that I used to send out by the name of Points To Ponder. I realized afterwards that the name was already taken and therefore came up with this new name. The prayer is that these words of Torah and chizuk should be a zchus for all of my ancestors and a cause for an aliya for their neshomas, and at the same time be a zchus for my children and their children after.... I also will give a prayer that all of these words both today and in the weeks to come be as true as can be and that they should help myself and whoever else better serve Hashem. With that said lets get started....
Lets start off with some ideas and then try and tie them together. 1) "Breishis Bara Elokim" The last letters of these words spell the word Emes, truth. 2) Rashi brings down the chazal that says that the world was created for the Torah and for Yisrael. Our goal is to try and find our true connection to the Torah and by that better serve Hashem. 3) "Vhaaretz haysa tohoo vavohoo vchochech al pnai tehom....Vayomer Elokim yehee or vayehee or" "The earth was unformed and desolate, and darkenss covered the surface of the abyss... Elokim said Let there be light and there was light". 4) In the story of Kayin and Hevel after Hashem accepts Hevels offering and not his the pasuk says "Vayichar lKayin meod vayiploo panav" "Kayin became very angry and depressed" "And Hashem said to Kayin, Why are you angry? Why are you depressed? Is it not so if you improve, there is forgiveness?...." 5) At the end of the parsha it says " Vayinachem Hashem kee asa at ha-adam ba-aretz vayitatzev el leebo" "Hashem was comforted that He had made man on the earth and He grieved in His heart". Rashi says that man grieved and then it says "Hashem said I will obliterate mankind..."
The Torah starts off by telling us that in the beginning Hashem created the world. Emes - truth. The essence of the creation was for Truth. Truth is Torah. Truth is Yisroel(2). On Simchas Torah everyone goes up to the Torah, not just the scholars, not just the important people in the community, but rather every Jewish male goes up to the Torah. This is to teach us that the essence of the truth of the Torah is to bring everyone close to it and not to push them away. 4) What got Hevel to mess up? He got angry, he got depressed!!! "Let's say that you are sitting at a table, absorbed in your reading. Or you are walking down the street, engrossed in some subject that has struck your fancy, and all of the sudden, someone sneaks up from behind and yells, "BOO!" Before your conscious mind is aware of what happened, you react with fright. But how can a person be scared before he or she is even aware of what happened? Asks Rebbe Nachman. The answer, he explains, is that the person is not scared. Rather, there is an "other" within the person that is frightened. It is this "other" that fears and casts dread into your thinking and emotions. This "other" also usurps control of your cognition and decisions before you know it." (Quoted from Where Earth and Heaven Kiss by Ozer Bergman) This is the same "other" that got Chava to eat from the Etz Hadas and give Adam to eat from it and get kicked out of Gan Eden. He doesn't care so much about the actual sins that we do, he's in it to get us depressed afterwards. "How can you put tefillin on that hand? How can you daven with that mouth? Why bother? We see it again at the end of the parsha. Some opinions say "And He grieved in His heart..." Is going on man. Forget about the "chamas" and all of the other sins that mankind was doing back then, what was going to cause Hashem to obliterate the world?!?!?! Grieving!!!! Depression!!! We sin, we mess up, everyone does in his or her own way, its ok as long as we don't get down on ourselves and keep going in the ways of Hashem. How can we do this what can help us? By striving for the true truth which is to always come closer to Hashem Bsimcha!! We go back to 3) for some inspiration. The world was dark and desolate, tohoo vavohoo. We can't even begin to understand what kind of darkness that was, but yet Hashem came along and said "Vayihee Or" No drashas, no equations, no complications just "Let there be light and there was light" The Chofetz Chaim says that this is a huge inspiration to us, no matter what darkness we may have fallen into. All we have to do is turn to Hashem and He has the power to take us out of that darkness in an instant.
I'm not sure if any of that was clear but the bottom line is that Hashem wants us to come closer To Him through His Torah with happiness and any time we have negative thoughts all we have to do is know that it isn't us but rather the "other" and then ask Hashem to bring us back to the true light of His Torah. May we be zoche to be truly happy in our serving Hashem and through that bring the Mashiach and the Third and final Beis Hamikdash speedily in our days Amen!!!
A gutten.....
Peace & Joy,
8on
Hello to one and all. I hope that everyone had a wonderful week.
I forgot to give my introduction last week from the Zohar hakadosh, but it's all good, because it applies just as much to this weeks parsha and of course the rest of the Torah. It's actually quite simple, the Zohar hakadosh says that anyone who thinks that the Torah is a nice story book, or a nice book of the history of the Jews is a FOOL!!! So, ok we all know that that’s not what the Torah hakedosha is, we all know that it is The Living Torah. But we can all take some mussar from this statement and try and look just a bit closer a bit deeper as to what we can learn from the parshios and apply to our everyday lives.
"Noach was a Tzadik, a righteous man, perfect in his generations...." We can look at this in two different ways as Rashi points out. He was a Tzadik in his generation, the generation of complete corruption. Were he to have been in the times of Avraham he would have been an even greater tzadik. The second opinion is that were he to have been in the generation of Avraham he would have been a nothing. What did Noach do wrong? "Make for yourself and ark...." The Alshich says "Make an ark to symbolize your own behavior. You separated yourself from the rest of the people in the world, instead of giving them mussar and trying to bring them back to Hashem. Now you will isolate yourself in an ark with beasts and animals." Where do we see another ark in the Torah? By Moshe rabeinu. The difference there is that Moshe's wasn’t closed, he didn't have to hide, because Hashem, saw that not only was he going to be a tzadik but he was also going to be for the people and in the end even be willing to sacrifice not only his life but also his eternal memory for the people ("erase me from the Torah"). We live in very trying times. It's hard to be a Jew. What?!?!? We have now things and opportunities that previous generations didn't have?!?!? What I meant is that it's hard to be a real Jew!!! So what do we do? We build ourselves arks. Our shuls are our arks, our schools are our arks, our yeshivos are our arks, our homes are our arks, our Shabbos tables are our arks, and even more so we ourselves are arks. We have to look into the Torah for the instructions as to how to build these arks, we have to look to our Rabbonim who maybe understand a little better than ourselves. And after all of that we have to make sure not to make that same mistake that Noach made. We have to try our best to bring all of the yidden into our arks, and save them from the flood. This is end game, bottom of the ninth, the last quarter, sudden death overtime!!! It's now or never. So if Noach was a tzadik, why didn't he know this? Because he didn’t see the "nikudos tovos - good points" in the other people, and some say even in himself. Yes, there are those that say that Noach didn't even think that he was going to survive. That’s the yetzer harah!!! He says "what are you worth? Why bother? Whats that person worth? Why bother?? Lets not listen and look for those nikudos tovos both in ourselves and in all other yidden and in that zechus may we be able with Hashems help to strengthen our arks and weather the storm.
One last note to get us into the Chanuka spirit. Reb Nachman brings down that when the dove came back with the "olive branch" that was the ner Chanukah which we light with olive oil. As we'll try and learn more about as Chanukah gets closer, it is the light of Chanukah that can light up any darkness until we can see the dry land!!!
Have a wonderful Shabbos!!! Peace and joy!!!
Etan
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
It's been a while!
I just wanted to say hello. After taking an extended blogging break, we are now back and ready for business. Now more than ever, we call out to any potential contributors (that means everyone!) to email me their contributions and I would be glad to post them.
The following is taken from Breslovworld.
The following is taken from Breslovworld.
Every person should know that he has power, tremendous, almost unlimited power, emuna!
Emuna is a huge untapped spiritual resource within each of us. Like any other personal resource, such as the body or the brain, emuna needs to be developed.
A person must learn how to take advantage of his assets and strengths, how to use them correctly. From this perspective, spiritual strengths are not different from physical or intellectual strengths. Emuna is a spiritual strength and must, therefore, be developed.
A person develops personal resources in proportion to the degree that he believes in himself. A strong person might gravitate toward football, an artistic person toward art, a highly intellectual person toward physics or chemistry. Emuna resembles any other personal ability or aptitude, one must believe in himself, believe in his potential, and know that with hard work, he can reach astounding goals.
Double Tragedy
Here's a double tragedy.
1. Not knowing that you have a talent or ability
2. Knowing you have talent or ability, but failing to believe that you can achieve great things with it.
In developing one’s potential, there's basically no difference between the intellectual and the physical or spiritual. To extract oil or diamonds one must drill deep into the earth. With physical talents, such as bodybuilding, an investment of time and effort yields gains. The same is true of the academic; everything, physical or intellectual requires exercise. The greatest power a person possesses is emuna, because emuna is a person's connection with Hashem and Hashem is unlimited and all-powerful. With emuna, one can make unlimited gains.
We have seen great people who literally change the course of nature by virtue of their emuna. Your emuna begins to expand when you begin to talk to Hashem - in your own language, even in your own slang. Talking to Hashem develops emuna. Hashem is always available, always hears, and is always close by. We can make Hashem a tangible reality in our lives by speaking to Him all day long, at any hour or any minute. We ask for what we need and speak out whatever is in our hearts. Nothing is too trivial or insignificant for Him. He loves to hear from his beloved children.
Going somewhere? Ask Hashem to guard you on the way. Just finished a meal? Say thanks to Hashem with the grace after meals. You have an important meeting on the agenda? Ask Hashem to help you succeed. Your husband or wife or children are on the way home from school or work? Say a little prayer: "Hashem, help me have peace at home, help me raise the kids properly." From the time you wake up in the morning until the time you go to sleep, you should be talking to Hashem. In this way, we make Hashem a reality in our lives. Wait and see how Hashem helps!
Through emuna, we realize the best of our potential: we live with the reality of Hashem. We become conscious of that reality by speaking to Him at all times. We ask Him for advice; we ask Him for guidance; we ask Him for a helping hand. With Hashem in our lives, we are never alone! There is a Creator of the world, a loving Father. Why bust your head against a brick wall trying to cope alone?
People without emunah ignore Hashem's presence, therefore they are often unhappy, confused and stressed out. The reality is, Hashem is here! A person who denies reality doesn't change that reality. Denial only distorts perception. One can look at the world through a bubble. Don't ignore Hashem! In good times and other times, remember Hashem. The tough times are not punishments, they are soul corrections. Our Sages teach that every tribulation is rooted in some form of transgression.
A person who lives the reality of Hashem, even in tough times, develops emuna; he recognizes that everything is from Him. Someone who thinks that they don't deserve a particular trial or tribulation is in effect declaring that Hashem is unjust, which is tantamount to returning to the fantasy world. To say that trials and tribulations don’t come from Hashem is an even bigger blasphemy, for there is no randomness in the world.
One cannot begin to imagine how perfectly precise Hashem's justice is. He measures everything that comes to a person in spiritual millimicrons of absolute truth and justice, and often, mercy mitigates that absolute justice.
People suffer because they don't accept the reality of Hashem. In addition, lack of emuna, depression and despair are all rooted in arrogance. Here's how.
A person without emuna is in either a state of arrogance or depression. In good times, when he is succeeding, he declares arrogantly, "My talents, power and brains are to thank.” But the minute things get tough, he falls into depression and despair. He feels that the me or I or self let him down.
One must learn that success is a result of Hashem's loving kindness and that when thing's don't succeed, it's because our arrogance and ego are getting in the way. Hashem makes one fail so that he will put his ego aside, seek His help, and develop his emuna. Hashem wants us to develop emuna because a person with emuna is always happy and on an even keel. We earn eternal happiness only by way of emuna. When we see Hashem's greatness and our nothingness, we begin to live with emuna, the reality of Hashem.
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